Exactly, "better" is is only relevant when measured against a specific yardstick. For example, being short is "better" if you value fitting in sports cars, being tall is "better" if you want to play basketball. Having dark skin is "better" if you live in an area with very high UV exposure, having light skin is "better" if you live in a place that is cloudy/rainy 6 months out of the year.
Almost any non-superficial difference is "better" than another given a certain context (and vice-versa). The problem of racism arises when people just focus on the "better" and ignore the context. The problem of political correct idiocy arises when any differences that could be construed as "better" are thrown out, context be damned.
(The latter is probably the lesser of two evils though.)
Why is it that people always go to the "well someone could take it from you!" argument regarding introducing guns in an environment? Forcibly removing a weapon from one WELL TRAINED in it's use (air marshals, not TSA goons), while the assailant is unarmed, without said assailant being shot to death is an EXTREMELY low probability scenario.
Normal bomb detection methods should work just fine. Just have a couple K9 units wandering around the security lines. I don't think we've come up with anything more effective than a well trained K9 yet.
The problem is, dogs are cheap compared to a nudie scanner...
It sounds like this isn’t the case, but I’d point out that “accidently” sending email to the wrong person is getting more traction as a spam and phishing technique. I’ve seen stuff recently (I have a fairly common email too) that goes way beyond the classic and obvious “hey man, here’s the projections you wanted. You were right, you should invest in SomeShitStock right away!”. Again, the stuff you talk about sounds legit and you probably already know this, but just incase, be-careful!
As to the actual post. I do much as you do. If it’s an actual person, quick reply sorts it out. If it’s automated and there is an _obvious_ support or admin email link (most businesses seem to have a “if you have received this in error” link now) I’ll do. But as you said, there is a point though where you have to draw the line at how long you’ll play phone tag for someone else’s benefit. I always figure stuff like that eventually works itself out anyway. I don’t want people going through billing nightmares, but unreasonable is unreasonable.
On that note I’d point out that any company _billing people_ over email should have one of those activation link via email dealies. Most web forums have that, you’d think a cable company could manage to confirm an email before sending out personal info (in fact, here in Canada I think they legally have to).
I actually got my first one of those today. It read like this.
WRONG NAME WITH CORRECT FIRST LETTER CORRECT LAST NAME, we're emailing you to inform you that you are the only living heir to Amanda CORRCT LASTNAME's estate of $25.9 million dollars...
Look closely at the picture. In his left hand, what is he holding? A book, with what? Maps. Why does he need that? His phone - which he's obviously addicted to - should have some sort of GPS and/or map app if he's that hooked to it.
It's an iPhone and that's how the all powerful Steve thinks everyone should multi-task.
Interesting thought, but if there's life on Mars that's not directly related to life on Earth, that means that life is going to be very common in the universe. So, there's no need to treat Mars with any reverence.
Let's hope no aliens came here thinking this way.
Why should we assume they (the hypothetical aliens) would think differently? If they can get here from however many light years away they were when they started, I seriously doubt we'd be able to offer them much besides potential entertainment value. Otherwise we're simply in their way... just like indigenous species and races have just been "in the way" whenever a technologically superior group of explorers shows up and wants something. For reference see, well, basically all of human history.
That said, I agree and hope that no aliens come here thinking that way!
Some of the F1 drivers are rebelling against the insane amount of controls they have to deal with on the steering wheel.
Then I'd someone isn't doing everything they could be doing. You shouldn't need all things manually controlled. They should be spending just as much time on ECUs and such as they do on everything else.
A microprocessor can adjust something a hell of a lot faster and more consistently than even the best driver... assuming it can sense what it needs to sense and has been programmed to respond properly to it.
It's the same thing in MotoGP. Electronic controls for most of everything. Bikes that have traction controls that know what corner they are in and precisely how much throttle can be applied. The end result is you are watching the machines race each other more than you are watching the riders race one another.
To each his own, but I personally like to watch motorsport to see the riders/drivers compete with a combination of skill/luck/balls/crazy. I don't watch to see engineers compete with software (albeit very impressive software).
That's because at those places a new, third, marketing-driven system of units has taken the place of all others: large, extra large, super extra large, and ludicrously large.
... WHOOSH...
Ramathorn: Just order a large, Farva.
Farva: But I don't want a "large Farva!" I want a god-damned liter of cola!
When the government starts to reach resistance in its borrowing it will be cutting programs right and left. It behooves everyone to save for their future because you cannot guarantee that all the things promised you by politicians will be three when you need them. You must also accept that unless Washington takes steps to correct its spending (we have more debt spending than some G7 countries have total spending) that you will have far less to spend on anything.
...
I fear that rather than cutting programs the gubmint will continue as they are and keep interest rates crazy low, inflating away their debt load. I believe that's what they're already doing, and it's really going to screw the savers like ourselves (assuming you are a saver). Say I've already put away $100k for retirement by the age of 30... by the time I've actually retired will that be more like $10k? Would I actually be better off spending it now, before taxes go up (making my withdrawal burden much higher) and before inflation chews up it's buying power?
It's sad to have to perform these thought experiments because doing the "right thing" may not be the "right thing" after all.
(Actually it's probably best to buy hard assets with leverage and let inflation make the debt get lighter... sadly)
Only exception to this is canned veggies (and some of those have a bunch of junk added too).
A friend of mine that worked in the meat packing/butchering industry always passes on hamburgers at barbques. His reason, "I won't eat any meat without a bone in it. You don't know what it's made of otherwise!"
The only exception I make to this is the boneless skinless chicken breasts and ground beef in chilli and soups.
I type this from a federal penitentiary. When I was 12 my parents bought me a game for my Sega Genesis called "Mortal Kombat." "It's only a game," right? If only that "game" had done a better job of explaining the consequences of one's actions, I wouldn't be doing 30 consecutive life sentences for ripping the heads off two dozen of my classmates (spines attached) and then tearing the skin off my face and proceeding to breath searing flames on my teachers, burning them alive until they were just charred skeletons.
Parents, talk to you kids about the REAL cost of a "Fatality!" Before it's too late.
NUH-UH!!! NO FAIR! You can't be Scorpion and Sub-Zero!
My wife is a kindergarten teacher and distinguishing fantasy from reality is a big developmental milestone that kids are supposed to hit shortly before they enter her class. Some don't, and they're generally the ones that have issues with right and wrong, following basic directions and playing well with others... and as a consequence generally perform less well than others. Kindergarten is a bit young to be playing Call of Grand Theft Rape-fest 19 or whatever, and most kids who didn't get the difference between fantasy and reality understand it before they go on to first grade, but not all. I'd imagine its possible that some percentage of these kids NEVER really understand the difference, or at least don't catch on until their teens. These are likely the fraction of a fraction that would see any influence at all from a violent video game... but no more than they would get from movies/tv/music/books/youtube/anything else that I forgot.
Norwegian police also don't have to deal with the level of danger that American cops have to. The problem here is centered around our pockets of poverty... poor folks with nothing to lose can be quite dangerous. An American cop without a gun in the bad parts of any major American city would hunted for sport.
And he LOVED that car. Bought one himself and it had lots of problems... broke his heart a bit and he returned it or sold it.
You'd think if he just made up everything based on personal bias, that he would have tried to downplay any and all negatives for a car that he dearly loves.
Please, tell me how a gaming PC costs more than a console, a sound system, and an HDTV. Let's not get into how console games are on average 30% more expensive than their PC counterparts.
You can get a gaming PC (which you can work on) capable of a great experience at HD resolutions, including a screen, for £1000. You'll pay the same for a console, HDTV, sound system, PVR, and laptop / desktop work PC. It's just a matter of preference.
Because nobody owns an HDTV, sound system, PVR and laptop for reasons other than wanting a gaming console? Really?
In my household we've went laptop only precisely to save the space that a computer desk takes up. Well not 100% truthful there, we still have a tiny Atom PC in a corner running as a NAS and print server. That said, I'm on/. and would wager that the non/. crowd has even less of a need for a stationary desktop... likely this need is approaching 0.
The peace the Japan had offered was not a total and unconditional surrender, and still left the emperor in tact. FDR and the other allied leaders saw this as unacceptable. Japanese soldiers and their leaders were (supposedly) not allowed to be taken prisoner and were to fight to the last man for their emperor. This forced the US and her allies to basically fight a campaign of extermination wherever we needed to remove the Japanese for their conquered territories. This is a very costly in terms of lives lost for both sides (see Iwo Jima, Okinawa, the Phillipenes etc). Why not try and get them to capitulate without risking your own on the ground? A couple hundred thousand is an awful lot less than the estimated casualties.
A study done for Secretary of War Henry Stimson's staff by William Shockley estimated that conquering Japan would cost 1.7 to 4 million American casualties, including 400,000 to 800,000 fatalities, and five to ten million Japanese fatalities. The key assumption was large-scale participation by civilians in the defense of Japan.
The firebombings of Tokyo and other major cities had caused much more loss of life than the nuclear attacks combined and had not forced the Japanese to unconditionally surrender. (Note: I disagree with the attacking of civilian populations as well... but it was just "how things were done" in both the European and Pacific theaters.)
A "show and tell session" as you are describing would have been very risky and costly. We only had 2 of these bombs, and weren't positive they would work. We also didn't know what their effectiveness would be when used against a city which is why we left Hiroshima and Nagasaki alone until they were bombed. If I were Truman, knowing what he knew and what the costs would be if we hit the ground and also fearing what the costs of allowing the Soviets to potentially conquer Japan would be... I would probably make the same decision.
As a side note, after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear war became rightly feared and nearly unthinkable. Ground wars on the scale of a WW1 or WW2 became impossible, as either side capable of projecting that much force would be capable of just nuking the other and vice versa... making WW3 too costly to contemplate. Sure there were smaller wars like the Korean war and Vietnam, but a showdown between the USSR and the western allies never happened thanks to MADD... which may not have been possible without seeing the destructive capabilities of these weapons first hand. In that regard, those two bombs may have saved an order of magnitude more lives than they took.
Just my thoughts and my recollections of discussions about these things with my grandpa, who fought on the ground in the Philippines.
Also to expand on your point about the nuking of Japan being mainly to avoid a long protracted invasion.
We're still using the Purple Hearts that were made in anticipation of hundreds of thousands of casualties that would have arisen from Operation Downfall. From wikipedia...
Nearly 500,000 Purple Heart medals were manufactured in anticipation of the casualties resulting from the invasion of Japan. To the present date, all the American military casualties of the sixty years following the end of World War II—including the Korean and Vietnam Wars—have not exceeded that number. In 2003, there were still 120,000 of these Purple Heart medals in stock.
One thing the West could do is send money, food, water, supplies, communication equipment, weapons, etc. to the rebel forces. I'm sure the CIA is contingency-planning this right now in case the President orders it. It could be quid-pro-quo deal, something like "there's a lot more of this if the oil fields keep pumping."
We (I'm a US-ian) did that in Afghanistan a couple decades ago with a little fella named Osama to help him fight the Russians. Didn't turn out so well long term...
Could you replace "Iraq" with "Libya" and send this back in time to George Bush and let him know that invading Iraq is not such a good idea?
Not defending the man, but in 20 years might we see him in a different light? He did keep saying that "democracy/freedom is contagious" and that if we forced a bit of democracy on a couple Middle Eastern/Muslim countries... others would want it for themselves.
Heresy I know... but even a broken watch is right 2x a day.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly, "better" is is only relevant when measured against a specific yardstick. For example, being short is "better" if you value fitting in sports cars, being tall is "better" if you want to play basketball. Having dark skin is "better" if you live in an area with very high UV exposure, having light skin is "better" if you live in a place that is cloudy/rainy 6 months out of the year.
Almost any non-superficial difference is "better" than another given a certain context (and vice-versa). The problem of racism arises when people just focus on the "better" and ignore the context. The problem of political correct idiocy arises when any differences that could be construed as "better" are thrown out, context be damned.
(The latter is probably the lesser of two evils though.)
I'll see your Richard Keil and raise you a Ron Perlman. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Perlman
I believe it was best said by Ghandi.
I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
Why is it that people always go to the "well someone could take it from you!" argument regarding introducing guns in an environment? Forcibly removing a weapon from one WELL TRAINED in it's use (air marshals, not TSA goons), while the assailant is unarmed, without said assailant being shot to death is an EXTREMELY low probability scenario.
Normal bomb detection methods should work just fine. Just have a couple K9 units wandering around the security lines. I don't think we've come up with anything more effective than a well trained K9 yet.
The problem is, dogs are cheap compared to a nudie scanner...
Sad thing is they'd probably be fired for insubordination or some such nonsense.
Increment weather? I prefer to write that weather++ myself.
To be honest I thought he did that as a joke.
Chinese Admiral: "Attack during increment weather. They're razers will be useress!!!"
It isn't spam, but it isn't my meat.
It sounds like this isn’t the case, but I’d point out that “accidently” sending email to the wrong person is getting more traction as a spam and phishing technique. I’ve seen stuff recently (I have a fairly common email too) that goes way beyond the classic and obvious “hey man, here’s the projections you wanted. You were right, you should invest in SomeShitStock right away!”. Again, the stuff you talk about sounds legit and you probably already know this, but just incase, be-careful!
As to the actual post. I do much as you do. If it’s an actual person, quick reply sorts it out. If it’s automated and there is an _obvious_ support or admin email link (most businesses seem to have a “if you have received this in error” link now) I’ll do. But as you said, there is a point though where you have to draw the line at how long you’ll play phone tag for someone else’s benefit. I always figure stuff like that eventually works itself out anyway. I don’t want people going through billing nightmares, but unreasonable is unreasonable.
On that note I’d point out that any company _billing people_ over email should have one of those activation link via email dealies. Most web forums have that, you’d think a cable company could manage to confirm an email before sending out personal info (in fact, here in Canada I think they legally have to).
I actually got my first one of those today. It read like this.
WRONG NAME WITH CORRECT FIRST LETTER CORRECT LAST NAME, we're emailing you to inform you that you are the only living heir to Amanda CORRCT LASTNAME's estate of $25.9 million dollars ...
Look closely at the picture. In his left hand, what is he holding? A book, with what? Maps. Why does he need that? His phone - which he's obviously addicted to - should have some sort of GPS and/or map app if he's that hooked to it.
It's an iPhone and that's how the all powerful Steve thinks everyone should multi-task.
**ducks**
Interesting thought, but if there's life on Mars that's not directly related to life on Earth, that means that life is going to be very common in the universe. So, there's no need to treat Mars with any reverence.
Let's hope no aliens came here thinking this way.
Why should we assume they (the hypothetical aliens) would think differently? If they can get here from however many light years away they were when they started, I seriously doubt we'd be able to offer them much besides potential entertainment value. Otherwise we're simply in their way ... just like indigenous species and races have just been "in the way" whenever a technologically superior group of explorers shows up and wants something. For reference see, well, basically all of human history.
That said, I agree and hope that no aliens come here thinking that way!
Keeping on digging is really, really easy.
+1 ... So long as someone will let you finance a shovel.
Co-worker just bought a new Toyota. The book says to only change the oil every 10k miles. cool.
That limit was raised to 10k at precisely the same time Toyota started their prepaid or free maintenance for something like 36k miles. Coincidence?
(Not saying that the oil won't last that long if the duty cycle is light, I'd be concerned about the filter though.)
Some of the F1 drivers are rebelling against the insane amount of controls they have to deal with on the steering wheel.
Then I'd someone isn't doing everything they could be doing. You shouldn't need all things manually controlled. They should be spending just as much time on ECUs and such as they do on everything else.
A microprocessor can adjust something a hell of a lot faster and more consistently than even the best driver... assuming it can sense what it needs to sense and has been programmed to respond properly to it.
It's the same thing in MotoGP. Electronic controls for most of everything. Bikes that have traction controls that know what corner they are in and precisely how much throttle can be applied. The end result is you are watching the machines race each other more than you are watching the riders race one another.
To each his own, but I personally like to watch motorsport to see the riders/drivers compete with a combination of skill/luck/balls/crazy. I don't watch to see engineers compete with software (albeit very impressive software).
That's because at those places a new, third, marketing-driven system of units has taken the place of all others: large, extra large, super extra large, and ludicrously large.
... WHOOSH ...
Ramathorn: Just order a large, Farva.
Farva: But I don't want a "large Farva!" I want a god-damned liter of cola!
...
When the government starts to reach resistance in its borrowing it will be cutting programs right and left. It behooves everyone to save for their future because you cannot guarantee that all the things promised you by politicians will be three when you need them. You must also accept that unless Washington takes steps to correct its spending (we have more debt spending than some G7 countries have total spending) that you will have far less to spend on anything.
...
I fear that rather than cutting programs the gubmint will continue as they are and keep interest rates crazy low, inflating away their debt load. I believe that's what they're already doing, and it's really going to screw the savers like ourselves (assuming you are a saver). Say I've already put away $100k for retirement by the age of 30 ... by the time I've actually retired will that be more like $10k? Would I actually be better off spending it now, before taxes go up (making my withdrawal burden much higher) and before inflation chews up it's buying power?
It's sad to have to perform these thought experiments because doing the "right thing" may not be the "right thing" after all.
(Actually it's probably best to buy hard assets with leverage and let inflation make the debt get lighter ... sadly)
Only exception to this is canned veggies (and some of those have a bunch of junk added too).
A friend of mine that worked in the meat packing/butchering industry always passes on hamburgers at barbques. His reason, "I won't eat any meat without a bone in it. You don't know what it's made of otherwise!"
The only exception I make to this is the boneless skinless chicken breasts and ground beef in chilli and soups.
I type this from a federal penitentiary. When I was 12 my parents bought me a game for my Sega Genesis called "Mortal Kombat." "It's only a game," right? If only that "game" had done a better job of explaining the consequences of one's actions, I wouldn't be doing 30 consecutive life sentences for ripping the heads off two dozen of my classmates (spines attached) and then tearing the skin off my face and proceeding to breath searing flames on my teachers, burning them alive until they were just charred skeletons.
Parents, talk to you kids about the REAL cost of a "Fatality!" Before it's too late.
NUH-UH!!! NO FAIR! You can't be Scorpion and Sub-Zero!
My wife is a kindergarten teacher and distinguishing fantasy from reality is a big developmental milestone that kids are supposed to hit shortly before they enter her class. Some don't, and they're generally the ones that have issues with right and wrong, following basic directions and playing well with others ... and as a consequence generally perform less well than others. Kindergarten is a bit young to be playing Call of Grand Theft Rape-fest 19 or whatever, and most kids who didn't get the difference between fantasy and reality understand it before they go on to first grade, but not all. I'd imagine its possible that some percentage of these kids NEVER really understand the difference, or at least don't catch on until their teens. These are likely the fraction of a fraction that would see any influence at all from a violent video game ... but no more than they would get from movies/tv/music/books/youtube/anything else that I forgot.
Norwegian police also don't have to deal with the level of danger that American cops have to. The problem here is centered around our pockets of poverty ... poor folks with nothing to lose can be quite dangerous. An American cop without a gun in the bad parts of any major American city would hunted for sport.
And he LOVED that car. Bought one himself and it had lots of problems ... broke his heart a bit and he returned it or sold it.
You'd think if he just made up everything based on personal bias, that he would have tried to downplay any and all negatives for a car that he dearly loves.
Please, tell me how a gaming PC costs more than a console, a sound system, and an HDTV. Let's not get into how console games are on average 30% more expensive than their PC counterparts. You can get a gaming PC (which you can work on) capable of a great experience at HD resolutions, including a screen, for £1000. You'll pay the same for a console, HDTV, sound system, PVR, and laptop / desktop work PC. It's just a matter of preference.
Because nobody owns an HDTV, sound system, PVR and laptop for reasons other than wanting a gaming console? Really?
/. and would wager that the non /. crowd has even less of a need for a stationary desktop ... likely this need is approaching 0.
In my household we've went laptop only precisely to save the space that a computer desk takes up. Well not 100% truthful there, we still have a tiny Atom PC in a corner running as a NAS and print server. That said, I'm on
A study done for Secretary of War Henry Stimson's staff by William Shockley estimated that conquering Japan would cost 1.7 to 4 million American casualties, including 400,000 to 800,000 fatalities, and five to ten million Japanese fatalities. The key assumption was large-scale participation by civilians in the defense of Japan.
The firebombings of Tokyo and other major cities had caused much more loss of life than the nuclear attacks combined and had not forced the Japanese to unconditionally surrender. (Note: I disagree with the attacking of civilian populations as well ... but it was just "how things were done" in both the European and Pacific theaters.)
... I would probably make the same decision.
... making WW3 too costly to contemplate. Sure there were smaller wars like the Korean war and Vietnam, but a showdown between the USSR and the western allies never happened thanks to MADD ... which may not have been possible without seeing the destructive capabilities of these weapons first hand. In that regard, those two bombs may have saved an order of magnitude more lives than they took.
A "show and tell session" as you are describing would have been very risky and costly. We only had 2 of these bombs, and weren't positive they would work. We also didn't know what their effectiveness would be when used against a city which is why we left Hiroshima and Nagasaki alone until they were bombed. If I were Truman, knowing what he knew and what the costs would be if we hit the ground and also fearing what the costs of allowing the Soviets to potentially conquer Japan would be
As a side note, after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear war became rightly feared and nearly unthinkable. Ground wars on the scale of a WW1 or WW2 became impossible, as either side capable of projecting that much force would be capable of just nuking the other and vice versa
Just my thoughts and my recollections of discussions about these things with my grandpa, who fought on the ground in the Philippines.
Also to expand on your point about the nuking of Japan being mainly to avoid a long protracted invasion.
We're still using the Purple Hearts that were made in anticipation of hundreds of thousands of casualties that would have arisen from Operation Downfall. From wikipedia
Nearly 500,000 Purple Heart medals were manufactured in anticipation of the casualties resulting from the invasion of Japan. To the present date, all the American military casualties of the sixty years following the end of World War II—including the Korean and Vietnam Wars—have not exceeded that number. In 2003, there were still 120,000 of these Purple Heart medals in stock.
What's the average Netflix data rate? That couldn't have anything to do with this now could it ...
One thing the West could do is send money, food, water, supplies, communication equipment, weapons, etc. to the rebel forces. I'm sure the CIA is contingency-planning this right now in case the President orders it. It could be quid-pro-quo deal, something like "there's a lot more of this if the oil fields keep pumping."
We (I'm a US-ian) did that in Afghanistan a couple decades ago with a little fella named Osama to help him fight the Russians. Didn't turn out so well long term ...
Could you replace "Iraq" with "Libya" and send this back in time to George Bush and let him know that invading Iraq is not such a good idea?
Not defending the man, but in 20 years might we see him in a different light? He did keep saying that "democracy/freedom is contagious" and that if we forced a bit of democracy on a couple Middle Eastern/Muslim countries ... others would want it for themselves.
... but even a broken watch is right 2x a day.
Heresy I know