lemur

If any acceleration is involved, then there would be force at play, right? So if there's force, then it can't be frictionless, can it?

I agree, if it were only about the ship, etc. it wouldn't be a resource waste. It's the fact that everyone who gets paid from the giant budget wastes resources, along with all the people they pay, etc. The basic issue is which forms of social-economic distribution foster the most deleterious cultural-economic practices. It's a tough question because of the complexity of large regimes of consumption-production chains that flow out of any given investment.

My initial guess I would have made based on intuition vaguely garnered from reading about various arrays would have been around 300-500 kwh/month, so maybe that is closer to accuracy for a fixed rooftop array.

Actually it's the other way around. It is unreasonable to reject logical conclusions unless information is found to reasonably undermine them. I said "tentatively" because I am not excluding the possibility that I'll end up rejecting this conclusion with reasonable cause. I just haven't heard anything that causes me to think that inertia isn't a factor in fluid-displacement that would necessitate friction. If any pushing of matter with mass takes place, there has to be acceleration of the displaced particles, which requires force between the objects pushing against one another. I haven't read anything that shows this to be flawed reasoning yet.

So a 1500sf house = @150m2, which could generate between 300kwh and 1200kwh per day, which would be 9000kwh - 36000kwh per month? But that's the total amount of energy from sunlight. So if you knew the efficiency of the solar panels, you could multiply the percentage, say 10%, and get 900kwh - 3600kwh per month. That seems like a high estimate, though, for some reason. If that's accurate, I think that would be a generous amount of power for a 1500sf house, especially if heating/cooling were not included. I found a website that estimates a household of 3 using 6000kwh/year (http://www.physics.uci.edu/~silverma/actions/HouseholdEnergy.html), which would easily be covered but I think that's just for San Diego which probably doesn't require much heating. Idk, could solar panels actually be sufficient to make every house energy independent?

Science often comes up with reason to deviate from cultural normativity in the interest of some rational reason. The famous movie, "An Inconvenient Truth" derives its title from the idea that science can generate truths that pose inconvenient consequences for heeding them. Since truth is presumably immutable in an absolute sense, the question is whether cultural normativity can avoid it permanently, or at least until some crisis forces changes to be undertaken? If so, is there any practical function to science or is it just a futile exercise in understanding things that refuse to change until they're forced to?

But wouldn't that be like saying that from any vantage point, the distance to redshift-disappearance was closer or further relative to other moments? I mean, you could say that the universe is presently inflating/expanding at faster than the speed of light at a scale beyond observable redshift-horizon, couldn't you? In that case, distance would always spread faster than light at some scale or other. Are you referring to the OP with "you?" or something I wrote in another thread?

Barriers to entry can be partial. You can create an elite market where the barriers to entry are high but no sufficient to produce a monopoly. The businesses that shoulder the high entry costs will have an interest in exploiting their advantageous position to avoid price competition as much as possible. This leads to oligopolistic behavior where firms will form a pecking-order instead of undercutting each other to dominate the market. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligopoly If you really wanted to produce Coke using Coke's (secret) recipe and brand-name, logo, etc. the secrecy of the recipe and the trademark on the name and logo would indeed be a barrier to you competing except by promoting a different brand as tasting the same or better. I'm not saying that a free market is necessarily the best way to nurture innovation or r&d. It might, but that's a different discussion. My point is that you shouldn't confound terminology by calling price-competition a barrier to entry. The way the supply curve works is that as the price decreases, producers are willing to produce less. If the price goes below the costs, no produce will produce the product because it is irrational to lose money. The demand curve has to begin somewhere though, so if there are at least some people willing to pay a high price for something, some producer may be willing to supply it at that price, though they will be able to sell very little. What happens is that once a producer makes one, it usually makes sense for them to make more and because they want more money, they discount the price to attract more buyers. Then, when other firms see there is a market for the product, they enter the market and attempt to sell as much of the product as they can produce. So at some point, the price gets low enough that some companies give up trying to lower their costs any further, at which point the remaining companies can begin behaving as a monopoly or oligopoly. If, however, such oligopolies are maintained due to high barriers to entry/exit or collusion to eliminate competition that doesn't cooperate in maintaining the most lucrative market for everyone, then prices can be maintained at artificially high levels. Patenting products is one way of maintaining such artificially high prices, whether or not it's a good thing or a bad thing to eliminate patenting for this reason is technical discussion. You shouldn't obfuscate the basic logic of free market economics to assert that some form of market control makes for a better economy. Just argue that instead.

I guess I'll just continue tentatively with the view that friction is at least partially due to inertia and that no substance with mass can be totally frictionless in all situations because that would mean no acceleration/deceleration of the displaced particles in their motion. I can't apply the information that's been posted on this thread to come to any other conclusion. Sorry if this makes me thick headed.

Does anyone know what the average amount of kilowatt-hours per month that can be generated per square foot of building area is? This would be a convenient way to estimate how much energy would be available per month for a solar-powered house based on its area.

I think the message is that shame is a sin. Even if you've sinned in other ways, being ashamed of them is just egoism. Better to redeem than bow in shame, I think.

You were arguing about what in fact constitutes monopoly and competition. I was trying to arrive at an example that you would recognize as a clearly anti-competition monopoly to show that there's always a possibility of substituting something else for the monopolized commodity. That still doesn't change the fact that there is intent to prevent competitors from gaining access to one's production methods, recipes, etc. because competition lowers the price you can get for something. So when a government creates high license-fees to enter a market, that doesn't form a barrier to market entry? These concepts are self-evident. "Barrier to entry" literally means anything that would prevent a potential competitor from entering a market. It could be start-up costs or fear of being jailed. Because buildings are commodities whereas patents protect methods, recipes, etc. If you copy someone's recipe, you still have to do the work of producing the product. Allowing multiple producers to compete results in cost-cutting that ensures the lowest possible price to consumers. According to the theory, firms are self-interested and rational and will therefore not price themselves out of business, but if they did they could just get back into the market again at competitors' prices without any barriers to entry. Perfect free market situations don't exist in practice, but the concepts make sense and it is of course possible to identify things like market entry barriers and other anti-competitive measures and eliminate those in an attempt to liberate markets (as so many social-democrats seem to hate).

In what sense does circular motion relate to friction?

I usually think of demons as very good looking people who are good at lying and manipulating you because of their good looks and charm. I.e. salespeople of sin and evil deeds. The most effective demon is convincingly disguised as an angel with angelic intentions. I'm not sure how this relates to your ideas in posting this thread. If it gets you off-track, just ignore this post.

Ok, but acceleration whether linear or circular still constitutes force, which would amount to friction right?

How about this: why don't you just give an example of clear monopoly that excludes competition and I will see if I can't find a substitute that allows competition? What you are doing is more like using relative notions of what is "sufficient competition" to count as such. This ignores the fundamental relational difference between competition and non-competitive positioning. Competition is when there are no barriers to entering a market. A patent is a type of market-entry barrier. Therefore patents limit competition. That their whole purpose!

Isn't that because lower temperature water in the air absorbs more heat from your skin than dry air at the same temperature? Moist hot air just makes it harder for sweat to evaporate from your skin, which makes you feel hotter because you seem to sweat more because the sweat isn't drying. If it is raining and I'm in a car, I usually use the heater to dry the inside of the windshield and use windshieldwipers to remove condensation from the outside. If you would run the heater, the floor might stay dryer but you might not be happy with the air temperature, idk. Just a thought.

I think the covering up could be a metaphor for the shame people feel of their creative power after they abuse it and realize they've hurt others. They feel shame and try to hide themselves from exposure of what they've done. Ever had someone do something that harms you and then deny it or avoid you? Did that make you angry? That's what that part of the story is about, I think. As for actual nudity, why should you feel ashamed to walk around nude?

You're right with your examples that patents don't prevent competition but neither does any monopoly insofar as consumers can substitute other products for the monopolized one. Anti-trust was used on telephone companies in the 1980s, I believe, but couldn't people have substituted some other means of communication for telephone? Couldn't telephony have been treated as a modern luxury and telegraph or mail have been considered sufficient competition? Why can't you just admit that the fundamental interest businesses have in patenting products is to prevent other businesses from competing with them once production begins. Who wants to invest in developing a drug and have someone else analyze it, copy it, and drive down the price the moment it hits the market? Patents provide the monopoly position that allows the developer set the price. That's the whole point. If there weren't laws involved to formalize the monopoly position, it would just be informal cooperation between companies to avoid competing. It's like when you leave a company and sign a non-competition agreement, you are colluding with your employer against the public, who would like you to offer the same good/service of your previous employer at a lower price. Everyone has a different opinion. Free market proponents believe that free market dynamics result in the greatest economic efficiency, which provides the maximum benefit to consumers. Those who prefer greater market control tend to do so from the perspective that it is better for the workers to prevent total cost-cutting competition. Imo, it comes down to would you rather make more money, work more for it, and have less control over your work or would you rather make less money but have less work to do and have the freedom to choose how much and what kind of work to do. Obviously the corporate-controlled variation of "market freedom" does not extend the freedom to the individual level but at least in theory a truly competitive free market would drive prices so low on everything that people wouldn't produce or consume any more than they absolutely had to and as a result people would have more free time to do whatever they wanted - just very little money to spend.

If an object has mass, changing direction without changing speed/momentum would require deceleration and re-acceleration, wouldn't it?

I hear of power companies "browning out" sections of cities during periods of high energy demand. I hear of gas and oil prices going up along with the price of electricity. I hear of renewable sources being the energy-frontier because of limitations and problems of fossil-fuels and nuclear. What exactly do mean by "shortage?" People doing everything possible to find more energy and it not being available? So basically it sounds like you're arguing for supplying as much abundant cheap energy as possible for as long as it lasts and dealing with shortages when they occur naturally? Isn't it better to practice cutting back early to avoid the shock of abrupt uncontrollable shortages?

Please just look at it at the most basic level. If a firm has the ability to produce and sell something cheaper than another firm, doing so reflects market freedom. If it refrains from doing so, it is submitting to limiting its freedom. By limiting its freedom and not competing with the patent-holder, it is colluding with the patent-holder to protect its market position. It does so in return for the privilege of holding its own patents and the temporary monopoly that comes with it. You could just as easily collude with your neighbors growing vegetables by agreeing that no one would grow anyone else's vegetable. That way, each person would have a monopoly on their particular vegetable. It doesn't require patenting anything, but patent-protection are a way to enforce the collusion legally by being able to sue anyone who competes with you by producing the same product. I didn't say patents aren't legal. I just pointed out that they are a deviation from a completely free market. As I said, my only point is that economic discussions should be lucid regarding what constitutes freedom and what constitutes control. Otherwise there's no point in even talking about "market freedom." Defending patents as market freedom is like claiming anti-trust laws are a form of market-control; i.e. it obfuscates the basic logic of differentiating free markets from controlled ones. People can argue that various forms of market freedom and control are good or bad, but does it really help to argue about whether control is really freedom or vice versa?

This thread is accruing informative replies, but I am still lacking a clear sense of how particle-inertia relates to fluid/gas friction. How can there be collisions involving particles with mass that don't involve acceleration/deceleration and thus force-resistance? Motion-change always involves force unless it is photons, right? Objects in motion tend to stay in motion unless acted upon by outside force and actions have equal and opposite reactions, correct?

God tried to warn them but it didn't work because they didn't know the difference between good and evil. If they would have known the difference, Eve would have known the serpent was lying and Adam would have known that Eve was giving him a bad apple. Moral sense is an asset insofar as it helps you make better choices but it is a mixed blessing because it always comes with some failure that you couldn't foresee. So you can always get through a trauma by being glad that you learned your lesson, but it was still a trauma. Maybe it would be clearer to think of the term, "fall," in the literal sense of a baby learning to stand and walk by trying and falling down. Every time the child falls, they learn not to make that mistake again, but that doesn't mean s/he's looking forward to the next fall either.

You're generalizing about Christians (and Jews) and you're failing to acknowledge that Christians aren't perfect Christians. As for putting forgiveness in human hands, that allows people to put conditions on forgiveness and exploit those who have sinned against them. God's forgiveness empowers people to help others but not by elevating their authority to the status of slave-holder. Christianity isn't a tribe, or at least it shouldn't be. Anyone can become Christian by reading the scripture and accepting the salvation and the teachings. The greatest Christians, including Jesus himself, were church-rebels. Christians do not have a monopoly on hell. If any religion promised unconditional bliss regardless of behavior, there would be no incentive to practice the teachings. Christianity comes closest to getting everyone to heaven by putting forgiveness for sin/blunder within everyone's direct reach, i.e. without having to satisfy anyone else's criteria. In Christianity, you can seek forgiveness directly from God and attain eternal peace that way. People just have to be taught how through the stories/teachings of Jesus because otherwise they don't have any faith in forgiveness except from the imperfect humans they've sinned against.