Re: [DIGRESSION] RE: the news from bush's speech...H-power
On Wednesday, January 29, 2003, at 07:59 PM, Harmon Seaver wrote: On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 06:38:11PM -0800, Tim May wrote: (snip) Since my life and my safety is vastly more valuable to me than saving $350-$600 a year in gas, I'll be keeping my 3500-pound S-Class. Ah, yes, the old big cars are safer arguement. I've seen studies that went both ways, yes, bigger crushes smaller if it hits it, but smaller cars dodge better. Dodging may be important for motorcycles (yes, I have one, a BMW R1100R), but not for any of the accidents I have seen or been in. These usually happen when someone makes a sudden lane change, turns in front of another, runs a red light, fails to negotiate a curve, fails to stop/merge/etc., and so on. The laws of physics are what they are. A 3500-pound vehicle colliding with a 2000-lb vehicle will have the expected effects, all other things being equal. They are not, of course, but even in the other things the larger vehicle usually has advantages. My 300 SE has a long hood, with lots of crush length, lots of steel to absorb energy. And a steering column safely ahead of me. And dual airbags. The roof is strongly reinforced. The Volvo folks got most of their know-how in building strong cars from the Mercedes-Benz data open sourced in the late 50s, early 60s, and later. Personally, I don't believe there are many accidents, just a lot of inattentive people. I've made it to age 60 driving a lot of small cars, motorcycles, and bicycles, somehow managed to survive. Haven't had an accident in a long, long time, although I've seen a lot of people doing pretty stupid things on the highway. OTOH, when I was younger and wilder I managed to smash up quite a few cars, some of them quite badly, one head on at 75, another one spun out a 110. A bad bike spill racing another guy put in a wheel chair for 6 weeks. Fate, I think, also has a lot to do with it. I have witnessed three accidents, but only have been in one. This was a motorcyclist running a red light and smashing into the front of my compact car, a 1972 Mazda RX-2. It did substantial damage to my engine compartment. Either my Mercedes or my Explorer would have absorbed the impact better. So, just one accident in my 51 years, not caused by me, compared to your 3 or more, caused by you. So I suppose you have earned the right to explain to me why I should squeeze myself into a Honda Lupo so I can save the planet. (Actually, the little golf car runabouts are slightly popular (maybe one car in 2000 is one of these golf carts) near the downtown beach area around here. But not on the California freeways, and most definitely not the on the highway which consumes most of my driving: the mountainous Highway 17 between Santa Cruz and San Jose, with 18-wheelers only a foot away. I wouldn't want to be sitting inside a golf cart just over a meter high when the wheels of an 18-wheeler are taller!) If a semi tries to kill you, driving your MB ain't going to do you much good. Believe me. I didn't speak of absolute safety, only relative safety. A 3500-pound steel Mercedes sedan is going to withstand a collision with a truck better than a carbon fiber golf cart riding no more than a meter high. --Tim May Gun Control: The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her panty hose, is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound
Re: Who feigned Roger Rabbit?
At 8:48 AM -0600 1/30/03, Harmon Seaver wrote: On Thu, Jan 30, 2003 at 12:41:17AM -0800, Bill Frantz wrote: At 12:04 AM -0800 1/30/03, Tim May wrote: Sometime I take a bus when my car needs to be repaired. From my house to Santa Cruz, a total of 13 miles, it takes a minimum of 80 minutes by bus. For a working person, ... as soon as they can raise the money, they buy cars. Then that 80-minute each way trip drops to 20 minutes. And they can go when they wish, not when the bus schedule permits. I have had one case where taking the train was a big win over driving. [snip] Exactly. Trains are great. I currently live 80 miles from both Milwaukee and Madison. I recently had to travel from San Diego to San Francisco. I investigated three options (all times are door to door) 1) Flying - about 4 hours - $95 round trip. 2) Driving - about 8 hours - $60 round trip 3) Train - about 17 hours - $130 round trip. Help me out here - why would I take the train? -- -- Marshall Marshall Clow Idio Software mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Hey! Who messed with my anti-paranoia shot?
Re: the news from bush's speech...H-power
At 07:52 PM 01/29/2003 -0800, Tim May wrote: On Wednesday, January 29, 2003, at 06:33 PM, Harmon Seaver wrote: On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 07:53:21PM -0500, Jamie Lawrence wrote: One of the problems I think is rampant with, for instance, getting alternate fuel sources off the ground is that government subsidies are ensuring they don't happen by distorting the market for fossil fuels. Remember the Synfuel boondoggles under Jimmy Carter? Cracking otherwise-uneconomical oil shale might have been a useful technology if the price of oil were $50-100/barrel. (Meanwhile, we can feel nice and liberal about leaving all this wonderful supply of irreplaceable industrial hydrocarbons for future generations.) The subsidies for corn ethanol are indicative of the problem with interfering in markets: -- someone decided corn good, oil bad! -- those with a lot of corn, like Archer Daniels, sent in their lobbyists to push for this point of view Bob Dole, Senator from ADM, Republican protector of free markets. One reason for corn ethanol instead of sugar ethanol is that that the US prices for sugar are artificially kept high with import tariffs (and of course with the Cuba embargo), which is also why soda is mostly made from corn syrup instead of sugar. As for Iraq, letting them keep Kuwait in 1990-91 almost certainly would have driven the price of oil _DOWN_. A nation like Iraq is more interested in pumping than in hoarding, The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve made some seriously incompetent moves with its timing of buying and selling oil around Desert Scam, at least if their goals were related to moderating price swings, making oil available to US industry, or to managing their costs. When the market was really tight and prices were rising, they bought heavily, paying a lot more than they should have and making oil scarcer in the US, and when the war was largely decided and oil prices were dropping because there was no major need for hoarding, they started dumping their oil, depressing prices further. And don't decide that cornohol (sounds like cornhole,doesn't it?) or biodiesel or miracle weed is something that markets ought to be distorted in favor ofelse we'll get the kind of market distortions cited above, and a non-optimum solution. Well, the indirect market manipulation policies are definitely skewed in favor of Miracle Weed from high-tech California growers instead of ditchweed from Kansas or Mexico.
Re: the news from bush's speech...H-power
On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 04:08:08PM -0800, Tim May wrote: Really, Eugene, you need to think deeply about this issue. Ask your lab associate, A. G., about why learning and success/failure is so important for so many industries. Read some Hayek, some von Mises, some Milton Friedman. And even some David Friedman. I'm with Tim on this (though I've always found Eugene to be one of the most interesting and valuable contributors to discussions here). The only thing I'd add is that many folks in the technology community or computer industry who are otherwise libertarian have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to government funding of basic research: they like it. More than that, in fact, they'll argue that it's necessary. I suspect much of this comes from the reward structure of grad programs in CS (and I presume other disciplines), where you win if you get DARPA etc. grants. The government is seen as a benign force at worst, a boon at best. By now, everyone's used to it and find its difficult to imagine life without the tax largesse. Also, professional associations like ACM and IEEE argue for more tax handouts... -Declan
Re: the news from bush's speech...H-power
On Wednesday, January 29, 2003, at 06:33 PM, Harmon Seaver wrote: On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 07:53:21PM -0500, Jamie Lawrence wrote: One of the problems I think is rampant with, for instance, getting alternate fuel sources off the ground is that government subsidies are ensuring they don't happen by distorting the market for fossil fuels. More than that, it's the farm subsidies that make corn so cheap that it's the cheapest home heating fuel on the market. Corn is a really poor choice, as feedstocks go, for making ethanol, but despite the absurdity of the whole thing, that's what's being pushed by both gov't and agri-corps. Same with biodiesel from soybeans -- an even worse choice in feedstock, but exactly the same scenario. The subsidies for corn ethanol are indicative of the problem with interfering in markets: -- someone decided corn good, oil bad! -- those with a lot of corn, like Archer Daniels, sent in their lobbyists to push for this point of view A small biodiesel producer in Vermont got shut down by the EPA not too long ago because they wouldn't pay $100,000 to the National Biodiesel Board to join (http://www.biodiesel.org/ -- they are one part of the agri-corp welfare conspirators pushing soybeans for biodiesel) and couldn't pay the million or so the EPA wanted to test the safety of their product. Biodiesel is pretty safe, people even drink it at promos. Again, typical of the shake down state. Once handouts and subsidies start, both sides try to limit who gets them...hence the situation where it's illegal to grow peanuts without a license. (As the chestnut goes, the Founders must be spinning in their graves.) What about subsidies for gasoline, e.g., going to war over oil? I'm against it. And there are simple solutions: the price of oil and gas goes up and down in response to supply, threats, etc. If gas hits $7 a gallon, maybe electric golf carts begin to look more attactive. As for Iraq, letting them keep Kuwait in 1990-91 almost certainly would have driven the price of oil _DOWN_. A nation like Iraq is more interested in pumping than in hoarding, which the Kuwaiti and Saudi royal families are perfectly prepared to do (hence OPEC). In any case, the solution is simple: it ain't the job of the U.S. military to run around the world picking regimes we like and regimes we don't like. Let markets clear. And don't decide that cornohol (sounds like cornhole,doesn't it?) or biodiesel or miracle weed is something that markets ought to be distorted in favor ofelse we'll get the kind of market distortions cited above, and a non-optimum solution. You folks here pay lip service to aspect of free markets and anarcho-capitalism,but many of you consistently fail to see the follow-through, the applicability to the world around you. You need to have faith that greed is good, that free markets optimize a lot better than planners in Washington or Tokyo or Moscow do. And while no planning job is ever perfect, no optimization makes everybody happy, at least with free markets there is not the coercion and graft which feeds the state. --Tim May He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. -- Nietzsche
Was: (US health care...). Now: Child mortality in Sweden.
| PS - the infant mortality statistics are bogus; they are a | record-keeping artefact. Other countries (notably Sweden, to which the | USA is always being compared) don't count a child as born until it has | reached a certain age (three weeks in Sweden). Guess when most infant | deaths occur? Well, I got curious about the statement above so I went and checked. Well, I proxy-checked. A co-worker is a swede and I asked him to write and ask them what they had to say. At least as far as www.scb.se (Sweden's central office of statistics (the title loses a bit in the translation, but it is an oficial .gov body that does, well, statistics)) is concerned, infant deaths start counting as soon as the baby is born. Below is the exchange from my colleague and the person at the scb listed as a contact person on the website. (note that the website is also available in english...) --Gabe PS-The swedish characters get mangled by my mail client. If anyone actually reades swedish and would like to see a html version of the message (the only thing I altered was the email of my co-worker) I will gladly post the message on a website somewhere. -Original Message- From: *Befolkningsstatistik [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]=20 Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 10:59 AM To: ola nordbeck Subject: SV: Sp=E4dbarnsd=F6dlighet hej! sp=E4dbarnsd=F6dlighet =3D antalet barn som d=F6r under f=F6rsta = levnads=E5ret. 2001 var sp=E4dbarnsd=F6dligheten i Sverige 3,4 per 1000 levande f=F6dda. Det = finns en tabell i publikationen Befolkningsstatistik del 4, tab 4.12, Sp=E4dbarnsd=F6dligheten p=E5 1000 levanade f=F6dda 1951-2001 d=E4r = man indelar d=F6dligheten Under f=F6rsta levnadsdygnet, f=F6rsta levnadsveckan, = f=F6rsta levnadsm=E5naden etc, men sp=E4dbarnd=F6dlighet g=E4ller generellt = under f=F6rsta levnads=E5ret.=20 V=E4nliga H=E4lsningar/Yours Sincerely,=20 Margareta Larsson=20 Befolkningsstatistiken/Population Statistics=20 Phone: +46 19 176594=20 fax: +46 19 176942=20 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]=20 -Ursprungligt meddelande- Fr=E5n: ola nordbeck Skickat: den 30 januari 2003 10:35 Till: *Befolkningsstatistik =C4mne: Sp=E4dbarnsd=F6dlighet Vanligen, Enligt en kollega sa skulle scb m=E4ta Sp=E4dbarnsd=F6dlighet forst = efter 3 veckan efter fodseln. Enligt er definition sa skulle = Sp=E4dbarnsd=F6dlighet avse samtliga d=F6dsfall som intr=E4ffar f=F6re ett =E5rs =E5lder. Ar = detta samtliga dodsfall eller ar min kollegas uppgifter riktiga. Mvh, Ola nordbeck
re: handhelds and crypto anarchy
On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, Michael Cardenas wrote: A far mroe exciting idea to me is how handhelds like palms, ipaqs, etc, could beused to transfer digital anonymous cash. They seem like perfect delivery vehicles. Say, secret agent X meets congressman Y in a dark alley somewhere to give him a lobbying donation of a million bucks, wouldn't it be great if X could just take out his handheld, point it at Y's handheld, tap a button on screen and transfer that million anonymously and securely? That would be much better than having to lug around a heavy briefcase full of hundred or thousand dollar bills! Does anyone think this is feasilbe? How could this be done? Yes, it is feasible. What you'd be passing would be access credentials today (ie keys, hashes, passphrases, biometrics, etc.). Eventually what you need is a common mechanism to send a digital certificate from the bank to the withdrawing customer that is legally recognized (the technology is probably the easy part) to represent a certain quantity of 'value' in 'dollars'. And then another agency could then manipulate that in various 'certified' ways to widthdraw, transfer, or deposit. Note that this 'independent agent' process requires nearly air-tight DRM. What it really implies is 'third party'. But more to the point, the real trick is to blind the transfer of the certificates to the banks (eg a middle man account), that's not something the banks are going to want to see. A bank is not likely to transfer to another institution without the correct credentials. So you need to find a 'natural' break in the paper-trail. Such breaks are not likely to be legal (for long). As handhelds become more ubiquitous, it seems that they have an exciting potential for making digital cash a real possibility. This method would also circumvent lots of attacks on digital cash that could be made when using it over an open transmission line. What happens when that PDA you have in your hand is a portal into a global scale distributed super-computer? -- We are all interested in the future for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. Criswell, Plan 9 from Outer Space [EMAIL PROTECTED][EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ssz.com www.open-forge.org
Re: Who feigned Roger Rabbit?
At 12:04 AM -0800 1/30/03, Tim May wrote: Sometime I take a bus when my car needs to be repaired. From my house to Santa Cruz, a total of 13 miles, it takes a minimum of 80 minutes by bus. For a working person, ... as soon as they can raise the money, they buy cars. Then that 80-minute each way trip drops to 20 minutes. And they can go when they wish, not when the bus schedule permits. I have had one case where taking the train was a big win over driving. I was consulting in San Francisco, about 60 miles from my home. I found that if I rode the train, I could work as I rode, and turn my travel time into billable hours. I also avoided the ruinous parking charges in downtown. Given those facts, I would have taken the train even if the ticket price hadn't been subsidized. Cheers - Bill - Bill Frantz | Due process for all| Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | used to be the Ameican | 16345 Englewood Ave. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | way. | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA
Re: [DIGRESSION] RE: the news from bush's speech...H-power
On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 06:38:11PM -0800, Tim May wrote: (snip) Since my life and my safety is vastly more valuable to me than saving $350-$600 a year in gas, I'll be keeping my 3500-pound S-Class. Ah, yes, the old big cars are safer arguement. I've seen studies that went both ways, yes, bigger crushes smaller if it hits it, but smaller cars dodge better. Personally, I don't believe there are many accidents, just a lot of inattentive people. I've made it to age 60 driving a lot of small cars, motorcycles, and bicycles, somehow managed to survive. Haven't had an accident in a long, long time, although I've seen a lot of people doing pretty stupid things on the highway. OTOH, when I was younger and wilder I managed to smash up quite a few cars, some of them quite badly, one head on at 75, another one spun out a 110. A bad bike spill racing another guy put in a wheel chair for 6 weeks. Fate, I think, also has a lot to do with it. Last Winter I was doing about 55 when a *huge* SUV spun going the other way, hit the guardrail between the lanes and rolled right over it, right in front of me. He was rolling and spinning around, pretty spectacular to watch, I managed to dodge it. About 6 month before that I had a big van pass me, then broadside another big van right in front of me -- awesome, like two big whales colliding -- I just went around them. Attentiveness and fate, I guess. (Actually, the little golf car runabouts are slightly popular (maybe one car in 2000 is one of these golf carts) near the downtown beach area around here. But not on the California freeways, and most definitely not the on the highway which consumes most of my driving: the mountainous Highway 17 between Santa Cruz and San Jose, with 18-wheelers only a foot away. I wouldn't want to be sitting inside a golf cart just over a meter high when the wheels of an 18-wheeler are taller!) If a semi tries to kill you, driving your MB ain't going to do you much good. Believe me. I had semi force me off the road a couple years ago, I was driving a pickup but it wouldn't have mattered what I was driving if I hadn't been able to get out of his way. I hit a school bus once head on doing 75 when he suddenly turned left in front of me, and I was driving a full-sized '54 Ford. The only thing that saved me then was that it was a convertible and I wasn't wearing the seatbelt. I went right out thru the top (it was down) and luckly so, because the engine ended up in the drivers seat. And then there's the issue of carrying passengers, cargo, plus the Right, if you need a truck, fine, but most of us have at least a couple of vehicles, and also most of drive alone 90% of the time. availability of repairs in small towns, etc. That's irrelevant to me, if I can't fix it, probably no one else can either. Nor would I let them. A lot of theoretically good solutions fail for market reasons, what someone correctly said is Metcalfe's Law, or the fax effect. Until fueling stations carry exotic fuels, or until all cars and trucks are reduced to golf cart sizes, the disadvantages outweigh the slight savings in fuel costs. To you perhaps, as long as your investments hold out. I'm trying to arrange my life so that I don't have to pay for fuel, food, rent, heat, lights, or taxes. Switching all my vehicles to diesel engines that can run on biodiesel I can grow myself, and get excellent economy besides, is part of that. I'm quite surprised to see, on this list and on other lists, the ignorance of basic economics. Markets clear. Gas costs what it costs. To argue that there is a moral cost to consider, as some on those other lists have been arguing, is silly. Prisoner's Dilemma and all the usual arguments apply. It's why I'll be safer when I run into Harmon on the freeways. His heirs will appreciate his savings in gasoline for the time he owned his Lupo. Diesel, Tim, they run on diesel. Too bad MB won't import any of those hi-tech diesel they make to the US because of the crummy fuel here. -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
Re: CDR: US health care,a winner for Hillary in 04?
On 28 Jan 2003 at 19:46, Marc de Piolenc wrote: PS - the infant mortality statistics are bogus; they are a record-keeping artefact. Other countries (notably Sweden, to which the USA is always being compared) don't count a child as born until it has reached a certain age (three weeks in Sweden). Guess when most infant deaths occur? Interesting datum. Could you give a source for this. If true, needs wide publicity, since we web search for infant mortality and Sweden gives a zillion hits, all saying what you would expect.
Re: US health care,a winner for Hillary in 04?
Quoting James A. Donald [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Other countries (notably Sweden, to which the USA is always being compared) don't count a child as born until it has reached a certain age (three weeks in Sweden). Guess when most infant deaths occur? Interesting datum. Could you give a source for this. If true, needs wide publicity, since we web search for infant mortality and Sweden gives a zillion hits, all saying what you would expect. I would also like to see a source for the claim, as this is something I've never heard before. According to SCB, the Swedish official department of statistics, the definition of infant mortality is all deaths which occur before the child is one year old. I couldn't find that definition in English on the department's web page, though. The Swedish definition is in http://www.scb.se/statinfo/1999/Be0101.asp (under the term spädbarnsdödlighet) I did find an English translation of the definition of a live birth, though. http://www.scb.se/publkat/filer/be79sa0201%5F01.pdf Section 3, Definitions and concepts A live birth refers to a newborn who after the birth has breathed or showed any other evidence of life such as active hearthbeat, pulsation in the umbilical cord or definite movement of volontary muscles. The definition is valid regardess of the duration of pregnancy and the maturity of the child. A stillbirth is a newborn who has died before or during delivery and after teh end of the 28th gestational week calculated from the first day of the latest normal menstruation. If there is uncertainty regarding gestational age, the length of the foetus is an important factor in the assessment. If the length of foetus is at least 35 centimeters, it will generally be counted as a child. It would seem as we indeed count the child as born directly from, well, birth... - Sten
Re: [DIGRESSION] RE: the news from bush's speech...H-power
When Bush is talking about a hydrogen economy, remember that he's really referring to Orion-engine cars... At 06:38 PM 01/29/2003 -0800, Tim May wrote: It's why I'll be safer when I run into Harmon on the freeways. His heirs will appreciate his savings in gasoline for the time he owned his Lupo. Nahh - You can carpool. Just put his Lupo in the back of your SUV; the two of you should be able to lift it, and it shouldn't slow down the SUV that much. Some of the electric vehicles look like they'd be safe enough to drive, but some just don't, and if I'm going to be stuck with something that only goes 30mph, I'd rather have an electric bike. Another discussion was Hard on the highway? It goes 80 mph. There was that VW RetroBeetle commercial about 0-60mph? Yes, and I'd expect Lupo's acceleration is probably slower. Top Speed is certainly important, but acceleration is an important part of avoiding problems. (My full-size Chevy van gets about 16mpg, in the 6 cylinder model, which is a lot better than the previous one, which got 8 mpg when all 8 cylinders were working, 7 mpg when only 7 were5 with 5. More annoyingly, my Chrysler PT Cruiser only gets about 22mpg, and it's the older model without the turbot. It's a bit heavier than my 1985 Toyota wagon that got 27mpg, but you'd think that Detroit would have done some engine efficiency development in 15 years.)
Re: Who feigned Roger Rabbit?
On Thu, Jan 30, 2003 at 12:41:17AM -0800, Bill Frantz wrote: At 12:04 AM -0800 1/30/03, Tim May wrote: Sometime I take a bus when my car needs to be repaired. From my house to Santa Cruz, a total of 13 miles, it takes a minimum of 80 minutes by bus. For a working person, ... as soon as they can raise the money, they buy cars. Then that 80-minute each way trip drops to 20 minutes. And they can go when they wish, not when the bus schedule permits. I have had one case where taking the train was a big win over driving. I was consulting in San Francisco, about 60 miles from my home. I found that if I rode the train, I could work as I rode, and turn my travel time into billable hours. I also avoided the ruinous parking charges in downtown. Given those facts, I would have taken the train even if the ticket price hadn't been subsidized. Exactly. Trains are great. I currently live 80 miles from both Milwaukee and Madison. I wouldn't dream of commuting (or moving) to either, but if a train were available, I'd take a job in either in a flash. And I'd choose a train for longer trips, over a plane as well -- much more comfortable, safer, no bullshit with security, etc. I also really like what they do with buses in Portland, OR -- they have platforms for bikes, so you can both bike and bus around the city. Yes, there's some unpleasant folks on buses, but there are on the street as well. The fact is that if trucks hadn't received such a huge subsidy via the public highway system, trains would be self sufficient. Same with airports for the airlines. -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
Re: the news from bush's speech...H-power
On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 07:53:21PM -0500, Jamie Lawrence wrote: One of the problems I think is rampant with, for instance, getting alternate fuel sources off the ground is that government subsidies are ensuring they don't happen by distorting the market for fossil fuels. More than that, it's the farm subsidies that make corn so cheap that it's the cheapest home heating fuel on the market. Corn is a really poor choice, as feedstocks go, for making ethanol, but despite the absurdity of the whole thing, that's what's being pushed by both gov't and agri-corps. Same with biodiesel from soybeans -- an even worse choice in feedstock, but exactly the same scenario. Ethically, the entire situation is absurd. Realistically, if someone actually wants to try to build say, a hydrogen powered car, government interference in your business is a fact of life, and looking for angles to Make It Work are the only way to attempt to compete. There are a metric assload of good ideas that have been killed by government interference in markets. A small biodiesel producer in Vermont got shut down by the EPA not too long ago because they wouldn't pay $100,000 to the National Biodiesel Board to join (http://www.biodiesel.org/ -- they are one part of the agri-corp welfare conspirators pushing soybeans for biodiesel) and couldn't pay the million or so the EPA wanted to test the safety of their product. Biodiesel is pretty safe, people even drink it at promos. And the head of the National Biodiesel Board has been running around trying to tell home brewers of biodiesel they had to pay the federal road tax on the stuff they made, which is quite untrue, to discourage home brewing. -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
Who feigned Roger Rabbit?
On Wednesday, January 29, 2003, at 11:14 PM, James A. Donald wrote: -- On 29 Jan 2003 at 21:08, Tyler Durden wrote: Meanwhile, regulations and governments can give some industries a head start, particularly if a jungle already holds a nice warm niche for the output of those industries. Thus Sematec helped US semiconductors to roar back from the brink of extinction, Sematec was a boondoggle and complete failure I discussed Sematech in my last post. It was, as James says, completely unnecessary. As witnessed by the fact that no significant technologies or methods came out of it...and as evidenced by the fact that no technology startups are being spun out of Sematech. It existed mainly as a jobs program for Texas, which was suffering in the 1980s from the Oil Patch downturn (the so-called neutron buildings of Houston being a symptom: the people are destroyed but the skyscrapers remained standing...the joke took on a second wind when the Enron/Dynegy/etc. problems hit recently). As befitting any jobs program, now there is a Sematech II being set up in depressed upstate New York. All the usual pork barrellers are saying it's just what's needed to help terminally ill Kodak! Do the math. and the buying up (and subsequent dismantling) of lite rail systems in the LA basin in the 30s and 40s apparently had a major impact on the rollout of vehicles Might we have seen much better public transportation in that area if this capitalist coup-d'etat hadn't occurred? Public transport received, and continues to receive enormous subsidies. What can be said to Tyler Durden, a made-up movie character name who gets his economic theory from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Mass transit is usually the first thing given up by those with money. It's a form of the demographic transition which is the same reason Malthus was wrong. Sometime I take a bus when my car needs to be repaired. From my house to Santa Cruz, a total of 13 miles, it takes a minimum of 80 minutes by bus. For a working person, if their time is worth very little or if they just cannot raise the $500 to buy a car and the $800 a year to insure it, then taking the bus is their only choice. But as soon as they can raise the money, they buy cars. Then that 80-minute each way trip drops to 20 minutes. And they can go when they wish, not when the bus schedule permits. And they can go other places the buses don't go (which is nearly everywhere in nearly everyplace I have lived). And so on. In some dense urban areas, or in certain grid layouts, buses make sense. In which case they don't need to be subsidized. But in nearly all places they ARE subsidized...and they are filled with drooling retards, the halt and the lame, kids, oldsters too feeble to drive, and more drooling retards. In an area as large as LA, freeways were the only way to let people (with money, which was nearly everyone) get from Point A to Point B. A series of bus transfers would have made for 2-3 hour bus trips in each direction. The Red Line was in only a stretch in the downtown, and pushing out to the recreational areas near the beaches. It was fine for its time, e.g., the 1920s, but of little use once the city expanded in all directions. The newer forms of mass transit in LA are better-suited than the Roger Rabbitt-famed Red Line was, but are still massively subsidized and mostly filled with drooling retards. The moon shots did apparently accelerate the development of semiconductors. No they did not. I have written so many pieces trying to disabuse people of this notion about going to the moon that I cringe at the thought of writing another one. The Apollo spacecraft had as its MOST ADVANCED CHIP TECHNOLOGY a technology called DTL, standing for diode-transistor-logic. This is the technology which came after RTL (resistor-transistor-logic) and before TTL (transistor-transistor-logic). It is the technology of circa 1961-2, when the specs were frozen and the contracts let out. It did absolutely nothing to push chip technology in the slightest way. This bullshit by statists about how the moon landing helped technology has got to stop. (A side note should be made here about the fact that some technologies have a very high activation energy barrier...without a very intensive amount of capital, they can't happen. Indeed, aren't we nearly at that point with sub-0.13um technology? It is possible that further advances just won't be possible without direct or indirect government funding.) Utter bullshit. Intel is very far along on 90 nm, 300 mm technologies, none of it funded by Big Brother. You will see products based on this before summer. --Tim May
Re: the news from bush's speech...H-power
at Wednesday, January 29, 2003 11:18 PM, Bill Frantz [EMAIL PROTECTED] was seen to say: Back a few years ago, probably back during the great gas crisis (i.e. OPEC) years, there were a lot of small companies working on solar power. As far as I know, they were all bought up by oil companies. Of course, only a paranoid would think that they were bought to suppress a competing technology. Actually, Oil companies are all in favour of competing technologies - provided they get to control them. Solar may be an exception though; wind is ok as the massive installations, land usage permissions and nature of the output fluctuations mean you really can't start off small (they are fine to feed into a large system where the overall average would be fairly level, though) but solar is just too easy to reduce down to individual installations in individual homes or businesses; only technologies that permit a service based business model (delivery of electricity and/or production of fuels that can't be done without massive plant) are encouraged :(
Re: [DIGRESSION] RE: the news from bush's speech...H-power
On Wednesday, January 29, 2003, at 04:23 PM, Harmon Seaver wrote: On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 03:36:20PM -0800, Mike Rosing wrote: On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, Harmon Seaver wrote: Although canola oil is a much better source for fuel. And diesels a much better IC engine for hybrids. Even in non-hybrids, VW builds some pretty nice diesel cars, including the Lupo, on the market for a couple years now, which gets 80mpg. And the prototype that VW's CEO drives around in that gets 280mpg. From http://www.used-volkswagen-cars.co.uk/volkswagenlupo.htm: As befits a small car, the cheapest models come with a 1.0-litre engine that is decent enough, though finds it hard going on the motorway. Hard going on the motorway? It cruises at 80mph. And as much as I love riding bicycles, even in Winter, the Lupo certainly has a lot more practical uses than a bike. Even neater is their new one tho -- http://www.vwvortex.com/news/index_1L.html It too will do 75mph -- fast enough for the likes of me. At 239mpg. What's that saying about muscle cars? Something about the size of their motors is an inverse ratio to the size of their dicks? It's an old and silly line. I value my life quite highly. I put about 8000 miles per year on my main car (and about 4000 miles per year on an older SUV I used to haul large items, etc.). My car gets about 20 mpg. This costs me about $700 per year in gasoline. Some of the leftie/environmentalists on another list I am on attempted to argue, strenuously, that I owed it to the planet and to yourself to start driving a Prius, a hybrid that the enthusiasts say averages around 40 mpg. Whatever the exact number, if it is 40 mpg it would save me about $300-400 per year in gas, depending on the grade of gas it takes. (Of course, my 1991 Mercedes-Benz is bought and paid for, and costs less than a Prius by about $6000-$9000, based on blue book comparisons of early 90s MBs to late 90s-early 00s Priusi. Saving $350 a year will take 15-25 years to amortize, modulo others costs.) Then there's safety, and personal injury insurance rates. If my 3500-pound S-Class hits a Prius, the laws of physics dictate what happens. And if I hit a golf cart, er, a Honda Lupo, I'd better yell Fore! (Here's a quote about the size: Developed in the wind tunnel and built entirely from composite carbon-fiber reinforced material, it has a width of only 1.25 m (49.2 inches) and is just over a meter high (39 inches).) Since my life and my safety is vastly more valuable to me than saving $350-$600 a year in gas, I'll be keeping my 3500-pound S-Class. (Actually, the little golf car runabouts are slightly popular (maybe one car in 2000 is one of these golf carts) near the downtown beach area around here. But not on the California freeways, and most definitely not the on the highway which consumes most of my driving: the mountainous Highway 17 between Santa Cruz and San Jose, with 18-wheelers only a foot away. I wouldn't want to be sitting inside a golf cart just over a meter high when the wheels of an 18-wheeler are taller!) And then there's the issue of carrying passengers, cargo, plus the availability of repairs in small towns, etc. A lot of theoretically good solutions fail for market reasons, what someone correctly said is Metcalfe's Law, or the fax effect. Until fueling stations carry exotic fuels, or until all cars and trucks are reduced to golf cart sizes, the disadvantages outweigh the slight savings in fuel costs. I'm quite surprised to see, on this list and on other lists, the ignorance of basic economics. Markets clear. Gas costs what it costs. To argue that there is a moral cost to consider, as some on those other lists have been arguing, is silly. Prisoner's Dilemma and all the usual arguments apply. It's why I'll be safer when I run into Harmon on the freeways. His heirs will appreciate his savings in gasoline for the time he owned his Lupo. --Tim May
Re: DNA evidence countermeasures?
At 07:50 PM 1/28/03 +, Ken Brown wrote: ... Think - you are a suspect. They find 2 human DNA signals at the scene of the crime, one from you, one from someone quite different from you. Well, they can look for the other guy in their own time, but they've got you. If they are using a stringent enough test (often they don't) the odds against it not being you are huge. Yep. Imagine leaving twenty random peoples' fingerprints at the scene along with your own. You might confuse the police for awhile, but eventually, they'd find the set of prints that matched with the suspect they were holding The creepier thing here is the possibility of planting DNA evidence, which seems very easy to me. It wouldn't be a big surprise if this had been done by now. A really careful investigation might detect the fraud, but if the planted evidence points in a really plausible direction anyway (e.g., the apparent murderer is the husband/ex-husband/disgruntled business partner/drug dealer of the victim), it may be hard to get anyone to take a second look at the data. The scary number of death-row inmates who've been more-or-less proven innocent by DNA evidence implies that the police, prosecutors, judges, and juries just aren't all that careful about checking the plausibility of evidence anyway. ... --John Kelsey, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: the news from bush's speech...H-power
On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, Declan McCullagh wrote: On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 04:08:08PM -0800, Tim May wrote: Really, Eugene, you need to think deeply about this issue. Ask your lab associate, A. G., about why learning and success/failure is so important for so many industries. Read some Hayek, some von Mises, some Milton Friedman. And even some David Friedman. I'm not arguing pro strong state. I'm merely saying that the tax funded ivory tower RD is complementary in scope to privately funded research. If 95% of it is wasted (and lacking libertarian drive in Euland it's bound to stay that way for quite a while), it's still nice to see a percent or two to go into bluesky research. For instance, which industry would fund simulating biology in machina, using approaches such as eCell and Virtual Cell? In absence of state funding this would be limited to mecenate, which is both limited and fickle. Consider large semiconductor houses like Infineon: the hardware markets are chronically so tight that almost no research in molecular circuitry (though 2d crystals of photopolymerizable Langmuir-Blodgett films would result in viable hybrid molecular memories in less than a decade) is being done. Small players are doing better there, but will their funds suffice for them to survive until their first product? It appears doubtful. I'm with Tim on this (though I've always found Eugene to be one of the most interesting and valuable contributors to discussions here). Thank you. I like your politech list a lot as well. The only thing I'd add is that many folks in the technology community or computer industry who are otherwise libertarian have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to government funding of basic research: they like it. It's not my field, but I don't think we have a lot of evidence either way which approach is better. More than that, in fact, they'll argue that it's necessary. I suspect much of this comes from the reward structure of grad programs in CS (and I presume other disciplines), where you win if you get DARPA etc. grants. The government is seen as a benign force at worst, a boon at best. By now, everyone's used to it and find its difficult to imagine life without the tax largesse. Also, professional associations like ACM and IEEE argue for more tax handouts...
Re: the news from bush's speech...H-power
On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, Eric Cordian wrote: Ovshinsky, the amorphous semiconductor guy, developed a relatively efficient photovoltaic film that could be manufactured by continuous extrusion by a simple machine. For some reason, that never hit the big time either. He had several problems in reliable commercial scale manufacture, efficiency issues, device lifetime. -- We are all interested in the future for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. Criswell, Plan 9 from Outer Space [EMAIL PROTECTED][EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ssz.com www.open-forge.org
Re: Who feigned Roger Rabbit?
On Thursday, January 30, 2003, at 08:11 AM, Marshall Clow wrote: At 9:52 AM -0600 1/30/03, Harmon Seaver wrote: Also, you didn't factor in the subsidies. Those prices would change greatly if you took away the billions given to airlines recently, and the 100 years of subsidies to trucks. Travel times for the trains would be much, much better by now as well. Look at Japan and Europe -- trains work extremely well. That may be true, but I have to travel in the world as it is, not the world as it could be. -- This is a terribly important point, and failure to understand this point is the source of more disagreements than I can count. What if everyone thought that way? (Fallacy, as my actions will NOT affect the choices of others, a situation most evident in the standard Does it make sense to vote in elections? debate.) If we all started driving electric vehicles, think of how we could change the world! (Fallacy, as my choice to drive or not drive an electric vehicle will not affect the choices of others, at least not to anything more significant than fifth or sixth order.) You didn't factor in the benefit of saving the planet. (Fallacy. Saving the planet depends on a lot of things. Spending more for a less safe vehicle so as to affect the planet by one part in 10 to the 9 is not wise. Plus, the alternative fuels are not all they are cracked up to be.) As Marshall said, things are what they are. Each actor should act as he sees fit. For most of us, this means maximizing returns (maximum expected utility, MEU) based on local, immediate choices. This is often called the Prisoner's Dilemma. Or greed. Or self-interest. But what if everyone thought that way? Then I'd be a damned fool to think otherwise, wouldn't I? (Catch-22, paraphrased) --Tim May, Citizen-unit of of the once free United States The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots tyrants. --Thomas Jefferson, 1787
Re: the news from bush's speech...H-power
On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Harmon Seaver wrote: Actually, VW has a plant making synfuel out of biomass. And we won't have to wait long before oil is $50-100 a barrel, it's at $35 right now and world oil production will peak this decade. In the '80's it was obvious that oil production would peak around 1995. We've already burned up all the solar energy collected from 140 to 250 million years ago - the dinosaur model does not fit the amount of oil we're actually finding. There's a lot more oil in the ground (most of it may be under the oceans) so the price isn't going to rise that much for the next 100 years. That doesn't make biomass a bad fuel, but if it's gonna compete it will have to get down to $20/barrel to be a clear winner. That's a pretty easy decision to make, eh? Ethanol is renewable, oil isn't. Ethanol doesn't pollute, oil does. Ethanol doesn't require troops in the Middle East, wars, and resultant terror attacks, oil does. Quite simple. Ethanol pollutes, any hydrocarbon is going to be mixed with N2 and make NOx, there's no getting around it with any kind of Otto engine. Oil doesn't *need* to make wars either. It's just that people with guns also happen to be oil sellers, and stealing oil is cheaper than buying it. We could just buy Iraqi oil and solve a lot of problems all around. Yes, but importing sugar isn't the answer either. Sugar beets and sorghum grow fine in the US. The best crop, however, is cattails. However, diesels are still a better solution, running on a biodiesel/ethanol mix, perhaps. The main problem is corporate welfare. Farm subsidies and oil subsidies. Until that problem is solved, I don't think we'll see any real solutions, and, unfortunately, the way the world is going, I don't think that will happen in any of our lifetimes. Like I've said before, the key to corruption is to make it work in your favor. The Romans, Spanish, French and American empires are all the same, corruption eventually causes them to collapse. But people still live there, with entrenched corruption. I think our best solution is to escape. Mars might be far enough away that we can start a nice civilazation. But it'll turn corrupt eventually because that's how humans work. So we'll need to leave the keys for future escapes :-) Patience, persistence, truth, Dr. mike
Re: Who feigned Roger Rabbit?
On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Bill Frantz wrote: I have had one case where taking the train was a big win over driving. I was consulting in San Francisco, about 60 miles from my home. I found that if I rode the train, I could work as I rode, and turn my travel time into billable hours. I also avoided the ruinous parking charges in downtown. Given those facts, I would have taken the train even if the ticket price hadn't been subsidized. My favorite has always been the overnight train from Boston to Washington (a trip I used to take fairly often). To make a morning meeting the choices were (are): - leave home around 6 for an 8pm or so flight, get in late, deal with airport transportation, stay at a hotel - leave home REALLY early in the morning to catch the first flight out - go into Boston, have a nice dinner, take the train leaving around 10pm, pay for a sleeper, wake up and watch the sunrise over Chesapeak Bay, have breakfast brought to my compartment, get into Union Station around 7am, hop the subway (note: you can also get off at BWI airport, if you have business north of DC) It's a great time-saver, and the cost ends up being about the same as a plane, plus hotel, plus cabs or a rent-a-car.
Re: Who feigned Roger Rabbit?
At 11:12 AM -0500 1/30/03, Declan McCullagh wrote: On Thu, Jan 30, 2003 at 07:32:10AM -0800, Marshall Clow wrote: 3) Train - about 17 hours - $130 round trip. Help me out here - why would I take the train? Recently I went from DC to SF. It took about five hours of flight time each way on JetBlue, which sells round-trip direct tickets for $200. It was very pleasant. I could take the train next time. Amtrak assures me that I could leave on Jan 30 and arrive on Feb 2 -- three full days of traveling, with switching trains in New York and Chicago. Oh, I couldn't actually find a train to SF (Amtrak says no service), so that'll only get me as far as LA. And it's more expensive. And don't forget 3 days of train food, and 2 nights of sleeping on a train. FWIW, Amtrak goes to Oakland, and there's a shuttle bus that takes you from the train station to the BART station, which can get you to downtown SF ;-) -- -- Marshall Marshall Clow Idio Software mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Hey! Who messed with my anti-paranoia shot?
Re: Who feigned Roger Rabbit?
On Thu, Jan 30, 2003 at 07:32:10AM -0800, Marshall Clow wrote: [snip] Exactly. Trains are great. I currently live 80 miles from both Milwaukee and Madison. I recently had to travel from San Diego to San Francisco. I investigated three options (all times are door to door) 1) Flying - about 4 hours - $95 round trip. 2) Driving - about 8 hours - $60 round trip 3) Train - about 17 hours - $130 round trip. Help me out here - why would I take the train? Comfort, for one. Vastly greater comfort, no hassles with airport thugs, etc. Also, you didn't factor in the subsidies. Those prices would change greatly if you took away the billions given to airlines recently, and the 100 years of subsidies to trucks. Travel times for the trains would be much, much better by now as well. Look at Japan and Europe -- trains work extremely well. -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
RE: the news from bush's speech...H-power
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Tim May Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2003 9:52 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: the news from bush's speech...H-power On Wednesday, January 29, 2003, at 06:33 PM, Harmon Seaver wrote: On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 07:53:21PM -0500, Jamie Lawrence wrote: One of the problems I think is rampant with, for instance, getting alternate fuel sources off the ground is that government subsidies are ensuring they don't happen by distorting the market for fossil fuels. snip As for Iraq, letting them keep Kuwait in 1990-91 almost certainly would have driven the price of oil _DOWN_. A nation like Iraq is more interested in pumping than in hoarding, which the Kuwaiti and Saudi royal families are perfectly prepared to do (hence OPEC). The whole purpose of the Gulf War was to take Iraqi oil off the world market and drive up the price of west Texas crude, wasn't it? In any case, the solution is simple: it ain't the job of the U.S. military to run around the world picking regimes we like and regimes we don't like. Let markets clear. The purpose of the proposed Gulf War II is to capture Iraqi oil supplies so that the dollar can continue to be the currency used in world oil transactions, isn't it? --Tim May He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. -- Nietzsche
Re: Who feigned Roger Rabbit?
At 9:52 AM -0600 1/30/03, Harmon Seaver wrote: On Thu, Jan 30, 2003 at 07:32:10AM -0800, Marshall Clow wrote: [snip] Exactly. Trains are great. I currently live 80 miles from both Milwaukee and Madison. I recently had to travel from San Diego to San Francisco. I investigated three options (all times are door to door) 1) Flying - about 4 hours - $95 round trip. 2) Driving - about 8 hours - $60 round trip 3) Train - about 17 hours - $130 round trip. Help me out here - why would I take the train? Comfort, for one. Vastly greater comfort, no hassles with airport thugs, etc. The car is better than the train for that. There were three of us in the car, and we could stop and eat whenever we wanted - with a much bigger choice of food than the train offers. (Mmm, Harris Ranch) [ And since there were three of us, my share of the travel expenses was $20! ] Look again at the times - the train is less than 1/2 the speed of driving. I've taken that train a couple times, as an adventure. These days, I have better things to do with my time. (Playing with my kids, for example) Also, you didn't factor in the subsidies. Those prices would change greatly if you took away the billions given to airlines recently, and the 100 years of subsidies to trucks. Travel times for the trains would be much, much better by now as well. Look at Japan and Europe -- trains work extremely well. That may be true, but I have to travel in the world as it is, not the world as it could be. -- -- Marshall Marshall Clow Idio Software mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Hey! Who messed with my anti-paranoia shot?
RE: Who feigned Roger Rabbit?
Harmon Seaver[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote On Thu, Jan 30, 2003 at 07:32:10AM -0800, Marshall Clow wrote: [snip] Exactly. Trains are great. I currently live 80 miles from both Milwaukee and Madison. I recently had to travel from San Diego to San Francisco. I investigated three options (all times are door to door) 1) Flying - about 4 hours - $95 round trip. 2) Driving - about 8 hours - $60 round trip 3) Train - about 17 hours - $130 round trip. Help me out here - why would I take the train? Comfort, for one. Vastly greater comfort, no hassles with airport thugs, etc. Also, you didn't factor in the subsidies. Those prices would change greatly if you took away the billions given to airlines recently, and the 100 years of subsidies to trucks. Travel times for the trains would be much, much better by now as well. Look at Japan and Europe -- trains work extremely well. Harmon Seaver Factor in the subsidies? OK, lets start with the $20 odd billion in subsidies Amtrak has burned through since its inception. Back in '97 the average subsidy for a Chicago to Denver passenger was $650. Counting in subsidies, that $130 round trip is probably over to $300, most of it from taxpayers. It would be cheaper to close down the whole system, and give passengers free (to them) bus or air tickets. Cites: http://www.cato.org/dailys/5-22-97.html http://www.publicpurpose.com/ic-amtroute.htm Peter Trei
Re: [DIGRESSION] RE: the news from bush's speech...H-power
On Thu, Jan 30, 2003 at 09:46:00AM -0800, Steve Schear wrote: At 09:59 PM 1/29/2003 -0600, Harmon Seaver wrote: On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 06:38:11PM -0800, Tim May wrote: Diesel, Tim, they run on diesel. Too bad MB won't import any of those hi-tech diesel they make to the US because of the crummy fuel here. I had an '87 MB 300D terrible-diesel for about 5 years (from new). It had the turbocharger and other related components replaced twice ($1800 market value each time). I sold it as soon as the lease expired. Really? Those are supposed to be pretty good engines. In fact I'm seriously contemplating swapping one into my '91 Toyota 4x4 pickup. -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
Re: the news from bush's speech...H-power
On Thu, Jan 30, 2003 at 08:05:46AM -0800, Mike Rosing wrote: On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Harmon Seaver wrote: Actually, VW has a plant making synfuel out of biomass. And we won't have to wait long before oil is $50-100 a barrel, it's at $35 right now and world oil production will peak this decade. In the '80's it was obvious that oil production would peak around 1995. We've already burned up all the solar energy collected from 140 to 250 million years ago - the dinosaur model does not fit the amount of oil we're actually finding. There's a lot more oil in the ground (most of it may be under the oceans) so the price isn't going to rise that much for the next 100 years. I'll have to find the studies, but it was the same oil geologists (not enviros) who used the same model to accurately predict the peak of US oil production who did the one on world oil production. They couldn't do the world one until later because they couldn't access stats from the USSR, etc. which they have now. That doesn't make biomass a bad fuel, but if it's gonna compete it will have to get down to $20/barrel to be a clear winner. That's a pretty easy decision to make, eh? Ethanol is renewable, oil isn't. Ethanol doesn't pollute, oil does. Ethanol doesn't require troops in the Middle East, wars, and resultant terror attacks, oil does. Quite simple. Ethanol pollutes, any hydrocarbon is going to be mixed with N2 and make NOx, there's no getting around it with any kind of Otto engine. Yes, of course, there's always NOx (although that can largely be dealt with by cats), but the other stuff, sulfur and particulates, is gone, and there are no problems whatsoever from things like spills, which are quite catastrophic even in the short term. Biofuels are also greenhouse neutral. (snip) -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
Re: Who feigned Roger Rabbit?
On Thu, Jan 30, 2003 at 08:11:36AM -0800, Marshall Clow wrote: Also, you didn't factor in the subsidies. Those prices would change greatly if you took away the billions given to airlines recently, and the 100 years of subsidies to trucks. Travel times for the trains would be much, much better by now as well. Look at Japan and Europe -- trains work extremely well. That may be true, but I have to travel in the world as it is, not the world as it could be. -- Well, yes, but the thread is primarily about the destructive effects of subsidy. Sort of fantasizing what it would be in a libertarian dream world, I guess. -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
Re: Who feigned Roger Rabbit?
On Thu, Jan 30, 2003 at 01:28:54PM -0500, Trei, Peter wrote: Factor in the subsidies? OK, lets start with the $20 odd billion in subsidies Amtrak has burned through since its inception. Back in '97 the average subsidy for a Chicago to Denver passenger was $650. Uh huh, and what about the 20 billion the airlines got in just the last year or two? And all the billions for airports for the 70 or so years before that? Counting in subsidies, that $130 round trip is probably over to $300, most of it from taxpayers. It would be cheaper to close down the whole system, and give passengers free (to them) bus or air tickets. Cites: http://www.cato.org/dailys/5-22-97.html http://www.publicpurpose.com/ic-amtroute.htm Peter Trei Yes, and we ought to get back all the billions spent on highways for the truckers as well. Also on the military to keep oil cheap. -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
Re: [DIGRESSION] RE: the news from bush's speech...H-power
At 09:59 PM 1/29/2003 -0600, Harmon Seaver wrote: On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 06:38:11PM -0800, Tim May wrote: Diesel, Tim, they run on diesel. Too bad MB won't import any of those hi-tech diesel they make to the US because of the crummy fuel here. I had an '87 MB 300D terrible-diesel for about 5 years (from new). It had the turbocharger and other related components replaced twice ($1800 market value each time). I sold it as soon as the lease expired. steve
Re: Who feigned Roger Rabbit?
On Thu, Jan 30, 2003 at 11:12:17AM -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote: On Thu, Jan 30, 2003 at 07:32:10AM -0800, Marshall Clow wrote: 3) Train - about 17 hours - $130 round trip. Help me out here - why would I take the train? Recently I went from DC to SF. It took about five hours of flight time each way on JetBlue, which sells round-trip direct tickets for $200. It was very pleasant. Okay, but the thread was, I believe, about the destructive effects of subsidy. So lets yank back that 20 billion just given to the airlines. How would your flight have gone then? Would there even be one? Yes, we have to live in the world as it is, but it's a bit absurd to put down Amtrack when the airlines have become by far the most publically funded method of travel. Amtrack, publically funded? What a joke! -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
Re: the news from bush's speech...H-power
-- On 30 Jan 2003 at 11:31, Eugen Leitl wrote: I'm not arguing pro strong state. I'm merely saying that the tax funded ivory tower RD is complementary in scope to privately funded research. If 95% of it is wasted (and lacking libertarian drive in Euland it's bound to stay that way for quite a while), it's still nice to see a percent or two to go into bluesky research. You will notice a disproportionate amount of blue sky research comes from countries that are highly capitalist. Thus Switzerland is roughly comparable to Sweden in size and wealth, but we see quite a bit of blue sky research coming out of Swizterland, not much from Sweden. Since blue sky research is a public good, only governments can efficiently produce blue sky research. Does not follow, however, that governments *will* efficiently produce blue sky research, and on the available evidence, they do not. There are several mechanisms that lead companies to produce and publish interesting data -- one is to make a name for themselves, as in the human genome project, another his that they like to employ scientists that have published interesting research findings, which means that their scientists want to publish interesting research findings. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG vj9XFJICkQyBZHtzNbSmc+aK6sW4+dfeCW2jBsxp 4SNzRPDCqDY1oqcXuKPS207CG2oaSOsRAObNR7CKl
Re: Who feigned Roger Rabbit?
At 11:30 AM 01/30/2003 -0500, Jamie Lawrence wrote: I lived in San Francisco for 10 years. One job I had required me to have a car so I could get to a data center in San Jose in cases of emergency (never happened), so I bought a cheap beater. Spent $1000 on the car, $400 a year on insurance, and about $3000/yr on parking and parking tickets. It was eventually stolen, and I was incredibly happy when it was. BART is actually not bad - one can work on the ride. MUNI is miserable, but it usually works, at least. Depending on where you live in the city, cabs can take care of the emergency situations, and renting a car can take care of events that you've got more advance notice about. On the other hand, San Francisco (like New York) has a special program to encourage car ownership and parking consumption, called taxi medallions, which are designed to make sure there are never as many cabs on the street as the market will bear. Caltrain was a nice way to commute for the ~5 years I was going in that direction. As Bill Frantz said, you can work on the train, which does make up for the hurry-up-and-wait. Amtrak in most of the US sucks, but from NYC-NewJersey-Washington, it works pretty well - I found it was typically about 15 minutes slower than flying, if I got one of the express trains.
Re: the news from bush's speech...H-power
-- On 30 Jan 2003 at 12:16, Harmon Seaver wrote: I'll have to find the studies, but it was the same oil geologists (not enviros) who used the same model to accurately predict the peak of US oil production who did the one on world oil production. Not true. Rather, what happened is that there have been thousands of overly pessimistic estimates, and one overly optimistic estimate for US oil production (an over reaction to past low side errors) , and everyone who makes implausibly pessimistic estimates for world oil production likes to associate themselves with those who disagreed with the one overly optimistic estimate -- but the association is thin. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG 8af9YKuTzIfi6eW+kuKC5iSQr1ItRdPJmiiqa7oK 40um9WOOe1GxHnczql5Bykr/viCnjY0+DHauSAK8v
Re: the news from bush's speech...H-power
Tim May wrote: For example, the space program. The Moon Flag Planting cost about 100,000 slave-lives (about $125 thousand milliion in today's dollars) to finance. It distorted the market for things like single stage to orbit, which might have happened otherwise. And it created a bureaucracy more intent on spreading pork to Huntsville, Houston, Canaveral, and other pork sites. (Surprising that Robert Byrd failed to get WVa picked as the control center. He was too junior then, probably.) Tim, I read that the otherwise unimpressive International Space Station is utter genius in one respect: it has a subcontractor in *every single one* of the 435 House member's districts. Howie Goodell -- Howie Goodell [EMAIL PROTECTED] *control, embedded and user interface SW consulting* Doctoral Candidate HCI Rsch Grp CompSci UMass Lowell http://HowieGoodell.home.attbi.com
Senate votes against TIA funding.
Washington: In a daring attempt to avoid identification by the Ministry of Total Information Awareness, the Senate resorted to a voice vote when blocking TIA's funding, hoping that without a written record, individual Senators might not be caught. TIA cameras ###.###. and ###.###. [redacted], however, observed ## of the Senators during the vote, and estimates are that the voiceprint recognition systems can resolve the identities of the other ## ungood terrorist sympathizers, so they can have the impact on their civil liberties explained more directly. -- http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=technologyNewsstoryID=2101454 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Saying they feared government snooping against ordinary Americans, U.S. senators voted on Thursday to block funding for a Pentagon computer project that would scour databases for terrorist threats. By a voice vote, the Senate voted to ban funding for the Total Information Awareness program, under former national security adviser John Poindexter, until the Pentagon explains the program and assesses its impact on civil liberties. snip
Re: the news from bush's speech...H-power
On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, James A. Donald wrote: -- On 30 Jan 2003 at 11:31, Eugen Leitl wrote: I'm not arguing pro strong state. I'm merely saying that the tax funded ivory tower RD is complementary in scope to privately funded research. If 95% of it is wasted (and lacking libertarian drive in Euland it's bound to stay that way for quite a while), it's still nice to see a percent or two to go into bluesky research. You will notice a disproportionate amount of blue sky research comes from countries that are highly capitalist. Thus Switzerland is roughly comparable to Sweden in size and wealth, but we see quite a bit of blue sky research coming out of Swizterland, not much from Sweden. Since blue sky research is a public good, only governments can efficiently produce blue sky research. No, it doesn't follow at all. It follows that to create advanced technologies takes resources and skills beyond the capability of small groups. it's a function of scaling, not politics or authority. You get cool breakthroughs when you invest sufficient resources, smart people and access to the very best of tools and resources. Does not follow, however, that governments *will* efficiently produce blue sky research, and on the available evidence, they do not. 'efficiently produce'...what a fuzzy wuzzy, feelgood, spindoctor bullshit term. There are three way to produce breakthroughs; luck, special insite, many parallel efforts. The most important factor is the third. The second will allow you to make leaps but it's up to the vagaries of genetics there so no organizational issue exists (other than breeding programs perhaps). Luck is pretty much the same for everyone, be there at the right time, with the right resources, and recognize it at the time. -- We are all interested in the future for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. Criswell, Plan 9 from Outer Space [EMAIL PROTECTED][EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ssz.com www.open-forge.org
Re: Who feigned Roger Rabbit?
On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Tim May wrote: This is a terribly important point, and failure to understand this point is the source of more disagreements than I can count. What if everyone thought that way? (Fallacy, as my actions will NOT affect the choices of others, a situation most evident in the standard Does it make sense to vote in elections? debate.) False, your actions do effect others. If you didn't believe that why write your manifesto? Why even get up in the morning? If we all started driving electric vehicles, think of how we could change the world! (Fallacy, as my choice to drive or not drive an electric vehicle will not affect the choices of others, at least not to anything more significant than fifth or sixth order.) Actually it will, Schilling Point, Economy of Scale, Network Effects, etc. You didn't factor in the benefit of saving the planet. (Fallacy. Saving the planet depends on a lot of things. Spending more for a less safe vehicle so as to affect the planet by one part in 10 to the 9 is not wise. Plus, the alternative fuels are not all they are cracked up to be.) Every little bit helps. The fallacy in your view is that it assumes covertly that unless you can make a big change anything else is not worth anything. You want it all or none. As Marshall said, things are what they are. Each actor should act as he sees fit. For most of us, this means maximizing returns (maximum expected utility, MEU) based on local, immediate choices. The world is as we make it. Our decisions each and every day change the way it is. If somebody simply decides not to pull a trigger the world changes. This is often called the Prisoner's Dilemma. Or greed. Or self-interest. False Comparison. But what if everyone thought that way? Then people wouldn't be people. But the hallmark of people is that they don't see the world the same way, even when viewing the -exact same facts-. You fail to factor in opinion, which is based =precisely- on the way -we want the world to be ideally-. -- We are all interested in the future for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. Criswell, Plan 9 from Outer Space [EMAIL PROTECTED][EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ssz.com www.open-forge.org
Re: the news from bush's speech...H-power
On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Howie Goodell wrote: Tim May wrote: For example, the space program. The Moon Flag Planting cost about 100,000 slave-lives (about $125 thousand milliion in today's dollars) to finance. It distorted the market for things like single stage to orbit, which might have happened otherwise. And it created a bureaucracy more intent on spreading pork to Huntsville, Houston, Canaveral, and other pork sites. (Surprising that Robert Byrd failed to get WVa picked as the control center. He was too junior then, probably.) I read that the otherwise unimpressive International Space Station is utter genius in one respect: it has a subcontractor in *every single one* of the 435 House member's districts. Which is a better example than one could hope for the efficiency of a three party social/economic system. The free market effect at near maximum efficiency. The folks pushing for more funding should shout this one to the hills. The ISS touches everywhere. To fail it now is to say we all failed. And the only -real- meaure of that failure is our will. The real problem is with the expectations of those who don't understand the -long term- need for this sort of work. The reality is that if we don't spend money on space and other cutting-edge tech's the people who are dying now from starvation and such are dying in vain, and everyone dies in the geological near term. The Earth can -not- sustain a technological society. The future of mankind is a space based society that isn't surface based. That window of opportunity will be about 250 years and we're about 50 years into it. To not spend in space is societal suicide. Ethically the push should be -one way, out-. Personaly, I'd shoot for a 3-way plan; Moon, Mars, Jupiter or Saturn. Involve every country on the planet that wants to play. -- We are all interested in the future for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. Criswell, Plan 9 from Outer Space [EMAIL PROTECTED][EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ssz.com www.open-forge.org
CrimethInc. Agent Subversion Kit 72a.v2 (This Phone Is Tapped)
http://www.buyolympia.com/crimethinc/sid=316686336/misc.html CrimethInc. Cyberian Market CrimethInc. Agent Subversion Kit 72a.v2 /miscellany/ 1 pack is $5.50 2-4/$4.50 each 5-10/$4 each One pack of 25 postcard-stickers (4 stickers to each card. so one pack = 100 stickers) CrimethInc. Agent Subversion Kit 72a.v2 (This Phone Is Tapped) The first in what will be a continuing series, this tidy little unit contains everything one needs to get one's subversive-action groove on-gloss sticker front with four stickers, and a printed back with application instructions, among other things. Made to be deployed on payphones across the world, the stickers fit precisely on the back handle of the telephone receiver. Order a pack to put a hundred stickers up yourself, reveling in petty vandalism that will educate and motivate others, or take the cards and give them away at shows, protests, or english class for others to have the experience. Each card is a little thought-bomb waiting to bet set off by whoever holds it in their hands-and the collateral damage is everyone who sees the sticker on the phone. Click on the picture to the left for a larger view, or download these PDFs [ front back ] and print them yourself. [We know these prices might seem expensive and possibly even excessive-in fact, we cringed when typing them-but we assure you that we are charging almost exactly cost for these.] One single card-sticker is automatically included for free in every paid order. -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Roger Rabbit says: Bullshit
I don't really understand why examining the current state of affairs in US transportation is productive. Who built the highway system? Private companies? Hell no. Basically, the US government did, and that acted as the initial investment to make the value of an automobile (via the Network Effect) very high. So in a sense, the US government has occasionally placed some bets on technology that arguably paid off. So the large activation energy needed to get some technologies rolling is sometimes too large for any one company, so once in a while a government can do something useful. (This is not to say that they should...I'm willing to concede that such payoffs are largely accidental.) Meanwhile, public transportation in the US sucks precisely because the government has always sided with big business. there's no real motivation to build a usable mass transportation system in most of the urban areas, despite the fact that such systems can and do work (here in NYC, and throughout Europe and the far East). My point is not inherently statist per se, just that things are never black and white. Government doesn't HAVE to be stupid and useless, is just almost always is. As for the Roger Rabbit plot, that actually happened, and the events of Roger Rabbit were loosely based on them. Would that lightrail system have slowly evolved into a useful mass transit system for the LA basin? Possibly, but possibly not. _ Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
Re: the news from bush's speech...H-power
At 09:08 PM 1/29/2003 -0500, Tyler Durden [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tim May wrote... Ask why the U.S.S.R., which depended essentially solely on federal funding, failed so completely. Hint: it wasn't just because of repression. It was largely because picking winners doesn't work, and command economies only know how to pick winners (they think). (A side note should be made here about the fact that some technologies have a very high activation energy barrier...without a very intensive amount of capital, they can't happen. Indeed, aren't we nearly at that point with sub-0.13um technology? It is possible that further advances just won't be possible without direct or indirect government funding.) If you mean photolith below those dimensions you may be right, but as you know scaling down from the top is just one approach. Building up from the bottom (u.e., nanotech) is also receiving both gov't and substantial private funding. Although bulk nano-materials are the first economic applications of this approach (in fact, nano materials, e.g., carbon soot, have been in industrial use for many decades), it looks like structured materials and devices may not be that far behind. steve
Re: [DIGRESSION] RE: the news from bush's speech...H-power
At 06:23 PM 1/29/2003 -0600, Harmon Seaver wrote: On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 03:36:20PM -0800, Mike Rosing wrote: On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, Harmon Seaver wrote: Although canola oil is a much better source for fuel. And diesels a much better IC engine for hybrids. Even in non-hybrids, VW builds some pretty nice diesel cars, including the Lupo, on the market for a couple years now, which gets 80mpg. And the prototype that VW's CEO drives around in that gets 280mpg. From http://www.used-volkswagen-cars.co.uk/volkswagenlupo.htm: As befits a small car, the cheapest models come with a 1.0-litre engine that is decent enough, though finds it hard going on the motorway. Hard going on the motorway? It cruises at 80mph. And as much as I love riding bicycles, even in Winter, the Lupo certainly has a lot more practical uses than a bike. Even neater is their new one tho -- http://www.vwvortex.com/news/index_1L.html It too will do 75mph -- fast enough for the likes of me. At 239mpg. What's that saying about muscle cars? Something about the size of their motors is an inverse ratio to the size of their dicks? If they intend to sell thin in the US they would be advised to have one 3 wheels instead of an apparent 4. In many states (incl. California) 3-wheeled vehicles are considered motorcycles and get to use the diamond lanes even when occupied by a single passenger. steve
Re: the news from bush's speech...H-power
On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 11:14:56PM -0800, James A. Donald wrote: (snip) Tyler said: and the buying up (and subsequent dismantling) of lite rail systems in the LA basin in the 30s and 40s apparently had a major impact on the rollout of vehicles Might we have seen much better public transportation in that area if this capitalist coup-d'etat hadn't occurred? Public transport received, and continues to receive enormous subsidies. Actually that's not true, or at least, the subsidy to public transport pales compared to the subsidy to private transport. Witness the recent billions paid to the airlines, about 20-30 times (in one year, mind you) than rail got in the last 20-30 years. Public highways for truckers is even more obscene. It's quite clear that trucks benefit the most, and do far the most damage to roads, so let them pay the entire cost of highway repair and construction. I'd suggest toll-roads, but that has the serious side effect of aiding surveillance and inhibiting free travel of individuals. -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
Re: [DIGRESSION] RE: the news from bush's speech...H-power
On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 08:55:55PM -0800, Steve Schear wrote: If they intend to sell thin in the US they would be advised to have one 3 wheels instead of an apparent 4. In many states (incl. California) 3-wheeled vehicles are considered motorcycles and get to use the diamond lanes even when occupied by a single passenger. Yes, that would be a good idea, although I think the same holds true for at least some European countries too. However, VW seems to be not much interested in shipping a lot of the neat stuff they're making to the US. The really hitech stuff they sell in Europe, but not here. Same with MB and others. The Japanese are the same way, and it's been that way for quite awhile. -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
Content Altering DVD Players
http://msn.zdnet.com/zdfeeds/msncobrand/reviews/0,13828,2909517,00.html Snide little comments in []'s are mine. - Dear Hollywood: Keep your hands off my DVDs By David Coursey, AnchorDesk Wish you could watch major films at home without being offended by words you wouldn't use in your own home, and worrying whether your children are seeing things they shouldn't? [Uh, no.] Think you should have the right to view the movies you own (or rent) the way you--and not the content's creators--wish? [You mean like an historically accurate version of Schindler's List?] IN EITHER CASE, you should know about a company that hopes to market a special DVD player that will automatically skip over violent and sexually explicit scenes and mute the bad language that is so prevalent in Hollywood blockbusters. [Those darn Mormons should really stay out of the Entertainment business, except for the Osmond Family Christmas Special.] Here's the problem: Hollywood is suing to keep this DVD player off the market. The major studios and the Directors Guild of America are essentially saying that, when you buy a DVD, you must watch it exactly the way it was created--or not watch it at all. [Hollywood makes edited versions of almost everything, for broadcast TV, airline flights, Saudi Arabian social events, and many other venues. The difference here is that such editing is done under contract with the studios and with the permission of the content creators. What Hollywood is suing over, is illegal editing and resale of their content. I'm sure if the Fundies pay Hollywood enough, and sign a contract, they can edit to their heart's content. Or maybe they could just rent the airline version.] The company that's created this DVD technology, ClearPlay, is one of a dozen or so businesses that, in one way or another, offer cleaned-up versions of PG- and R-rated movies. Others, such as CleanFlicks, rent and sell DVDs and videotapes that have been physically edited to exclude objectionable content. According to CEO Bill Aho... [ Cornohol : Cornhole :: Aho : ? ] ...(whom I interviewed yesterday on my radio show), ClearPlay uses special software--already available for PC-based DVD players--to skip over specific scenes and mute language while the disc is being played. ClearPlay editors have viewed and created filters for more than 300 films, from A.I. Artificial Intelligence to Zoolander. Aho admits that there are some movies (such as Saving Private Ryan) that ClearPlay hasn't filtered because doing so would ruin the film. The filters are specific enough that even a gritty war drama like Blackhawk Down might lose just three or four minutes of run time. [The mind boggles at what the prudes wanted to cut out of A.I..] The ClearPlay service is available right now (if you're willing to use your PC as your DVD player) for $7.95 a month, or $79 a year. The custom DVD player, expected to sell for less that $100, will come to market later this year--unless it's blocked by the courts. ClearPlay, CleanFlicks, and other similar companies are presently locked in legal battles with the entertainment industry, which claims that copyright owners alone have the right to make derivative works by editing the originals. If anyone else creates derivative works, the studios and their allies argue, that would violate the studio's trademark rights to a motion picture. [See me make a derivative work of this clown's article.] I CAN OFFER only three words to Hollywood: Get over it. Or maybe: Turn it around. If people find certain scenes in certain movies offensive, maybe Hollywood shouldn't force its paying customers to watch those scenes. [Bwahahahaha! Hollywood isn't forcing you to look at anything, you cockered accumulation of bawdy squirrel guts.] I understand that editing can sometimes change the meaning of a motion picture--but so what? This is supposed to be entertainment, and people shouldn't be forced to be offended when they want to be entertained. [Great - then be entertained by Sandy Patty's Greatest Hits, instead of Saving Private Ryan.] Furthermore, if a company like ClearPlay has found a viable market in letting consumers clean up movies on the fly, maybe Hollywood needs to sell DVDs already edited to something closer to a G or PG rating. [Hollywood can sell, or not sell, anything it wishes to. You cannot sell a studio's content without their permission.] Hollywood is no stranger to editing films to reduce violence or drop offensive language. The TV networks have long required this (though less and less as time goes by), and directors often reedit their films in order to get a desired rating for showing in theaters. From a legal standpoint, there is probably some difference between what CleanFlicks does, which is actually editing the content, and ClearPlay's approach, which leaves the content intact but automates the fast-forward and mute features that individual users could invoke
Re: CDR: Re: Palm Pilot Handshake
In article 003301c2c7c2$c734bbe0$0301000a@thishost, Steve Mynott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The Palms do have fairly slow processors so checking keys may take a while and generating them probably quite a long time. For perspective, however, current-model Palms have 33 MHz Motorola 68k processors, which used to be considered a nice desktop CPU. In 1991, when PGP was first released, the Mac Classic II had a 16 MHz 68030 and 2 MB of RAM. If that was enough for PGP, then a Palm m500 ought to be capable of it also. Granted, you will want to use longer keys now. But the hardware in your pocket can do more crypto than you might think. And they're only getting faster. -- Shields.
