this should not be a black and white argument, and - admirable though this guy's public volte-face is - it doesn't really help the debate much at all.
OK sure - there is a growing population and a possibly impending food crisis. But there is also plenty to suggest that this needn't be the case even without GMO crops, and is a result of lop-sided globalised capitalist economics. Why don't we fix the existing demand and supply imbalances, instead of just saying 'yeah we need more food, GM is OK after all guys'.? I'm surprised this guy doesn't seem worried that, even if GM can solve global food demand, the patents involved mean that food supply will be EVEN MORE concentrated in the hands of a relatively few powerful companies/individuals. That's not to say that GM is inherently bad, but from the admittedly limited amount I know about GM patents, we would be wise to open this market up before GM production really takes off in a big way.
OK I even read TFA which outlines some of the history -- there is lots of pro-metric legislation in America, yet still the system hasn't been officially adopted. I don't care about whether one system is better than the other, or what the relative merits are of each. I'd like to know:
Are there any explicitly stated reasons out of the US government or industry, specifying why the metric system has not (or cannot) be adopted??
The linked article seems to imply that simply inertia or lack of will is the reason, but I'd like to know.
I normally avoid any threads here asking about kids and tech.
I generally take the 'live and let live' approach - but I have to agree here. This guy is a fucking retard. If you're worrying about which APP is suitable for a kid at 6 months old you're really doing something wrong. That is all.
Yeah BUT doesn't Mayan mythology also talk about different 'ages of the sun'? At the end of each such age their myths said that a terrible calamity happened, lots of people died, but the earth kept rolling and life gradually renewed.
The difference this time around is that - according to the Mayan calendar - we are currently in the fifth and final 'age of the sun'. The implication being that - after this particular calendar cycle finishes (next week) - the whole place is going to evaporate and there won't be any more.
Well that's what I read in some book or other anyway. Yes, that's my citation.
so... I've got a problem with the bluetooth. I've tried usb'ing into the internet, but when I download the flash drive it gives my ram a virus and I'm pretty sure that's why I'm not getting farmville updates
my concern is that the consumer goodys will become so ubiquitous and saturate the market that it will become near impossible to buy separate components in future, and even having the choice of whether to build my own machine or not will be indirectly decided by the masses.
Here in NZ, in the middle of nowhere, I just got my pi from element14 with overnight delivery. They sent me two even though I only ordered 1. Now that's service!
but you're seeing things from an end-user perspective. Businesses and lawyers see things from a... business and money-making perspective. In that respect, the answer can actually only be "yes".
There are many examples of the legal system being used to preserve outdated and irrelevant business models that quite clearly fly in the face of expressed consumer demand (RIAA anyone?). This looks like it won't be any exception, unfortunately.
well the AC I replied to above seemed to think so, based on the comment
But we at least are all guaranteed free healthcare even if circumstances mean we can't afford to pay for it (eg because we're too ill to work).
and indeed, many british migrants who come here talk endlessly about their wonderful 'free' healthcare system. So - yes, it actually is worth pointing out I think.
Of course, british healthcare is not 'free' at all. It is free at point of usage, but all salaries have 'national insurance' deducted to pay for it - so it is effectively a government mandated health insurance scheme).
It is also important to point out that there is quite a bit of research now showing that age is not a valid independent predictor of healthcare utilisation and costs - the biggest costs are a product of end-of-life events/hospitalisations and illness. An Australian study found that 'older decedents were not more likely to be hospitalised than younger decedents... [and] once hospitalised, their in-patient costs were lower'. Another study found that 'the relationship between age and health expenditure was weak and possibly inverse once proximity to death was allowed for'.
So it's rather facile to buy in to the notion that an 'older' population inevitably means much higher health costs. In fact here in urban NZ, with a young population facing rapidly increasing rates of obesity and diabetes, it is more likely to be younger people developing poorly-controlled chronic conditions that will place the biggest strain on the health system in 10 years time. Factor in also their loss of productivity in the economy, and it all looks pretty bleak, unless some pretty serious measures are taken now to stem the rise.
Refs for the curious:
Segal & Bolton (2009), 'Issues facing the future health care workforce: the importance of demand modelling', Australia and New Zealand Health Policy, 6:12.
Breyer & Felder (2006), 'life expectancy and health care expenditures: a new calculation for Germany using the costs of dying', Health Policy, 75.
he's definitely doing it right though - simultaneously stick two fingers up at the Americans, and promise the Kiwis an improvement on their piss-poor internet.
Yes there are some ways around even for an individual but why should I? Here in NZ I have used free hospital care for myself and my family many times in emergencies - healthcare is funded almost entirely from general taxation. I have no problem at all with paying around 30% of my income for this and many other services provided by government.
I know it's also cool to bash big business, but we're talking about just ONE company here who - if they'd paid the already low rate of 12.5% - would have increased revenue to Irish govt by around 2.5b gbp. Extrapolate that across other multi-national companies and we're talking about a shit-load of money that, at the end of the day, is OWED and would significantly help lots and lots of people if put to good use.
the point is that in many countries individual income tax is deducted automatically at source. I work hard for a living, but I do not have the option of using 'offshore havens' or whatnot simply to try and get away with paying as little as possible. My tax is deducted before I even receive a penny of my salary - many years I have TOO MUCH deducted, and I have to jump through hoops to get it paid back.
Corporations have an inbuilt advantage over individuals in that they can essentially structure their business in order to choose how much tax they pay. This may be 'legal' but it is cynical and deceptive. I know it's cool to bash governments these days, but they could do a lot of good with an extra 10.6% of Apple's revenue.
exactly. This is the globalised capitalist dream we all signed up to. I can imagine that big corps don't give a fuck about american jobs, or british jobs or ANY kind of jobs. As long as there is cheap labour somewhere they can practically utilise, and their target market is either wealthy enough or has enough access to credit, to be able to buy their products en masse they will be happy.
Of course even middle-class americans don't really have the disposable income to afford many of the stuff popular in consumer culture - but a cynical government can easily relax lending regulations if they need to make sure money keeps spinning around this house of card economy. Sound familiar?
you're bitter because you solved a problem that was 'above your pay grade'??
Wow, maybe this is what's wrong with the IT industry. Yeah, big corps are complicated and bureaucratic etc etc etc, but if more people actually WANTED to make an effort to do stuff, and worked outside their own defined sphere of influence just to y'know, actually get shit done, then maybe things wouldn't be so bad?
All the discussion here leads me to the conclusion that the key to happiness is as simple as continuing to learn and develop your skills and to occasionally stick your neck out and do whatever it takes to solve the problem.
tl;dr - allowing private service providers to make such potentially huge decisions about who can send/receive/make money is dangerous.
I agree, acutually, but:
1. the trend nowadays is for 'less' government; western governments are following the oxymoronic principle of 'contractionary stimulus' in order to push a neo-liberal agenda and further shrink government and deregulate.
2. this is a marketing stroke of genius by Visa/Mastercard. They come out looking great for defending us all against these naughty people and then, some time in the not too distant future, any arguments against them having such power (i.e. when they freeze accounts of political activists, etc), will be branded as pro-crime/paedophilia/whatever.
I haven't read the article but it seems to me that this should more accurately be titled "parent questions mandatory curriculum" rather than specifically hating on chemistry.
His point about opportunity costs of education is actually a good one - mandatory curricula fix the complexion of the future workforce, with a lead-in time of some 10 years+. It's the right thing to do to question it, or at least refine it over time as new workforce needs, social issues etc come up.
I would personally love to see more politics/civic issues programmes in schools. The more we can do to educate children about participating in democracy and using their individual votes collectively to make positive change, the better.
Without wishing to collude in this gigantic one-upmanship-fest...
Total population of UAE is around 8 million (estimate - 2005 census it was actually 4 million).
TFA specifically says the records are UAE residents so we aren't talking about huge numbers of transiting air passengers or tourists.
So - how the hell do these numbers add up? If there are now 102 million fingerprint records, has every resident been digitally fingerprinted 12 times?? If there are 15 million facial records, has every resident in the country been imaged twice on average???
If all this is true, UAE should be commended not for the size of their gigantic database, but for a logistical and planning operation on a par with the holocaust.
if the evidence of FB's proactive privacy mismanagement is so overwhelming, what is the solution? is there one?
They obviously have no incentive to clean up their disgraceful neglect, and users apparently refuse to believe that FB is anything but a benevolent hook-up place.
I'd like to believe that informed people can make some kind of change here - but what??
people (like my aunt) think face book is doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, bringing people together,..
Yes! this is exactly the problem. I find it bewildering that in these days where people are on the lookout for internet 'predators' and we hear stories every day about 'cyber crime' that sites like FB are somehow presumed to be entirely altruistic. How the hell did they manage to do this?
Whenever I try and converse with someone about how it's basically a huge market research scam they look at me like I just shit on their head.
I agree with you completely, BUT the point is that 1 billion people (ok in reality it's much less, but a LOT) think FB is great and use it to record minute aspects of their daily lives. What people on/. think of it is kind of irrelevant - it is massively popular and we have to deal with that. It is fast becoming the repository of modern human existence whether we like it or not.
this makes it even more imperative that FB fixes its security issues. Its users go on there to 'socialise', and I personally believe that for those people who choose to use it, it should be much easier to set valid and meaningful security/sharing permissions. FB is so blatantly not genuinely giving a shit about any of these issues, that ignorance really is a defence in this case.
Slashdot Mirror
I would love to mod you up.
this should not be a black and white argument, and - admirable though this guy's public volte-face is - it doesn't really help the debate much at all.
OK sure - there is a growing population and a possibly impending food crisis. But there is also plenty to suggest that this needn't be the case even without GMO crops, and is a result of lop-sided globalised capitalist economics. Why don't we fix the existing demand and supply imbalances, instead of just saying 'yeah we need more food, GM is OK after all guys'.? I'm surprised this guy doesn't seem worried that, even if GM can solve global food demand, the patents involved mean that food supply will be EVEN MORE concentrated in the hands of a relatively few powerful companies/individuals. That's not to say that GM is inherently bad, but from the admittedly limited amount I know about GM patents, we would be wise to open this market up before GM production really takes off in a big way.
OK I even read TFA which outlines some of the history -- there is lots of pro-metric legislation in America, yet still the system hasn't been officially adopted. I don't care about whether one system is better than the other, or what the relative merits are of each. I'd like to know:
Are there any explicitly stated reasons out of the US government or industry, specifying why the metric system has not (or cannot) be adopted??
The linked article seems to imply that simply inertia or lack of will is the reason, but I'd like to know.
I normally avoid any threads here asking about kids and tech.
I generally take the 'live and let live' approach - but I have to agree here. This guy is a fucking retard. If you're worrying about which APP is suitable for a kid at 6 months old you're really doing something wrong. That is all.
Yeah BUT doesn't Mayan mythology also talk about different 'ages of the sun'? At the end of each such age their myths said that a terrible calamity happened, lots of people died, but the earth kept rolling and life gradually renewed.
The difference this time around is that - according to the Mayan calendar - we are currently in the fifth and final 'age of the sun'. The implication being that - after this particular calendar cycle finishes (next week) - the whole place is going to evaporate and there won't be any more.
Well that's what I read in some book or other anyway. Yes, that's my citation.
Mitchell and Webb mock this kind of inverted media snobbery really well I think.
so... I've got a problem with the bluetooth. I've tried usb'ing into the internet, but when I download the flash drive it gives my ram a virus and I'm pretty sure that's why I'm not getting farmville updates
my concern is that the consumer goodys will become so ubiquitous and saturate the market that it will become near impossible to buy separate components in future, and even having the choice of whether to build my own machine or not will be indirectly decided by the masses.
I already posted but +1 funny.
Here in NZ, in the middle of nowhere, I just got my pi from element14 with overnight delivery. They sent me two even though I only ordered 1. Now that's service!
judging by your definition of 'the real world' I'm guessing you're around 96 years old?
am I right?
but you're seeing things from an end-user perspective. Businesses and lawyers see things from a... business and money-making perspective. In that respect, the answer can actually only be "yes".
There are many examples of the legal system being used to preserve outdated and irrelevant business models that quite clearly fly in the face of expressed consumer demand (RIAA anyone?). This looks like it won't be any exception, unfortunately.
But we at least are all guaranteed free healthcare even if circumstances mean we can't afford to pay for it (eg because we're too ill to work).
and indeed, many british migrants who come here talk endlessly about their wonderful 'free' healthcare system. So - yes, it actually is worth pointing out I think.
Of course, british healthcare is not 'free' at all. It is free at point of usage, but all salaries have 'national insurance' deducted to pay for it - so it is effectively a government mandated health insurance scheme).
It is also important to point out that there is quite a bit of research now showing that age is not a valid independent predictor of healthcare utilisation and costs - the biggest costs are a product of end-of-life events/hospitalisations and illness. An Australian study found that 'older decedents were not more likely to be hospitalised than younger decedents... [and] once hospitalised, their in-patient costs were lower'. Another study found that 'the relationship between age and health expenditure was weak and possibly inverse once proximity to death was allowed for'.
So it's rather facile to buy in to the notion that an 'older' population inevitably means much higher health costs. In fact here in urban NZ, with a young population facing rapidly increasing rates of obesity and diabetes, it is more likely to be younger people developing poorly-controlled chronic conditions that will place the biggest strain on the health system in 10 years time. Factor in also their loss of productivity in the economy, and it all looks pretty bleak, unless some pretty serious measures are taken now to stem the rise.
Refs for the curious:
Segal & Bolton (2009), 'Issues facing the future health care workforce: the importance of demand modelling', Australia and New Zealand Health Policy, 6:12.
Breyer & Felder (2006), 'life expectancy and health care expenditures: a new calculation for Germany using the costs of dying', Health Policy, 75.
he's definitely doing it right though - simultaneously stick two fingers up at the Americans, and promise the Kiwis an improvement on their piss-poor internet.
I think he's a dick, but this is a great show.
Yes there are some ways around even for an individual but why should I? Here in NZ I have used free hospital care for myself and my family many times in emergencies - healthcare is funded almost entirely from general taxation. I have no problem at all with paying around 30% of my income for this and many other services provided by government.
I know it's also cool to bash big business, but we're talking about just ONE company here who - if they'd paid the already low rate of 12.5% - would have increased revenue to Irish govt by around 2.5b gbp. Extrapolate that across other multi-national companies and we're talking about a shit-load of money that, at the end of the day, is OWED and would significantly help lots and lots of people if put to good use.
the point is that in many countries individual income tax is deducted automatically at source. I work hard for a living, but I do not have the option of using 'offshore havens' or whatnot simply to try and get away with paying as little as possible. My tax is deducted before I even receive a penny of my salary - many years I have TOO MUCH deducted, and I have to jump through hoops to get it paid back.
Corporations have an inbuilt advantage over individuals in that they can essentially structure their business in order to choose how much tax they pay. This may be 'legal' but it is cynical and deceptive. I know it's cool to bash governments these days, but they could do a lot of good with an extra 10.6% of Apple's revenue.
Mitt Romney is looking forward to your vote.
exactly. This is the globalised capitalist dream we all signed up to. I can imagine that big corps don't give a fuck about american jobs, or british jobs or ANY kind of jobs. As long as there is cheap labour somewhere they can practically utilise, and their target market is either wealthy enough or has enough access to credit, to be able to buy their products en masse they will be happy.
Of course even middle-class americans don't really have the disposable income to afford many of the stuff popular in consumer culture - but a cynical government can easily relax lending regulations if they need to make sure money keeps spinning around this house of card economy. Sound familiar?
you're bitter because you solved a problem that was 'above your pay grade'??
Wow, maybe this is what's wrong with the IT industry. Yeah, big corps are complicated and bureaucratic etc etc etc, but if more people actually WANTED to make an effort to do stuff, and worked outside their own defined sphere of influence just to y'know, actually get shit done, then maybe things wouldn't be so bad?
All the discussion here leads me to the conclusion that the key to happiness is as simple as continuing to learn and develop your skills and to occasionally stick your neck out and do whatever it takes to solve the problem.
tl;dr - allowing private service providers to make such potentially huge decisions about who can send/receive/make money is dangerous.
I agree, acutually, but:
1. the trend nowadays is for 'less' government; western governments are following the oxymoronic principle of 'contractionary stimulus' in order to push a neo-liberal agenda and further shrink government and deregulate.
2. this is a marketing stroke of genius by Visa/Mastercard. They come out looking great for defending us all against these naughty people and then, some time in the not too distant future, any arguments against them having such power (i.e. when they freeze accounts of political activists, etc), will be branded as pro-crime/paedophilia/whatever.
A slippery slope indeed.
I haven't read the article but it seems to me that this should more accurately be titled "parent questions mandatory curriculum" rather than specifically hating on chemistry.
His point about opportunity costs of education is actually a good one - mandatory curricula fix the complexion of the future workforce, with a lead-in time of some 10 years+. It's the right thing to do to question it, or at least refine it over time as new workforce needs, social issues etc come up.
I would personally love to see more politics/civic issues programmes in schools. The more we can do to educate children about participating in democracy and using their individual votes collectively to make positive change, the better.
Without wishing to collude in this gigantic one-upmanship-fest...
Total population of UAE is around 8 million (estimate - 2005 census it was actually 4 million).
TFA specifically says the records are UAE residents so we aren't talking about huge numbers of transiting air passengers or tourists.
So - how the hell do these numbers add up? If there are now 102 million fingerprint records, has every resident been digitally fingerprinted 12 times?? If there are 15 million facial records, has every resident in the country been imaged twice on average???
If all this is true, UAE should be commended not for the size of their gigantic database, but for a logistical and planning operation on a par with the holocaust.
OK I'm an optimist, humor me......
if the evidence of FB's proactive privacy mismanagement is so overwhelming, what is the solution? is there one?
They obviously have no incentive to clean up their disgraceful neglect, and users apparently refuse to believe that FB is anything but a benevolent hook-up place.
I'd like to believe that informed people can make some kind of change here - but what??
people (like my aunt) think face book is doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, bringing people together,..
Yes! this is exactly the problem. I find it bewildering that in these days where people are on the lookout for internet 'predators' and we hear stories every day about 'cyber crime' that sites like FB are somehow presumed to be entirely altruistic. How the hell did they manage to do this?
Whenever I try and converse with someone about how it's basically a huge market research scam they look at me like I just shit on their head.
I agree with you completely, BUT the point is that 1 billion people (ok in reality it's much less, but a LOT) think FB is great and use it to record minute aspects of their daily lives. What people on /. think of it is kind of irrelevant - it is massively popular and we have to deal with that. It is fast becoming the repository of modern human existence whether we like it or not.
this makes it even more imperative that FB fixes its security issues. Its users go on there to 'socialise', and I personally believe that for those people who choose to use it, it should be much easier to set valid and meaningful security/sharing permissions. FB is so blatantly not genuinely giving a shit about any of these issues, that ignorance really is a defence in this case.