iNow

Well, I suppose that's one hypothesis... Here's another. On top of the falsely inflated home values... It was the lack of regulation, the lack of enforcement, and the loopholes in the legal codes which allowed banks and companies like AIG to evade their capital requirements and over-leverage their cash positions. So, basically, they got to lie to everyone and say their capital was one amount ("We have X dollars") when it was really another ("oops... we actually have Y dollars, but we won't tell anyone if you don't"), and then after a given amount of time we all realized that they didn't actually have any of that capital ("what, they actually only have Y dollars, despite the fact they've been telling us they have X this whole time and leveraging it into 36X dollars!") and the house of cards came a tumblin' down. Gosh... Your argument suddenly makes so much sense to me now. I can see why you continue to suggest that removing regulations and oversight would have helped with all of that. Hopefully, you've detected my sarcasm. I obviously find your assertions baseless and also ridiculous, but I'll tell you what... You can keep regurgitating what you hear on Fox news and try blaming this all on the media, the DNC, and the 2008 presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. That's almost CERTAINLY going to fix our problems and help us learn from the mistakes we made so as not to repeat them in the future.

Absolutely! In terms of sheer of performance, I think the heart is still the most amazing muscle we have, but in terms of performance, diverse capability, and adaptive abilities the brain is pretty righteous. That's all off topic, though. There are processing and performance questions still to be answered for the OP.

Would you consider semiconductor manufacturing to be "quantum engineering?" I'm unfamiliar with that term, but we do manufacture things at ~45nm scale, and are working now in the 20nm range.

Hi dichotomy - That's a good question. I'm not too sure. I think it has more to do with the density of the neural connections than it does with the chemical concentrations around them. I'd have to do some googling on that one to find out with more confidence and address your question. The idea of sodium and potassium concentrations having an impact on signal conduction speeds was speculative on my part, which is why I was cautious to say "could be impacted." Well, the simple answer is practice. The more you do something, the better you get. You form more dense neural webs for that activity, unused areas will be "pruned," and the processing speed will generally improve. Just to be clear, though, it's more than just "reading." Reading is a different task than "reasoning" and performing "higher abstract" functions... like thought experiments about riding on a photon at the wave of light, or wondering if trees in forests with nobody around make a sound when they fall. Either way, use it or lose it. Practice will help greatly. There may be some impact from good memory, too. Things like B vitamins and ginko and such may improve processing time since the processing is contingent on the ability to recall data and experience efficiently. Please bear in mind that I may be mistaken. My knowledge of this stuff is pretty rusty and I'm a little tired right now after a long day.

Padren has nailed it. The values of homes are dropping. We get that. However, if there are foreclosures on your street, your home value will drop even more. This is pretty simple stuff, people. Foreclosures anchor the average value of the homes in your neighborhood relative to a neighborhood without foreclosures. It's the same reason I want my neighbors to clean up their yard and take care of their house. The value of my home is contingent on the value of comparable homes in the area ("comps"). Fewer foreclosures overall = decreased drop in aggregate value of homes.

Trick question... No such thing as "U-tube." It's "YouTube."

I updated your quote to make it more accurate. [/pedantic]

I don't have enough information to comment. You're asking a hypothetical, and I could speculate either way. Let's wait and see, and I'll offer my views when/if it becomes reality. Obviously, my perspective on the best approach will depend greatly on the details and the identified need.

There are, in fact, many gyms across the country that already do this energy capture method. It's basically just hooking it up to the treadmill or eliptical like you would any other turbine. The challenge is that there isn't a whole lot of energy, so it's hardly enough to power a city. It can, however, power the lights at the gym, or the vending machines and stuff like that. Long story short, yes, you can do this, it's already being done, and it's a great idea not to just "waste" all of that energy output. Just keep in mind that the levels are too low to scale up to meet all of our power needs. It can just supplement them. Ideally, you would feed a bank of batteries with the exercise equipment and use those to power your needs at night, after your solar panels stop collecting energy.

Potentially, Pakistan. Not a happy situation, that's for sure.

Speaking of cute... 4cgJgnG9YzY

Who said I think that? What did I write that gave you this impression, and how is it related to my actual argument? And, I suppose, you're welcome to that opinion. However, as I was trying to point out to you, the evidence available to us suggests that it was precisely deregulation and the "tax cuts solve everything" approach which created this mess. The data supports my position, and counters yours. Again, you're welcome to your opinion on this matter, but your opinion is non-representative of reality. You're right. It is an "area" problem, not a national problem. However, that "area" is the entire planet earth, not small towns in rural US as you are trying to suggest. You are correct that the problem is not national, but incorrect in suggesting it was smaller. This is clearly and obviously a global issue, so the way you are attempting to frame your arguments concerns me since it so far removed from what has actually been happening. Are you now trying to suggest that the realization that our home values were over inflated and that we'd been experiencing unsustainable inflationary growth for the past several years is a direct result of rhetoric in the 2008 Presidential campaign? That seems quite non-sequitur to me, and a baseless assertion at best, but perhaps I misunderstand the point you're trying to make. As it stands, however, this argument seems quite silly. The point is, Jackson, that half the time I can't even comprehend your content because you leave out these key little sentence objects which we refer to as "verbs" and "nouns." You even did it in the first sentence which I just quoted. In this case, I'm not "arguing against your content" or against your grammar. I'm plainly saying that much of what you say doesn't make any sense, is incomprehensible and rather poorly structured, and I'm imploring you to take the time to type actual sentences and proofread what you write before hitting the submit button. I can tell you have a lot to offer to these discussions. You're clearly well informed about all manner of details, and I can accept that despite our obvious ideological differences and distinct approaches to these issues. However, too often reading your posts leaves me spending more time trying to infer what you intended to say and speculate about what it is mean (what point you're trying to convey), as opposed to digesting your actual argument and responding to its key points. In sum, stop leaving out key verbs and nouns so your sentences start making sense and I'll take you a lot more seriously.

I think we need to define processing. That means a whole lot of different things and refers to a whole lot of different activities and tasks. My number in post #4 was specific to the conduction of the impulse through the nerve cells, which is not generally effected by caffeine or amphetamines (however, could be impacted by sodium and potassium concentrations, as well as myelin sheathing). However, we really need a better set of parameters to address the "processing" question. Are we referring to pain stimuli? Are we referring to response times? Are we referring to higher and abstract reasoning? Are we referring to facial recognition? Are we referring to visual or auditory cues? Where are those cues coming from? How familiar are they? Is it novel or familiar? What type of cue is it? How much information is contained in the cue? Are we healthy or are we fighting an illness? How long have we been awake? Have we eaten or are we distracted? How many other signals are we processing in parallel? ... All of this must be clarified before we can even BEGIN to approach the question of "processing time," which is why I kept it simple and just addressed the speed of signal conduction in the nervous system... a max of 100m/s.

imDFSnklB0k h/t

While we can quibble whether it was a stimulus or a deficit cutting measure, it was $496B, and it DID help get us out of recession (contrary to Jackson33s claim of nothing but deregulation and tax cuts since the 30s... I suggest he's been watching Faux News for too long and no longer cares about his facts matching reality... he tends to say whatever fits his worldview, not relying only on what is valid and true when constructing arguments). Further, the events of 1993 were opposed by Republicans in EXACTLY the same manner they are opposing actions now, despite the enormous benefit gained by the 1993 actions of Clinton after they barely passed. http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/001391.htm In 1993, Bill Clinton's $496 billion stimulus and deficit-cutting program passed without a single Republican vote. But in 1981 and again in 2001, substantial numbers of Democrats acquiesced in backing regressive Reagan and Bush tax cuts which, also as predicted, drained the federal treasury. The table below tells the tale (see above chart from Bascle). (Note that figures are not in real dollars adjusted for inflation.) While some turncoat Democrats helped Reagan and Bush sell their supply-side snake oil, Republicans were determined to torpedo new Democratic presidents: <...> Inheriting massive budget deficits and unemployment topping 7% from Bush the Elder, Clinton's $496 billion program was nonetheless opposed by every single member of the GOP, as well as defectors from his own party. As the Times recounted, it took a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Al Gore to earn victory: An identical version of the $496 billion deficit-cutting measure was approved Thursday night by the House, 218 to 216. The Senate was divided 50 to 50 before Mr. Gore voted. Since tie votes in the House mean defeat, the bill would have failed if even one representative or one senator who voted with the President had switched sides.

Lots and lots and lots of concentration, effort, creativity, and years of study. It also helped that he was around other great minds to challenge, correct, and guide him when needed.

Huh? Is it possible that english is not your first language?

That's what happens when you cut funding to projects like NASAs Near Earth Object (NEO) program. http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/

Roughly 100 meters per second is the maximum. This refers specifically to the speed at which the chemoelectric signal conducts through the nervous system. To determine "processing" speed, you'd need to much more clearly define your parameters. http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?p=467786#post467786

And yet that's PRECISELY what got us into this fuster cluck... the relaxing of regulation and free market capitalism... fancy that. Again, this happened because of free market capitalism. The US stopped manufacturing at appreciable levels, and was definitely producing at a much lower level than it did previously (since the lowest cost products came from outside countries). The US became almost fully a consumer-based economy with no appreciable production nor governmental investment within our borders. This drove the debt increasingly higher, the savings rate increasingly lower, and then when people started losing jobs (from the lack of new job creation and the realization of actual home values... which had been artificially inflated due to lack of regulation... hence serving as the seed crystal on which this mess propogated) we entered this self-perpetuating downward spiral. So, again... it was the free market, lack of regulation, and also the general lack of investment from the goverment on internal needs which caused our significant drop in economic statistics cited by you here. Fancy that.

Not to parse words, but it is an important point. He intends to have them out in 3 years. I am confident that he is sincere with this, but obviously it will depend on the situation on the ground. Part of what is prodding us to get out by the end of 2011 is the SOFA, the US-Iraq Status of Forces agreement we have with them to withdraw by 31DEC2011. If circumstances change, we would likely put a new agreement in place (basically, disregard SOFA to handle whatever realities there are at that time). Clearly, nobody wants that to happen, it is, however, an important caveat to keep in mind while commenting on this. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates spoke plainly and clearly about this subject the day before yesterday on Meet the Press: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29453052/ MR. GREGORY: There is an agreement between the United States and Iraq to pull all forces out by 2011. That's what the president alluded to. SEC'Y GATES: Right. MR. GREGORY: What are the prospects that in fact U.S. forces remain in Iraq beyond that date? Which is possible if you renegotiated that deal, if the Iraqis said please stay. SEC'Y GATES: It's, it's really not a renegotiation, it would be a completely new negotiation. My guess is it would be at the instigation of the Iraqis, and, and we would just have to wait and see. At this point it's completely hypothetical. We have a signed agreement with the Iraqis that says, that says we have to be out of there... MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm. SEC'Y GATES: ...by the end of 2011, and that's what we're all planning on. MR. GREGORY: General Odierno, Odierno has said he expects and would want, in fact, U.S. forces there at some level, perhaps 35,000, at least until 2015. SEC'Y GATES: Well, I, I also have said that I thought perhaps we would need to have troops there beyond that time. That was all--what certainly my remarks were before the SOFA was signed. MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm. SEC'Y GATES: And before we made a commitment to be out of there by 2011. If we're there beyond that, it'll be because of a new agreement and negotiated with President Obama and, and based on what he thinks is in the best interests of our country. Video of the interview is available at the link.

Ask Pangloss. He opened the thread with that title.

Some are saying it will last for 36 months (3 years): http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a487Kmeq1Eog&refer=home Nouriel Roubini, the New York University professor who predicted the current financial and economic crises, said the recession may last a total of 36 months. It’s possible, he wrote, that the slump, instead of following a typical “U” shape back toward growth, “may turn into a more virulent L-shaped near depression.”

Schools doing well in sports also get more media attention (free advertising). Those donated dollars don't all go to "new stadiums" and many times can be spent as needed by the school administration. The extra visibility brings more students and more people donating funds. Let's say the coach makes $1.5M per year. His program brings in revenues of $12B per year. There are costs for the sports program of $6M per year. That's still $4.5M per year coming into the school from one sports program, and those funds can be used however they want (i.e. not just in sports or for new stadiums). Either way, I accept Mokele's point that this is not as common, and that most schools don't actually make money on athletics. Mine did (University of Texas), so I was just making the point that it's not beyond the realm of feasibility. None of this is on topic, though, so I'd prefer to leave it at that. It was an off-the-cuff comment at the end of Mokele's post and it's tangential to the discussion anyway. http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-02-26-educationbudget_N.htm [Obama] wants to increase the discretionary budget for the U.S. Education Department to $46.7 billion, a 12.8%, rise. Obama will save $4 billion a year by ending a long-standing government-subsidized college loan program, in the process beefing up a direct loan program created by President Clinton in 1993 that would make the federal government the only source of federally supported college loans. The subsidized program, known as the Federal Family Education Loan program or FFEL, dwarfed the direct loan program last year, loaning $56 billion to about 6 million students last year. By contrast, the direct program loaned about $14 billion to 1.5 million students. The switch would benefit families, said Rich Williams of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a student advocacy organization. "For years, lenders and banks have been overly subsidized to deliver student loans," he said.

What are you talking about?