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Pessimippöpötåmus
03:19 PM

In reply to The First Three-Dimensional Image of a Mandelbrot Fractal Is Stunning
Behold, the nature's living fractal.
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SJ_Edwards
01:32 PM

In reply to The Oceans Are Getting Louder

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SJ_Edwards
01:16 PM

In reply to The Oceans Are Getting Louder

This nightmare scenario occurs to me:

Increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causes the greenhouse effect, increasing atmosphere and ocean temperatures.
Increased carbon dioxide in atmosphere causes acidification of the oceans.
Increased acidification of the oceans causes increased sound propagation.

The huge Methane Clathrate (Methane Hydrate)[en.wikipedia.org] deposits under the sediments of the oceans, habitually sitting just below their runaway breakdown trigger point, are destabilised by the heretofore impossible propagation of natural sound (subsea volcanic and tectonic events) in oceans of increased temperature and acidity.

Setting off a chain reaction of runaway explosive Methane Clathrate deposit breakdowns (and sound event producing events), which in a matter of weeks produce more greenhouse gases (methane is the most effective greenhouse gas) than the human race has produced in its entire history.

With predictable consequences.

The increased sound propagation effect, may be just the 'unanticipated enabling event' that turns the Clathrate Gun Hypothesis [en.wikipedia.org] from unlikely theoretical possibility, to instantaneous actuality ...

...and 'The End of the World' !!!
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Edited by SJ_Edwards at 12/25/09 1:30 PM SJ_Edwards was starred SJ_Edwards was unstarred

DrMathochist
12:22 PM

In reply to The First Three-Dimensional Image of a Mandelbrot Fractal Is Stunning
It's one possible generalization, but the creators tweaked it until they found something that looks neat. Not to disparage it, but it's not really quite so natural or deeply-rooted as Mandelbrot's original is.

Still, if all you really care about from fractals is "looks pretty", it certainly does :D
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Dirk Anger
12:18 PM

In reply to The First Three-Dimensional Image of a Mandelbrot Fractal Is Stunning
hmmm that looks like somethin my mom cooks... but in green
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Shai
12:07 PM

In reply to The First Three-Dimensional Image of a Mandelbrot Fractal Is Stunning
Do fractals emulate natural patterns, or do natural patterns emulate fractals?
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DrMathochist
12:24 PM

@Shai: I'd agree with @Hypnosifl that "emulate" is sort of ill-defined here. But yes, there are connections, largely in the sense that simple, growth rules (the sort you might find encoded in DNA that can only read what's going on in that particular cell) do tend to lead to self-similar large-scale structure, and self-similarity is one of the hallmarks of fractional-dimensional objects.
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LoganAdams
11:54 AM

In reply to The First Three-Dimensional Image of a Mandelbrot Fractal Is Stunning
I thought that was a tree fungus when I first saw it. It's stunning and oddly beautiful.
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ThisDudeRufus
10:06 AM

In reply to Ornamented Spider Webs Are Better At Luring Prey
Now I know why my neighbor has all the lawn flamingos...
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Vulcan Has No Moon
10:49 AM

@ThisDudeRufus:
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EugeniaBSG
12/24/09

In reply to Will The Recession Scar You For Life? Economists Say Yes.
Giuliano and Spilimbergo might want to expand their study to people who grew up during the Great Depression because my parents don't believe in "redistribution" of wealth or are "inclined to attribute success to luck". (They swear that once upon a time you could go to work and be judged on actual work performance and not how well you can do "happy talk" with co-workers.)

They do distrust public institutions due to the massive fraud, waste, political bribery, ever higher taxation, etc. and are royally ticked off right now because they see the Federal Government coming after their retirement pension to fund "universal health care".

Really, is it fair to "redistribute" a retirement fund that someone has put money into for 30 or 40 years to give to someone else who didn't put in the effort?
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SJ_Edwards
12/24/09

@EugeniaBSG: Playing Devil's Advocate for the moment :) ...

The DOW is up 65% since March this year, because the Federal Government 'Socialized' the entire banking system, with money they borrowed from the Chinese, to be paid back, during the course of their entire lives, by people not yet born.

If they hadn't done that, your parents retirement fund wouldn't be worth enough to buy a single loaf of bread, in the 'Weimar Republic' that would exist by now.

So your parents (and their retirement fund) are the direct benificiaries (to the tune of a 65% return on capital employed, in nine months) of an involuntary "redistribution" of wealth, the like of which has never occurred in any Communist or Socialist state.

Now, about this "fair" thing, you speak of ....
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Cash907Censored
04:47 AM

@SJ_Edwards:
SJ, you should read Amity Schlaes' "The Forgotten Man," before you pick a side one way or another on this matter. It's easy to be charitable with other peoples' money, and the federal government has been far too charitable over the last 16 months.

As for the assertion that some firms were "too big to fail," anyone that has taken a semester of economics knows how much BS that is. There were several other firms that were doing gangbusters during the days of the big buyouts, and they would have happily absorbed the assets of those who weren't. This is how capitalism works, and diversification is it's lifeblood. The problem with all of this "socialization" is that it inherently deters diversification, and the market simply cannot sustain a homogeneous portfolio. True, the DOW is up, but the dollar is down. So down, in fact, that American is at risk of losing it's AAA rating in the world economy. This is nothing to brag about, and to say otherwise is political spin, which most intelligent people know isn't worth the air it's spoken on.
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SJ_Edwards
06:15 AM

@Cash907Censored: Thanks for the book tip, I'll take a look (does it have pictures? I like pictures :) , although charts will do just as well).

Picking a side (despite all evidence to the contrary) has never been my forte, I've been a follower of Butch Cassidy's conflict resolution strategies since I was a little kid [you know the scene :) [www.imdb.com] ] and after I just went to look (And after I'd stopped laughing ...damn, I hope they show that movie again this Christmas, because I'm just too lazy to go out and get the DVD today), I re-discovered that he'd had something pertinent to say on modern banking theory, as well [en.wikiquote.org] :

"If he'd just pay me what he's spending to stop me robbing him, I'd stop robbing him."

... and a "Bah! Humbug!" to one and all ...
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Bootknife-Jackson
12/24/09

In reply to Will The Recession Scar You For Life? Economists Say Yes.
good. we could use a little 'mental reform'.
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archer8228001
12/24/09

In reply to Will The Recession Scar You For Life? Economists Say Yes.
You mean "What's heartening about this study is that it shows people who have suffered through hard times often come out wanting other people's money," right?
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darthsidious_7
12/24/09

@archer8228001: Couldn't have said it better myself. This appears to be slanted to a very specific ideology.
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oopsidoo
05:23 AM

@darthsidious_7: Not necessarily. It could be that these people who survive a depression later prosper, but having felt the sting of poverty, are more sympathetic to others who go through it. Certainly for me, having grown up poor, but now being comfortably upper middle class, I favor income redistribution. Granted though, I don't just believe in giving people welfare because they don't feel like working. I favor things like education credits, child care costs, early education and workfare. Things that offer opportunities, not handouts. But most Republicans, who live in the land of opportunity, don't want to extend those opportunities to those who don't have them.
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Sunshineyness
12/24/09

In reply to Will The Recession Scar You For Life? Economists Say Yes.
Huh? The generation raised in The Depression was also responsible for trying to undue the cultural revolution started in the 30's by their post WW1 parents. They were responsible for the Republican revolution of the 70's and 80's and were frequently quoted as saying welfare was for the lazy.

That so-called "greatest generation" were hardly proponents of socialist government spending. In fact any hint of socialism would have had them screaming "red!" That generation spearheaded the witch hunts of the 50's.

Oh, yeah, they used the GI Bill, social security, and whatnot but those weren't really total redistribution of wealth.
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HaysiFantayzee
12/24/09

@Sunshineyness: I think it was complicated in the U.S. by racial tension. I think white Americans came together but didn't want to share with African-Americans and immigrants (remember the Chinese exclusion act in the early part of the century). Unions of that era were bastions of racism. I think if our country had been less diverse, we might have had more of the solidarity that resulted in a robust social welfare state, as happened as a result of hardship in Europe.

I have long suspected that the reason we don't have universal health care is that ignorant whites don't want a penny of their taxes to help people of color. When social security was first put through, it excluded categories that had many African-Americans. I think our long, ugly racist history is still dogging us today when it comes to wealth redistribution and entitlements like universal health care.

Just try and have that conversation, though. We don't talk about these kinds of things in the U.S.
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SJ_Edwards
12/24/09

@HaysiFantayzee: People forget that Otto von Bismark, the creator of the first european social welfare state, asked his advisors what the average lifespan of a Prussian worker was, before he decided what age to start paying the old age pension.

When they told him 45 years, he said fine, we'll start paying the pension at age 70 [en.wikipedia.org] .

Social progress has been a matter of gradually whittling down the number of people who are deliberately excluded and discriminated against.

When Bismark started it all in 1889, he excluded literally everybody.

Every group that has been included since, has fought tooth and nail, to stop the next group being included.

... and so it goes ...
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darthsidious_7
12/24/09

@HaysiFantayzee: So I am racist just because I don't think my hard earned money should be redistributed to others? The only ignorance that I see here lies within your comment. People like you continue to make race an issue.

I am willing to have a conversation, however, when I try to I am usually told by people like you that I am a racist.
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CrayonSmoothie
12/24/09

@Sunshineyness: The generation raised in The Depression was/is a generation of rabid, bible thumping gay bashers too.
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CrayonSmoothie
12/24/09

@darthsidious_7: Did you attend public school? Do you drive on public roads? Will you expect the fire department to stop your house burning if it catches fire? Will you expect the police to show up if someone is trying to break into your house?

All those services are socialized. You are soaking in socialism. And people of all races pay into that system. So what does race have to do with redistribution of wealth?
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metaslugx
12/24/09

@darthsidious_7: You don't agree with the, ergo you're evil and a racist. Them's the breaks.
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HaysiFantayzee
07:38 AM

@darthsidious_7: No, that's not what I mean at all. I am saying that we largely missed the social welfare wave of the 20th century because of the inherent racism in our country's history, which still persists. We are a complicated, divided country in many ways.

South Africa for example never had free public education as we got in the U.S. and Europe because that was a way to economically exclude the black majority. (We had Plessy v. Ferguson.) When the rest of the world was trying to figure this stuff out after World War II, we didn't because we hadn't got civil rights sorted. And just look at the racially tainted swill coming out of the right wing now related to Obama. That fear has not gone away.

I am not overstating the impact of race nor am I saying that most people are racist, but it is a factor. Not the only one by a long shot.

And that really is my last word. I'm not going to enter into a conversation with anyone who says "you people."
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Edited by HaysiFantayzee at 12/25/09 7:44 AM HaysiFantayzee was starred HaysiFantayzee was unstarred

HaysiFantayzee
07:39 AM

@SJ_Edwards: Yes, I completely agree. Great example.
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Franklin Harris
12/24/09

In reply to Will The Recession Scar You For Life? Economists Say Yes.
Yes, of course. Obviously people who are compulsive penny-pinchers will want to turn over more of their money to the most spendthrift institution on the planet -- i.e., the U.S. government because their altruistic.

No. Not really. They do it out of fear and selfishness.

The reason the Great Depression generation supported social programs like Social Security and Medicare is because those programs primarily take from the middle class to give to the middle class. There's little real redistribution involved. (There's what people claim to believe in surveys, and then there's the politicians they actually vote for.) SS and Medicare go mostly to the elderly, which, not coincidentally, is the single wealthiest demographic in the U.S., and, also not coincidentally, the most politically powerful (which is why the promised Medicare cuts to help pay for President Obama's health plan will never happen.)
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metaslugx
12/24/09

@Franklin Harris: Social Security gives more money to the upper middle class then everyone else. by the time a man making 100k a year retires, he will receive more money from social security then he put in.

The poor people however retire very late, if at all, and get no money from it.
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Ogiri W Surie
12/24/09

In reply to Will The Recession Scar You For Life? Economists Say Yes.
Scarred indeed, I can hear 'Old Ogiri' now: "When I was your age, I was forced to walk in Cole Haans, 1/2 a block in the mild weather for a $6.00 Frappachino."
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lobstr
01:34 AM

@Ogiri W Surie: ..with only 4 megs of memory in my ipod!
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economy_domine
12/24/09

In reply to Will The Recession Scar You For Life? Economists Say Yes.
Those fine public institutions that failed to regulate the financial industry properly?

When the hell were to greedy bastards that profited from this mess born?
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zanyzapper
12/24/09

In reply to Will The Recession Scar You For Life? Economists Say Yes.
"What's heartening about this study is that it shows people who have suffered through hard times often come out wanting to help other people. Hence their commitment to "redistribution," whether through social spending, universal health care, or other programs aimed at redistributing wealth."

People wanting to help others? Maybe in some instances, but it's more likely that it's people wanting to be helped BY others, particularly in light of the other result that they are "more inclined to attribute success to luck." If you see someone else as just being lucky and not having earned what they have through hard work, it's much easier to think that they don't deserve what they have and you might as well take some of it and view the government as some kind of modern day Robin Hood.

Yes, there are the high-profile crooks like Bernie Madoff who scammed their way to the top. But the fact is most wealthy people DIDN'T get there that way. They worked, saved, and intelligently managed their resources to get there. Read "The Millionaire Next Door" for some fascinating insight on the wealthy. They aren't the people in the McMansions, driving Escalades and getting boob jobs. And many of them are very generous. How is it fair to just come in and take what they have?
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Vulcan Has No Moon
12/24/09

@zanyzapper: "How is it fair to just come in and take what they have?"

We're all for taking what they have because they didn't earn it through blood, sweat, and tears. They earned it on somebody else's blood, sweat, and tears. In all likelihood their lives and education were heavily subsidized by the taxpayer. Whether it was in the form of public education (kindergarten thru college), corporate bail-outs, public transportation and roads, public utilities (gas, electric, water, sewage, trash pick-up etc), armed forces, police, fire, and ambulance services, those people decrying paying taxes are the greatest welfare whores of them all. During their lives they've sucked down more tax dollars than they've ever paid in. And they expect still more when they reach retirement age: Socialized Medicine (Medicare) and Social Security for them.....but not for anyone else.

They've taken and taken all their lives...but gawd 'elp us if they're ever expected to pay in! Then they piss and moan about how they've "pulled themselves up by their bootstraps"...without mentioning they did it standing in somebody else's boots and wearing borrowed socks.
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oopsidoo
05:31 AM

@Vulcan Has No Moon: I'd disagree with you on this point. The money for public schools and public roads are equally available to the middle class as well. Their taxes paid into it. Social security is paid into and paid out in proportion to what you put in. Welfare on the other hand is given to only a few and has nothing to do with what you put into the system. And since 70% of all federal tax dollars come from the top 10% of income earners, it's the rich subsidizing the rest of society anyway.
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Edited by oopsidoo at 12/25/09 5:39 AM oopsidoo was starred oopsidoo was unstarred

Vulcan Has No Moon
12:06 PM

@oopsidoo: People with children pay less taxes. The more they have the more discount they get. People with children essentially get more services back than what they pay in. Therefore, all those children are essentially getting a free ride until adulthood. During their tax-payer subsidized stint in college those brats become libertarians and start whining about all the taxes they'll have to pay when they graduate.

The rich do pay more in income taxes but it makes up for the very little or nothing they pay in corporate taxes. Take for example former AIG CEO Martin Sullivan, his yearly compensation, if you add up all the perks and benefits and bonuses with his salary, was $47 million dollars. However, AIG's corporate tax burden is probably zero (just like 83% of America's corporations) thanks to off-shore tax havens. And while AIG pays very little or nothing in the way of taxes, they happily took $182.5 billion dollars in American Tax-Payer money in the form of a bail-out. So you see it is perfectly fair to go after every single penny of Mr. Sullivan's earnings.
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Edited by Vulcan Has No Moon at 12/25/09 12:11 PM Vulcan Has No Moon was starred

Vulcan Has No Moon
12:07 PM

@Vulcan Has No Moon: I have more sources but here's a couple:

[tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com]

[www.taxfoundation.org]
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Edited by Vulcan Has No Moon at 12/25/09 12:10 PM Vulcan Has No Moon was starred

Poodle_Heart
12/24/09

In reply to Will The Recession Scar You For Life? Economists Say Yes.
If this is the demographic last gasp of 40 years of racist, demagogic Republican rule, so be it.

If this is what it takes for white people to get over thinking that social welfare programs are for The Other, and to learn that the vast majority of the poor in this country are white, and not The Other, so be it
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Miss Anita Manbadly
12/24/09

@Poodle_Heart: Well said. I was raised by people who told me that all big city blacks were on welfare. The scales certainly fell from my eyes when I learned as an adult that the majority of welfare recipients were and are rural whites.
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Poodle_Heart
06:44 AM

@Miss Anita Manbadly: Truth. Also, rap music and drugs: there aren't enough black people in the country to buy all that's sold; it's white people buying it
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Poodle_Heart
06:44 AM

@Miss Anita Manbadly: Also, rural poverty is house by house and hard to make into a tv story. Urban poverty is block by block, and much easier to show on the evening news.
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Miss Anita Manbadly
04:35 PM

@Poodle_Heart: Oh, I'm well aware of that, too -- my (poor, black) neighbors are under constant surveillance because they persist in selling drugs to (wealthy, white) teenagers. Somehow the teenagers never seem to land in hot water.
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Plague
12/24/09

In reply to Will The Recession Scar You For Life? Economists Say Yes.
Redistribution more likely than not means "gimme some of what they have".
But it is nice to think all altruistic and shit on Xmas eve.
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Unsolicited Advice
12/24/09

@Plague:

That about sums it up.
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nygenxer
12/24/09

In reply to Will The Recession Scar You For Life? Economists Say Yes.
These studies always make me wonder where the author has been for the last 25 years. You don't need to look any further than GenX to see how getting repeatedly fucked economically affects a generation.
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SJ_Edwards
12/24/09

In reply to Will The Recession Scar You For Life? Economists Say Yes.
I doubt this change of observed attitude is based on altruism, or even enlightened self-interest, it's based on the memory of sheer terror.

Once you've had random, unnegotiable, irrevocable catastrophe, personally demonstrated to you, you no longer believe that others are to blame for it happening to them.

There are no Republicans in foxholes.
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BIGE1312
12/24/09

@SJ_Edwards: Actually, most foxholes are full of republicans.
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SJ_Edwards
12/24/09

@BIGE1312: There is a distinction between 'republicanism' (small r), based on the Hobbesian, res publica, concepts of social contract, resistance to tyranny, public service and the pursuit of civility (which has [and forever will] lead persons of conscience to be [and die] in foxholes) and 'Republicanism' (large R) ...

... which is best described through the words of a young girl (who once loved him so) to Scrooge, in the Dickensian paean to personal moral conscience and individual action, 'A Christmas Carol':

"You fear the world too much ... All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid approach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you."
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Edited by SJ_Edwards at 12/24/09 7:31 PM SJ_Edwards was starred SJ_Edwards was unstarred

SJ_Edwards
12/24/09

@BIGE1312:
Republicans have long abandoned republicanism, it is high time that republicans abandon Republicanism.
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Vulcan Has No Moon
12/24/09

@SJ_Edwards: There are no politicians in foxholes.
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SJ_Edwards
12/24/09

@Vulcan Has No Moon: I bow and concede :)
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CrayonSmoothie
12/24/09

@Vulcan Has No Moon: ...nor pro-war pundits, nor war profiteers, nor bankers...
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Deftly
01:05 AM

@ SJ_Edwards:

I am so very glad you are here commenting, sense seems to shut the lunatics up!

@CrayonSmoothie: @Vulcan Has No: As i enjoy ur astute comments too...
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