For the next two months, owners of 3.3 million private cars can drive only on alternate days in China's capital, based on whether the last digit of their license plates is even or odd.
Mexico tried the whole "even or odd" license plate thing a while back (for similar reasons) and it was an epic failure.
People either bought another car, usually an older, more-polluting model, or just ignored the law. The result was that Mexico's air quality got WORSE from trying to restrict vehicles on the road because most 2nd (or 3rd) cars that were being purchased were older models with almost no pollution control equipment and higher fuel consumption.
I don't know what it takes to buy a car in China, or how the government regulates license plate numbers, but if it's in any way similar to Mexico, this will fail too.
An extra 1,000 convictions for child ABUSE per year?! Wow, that number seems VERY high to me, but THINK OF THE CHILDREN!! OMG!!
I can see a lot of convictions for child porn distributing or maybe a FEW convictions for active child ABUSE, or maybe even a LOT of accusations for either. But, 1000 convictions for child abuse would actually really impress me. Of course, they would have to somehow show that those convictions were a direct result of new anti-porn ISP laws, but that's another story all together...
Maybe I've naive, but how much "Child Pornography" is actually publicly available on the internet? (No links please, thanks)
I mean, I see PLENTY of "regular" or even crazy-weird porn online all the time, but I've NEVER accidentally or intentionally come across child porn. Are the distributors sophisticated enough to use private/encrypted systems, or do I just not crawl usenet enough? Seems like a fictional problem that sounds REALLY good to elected officials and families ("Yes, let's change to that ISP who blocks child porn, that will solve all of our problems, honey!")
I'm all for recovering exploited children and keeping them away from child molesters, but why do I not see a photo taken ten years ago and posted on the internet as a particularly heinous crime in this day and age?
Note... my ex GF was a cop and they (cops) ALL took particular pleasure in busting active child molesters/"public weenie-whackers". I liked to hear about them getting caught as well, and my GF said that 99 times out of 100, the suspect would be the biggest sissy on earth and start "crying for momma" as soon as they were even arrested (not CONVICTED...yet).
We use location/company initials/dev-test-qa-prod/function/number for most of our machines. Seems to work and once you get the scheme, you can start guessing where things are if for some reason somebody doesn't have the docs on a certain application.
For instance: ABICPWEB02 would be A = Data Center: Arizona, BIP = Big Important Company, P = Production Server, WEB = webserver, 02 = #2
It CAN get tricky with things like DBICQASQLCLU01 (Delaware, Big Important Company, QA, SQL Cluster, #1), but whatever... You can figure it out.:)
It appears you are correct! I was basing the scheduling of controlled substances on the fact that Marinol (Synthetic THC) was moved from schedule II to schedule III of the controlled substances act in order to facilitate sales to hospice patients, etc with less paperwork, etc from doctors and pharmacies. However, the actual non FDA-approved version is a schedule 1 (to my complete surprise/disbelief!).
And yes, of course possession of a large quantity for distribution will most certainly get you a felony charge
Remind me to review the legal portion before I take my pharmacy board exams! I would have gotten that one wrong.
What better way to silence critics of your anti-drug policy than slapping everyone who smokes marijuana with a felony charge?
Using Schedule I drugs is a felony, and has been since Nixon's time. This isn't "putting a microsocope to them and digging up some conmon everyday activity which happens to be a felony" - this is something that is illegal for which you were convicted by a jury of your peers.
Can any reader come up with a "common everyday activity" which just happens to be a felony? I can't, and I'm just fine with disenfranchising cokeheads.
Marijuana is not a schedule 1 drug, and it's not a felony to smoke it.
In the late sixties, Thompson obtained his famous title of "Doctor" from the Universal Life Church.[38] He later preferred to be called Dr. Thompson, and his "alter-ego" Raoul Duke called himself a "doctor of journalism". [wikipedia.org]
We can send people to college and have them study things like thermodynamics, the flow of air and water in a system, physics, electricity, scale, and perhaps even a little economics. (Things that would be useful for data center design)...we will call them "ENGINEERS"
And here's the real kicker: They can APPLY what they have learned in classrooms and labs to actual mechanical and electrical systems in a datacenter!
Wow, that was rough sailing for a while there.
Note, however, that this does not solve the problem of nobody wanting to PAY these "engineers" a real salary to build out their $50 million data-center.
First, there is an enormous difference between Down Syndrome (Trisomy 21), and "horribly retarded". Down Syndrome is actually considered one of the more benign mutations (three copies of chromosome 21, instead of two) and IS "compatible with life". (The vast majority of severe genetic mutations are not compatible with life, and spontaneously abort) Many (Down Syndrome) patients are able to lead long, healthy, and productive lives.
I do not know anyone with Down Syndrome, I don't have it, and I don't research it, but unlike the vast majority of genetic defects, Down Syndrome is most certainly one of the more benign, and while the affected person is likely not going to MIT, it is quite possible that he or she can hold a job, live on their own (or with a spouse, or in a group home), and have a productive and happy life.
I would consider "horribly retarded" to be a person who is unable to feed themselves (ever), incontinent, unable to walk, aphasic, and essentially being unaware of the world around him/her. This type of patient would 'potentially' require 24/7 assistance for the rest of his/her life, never have a chance for a 'normal' social interaction, or even have a vocabulary at all.
Missing limbs... Ummmm, if fetus missing a limb is enough reason for you to abort a pregnancy, I would encourage you to think about it a little more. A missing limb is about the most benign problem you've written about so far.
Stephen Hawking can travel the world, do extremely complex calculations, perform countless hours of research and author several books - effectively contributing to and changing the world's viewpoints on things like black holes, hawking radiation, and general relativity. He suffers from ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease for those in the US). He cannot speak, he cannot walk, point, write, or even nod his head. However, he is a genius and has altered the way many people think about our own universe.
Around the time of his graduate work, he was not expected to live long enough to finish his thesis (2-ish years from that point, I belive he was in his late 20's), however he is currently 66 years old.
If genetic testing enabled you to abort a fetus because they were highly suspected of developing ALS later in life, would that be reason enough?
How about someone like Jim Abbott? He played professional baseball in the Major Leagues and was born WITHOUT A RIGHT HAND.
Can you lump together "Down Syndrome", "Horribly retarded" and "Missing Limbs" into the same category and state that you would be tempted to abort if ANY of the conditions in the set were met?
I mean, I can understand your idea, but this is why there is currently so much ethical scrutiny in the field of genetics, stem cell research, and abortion. Being able to pick and chose who, what, and (exactly) when to give birth to, although convenient, is not the way that nature usually works.
It's essentially impossible for me to think of what I would do in a situation where I was faced with a choice like "terminate or go to term" with an unhealthy child, but I'd like to think that I'd make the right decision (whatever that may be).
Disclaimer: I have ZERO religious belief, I am not against abortion, I might very well choose to abort a fetus who is not capable of living without assistance for his/her entire life....and my father is a Ph.D. w/board certification in human genetics, with training from Yale, etc... He has worked both sides of the fence (more affluent and less religious areas often tend to abort, while poorer and more catholic/religious areas tend to keep 'whatever god wants them to have' upon analysis of an fetus's genotype. FYI).
I'm suggesting that MS NOT charge for security patches because they are beneficial to everyone using the OS, not that Windows CAN'T be made to be secure.
Let Microsoft's specialist abilities (software support, live updates etc) be the thing people pay for.
Linux vendors don't charge for software updates and security patches. You're suggesting the the vendor of one of the most insecure operating systems charge for SECURITY fixes? I don't think that's such a good idea...
The basic structure of a free market economy dissolves as a monopoly is introduced. If microsoft was producing QUALITY software during those "years of development", then the (free) market price would be much higher, since consumers would want the superior system to work on, and be willing to sacrifice the funds to get there. But, by forcing just about everyone, including just about every fortune 500 company, to use their product or be "cut off from the world", they feel free to develop crap, treat their employees like crap, and charge a very hefty price tag because people NEED the software in order to interact with every other person/company who is also caught in MS's monopoly on closed-source, proprietary software.
When is the last time that an employer asked you to send them a resume/CV in ANYTHING other than MS-Word format? "Please send LaTex formatted resume. Please send CSV plaintext document (as a spreadsheet)??? Nope; "Please send us your MS-overload formats or do not even enter the picture as a potential employee. kkthx!"
Linux/BSD - free, open office - free, TeX - free OSX Leopard - $99 iWork - $79 Vista Ultimate/XP Pro - $299 MS Office - $449
Heroin is actually LESS toxic than nicotine, if you go on LD50 values (the amount of a substance that it takes to kill 1/2 of a population).
Even for a non-user, the LD50 can be placed above 350 mg[citation needed] though some sources give a figure of between 75 and 375 mg for a 75 kg person.[25] [Wikipedia.org]
Nicotine is somewhere around 40â"60 mg (0.5-1.0 mg/kg) can be a lethal dosage for adult humans. [Wikipedia.org]
Nicotine is 6-7 times more toxic than HEROIN, when measured by LD50.
Yes, just about any cigarette is only going to deliver 1-2MG of nicotine per cigarette when SMOKED. However, if INGESTED, cigarettes become exponentially more toxic. One ingested cigarette is easily enough to kill a child (the people more likely to expermient with eating things).
There are also those people who will wear a nicotine patch, chew the gum and then decided that they really need a cig too.
Just what do you consider a "dose"? The OP stated that nicotine was "not a harmful drug". I have refuted that statement. Nowhere did I say or imply that an adult would die from smoking 50 cigs back to back. However, nicotine, as a chemical, is very toxic.
I stand by my original statements. It's not ricin, but it's not candy either. Calling it "not dangerous" is ignorant.
Here are 5 mules who OD'd and died from nicotine by eating natural tobacco plants (their lethal dose is 2-6 times that of a human adult, and they had no problem dying)
Since when? Not only was Nicotine used widely as a pestacide (because of its toxicity), but it's one of the most dangerous drugs that the public are exposed to. 40 1/1000th of a gram is considered potentially deadly to a human. (40mg)
The LD50 of nicotine is 50 mg/kg for rats and 3 mg/kg for mice. 40â"60 mg (0.5-1.0 mg/kg) can be a lethal dosage for adult humans.[11] [12] This designates nicotine an extremely deadly poison. It is more toxic than many other alkaloids such as cocaine, which has an LD50 of 95.1 mg/kg when administered to mice. Spilling liquid nicotine on human skin could result in death.[13] [Wikipedia.org]
Sure, yeah, um, "not a harmful drug" in what sense?
...motorcycle. Even a used sport bike (600-750CC) will hit 150+ MPH, 0-60 in about 3 seconds, and get WELL over 40MPG (closer to 65MPG if driven in a sane fashion). Problem is, they don't work in the snow, and they are very dangerous (I have a 1994-ish CBR900RR).
...except things like using it as a tethered 3g modem with a laptop, which the firmware/AT&T prevent. Otherwise, I'd buy one.
"Oh, laptop internet access?! Yeah, here, you're going to need a $50 aircard and a $59/month additional plan for that, capped at very low download Kb/month." (5Gb?) = double dipping.
Slashdot Mirror
For the next two months, owners of 3.3 million private cars can drive only on alternate days in China's capital, based on whether the last digit of their license plates is even or odd.
Mexico tried the whole "even or odd" license plate thing a while back (for similar reasons) and it was an epic failure.
People either bought another car, usually an older, more-polluting model, or just ignored the law. The result was that Mexico's air quality got WORSE from trying to restrict vehicles on the road because most 2nd (or 3rd) cars that were being purchased were older models with almost no pollution control equipment and higher fuel consumption.
I don't know what it takes to buy a car in China, or how the government regulates license plate numbers, but if it's in any way similar to Mexico, this will fail too.
An extra 1,000 convictions for child ABUSE per year?! Wow, that number seems VERY high to me, but THINK OF THE CHILDREN!! OMG!!
I can see a lot of convictions for child porn distributing or maybe a FEW convictions for active child ABUSE, or maybe even a LOT of accusations for either. But, 1000 convictions for child abuse would actually really impress me. Of course, they would have to somehow show that those convictions were a direct result of new anti-porn ISP laws, but that's another story all together...
Maybe I've naive, but how much "Child Pornography" is actually publicly available on the internet? (No links please, thanks)
I mean, I see PLENTY of "regular" or even crazy-weird porn online all the time, but I've NEVER accidentally or intentionally come across child porn. Are the distributors sophisticated enough to use private/encrypted systems, or do I just not crawl usenet enough? Seems like a fictional problem that sounds REALLY good to elected officials and families ("Yes, let's change to that ISP who blocks child porn, that will solve all of our problems, honey!")
I'm all for recovering exploited children and keeping them away from child molesters, but why do I not see a photo taken ten years ago and posted on the internet as a particularly heinous crime in this day and age?
Note... my ex GF was a cop and they (cops) ALL took particular pleasure in busting active child molesters/"public weenie-whackers". I liked to hear about them getting caught as well, and my GF said that 99 times out of 100, the suspect would be the biggest sissy on earth and start "crying for momma" as soon as they were even arrested (not CONVICTED...yet).
Mod parent up.. I'm outta points. Plz.
Just wait for the LHC, we might see some matter-antimatter annihilation. Oh, and I call dibs on THAT patent and IP.
There is already affirmative action for veterans and disabled veterans. I had to sign off on it today with a fortune 50 company.
We use location/company initials/dev-test-qa-prod/function/number for most of our machines. Seems to work and once you get the scheme, you can start guessing where things are if for some reason somebody doesn't have the docs on a certain application.
For instance:
ABICPWEB02 would be A = Data Center: Arizona, BIP = Big Important Company, P = Production Server, WEB = webserver, 02 = #2
It CAN get tricky with things like DBICQASQLCLU01 (Delaware, Big Important Company, QA, SQL Cluster, #1), but whatever... You can figure it out. :)
It appears you are correct! I was basing the scheduling of controlled substances on the fact that Marinol (Synthetic THC) was moved from schedule II to schedule III of the controlled substances act in order to facilitate sales to hospice patients, etc with less paperwork, etc from doctors and pharmacies. However, the actual non FDA-approved version is a schedule 1 (to my complete surprise/disbelief!).
And yes, of course possession of a large quantity for distribution will most certainly get you a felony charge
Remind me to review the legal portion before I take my pharmacy board exams! I would have gotten that one wrong.
What better way to silence critics of your anti-drug policy than slapping everyone who smokes marijuana with a felony charge?
Using Schedule I drugs is a felony, and has been since Nixon's time. This isn't "putting a microsocope to them and digging up some conmon everyday activity which happens to be a felony" - this is something that is illegal for which you were convicted by a jury of your peers.
Can any reader come up with a "common everyday activity" which just happens to be a felony? I can't, and I'm just fine with disenfranchising cokeheads.
Marijuana is not a schedule 1 drug, and it's not a felony to smoke it.
In Communist China, antitrust probes you!
In the late sixties, Thompson obtained his famous title of "Doctor" from the Universal Life Church.[38] He later preferred to be called Dr. Thompson, and his "alter-ego" Raoul Duke called himself a "doctor of journalism". [wikipedia.org]
Ok, here's how it's going to work out...
...we will call them "ENGINEERS"
We can send people to college and have them study things like thermodynamics, the flow of air and water in a system, physics, electricity, scale, and perhaps even a little economics. (Things that would be useful for data center design)
And here's the real kicker: They can APPLY what they have learned in classrooms and labs to actual mechanical and electrical systems in a datacenter!
Wow, that was rough sailing for a while there.
Note, however, that this does not solve the problem of nobody wanting to PAY these "engineers" a real salary to build out their $50 million data-center.
First, there is an enormous difference between Down Syndrome (Trisomy 21), and "horribly retarded". Down Syndrome is actually considered one of the more benign mutations (three copies of chromosome 21, instead of two) and IS "compatible with life". (The vast majority of severe genetic mutations are not compatible with life, and spontaneously abort) Many (Down Syndrome) patients are able to lead long, healthy, and productive lives.
...and my father is a Ph.D. w/board certification in human genetics, with training from Yale, etc... He has worked both sides of the fence (more affluent and less religious areas often tend to abort, while poorer and more catholic/religious areas tend to keep 'whatever god wants them to have' upon analysis of an fetus's genotype. FYI).
I do not know anyone with Down Syndrome, I don't have it, and I don't research it, but unlike the vast majority of genetic defects, Down Syndrome is most certainly one of the more benign, and while the affected person is likely not going to MIT, it is quite possible that he or she can hold a job, live on their own (or with a spouse, or in a group home), and have a productive and happy life.
I would consider "horribly retarded" to be a person who is unable to feed themselves (ever), incontinent, unable to walk, aphasic, and essentially being unaware of the world around him/her. This type of patient would 'potentially' require 24/7 assistance for the rest of his/her life, never have a chance for a 'normal' social interaction, or even have a vocabulary at all.
Missing limbs... Ummmm, if fetus missing a limb is enough reason for you to abort a pregnancy, I would encourage you to think about it a little more. A missing limb is about the most benign problem you've written about so far.
Stephen Hawking can travel the world, do extremely complex calculations, perform countless hours of research and author several books - effectively contributing to and changing the world's viewpoints on things like black holes, hawking radiation, and general relativity. He suffers from ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease for those in the US). He cannot speak, he cannot walk, point, write, or even nod his head. However, he is a genius and has altered the way many people think about our own universe.
Around the time of his graduate work, he was not expected to live long enough to finish his thesis (2-ish years from that point, I belive he was in his late 20's), however he is currently 66 years old.
If genetic testing enabled you to abort a fetus because they were highly suspected of developing ALS later in life, would that be reason enough?
How about someone like Jim Abbott? He played professional baseball in the Major Leagues and was born WITHOUT A RIGHT HAND.
Can you lump together "Down Syndrome", "Horribly retarded" and "Missing Limbs" into the same category and state that you would be tempted to abort if ANY of the conditions in the set were met?
I mean, I can understand your idea, but this is why there is currently so much ethical scrutiny in the field of genetics, stem cell research, and abortion. Being able to pick and chose who, what, and (exactly) when to give birth to, although convenient, is not the way that nature usually works.
It's essentially impossible for me to think of what I would do in a situation where I was faced with a choice like "terminate or go to term" with an unhealthy child, but I'd like to think that I'd make the right decision (whatever that may be).
Disclaimer: I have ZERO religious belief, I am not against abortion, I might very well choose to abort a fetus who is not capable of living without assistance for his/her entire life.
YMMV.
And IRC too. Let's not leave any loopholes for those pedophiles. Maybe email attachments too? This is insane, and sad.
"Fully Patched"... exactly.
I'm suggesting that MS NOT charge for security patches because they are beneficial to everyone using the OS, not that Windows CAN'T be made to be secure.
Let Microsoft's specialist abilities (software support, live updates etc) be the thing people pay for.
Linux vendors don't charge for software updates and security patches. You're suggesting the the vendor of one of the most insecure operating systems charge for SECURITY fixes? I don't think that's such a good idea...
The basic structure of a free market economy dissolves as a monopoly is introduced. If microsoft was producing QUALITY software during those "years of development", then the (free) market price would be much higher, since consumers would want the superior system to work on, and be willing to sacrifice the funds to get there. But, by forcing just about everyone, including just about every fortune 500 company, to use their product or be "cut off from the world", they feel free to develop crap, treat their employees like crap, and charge a very hefty price tag because people NEED the software in order to interact with every other person/company who is also caught in MS's monopoly on closed-source, proprietary software.
When is the last time that an employer asked you to send them a resume/CV in ANYTHING other than MS-Word format? "Please send LaTex formatted resume. Please send CSV plaintext document (as a spreadsheet)??? Nope; "Please send us your MS-overload formats or do not even enter the picture as a potential employee. kkthx!"
Linux/BSD - free, open office - free, TeX - free
OSX Leopard - $99 iWork - $79
Vista Ultimate/XP Pro - $299
MS Office - $449
If by "social engineering" you mean "torture", then yes, I'm pretty sure the US excels at social engineering.
I was just about to post a comment about the easy-bake. You're too quick... cooking cakes with that 100W light bulb and all.
Imagine how long an ez-bake would take today with all of our "green" CFLs using 20-ish watts and putting off a very small amount of heat.
"Mom, I just put the cake in the 'green EZ-bake', set the timer for 72 hours please!!"
Heroin is actually LESS toxic than nicotine, if you go on LD50 values (the amount of a substance that it takes to kill 1/2 of a population).
Even for a non-user, the LD50 can be placed above 350 mg[citation needed] though some sources give a figure of between 75 and 375 mg for a 75 kg person.[25] [Wikipedia.org]
Nicotine is somewhere around 40â"60 mg (0.5-1.0 mg/kg) can be a lethal dosage for adult humans. [Wikipedia.org]
Nicotine is 6-7 times more toxic than HEROIN, when measured by LD50.
Yes, just about any cigarette is only going to deliver 1-2MG of nicotine per cigarette when SMOKED. However, if INGESTED, cigarettes become exponentially more toxic. One ingested cigarette is easily enough to kill a child (the people more likely to expermient with eating things).
There are also those people who will wear a nicotine patch, chew the gum and then decided that they really need a cig too.
Just what do you consider a "dose"? The OP stated that nicotine was "not a harmful drug". I have refuted that statement. Nowhere did I say or imply that an adult would die from smoking 50 cigs back to back. However, nicotine, as a chemical, is very toxic.
I stand by my original statements. It's not ricin, but it's not candy either. Calling it "not dangerous" is ignorant.
Here are 5 mules who OD'd and died from nicotine by eating natural tobacco plants (their lethal dose is 2-6 times that of a human adult, and they had no problem dying)
http://jvdi.org/cgi/reprint/6/4/503.pdf
Nicotine is not a harmful drug???
Since when? Not only was Nicotine used widely as a pestacide (because of its toxicity), but it's one of the most dangerous drugs that the public are exposed to. 40 1/1000th of a gram is considered potentially deadly to a human. (40mg)
The LD50 of nicotine is 50 mg/kg for rats and 3 mg/kg for mice. 40â"60 mg (0.5-1.0 mg/kg) can be a lethal dosage for adult humans.[11] [12] This designates nicotine an extremely deadly poison. It is more toxic than many other alkaloids such as cocaine, which has an LD50 of 95.1 mg/kg when administered to mice. Spilling liquid nicotine on human skin could result in death.[13] [Wikipedia.org]
Sure, yeah, um, "not a harmful drug" in what sense?
They hire a pedophile!!
...motorcycle. Even a used sport bike (600-750CC) will hit 150+ MPH, 0-60 in about 3 seconds, and get WELL over 40MPG (closer to 65MPG if driven in a sane fashion). Problem is, they don't work in the snow, and they are very dangerous (I have a 1994-ish CBR900RR).
...except things like using it as a tethered 3g modem with a laptop, which the firmware/AT&T prevent. Otherwise, I'd buy one. "Oh, laptop internet access?! Yeah, here, you're going to need a $50 aircard and a $59/month additional plan for that, capped at very low download Kb/month." (5Gb?) = double dipping.