Here's some historical context regarding abortion. Back in the day, when white people owned black people as if they were horses or cattle, new-born slave children were instant property expansion for slave-owners.
So of course if a slave woman got caught aborting her pregnancy to prevent her child from entering a life of slavery, that meant destruction of property for her owners. Just as if she had killed a foal or a calf before it was born.
Think we're any different than slaves, today? If the anti-abortionists have their way, think again. Your children are the commodity property of the Corporate State, ladies.
"They own you." -- George Carlin
Wednesday, November 05, 2014
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Letter to Senator Rand Paul about Obamacare
Dear Senator Rand Paul,-
Obamacare -- It's a shame that the federal government has to decree a law that mandates that citizens have to buy something. But affordable health care services in my state are impossible to find. Finding a physician that doesn't overcharge hundreds of dollars for basic procedures is simply impossible. I need insurance to protect me from this sort of price gouging.
What else can be done to increase the number of affordable health care options in Texas?
I see the Affordable Health Care Act as yet another tax. In return for that tax, the prices I pay for health care get lower.
My question for you, Senator Paul is this: How else will the prices ever get lower?
Look Senator Paul, if you want to get rid of Obamacare so badly, then you need to get rid of the federal government's Constitutional right to tax its citizens. If you can do that, then you can get rid of all the things that you seem to dislike about the federal government.
Otherwise, you are going to simply have to find a way to get health care costs down across the board without a massive insurance mandate.
I work really hard and I have a good job -- but until you do one of those things, I simply can't afford to go to a doctor unless I have insurance. And that means I'll likely die earlier than my parents, or my grandparents. It almost seems like the current health care system is designed specifically so that rich people are the only ones who can go to a doctor.
I just want to be able to afford to go to the doctor. I don't care how it gets done. That's your job.
Let me be clear about that last bit: Your job is to figure out how to make health care costs lower.
Sincerely,
-Nels Nelson
Obamacare -- It's a shame that the federal government has to decree a law that mandates that citizens have to buy something. But affordable health care services in my state are impossible to find. Finding a physician that doesn't overcharge hundreds of dollars for basic procedures is simply impossible. I need insurance to protect me from this sort of price gouging.
What else can be done to increase the number of affordable health care options in Texas?
I see the Affordable Health Care Act as yet another tax. In return for that tax, the prices I pay for health care get lower.
My question for you, Senator Paul is this: How else will the prices ever get lower?
Look Senator Paul, if you want to get rid of Obamacare so badly, then you need to get rid of the federal government's Constitutional right to tax its citizens. If you can do that, then you can get rid of all the things that you seem to dislike about the federal government.
Otherwise, you are going to simply have to find a way to get health care costs down across the board without a massive insurance mandate.
I work really hard and I have a good job -- but until you do one of those things, I simply can't afford to go to a doctor unless I have insurance. And that means I'll likely die earlier than my parents, or my grandparents. It almost seems like the current health care system is designed specifically so that rich people are the only ones who can go to a doctor.
I just want to be able to afford to go to the doctor. I don't care how it gets done. That's your job.
Let me be clear about that last bit: Your job is to figure out how to make health care costs lower.
Sincerely,
-Nels Nelson
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Someone stole my grandpa's old Schwinn 10-speed
Someone stole my grandpa's old Schwinn 10-speed from my apartment patio this week. Let me know if you spot it anywhere? Offering $200 bounty for info leading to recovery.
This bicycle was incredibly valuable to me emotionally, but I did not keep it as securely as I should have done. I just moved to Austin, and I live in a small apartment near Braker Lane and Jollyville.
You don't know how valuable some things are until they're taken from you. This is just a bike, so it's not the end of the world. But it was important to me.
If anyone around Austin happens to spot it, out and about, or at a pawn shop, could you please contact me as soon as possible?
Here is an imgur album of my grandfather's bicycle:
http://imgur.com/a/Jhh6F#0
You don't know how valuable some things are until they're taken from you. This is just a bike, so it's not the end of the world. But it was important to me.
If anyone around Austin happens to spot it, out and about, or at a pawn shop, could you please contact me as soon as possible?
Here is an imgur album of my grandfather's bicycle:
http://imgur.com/a/Jhh6F#0
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
The status quo anthem
So this morning after a horrible slog through interregional Texas IH35, a pleasant jaunt around Austin via the expensive 130 Tollway in order to avoid the sad misery of south and downtown Austin traffic, only to endure a hellish trek back into the city across some side roads around a hopelessly clogged 290 West, I finally arrived at the office early enough to get settled at my desk about half past eight. After collecting my thoughts and meditating for a few moments I began to read my e-mail, when at around a quarter to nine, I heard the sounds of music playing, very loudly, from a desk about 100 meters north from my desk. The music spilled out into the office, and I noticed several individuals standing up at the same moment that I recognized the music as the National Anthem of the United States of America.
I stood up, and grabbed my empty cup of coffee, and began walking in the direction of the filling station which happened to be a bit closer to the anthem's broadcaster. I could see a very large American flag hanging from the ceiling in the vicinity of the speakers from which the song was blaring.
I noticed many more individuals standing up at their desk, some with their hands over their hearts, as the music played on and I filled my cup.
I returned to my desk confused. I have worked in government contracting agencies. In my capacity as a civilian software developer, I have worked with men and women dressed in military uniforms. I have never seen the national anthem played as a matter of course in a private office building before.
As I returned to my desk in my lonely anti-nationalist, pro-globalist depression, I contemplated the utter misery I experienced during my commute into work this morning.
Do I love my country? Nope. Not a bit.
Do I love my fellow citizens? Yup.
But I hate them on the road, because they (my fellow countrymen, my nation) refuse to pay for roads and infrastructure sufficient to prevent an entirely miserable existence for most of us.
And yet we display our reverence for the status quo, in our office, with a soundtrack.
I noticed many more individuals standing up at their desk, some with their hands over their hearts, as the music played on and I filled my cup.
I returned to my desk confused. I have worked in government contracting agencies. In my capacity as a civilian software developer, I have worked with men and women dressed in military uniforms. I have never seen the national anthem played as a matter of course in a private office building before.
As I returned to my desk in my lonely anti-nationalist, pro-globalist depression, I contemplated the utter misery I experienced during my commute into work this morning.
Do I love my country? Nope. Not a bit.
Do I love my fellow citizens? Yup.
But I hate them on the road, because they (my fellow countrymen, my nation) refuse to pay for roads and infrastructure sufficient to prevent an entirely miserable existence for most of us.
And yet we display our reverence for the status quo, in our office, with a soundtrack.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Re: Election Reform
Following up on: Election Reform
The Constitution spells out the algorithm for the maximum number of congressional representatives in our federal government in Article I, Section 2 where it states that "there shall not be less than two hundred Representatives, nor more than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons."
So, 1 representative for every 50,000 citizens, maximum.
That's 6175 representatives, according to Wolfram Alpha's US population stats, which is about 14 times more representatives than the current maximum of 435. More precisely, it is 1419% more representatives than we have right now.
Benefits
Benefit 1: Corporations and lobbyists would have to increase their political bribery budgets by 1419%. Presently, corporate lobbyists spend about US$ 3 billion each year to influence Congress. This would theoretically have to increase to US$ 42 billion.
Benefit 2: You would probably know your representative personally. You could probably make an appointment with him or her, and actually have a real conversation. Your representative would only have to deal with a population the size of Paris, Texas.
Problems
Problem 1: Too many representatives to coordinate
Solution: If you divide 6175 representatives by 435, then you have about 14 congresses. This means that nearly every major region in the United States could have its own Congress. States-rights lovers would adore this.
The Southern states have 109,840,000 people. That should be 2197 apportioned representatives, or about 5 congresses. This means that the South could have 5 different Houses of Congress which would represent each of their regions.
Each of these Houses of Congress would deliberate locally on interregional matters, and would collaborate in Congressional Conventions and networked conferences using the Internet for national issues.
Problem 2: Gerrymandering
Solution: Shortest-Splitline Districting.
- The Shortest-Splitline Algorithm: a Gerrymandering Solution
- Examples of our unbiased district-drawing algorithm in action / comparisons with gerrymandered districts drawn by politicians
- Splitline districtings of all 50 states
Here is what Texas' Congressional districts would look like if they were actually fair.
Here is what the Texas Federal Congressional districts currently look like.
Problem 3: The Electoral College
Solution: Range voting.
Further reading:
Friday, February 15, 2013
Meteorite explodes over Chelyabinsk, Russia
Wow. These are incredible videos.
Apparently a meteorite exploded over a Russian city called Chelyabinsk.
Some 4 to 5 hundred people reported injuries from broken glass and other incidental shrapnel when the shockwave of the incoming projectile exploded down into the city. No fatalities have been reported.
It is not yet known whether or not the meteorite broke apart completely or impacted in a location outside the city.
You will need Flash 10 or better to view this content.
You will need Flash 10 or better to view this content.
This is incredible.
You will need Flash 10 or better to view this content.
Slate has a far better collection of videos of the meteorite explosion.
Russian Times as well.
Simply mind-blowing.
Asteroid 2012 DA14, the size of a small building, is supposed to pass within 17,000 miles of the Earth today, February 15th, 2013. There has been no reports that the Russian meteorite event is at all related to the DA14 event but it is still an amazing and even unsettling coincidence.
If I were to speculate on any possible relationship, I could only imagine that the 2012 DA14 asteroid could possibly have been ripped apart by Earth's gravity if it encountered destructive tidal forces inside the Roche limit. Broken fragments could then have been explosively propelled into the atmosphere and onto the surface. This is of course flat out speculation, of course, and would be a rather fantastic scenario.
Tuesday, October 02, 2012
A couple of future industries
All of the technologies discussed here are currently available and usable. Some might be more expensive than others, but all are totally feasible for actual deployment today.
In the future, we're gonna be doing all kinds of industrial activities in space.
To get there in the short-term, we'll need lots of energy. Mostly rocket fuel. Rocket fuel can be surprisingly simply. It's mostly a mixture of liquid oxygen and hydrogen. Both elements by themselves combust violently. These components can be found in water. Undoing the chemical bonds of water molecules isn't hard, it just requires some energy. This is where land-based photovoltaics come in for the initial boot-strapping steps required for the kinds of inter-planetary industrial activities I'll be discussing here.
Once an orbiting manufacturing plant has been established, construction of inter-planetary robotic vehicles can begin.
Getting the components for automated manufacturing into high-earth orbit will be pretty expensive. That's what the rocket fuel is for. Once the bootstrap plant and initial raw materials are in place, this step will not need to be repeated.
Robots will mine asteroids in the solar system for precious metals and also for raw material. Primarily, the raw material will be used to construct heat shields, photovoltaic cells, and of course more robots.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/
http://news.cnet.com/2300-11386_3-10012086-4.html
The precious metals can be collected into orbit around the planet, and heat shields fabricated and deployed to protect payloads from burning up during re-entry when returning to the surface of Earth.
Space-faring asteroid-mining robots will be comprised of several components.
First, ion thrusters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
http://www.techhive.com/
Second, photo voltaic cells.
Third, onboard battery cells, charged by the PV cells.
Fourth, onboard computer system.
Fifth, some sensors including radar, thermal imaging, radioactivity gauges, video cameras, and audio recording devices.
Sixth, a payload container.
Seventh, robotic arms wielding drills and grasping apparati.
The stored electricity in the batteries will be used to power the thrusters, onboard computer systems, sensor arrays and mining tools.
*****
There are lots of complicating factors at play here. Each complicating factor is an opportunity for a whole new industry in addition to the asteroid mining industry and the high-earth orbital robot manufacturing industry.
For one, there is currently a crisis developing in the mid-earth orbital regions above our planet. Over the past few decades, various space agencies have launched over a dozen thousand satellites, into low, mid, and high earth orbit. Those agencies have been able to collaborate to keep track of all of these projectiles whizzing around above our heads at thousands of miles an hour. Unfortunately, every once in a while, a satellite which loses its ability to steer itself, or which never had such an ability, will collide at high speed with another object. This creates hundreds or thousands of smaller projectiles also spinning around at thousands of miles an hour. It is nearly impossible to accurately track those particles. When those particles eventually collide with other satellites, even more debris is created, and it quickly becomes mathematically impossible to track that debris.
Soon, a point of no return is reached, and debris is flying around at extremely high velocities in random directions violently colliding with other objects in space, creating more and more debris in a chain-reaction. Eventually, mid-earth orbit where most of the current satellites are deployed will become entirely filled up with high-velocity debris.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/satellites/weve-already-passed-the-tipping-point-for-orbital-debris
It will soon become impossible to travel into this region of earth orbit without experiencing a high-velocity collision with some debris from previous space vehicles.
At those velocities, any collision with debris no matter how small will be cataclysmic and will cause complete destruction of any vehicle in its path.
Getting material into orbit to build a manufacturing plant will be nigh impossible with a barrier of other material spinning around the planet like space piranha.
In order to fix this, an entire enterprise dedicated to the removal of such debris material from orbit will be required. It will be necessary to create orbital robotic garbage collectors whose responsibility it is to seek and intercept all debris in orbit, and force this debris down back into the atmosphere where it will burn up upon re-entry, avoiding collision with any other satellites or vehicles along the way.
Once the initial debris is cleared to the point where travel back and forth from the surface to crucial locations like the mining robot manufacturing plant in high-earth orbit and the material collection station from which return-to-earth drops will be initiated, there will need to be a continued enterprise of garbage collection and orbit decay management.
Such vehicles can be surprisingly simple. They may be comprised of these components:
First, ion thrusters for maneuvering.
Second, PV cells.
Third, onboard battery cells, charged by the PV cells.
Fourth, onboard sensors including radar and infrared imaging.
Fifth, onboard computer system for navigation, trajectory tracking, and object identification.
Sixth, rudimentary docking ports and shock absorbers for low-speed contact with debris once a speed and attitude match has been acquired. (This might also be done with electromagnets.)
These robots will basically perform tugboat-like maneuvers for vehicles, satellites, and debris in space orbit around the earth and other bodies where inter-orbit travel is necessary.
*****
Once a solar-system raw material supply chain is established, the large-scale boot-strapping of the planet's surface energy harvesting apparatus can begin.
This initial step is necessary to acquire the energy necessary to begin large scale inter-orbital construction of larger and more effective solar-energy harvesting infrastructure.
*****
Long-term, there will be many obstacles to success for our civilization due to its ever-expanding population.
Jevon's Paradox states that no matter how many energy and technological advances our industrial system makes, there will be an ever expanding consumption of the surplus energy generated by such efficiencies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
What this means for our civilization is simple, if we are to avoid an Eugenic struggle amongst our own species, then we must develop a number of efficiency maximizing technologies, and soon.
These include room-temperature super-conductors; super high-capacity, super fast-charging batteries; ever more efficient and cheap solar photovoltaic cells; and eventually some form of inter-stellar travel.
If we do not, then our civilization is doomed to self-cannibalization. There will be an upper limit on our ability to produce new energy and effectively utilize it across an ever-expanding population.
*****
The sooner these old-school, baby-boomer, ignorant lawyer politicians in the House of Representatives who want to continue to underfund NASA's budget get voted out of office, or just die, the better.
In the future, we're gonna be doing all kinds of industrial activities in space.
To get there in the short-term, we'll need lots of energy. Mostly rocket fuel. Rocket fuel can be surprisingly simply. It's mostly a mixture of liquid oxygen and hydrogen. Both elements by themselves combust violently. These components can be found in water. Undoing the chemical bonds of water molecules isn't hard, it just requires some energy. This is where land-based photovoltaics come in for the initial boot-strapping steps required for the kinds of inter-planetary industrial activities I'll be discussing here.
Once an orbiting manufacturing plant has been established, construction of inter-planetary robotic vehicles can begin.
Getting the components for automated manufacturing into high-earth orbit will be pretty expensive. That's what the rocket fuel is for. Once the bootstrap plant and initial raw materials are in place, this step will not need to be repeated.
Robots will mine asteroids in the solar system for precious metals and also for raw material. Primarily, the raw material will be used to construct heat shields, photovoltaic cells, and of course more robots.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/
http://news.cnet.com/2300-11386_3-10012086-4.html
The precious metals can be collected into orbit around the planet, and heat shields fabricated and deployed to protect payloads from burning up during re-entry when returning to the surface of Earth.
Space-faring asteroid-mining robots will be comprised of several components.
First, ion thrusters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
http://www.techhive.com/
Second, photo voltaic cells.
Third, onboard battery cells, charged by the PV cells.
Fourth, onboard computer system.
Fifth, some sensors including radar, thermal imaging, radioactivity gauges, video cameras, and audio recording devices.
Sixth, a payload container.
Seventh, robotic arms wielding drills and grasping apparati.
The stored electricity in the batteries will be used to power the thrusters, onboard computer systems, sensor arrays and mining tools.
*****
There are lots of complicating factors at play here. Each complicating factor is an opportunity for a whole new industry in addition to the asteroid mining industry and the high-earth orbital robot manufacturing industry.
For one, there is currently a crisis developing in the mid-earth orbital regions above our planet. Over the past few decades, various space agencies have launched over a dozen thousand satellites, into low, mid, and high earth orbit. Those agencies have been able to collaborate to keep track of all of these projectiles whizzing around above our heads at thousands of miles an hour. Unfortunately, every once in a while, a satellite which loses its ability to steer itself, or which never had such an ability, will collide at high speed with another object. This creates hundreds or thousands of smaller projectiles also spinning around at thousands of miles an hour. It is nearly impossible to accurately track those particles. When those particles eventually collide with other satellites, even more debris is created, and it quickly becomes mathematically impossible to track that debris.
Soon, a point of no return is reached, and debris is flying around at extremely high velocities in random directions violently colliding with other objects in space, creating more and more debris in a chain-reaction. Eventually, mid-earth orbit where most of the current satellites are deployed will become entirely filled up with high-velocity debris.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/satellites/weve-already-passed-the-tipping-point-for-orbital-debris
It will soon become impossible to travel into this region of earth orbit without experiencing a high-velocity collision with some debris from previous space vehicles.
At those velocities, any collision with debris no matter how small will be cataclysmic and will cause complete destruction of any vehicle in its path.
Getting material into orbit to build a manufacturing plant will be nigh impossible with a barrier of other material spinning around the planet like space piranha.
In order to fix this, an entire enterprise dedicated to the removal of such debris material from orbit will be required. It will be necessary to create orbital robotic garbage collectors whose responsibility it is to seek and intercept all debris in orbit, and force this debris down back into the atmosphere where it will burn up upon re-entry, avoiding collision with any other satellites or vehicles along the way.
Once the initial debris is cleared to the point where travel back and forth from the surface to crucial locations like the mining robot manufacturing plant in high-earth orbit and the material collection station from which return-to-earth drops will be initiated, there will need to be a continued enterprise of garbage collection and orbit decay management.
Such vehicles can be surprisingly simple. They may be comprised of these components:
First, ion thrusters for maneuvering.
Second, PV cells.
Third, onboard battery cells, charged by the PV cells.
Fourth, onboard sensors including radar and infrared imaging.
Fifth, onboard computer system for navigation, trajectory tracking, and object identification.
Sixth, rudimentary docking ports and shock absorbers for low-speed contact with debris once a speed and attitude match has been acquired. (This might also be done with electromagnets.)
These robots will basically perform tugboat-like maneuvers for vehicles, satellites, and debris in space orbit around the earth and other bodies where inter-orbit travel is necessary.
*****
Once a solar-system raw material supply chain is established, the large-scale boot-strapping of the planet's surface energy harvesting apparatus can begin.
This initial step is necessary to acquire the energy necessary to begin large scale inter-orbital construction of larger and more effective solar-energy harvesting infrastructure.
*****
Long-term, there will be many obstacles to success for our civilization due to its ever-expanding population.
Jevon's Paradox states that no matter how many energy and technological advances our industrial system makes, there will be an ever expanding consumption of the surplus energy generated by such efficiencies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
What this means for our civilization is simple, if we are to avoid an Eugenic struggle amongst our own species, then we must develop a number of efficiency maximizing technologies, and soon.
These include room-temperature super-conductors; super high-capacity, super fast-charging batteries; ever more efficient and cheap solar photovoltaic cells; and eventually some form of inter-stellar travel.
If we do not, then our civilization is doomed to self-cannibalization. There will be an upper limit on our ability to produce new energy and effectively utilize it across an ever-expanding population.
*****
The sooner these old-school, baby-boomer, ignorant lawyer politicians in the House of Representatives who want to continue to underfund NASA's budget get voted out of office, or just die, the better.
Monday, October 01, 2012
Election reform
Here are some ways that the political system in the United States could be reformed. These things would mostly be difficult to achieve, since the system is currently geared to retard change and progress by preserving existing power structures.
Only 5-10 incumbents lose their House seats every election cycle. That's about 1 or 2 percent of your representatives that get voted out of office. But wait, doesn't Congress have about a 10 to 14 percent approval rating? Shouldn't about 86 to 90 percent of our representatives be getting replaced every election year?
But there they stay, voted into office once, and going nowhere.
Your representatives do not have to worry about their performance while in office at all. They know that they will never get voted out of office unless they get involved in some sort of scandal. Please see the Wikipedia article about Congressional stagnation.
Now consider what can be done to solve the problems in our political system.
Shortest line districting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUS9uvYyn3A
http://rangevoting.org/SplitLR.html
Mixed Member Proportional system
http://rangevoting.org/GerryExamples.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU
Switzerland is a Multi-party Federal Parliamentary Democratic Republic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Switzerland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Council_(Switzerland)
Public funding for elections
http://www.aclu.org/free-speech/campaign-finance-reform
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-107publ155/html/PLAW-107publ155.htm
Eliminate the Electoral College
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/08/al-gore-calls-to-end-electoral-college-133927.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-edwards/electoral-college-votes_b_1917826.html
Overturn Citizens United v. FEC
https://movetoamend.org/
State convention to ratify Article the First of the Constitution
http://www.thirty-thousand.org/
Only 5-10 incumbents lose their House seats every election cycle. That's about 1 or 2 percent of your representatives that get voted out of office. But wait, doesn't Congress have about a 10 to 14 percent approval rating? Shouldn't about 86 to 90 percent of our representatives be getting replaced every election year?
But there they stay, voted into office once, and going nowhere.
Your representatives do not have to worry about their performance while in office at all. They know that they will never get voted out of office unless they get involved in some sort of scandal. Please see the Wikipedia article about Congressional stagnation.
Now consider what can be done to solve the problems in our political system.
Shortest line districting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUS9uvYyn3A
http://rangevoting.org/SplitLR.html
Mixed Member Proportional system
http://rangevoting.org/GerryExamples.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU
Switzerland is a Multi-party Federal Parliamentary Democratic Republic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Switzerland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Council_(Switzerland)
Public funding for elections
http://www.aclu.org/free-speech/campaign-finance-reform
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-107publ155/html/PLAW-107publ155.htm
Eliminate the Electoral College
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/08/al-gore-calls-to-end-electoral-college-133927.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-edwards/electoral-college-votes_b_1917826.html
Overturn Citizens United v. FEC
https://movetoamend.org/
State convention to ratify Article the First of the Constitution
http://www.thirty-thousand.org/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)