I think all contracts should come with a short quiz over the main points of the contract, and you have to pass it with 100% accuracy in order for your signature to be valid. If the contract is too hard to understand, people won't bother trying to pass the quiz and the company will have incentive to simplify the contract.
The hardest part would be coming up with a way to determine whether the quiz hit the main points of the contract, as someone passing a quiz to get a mortgage without knowing it is an ARM and will go to 20% interest in 2 years should be able to declare the contract void. If such a system could be devised (much harder, to get it passed into law), it would force contracts to be easy to read, and it would eliminate most legal scams out there.
Put the moon rover up on Craigslist for $20M, with a 1 month limit on pickup time before the buyer loses their money and NASA re-lists the rover. It will be a win-win: either they raise the needed money to keep all of their programs, or someone will develop a vehicle to get to the moon and back so NASA doesn't have to.
Since I'm sure America is the biggest reason the ACTA exists, I feel we should do our part and write to our bought and paid for congresscritters, but I'm hoping people in other countries that might be somewhat less corrupt could change the situation in our favor. One if the big names on this said if secrecy were lifted, many countries would walk away. Lots of nations are part of the talks, so it just takes one to release all of the information and we might see something happen.
Write to your representatives in the national government. It might not mean much, but it's the best (legal) way to get your voice heard. The same arguments why not voting is a bad idea generally apply here.
The best thing is, it might only take one country pulling out to put the ACTA into question everywhere.
Given brown dwarfs generally have no heat source, they cool quickly and we expect there to be cold ones out there. Is the bigger news the fact that we could detect this cool object, or the information gained by finding this brown dwarf?
Similar examples about Microsoft's behavior gets a "so what?" response, while for Google it gets a "they're so evil" response. That would imply it is still not the norm for Google to be evil. I guess you could say they're still in the Anikin phase, with evidence Darth Vader is in there somewhere.
I support cellphone bans, but I see no reason to ban using them on remote portions of the road except that it might just complicate the law a bit too much. I would not use a cellphone while driving in the city, but I wouldn't think twice if I am driving through cornfields. I doubt I am the only one who thinks that way.
Note he is just saying they should start hydrogen burn this year. The 20 years thing is for economically viable fusion power plants- this research helps bring us closer to that but 20 years would still be optimistic. This announcement is like the LHC saying they'll be running the beam at full power by the end of the year (but without the bad track record for the equipment)- you seem to treat it similar to CERN saying they will find the Higgs by the end of the year. His prediction sounds reasonable enough to me.
Well the state gets one big strike: Feynman helping California pick textbooks
I'm sure many here are familiar with this story- if you haven't seen it yet it is a good read.
The support for net neutrality comes from the idea that things aren't too bad right now (Comcast has had issues though, I'm sure there are other examples too), and we would like to keep it that way, if not make it better. If we wait for things to get worse, we all know it will be far more difficult to get back to where we were.
I wrote to my congress representative supporting net neutrality, and the response was that she wants to minimize government regulation, and let the market sort things out. I agree with her sentiment, but I disagree that we have a competitive market. If communities owned the network so ISPs have equal access, we could have plenty of companies to choose from, and a demand for net neutrality would encourage some of those companies to cater to our interests. That is not the case right now, so government regulation is the best thing we have. There is a better chance of making the ISPs agree to net neutrality than getting them to agree to open up the market.
I am curious what their skew is on NoScript and FireFox use- I would assume both will be more common in their data than in the general population. I don't expect it to make a notable difference in the practical meaning of the numbers- I'm just curious from a statistics perspective.
I've written my senator (I wont bother with Burris), and for the heck of it wrote to my congress representative too, but otherwise there is nothing I can do. I would recommend everyone writes their representatives (any country where it makes sense to do so)- it takes 5 to 15 minutes, and at the worst it gives you more right to complain when your government doesn't listen to you.
At the least, getting more politicians asking questions can be a good thing. If they find that people care, they might even race to be the first to announce their opposition to the treaty. I realize one letter doesn't do much to change things, but if you complain, there is political gain to be made by someone. There will never be an anti-ACTA candidate to vote for until politicians know there are votes to be gained from taking that position.
Back then, I'm assuming survival from a cataclysm had a lot to do with being at the right place at the right time, and you only had to fight for scarce resources with the people nearby. If a cataclysm happened today, it would be easier for people to escape to the remaining habitable areas, and we have a lot more tools to use to fight over those scarce resources. If we ever have a nuclear apocalypse, I bet it will be due to a sudden world war triggered by a natural disaster.
Good news! We should soon be able to prove to everyone that you are correct. From the Wikipedia article on the Yellowstone Caldera, "The three super eruptions occurred 2.1 million, 1.3 million, and 640,000 years ago". If the trend continues, the next eruption is about due.
Human-caused disaster is not the only scenario that would drastically reduce the Earth's carrying capacity. Calderas such as Yellowstone, ice ages* and asteroids are the first things that come to mind, and over a few thousand years the chances of one of those happening starts to be significant (given averages on these events, we're due for all three). Given progress from one man walking on Mars to thousands living there would likely take hundreds of years, we better start early.
Not that we should start spending billions of dollars on ice-age prevention or something, but it is always good to keep in mind that there's a reason the vast majority of species no longer exist, and odds are humans will join that group eventually.
*I realize an ice age would not kill off humans as long as there is still a habitable zone. The threat to humanity would come with the fight over the remaining land and food.
The people pointing out you are missing the base risk are correct, but if we go with your assumption that it means you have an 18% chance of dying, your math is still wrong. 18% chance of dying after an hour means a 82% chance of survival..82^8 = 20.4% chance of living after 8 hours. If you flip a coin there's a 50% chance of heads, but after two flips you have only a 75% chance of getting at least one head, not a 100% chance.
One of the roles of the news media is to be a watchdog for the government. The Chicago Tribune frequently digs up dirt on Chicago Mayor Daley's government, and their editorial board loudly advocates change in the local government. Considering one of the charges against Blagojevich is that he tried to force that editorial board to be fired, they must be doing a great job. Unfortunately a small paper attempting investigative reporting would just get shrugged off, but the Tribune has weight behind it. A strong newspaper can keep the government more honest, and is one of the best ways to defend democracy from the government.
I should note the Tribune dislikes Murdoch, so don't equate them with his "reporting".
The problem isn't the suppliers- it's the insurance companies. They control the costs and they have clout and know how to use it. Fix insurance and everything else should be easy.
So the point is you have to be aware of your assumptions, and be on the lookout for exceptions. Just like how the beginning driver has to learn that just because a car is parked doesn't mean it is a non-hazard (someone might open the street-side door). The point isn't supposed to be "look how dumb you are" the point is "look how easy it is to miss things".
Is there any means for artists to claim the companies colluded on contracts, royalties, etc.? I don't know any information there so it may be they were competitive enough to avoid any claims being able to stick, but knowing how bad it is for the artist I'm more concerned about fixing that before we make things better for the consumer.
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I think all contracts should come with a short quiz over the main points of the contract, and you have to pass it with 100% accuracy in order for your signature to be valid. If the contract is too hard to understand, people won't bother trying to pass the quiz and the company will have incentive to simplify the contract.
The hardest part would be coming up with a way to determine whether the quiz hit the main points of the contract, as someone passing a quiz to get a mortgage without knowing it is an ARM and will go to 20% interest in 2 years should be able to declare the contract void. If such a system could be devised (much harder, to get it passed into law), it would force contracts to be easy to read, and it would eliminate most legal scams out there.
How many of you reading this are thinking about picking up Japanese so you don't have to wait for the subbed version of your favorite anime/manga?
Put the moon rover up on Craigslist for $20M, with a 1 month limit on pickup time before the buyer loses their money and NASA re-lists the rover. It will be a win-win: either they raise the needed money to keep all of their programs, or someone will develop a vehicle to get to the moon and back so NASA doesn't have to.
Since I'm sure America is the biggest reason the ACTA exists, I feel we should do our part and write to our bought and paid for congresscritters, but I'm hoping people in other countries that might be somewhat less corrupt could change the situation in our favor. One if the big names on this said if secrecy were lifted, many countries would walk away. Lots of nations are part of the talks, so it just takes one to release all of the information and we might see something happen.
Write to your representatives in the national government. It might not mean much, but it's the best (legal) way to get your voice heard. The same arguments why not voting is a bad idea generally apply here.
The best thing is, it might only take one country pulling out to put the ACTA into question everywhere.
Given brown dwarfs generally have no heat source, they cool quickly and we expect there to be cold ones out there. Is the bigger news the fact that we could detect this cool object, or the information gained by finding this brown dwarf?
Similar examples about Microsoft's behavior gets a "so what?" response, while for Google it gets a "they're so evil" response. That would imply it is still not the norm for Google to be evil. I guess you could say they're still in the Anikin phase, with evidence Darth Vader is in there somewhere.
I support cellphone bans, but I see no reason to ban using them on remote portions of the road except that it might just complicate the law a bit too much. I would not use a cellphone while driving in the city, but I wouldn't think twice if I am driving through cornfields. I doubt I am the only one who thinks that way.
Note he is just saying they should start hydrogen burn this year. The 20 years thing is for economically viable fusion power plants- this research helps bring us closer to that but 20 years would still be optimistic. This announcement is like the LHC saying they'll be running the beam at full power by the end of the year (but without the bad track record for the equipment)- you seem to treat it similar to CERN saying they will find the Higgs by the end of the year. His prediction sounds reasonable enough to me.
Well the state gets one big strike: Feynman helping California pick textbooks
I'm sure many here are familiar with this story- if you haven't seen it yet it is a good read.
The support for net neutrality comes from the idea that things aren't too bad right now (Comcast has had issues though, I'm sure there are other examples too), and we would like to keep it that way, if not make it better. If we wait for things to get worse, we all know it will be far more difficult to get back to where we were.
I wrote to my congress representative supporting net neutrality, and the response was that she wants to minimize government regulation, and let the market sort things out. I agree with her sentiment, but I disagree that we have a competitive market. If communities owned the network so ISPs have equal access, we could have plenty of companies to choose from, and a demand for net neutrality would encourage some of those companies to cater to our interests. That is not the case right now, so government regulation is the best thing we have. There is a better chance of making the ISPs agree to net neutrality than getting them to agree to open up the market.
I am curious what their skew is on NoScript and FireFox use- I would assume both will be more common in their data than in the general population. I don't expect it to make a notable difference in the practical meaning of the numbers- I'm just curious from a statistics perspective.
I've written my senator (I wont bother with Burris), and for the heck of it wrote to my congress representative too, but otherwise there is nothing I can do. I would recommend everyone writes their representatives (any country where it makes sense to do so)- it takes 5 to 15 minutes, and at the worst it gives you more right to complain when your government doesn't listen to you.
At the least, getting more politicians asking questions can be a good thing. If they find that people care, they might even race to be the first to announce their opposition to the treaty. I realize one letter doesn't do much to change things, but if you complain, there is political gain to be made by someone. There will never be an anti-ACTA candidate to vote for until politicians know there are votes to be gained from taking that position.
Sorry to link Fox News, but it was the first news report on this slug I could find: link
If you haven't heard a musician tell you to go download their music, you haven't been to many concerts.
Back then, I'm assuming survival from a cataclysm had a lot to do with being at the right place at the right time, and you only had to fight for scarce resources with the people nearby. If a cataclysm happened today, it would be easier for people to escape to the remaining habitable areas, and we have a lot more tools to use to fight over those scarce resources. If we ever have a nuclear apocalypse, I bet it will be due to a sudden world war triggered by a natural disaster.
Good news! We should soon be able to prove to everyone that you are correct. From the Wikipedia article on the Yellowstone Caldera, "The three super eruptions occurred 2.1 million, 1.3 million, and 640,000 years ago". If the trend continues, the next eruption is about due.
Human-caused disaster is not the only scenario that would drastically reduce the Earth's carrying capacity. Calderas such as Yellowstone, ice ages* and asteroids are the first things that come to mind, and over a few thousand years the chances of one of those happening starts to be significant (given averages on these events, we're due for all three). Given progress from one man walking on Mars to thousands living there would likely take hundreds of years, we better start early.
Not that we should start spending billions of dollars on ice-age prevention or something, but it is always good to keep in mind that there's a reason the vast majority of species no longer exist, and odds are humans will join that group eventually.
*I realize an ice age would not kill off humans as long as there is still a habitable zone. The threat to humanity would come with the fight over the remaining land and food.
It's just that they couldn't find the One-Click registration button.
You must have missed the graph.
The people pointing out you are missing the base risk are correct, but if we go with your assumption that it means you have an 18% chance of dying, your math is still wrong. 18% chance of dying after an hour means a 82% chance of survival. .82^8 = 20.4% chance of living after 8 hours. If you flip a coin there's a 50% chance of heads, but after two flips you have only a 75% chance of getting at least one head, not a 100% chance.
One of the roles of the news media is to be a watchdog for the government. The Chicago Tribune frequently digs up dirt on Chicago Mayor Daley's government, and their editorial board loudly advocates change in the local government. Considering one of the charges against Blagojevich is that he tried to force that editorial board to be fired, they must be doing a great job. Unfortunately a small paper attempting investigative reporting would just get shrugged off, but the Tribune has weight behind it. A strong newspaper can keep the government more honest, and is one of the best ways to defend democracy from the government.
I should note the Tribune dislikes Murdoch, so don't equate them with his "reporting".
The problem isn't the suppliers- it's the insurance companies. They control the costs and they have clout and know how to use it. Fix insurance and everything else should be easy.
So the point is you have to be aware of your assumptions, and be on the lookout for exceptions. Just like how the beginning driver has to learn that just because a car is parked doesn't mean it is a non-hazard (someone might open the street-side door). The point isn't supposed to be "look how dumb you are" the point is "look how easy it is to miss things".
Is there any means for artists to claim the companies colluded on contracts, royalties, etc.? I don't know any information there so it may be they were competitive enough to avoid any claims being able to stick, but knowing how bad it is for the artist I'm more concerned about fixing that before we make things better for the consumer.