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You mean everyone involved is a sexless caricature who speaks in long monologues?

I shouldn't feed trolls, but here's some clue sticks:

I suppose fair's fair. Here's hoping the meta-mods are a little less reactionary.

there are people who conflate time and money while interpreting the phrase "time is money". The real interpretation of that is, "time has value." Some people regard time spent out of doors exercising as valuable. Perhaps you don't. Your evaluation of time spent on a bicycle is your opinion, not a counterpoint.

The parent's point was an opinion, so I'm not sure your distinction is meaningful. As to assigning "X" a value, I didn't, which obviates the rest of your paragraph.

Ever heard of the fallacy called a "non sequitur"? What in blue blazes does using one's "transportation device correctly" have to do with the strength of a material used in an automobile?

I'm not sure why it was invoked in the first place -- by the time your bicycle's experiencing deformation, you have bigger problems.

HINT: Never, ever, argue with ambiguity. That is the pitfall of the Republican spokesperson in this election season.

I think you're saying I'm a rat bastard right-winger, which is almost as irrelevant as it is wrong. Browse my profile.

You didn't comprehend his entire post, did you? I'm pretty sure he suggested an electric bike at the beginning.

I replied to "exercise perks," thanks.

My car has an air conditioner. I rode my bike to school for years, and still take it downtown when practical, but it's not a car substitute. It's hard not to be offended at the suggestion I need to justify a personal choice not to buy "technical clothing" and pedal in whatever weather.

Not likely. His point was that industrialized people are whining too much about biking to work. You merely proved his point.

My point is bike zealots whine when people don't. I find contempt for "industrialized people" ridiculous, and it saddens me how it plays into the caricature of a meek, hypocritical, militant, and guilt-ridden political left.

The noble savage knows he's dead if he's fat, because he can no longer keep up with his prey. Keep your simplistic views of the world's natives to yourself, please.

You first. Kofi Annan says Africa's dream is to industrialize. I don't pretend stitching Reeboks for ten cents a week does the third world any tremendous favors, but neither does romanticizing poverty.

"No wonder you Americans are so fat," said an Aucan native in his first visit to the U.S. "You can ride up to a window, and they give you food. You don't have to hunt at all, because you have food already in your houses." Prosperity is not a virtue in and of itself; it comes with costs, and it comes with responsibilities.

Given the alternative, fat's not so terrible. Incidentally, "Auca" is ethnically insensitive.

Why not? They're using caricature or cartoon whenever they describe a myth now.

Well, some do, and some don't.

"Evangelicals" and "creationists" are both very broad brushing terms. Don't be so small minded as to think that they all conform to the caricature.

Again, what else is new?

Especially in regards to the ISO 9000 series, especially as applied to software companies/departments who want that rubber stamp, you could be 100% compliant even if you work towards the wrong goals and achieve the wrong results. Essentially anyone with the money to blow on a byzantine bureaucracy where you have to document every bleeding obvious step, and document compliance with some brain dead rule, can get that certification. No need to even pay those money to ISO. You'll lose them the old fashioned way.

E.g., I know at least one company where they institutionalized the worst imaginable caricature of the waterfall model. And I don't mean the sane waterfall model, but the distorted caricature that sometimes is used under that name. In fact, a distorted caricature of even that. Everything must start with writing a cubic metre of use-cases and collect the signatures of a few dozen people on it. (Note that their model doesn't include at this step any kind of mockup or proof of concept to show them. You must just have faith that if you nag them enough they'll tell you _all_ their requirements in detail, and you'll write them down.) Then you work for some months on the implementation. _Then_ you have a couple of months for tests and fixing at the end. Then the customer finally sees anything, and _of_ _course_ it'll be exactly what he had in mind. And if more needs to be done, loop from the start now.

It's counter-productive, but if you could be arsed to document how you adhered to every step of it religiously, and can answer with a straight face things like, basically, "did you do what the rules said you should be doing?" you could be ISO 9000 certified for that crap process.

E.g., I had the mis-fortune of working with someone who wanted to have documented quality targets in advance, as per ISO 9001. Sounds good. Except he wanted to measure the entirely wrong things. He had only one tool he knew how to use, that is, a tool for benchmarking web applications. We, however, had made a framework. So instead of figuring out how he can benchmark the actual calls to the framework methods and classes, he wanted to benchmark the HTTPUnit unit tests. So basically he could write there as a quality goal, stuff like "the unit tests for the SomeComplexEJB module finish in less than 5 seconds." Woe if two iterations later, and having included test cases for any bugs reported and fixed, you end up taking more than 5 seconds.

Yep, if you're stupid enough, you can get _that_ sanctified as compliance with ISO 9001.

It doesn't say you should be doing the right thing or the effective thing. It just says you must have a type of process and can produce the relevant documentation if audited.

I'd say that bribing ISO to get that rubber stamp, might actually be an improvement in some places, compared to actually complying with a bad process thought up by a non-techie. At least if you bribe ISO, hey, at least you don't ruin everyone's productivity too. And the losses are basically limited to that bribe, which limit you don't get if you actually comply.

The only reason this does not happen is that violent riots and antigovernmental action is not widespread.

In other words, websites are not shut down, because there is no need to and no gain from doing it.

The moment a government feels itself in an extreme situation and that the order of society as they define it is threatened however, principles of free speech, right to gathering etc, mean fuck all and will be suspended. The same principles as from ancient times, of cutting off communicating between dissidents, making people fearful of gathering and planning demonstrations etc, apply.

Take the case of the Muhammed caricatures, when demonstrations were going on throughout the world and some people were sincerely believing in religious war. The previous (left-wing) Swedish government felt the situation was out of control and could not foresee the consequences that could happen. So they simply ordered the ISP to remove the website hosting them. This is a well-publicised and studied case.

The only criticism I imply however is that they are not above this way of doing things even if they may claim so - every government who feel their world is crashing down will be keen to get the booted boys out. And in their view it may very well be for the best of people, as they protect society as they know it against the horrors of the rioters.

The worst thing Gary McKinnon has going for him is that photo that's shown alongside every article that mentions him. I couldn't imagine a better caricature of a 'malevolent hacker' if I tried.

Picking a photo image of someone that leads people to judge him. - That's journalism

The worst thing Gary McKinnon has going for him is that photo that's shown alongside every article that mentions him. I couldn't imagine a better caricature of a 'malevolent hacker' if I tried.

Information assurance is more than IT security. At the risk of constructing a caricature, IT security is about preventing any information compromise. Information assurance assumes that IT security will fail. The goal of IA is to manage the risks associated with failed IT security. An even broader goal is mission assurance: given that systems (including information systems) will fail, how can we be reasonably sure that the broader mission will still succeed. As always, Wikipedia has more information.

Your caricaturized analogies apply to all organized social movements. You may attempt to devalue any pursuit of social objective as "religious", as religions are also organized social movements in pursuit of an objective. Here: - Neoliberal capitalism is a form of church. - State protection of industries are the original sin. - Milton Friedman is the prophet who will save us from our sins. - The Bretton-Woods institutions are the equivalent of missonaries spreading the gospel of neoliberalism to "3rd world countries. - Karl Marx is the devil. And this demonstrates, what?

While I haven't donated, I say give the guy a chance. Has he thought everything through? Probably not, but our political system is filled with the merely ignorant to the truly cretinous caricatures or corruption. If he wins I'll be interested in following his story, see how an outsider does.

Or to put it another way, do we have good reason to put much faith in this guy? No, but we have a whole lot of reasons to not put any faith in the other guys.

No, he's not a comedian, he's a partisan hack that uses his show to further his own political views. Yes, he uses comedy to make his points, but rather than being done for the sake of comedy, it's basically done with the intent of reducing his opponents to absurd strawmen. If you agree with him politically, you love this because it's basically angry browbeating of a caricature. It's more like a gym class bully than an actual comedian.

Now compare this to the Daily Show, which specializes in pointing out hypocrisy or pinpointing the absurdity in what would otherwise be considered fairly normal, or the Colbert Report which makes fun of the browbeating that the Rush Limbaugh show does.

Even when conservatives do come on Stewart or Colbert, it's generally a very uncomfortable interview (polite applause from the audience, host trying desperately to think of something good to say).

Eh, John McCain did pretty well on The Daily Show, and when I saw him a few years ago Bob Dole was absolutely awesome.

But that's The Daily Show, which has a slant sure but is perfectly willing to tear Democrats and liberals a new one whenever its appropriate. I think mostly it's because Stewart and the show came unto their own during a period when Republicans were in power and thus provided the majority of the targets. Stewart is liberal in his politics, but I don't think that dominates the show which is mostly about deriving humor from the news. It's not the same as 'liberal' or 'conservative' talk shows.

Colbert Report, though, is obviously dominated by its slant. There's no avoiding it, as his character is a caricature of a conservative talk show host. He "praised" the President to his face for going with his gut instead of facts, saying "reality has a well-known liberal bias".

But yes, even though they're different shows, I don't doubt that their demographics are largely the same, and that it doesn't include a lot of Republicans.

We man got smarts by cooking meats you vegan bitches!

This would only be true if the vegans you're caricaturing were also raw-food fanatics. While there may well be some people who fit into both groups, most of the vegans who I've cooked for and with have been conscientious and knowledgeable about the need to cook their foods to make nutrients more available. As a chemically-aware scientist running the animal rights group, I simply didn't let woolly-minded organic-tree-huggery bunny loving go past without being challenged and corrected. The moral arguments are more than capable of standing up by themselves, without needing pseudo-science to prop them up.

Wait, wait, wait. At exactly what point did all stereotypes about a minority become negative?

They are not. For example, black men having larger penises is a stereotype, but most would consider it positive. Asian people being good at math is a stereotype and most here would consider that positive, although others consider it negative.

Seriously, look at what you're saying: "Likes fried chicken" is now an insult. "Prefers watermelon" is likewise. In whose reality does this make sense???

In a vacuum, it doesn't make any sense, but that stereotype did not form in a vacuum. It originated with racist caricatures and depictions of blacks, associating them with sloth and mental inferiority. Watermelon originated in Africa, but when the stereotype of all african americans loving it took root in our culture, the association was not with the origin, but with the fact that it was very inexpensive. The same goes with fried chicken. It predated the pressure cooking method. Chicken was cheap meat compared to pork and beef and frying could be done over a fire or stove without the need for an expensive oven. The implication was that blacks were poor... which is still true today statistically, but is considered a negative by pretty much everyone.

Now I'm not african american, but I have discussed this topic with friends who are. It is a sensitive one and one they think of negatively, to the point where one friend would not let her kids eat watermelon in public. Just seeing them eating it instantly conjured memories of those hateful cartoons of black kids with exaggerated lips and glazed expressions, dressed in rags; cartoons people used more than just to poke fun, but to argue against equal rights.

So I say again, if you ignore history or don't think that history is relevant any longer, then there is nothing wrong with associating watermelon and fried chicken with black people. I'd like to say America has moved on. The other day, someone posted this image in a discussion thread about the death of comedian Bernie Mac. Looking at that image, do you see why some people would consider such a stereotype to be a negative one?

Ahh, but my point was "that's not so". This definition of conservatism is orthagonal to the caricature of conservatism so often used to paint Republicans or "Red Staters" as zealots and hicks. Both parties are a coalition of groups with more specific concerns. The Bible-Bashing Crackers are certainly one such group, and a vocal one, but hardly represantive of conservative poltical ideology as a whole.

Of course, we're currently in a mess where neither party acts towards either fiscal conservatism or less instrusive government, so it would be a misake to label either party "conservative" or "liberal" at the moment. Note that those two ideas are not opposite in any way, they've just been championed by opposing parties in recent decades, so a lot of marketing has been done to convince us that we must choose between them.

Personally, I think it's because the anime/manga style is a stylized caricature of reality, and trying to duplicate that back into realty tends to look... strange.

Quite the understatement.

IP owners don't have any right. ...
there is no amendment in the US bill of rights, nor is there an article in the universal charter of human rights...

They certainly do have rights (though not extreme ones of course!). It is up to the governed to give up (willingly!) certain rights to facilitate their affairs (called "consenting to government"); it is not up to government to exist by fiat and hand out rights.

Even though the people who wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights felt this was obvious, it is made very explicit in the ninth amendment to the US Constitution:
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

Human social government is an amicable (typically, and hopefully, that is) limitation on rights, not the broker of rights, let alone their source.

there is no amendment in the US bill of rights, nor is there an article in the universal charter of human rights, which reads "and IP owners hereby have more rights than others, including the right to veto all other rights detailed herein, because it threatens their almighty pocket books"

It's dishonest to say "they don't have any right" and then to back up your argument with an example that is exaggerated to the point of false caricature: "see, they don't have these unreasonable rights, therefore I can claim they don't have any right". I think you know your position is not rigorously founded, but since you like it anyway you thought demolishing a straw man was justified.

Your original statements are indeed insightful:

They have no right to strip away your capacity to consciously choose to break a law you feel is unjust.

They have a right to prosecute or litigate against you for it, but they don't have a right to impede your free will!

but they do require the modification suggested (at least):

No, you need to add some more qualifications to that, such as: As long as it doesn't step on anyone else's rights.

But then, if you did that, this case wouldn't apply, would it? Since the IP owners have rights and you'd be stepping on them.

Of course it would apply. The whole point you were making (without being so precise) was that the "rights" the IP owners have are derived through a social contract you (and others, as you probably guess!) find unjust. Their monopolizing "the useful arts" in effective perpetuity causes harm to society at large. Worse, their litigious "defense" (er, expansion) of these "rights" makes a beachhead for rights at the expense of others' rights, and draconian laws in general.

You just over-reacted to insightful but misapplied criticism.

I don't know man. Even as big of an anime fan as I am, there's just something unnatural looking about the big eyes (and her skin tone) in the picture in the linked article. Maybe some circles find that "adorable", but to me it just looks creepy. Personally, I think it's because the anime/manga style is a stylized caricature of reality, and trying to duplicate that back into realty tends to look... strange.

[Sigh]

I'll lay it out for you:

You originally said:
"Either people in the US blow out their joints way more frequently than Europeans with socialized health care (unlikely), or their system isn't providing them with that option [joint replacement surgery].
So our 'inferior' privatized system is providing more people with life-improving treatments..."

So you've provided two possible explanations for your observation that 50% of joint replacements globally happen on just 5% of the global population:
1. People in the US blow out their joints way more frequently than Europeans
2. Socialized health care systems are not providing them with the option for joint replacement surgery

I caricatured 2 as "pennypinching bureaucrats are cruelly denying Europeans of the care they need". Your "socialized health care / system" = my "pennypinching bureaucrats". Your "not providing" = my "cruelly denying". Your "that option / life-improving treatment" = my "the care they need". My caricature is thus firmly rooted in each part of your original explanation. And it's not much of a caricature, either -- your original statement was clearly implying that you thought the American system was better than European systems because it provided more access to joint replacements.

You then rephrased your original explanation as follows: "from a bureaucratic perspective, a $600 wheelchair or $200 walker is just as much a solution to the problem as a $25,000 joint replacement"

It's still all in there: your "from a bureaucratic perspective" directly equals my "pennypinching bureaucrats". It also clearly implies "cruelly denying" (after all, who could read your sentence and not be moved to compare "a bureaucratic perspective" with "a humane perspective"?). And the only reading of the phrase "a $600 wheelchair or $200 walker is just as much a solution to the problem as a $25,000 joint replacement" that rings true is that you are saying "Europeans are being given wheelchairs instead of joint replacements as a cost-saving, ie pennypinching, measure"

Finally, you rephrased your original explanation from:
'Socialized health care systems aren't providing Europeans with the option of [joint replacement surgery]...so our 'inferior' privatized system is providing more people with life-improving treatments'
to:
"elective procedures are neglected if there is a cheaper option that covers the need"
By writing in the third person, and removing words such as "socialized", "privatized", 'inferior', "life-improving", you created a more dispassionate argument, but the core contention remains the same: the reason there are fewer joint replacements in Europe is that to save money, cheaper options are used instead.

Your position has thus not shifted at all throughout, which is good. And my description of your explanation holds as true for your third restatement of your position as your first. And I repeat, there is at least one other explanation for why Americans have joint replacement surgery more frequently than Europeans, and I think it's obvious: American doctors and insurance companies recommend earlier and more aggressive intervention than European doctors. And I went on to cite one example of where the jury is out on whether earlier and more aggressive intervention is worthwhile (breast cancer), and I'll now cite another example of where higher operating rates are undoubtedly because of earlier and more aggressive intervention: c-section rates.

Studies show that the best outcomes for mothers and babies appear to occur with cesarean section rates of 5% to 10%. Rates above 15% seem to do more harm than good (Althabe and Belizan 2006). And the rate in the US is about 33% (up ~50% in about a decade). And in the UK it's about 20%, and somewhat lower in many other European countries. I raise this to make clear that you cannot assume that a lower rate of intervention (eg fewer joint replacements) demonstrates worse levels of care or outcomes (eg more pain and less mobility).