> I'm also quite mystified why so many people are celebrating this
We find a sort of closure and a degree of satisfaction when the bad guy gets his due. It's a justice thing.
As to the expense, I agree - the money, carnage and innocent deaths have been too high a price. But perhaps you'll still allow us a moment to celebrate the Reckoning.
As I understand it, the problem was Brazilians couldn't pay the price requested, and the supplier didn't lower prices. So the Brazilians just copied it for themselves.
This seems sort of like the MPAA/RIAA thing - cd/dvd publishers charge prices people can't afford or are unwilling to pay, so people just copy it themselves. And the **AA wrings its hands and blames pirates for their demise, just as you are shilling for the pharmaceuticals.
Markets only work when there is competition. "Intellectual Property" is by definition a legal monopoly. And you won't find me crying for any business with a legal monopoly that can't break even. They deserve to die, both for their own ineptitude and for the sake of having a free (as in liberty) marketplace.
So just to recap, you started out asserting your right to maintain a public storefront and arbitrarily withhold your goods from anybody you didn't like, then you seem to assert that the only alternative is a world where citizens must immediately hand over anything anybody requests.
> I think we have the right to discriminate Ok. Everybody agrees. Civil Rights law just protects against specific classes of discrimination, historical prejudices that have proven to be without merit.
> If I'm not allowed to decide who I like and who I don't like You are allowed to decide who you like. Why do you weaken your own argument with such a stupid false premise?
> and base my business dealings on [who I like] Let's look at it from the other side. Do you have a right to buy a sandwich? What if every single sandwich vendor doesn't like you, even though they don't even know you and are probably discriminating against your physical appearance? What if a few of the sandwich vendors actually didn't have anything against you, but the bread, meat, and condiment suppliers would refuse to do business with them if you could shop there?
A rational marketplace operates on supply and demand, not on interpersonal attractions or ignorant cultural prejudices. It is not in society's interest (or your business interest) to exclude anyone, especially an entire demographic, from freely participating in the marketplace. Or the internet.
So do whatever you want in your personal life. In the public marketplace, behave rationally and fairly or get kicked out.
I've put in some time. I went to church wholeheartedly for thirty years. I had seven years of christion theological education. I learned two foreign languages, and served as a missionary in distant lands. I'm an ordained minister to this day.
I've seen many unusual things. People around me attributed them to God. Maybe they were right. But everything I ever saw could be explained without invoking the supernatural.
> I would be remiss if I didn't mention Christ's warnings > about those who seek after a sign
And that is the most pernicious thing about your brand of religion. It's absolutely irresponsible to dedicate your life to something you're forbidden to test.
I'd like to think a benevolent deity would appreciate those who sincerely try to find truth, even if they use research, logic, and clinical rigor.
> I have seen people who I know well healed of problems that the doctors could not fix.
Since they were in fact healed, how do you know the doctor didn't fix it?
Assuming it wasn't fixed by the doctor, what makes you think an undetectable cosmic deity did it? Is it not possible the body healed itself through its own biochemistry? Or that it was done surreptitiously by highly advanced dinosaurs visiting from the Omega Quadrant?
On April Fool's day any major story is automatically assumed to be a hoax. Nobody would believe the truth on that day.
Actually, now that I think about it, people aren't that good at distinguishing truth from fiction on any day. Parent is right - try posting something true some April Fool's Day. It would be the most successful slashdot trick ever.
Do you have any evidence that diet can affect the right hip differently than the left hip?
According to an abstract from the study to be published in the Journal of Craniofacial Surgery, wearers of a mobile phone had "significantly lower right BMD at the trochanter and significantly lower right BMC at both trochanter and total hip".
None of these differences were found in non users, the study notes.
Non users had a higher BMC at the right femoral neck (at the top of the thigh). The right-left difference in femoral neck BMD of non users was marginally non-significant. In users, there was no femoral neck right-left difference of BMC at the femoral neck. Right-left asymmetries in femoral neck BMC were significantly different between both groups, the study notes.
I was maybe 15 years old, and it was the 5th of July. The fireworks from the night before inspired me to embark on a career of pyrotechnics.
My best friend came over and we attempted our first batch of gunpowder. I found the composition of gunpowder in the encyclopedia, got together the ingredients, and set up a table in the backyard. We mashed some old charcoal briquets up, measured out the other ingredients, poured them all in a bucket, and immediately cops started swarming into the backyard.
They came from the back fence over the alley. They came from both neighbors'. They came from the front yard. It was so sudden and so massive there was no chance for us to hide our illegal activity.
But they totally disregarded us, and in fact waved us away. A few minutes later they came out with a long-haired shirtless white guy in handcuffs.
He'd escaped from police custody earlier, and had been hiding in our backyard tree watching us make gunpowder the whole time.
That's a pretty funny summary. He really does defeat his own point by coupling them so tightly.
What he should have done to make his point better was to first do his vulnerability assessment:
1) Windows are not bullet-proof 2) Doors can be easily kicked in. 3) Back gate has no lock 4) Locks to the front doors haven't been changed since last residents moved out. 5) Comings and goings of residents are obvious and predictable
Threat Assessment:
1) Junk mail 2) Neighbor's dog crap 3) Random prison escapee hiding in back yard 4) Daughter's boyfriend sneaking in 5) Irish Republican Army taking out our shrine of Madonna
We don't need the 2 billion that haven't been born yet, because.. we don't need them. We alread can prosper or survive or die or steal or rape and pillage or kill, or whatever it is we humans do, with only 7 billion of us.
That's one of the stupidest trolls I've seen. Not growing the population does not require homicide.
But if it helps satisfy your ambivalence about my life, when the time comes that I feel I am more of a burden than a benefit, I have every intention of doing a Hunter Thompson.
Slashdot Mirror
> I'm also quite mystified why so many people are celebrating this
We find a sort of closure and a degree of satisfaction when the bad guy gets his due. It's a justice thing.
As to the expense, I agree - the money, carnage and innocent deaths have been too high a price. But perhaps you'll still allow us a moment to celebrate the Reckoning.
As I understand it, the problem was Brazilians couldn't pay the price requested, and the supplier didn't lower prices. So the Brazilians just copied it for themselves.
This seems sort of like the MPAA/RIAA thing - cd/dvd publishers charge prices people can't afford or are unwilling to pay, so people just copy it themselves. And the **AA wrings its hands and blames pirates for their demise, just as you are shilling for the pharmaceuticals.
Markets only work when there is competition. "Intellectual Property" is by definition a legal monopoly. And you won't find me crying for any business with a legal monopoly that can't break even. They deserve to die, both for their own ineptitude and for the sake of having a free (as in liberty) marketplace.
So just to recap, you started out asserting your right to maintain a public storefront and arbitrarily withhold your goods from anybody you didn't like, then you seem to assert that the only alternative is a world where citizens must immediately hand over anything anybody requests.
Am I misunderstanding something?
> It is not the business of the government to enforce rationality.
True. The government's job is to enforce fairness. Rationality is enforced by the marketplace.
> I do not accept that I have a right to buy a sandwich
Then neither should you have any right to sell a sandwich.
A society where an individual has no right to participate in the marketplace is a tyranny.
> I think we have the right to discriminate
Ok. Everybody agrees. Civil Rights law just protects against specific classes of discrimination, historical prejudices that have proven to be without merit.
> If I'm not allowed to decide who I like and who I don't like
You are allowed to decide who you like. Why do you weaken your own argument with such a stupid false premise?
> and base my business dealings on [who I like]
Let's look at it from the other side. Do you have a right to buy a sandwich? What if every single sandwich vendor doesn't like you, even though they don't even know you and are probably discriminating against your physical appearance? What if a few of the sandwich vendors actually didn't have anything against you, but the bread, meat, and condiment suppliers would refuse to do business with them if you could shop there?
A rational marketplace operates on supply and demand, not on interpersonal attractions or ignorant cultural prejudices. It is not in society's interest (or your business interest) to exclude anyone, especially an entire demographic, from freely participating in the marketplace. Or the internet.
So do whatever you want in your personal life. In the public marketplace, behave rationally and fairly or get kicked out.
I've put in some time. I went to church wholeheartedly for thirty years. I had seven years of christion theological education. I learned two foreign languages, and served as a missionary in distant lands. I'm an ordained minister to this day.
I've seen many unusual things. People around me attributed them to God. Maybe they were right. But everything I ever saw could be explained without invoking the supernatural.
> I would be remiss if I didn't mention Christ's warnings
> about those who seek after a sign
And that is the most pernicious thing about your brand of religion. It's absolutely irresponsible to dedicate your life to something you're forbidden to test.
I'd like to think a benevolent deity would appreciate those who sincerely try to find truth, even if they use research, logic, and clinical rigor.
> I have seen people who I know well healed of problems that the doctors could not fix.
Since they were in fact healed, how do you know the doctor didn't fix it?
Assuming it wasn't fixed by the doctor, what makes you think an undetectable cosmic deity did it? Is it not possible the body healed itself through its own biochemistry? Or that it was done surreptitiously by highly advanced dinosaurs visiting from the Omega Quadrant?
The government is funded exclusively by debt.
Every dollar spent by the US government since 1913 was borrowed from a privately owned banking cartel that calls itself the "Federal Reserve."
"Our tax dollars" go back to that cartel as loan payments. The "deficit" is basically the amount we are behind on our payments.
I can't help feeling disappointed to lose the service of Burt Rutan.
I'll try to take the advice of Dr. Seuss - don't cry because it's over, just smile that it happened. Thanks for the coolest aerospace innovation ever.
On April Fool's day any major story is automatically assumed to be a hoax. Nobody would believe the truth on that day.
Actually, now that I think about it, people aren't that good at distinguishing truth from fiction on any day. Parent is right - try posting something true some April Fool's Day. It would be the most successful slashdot trick ever.
Yes. With a camera.
And a 6 mile range. And a ceiling of 15,000 feet. And speed up to 60 mph.
And autonomous GPS navigation.
Probably you didn't have a plane like that when you were a kid.
> you can eat Plutonium and nothing will happen to you
Very true. If Plutonium is the name of your pet duck.
Do you have any evidence that diet can affect the right hip differently than the left hip?
According to an abstract from the study to be published in the Journal of Craniofacial Surgery, wearers of a mobile phone had "significantly lower right BMD at the trochanter and significantly lower right BMC at both trochanter and total hip".
None of these differences were found in non users, the study notes.
Non users had a higher BMC at the right femoral neck (at the top of the thigh). The right-left difference in femoral neck BMD of non users was marginally non-significant. In users, there was no femoral neck right-left difference of BMC at the femoral neck. Right-left asymmetries in femoral neck BMC were significantly different between both groups, the study notes.
I think he'd have lots of fun, but he'd probably find more meteorites with a pair of sunglasses and hiking boots.
Duuuude, not THAT kind of temperature.
TFA discusses "color temperature," saying blue is productive and yellow not so much.
I used to have a co-worker who kept (in his cubicle) three puppies in tight sweaters.
Never heard of keeping chickens in the office before. Sounds messy. Oh, that must be what the tight shorts are for...
> what the hell are we paying them for?
We are paying them to serve their campaign sponsors (like the RIAA), if you want to know the sad reality.
I was maybe 15 years old, and it was the 5th of July. The fireworks from the night before inspired me to embark on a career of pyrotechnics.
My best friend came over and we attempted our first batch of gunpowder. I found the composition of gunpowder in the encyclopedia, got together the ingredients, and set up a table in the backyard. We mashed some old charcoal briquets up, measured out the other ingredients, poured them all in a bucket, and immediately cops started swarming into the backyard.
They came from the back fence over the alley. They came from both neighbors'. They came from the front yard. It was so sudden and so massive there was no chance for us to hide our illegal activity.
But they totally disregarded us, and in fact waved us away. A few minutes later they came out with a long-haired shirtless white guy in handcuffs.
He'd escaped from police custody earlier, and had been hiding in our backyard tree watching us make gunpowder the whole time.
ps- The gunpowder didn't work. Thank God.
That's a pretty funny summary. He really does defeat his own point by coupling them so tightly.
What he should have done to make his point better was to first do his vulnerability assessment:
1) Windows are not bullet-proof
2) Doors can be easily kicked in.
3) Back gate has no lock
4) Locks to the front doors haven't been changed since last residents moved out.
5) Comings and goings of residents are obvious and predictable
Threat Assessment:
1) Junk mail
2) Neighbor's dog crap
3) Random prison escapee hiding in back yard
4) Daughter's boyfriend sneaking in
5) Irish Republican Army taking out our shrine of Madonna
We don't need the 2 billion that haven't been born yet, because.. we don't need them. We alread can prosper or survive or die or steal or rape and pillage or kill, or whatever it is we humans do, with only 7 billion of us.
It might seem complicated, but I think you'll find most environmentalists are all for boosting families' economic security.
Stable economies come from sustainable economies.
Assuming our children will solve whatever problems we cause is not the same thing as living sustainably.
Where's the love?
That's one of the stupidest trolls I've seen. Not growing the population does not require homicide.
But if it helps satisfy your ambivalence about my life, when the time comes that I feel I am more of a burden than a benefit, I have every intention of doing a Hunter Thompson.
Whoa, that's an interesting way to see it. Mod parent up.
Do we really need nine billion humans?
> Why do we need more efficiency
Because 30% is currently wasted.