Ever since the Fukushima incidents, I have been wondering if steam powered coolant pumps are ever used for backup? It seems like the simplicity and ruggedness of steam power would make it much better than electrically powered pumps. An overheating reactor could power them directly.
Also, it seems like maybe the nuclear industry could win public confidence by releasing open source plant simulation software that would allow people look for problems in the safety systems in various disaster scenarios.
It's not just about trust. It's a failure of critical and rational thinking, and people opting for news sources that'll tell them what they want to hear.
TED Talk:Eli Pariser: Beware online "filter bubbles" Points out that search algorithms tend to help to feed us what we want to hear. My take on it,is that it leads to a sort of feedback loop that breeds extremism and delusion.
Sometimes I think that you have to be stupid and inconsiderate to want an SUV and that is why they are generally driven with such stupidity and inconsideration. Other times I wonder if maybe sitting so high above the road ensconced in steel has psychological effects that makes average people act like jerks.
I almost always walk which gives me free time to observe driving habits. I have lost count several times, but roughly speaking, SUV drivers endanger my life about 20:4 over cars. They are typically the drivers who enter the crosswalk while I'm crossing, gun their engines to try to hurry me along, swerve onto the shoulders when there is no sidewalk, burn rubber to hurry around a round-about so they can barrel down on me, and etc. The problem cars are generally cheap sports cars driven by students yakking on cellphones.
Did you pick 8.5 to specifically exclude Hong Kong (8.4), to specifically include Iceland (8.5), or was 8.5 just a good number?
I was thinking a committee of about 11 countries would be about the right size and since it is an odd number, they wouldn't have to worry about ties in voting. However, I really should have counted countries instead of looking at the ranks since I ended up with the wrong number.
I personally wouldn't put too much trust in their figures, though, given the subjectivity of the questions they ask to "country experts" (e.g. "Is the country’s economy free of excessive state involvement?" You would get wildly different answers from a socialist and a capitalist).
Actually, I hadn't heard of Transarency International until I came across it in one of the Wikileaks. The following cables (as of yesterday) reference it:
i read it in one of the Moscow ones. I figured if it was good enough for diplomats, it is probably half-way descent. However, I do your see points and those of stdarg who also replied. Do you know of a more reliable dataset to base a possible selection?
I think those with a score of 8.5 or better at Transparency International should temporarily get the power to re-organize the UN to make it better. Until the UN is fixed, I can't agree with allowing it to set Internet law since it basically means the corrupt majority of countries would end free speech. I really like the idea of an international government, so long as it protects human rights.
Full disclosure: My country, the USA, scores 7.1, so it wouldn't get the temporary power.
Don't cower, it's unseemly.
Is it just barely possible that there is no world wide conspiracy to bring about a global police state?
It seems to me that's exactly what the US has been up to. I don't think those 800+ military bases around the world are landing strips for Santa and his 8 tiny reindeer. I don't believe it is because all of those other countries are too stupid to defend themselves. It is so we can exert control.
Doubtlessly some might argue that we have every right to exert such intimidating force on our neighbors. I say, try to remember what being an American was supposed to be about. What would you say of the bully on the playground who dominates and forces his will upon everyone else through slander, intimidation and violence. I hate those fuckers. Yet, that is what my country has become.
Please read this. That is what we are doing to ourselves and the rest of the world. We are the guards.
Do not underestimate the value of print statements for debugging. Don't have aesthetic convulsions when using them, either.