DARE is not drug education. That is a horrific bad drug scare that leaves emotional damage and bigoted views about drug users, or it's an advertisement to a curious young moderately rebellious child.
Most of all, it's dangerous because it discredits (by using ad logicum and ad hominem) any valid reasons for not doing drugs. If you tell kids repeatedly that "Drugs are bad because drugs are... baaaayud... mmm'k?" and that "Drugs are bad because bad people take drugs so people who take drugs are bad, which means drugs are baaad, mm'k?", then when they realise that both of those reasons (and most of the others given to not take drugs) are absolute bullshit, they assume drugs are safe and good.
The drug education program at my school was unintentionally excellent, because they gave us a bunch of cards with real, unbiased information on most illegal drugs. I could tell that, for example, MDMA is far less dangerous than riding a horse, on a use-by-use basis. Or that ice will fuck you up and destroy your life. This influenced me as to what drugs I would eventually experiment with. This was really not what they intended, but is still how I will educate my children - I'll tell them exactly what the pros and cons of various drugs are, and then let them decide what they will accept as a level of risk. I'd hope that by telling them honestly, "casual, occasional use of MDMA, speed, and weed is pretty safe as such things go, and probably less bad for you than getting trashed on hard spirits", that when I tell them "but kids, stay the fuck away from ice, smack, and crack, because those are the ones that will have you sucking dick in the toilets for a hit" they'll respect me and listen to my advice.
It doesn't matter how more likely marijuana makes drivers get into accidents. The law as it currently stands forbids driving while intoxicated, and that could be with prescription drugs or weed just as much as alcohol.
It damn well should. If marijuana intoxication doesn't increase the chance of a driver causing an accident, then why should it be forbidden to drive while under the influence of marijuana?
(For clarification - I don't smoke weed and I never will. THC does nothing for me. But I hate seeing people being told "you shouldn't do that because... well, you shouldn't".
Ah - what makes it different is that stupid parents think that an iPhone is a gameboy with a landline magically attached to it. It's the same problem we saw when kids realised that their PSP or Nintendo DS could be used to wirelessly download porn from the privacy of their own rooms.
I'd say that in terms of (1), the reason is more along the line of being scared that some parent will buy their kid an iPhone and then sue when the kid looks up porn. Honestly, though, I think you're onto something with (2). It really annoys me, because (even as a diehard PC user who converted to Linux two years ago, Mac evangelists annoy me nearly as much as evangelical Christian fundies) the iPhone is a damn sexy piece of hardware. Problem is, I don't want to buy one if I'm not going to be able to run whatever I want on it without hacking it.
Also, even when considering men and women in exactly the same role and environment, expected long absence from the workplace will effect lower earnings. Consider the wages that your average guy will earn compared to the wages (yearly and accumulated lifetime) that another guy in the same job will get if he takes 5+ years out of his career to care for his children. Hint: 5 years' worth of pay rises is quite a lot. Also often not taken into account is the fact that, traditionally, women are financially supported by their partners. Obviously these days that's less common than it used to be, but still, it seems unfair to complain about a man earning 20% more than his female counterparts when 50% of his net wage goes to supporting a spouse.
The difference is that the lonely female TA just has to wander down to the local bar wearing a tight top and by the end of the night she'll have half a dozen offers. A lonely male TA, on the other hand, will just be one of those dozen offers, and his odds aren't good, so when that hot chick in his class offers to sex him up in exchange for a few extra days to work on her assignment... well who knows, maybe she had a crush on him anyway?
Wow - some of those figures are very interesting. In 1998, there were 3.6 million white male students, and 500 thousand black male students. In 2006 when the study ends, there are around 4 million white male students and 650 thousand black male students. So a small, roughly proportionate growth in both, although white males are definitely more likely to receive a university education. Likewise for white females, who went from 4.6 million in 1998 to 5.2 million in 2006. So far, ratios are staying pretty constant.
Where it gets interesting is that black female enrolments rose from 850 thousand in 1998 up to 1.1 million in 2006 - a 30% increase in enrolments compared to around 12% for the other race/gender combos. Statistically, black women are well ahead of everyone else in terms of improvement in education.
Basically he's saying "appeal to authority is valid in an informal discussion between an eminent scientist and a layperson". Which I agree with - when talking to another professional, I'd never debate the merits of various algorithms (for example) based on who proposed them rather than on their performance, but when I'm telling a non-technical highschool friend why he'd be better off spending his money on a bigger screen and more RAM rather than the very top-shelf processor, it's much quicker to just say "trust me, I'm right".
A meta-meta-discussion's merit has nothing to do with the motives of the arguer, the credentials of the arguer, the slashdot ID of the arguer, the presence or absence of lolcats pertaining to the discussion, or the popularity of the argument. Full stop. No exceptions.
Depends how good at it you are. If you're on the cutting edge of cryptographic research, for example, you'll be raking it in. If you're not on the cutting edge of _something_, though, it's both boring and not very lucrative.
This is exactly the point I was making when a careless click ate my post. I don't believe in any innate difference in ability between men and women when it comes to maths - the few women I've seen in 'hard' sciences tend to excel. There's most certainly a difference in interest though - which is why the gender balance is so skewed.
As for people who "need more than a foot of ground clearance", they should buy a serious offroader. The original Hummer (before it got pussified into an SUV) qualifies. Otherwise get a Land Cruiser or a Jeep or something.
Ever held your arm out straight and put a large book on your palm & tried to keep from moving?
Reptile muscles work differently to mammalian muscles, I believe. That's why reptiles can hold awkward poses for hours at a time, while mammals tend to keep moving. Also, there's a difference between slow and fast muscles - you don't have any trouble holding your head balanced on top of your neck for 12 hours at a time, which actually takes quite a lot of strength. Contrariwise, your arm will contain mostly fast muscle fibres (unless you're a yoga or tai chi master) because it requires more strength on a much lower duty cycle.
Have you ever used a chainsaw in real life, and spent 20 minutes trying to start the damn thing? On the odd occasion that mine gets flooded or whatever and refuses to start, I find myself imagining zombie hordes lurching towards me as I repeatedly and futilely yank the pull starter. It'd be cool if that made its way into a game.
This whole topic is a troll. Not that the actual topic doesn't deserve discussion, and a way of quantitatively rating different programming languages to enable concrete comparisons is definitely useful, but posting it here is like going to a religious forum and posting a cost benefit analysis based review of the major religions.:P
He's an artist. A fairly techy one but an artist nonetheless. Therefore, acting like a rabid dog every time anyone glances at his computer is probably not a valid option for him, because in his quality matrix, interacting with other people has a decidedly positive weight.
He was shooting for teh funnay. You're not conforming to the slashdot stereotype of "I didn't RTFA" but he gave you a bonus point for not reading the code. I presume you could have scored additional points by saying that Natalie Portman accidentally a word while running Linux is like a car made out of hot grits.
Actually, the reason that the iPod was awesome was that (a) it had a real screen that showed more than a couple of lines of text, and (b) it had the scroll wheel touchpad interface that made it possible to rapidly select songs and fast forward / rewind. For a 64mb MP3 player, picking one of the 15 songs you could store on it could easily be done with the four buttons provided. Once you had half your mp3 collection in your pocket, navigating to that one song you wanted to hear was a complete pain in the ass. The iPod made it much, much easier.
While we're on the topic, does anyone know how to fix a semi-bricked Creative Zen Vision M?:P Mine's got some stupid charging problem, it runs OK when I plug it in but it won't charge.:/
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DARE is not drug education. That is a horrific bad drug scare that leaves emotional damage and bigoted views about drug users, or it's an advertisement to a curious young moderately rebellious child.
Most of all, it's dangerous because it discredits (by using ad logicum and ad hominem) any valid reasons for not doing drugs. If you tell kids repeatedly that "Drugs are bad because drugs are... baaaayud... mmm'k?" and that "Drugs are bad because bad people take drugs so people who take drugs are bad, which means drugs are baaad, mm'k?", then when they realise that both of those reasons (and most of the others given to not take drugs) are absolute bullshit, they assume drugs are safe and good.
The drug education program at my school was unintentionally excellent, because they gave us a bunch of cards with real, unbiased information on most illegal drugs. I could tell that, for example, MDMA is far less dangerous than riding a horse, on a use-by-use basis. Or that ice will fuck you up and destroy your life. This influenced me as to what drugs I would eventually experiment with. This was really not what they intended, but is still how I will educate my children - I'll tell them exactly what the pros and cons of various drugs are, and then let them decide what they will accept as a level of risk. I'd hope that by telling them honestly, "casual, occasional use of MDMA, speed, and weed is pretty safe as such things go, and probably less bad for you than getting trashed on hard spirits", that when I tell them "but kids, stay the fuck away from ice, smack, and crack, because those are the ones that will have you sucking dick in the toilets for a hit" they'll respect me and listen to my advice.
It doesn't matter how more likely marijuana makes drivers get into accidents. The law as it currently stands forbids driving while intoxicated, and that could be with prescription drugs or weed just as much as alcohol.
It damn well should. If marijuana intoxication doesn't increase the chance of a driver causing an accident, then why should it be forbidden to drive while under the influence of marijuana?
(For clarification - I don't smoke weed and I never will. THC does nothing for me. But I hate seeing people being told "you shouldn't do that because... well, you shouldn't".
Ah - what makes it different is that stupid parents think that an iPhone is a gameboy with a landline magically attached to it. It's the same problem we saw when kids realised that their PSP or Nintendo DS could be used to wirelessly download porn from the privacy of their own rooms.
You mean he wasn't referring to the Fog of War?
Yeah, try explaining to a government official that you need more funding because you're using elves to talk to your submarine. :P
I'd say that in terms of (1), the reason is more along the line of being scared that some parent will buy their kid an iPhone and then sue when the kid looks up porn. Honestly, though, I think you're onto something with (2). It really annoys me, because (even as a diehard PC user who converted to Linux two years ago, Mac evangelists annoy me nearly as much as evangelical Christian fundies) the iPhone is a damn sexy piece of hardware. Problem is, I don't want to buy one if I'm not going to be able to run whatever I want on it without hacking it.
Cook the apple first, preferably in a delicious pastry crust. Isn't that the American way? :P
Also, even when considering men and women in exactly the same role and environment, expected long absence from the workplace will effect lower earnings. Consider the wages that your average guy will earn compared to the wages (yearly and accumulated lifetime) that another guy in the same job will get if he takes 5+ years out of his career to care for his children. Hint: 5 years' worth of pay rises is quite a lot. Also often not taken into account is the fact that, traditionally, women are financially supported by their partners. Obviously these days that's less common than it used to be, but still, it seems unfair to complain about a man earning 20% more than his female counterparts when 50% of his net wage goes to supporting a spouse.
The difference is that the lonely female TA just has to wander down to the local bar wearing a tight top and by the end of the night she'll have half a dozen offers. A lonely male TA, on the other hand, will just be one of those dozen offers, and his odds aren't good, so when that hot chick in his class offers to sex him up in exchange for a few extra days to work on her assignment... well who knows, maybe she had a crush on him anyway?
Wow - some of those figures are very interesting. In 1998, there were 3.6 million white male students, and 500 thousand black male students. In 2006 when the study ends, there are around 4 million white male students and 650 thousand black male students. So a small, roughly proportionate growth in both, although white males are definitely more likely to receive a university education. Likewise for white females, who went from 4.6 million in 1998 to 5.2 million in 2006. So far, ratios are staying pretty constant.
Where it gets interesting is that black female enrolments rose from 850 thousand in 1998 up to 1.1 million in 2006 - a 30% increase in enrolments compared to around 12% for the other race/gender combos. Statistically, black women are well ahead of everyone else in terms of improvement in education.
Nice try, but I don't think it'll work this time. :P
Basically he's saying "appeal to authority is valid in an informal discussion between an eminent scientist and a layperson". Which I agree with - when talking to another professional, I'd never debate the merits of various algorithms (for example) based on who proposed them rather than on their performance, but when I'm telling a non-technical highschool friend why he'd be better off spending his money on a bigger screen and more RAM rather than the very top-shelf processor, it's much quicker to just say "trust me, I'm right".
A meta-meta-discussion's merit has nothing to do with the motives of the arguer, the credentials of the arguer, the slashdot ID of the arguer, the presence or absence of lolcats pertaining to the discussion, or the popularity of the argument. Full stop. No exceptions.
Paraphrased from TFA for you. ;)
Depends how good at it you are. If you're on the cutting edge of cryptographic research, for example, you'll be raking it in. If you're not on the cutting edge of _something_, though, it's both boring and not very lucrative.
This is exactly the point I was making when a careless click ate my post. I don't believe in any innate difference in ability between men and women when it comes to maths - the few women I've seen in 'hard' sciences tend to excel. There's most certainly a difference in interest though - which is why the gender balance is so skewed.
For panache, get a Caterpillar.
I most wholeheartedly concur!
As for people who "need more than a foot of ground clearance", they should buy a serious offroader. The original Hummer (before it got pussified into an SUV) qualifies. Otherwise get a Land Cruiser or a Jeep or something.
Ever held your arm out straight and put a large book on your palm & tried to keep from moving?
Reptile muscles work differently to mammalian muscles, I believe. That's why reptiles can hold awkward poses for hours at a time, while mammals tend to keep moving. Also, there's a difference between slow and fast muscles - you don't have any trouble holding your head balanced on top of your neck for 12 hours at a time, which actually takes quite a lot of strength. Contrariwise, your arm will contain mostly fast muscle fibres (unless you're a yoga or tai chi master) because it requires more strength on a much lower duty cycle.
I'm guessing it was more a "holy shit this is really really popular... MAKE MOAR!" than a "muahahah we shall sucker them into buying this game twice".
Oh god, next we'll have Left 4 Dead: Tokyo Gibs.
Have you ever used a chainsaw in real life, and spent 20 minutes trying to start the damn thing? On the odd occasion that mine gets flooded or whatever and refuses to start, I find myself imagining zombie hordes lurching towards me as I repeatedly and futilely yank the pull starter. It'd be cool if that made its way into a game.
This whole topic is a troll. Not that the actual topic doesn't deserve discussion, and a way of quantitatively rating different programming languages to enable concrete comparisons is definitely useful, but posting it here is like going to a religious forum and posting a cost benefit analysis based review of the major religions. :P
These "co-ed" schools and their dangerous excesses. Don't they know the perils of the uncontrollable onanism which will surely result?!
He's an artist. A fairly techy one but an artist nonetheless. Therefore, acting like a rabid dog every time anyone glances at his computer is probably not a valid option for him, because in his quality matrix, interacting with other people has a decidedly positive weight.
He was shooting for teh funnay. You're not conforming to the slashdot stereotype of "I didn't RTFA" but he gave you a bonus point for not reading the code. I presume you could have scored additional points by saying that Natalie Portman accidentally a word while running Linux is like a car made out of hot grits.
Actually, the reason that the iPod was awesome was that (a) it had a real screen that showed more than a couple of lines of text, and (b) it had the scroll wheel touchpad interface that made it possible to rapidly select songs and fast forward / rewind. For a 64mb MP3 player, picking one of the 15 songs you could store on it could easily be done with the four buttons provided. Once you had half your mp3 collection in your pocket, navigating to that one song you wanted to hear was a complete pain in the ass. The iPod made it much, much easier.
:P Mine's got some stupid charging problem, it runs OK when I plug it in but it won't charge. :/
While we're on the topic, does anyone know how to fix a semi-bricked Creative Zen Vision M?