Your knowledge on the environment is so limited, it makes no sense for you to even consider pushing your fantasy political ideal within the context of environmental issues.

1. Last time I checked, land developers (which are land owners) are not improving the environment. They're improving their bank accounts. Epic fail on your part.

2. If that's your point, than A) learn about ecology, and B) get proactive about the environment, instead of engaging in armchair politics. Epic misrepresentation of yourself.

3. Vague and meaningless chatter.

I just watched Farewell My Concubine. Good movie. Nearly three hours long. Outstanding performance by Leslie Cheung. Gong Li stars in it as well.

1. If you see the quantity of idiots alive today, they're not going to suddenly become smart in your world.

2. Irrelevant. Did you forget that in order for you to have a point here, your goal would be to avoid environmental destruction, not avoid taxes. It seems that once again you can't comprehend the gist of paragraph four.

3. You're quite ignorant with regard to films, as comments you made in prior posts made abundantly and laughably clear, so why don't you stick to what you know - whatever that may be.

Don't be so naive.

1. They don't have to pay restitution. There may not even be a claim made by their ignorant neighbors or their "I'll look the other way if you look the other way." neighbors.

2. They may not know if or care if they are reducing their land's value if they're achieving what they want.

3. You're doing exactly what I said those with a political agenda counter to environmentalism should not do in the fourth paragraph of my first post.

You lose on three counts. Go back to pushing your political agenda without trying to conflate it with environmentalism. You're ignorant when it comes to the environment, and your agenda is the only thing that matters to you. Push your silly libertarian views all you want, but if you're going to claim any benefit it has to the environment, then learn about the environment.

They're doing exactly what I said not to do in paragraph four of my original post. In other words, your reply is definitely not a convincing argument.

Yesterday's entry at Centauri-dreams.org: http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=25109

Yesterday's entry at Systemic: http://oklo.org/2012/10/16/alpha-centauri-b-b/

Both are interesting articles. The Systemic entry provides some very interesting technical information on the processes involved.

I don't think you'll find the answer you're looking here, but it offers a basic explanation of the process: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppler_spectroscopy

I'm sure these techniques are refined to the point that the motions of the Earth are factored in precisely relative to everything they observe. Imagine it's night (star observing time) and the Earth is not only orbiting the sun in a direction away from Alpha Centauri B, but also spinning on its axis such that the location of the observatory is moving away from Alpha Centauri B. Those are actually some pretty large velocities relative to 20 inches a second, which is barely 1 mile per hour.

I believe the answer to that is 4 years. More interesting is the fact that from the perspective of the photon, it's here at the same time as it was there. In fact, everywhere that photon has ever been and will ever be is all at the same time because time stands still for a photon.

Imagine every particle in your body moving in some direction at the speed of light. If that was the case, then they're all moving in the same direction at the same speed. Therefore, each particle in your body, relative to every other particle in your body is stationary. Thus no chemical processes are occurring, and thus no passage of time.

Alpha Centauri B, one of three stars that are the closest to our solar system moves to and fro at about 20 inches a second. This is perhaps one of the greatest astronomical discoveries of the decade. Now, Alpha Centauri B is about 25 trillion miles away. So it's nice that we can now detect such small velocities in the star's wobble. Half a meter a second, it wobbles this way and that.

What causes that wobble? An earth sized planet which orbits the star. While extrasolar planet detections have become commonplace, we've never been able to determine if there were planets around the nearest star, until now. An added bonus: the earth sized planet is one of the smallest ever detected. It's a rocky world. Unfortunately, it's too close to the star to support life.

However, in general, where there's one rocky planet, there's another. Now we need to find one which orbits not 4 million miles from it's host star, but about 65 million miles away. That would put it in the habitable zone, where there could exist liquid water. If such a detection was made, the next step would be to apply technology in such a way that we could get one pixel in an image representing light from the planet. Difficult task. For every photon coming from such a planet, about 2 billion photons or so would come from the star.

But if we could get that pixel, we could do spectrographic analysis on it, and determine what kind of molecule it bounced off of. You know, molecules like water vapor, carbon dioxide, and so on. Observations over the course of a year, yielding just one pixel in each image, could tell us if there were specular reflections, which would indicate oceans of water. Such a pixel, and all its information, might be able to tell us if there was life on that planet, if it existed.

And it would only be 25 trillion miles or so away. Practically spitting distance. Why, a spacecraft like Voyager could get there in less than 70 thousand years.

The free market is environment indifferent. The free market helps benefit those who exploit what it has to offer. Nothing more, and nothing less.

The actions of the government can protect or destroy the environment. Nothing more, and nothing less.

Properly and intelligently applied rules based on research can slow down the destruction of the environment in a world that seems to value economic growth over the protection of natural capital.

Do yourself and society a favor: never use your political agendas which are not 100 percent based on scientific evidence and knowledge about the environment and for protecting the environment as a vehicle to promote your political agendas as if they were designed to protect the environment. The two do not mix. Either you understand environmental issues and ecology and have an agenda to protect it, or you don't.

If your agenda is to promote a free market, then promote a free market with knowledge that you possess, and not with incomplete knowledge about other subjects.

When you say "good films", which do you mean:
- Films which are deemed to be good by some higher standard
- Films which the public really liked

Yasujiro Ozu's Late Spring might fall into the former. The Avengers falls into the latter. I liked both films. Some people might avoid the former for a number of reasons, such as the fact that its black and white, subtitled, older, and lacking any eye popping visuals. Some people might avoid the latter for a number of reasons, such as the fact that its another summer blockbuster that puts action and visuals over a higher intellectual and emotional experience.

As I said, I liked both films. But I'd be curious to hear your idea of what a good film is.

Yes. Obviously. There's a question for you in my last post in that thread.

I'm all for great movie trailers. Please post. But have you seen this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=109868.0

I never saw it, given the general opinion of it. Alternatively, share a trailer of an excellent movie - one which most of us haven't heard of.

Don't think you're setting a precedent here. Beware, you might actually get some real movie trailers herein.

Aside from a few people who made a few posts each, why does it seem that I'm the only one here who has something to say about films? Surely there are others here who have something to say.

In reference to the cat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi7QQ5pO7_A

Anyone taking an interest in Asian cinema must become familiar with the following directors:

- Yasujiro Ozu
- Wong Kar-Wai
- Akira Kurosawa
- Edward Yang
- Tran Anh Hung
- Kon Ichikawa
- Masahiro Shinoda
- Hiroshi Teshigahara
- Lee Chang-dong
- Hou Hsaio-hsien
- Yoshishige Yoshida
- Kenji Mizoguchi
- Shohei Imamura
- Nagasi Oshima
- Mikio Naruse
- Sejun Suzuki

You might resist the older films due to your own tastes. I suggest you don't. Ease your way into such films if you desire, for there are treasures within. You may associate a lot of Asian cinema with gangster and swordplay fights. However, so many Asian films deal with family and relationships, and they are powerful films. Click all the links I provided in my prior post and watch the video trailers/clips to get a sampling of the genres.

Above all, become familiar with the directors, and I'll say it again - do not discount the older films. You'll be missing a lot. And you can't ever lay claim to being a fan of Japanese Cinema unless you watch Hiroshi Teshigahara's Woman in the Dunes and The Face of Another. Same goes for Yaujiro Ozu's Tokyo Twilight and Late Spring. And Masahiro Shinoda's Pale Flower. And Kenji Mizoguchi's Ugetsu (a deficiency on my part which needs to rectified). And Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai and Iriku (another deficiency on my part which urgently needs to be rectified). And regarding non Japanese directors, Edward Yang's Yi Yi and Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood for Love, 2046, Fallen Angels, and Chungking Express. Throw in Wong Kar-Wai's Ashes of Time Redux as well. The list goes on. Get to it!