I'd be more worried about it consisting of a biker dude, a black guy that won't stop laughing, a bitter old white guy, and a brown-haired girl in a red jacket...
They should do a crossover with the Mythbusters. Either the ghosts bust myths - they can do things Jamie can't! - or the Mythbusters try to determine whether ghosts can be busted.
There is (or at least, there should be) a five year limit to how long after a movie comes out it's required to preface spoilers with a warning. That's enough time for the movie to go from theaters to crappy network stations.
Books, on the other hand, shouldn't have that limit. It's hard to go through books as quickly as movies.
There wasn't nothing; there was a point of energy. A point, while it may be infinitely small, is still not nothing, it is something.
Therefore, since there was something, there could also have been time. It may not have been meaningful in any significant way, but there's no reason time couldn't have existed.
It's easy to say that when you can't prove your assertion either way;)
I, for one, don't want any party to have that much power. Party X may as well not exist, if Party Y can shove anything they want through the pipes - and I'd bet my last dollar that they'll do whatever they can to preserve their power as long as they can.
People (not you) have tried to tell me "you shouldn't let your religious beliefs influence your political opinions". I've never understood that statement... it seems to me that there isn't any other way to form opinions, if not based on personal experience and morals.
(And since you posed the question... as an atheist, I find it odd that the faithful of *any* religion would need such material reminders of their own beliefs.)
Not everyone is as unwavering in their faith as everyone else, though they would like to be. Allow me to provide an example.
Say there's a compulsive gambler who wants to stop gambling. Would you think it odd for him to place physical reminders of his goal?
This is, perhaps, an extreme example, but it illustrates my point. These reminders aren't there to bludgeon us over the head; they're there so that when presented with an opportunity to do something morally wrong (according to our definition of "morally wrong"), we have something to remind us of our beliefs, so that we can consider whether we really want to make it harder to achieve our goals (which, in this case, might be something intangible like "eternal life" or "happiness" or even something more mundane like "getting along with family members" or "not losing all my money to a casino").
Not all people are equal, and not all people are as stalwart in their beliefs as they would like to be. Physical reminders can be - and are - quite helpful in that regard.
I don't know how it's supposed to work; my memory may be betraying me here. However, I seem to remember reading that the officers examining the scanner results will be seeing automatically blurred (censored) images. Further, the images produced in testing may not be censored. I may be wrong about any or all of this.
As a member of the LDS Church, I have to disagree, for a couple of reasons, which I will give in the form of rhetorical questions. (Trolls wanting to answer them snidely are politely reminded to close their browser and take a cold shower.)
Do you go around talking about whether you wear boxers or briefs, Hanes or Fruit of the Loom, white or gray, etc etc?
Do you make fun of Protestant priests for wearing collars to signify their devotion to God?
Do you object to the idea that we wear clothing designed to remind us of our commitment to obey God, rather than wearing an outwardly visible sign of said commitment?
Or do you object to the idea that the clothing in question is an undergarment, rather than something that doesn't directly touch the skin (e.g. the Protestant minister's collar)?
When people pester you about your underwear every few weeks - as if it's so weird to wear underwear - let's see how twisted your knickers get (so to speak). (It doesn't help that people insinuate that we believe there's something magical about them; we do not believe any such thing.)
In any case, the whole TSA scanner thing has nothing to do with this particular subject. The objection is specifically based on individual privacy; nobody should be forced to stand in a machine that shows them naked to anyone, whether or not that image is "censored", regardless of that person's race, gender, or religion (or lack thereof).
You make them stand in line really spread apart, so that an explosion at any point in the line can at most harm the one person ahead and the one person behind. Don't like walking three miles to get through a line of fifty people? Don't travel.
I really hope I'm not giving anyone any "bright" ideas.
This is a perfect example of why this "security" has nothing to do with protecting civilians. All it does is prevent terrorists from destroying airline property - those planes aren't cheap.
On a related note, if it were airlines themselves requiring these "security" measures, then I wouldn't mind them so much - if it got too bad, I could vote with my wallet (by choosing another carrier). We can't do that with the government, of course. I see no reason the government should be interfering with what should be a private matter between the airline company and its passengers.
They're not so much "not sensible" as "lazy". Rather than think about issues and vote based on the results of their deliberations, most Utahns (or at least, most LDS Utahns) vote what they perceive as the party most closely aligned to LDS Church values.
Unfortunately, neither major party really fits that criteria, at least not in the last 15 years, so while two decades ago that criteria still resulted in votes for the person they would have voted for had they thought about it, this is no longer true much of the time. Instead, they should be voting for candidates only after examining the values presented by each candidate as important.
As an LDS Utahn, I disapprove of the lazy groupthink that many Utahns follow. But calling them "not sensible" is silly, since that's largely subjective anyway:P
I should also point out that I'm not saying they'd necessarily vote differently than they do now; I used to be among the lazy in this area, until I started looking at issues and candidates this last election. I still voted the way I would have - but I did it based on specific issues. There's nothing "not sensible" about voting for a candidate based on specific issues, regardless of whether you agree with the candidate's position.
I happen to agree with you. However, since that's not currently the way things work, I'd rather have smallish privately owned utilities in a natural monopoly than have several utilities trying to compete... I'm pretty sure they'd all go bankrupt maintaining separate utility lines. Can you imagine three water companies all providing their own pipes everywhere?
Incidentally, this is what I think is wrong with internet service in general right now. Cities need to put in their own fiber networks and lease them to ISPs, so we don't have all this duplicated infrastructure. Unfortunately, many cities who have voted on the issue have decided (accurately) that installation of a fiber network is really expensive, and so refuse to do it.
Funny, I don't remember my power company becoming excessive at any point. I remember prices going down once...
You see, many utilities are best served by local monopolies. If you don't like it, you're welcome to start your own power company... but don't look to me for help when you go bankrupt before you have customers.
Now, if internet service were run as a utility, and a minimum connection speed were mandated, then prices wouldn't be so bad, and it wouldn't matter so much if there were only one choice.
Only trouble with a T1 shared among 8 homes is that the T1 maxes out at 1.5Mbps. That's fine until Condo 6 has a teenage son who torrents constantly; then everyone else will be lucky to get dialup speeds, unless someone sets up a router to manage bandwidth so the situation doesn't get as bad, but who wants to spend their own time maintaining that? Hiring someone to do it would only raise the cost of the service.
In my current apartment complex, that type of system is available, only they say their service maxes out at 1.1 Mbps (rather than 1.5), it's shared among a few dozen apartments, and the price is just as high as Comcast (for service that isn't comparable in any meaningful way).
The mostly old white guys then win by taking money -- some from people, most from corporations -- and then use that to market themselves
I'm trying to figure out if you meant to say "the mostly old, white guys" or "the mostly white, old guys"...
Seriously though, our political system is jacked up and there's no fixing it. The reason is similar to what we discussed the other day related to some other story - the people who would make good politicians (the ones who know things about relevant issues) are people who avoid politics like the plague, leaving us with these charismatic mostly old white guys (mostly white old guys?) to take charge.
This is true. However, I was simply trying to refute my parent post's claim that it comes with Macs "for free", since the overall cost is higher than buying (for example) an equivalently configured Dell laptop and using Picasa. Charging more for equivalent functionality does not equal "free". (I know Macs do other things. My point still stands.)
Yes, I read that; however, the forms you fill out to get a vehicle title still say what I've outlined above, and the representative with whom I spoke did say fifty. They can't even keep their own story straight. (To be fair, the document you've linked to discusses the requirements for a sales and use tax exemption, without discussing whether the vehicle can actually be called a "hybrid" on the vehicle title.)
Several years ago I needed to regain access to an account, and couldn't remember the answer to my secret question: "Who is your hero?"
I called in and talked to a CSR, convinced him I should have access, and got the answer (and password) changed. Out of curiosity, I asked what I had put as the original answer.
Bob. (It was an inside joke with a friend from high school. I didn't know anyone named Bob.)
So yes, this sort of "witty response" solution to "secret" answers can be problematic.
I had to use one website which, upon registration, sent me my username and plaintext password in separate e-mails, explaining that sending them in separate e-mails was to "increase security".
Now, the question would be whether or not they forward-only encrypt the answer and verify it much like a password or if it's stored in clear text that any numbnutz with DB access could poke around.
I found recently that Comcast prevents you from using a password longer than 12 characters for your comcast.com account. As far as I can tell, that means they're storing passwords in plaintext - I can't think of any other reason to impose a maximum password length.
Until companies can store passwords securely, how can I even maintain a dim hope that my "secret" answers (which can likely be Googled with ease) are stored securely?
Slashdot Mirror
Dunno, I never saw Die Hard.
I'd be more worried about it consisting of a biker dude, a black guy that won't stop laughing, a bitter old white guy, and a brown-haired girl in a red jacket...
They should do a crossover with the Mythbusters. Either the ghosts bust myths - they can do things Jamie can't! - or the Mythbusters try to determine whether ghosts can be busted.
I thought that was the end of Unbreakable.
There is (or at least, there should be) a five year limit to how long after a movie comes out it's required to preface spoilers with a warning. That's enough time for the movie to go from theaters to crappy network stations.
Books, on the other hand, shouldn't have that limit. It's hard to go through books as quickly as movies.
Does a point of energy have gravity?
There wasn't nothing; there was a point of energy. A point, while it may be infinitely small, is still not nothing, it is something.
Therefore, since there was something, there could also have been time. It may not have been meaningful in any significant way, but there's no reason time couldn't have existed.
It's easy to say that when you can't prove your assertion either way ;)
I, for one, don't want any party to have that much power. Party X may as well not exist, if Party Y can shove anything they want through the pipes - and I'd bet my last dollar that they'll do whatever they can to preserve their power as long as they can.
People (not you) have tried to tell me "you shouldn't let your religious beliefs influence your political opinions". I've never understood that statement... it seems to me that there isn't any other way to form opinions, if not based on personal experience and morals.
(And since you posed the question... as an atheist, I find it odd that the faithful of *any* religion would need such material reminders of their own beliefs.)
Not everyone is as unwavering in their faith as everyone else, though they would like to be. Allow me to provide an example.
Say there's a compulsive gambler who wants to stop gambling. Would you think it odd for him to place physical reminders of his goal?
This is, perhaps, an extreme example, but it illustrates my point. These reminders aren't there to bludgeon us over the head; they're there so that when presented with an opportunity to do something morally wrong (according to our definition of "morally wrong"), we have something to remind us of our beliefs, so that we can consider whether we really want to make it harder to achieve our goals (which, in this case, might be something intangible like "eternal life" or "happiness" or even something more mundane like "getting along with family members" or "not losing all my money to a casino").
Not all people are equal, and not all people are as stalwart in their beliefs as they would like to be. Physical reminders can be - and are - quite helpful in that regard.
I don't know how it's supposed to work; my memory may be betraying me here. However, I seem to remember reading that the officers examining the scanner results will be seeing automatically blurred (censored) images. Further, the images produced in testing may not be censored. I may be wrong about any or all of this.
Probably because they didn't want to post a picture of some guy's junk on their site.
Also, it could be because the images seen by TSA officers examining these images will see (supposedly) see pre-censored versions.
Does this strike anyone else as a hole in the "security"? Strap a small knife to your penis, it'll get blurred out along with your junk.
As a member of the LDS Church, I have to disagree, for a couple of reasons, which I will give in the form of rhetorical questions. (Trolls wanting to answer them snidely are politely reminded to close their browser and take a cold shower.)
Do you go around talking about whether you wear boxers or briefs, Hanes or Fruit of the Loom, white or gray, etc etc?
Do you make fun of Protestant priests for wearing collars to signify their devotion to God?
Do you object to the idea that we wear clothing designed to remind us of our commitment to obey God, rather than wearing an outwardly visible sign of said commitment?
Or do you object to the idea that the clothing in question is an undergarment, rather than something that doesn't directly touch the skin (e.g. the Protestant minister's collar)?
When people pester you about your underwear every few weeks - as if it's so weird to wear underwear - let's see how twisted your knickers get (so to speak). (It doesn't help that people insinuate that we believe there's something magical about them; we do not believe any such thing.)
In any case, the whole TSA scanner thing has nothing to do with this particular subject. The objection is specifically based on individual privacy; nobody should be forced to stand in a machine that shows them naked to anyone, whether or not that image is "censored", regardless of that person's race, gender, or religion (or lack thereof).
You make them stand in line really spread apart, so that an explosion at any point in the line can at most harm the one person ahead and the one person behind. Don't like walking three miles to get through a line of fifty people? Don't travel.
I really hope I'm not giving anyone any "bright" ideas.
This is a perfect example of why this "security" has nothing to do with protecting civilians. All it does is prevent terrorists from destroying airline property - those planes aren't cheap.
On a related note, if it were airlines themselves requiring these "security" measures, then I wouldn't mind them so much - if it got too bad, I could vote with my wallet (by choosing another carrier). We can't do that with the government, of course. I see no reason the government should be interfering with what should be a private matter between the airline company and its passengers.
They're not so much "not sensible" as "lazy". Rather than think about issues and vote based on the results of their deliberations, most Utahns (or at least, most LDS Utahns) vote what they perceive as the party most closely aligned to LDS Church values.
Unfortunately, neither major party really fits that criteria, at least not in the last 15 years, so while two decades ago that criteria still resulted in votes for the person they would have voted for had they thought about it, this is no longer true much of the time. Instead, they should be voting for candidates only after examining the values presented by each candidate as important.
As an LDS Utahn, I disapprove of the lazy groupthink that many Utahns follow. But calling them "not sensible" is silly, since that's largely subjective anyway :P
I should also point out that I'm not saying they'd necessarily vote differently than they do now; I used to be among the lazy in this area, until I started looking at issues and candidates this last election. I still voted the way I would have - but I did it based on specific issues. There's nothing "not sensible" about voting for a candidate based on specific issues, regardless of whether you agree with the candidate's position.
I happen to agree with you. However, since that's not currently the way things work, I'd rather have smallish privately owned utilities in a natural monopoly than have several utilities trying to compete... I'm pretty sure they'd all go bankrupt maintaining separate utility lines. Can you imagine three water companies all providing their own pipes everywhere?
Incidentally, this is what I think is wrong with internet service in general right now. Cities need to put in their own fiber networks and lease them to ISPs, so we don't have all this duplicated infrastructure. Unfortunately, many cities who have voted on the issue have decided (accurately) that installation of a fiber network is really expensive, and so refuse to do it.
Monopolies inevitably become excessive
Funny, I don't remember my power company becoming excessive at any point. I remember prices going down once...
You see, many utilities are best served by local monopolies. If you don't like it, you're welcome to start your own power company... but don't look to me for help when you go bankrupt before you have customers.
Now, if internet service were run as a utility, and a minimum connection speed were mandated, then prices wouldn't be so bad, and it wouldn't matter so much if there were only one choice.
Only trouble with a T1 shared among 8 homes is that the T1 maxes out at 1.5Mbps. That's fine until Condo 6 has a teenage son who torrents constantly; then everyone else will be lucky to get dialup speeds, unless someone sets up a router to manage bandwidth so the situation doesn't get as bad, but who wants to spend their own time maintaining that? Hiring someone to do it would only raise the cost of the service.
In my current apartment complex, that type of system is available, only they say their service maxes out at 1.1 Mbps (rather than 1.5), it's shared among a few dozen apartments, and the price is just as high as Comcast (for service that isn't comparable in any meaningful way).
The mostly old white guys then win by taking money -- some from people, most from corporations -- and then use that to market themselves
I'm trying to figure out if you meant to say "the mostly old, white guys" or "the mostly white, old guys"...
Seriously though, our political system is jacked up and there's no fixing it. The reason is similar to what we discussed the other day related to some other story - the people who would make good politicians (the ones who know things about relevant issues) are people who avoid politics like the plague, leaving us with these charismatic mostly old white guys (mostly white old guys?) to take charge.
This is true. However, I was simply trying to refute my parent post's claim that it comes with Macs "for free", since the overall cost is higher than buying (for example) an equivalently configured Dell laptop and using Picasa. Charging more for equivalent functionality does not equal "free". (I know Macs do other things. My point still stands.)
Yes, you are of course correct.
Yes, I read that; however, the forms you fill out to get a vehicle title still say what I've outlined above, and the representative with whom I spoke did say fifty. They can't even keep their own story straight. (To be fair, the document you've linked to discusses the requirements for a sales and use tax exemption, without discussing whether the vehicle can actually be called a "hybrid" on the vehicle title.)
Several years ago I needed to regain access to an account, and couldn't remember the answer to my secret question: "Who is your hero?"
I called in and talked to a CSR, convinced him I should have access, and got the answer (and password) changed. Out of curiosity, I asked what I had put as the original answer.
Bob. (It was an inside joke with a friend from high school. I didn't know anyone named Bob.)
So yes, this sort of "witty response" solution to "secret" answers can be problematic.
I had to use one website which, upon registration, sent me my username and plaintext password in separate e-mails, explaining that sending them in separate e-mails was to "increase security".
Now, the question would be whether or not they forward-only encrypt the answer and verify it much like a password or if it's stored in clear text that any numbnutz with DB access could poke around.
I found recently that Comcast prevents you from using a password longer than 12 characters for your comcast.com account. As far as I can tell, that means they're storing passwords in plaintext - I can't think of any other reason to impose a maximum password length.
I also wrote about American Express' password idiocy (it's even worse than Comcast) several months ago.
Until companies can store passwords securely, how can I even maintain a dim hope that my "secret" answers (which can likely be Googled with ease) are stored securely?