How unfortunate a turn of phrase... I realise (or should I say, hope) that you meant "class" as in school class, but when you bring grammar schools into the conversation, the word class suddenly becomes dual-purpose. I would hope you are not advocating further widening of the gap between grammar-educated kids and comp-educated kids.
Whilst I would concur that grammar schools exist with the best intentions, they do lead to a situation where there is a perception that those who did not manage to get in were too thick, and hence they are quite often less favourably looked upon by recruiters. You end up with groups of friends from primary school being separated from each other by their peers into thickos and posh kids in a way that separation between two secondary schools never seems to. I can say from my own experience that this perception and division is a reality, and I certainly feel that it is counter-productive.
The thing is, grammar schools could avoid a lot of this division. Whilst I was in the grammar school system, I found the whole atmosphere of the place to be way to rigid, officious, antiquated and far from welcoming. With a few notable exceptions, the people weren't any better. There was an overwhelming sense of entitlement, coupled with a rather unhealthy dose of arrogance in most of the people I met there, and within days of starting the school, even the new kids were showing signs of being indoctrinated into that ethos.
Luckily, in my case, my family moved halfway across the country shortly after I started at the grammar school, and we moved to an area where there weren't any grammar schools within a reasonable distance. I can remember that, at the time, I felt like an outsider and a fraud going there. Not because I felt that I wasn't academically worthy, but because I didn't share that institutional arrogance, and I hoped that I would move to another school before any of it rubbed off onto me.
So, to summarise:
Creating per-subject sets? A necessary evil with practically no social disadvantages.
Providing those children who are more academically inclined with additional stimulation? Essential.
The grammar school system as it stands in the UK at the moment? Probably doing more harm than good.
Largely depends on who you bank with. AFAIK, not all banks are signed up to the scheme.
Furthermore, it also seems to depend on who you are buying FROM. I have encountered many websites (admittedly big name players) where the VbV box has not asked me to input any of my token, instead just saying that (and I'm paraphrasing here) due to the low risk of the vendor, we're not going to bother implementing this security feature for this transaction.
Personally, I thought the whole point was to make sure that you (the named card-holder) are legit, not to make sure the vendor is legit. Prime example is my mobile-broadband PAYG top-up website. Bearing in mind that if someone can get close enough to me to lift my card (or clone it) they are more than close enough to lift my MBB modem and as long as you are accessing the top-up website via the modem, you don't need a password to get in (which is why I would never do anything remotely security-centric via that modem. If their security is that screwed up, I ain't going to trust any of my personal data to that connection. I only keep it so my step-kids can get internet access, but I hold onto it so that I am in control of their internet access as we haven't got the funds to throw at a decent home network at the moment.)!
Somewhat off-topic as my experience is in the UK, not the US, but over here, VISA and MasterCard also administer DEBIT cards, where the law does not (IIRC) demand that the lender is on the hook for any fraudulent use.
Indeed, most lenders will refer to the indemnification of borrowers by the lender for fraudulent purchases demanded by the Consumer Credit Act 2006 as one of the main reasons to have a credit card to use online instead of a debit card. Whilst I cannot recall the particular section/paragraph of the act which provides for this, I can certainly remember that when working in customer services for a bank here in the UK (please don't expect me to name and shame), our managers regularly pressed us to try to sell more credit facilities to customers (regardless of whether that was their reason for calling) and encouraged us to use this particular hook to try to bait them in (thank $deity I no longer work there!).
Granted, most banks will have a policy of re-imbursing you for any fraud, but, contractual and policy obligations aside, this is a goodwill measure.
And to hell with those saying "these games are only down temporarily. OBVIOUSLY Sony wants to put them back up asap when they fix the potential exploit."
Until sony DOES put those games back up, there's absolutely no reason to assume they will.
No reason to assume they'll put purchasable games back up? I can think of a damn good reason for a corporate entity like SONY (or any other corporate entity, for that matter) to want to get those games back up ASAP once patched. It's called revenue. That being said, if any free-to-download games get pulled, I have my doubts that they'd be in quite as much of a rush!?!
I buy experiences (e.g. flying into the grand canyon)
Sounds like a once-in-a-lifetime type experience to me...
Now... flying through or over the Grand Canyon, on the other hand, is something I've always wanted to get around to at some point in my lifetime, but with a wife and four step-kids, and living on the other side of the pond, the likelihood is not what I would wish it to be...
On the point about Greece and tax-evasion, I can confirm this from personal experience.
In 2004 I spent several months working on one of the Greek islands in a variety of bar jobs. The only thing they all had in common was that, unless there was a uniformed police officer in the bar, or a known government official, all bar staff were told in no uncertain terms that less than 1 in 10 transactions were to be processed through the till, the rest to be rung through as "no sale". The reason quoted when asked was that the audit rolls of the tills were used in calculating the tax the business owed. Curiously, the tills didn't appear to mark the audit roll with "no sale" entries. On speaking to colleagues throughout the rest of the town, this was not just a peculiarity of the bars I worked at, but was SOP across the entire resort (with the possible exceptions of the medical practices, local branch of McDonalds and supermarkets.).
I would concur that to most of us, the method of displaying or vocalising dates that you put forward does appear more efficient.
How much of this, however, is because the bulk of us here are card-carrying geeks and think in terms of recursive refinement? I know that after all the database work I've done over the years, I have certainly developed my thought processes along those lines. I also found that as I started to understand RDBMS structures and concepts, my memory improved significantly. How much of this development in my cognitive processes is unique to those of us who carry our cards with pride, and how much is normal for the populace as a whole? I'll leave that question open to the masses (who, let's face it, probably couldn't give a damn, or wouldn't know what I'm on about to be able to draw such analogies).
Certainly, among the non-geeks I know here in Europe, they simply couldn't give a toss which is more efficient, they're more interested in what's more familiar to them. Most of them get very confused when they see dates in "american format", or blindly assume that the date is in "UK format", leading to confusion, exasperation and quite often comments about the "arrogance of Americans forcing their formats on the rest of us". The fact that, in most cases, it is trivial to set the preferences of electronic systems to display in your preferred format is, to most of them, something that shouldn't be the user's responsibility. The feeling appears to be that the world should harmonise on a single format "and ours is the right one, so that's what we should all be using". Convention breeds comfort, sometimes (often?) at the expense of efficiency.
I would imagine that the same is probably true of non-geeks in those parts of the world where dd/mm/yyyy is not the prevalent format. Whether the setting of the convention in the first place was geek-influenced, random chance, or just bloody-minded opposition to former colonial powers for the sheer sake of things, I don't know. Possibly a combination of all three. That being said, I'm unsure of which actually came first, anyway (and can't be bothered to look it up right now, but if someone wants to enlighten us all, please feel free)!
At the end of the day, as stated above, best practice for programming / database design purposes, is to stick to whichever format your RDBMS / language defines as the standard. Best practice for visual output to the userbase? Roll a die to pick which format you are going to use, because no matter which format you implement, someone's going to dislike it. Even if you implement multiple and let the user decide, they'll feel it's not their job to choose a setting like that, it's your job as a programmer to code specifically for their pet preferences and screw everyone else.
All I have to do to send the message from my handset is be walking around with an unlicensed particle accelerator strapped to my back. The receiver component, OTOH will need to be carried by my personal valet, The Incredible Hulk.
And bearing in mind the probable cost of such unlicensed particle accelerators, you'll be the only one to have one, so who you gonna call?
To be honest, if I were an investor in Google, this is exactly the sort of direction I'd want the bulk of their successful research to be going in. They have already proven that the advertising model works for driving profits, so any research project that increases potential advertising opportunities is in the right direction as far as self-serving profit growth is concerned.
That being said, some of the "wildly unrelated markets", such as energy and self-driving vehicles, whilst not "core business", will bring fringe benefits if successful. For example, if they can get the self-driving vehicles to work, and certified for use in enough global markets, they can immediately reduce overheads in projects like Streetview by putting these vehicles to work and either re-deploying the drivers to other roles, or laying them off. (Morally, I'm undecided whether replacing humans with machines is the best decision to make in a climate where unemployment is on the rise, but from a strict "cutting overheads to maximise profits" point of view, it's a winner).
As for energy, even if the project's output isn't enough of a winner to gain traction on the open market, it may still be a winner if it can be brought to a stage where it can be used internally within Google to reduce their dependence on energy from other sources, preventing them from lining the pockets of the traditional energy companies who, lets face it, are already making what many consider to be obscene levels of profit. In the short-term, it may not be profitable in its own right, but it may just reduce global corporate overheads enough that more of the turnover in other areas of the business ends up as profit instead of being squandered on day-to-day costs.
At the end of the day, the examples you give of Google joining established markets late, then capitalising on them to increase the take from their advertising arms, may not be examples of Google being "new" and "ground-breaking", but then, they don't have to be. They just have to do those things in a way that is sufficiently different to draw in a user-base, then leverage that user-base through their advertising to drive profits. These other areas don't need to be profitable in their own right, and, frankly, I'm pretty sure that the investors don't much give a hoot if they are, as long as they are widening advertising exposure and thereby increasing the long-proven profit model that this brings.
You can debate the ethics of copy-cat business practices and user-base data-mining til you're blue in the face. Ultimately, investors will see that the model, regardless of the debates on ethics, drives sufficient profit to make Google worthy of investment and, save substantial global legislation banning such activities, will remain a safe investment long into the foreseeable future. That the company fritters away a portion of it's revenue small enough to be considered insignificant when taken in the context of their overall balance sheet, does not detract from that, especially bearing in mind that it not only has brought a few additional platforms through which to leverage their advertising, but also is a significant factor in enabling Google to recruit and retain some of the industry's better talent.
It has also been said above that some of the patent opportunities coming out of these pet projects, whilst not things Google would want to expend further energy on making into viable products to bring to market in the short term, may be things that they may wish to return to at a later date, protected from competitors by patents registered during their first attempts. Even if they decide that they don't want to re-visit these areas, they still have the options of licensing or litigation off the back of these patents should others wish to pick up where they left off. Whilst this, again, is an area where the ethics are debatable, from a strict profit-hungry investors point of view, if it's legal and will bring in more income, they'll be all for it.
The UK parliament in Westminster has legislative powers over the whole of the UK (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales).
Scotland has it's own, elected parliament, with quite wide ranging authority to set policies that apply only to Scotland. Scotland, however, still remains part of the UK and subject to the UK parliament (much to the dismay of their First Minister, if the press is to be believed).
Northern Ireland has it's own, elected parliament, similar to that of Scotland, but with somewhat less autonomy.
Wales has it's own, elected, Assembly (why they chose not to use the word parliament, I'm not too clear on). Much like the parliaments in Scotland and Northern Ireland, it has had powers devolved to it, although IIRC not as many.
England doesn't have it's own devolved legislature, although as the lions share of the MPs who sit at Westminster come from England, it has often been argued that the UK parliament's decision-making is heavily slanted in favour of England making the need for such to be somewhat of an irrelevance.
So in a way, yes it is fair to say that governance of Wales is separate, in as much as they have the ability to set their own policy in some areas. That being said, because they remain bound by decisions of the UK parliament in Westminster (along with England, Scotland and Northern Ireland), it is also fair to say that they are not separately governed.
It is also fair to say that the majority of those living in (certainly my locality in) Wales have no concrete concept of where the line is drawn between what powers the Welsh Assembly has vs. what powers remain exclusive to Westminster. Obviously, foreign and military policy remains with Westminster, but other areas seem to be a little more grey.
I, too, would like to see this re-commissioned and brought up-to-date. Unfortunately, though, I don't see it happening in the remotely foreseeable future.
In the meantime though, just re-watch the same old episodes when they are re-run. Was doing this a little over a month ago and my step-daughter (late teens and relatively switched on) walked in, caught a couple of minutes and then stormed off to watch TV in her room saying that she'd rather watch some "next top model" crap that the current affairs program I was watching.
The filming of it may appear a bit on the dated side, but the content could just as easily be a fly-on-the-wall documentary in any modern-day UK government department if the policy results we end up seeing over here are anything to go by!
Case law is not about "throwing out the letter of a particular law", but more about interpretation of what is already written without changing its underlying meaning.
Statute law, by its nature, is comparatively static. In order to prevent any misinterpretation, it should also be designed to be very specific as regards what situations it covers, and what results it should have where those circumstances present themselves. Change to statute law therefore takes time (and, many would argue, friends in high places).
Society, on the other hand, often changes far faster than the statute books. For this reason, statute law that was written some significant time ago may not be clear on its application to current-day situations. As the drafters couldn't envisage a particular situation, the statute laws do not cater to them in a clear fashion. For this reason, where ambiguity presents itself, the judiciary need to be able put themselves in the position of the drafters and imagine what their response to the situation in question would have been, were it to be commonplace at the time of drafting. This allows them to make a ruling on the matter.
Because, however, the judiciary are not empowered to "create new laws", such rulings become precedent and future judges then need to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the situation before them is sufficiently similar to the case that set precedent that it should apply to their case as well, or whether their case is different enough that a new precedent should be set for this further new case type. Also, in those situations where society has moved on again since the precedent was set that applying it to the current circumstances would be unfair, unethical or nonsensical, the judge has the option to come to his own decision, setting a new precedent without overturning those prior rulings.
In some instances, where the case law provides a solution compatible with the statute for a situation sufficiently commonplace, legislators will sometimes either write a new statute to cover it, or an amendment to the original statute. Due to the time and resources involved in this, however, it tends to be comparatively rare.
Another comparative rarity is where a judge has to make a ruling where no precedent exists and the statute doesn't provide clear guidance on the outcome. In such situations, it has been known for judges to make a ruling that is not specifically allowed for in the statute, but can state that it should NOT be considered as setting a precedent. (Personally, I feel this is a cop-out, with the judge not wanting to be considered responsible for any future rulings based on his decisions going belly-up and making him, as the original precedent-setter, look bad).
I should make it clear that IANAL, but the above is my understanding based on lengthy self study of such matters as I am supporting my wife through a rather messy legal battle (Mortgagee looking to take possession of mortgaged property where co-owner of mortgaged property subject to no prior advice, misleading information and subsequent significant (600%) inflation of secured sum with neither notice, nor seeking of permission.) where precedent has been changed, overturned and clarified many times in the several decades since the statute pertaining to the situation was first enacted. The legal history and specifics I have been focusing on, however, are specifically those of the law as it exists in England and Wales, so the situation in the US (subject of TFA) may be somewhat different. I would welcome any corrections / clarifications / expansions of the above where applicable.
Actually, can you help me? I'm trying to find the name of the psychological disorder which makes people think they can judge what psychological disorders people have from their internet posts. What's that thing called?:)
I think the term you're looking for is "Internet forum poster/ contributor/ member"
A spirited debate, for sure, and (something which I rarely see in other forums on- and offline, which is why I always gravitate back to/.) one which has retained a mature level rather than just descending into point-scoring.
I, for one, can see merit in both points of view. Part of the issue here is societal, part media driven in what they'll report.
To pick up on the first of the facts that have been bulleted "1." in your post, there is a flaw in taking "unemployed men" as a single category in the study.
The study does not appear to separate into discreet groups those men who are unemployed through "lifestyle choice" (i.e. stay-at-home dads), and those who are unemployed as a result of termination, redundancy or disability.
The reason this renders the study as a dangerous hook on which to hang the suggestion that "men are too lazy to do their share of the housework" is that those who CHOOSE to be unemployed, and those who are unemployed WITHOUT CHOOSING TO BE, can be in very different places. Whilst I agree that those men who choose to be unemployed and subsequently fail to share adequately in the housework will have some serious work to do to convince me that they are not lazy (although they may well contend that societal programming that housework is "women's work" is the reason for their lack of effort), the study does not appear to acknowledge that those men who are unintentionally unemployed should not automatically be tarred with the "lazy" brush.
It is a long-standing societal expectation that the male is the bread-winner in any family unit, and as such, when the man finds himself out of work, and thereby in a position where he is not fulfilling what society has traditionally considered to be "his role in life", there is a tendency towards anxiety/depression. This can be further exacerbated where the woman also shares this traditional societal standpoint and berates the man for being unemployed. The extent of the depression is often significantly worsened where the unemployment is not within the man's control (i.e. redundancy).
The longer the unemployment persists, the greater the depression, partly due to the stresses created by a reduced familial income, and partly through the sense of futility in their attempts to find renewed employment (particularly in the current climate).
Whilst the effects of such a depression can vary, person to person, among the more common are lethargy and a lack of motivation. Either, or indeed both, of these will inevitably have an effect on the quantity/quality of housework done. The situation is further worsened by categorisations of such men as "slobs", further fuelling the damage to their senses of self-worth and leading to a continuing downward spiral. Needless to say, this can lead to the man becoming even more introverted (and lets face it, women are always accusing men of not communicating effectively with them) and further breaking down the relationship.
The fact that society makes matters worse by saying men should be more emotionally stable makes such men even less likely to seek help for their situation which is, lets face it, borne out of a medical condition as opposed to laziness. If society gave men in such situations the reassurance that they could seek help (medication / counselling / whatever) to help them deal with these emotions until they found stable employment the support would probably lead to a range of benefits. The amelioration of the lack of motivation would most likely lead to an increase in levels of housework performed, as well as better employment prospects as the man would feel more able to put himself out there in the marketplace. Battling the depression, particularly if done via counselling instead of medication, would lead to greater communication within the family and as a result less chance ending in divorce.
Instead, the norm is a situation where societal "norms" mean that the man's unemployment causes depression, which in turn puts him on a downw
Slashdot Mirror
separate classes are a must or everyone loses.
How unfortunate a turn of phrase... I realise (or should I say, hope) that you meant "class" as in school class, but when you bring grammar schools into the conversation, the word class suddenly becomes dual-purpose. I would hope you are not advocating further widening of the gap between grammar-educated kids and comp-educated kids.
Whilst I would concur that grammar schools exist with the best intentions, they do lead to a situation where there is a perception that those who did not manage to get in were too thick, and hence they are quite often less favourably looked upon by recruiters. You end up with groups of friends from primary school being separated from each other by their peers into thickos and posh kids in a way that separation between two secondary schools never seems to. I can say from my own experience that this perception and division is a reality, and I certainly feel that it is counter-productive.
The thing is, grammar schools could avoid a lot of this division. Whilst I was in the grammar school system, I found the whole atmosphere of the place to be way to rigid, officious, antiquated and far from welcoming. With a few notable exceptions, the people weren't any better. There was an overwhelming sense of entitlement, coupled with a rather unhealthy dose of arrogance in most of the people I met there, and within days of starting the school, even the new kids were showing signs of being indoctrinated into that ethos.
Luckily, in my case, my family moved halfway across the country shortly after I started at the grammar school, and we moved to an area where there weren't any grammar schools within a reasonable distance. I can remember that, at the time, I felt like an outsider and a fraud going there. Not because I felt that I wasn't academically worthy, but because I didn't share that institutional arrogance, and I hoped that I would move to another school before any of it rubbed off onto me.
So, to summarise:
Creating per-subject sets? A necessary evil with practically no social disadvantages.
Providing those children who are more academically inclined with additional stimulation? Essential.
The grammar school system as it stands in the UK at the moment? Probably doing more harm than good.
Just after Menezes entered a train, several officers wrestled him to the ground and fired seven bullets into his head at point blank range.
So, granted, they didn't handcuff him, but aside from that, I stand by my opinion that the views of his family may well differ...
Largely depends on who you bank with. AFAIK, not all banks are signed up to the scheme.
Furthermore, it also seems to depend on who you are buying FROM. I have encountered many websites (admittedly big name players) where the VbV box has not asked me to input any of my token, instead just saying that (and I'm paraphrasing here) due to the low risk of the vendor, we're not going to bother implementing this security feature for this transaction.
Personally, I thought the whole point was to make sure that you (the named card-holder) are legit, not to make sure the vendor is legit. Prime example is my mobile-broadband PAYG top-up website. Bearing in mind that if someone can get close enough to me to lift my card (or clone it) they are more than close enough to lift my MBB modem and as long as you are accessing the top-up website via the modem, you don't need a password to get in (which is why I would never do anything remotely security-centric via that modem. If their security is that screwed up, I ain't going to trust any of my personal data to that connection. I only keep it so my step-kids can get internet access, but I hold onto it so that I am in control of their internet access as we haven't got the funds to throw at a decent home network at the moment.)!
No Krebs is a Russian ordering salad I'm not going there
I thought it was german for cancer... definitely not something I would want to get involved with!
Somewhat off-topic as my experience is in the UK, not the US, but over here, VISA and MasterCard also administer DEBIT cards, where the law does not (IIRC) demand that the lender is on the hook for any fraudulent use.
Indeed, most lenders will refer to the indemnification of borrowers by the lender for fraudulent purchases demanded by the Consumer Credit Act 2006 as one of the main reasons to have a credit card to use online instead of a debit card. Whilst I cannot recall the particular section/paragraph of the act which provides for this, I can certainly remember that when working in customer services for a bank here in the UK (please don't expect me to name and shame), our managers regularly pressed us to try to sell more credit facilities to customers (regardless of whether that was their reason for calling) and encouraged us to use this particular hook to try to bait them in (thank $deity I no longer work there!).
Granted, most banks will have a policy of re-imbursing you for any fraud, but, contractual and policy obligations aside, this is a goodwill measure.
- Their police won't handcuff you, lie you on the floor, then shoot you dead on a subway train.
I think the family of Jean Charles de Menezes may disagree with you on that point...
Otherwise, though, I am minded to agree with the bulk of the other points you make.
And to hell with those saying "these games are only down temporarily. OBVIOUSLY Sony wants to put them back up asap when they fix the potential exploit."
Until sony DOES put those games back up, there's absolutely no reason to assume they will.
No reason to assume they'll put purchasable games back up? I can think of a damn good reason for a corporate entity like SONY (or any other corporate entity, for that matter) to want to get those games back up ASAP once patched. It's called revenue. That being said, if any free-to-download games get pulled, I have my doubts that they'd be in quite as much of a rush!?!
I buy experiences (e.g. flying into the grand canyon)
Sounds like a once-in-a-lifetime type experience to me...
Now... flying through or over the Grand Canyon, on the other hand, is something I've always wanted to get around to at some point in my lifetime, but with a wife and four step-kids, and living on the other side of the pond, the likelihood is not what I would wish it to be...
There's no indication in the summary that other divisions were affected by this request.
employees in its Sales, Marketing, Services, IT, and Operations Group (SMSG)
You dare to mention windows in this forum?
On the point about Greece and tax-evasion, I can confirm this from personal experience.
In 2004 I spent several months working on one of the Greek islands in a variety of bar jobs. The only thing they all had in common was that, unless there was a uniformed police officer in the bar, or a known government official, all bar staff were told in no uncertain terms that less than 1 in 10 transactions were to be processed through the till, the rest to be rung through as "no sale". The reason quoted when asked was that the audit rolls of the tills were used in calculating the tax the business owed. Curiously, the tills didn't appear to mark the audit roll with "no sale" entries. On speaking to colleagues throughout the rest of the town, this was not just a peculiarity of the bars I worked at, but was SOP across the entire resort (with the possible exceptions of the medical practices, local branch of McDonalds and supermarkets.).
GP is taking us off-topic, but to continue in this vein and explain the reference:
Major coach crash in Swizerland on Wednesday night. Many children killed, many more injured.
for details, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17362643
I would concur that to most of us, the method of displaying or vocalising dates that you put forward does appear more efficient.
How much of this, however, is because the bulk of us here are card-carrying geeks and think in terms of recursive refinement? I know that after all the database work I've done over the years, I have certainly developed my thought processes along those lines. I also found that as I started to understand RDBMS structures and concepts, my memory improved significantly. How much of this development in my cognitive processes is unique to those of us who carry our cards with pride, and how much is normal for the populace as a whole? I'll leave that question open to the masses (who, let's face it, probably couldn't give a damn, or wouldn't know what I'm on about to be able to draw such analogies).
Certainly, among the non-geeks I know here in Europe, they simply couldn't give a toss which is more efficient, they're more interested in what's more familiar to them. Most of them get very confused when they see dates in "american format", or blindly assume that the date is in "UK format", leading to confusion, exasperation and quite often comments about the "arrogance of Americans forcing their formats on the rest of us". The fact that, in most cases, it is trivial to set the preferences of electronic systems to display in your preferred format is, to most of them, something that shouldn't be the user's responsibility. The feeling appears to be that the world should harmonise on a single format "and ours is the right one, so that's what we should all be using". Convention breeds comfort, sometimes (often?) at the expense of efficiency.
I would imagine that the same is probably true of non-geeks in those parts of the world where dd/mm/yyyy is not the prevalent format. Whether the setting of the convention in the first place was geek-influenced, random chance, or just bloody-minded opposition to former colonial powers for the sheer sake of things, I don't know. Possibly a combination of all three. That being said, I'm unsure of which actually came first, anyway (and can't be bothered to look it up right now, but if someone wants to enlighten us all, please feel free)!
At the end of the day, as stated above, best practice for programming / database design purposes, is to stick to whichever format your RDBMS / language defines as the standard. Best practice for visual output to the userbase? Roll a die to pick which format you are going to use, because no matter which format you implement, someone's going to dislike it. Even if you implement multiple and let the user decide, they'll feel it's not their job to choose a setting like that, it's your job as a programmer to code specifically for their pet preferences and screw everyone else.
I'm guessing you can hear a "whooshing" noise about now...!
(for the slow among you, just add an "e" to the end of the text in quotes in the parent and look it up on IMDB)
All I have to do to send the message from my handset is be walking around with an unlicensed particle accelerator strapped to my back. The receiver component, OTOH will need to be carried by my personal valet, The Incredible Hulk.
And bearing in mind the probable cost of such unlicensed particle accelerators, you'll be the only one to have one, so who you gonna call?
To be honest, if I were an investor in Google, this is exactly the sort of direction I'd want the bulk of their successful research to be going in. They have already proven that the advertising model works for driving profits, so any research project that increases potential advertising opportunities is in the right direction as far as self-serving profit growth is concerned.
That being said, some of the "wildly unrelated markets", such as energy and self-driving vehicles, whilst not "core business", will bring fringe benefits if successful. For example, if they can get the self-driving vehicles to work, and certified for use in enough global markets, they can immediately reduce overheads in projects like Streetview by putting these vehicles to work and either re-deploying the drivers to other roles, or laying them off. (Morally, I'm undecided whether replacing humans with machines is the best decision to make in a climate where unemployment is on the rise, but from a strict "cutting overheads to maximise profits" point of view, it's a winner).
As for energy, even if the project's output isn't enough of a winner to gain traction on the open market, it may still be a winner if it can be brought to a stage where it can be used internally within Google to reduce their dependence on energy from other sources, preventing them from lining the pockets of the traditional energy companies who, lets face it, are already making what many consider to be obscene levels of profit. In the short-term, it may not be profitable in its own right, but it may just reduce global corporate overheads enough that more of the turnover in other areas of the business ends up as profit instead of being squandered on day-to-day costs.
At the end of the day, the examples you give of Google joining established markets late, then capitalising on them to increase the take from their advertising arms, may not be examples of Google being "new" and "ground-breaking", but then, they don't have to be. They just have to do those things in a way that is sufficiently different to draw in a user-base, then leverage that user-base through their advertising to drive profits. These other areas don't need to be profitable in their own right, and, frankly, I'm pretty sure that the investors don't much give a hoot if they are, as long as they are widening advertising exposure and thereby increasing the long-proven profit model that this brings.
You can debate the ethics of copy-cat business practices and user-base data-mining til you're blue in the face. Ultimately, investors will see that the model, regardless of the debates on ethics, drives sufficient profit to make Google worthy of investment and, save substantial global legislation banning such activities, will remain a safe investment long into the foreseeable future. That the company fritters away a portion of it's revenue small enough to be considered insignificant when taken in the context of their overall balance sheet, does not detract from that, especially bearing in mind that it not only has brought a few additional platforms through which to leverage their advertising, but also is a significant factor in enabling Google to recruit and retain some of the industry's better talent.
It has also been said above that some of the patent opportunities coming out of these pet projects, whilst not things Google would want to expend further energy on making into viable products to bring to market in the short term, may be things that they may wish to return to at a later date, protected from competitors by patents registered during their first attempts. Even if they decide that they don't want to re-visit these areas, they still have the options of licensing or litigation off the back of these patents should others wish to pick up where they left off. Whilst this, again, is an area where the ethics are debatable, from a strict profit-hungry investors point of view, if it's legal and will bring in more income, they'll be all for it.
Yes, but at the same time a resounding no.
The UK parliament in Westminster has legislative powers over the whole of the UK (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales).
Scotland has it's own, elected parliament, with quite wide ranging authority to set policies that apply only to Scotland. Scotland, however, still remains part of the UK and subject to the UK parliament (much to the dismay of their First Minister, if the press is to be believed).
Northern Ireland has it's own, elected parliament, similar to that of Scotland, but with somewhat less autonomy.
Wales has it's own, elected, Assembly (why they chose not to use the word parliament, I'm not too clear on). Much like the parliaments in Scotland and Northern Ireland, it has had powers devolved to it, although IIRC not as many.
England doesn't have it's own devolved legislature, although as the lions share of the MPs who sit at Westminster come from England, it has often been argued that the UK parliament's decision-making is heavily slanted in favour of England making the need for such to be somewhat of an irrelevance.
So in a way, yes it is fair to say that governance of Wales is separate, in as much as they have the ability to set their own policy in some areas. That being said, because they remain bound by decisions of the UK parliament in Westminster (along with England, Scotland and Northern Ireland), it is also fair to say that they are not separately governed.
It is also fair to say that the majority of those living in (certainly my locality in) Wales have no concrete concept of where the line is drawn between what powers the Welsh Assembly has vs. what powers remain exclusive to Westminster. Obviously, foreign and military policy remains with Westminster, but other areas seem to be a little more grey.
I, too, would like to see this re-commissioned and brought up-to-date. Unfortunately, though, I don't see it happening in the remotely foreseeable future.
In the meantime though, just re-watch the same old episodes when they are re-run. Was doing this a little over a month ago and my step-daughter (late teens and relatively switched on) walked in, caught a couple of minutes and then stormed off to watch TV in her room saying that she'd rather watch some "next top model" crap that the current affairs program I was watching.
The filming of it may appear a bit on the dated side, but the content could just as easily be a fly-on-the-wall documentary in any modern-day UK government department if the policy results we end up seeing over here are anything to go by!
After this video aired he retired and is training as a recluse.
You need training to become a recluse now?!?
Case law is not about "throwing out the letter of a particular law", but more about interpretation of what is already written without changing its underlying meaning.
Statute law, by its nature, is comparatively static. In order to prevent any misinterpretation, it should also be designed to be very specific as regards what situations it covers, and what results it should have where those circumstances present themselves. Change to statute law therefore takes time (and, many would argue, friends in high places).
Society, on the other hand, often changes far faster than the statute books. For this reason, statute law that was written some significant time ago may not be clear on its application to current-day situations. As the drafters couldn't envisage a particular situation, the statute laws do not cater to them in a clear fashion. For this reason, where ambiguity presents itself, the judiciary need to be able put themselves in the position of the drafters and imagine what their response to the situation in question would have been, were it to be commonplace at the time of drafting. This allows them to make a ruling on the matter.
Because, however, the judiciary are not empowered to "create new laws", such rulings become precedent and future judges then need to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the situation before them is sufficiently similar to the case that set precedent that it should apply to their case as well, or whether their case is different enough that a new precedent should be set for this further new case type. Also, in those situations where society has moved on again since the precedent was set that applying it to the current circumstances would be unfair, unethical or nonsensical, the judge has the option to come to his own decision, setting a new precedent without overturning those prior rulings.
In some instances, where the case law provides a solution compatible with the statute for a situation sufficiently commonplace, legislators will sometimes either write a new statute to cover it, or an amendment to the original statute. Due to the time and resources involved in this, however, it tends to be comparatively rare.
Another comparative rarity is where a judge has to make a ruling where no precedent exists and the statute doesn't provide clear guidance on the outcome. In such situations, it has been known for judges to make a ruling that is not specifically allowed for in the statute, but can state that it should NOT be considered as setting a precedent. (Personally, I feel this is a cop-out, with the judge not wanting to be considered responsible for any future rulings based on his decisions going belly-up and making him, as the original precedent-setter, look bad).
I should make it clear that IANAL, but the above is my understanding based on lengthy self study of such matters as I am supporting my wife through a rather messy legal battle (Mortgagee looking to take possession of mortgaged property where co-owner of mortgaged property subject to no prior advice, misleading information and subsequent significant (600%) inflation of secured sum with neither notice, nor seeking of permission.) where precedent has been changed, overturned and clarified many times in the several decades since the statute pertaining to the situation was first enacted. The legal history and specifics I have been focusing on, however, are specifically those of the law as it exists in England and Wales, so the situation in the US (subject of TFA) may be somewhat different. I would welcome any corrections / clarifications / expansions of the above where applicable.
Actually, can you help me? I'm trying to find the name of the psychological disorder which makes people think they can judge what psychological disorders people have from their internet posts. What's that thing called? :)
I think the term you're looking for is "Internet forum poster/ contributor/ member"
A spirited debate, for sure, and (something which I rarely see in other forums on- and offline, which is why I always gravitate back to /.) one which has retained a mature level rather than just descending into point-scoring.
I, for one, can see merit in both points of view. Part of the issue here is societal, part media driven in what they'll report.
To pick up on the first of the facts that have been bulleted "1." in your post, there is a flaw in taking "unemployed men" as a single category in the study.
The study does not appear to separate into discreet groups those men who are unemployed through "lifestyle choice" (i.e. stay-at-home dads), and those who are unemployed as a result of termination, redundancy or disability.
The reason this renders the study as a dangerous hook on which to hang the suggestion that "men are too lazy to do their share of the housework" is that those who CHOOSE to be unemployed, and those who are unemployed WITHOUT CHOOSING TO BE, can be in very different places. Whilst I agree that those men who choose to be unemployed and subsequently fail to share adequately in the housework will have some serious work to do to convince me that they are not lazy (although they may well contend that societal programming that housework is "women's work" is the reason for their lack of effort), the study does not appear to acknowledge that those men who are unintentionally unemployed should not automatically be tarred with the "lazy" brush.
It is a long-standing societal expectation that the male is the bread-winner in any family unit, and as such, when the man finds himself out of work, and thereby in a position where he is not fulfilling what society has traditionally considered to be "his role in life", there is a tendency towards anxiety/depression. This can be further exacerbated where the woman also shares this traditional societal standpoint and berates the man for being unemployed. The extent of the depression is often significantly worsened where the unemployment is not within the man's control (i.e. redundancy).
The longer the unemployment persists, the greater the depression, partly due to the stresses created by a reduced familial income, and partly through the sense of futility in their attempts to find renewed employment (particularly in the current climate).
Whilst the effects of such a depression can vary, person to person, among the more common are lethargy and a lack of motivation. Either, or indeed both, of these will inevitably have an effect on the quantity/quality of housework done. The situation is further worsened by categorisations of such men as "slobs", further fuelling the damage to their senses of self-worth and leading to a continuing downward spiral. Needless to say, this can lead to the man becoming even more introverted (and lets face it, women are always accusing men of not communicating effectively with them) and further breaking down the relationship.
The fact that society makes matters worse by saying men should be more emotionally stable makes such men even less likely to seek help for their situation which is, lets face it, borne out of a medical condition as opposed to laziness. If society gave men in such situations the reassurance that they could seek help (medication / counselling / whatever) to help them deal with these emotions until they found stable employment the support would probably lead to a range of benefits. The amelioration of the lack of motivation would most likely lead to an increase in levels of housework performed, as well as better employment prospects as the man would feel more able to put himself out there in the marketplace. Battling the depression, particularly if done via counselling instead of medication, would lead to greater communication within the family and as a result less chance ending in divorce.
Instead, the norm is a situation where societal "norms" mean that the man's unemployment causes depression, which in turn puts him on a downw
WOW... A strategy game based on the porn industry?
Am I the only one on slashdot reading this who wondered just how Creative Assembly managed to slip that one by us?
Erm... Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't 10ms ONE percent of a second?
All great ideas, except...
The poster is in the UK, where the acts you mention aren't in force!