Bikerman

Does the pay for post option work by batch processing or is it relatively real-time? I'm wondering because I've posted quite a few postings and I'm still at $0. So either my postings are not as good as I hoped or the system perhaps batches updates or does them at a set time interval??

Yep that's all it is. As has been said, don't think of it as part of the variable, it is just something you do to it. It's not quite the same as a multiply or add because it doesn't actually operate on the variable directly - it acts on two values of the variable - an old one and the current one. It is assumed that the variable is doing what the name implies - varying - changing. Obviously there would be no point trying to measure the delta for the height of a car - you wouldn't expect it to change (much anyway), so why measure it? Velocity - ah that changes. Faster - more velocity (in a paricular direction) which is what we get for pressing the accelerator pedal. So acceleration is change in velocity and velocity is change in distance. We can now use our new symbol to write it properly in maths Velocity = Δdistance/time acceleration = Δvelocity/time Now, if we travel at velocity 10m/s for 10 seconds we can do some sums: 10=Δdistance/10 Δdistance = 10*10=100 metres so we travel 100 metres. And if we start at 10m/s and then after 5 seconds we are doing 20m/s how much acceleration? acceleration = 10/5 = 2 m/s^2 or 2 metres per second per second. So every second we get another 2 metres per second quicker... With me?

That seems to me like a very arbitrary and fairly weird choice. Rallying? NASCAR? Formula 3000? Formula Ford? They all have to go on the same principle, not to mention private planes, live music concerts..etc. Seriously, why Formula 1? 24 cars racing for 2hrs 30min every fortnight? In fact each team uses around 200,000 litres of fuel per season (including practices, tests and the races themselves.I think there are currently 11 teams. So that gives us 2,200,000 litres per season. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_One_car http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ The UK uses 1,763,000 bbl/day which is 159*1763000 = around 280 million litres. So the entire fuel for a formula 1 season uses as much fuel as the UK uses in about 11 minutes. I don't think that is going to tip the balance..do you? Well that was sort-of my point - you keep progressive taxation rather than implement a welfare tax - which is actually what Zakat is. You must live in some bad conditions, sorry about that. But the truth is that not everywhere is as you describe. Most of the people I know are just normally selfish and would certainly not behave criminally for some trivial reason of a small profit. People I find are driven by things other than money. But the trouble is that unless you have enough then you don't have the privilege of being motivated by higher things than money because you have to get the money you need. I see no reason why they should not tie the salary of top management to a multiple of the lowest paid in the company. Some firms actually do. Then you say - OK, the highest paid - Chief Exec or President or whatever - they will earn no more than 75 times the lowest salary we pay. It is still a huge amount more, but it is not obscene as many are. It also makes them think about their employment practices - it suits the boss to have well paid and well motivated staff. Companies have the power to do this - as do some groups of shareholders, but they always back away using the 'got to pay the best to get the best' argument that doesn't seem to apply to doctors, nurses, teachers or in fact anyone but senior execs. The notion that the chief exec of BP actually earns his Ł10 million a year basic plus bonuses and shares seems a little ironic to me, in light of his public peformances. He looked to me like a man worth a good engineers salary - 40k per year. Neither do I believe there is some special magic talent for business that we don't see but which is what his secret is. He rose up through the company, said the right things, pressed the right palms and shafted the right obstacles. One year he is worth maybe 100,000 and next minute he is worth 10 mil. I'm not particularly picking on him, I don't believe ANY chief exec is so outstanding, so irreplacable that they are worth the money they all give themselves by having the right people on the remuneration committee for George and George will have the right people on Edwards remuneration committee and Edward will......etc The secret is to never stop playing the record that 'you have to pay the best to get the best'..... So, that's my suggestion. Peg exec pay to a multiple of the minimum wage that the company pays.

If you are older than 48 then whoops sorry dad, but if you are younger then stop whinging sonny :-)

I can give you the legal position if you like (for the US). Hosting warez is illegal no question - but I don't think anybody doubts that. Linking to warez - grey area now under DMCA and it is possible to construct a legal site that complies and still has links (and even the actual copyright material). Yes, I know it sounds daft, but how do you think youtube and similar sites do it? There are some major loopholes in the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act), Wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act In reality most small time hosters or linkers are required to take the information down, then that is it - and even then it is not always cut and dried: (same wiki source) So it is a new situation at the moment and the courts are still establishing what the law actually means. I'd rather not get involved because of the hassle, and then there is the question of what, at the end of the day, are you going to make for such links? Even with aggressive referral and advertising payments it isn't going to be much....

Not really.They don't stop earning money so the rich man who earns Ł250,000 per year each year gives 2.5% to the poor and the poor man who earns Ł10,000 per year each year gets a suplement of x from Zakat. How does that close the gap? It is just the same as having a 2.5% income tax on high earnings. It doesn't close the gap, it maintains it. Have you ever met a rich person who would say that their money is idle? I haven't. It will be busy somewhere making more money - investments, speculations, bonds...etcNew money is added to the economy in line with increased productivity. This is, of course, bad news for the poor because another way of saying increased productivity is doing more work with less people. They get a weekly benefit cheque for about 50-70 quid (depending on age and whether they have disabilities or other issues). My argument was not about violence not increasing. I was specific. It is decreasing and doing so very markedly. That means that simply doing nothing will, eventually, lead to much lower violence. I doubt it will ever drop to zero - that seems unrealistic given human nature - but drop it most certainly will, unless there is some massive shift - such as fresh water running out, global warming making some counries uninhabitable etc, in which case we will see attempted mass migrations followed by countries closing borders and soon after open warefare for the remaining resources. About that you can do nothing except change your own behaviour to make it less likely.

No problem, I figured you must have a problem with the image. Which browser did it not work in, just for interest?

But hold on - what I wasn't saying is that people are responsible for the actions of their ancestors. Yes, it is certainly correct to acknowledge that they did evil deeds because not to do so is to lie, but it isn't either necessary or, I believe particularly sensible to apologise for, or take responsibility for those actions in some way. People are responsible for what THEY do, nothing else. Sometimes it can be what they don't do and should have done. Sometimes it can be for encouraging someone else to do something, or not trying to stop them, but in no case can it be for the actions of another, particularly before one was born. To the extent that racism still exists (and it does) then I am responsible for my actions in regard to that. If I don't speak up when I hear racist things said, then I believe I am tacitly condoning it. What about if the person saying it is 7 foot 9 or has a bunch of mates with him? I would love to say that in that case I don't have a responsibility, but I don't believe that to be true. Certainly I would try to avoid violence, but not at the cost of ignoring it. That's a pretty tough bar I'm setting, but I only have the right to set it for me, not for others, and by the same token I do not accept anyone else's authority to set MY moral 'bar'.When our Prime Minister apologised for the way Alan Turing was treated after the war* then I believe that was right - even though he had nothing to do with it, because he was speaking as leader of the country on behalf of the country, including some who WERE responsible for his treatment. It gets more problematic for older events. Should our PM apologise for slavery? That is a tough one for me. On balance I think not. My reason is that there is nobody alive today who could have been involved, and once you start apologising for historical events then where do you stop? You next have to apologise for the Chinese Opium Wars, the Indian Raj....and on and on, until the very act of apology becomes cheapened and devalued. So, in short I believe you are responsible for your own actions UNLESS you have a specific position of authority that makes you responsible for others, and in any event you cannot be responsible for things that happened when nobody who was responsible for those events is still around. * For those who don't recognise the name, Alan Turing was a mathematician who worked at Bletchley Park Cryptography centre during WW2 and helped to crack the German Enigma Codes - something which I believe shortened the war by at least a year and possibly two. No mention of Bletchley was made after the war because the technology was still secret (they had the first programmable computer - Colossus, and even today many text books don't even mention it, let alone give it the rightful position of first). Turing was gay - openly so since he refused to lie about it. He was deemed a security risk after the war ended and was eventually arrested for homosexual 'relationships' with a friend of his (who was over 21). He was given the choice - Prison for an indefinite period or chemical castration using female hormones. He took the hormones and it changed his whole physiology - his voice rose in pitch and he developed breasts. After months of this he could take no more and poisoned himself. It still makes me cry with sadness,anger and shame to think how he was treated. He became a hero of mine when I learned about him on my undergraduate course, both for his genius, and especially for his honesty. Since then I joined a group which campaigned for a public apology for his treatment and we got our wish after petitioning the PM. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8249792.stm

Here's the first in a few maths questions I'll post to test yourself and/or keep your hand in with basic maths/trig. This one is not too tricky, but you need to remember basic trig. Simple question - find x PS - Mods: If this is best in another forum please feel free to either shift it or get me to repost. I tried to find the best fit for it, and I didn't think it would be right in the jokes forum, so this seemed the best....

Really? I need money for my food - the shopkeeper always insists on having some off me before he lets me take the food home...

Now I think you might have frightened the poster by jumping into calculus before they got difference sorted, which is why I left it out....just a thought (I hate to see people scared of maths - it is fun as well as a vital tool/skill)

No need, you nailed it. ΔV = V1-V2 (ie take (subtract) the end value from the start value and that is your delta (difference))You will normally see delta as the capital Greek letter above (an equilateral triangle). If you see the lowercase Greek letter (δ) then that is likely to be a related concept called a differential - then you get into calculus - but don't be scared off by that because it is really useful and the maths gets very pretty.At the intro level then you will be meeting delta as differences in velocity, as stated previously. You might also meet it as a way of calculating the slope of a straight line graph:ΔY/ΔX=slope

PS - I watched the Bill Gates presentation but still got no nearer to understanding what 'Terra' power generation is. Fortunately one of the physicists on my home forum knew. It is simply a different design of nuclear reactor that uses waste uranium without enrichment. It's actually not so different from existing technology (Fast-breeder RR1 design) and I think calling it 'new' is a bit of hype.

Yes. I know when the Napoleonic wars were - the point was that the taxation owed nothing to Zakat, it was setup in a hurry and there was no reference to Islamic systems. As for taxation in earlier times - no, it wasn't the 'King's Earnings'. The ancient greeks had a complex system of taxation - comparable with anything the later Islamic countries developed - which included wealth tax, import taxes and duties, taxes for public buildings and works etc etc. Likewise the Romans (who didn't have any kings and developed taxation long before Augustus started the imperial era). But now you are talking about hypothetical dreams, not real solutions. It wouldn't make any difference at all to remove inflation and interest - that would simply fix the difference at a certain disparity, not even it up. Also bear in mind that inflation hits the poor much more, so it would actually enhance any unfairness in wealth. If all your money has to be spent on food to live, inflating the price of food is a killer. A fixed-percentage system Actually they won't, at least not here in the west. Most poor people are poor because they have no work. Life on the dole becomes a habit - you stay in bed all day because there is nothing to do. It is hard to imagine an 'easier' life than that. The trouble is that people don't actually want an easy life - they want an active challenging life. Compare and contrast with the corruption in centuries gone by when leaders didn't need to worry about being re-elected - I think you will find that the institutions of the middle-ages were hugely more corrupt than today - including religions, as well as states. That's why I gave you the link to Pinker's work. That considers the whole world over history and shows quite conclusively that the world is becoming less violent. It really isn't something open to debate - it is a fact.I'm not getting into the debate about the US in this thread - but I know what you are saying and I'd be happy to discuss it elsewhere - you will find few people more critical of US foreign policy than me. It is much more than simply burning witches. Most people don't generally settle disputes with their fists nowadays; we have laws against assault and violent behaviour which are actually eforced; We don't regard blacks or gays as fair game for a kicking; We don't think that giving a kid a good hiding is a good idea - all these things have changed in my lifetime. If you look over longer timescales then the differences are even greater. In Victorian times violence was a way of life for all but the aristocracy. Before that you had feudalistic systems where killing peasants to set a good example was routine. The further back you go, the more routine violence you find. Really 'dude' - read the Pinker article.

It always amuses me when the religious start bickering about who's 'truth' is the real 'truth'.Of course Mormonism is built on a load of old nonsense..do you really have to think about it? Tribes of Israel in the US? Golden plates which nobody is allowed to see? You couldn't write it as fiction because nobody would believe it. If you really think your debating style is so good and your points so convincing then please try me for size - I've been debating the cream of religious apologists (Jesuits) for decades. I'm willing to be convinced, but you have to provide evidence, not assertion. And just for the smug Christians - Much of Christianity is also myth and invention, so Christians should be wary of throwing stones. And please don't give me the normal guff about the bible being accurate - it is so full of holes that I'm surprised it isn't used more widely as a strainer. I could take it apart in detail if you like and show you the logical and textual contradictions, the obviously invented parts, the parts that are obviously stolen from other religions...and so on. Here's just 3 simple questions to ask yourself, before attacking the veracity of other beliefs: 1. Where was Jesus born? Who is right and who made it up? Matthew and Luke? Paul? Mark? John? Here's a clue - the nativity is clearly an invention, since the Romans didn't conduct any census around that time and in any case never required men to return to their home town to register - that notion is completely bonkers. (The same question applies to the date, as well as the place. The reported dates do not hold water). 2. Matthew (1:2-17) and Luke (3:23-38) both give the genealogy of Joseph. Both completely different. Which one is right? 3. Why is Jesus not mentioned outside the new testament? Why do none of the contemporary historians even mention him? Seneca, Philo, Plutarch - not a word about him - and they all wrote extensively about the goings on in the region at that time. Pliny the elder, Damis, Justus? Nary a mention....odd that! You have to wait for Tacitus in 110CE to see a mention - and even that is about Christians, not Jesus, and is widely believed to be a later Christian forgery....

Hmm...I've heard nothing about it in my circles which worries me slightly because I'd expect the physicists to have heard of it - I'll have to do some checking. No, they didn't. Income tax was introduced here in the UK as a means of funding the war against Napolean. It was progressive from the start (10% for those earning over £60 and fractional below). Tax dates back WAY before Muhammad. The ancient Egyptians and Greeks both had quite complex systems of tax, not to mention the Romans. Also, your basic economic theory is wrong. The equalisation from Zakat is minimal. Do a worked example: Top earner £250,000 per year Zakat - normally implemented as 2.5% of one's wealth. After Zakat - £243750 per year. That isn't going to equalise wealth distribution more than a token amount. Zakat should be seen as an emergency welfare system rather than a progressive redistribution method (it isn't progressive anyway, progressive tax/giving increases the percentage as the earnings increase). Think so? Many rich people would disagree. You can't generalise from one person (I know about Zardari - he was here when he should have been at home, pushing his son as the next generation of the empire). I say it is more peaceful now because it IS. Picking a particular region is unhelpful - you can always pick somewhere were there is currently a war. I am talking over the world as a whole. It isn't really debatable, the statistics on violence are pretty clear. Here is an article by Pinker that I suggest you read. It will give you some facts, rather than simply assertions. https://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/pinker07/pinker07_index.html I am very sorry for the violence you are currently undergoing - I presume you are in Pakistan? - really I am. But look back to 1971 and to 1965. How many people died then in the 71 'Bangladesh Liberation' war? 10,000?. Then go back to partition in 47. How many people died then? 700,000? 1 million?

I don't understand what 'terra' is. I know the root word - latin 'ground' but what is 'terra' energy? You are right there - I certainly don't agree. Aside from any other consideration it is not logically possible for everyone to get rich under a system of tithing because no new money comes into the system. The best tithing can do is even out the differences between rich and poor a little. Zakat is not new and (apart from the name) is not particularly a Muslim idea. It isn't actually much different from income tax when you get right down to it.A better question would be - why should everyone want to be rich? I don't. Really? I don't see that at all. Most of the people I come across are similar to me - mainly honest but dishonest when they deem it necessary, quite generous to people they know but less willing to give to those they don't. That is, I think, how humans have been for some time and rather than getting more dishonest and more selfish I think it is probably the other way around. Well first consider the premis. Is life becoming more violent on average? Absolutely and definitely not. Life is almost unimaginably less violent today than even within my lifespan (48 years). The further back you go, the more violent it gets.http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Not really. OK - take a real case (my in-laws). They run a newsagent. It is now in a very posh area but it wasn't when they bought it 45 years ago. Likewise their house was quite reasonable when they bought it but is now worth a mint. Their friends socialise at a local and very exclusive golf club (membership several thousand pounds) so they are naturally members. Now, they could live in a house that wasn't worth a million, they could sell the shop and buy a smaller/cheaper property and they could find new friends. So are the million pound house and the golf club membership luxuries or 'what they need to live'? Now that is a real example, but there are many more extreme ones. What about the top executive who meets his clients at the Ritz Grill because it creates a good impression, even though lunch costs Ł200 plus each. Luxury? What about the executive who owns a Lear Jet because he reckons the time it saves is worth the price? Luxury or not? It is very easy to justify all sorts of things that I would regard as luxuries as being 'necessary to live life' - especially if one lives a life in which luxury is routine and widespread...

Over and above what? Bread and water?What many people do is expand spending to fit income. If you have a monthly outgoing of $1000 for the mortgage on your $500,000 home, and $500 repayment on the speedboat, and $600 for food mail-order from Harrods etc...then at the end of the month you might have little left over for 'luxuries' - but your luxuries are 'built-in' to the monthly expense....

As I said at the start, the discussion will not really progress until luxury is defined, because it is central to the question.

There is also a bit too much polarisation in the descriptions to date. The UK has a history of mixed government with soft-socialism alternating with one-nation Toryism (which wasn't really true capitalism until Thatcher).If you ask a few Americans, particularly Republicans, they see the UK as one step removed from Soviet Russia - ie a pretty socialist left-wing society. That is largely because what Americans call the left is what we would call the centre-right. There is no mainstream left-wing politics in the US, just shades of free-market capitalism and small movements such as the US Socialist Party (about 1000 members). Bear in mind that any real socialist who fills in a visa honestly wouldn't get into the US...There is a central part of communism missed in the OP - communism (and socialism) advocate state ownership and control of the means of production to avoid the inevitable exploitation and alienation of the worker in any capitalist system.As for the Khilafat System, thanks but no thanks. As an atheist I get decidedly twitchy when any theocratic system of government is proposed. It is true that Muslim governance in some parts of Spain during the 9th, 10th and 11th century displayed tolerance of other religions, it is not true that there was any sort of equality. It is fair to say that it was fairly enlightened for the time, but it isn't realistic to portray it as some utopia, because it was not. I can't comment too much on other Muslim governance during this period because it is not something I have studied, but as a matter of principle I find any type of theocratic government to be entirely objectionable and insupportable. I do not see why, in the 21st century, anyone would wish to be governed according to what is essentially a superstition. I know that many people do - many US citizens would love to tear down the 'wall' between Church and State, and many muslims would love to introduce Sharia law into the UK. I find the notion abhorrent and would fight to the last against any such proposal.Secular government - of whatever type - is more successful in economic terms than theocratic government - look around the world and prove me a liar with any example you can find. In other terms, the notion that a single religion would produce greater happiness strikes me as a nonsense. We have had theocracy in Europe for most of the last 2 millenia and since Newton we have had progressively more secular Government. The millennium and a half of Catholic theocracy produced a superstitious double-thinking scientifically backward continent that barely made any progress in understanding the world and, in fact, relied on the texts of Plato and Aristotle for 'scientific' knowledge. Stagnation and degeneration for centuries.A couple of hundred years of secular government has had a slightly better result I would say. Anyone who thinks not and would welcome back a theocracy should be force-fed history until they see the error of their ways :-)PS @ DodgyPhil - I agree with much of what you say. The problem with any form of communism, I think, is that it cannot develop and thrive whilst surrounded by capitalism. Capitalism will always tend to produce a more dynamic economy and without restraint will inevitably corrupt any communist state. This leads to exactly what communism should avoid - an elite government brought in to 'deal with the threat' which in turn leads to the pigs living in the farmhouse.

Apologies for double post - dodgy internet connection

What natural resources would those be? The US doesn't have more oil left than other countries - it is about 10-15 on the world list of reserves, depending on which measure you use. It hasn't got more money than other countries - it hasn't got any money at all, those dollar bills all have an invisible message on them - 銀行. (Bank of China). I can't think of any major mineral or natural resource that the US has superabundance of (ie much greater that any other country) but I might be wrong - it might have most of the world's something or other, I just can't think of anything off-hand. You are right about the American car buying habits - even recent cost increases in petrol haven't significantly shifted buying habits. When it gets towards the prices we pay then there will be a very quick movement, trust me :-) Any limitation on available resources doesn't lead to a fairer society - just the opposite. The markets drive up the price until only the wealthy can afford what little is left. The US remains able to consume vast amounts because it is happy to live beyond its means, and because it has been top dog for over half a century and citizens have got used to a lifestyle not found in other countries (not necessarily better but certainly 'bigger'). The Marxist analysis is a bit out of date (ie the reason that the inevitable communist revolution didn't happen in most of Europe is because of the unforeseen emergence of a powerful middle class). I cannot see Americans going for a socialist revolution, even if the President got on the balcony, mocked the hungry and said 'let them eat BigMacs'. Many Americans regard Obama as a socialist, so any taste of real socialism would scare them senseless. (I moderate a largely US forum and I always get an interesting reaction when they ask my politics and I tell them I'm an anarcho-syndicalist/socialist :-)

'Fraid I think the 'technicality' is key.In my case they would determin my answer to be no - I don't think it is reasonable to expect me to give up or even cut down on my luxuries because that could be of no conceivable gain to anyone else. I don't desire goods-type luxuries or expensive services - as I said, my luxuries are rather simple affairs for a rather simple person. The assertion in the question is that by restricting luxury you allow others a better standard of living, or you reduce a problem like global warming, or you have some other positive effect. I suppose my bath uses more water than is strictly necessary, and my wine is quite expensive at about £15 a bottle (but that is only about 2.50 a glass). I don't think my collection of sci-fi would solve any global problems if I reduced it - though it would make my wife happy since there are several thousand books around the place.So all in all I think the question assumes a particular scenario where the luxury has a significant cost - and since mine don't then .........Now, if you want a philosophical and more abstract reply, then yes I believe in principle that it would be an ethically good thing to give up or cut down on costly luxury (costly as in cost to another person/people or cost to the environment). In my system of ethics that would be a moral act. But not doing so would not necessarily be unethical/immoral unless the luxury itself was of such a type as to cause unwelcome harm to another or others - and not in some abstract 'averaged' sense, but in a direct observable sense. Anything without that direct harm is amoral in my definition (not ethical nor unethical).

You might want to own a Mercedes Benz. You may want to buy the biggest diamond in the world. People want (as opposed to need) all sorts of things and, as I said, some will be luxuries and others may not be. Show me a child who does not want a playstation or xbox or similar...are those essentials or luxuries? * *which of course brings up the next objection. How do you define luxury? For me a great luxury is having a long hot bath - ideally with a glass of fine ice-cold Chablis and a good book. That is something I want to do (otherwise it would not be a luxury but a chore) but costs very little. One of my wife's luxuries is breakfast in bed - costs almost nothing except my time...Neither is a commodity or service in the classical sense of the word since neither involves a financial transaction and neither appears on any ledger or profit/loss account.