Ah, I just saw that TerraPass was started by Wharton students. No wonder you guys play so fast and loose with those finance terms.

What would be the effect of giving your kid $6K for a down payment on a hybrid or electric vehicle?

That's a very interesting question. According to the rates on TerraPass, the average difference between hybrid and non-hybrid emissions is 6,000 lbs/year. This is worth $29.70/year in carbon offsets. Difference in gasoline costs (half of say $3.5/gal of 12k miles per year on 40mpg instead of 20mpg) which are about $1,050 per year. Using the Honda Civic as a model, the average price of a hybrid is $7,500 more expensive than the non-hybrid. You'll help save the kid $1,080 per year (assuming he buys offsets) if he pays $1,500 extra on the car.

So since hybrids only save $30/year in carbon offsets, that alone is not much of an incentive to buy one. There's also not much of an incentive based on gasoline costs, either, unless you plan on it not breaking for ten years.

Guys, let me explain where the problems lie with an example that has numbers:

Say a digester project costs $100k. After it's installed, it provides a savings of $1k per year to the farmer for ten years. Assuming a 10% rate of return, the farmer would only be willing to pay $15k for the project (the NPV given the above savings). [Note that I think the savings are more than this, but this is a good enough estimate]

If TerraPass steps in and pays the full $100k, it is the same thing as paying the farmer $15k today. This is NOT what they should be doing.

If instead, TerraPass does the above calculation and pays only $85k, this mitigates my cash-flow issues. [They might still play with the numbers and pay too much, of course.] However, this also raises another issue: does TerraPass pro-rate the carbon offsets? That is, if they paid 85% of a project, are they only selling 85% of the carbon credits?

Adam, Alex, I apologize if I'm being pedantic. But I have never seen a rigorous financial desctription of carbon offset activities. And the few articles I have read that delve into it are usually done to reveal shady dealings. These are very serious questions you should be able to directly address. You guys are teetering dangerously close to Enron-type accounting.

You point out the "many benefits" in your comment, but if the farmer is forced to transfer any cost savings to an outside investor, those benefits practically disappear.

That's the freaking point. These farms are businesses -- if they want to save money they should invest in it themselves (which many are now doing ANYHOW). If, instead, the farmer does the math and says "The NPV of the digester is still -$50k, I would need $50k more in order to invest in it" and TerraPass gives them that $50k, then great, that solves my problem. But I see no signs that TerraPass is checking those NPV calculations or doing their own valuations.

Honestly, if we isolate the digester business, I could create my own business plan: Set up a central facility with many digesters. Go around to local farms and collect or buy poo. Let the digesters do their thing. Then sell the electricity, bedding, and fertilizer back to the farmers at market prices. Farmers benefit from the money I give them for the poo they otherwise wouldn't sell. This result keeps the value added in my company, which I further invest in expanding. Any of my investors are essentially buying carbon credits, and also benefit in equity in the company. It could also gain capital from donors of carbon credits.

I would actually be surprised if this kind of business hasn't been tried. It may not be feasible without the free money that carbon credits offer. But the business outlined above ought to satisfy you hippies, and it would satisfy the major issues of cash flows.

Offsets are more like a direct subsidy to carbon reductions, which would otherwise be financially unsustainable. Adam, this comment really scares me. Using the digesters as an example, there are many benefits listed on your site: methane for generators, bedding for cattle, and fertilizer. This means that the farmer, after the installation, will pay less for electricity, invest less in bedding, and pay less for fertilizer. These are cash flows that he will gain every year. These are cash flows that my carbon offset generated. But instead of coming back to me, they are going to the farmer in savings. Thus, you are subsidizing the farmer.

[Offsets] have nothing to do with the electricity rates that a farmer pays. They certainly do if he uses the methane to power generators.

Adam,

Great to see you defending your company here. Would you mind addressing a few issues I have? I alluded to them in a previous comment.

Namely: How do you account for cash flows in your carbon credits? Ideally, you would take my cash and spend it on putting CO2 underground, never to rise to the atmosphere again. Unfortunately, you guys do more interesting projects -- all of which develop cash flows. And because these cash flows don't come back to me, they have to go someplace else. Are you able to guarantee that you capture these cash flows and ensure they are further invested in future projects? How do the auditors address this issue?

TerraPass is donating these offsets at or below cost. Alex, I'm not sure what this means... I'm not even sure you know what it means. Their costs could include their salaries and office space. The auditor is also getting paid, we can assume.

The farmer gets the money. He'd better not. That's not what the carbon credits are for, and they should not be considered charity. Assuming the money goes to the digesters, the farmer should also not reap the reward of any energy gains from them. He should continue paying his normal rate, except to TerraPass instead of the energy company. Ideally, TerraPass should reinvest that into other digesters.

What more likely happens is that these carbon credits go straight to the pocket of the farmer (in reduced energy costs) or TerraPass (who are reaping those payments if they don't reinvest).

I am skeptical that this is all heppening. The correct accounting that would need to go into it would be more difficult than Enron (the legitimate parts).

And actually, if the kid has a boyfriend or girlfriend, the parents should also consider buying some Cheat Offsets, because long-distance childhood sweethearts don't stand a chance to drunken college orgies.

Cory, will you link to my Online Indulgences site? (All major credit cards accepted)

While radiation from nuclear plants is far far safer than most people make it out to be, there are plenty of other effects that we shouldn't discount. People who fear depleted uranium because of radiation are complete morons; people who fear depleted uranium because of its toxicity may have a point. There are plently of rare chemicals that go into maintaining a nuclear reactor.

Personally, I highly doubt that the 22% disturbances can all be attributed to radiation -- you simply wouldn't see anything that high without smaller effects seen in larger creatures, e.g. rodents, in the area. That given, there are likely chemical explanations if those numbers are right.

Q: You know what the key to the original skit was?
A:

Q: I said, you know what the...?
A: TIMING!

Apologist. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

You are an apologist for criminal acts. You can't point to anything I've written to support this.

I implied that you were an apologist for a government that is known to practice indefinite detention without trial. Well then you would need to improve your reading skills.

It is the government's job to refute his claims. Don't conflate the issues of (1) the government holding him without trial and (2) the torture he received while there. If the police hold me for 24 hours without charge, and I accuse them of raping me without supporting evidence, would you immediately assume them guilty? Given the minute discrepancies already found and statements that lack details, there is a non-zero probability that some of his claims are not true.

Teresa, perhaps you should rethink the sentence then. Even life-sentences come up for parole.

A quick search showed the initial ban here, I guess. Based on his "old internet arguments"? It does seem awfully unfair when BB mainstay commenters can still get away with tired arguments not related to post.

*but most of his accusations as-is are not verifiable

...why don't we let the government refute his claims?
Um, sure, right after you prove that you didn't beat your wife.

I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Fine. Many people aren't willing. So bringing up the book is pretty useless when talking to them.

Regardless, I'd recommend being heathily skeptical of a lot of those accounts for a bit. He's started to make legal headway in Germany, but most of his accusations as-is verifiable. Hopefully he'll start naming names after the book has been out, and doesn't pose a risk to legal options.

J'accuse, Annoyedcapitalist. Right. Because I have obviously advocated indefinite detainment without trial. Repeat after me: When someone disagrees with me, they do not necessarily think the exact opposite of me.

...then sit down and read the review I posted from the Guardian Well that review brings up a whole set of other issues beyond waterboarding. And some people have questioned the accuracy of his book. And the only three people who have been officially waterboarded by the CIA don't exactly tug at the heartstrings. You're talking past each other, with him assuming you're talking about guilty parties with information, and you assuming he's talking about innocents.

JLBraun,

You could just put in lots of links to YouTube videos and Google images with only spurious connections with the post. Apparently those are of much more value to BoingBoing than thoughtful disagreements.

I find this disturbingly similar to displaying pictures of dead babies outside of abortion clinics.

Yea, those were my first thoughts as well. Except its going to be much less effective. The few people the US officially waterboarded weren't exactly pillars of the community. Those who supported the practice before are certainly going to ascribe all sorts of evil acts to the person its happening to. (Or they'll just think "Gosh - another airman in training")

I am seriously not happy over having to disemvowel JLBraun's posts. Sorry, I don't know what preceeded all this. Most of JLBraun's comments address the issue without being trollish (unlike SFunk). And I didn't see him dominating the conversation any more than Antinous or Takuan. What was his previous violation?

Forget it, Cory. It's telco-town.

While I agree it ought to make sense to just add capacity, the industry is so riddled with regulation (much of it self-inflicted) that there will probably be capacity shortcomings for a while.

Also, my numbners were off above. Virgin Mobile has net margins of -12.6%!! So if you don't end up changing services, take comfort in the fact that for every dollar you pay them, they end up losing 13 cents. Take that, VM!

You can't exactly call them greedy--
Virgin Media's 3-yr average net profit margins: -1.4% (yes, that's negative)
Google's 3-yr average net profit margins: 26.1%

I'm always surprised at the level of fury around this issue. Very popular data-heavy sites could reduce performance of all other sites if packets were treated on a first-come-first-serve basis. The companies are being site-egalitarian. They're also ensuring that the sites putting the most pressure on the tubes are paying for the enormous infrastructure costs. Frankly I prefer that over my parents being charged even more when they don't YouTube/BitTorrent/whatever.

I think the main reason this sets off so many alrm bells with so many people is that normative judgements always seem to come along with the reports. Not in the papers themselves, mind you, but in most of the people relaying them.

And those normative judgements have HUGE implications. They are beyond the scope of any single scientist, politician, or economist. They may save humans from terrible climate dangers, or it may keep billions in poverty for another century.

For the deniers/skeptics, the disagreement may have originated with the normative cure proposed, and they simply worked backwards to find faults in the science itself without considering its veracity. Equally, many supporters may have agreed with those normative judgements and simply found the problem to the solution they already wanted. This "working backwards" is usually what causes the typical debates modeled on religion.
There are plenty of these faults on both sides.

Can someone explain to me how epileptics protect themselves in general on the internet? It sounds like any significant BLINK-tagged text or animated image could pose a threat if the attack described above was that easy. God forbid any of them visit MySpace.

#115 meadhbh: Yea, I already knew all that. Hence my comment on that standard beneficially including nonstandard situations. The "Y Chromosome" legal standard would stop 99% of the issues raised above, and be a constant for the life of the individual. No messy personal identity issues.

#79 Diatryma: You only like your analogy better because it suits your preferences. Mine is just as valid.

I didn't intend to use the "she" pronoun again, and don't see where I used it above. I've been trying to avoid that in the hypotheticals I've given. I think your rule is perfectly acceptable. Maybe extend the cutoff a bit if dealing with people whose first language doesn't use gendered pronouns.

And honestly the only reason I've argued this far is to be rationalize my calling MtF transgendered women "sex-she" in my best Sean Connery voice. Until corrected or told to knock it off, of course.

#49 Diatryma: "On a related note, is there a preferred pronoun cue I can learn to figure out what to use? Dress doesn't always help, nor hair, nor physical appearance. Is there a polite way to ask in an ambiguous situation?"

This is exact same issue I have. Everyone has a default. I don't believe the man who insists you call him "Dr." is any less offended than the person who underwent this surgery. If you proposed this gender question, meant for the transgendered, to a strange-looking "normal" should she or he not be offended by your presumption? My point is that getting offended at these things that even the kindest heart can make is absolutley silly and pedantic.

The best response for the person offended would be to politely ask for a change. An kind person would comply. Should you run into me and demand my compliance, however, you will be met with my pronouns: "sex-she" and "sex-he".

@Antinous: I assure you, I'm being deliberate, but not thickly so. My question arose because of a negative reaction to a wrong pronoun in discussing the article. We don't really have a lot of visual cues about the person, and I would naturally use "she" when discussing a pregnant person. Focusing on female sexual organs brings them out. What makes anyone think I am using that pronoun in a gendered sense instead of a sexual one?

And titles can be incredibly powerful. Use them incorrectly in Germany. Try to stifle a laugh when a PhD repeatedly insists on being referred to as "Dr." Watch the sadness of a woman who is addressed as "Ma'am" by a child when she is too young.

Frankly, I'm a bit amused by the fact that anyone can be so incensed by these usages, or of "incorrect" pronouns when referring to transgendered people. It seems hilarious to me that their comfort requires them to force people around them to conform to them.

I have nothing against transgendered people. Nor anything against voluntary amputees.

I do have issues with people who are offended at mere parts of my speech.

May I ask why addressing a transgendered person in their genetic pronoun is so insulting? Is it more or less worse than addressing someone with the incorrect title, or using "Dr." and "Prof." incorrectly?

It seems to me it has to be one of those learned things, which frankly shouldn't be insulting in any way.

I am going to propose and finance legislation which replaces "sex" or "gender" in official documents with a "Y Sex Chromosome" checkbox.

Hopefully it will make this "official" nonsense simpler, it includes those XXY types, and as a bonus will annoy everyone who wants to pretend they don't or do have one.

He may be entirely broken up about it. Systemic issues may have allowed it to happen. But c'mon Walter, her life was in his hands. He should be charged with whatever gross negligence is applicable.

I'm going for the win in internet comments!

Tom: #9 and the others "mitigating" the torture are coming at the issue from a utilitarian view, using Saddam as a counterweight. You may not agree with it, but you certainly shouldn't interpret their comments as pro-torture. In fact they admit that it shouldn't have happened. Not agreeing with you does not mean thinking the opposite of you. You two are arguing past each other.

And I don't know what argument you think I was making. It seems everyone likes to oversimplify. From the conspiracy viewpoint read Gavinkovite's comment on how insulting that is to a whole range of people. Like I said in my first comment, gross incompetence is a much more likely explanation.

Outrage is fine. I'm not arguing innocence on anyone's part. But the comments here exhibit a lot of willful ignorance about how the problems arose in order to blame someone whose politics they don't agree with. That pisses me off.

If you abhor American-perpetrated torture you should want to ensure it never happens again. That means you should work to understand how the military works, how it failed, and how to minimize the chances of something like this happening again.

Takuan, I have never been an apologist for torture. Nor am I against protesting. Perhaps you should read what I actually write rather than assume my politics are opposite yours.

Who is actually defending those actions, Tom? Just because we think you guys are idiots who just want an excuse to hate on a few politicians doesn't mean we agree with torture.

How is gross incompetence a cop-out? Has the US not had truth (prehaps not reconciliation) about much of this?

We need to look for actual solutions. Claiming that it's only because of a few people at the top is a cop-out. A simple change in commander-in-chief will not change this. Do you not think that by reducing the number of troops while maintaining these facility in Iraq by half we just might increase stress and the chance of this happening again?

Cory thinking that he could just wish the problem away if only he were in charge is ridiculous.

Occam's razor, Cory. Don't assume malice what can be explained by gross incompetence. Long term stress and being isolated in the prison is a more likely explanation than a secret order. The fact that photos like these were even taken should strongly support that. It is the Stanford prison experiment on a grand scale.

They could have made any number of meaningful gestures. Instead, they chose to make ignorant statments and platitude-filled blog posts. Their symbolic gesture made at the wrong time has only shown their ignorance of the issues they oppose.

"Texas Republicans have worked overtime to make it harder for key Democratic voting groups to vote and be represented fairly. The redistricting games they've played are infamous." -- This is completely irrelevant for a primary vote.

"And for the Prairie View A&M University precincts, they put the early-polling place more than seven miles from the school." -- If you read the link I gave above, this is FALSE. There ARE early polling locations on campus.

You've annoyed me enough to warrant another comment, Antinous.

Don't assume what I said was true. Check my links, or search for yourself. Equally you shouldn't assume what Cory or anyone else at BoingBoing links to is true, either. (As evidenced by recently disappearing posts) Be skeptical.

Great, systemic disenfranchisement. Of which this is no example.

If someone were to protest the Chinese treatment of the falun gong at my local PF Chang's by obstructing people from entering, I would hope that everyone here would consider me silly. Yea, there's an issue. But the people I'm annoying and the place and time I'm protesting actually have very little in common with the offences I ostensibly oppose. It only makes sense to people who are superficial enough to associate Chinese people with oppressing religion.

Oh, and

4) Mail ballot was also available to the students for this election. They just had to send in the application by the 26th.

I am now annoyed enough to comment. I am one of the people who thinks the "protest" was silly and meaningless. They and the people who support them simply don't know who or what they are protesting against. Several comments have touched upon gerrymandering (which is done to make more partisan districts on both sides), raciscm, and other things which have absolutley no relation to the county's polling choices. The links to the county polling information are below. I seriously doubt any of the commenters above or the marching students actually read those pages.

A) This is for the *Primary*. Racism and gerrymandering don't matter when it's only democrats voting between Hillary and Obama.

B) This is EARLY voting. Early voting is only available at 4 locations county-wide. There are 18 regluar voting locations on March 4.

C) And the most sailent for last: The students only had to wait TWO days for an on-campus EARLY voting location. That's right -- there IS an ON-CAMPUS EARLY voting location. However, it is a branch location, and open for fewer days.

Waller Early Polling Locations: http://www.co.waller.tx.us/ips/cms/modules/news/news_0002.html?uri=/news.html

Waller Standard Polling Locations:
http://www.co.waller.tx.us/ips/cms/modules/news/news_0003.html?uri=/news.html

In conclusion, I hate all of you ignoramuses.

Didn't someone win a Nobel Peace Prize for starting a company which loans small lumps of money for very high interest rates?