Indeed the lens does seem a bit spendy. For the specifications of the linked setup article, the mirror (31cm Protected Aluminum) runs about $2550 at Edmund Scientific.

Burden or gridlock. Those are subjective terms that connote a desire to catch up. Catching up helps no one involved in law enforcement.

They terms you should look for are "Artifacts and metrics".

Every department must spend more than it did last year. This year's funding is what it is because of what was spent last year. Next year's funding depends on what will be spent this year.

A lack of funding leads to downsizing and furloughs. Best way to secure funding for next year is to spend this year.

Money has colours. You get different charge codes for different actions.
Some charge codes are considered low pri / overhead. Others are considered necessary. If you're charging mostly overhead, and very little necessary, you have bad metrics. If you charge mostly towards necessary and little to overhead, you have good metrics.

Police have to arrest/charge people to look productive. That generates metrics showing that police are needed. If they can make sure to spend at least as much money on enforcement this year as last year, their jobs are secured. A department that's mostly sitting around, is a department that is not critical, and can get a budgetary cut.
So long as police are employed, they will find people to arrest/charge/ticket/whatever. Even if they have to stretch for it.

The same situation applies in court. Prosecutors are looking to maximize their convictions metrics. Their job is to get people convicted. It's not that they /want/ to convict people. That's simply how they charge their time, and how they get good metrics.

Judges don't necessarily care how a case goes. They simply want to charge as much time to judging as possible.

Actually "catching up" serves the interests of no one. And it's not that people are sitting down saying "Hey, how can I make myself look necessary". Some people do, sure. But most people are simply thinking "I gotta stay/look busy".

The "system" takes care of getting things to run amok.
Everyone stays busy so they can charge productive looking time codes, so they don't get scolded by management or downsized.
Departments spend all their allocated money so they don't get under funded.
Analytically, it looks like they are saturated, so they get more funding, and bring on more people.
The new people need to stay busy, and the cycle repeats.
The beast grows.

In effect, burden and gridlock are the food that keeps the beast fed.

This isn't simply a law enforcement issue. It's how government works. Every program makes it a goal to spend all of their funding, and look as busy as possible. No one wants to be cut, and looking like you're not busy is an easy way to be 'it' when there is a cut.

Rememer : All money is spent on payroll.
You don't pay the earth for anything.
If you buy materials, that's simply paying the payroll for the material supplier.
The entire cost of anything, is the total cost of all employees.
The only way to ever reduce costs, is to reduce how much someone makes.
Either by cutting the amount paid, or by cutting jobs.
Every year there's talk of reigning in government spending.
That means that every year, there's talk of cutting jobs.

TBH, newtboy, I don't know your background, or how much experience you have around government crap. I donno if this all sounds like a joke, but it really is this stupid.

-scheherazade

WTF, America... seriously *wtf? How is this not unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment?

This video shows clearly why you should never, EVER, under any circumstances, waive your rights. As long as you don't have anything illegal in plain sight to give them probable cause, they have absolutely no authority to search your vehicle without a warrant and you are under no obligation to tell them what your vehicle is carrying (thus doing the search for them). You should respond to any requests to search your vehicle or your person with "Officer, I know you're just doing your job but I do not consent to any searches."

This site has great advice for how to handle being pulled over in a way that maximizes your protection.

http://www.flexyourrights.org/faqs/when-can-police-search-your-car/

And that's the point. When you take shots, you are not taking them because of taste. You need a shot of alcohol, fast and taste is there to either mask the alcohol or make it easier to swallow. We taste less when it's chilled. Have you tried to bounce two fingers worth of any alcohol when it's luke warm? I do agree that it's a waste to use good whiskey like single malts (not all of them are good) but hey, if you can afford it, why not? No one should have to sink to bourbon, blended whiskeys are for that use (and are often smoother too, since they are blended)..

When it's time to enjoy the taste, then small sips and around that magical 15C (it gets warmer all the time) it's about aroma and how to maximize what is in the liquid. I would actually prefer the good stuff to be just under 40% alcohol, 35-38% would be better, brandy/cognac can be stronger than whiskey. Whiskey stones are quite neat, specially if the shot is brandy (which i like more and more each year, starting to pass whiskey, lets say brandy is often smoother without it bankrupting you)..

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Oh, then you do believe in AGW? If not, what's the straw man?
If global warming were the reason I do the things I do, you would be correct, going vegetarian would be a reasonable next step. The thing is I've done all I have done for personal, self centered reasons that benefit me personally, it just so happens that they mostly also benefit the planet. Because I intentionally didn't have children and don't believe in reincarnation, I have little incentive to attempt to save the planet beyond my lifespan. That said, I eat little beef, which is the worst meat to eat, and mostly chicken, the best meat for ecology (except for Iguana tail, a truly sustainable meat product).
CO2 staying at current levels dooms the planet fairly quickly. Raising those levels dooms if faster and more completely. I see little chance that we might actually decrease CO2 production levels, much less turn it to a negative number, which needs to happen if there's any chance in hell of stopping the run-away greenhouse effect. I see it as an issue that's far too late to stop, and can only be minimized at best, and will likely be maximized instead.
It's more like 4 billion that need to reduce their 'footprint', and another 3-4 billion that need to not expand theirs. More to the point, it's about 5 billion that need to not reproduce, while the other 3 billion only have 2 children at most. Not a likely outcome, but what is needed to solve the most pressing issues of the day.
Government is required to incentivize industry to follow suit and reduce their emissions. Without coersion, they'll do what's cheaper every time, and not cleaning up your own mess is always cheaper.
The only 'climate scientists' that are skeptical are the deniers, all others have examined the data and come to the same conclusion, just differing in the levels of change they expect. From what I see, they all underestimate the changes to come and ignore compounding features of the systems.
I'm not sure why you don't see this as a serious conversation, but that's on you.
I have given a scientific commentary. you ignored it and asked the same questions again, claiming they had been ignored. I'll try again....

CO2 saturation and temperature are linked, and have been proven to be so. Human production of CO2 is larger and faster than any natural CO2 rise in known climate history, well over 200000 years and up to hundreds of millions of years depending on what data you consider reasonable and reliable, and it's not only the amount but the rate of change that is greater than any natural climate change ever seen in the data. It's that faster rate of change that's the most dangerous, but the amount that determines the change to come. The system is slow to react, and is only now reacting to last centuries atmospheric changes. That means that even if we stopped CO2 production completely today, the effects will still be felt for centuries to come, and we aren't even slowing the rate at which we raise the amount of CO2 we produce, it's going up faster by the day thanks to those that either deny the problem or ignore it in favor of profit or simplicity. That's why estimates of the future are all lacking in my eyes, they all assume either static or reduced CO2 production, which is not reality.
We're hosed. The only option I see is to become self sufficient and die before the planet does. One more reason to not have children and instead be self sufficient as much as possible and enjoy what's left while you can.

What is his 'doctorate' in? It can't possibly be math or science. He doesn't understand either.
'I could buffalo a student, but for the first time I began to listen to my own explanation'....just OMG, so as a professor, you never paid attention to the object of study you taught! Ooooooooooh...long Johnson!
"most of them are fully formed organisms in their own right"....so let's ignore ALL those that aren't and say they never existed. What a buffoon!
This is the shining example of a 'scientist' that learned about 'creationism' and 'converted'...the problem being he wasn't a scientist (certainly not a good one that followed the scientific method), and he obviously knew about creationism before his conversation with the student (or was even more dense than he appears). This means he's a bold faced liar, like most proselytizers, that minimizes other ways of thinking and/or facts while maximizing 'belief'. Duh!
There is no 'conversion' possible, as science is not analogous to religion, the only conversion possibly would be one of his thought process, from a thinking person willing to examine reality and willing to be wrong (which it seems he never was) to one willing to believe mythos without (or contrary to) evidence.

I guess I should clarify; I think that the pace of our advances is being bottlenecked by our current system because we (as nations) continue to exploit via a relentless focus on profit rather than try to actually spread knowledge and tech as best we can.

A free education system for the world would be incredibly easy to achieve with our current technology, but as nations we don't even try to aim for such a thing. As universities and other education institutions (publishing companies, etc), we have no incentive to truly aim for this in the current paradigm because it reverses profit growth (which, honestly, in the case of education, is pretty much all over-inflated anyway). There's no malicious intent, no conspiracy, and noble goals abound, but we're doing it at a snail's pace out of selfishness.

Individual people act much more nobly than large, well-established institutions. You see a rather strong trend of such large groups behaving closer to the "rational" approach from economic game theory, i.e. the one where self-preservation and gain are maximized first and foremost. If we just rely on our institutions to fix the problems at their root or think that the incidental improvements tied to increased tech and knowledge are being nurtured even half as well as they could be, I think we'd be gravely mistaken.

I think we both ultimately hope for the same outcome, but we clearly disagree on the extent to which our current society(/societies) effectively move towards those outcomes. I would personally like to see us double down on those things that help move us forward.

EDIT: Some examples of ways we're bullshitting ourselves and not doing half as much as we could, for your pleasure.

Princeton University's motto is "In the service of the nation and of all nations" (probably slightly off on the phrasing, sorry), and they have BILLIONS of dollars of endowment. If they and their alumni network took this motto seriously, with their knowledge of business, tech, and science, they could easily bring entire nations out of poverty by simply helping local people adapt tech in sustainable ways to provide food for their population more easily, institute strong education access, and more. Harvard, Oxford, all the other big names are in similar situations. They can do SO MUCH, but just do little projects while answering to their boards about making sure to keep the cash flow positive, keep the endowment growing, keep using alumni donations to pay for things where possible. It's bullshit.

Most large organized religions are also lazy about service. There are many who do seriously just aim at food and medical aid, but most are more interested in conversions and extra tithes than eliminating poverty. How many Christian missionaries of various sects are there around the world? Of them, how many devote their missions to actual service of everyone they can to show their religion through their works as opposed to just focusing on bringing people into the fold via preaching? Additionally, the old "teach a man to fish" concept comes into play here; giving food is good, but we need to be helping people help themselves as well so that they can thrive.

I know shit is very complicated and the answers aren't easy, but we can EASILY do better than this.

Thanks for the links. I'm new to advocating for states' rights

> "What is the optimum size political unit for you?"
My main concern is SENS and reprogenetics for everyone who wants them. Making my purpose in life to be building my career maximizes my odds of making it to SENS. I'm fine with living in huge nations as long as taxes are low, law and order are maintained, and the government is fiscally sound. But I think all 3 of those issues are going to be under increased pressure.

>"Would you consider yourself Right-wing?"
No, I just consider myself a science and tech nerd. When I debate with right-wing people, they think I'm a hippy. I'm too self-reliant and career and family-focused to really care much about politics. I think we'll eventually have a Star Trek world. I dislike any trends that seem to make that outcome less likely.

But I read enough science to know that wool has been pulled over our eyes about human evolution and inequality.

>"What would you consider to be a meritocratic utopia?
I think Silicon Valley is the closest thing we have to a meritocratic utopia.

>"Why not scale it down to counties and municipalities?"
In my work, I collaborate with people on the other side of the country. It's best for us to work with them than with cheaper people in Ukraine or India because we share a cultural background and are within the same legal environment. It'd be much harder to take legal action against someone in other countries, and that means parties can't have the level of trust afforded by shared legal protections. Commerce increasingly interconnects the world, and dividing large jurisdictions into many smaller jurisdictions would be a drain on commerce.

He explains why Republicans are against it in the beginning of the video--they're looking to bankrupt the Postal Service (thanks, lobbyists) and this plan will save it instead.

As to your next point, no true capitalist is going to accept less profit. These places charge that much because they can. They're located in inner city or other low income areas where, if people don't have bank accounts, they also aren't likely to have transportation to shop around for the best interest rate. Which is why this plan is brilliant, because not only are the post offices already conveniently located, they're not running on a purely capitalist agenda (i.e. they're not seeking to maximize profit as their primary motive for being in business).

As to the last point, yeah, there would probably have to be modifications made to post offices so that they can store larger sums of money. But robbing a post office (or just messing with postal workers in general) is a federal offense, meaning you would get the FBI coming looking for you, not some keystone cops.

Indeed, and doubly so because I have not a single doubt in my mind that companies like them are 100% focused on selling to whomever will maximize their profits for them.

On the flip side of that, I also recognize that failing to build more advanced weapon systems does absolutely nothing to stop other nations and groups from doing so, and for all America's faults, and it's a long list, I can't think of many nations I'd prefer to see on the leading edge militarily.

At 32 years old, I feel as though my mind is far to old and set in it's ways to truly maximize on this technology. I recon a six year old could fly with it though. ...flying. How about paper airplanes with working lights and retractable landing gear?

It always slightly amazes me that the fact that little maxim works both ways is lost on most people. Sorcerers (well the good ones anyway) invented the scientific method, it can be just as appropriate to regard science as very advanced sorcery as you have done here. (modern science most certainly doesn't have a monopoly on "deductive truth" at any rate)

Then again I guess a lot of people get hung up on the superstitious nonsense most people associate with sorcery/magik these days.

Their loss!

let me guess, companies cut corners on the quality to....maximize profits?