You don't choose your genes. For the most part, you do choose to be overweight, if only through a choice of inaction (i.e. "I don't want to exercise, change my diet, or live healthier," is a choice, and none of these options is expensive or unusually burdensome).
There are people who have genuine medical conditions which prevent them from losing weight, but I would be VERY surprised if they were anything but a vast minority among people who happen to actually be overweight. The law should simply have an exemption for people with proven and diagnosed medical conditions over which they have no control.
Honestly, I just don't buy the "slippery slope" argument against this one.
You want to know why? Because his current attitude about himself is as clearly rude as it is unsophisticated. Simple as that.
Want more? This kid doesn't need a lesson in humility because his lack of it threatens others. He needs a lesson in humility because he is almost certainly not as great as he seems to think he is and is in for either a rude awakening or a life of delusion and disappointment. For that matter, you gain nothing from actively dwelling on your own ability, and potentially stand to lose a great deal in perspective and complacency. In short, his cockiness does nobody any good, least of all himself.
You know, It's very, very rare that a religious person (Chrustian, Jew, Hindu, whatever) tries to shove his beliefs down my throat.
That's nice for you, clearly not living in the United States. Or did it maybe not occur to you that trying to LEGISLATE a religious opinion definitely qualifies as "trying to shove it down my throat." To be honest, to a lot of people the "Jesus fish" probably says something along the lines of, "Hi, I'm probably one of the people trying to legislatively force my religious opinions down the entire country's throat."
Hello, and welcome to the "Missed the Whole Point" Club. After reading even the summary, one should find that they found territory markers WERE THE BEST PREDICTOR. What that means, for those who don't get it, is they did take other predictors into consideration. And they, in fact, were NOT as good. Allow me to paraphrase the OP and your reply:
OP: "Territory markers predict road rage better than other things normally associated with bad driving."
You: "Territory markers? How stupid. Why didn't they consider other things normally associated with bad driving?"
Well, uh, they did consider those... that was kinda the point...
(So far I've never hit anybody in this situation, but it's come close a few times. Oh, and if my wife and/or kids are in the car, I don't act this way. I'm willing to risk your life to make a point, but not theirs.)
And what point would that be? That you're enough of an arrogant prick to think you know the situation of the car ahead of you better than the people driving it do? And the first time you come across a car that brakes for, say, an animal bolting across the road? Yeah, I bet you can see that sort of thing REALLY good, looking through three windows and another car to see the road and all. But yes, clearly your right to be an asshole supersedes such petty concerns as other peoples' safety and unforeseeable circumstances.
Certainly possible with respect to the original post in this thread, but I think not with respect to the person to whom I replied. To be honest, I only framed my response in terms of the immediate parent; reading the first post it's obviously a joke.
The problem is, "faster" is absolutely not a value judgment. It's testable and quantifiable, and the claim that Opera is "faster," at least according to one benchmark, doesn't seem to be true. I won't even go into memory usage. I personally think we should reserve judgment until we can test final releases against eachother, but I think a troll mod is perfectly appropriate.
Yes. Everyone has a right to property they freely acquired from other freely-acting individual. When the government (or anyone else) starts forcefully taking away that property, that right is being violated. Whether or not some service "works" (according to its own definitions, mind you) for some period of time does not justify a rights violation of any kind.
I'm going to call bullshit on this one. This attitude never ceases to amaze me. I don't know where you live that property is some kind of natural right, but it sure isn't in the United States (or anywhere else in the world that I know of). We have, by agreement as a society, decided to recognize property rights, but likewise, as a society, we can equally recognize the necessity of abridging those rights for the greater good. In any case, on a purely conceptual level, it is MUCH more accurate to say that property is "owned" by the government and leased to the people than to say it is owned outright by the people. (See Allodial title vs. Fee simple estate)
The government is charged with upholding rights. That is done through the courts and by force through through the executive branch. So of course we need armed forced and police to uphold our rights. I'm just saying that such taxation is only justified if it is voluntary. Just as you freely choose to pay some amount for insurance against emergencies, you would also freely choose to pay toward upholding your rights (and the rights of everyone else).
Translation: "Yes, silly, of COURSE the government should uphold rights by legal and brute force when necessary. They should just do it without any MONEY or RESOURCES. Oh wait, I take that back, CLEARLY people would willingly pay money they don't absolutely have to for a service that is not of immediately apparent use... oh wait..."
Who out there REALLY worries about their rights being upheld properly until they find themselves in dire need of just that? And if everybody is paying a willing tithe for this service, how would that really be any different from tax? Would it make you FEEL better? Because yeah, it really makes sense to have the government pick and choose whose rights are upheld. You want the police walking around with a big list, checking, "Hmm, can we save this guy from armed robbery? I dunno if he paid his protection money..." That's a great ethical option right there...
Yes, there is no reason why these services could not be provided by private organizations, and in fact all of these services are and have been provided by private organizations. The only differences between the two situations (private, public) are:
1. The public services are funded through an unjustifiable rights violation.
2. Competition among private services gives private companies an incentive to provide the best possible service at the lowest price. Because there is only one provider for a public service (and no competing providers are permitted to exist), there is no incentive for public services to provide the best service or the cheapest service.
Yeah, great idea. That is, except for anything that constitutes a natural monopoly, which is pretty much every kind of public service. Then you end up with one provider, no competition, and the public getting fucked up every orifice they have. Or for some reason you are expecting companies to behave altruistically in a system you have set up as being fundamentally non-altruistic and profit motivated? Cognitive dissonance much? The simple fact is that in the real world natural monopolies ABSOLUTELY NEED regulation or all sorts of greedy corporate hell breaks loose (just look at pretty much every company in American history that has qualified as a natural monopoly to see a good example of this kind of battle).
Maybe my response has been overly harsh, but your position just comes across as being dangerously naive.
Who is actually at fault has little to nothing to do with who takes the blame. After all the rhetoric and spin from Bush and his handlers over the last eight years, if there were anything like that kind of incident again he'd be chased out of the white house in his bedclothes by a pitchfork wielding mob. Sure the Democrats would be partly at fault (the lesser part) if that were to happen, but the blame and public outcry would fall solidly on Bush's shoulders. As for how different the parties really are, that's another matter entirely.
I think it's just a little ironic this will be a PC only title, considering how loudly these guys bitched and moaned about piracy and swore up and down they'd never put out another PC exclusive title.
You are so full of shit. All signs point to EITHER ONE OF THEM having a clear lead over McCain--yes, Clinton's lead is slightly larger, but the ACTUAL situation is absolutely NOTHING like your left-field claims. I have no idea where you're pulling this notion that Obama is some kind of crazy unsupportable idealist who doesn't stand a chance against McCain from. Nearly every single source of actual evidence I've seen shows otherwise. In fact, if you look into the actual detailed statistics you'll find on that site, you'll find that in recent months Obama and Clinton have tracked eachother almost identically in terms of how they're expected to fare against McCain (both coming out ahead).
So please, spare us your tirades against Obama supporters. They have no basis in reality.
I know in its original form it's been mostly discredited, but I'm wondering if something like the "hundredth monkey effect" is going to take hold with Firefox in the near future. Will there be an inflection point in its usage share?
Or for maybe a more familiar example, Hawai'i. Although in that example the apostrophe has come to actually be neglected most of the time. (Hawaiian language is full of glottal stops; almost every island has one in its name)
Am I the only person who finds that this degree of arrogance, particularly in the video game industry, is unfalteringly correlated with horrible failure? John Romero, I'm looking at you. (Among many others)
If there's anybody he can sue, it would only be his ISP for divulging his information without his permission and also without a warrant. While the company was certainly out of line in the lengths they went through to accomplish this, there's nothing ILLEGAL about discovering an internet persona's true identity. They were perfectly free to ask all the questions they did. Whether the ISP had any right to divulge that information is another matter I don't really care to guess on.
You can always install a Tango theme in KDE if you don't like their awful default icons. It's what my default KDE setup does actually. I'll agree, the default KDE theming (at least in KDE3) is godawful, but once you customize it with actually attractive alternatives, I find it's actually much more attractive than GNOME (at least for me, I think it's a product of my liking the way QT lays stuff out moreso than GTK). As for the pedigree of these themes, I believe they're both independently derived from Bluecurve.
While I don't want to debate the nature of "the good," whatever that means (I was leaving it in quotes for a reason because its definition is nebulous, and such a debate is too far outside the context here), I will say one thing: however you unpack that definition, ethics, IS a concern with "the good." Ethics and morals are essentially two sides of the same coin; specifically, they are the theory on one hand, and the practice on the other--both aimed at "the good." If you don't believe me, do some research on your own.
It's only a logical fallacy if his moral character weren't actual substantive grounds for such a dismissal. If you have a scientist whose ideas you are dismissing on the basis of his moral character, that's one thing, and an obvious fallacy. For someone who is pretending to dictate morality, to start a religion even, that person's moral character is very much in question. PARTICULARLY if that moral character gives you direct reason to believe he had ulterior motives for his supposed divine revelations.
You are using what, even charitably, can only be described as a non-standard definition of evolution. It sets up a convenient straw man, but it just isn't what any scientists actually hold to be the case. Evolution is NOT, I repeat NOT defined, by ANYBODY in terms of "genetic incompatibility." That's not what scientists mean when they say evolution, and it's at best a cum hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy to argue otherwise.
I will nip your argument in the bud though. It does not take millions of years for a species to become genetically incompatible for breeding purposes. You need look no further than domesticated dogs to see an example of that. So if that's the measure by which you would have us gauge evolution, then I refute you thus, with the domestic dog: something that has indisputably been observed throughout the recorded course of human history to have "evolved" (by your definition at least).
But that's all pointless because you're arguing against a straw man. You've defined evolution to be something that nobody is claiming it to be for purposes of arguing against that which it isn't. I will say it again: evolution is change in inheritable traits over time. Full stop. That's it. Nothing more. Nothing less. It is not "genetic incompatibility" (speciation is probably what you mean by this I'm guessing), although that is obviously an eventual product of evolution.
The reason most people obviously refuse to debate you is that you refuse to debate on the actual grounds that are in question. If you don't argue against what evolution actually is there's absolutely no point in pursuing that folly.
I have to admit that A.I. is one of the few movies I've ever actually fallen asleep during. I don't really remember whether I was really tired or whether I found it boring at the time, but my pillow (read: girlfriend) tells me I missed the best parts at the end. Oh well.
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You don't choose your genes. For the most part, you do choose to be overweight, if only through a choice of inaction (i.e. "I don't want to exercise, change my diet, or live healthier," is a choice, and none of these options is expensive or unusually burdensome).
There are people who have genuine medical conditions which prevent them from losing weight, but I would be VERY surprised if they were anything but a vast minority among people who happen to actually be overweight. The law should simply have an exemption for people with proven and diagnosed medical conditions over which they have no control.
Honestly, I just don't buy the "slippery slope" argument against this one.
You want to know why? Because his current attitude about himself is as clearly rude as it is unsophisticated. Simple as that.
Want more? This kid doesn't need a lesson in humility because his lack of it threatens others. He needs a lesson in humility because he is almost certainly not as great as he seems to think he is and is in for either a rude awakening or a life of delusion and disappointment. For that matter, you gain nothing from actively dwelling on your own ability, and potentially stand to lose a great deal in perspective and complacency. In short, his cockiness does nobody any good, least of all himself.
I claim to be the King of Prussia. Doesn't make it so, anymore than China's claims make it genuinely communist.
That's nice for you, clearly not living in the United States. Or did it maybe not occur to you that trying to LEGISLATE a religious opinion definitely qualifies as "trying to shove it down my throat." To be honest, to a lot of people the "Jesus fish" probably says something along the lines of, "Hi, I'm probably one of the people trying to legislatively force my religious opinions down the entire country's throat."
Hello, and welcome to the "Missed the Whole Point" Club. After reading even the summary, one should find that they found territory markers WERE THE BEST PREDICTOR. What that means, for those who don't get it, is they did take other predictors into consideration. And they, in fact, were NOT as good. Allow me to paraphrase the OP and your reply:
OP: "Territory markers predict road rage better than other things normally associated with bad driving."
You: "Territory markers? How stupid. Why didn't they consider other things normally associated with bad driving?"
Well, uh, they did consider those... that was kinda the point...
Good ol' French. When you need somebody to say, "Fuck you all, we do our own shit," they can always be counted on.
Certainly possible with respect to the original post in this thread, but I think not with respect to the person to whom I replied. To be honest, I only framed my response in terms of the immediate parent; reading the first post it's obviously a joke.
The problem is, "faster" is absolutely not a value judgment. It's testable and quantifiable, and the claim that Opera is "faster," at least according to one benchmark, doesn't seem to be true. I won't even go into memory usage. I personally think we should reserve judgment until we can test final releases against eachother, but I think a troll mod is perfectly appropriate.
Translation: "Yes, silly, of COURSE the government should uphold rights by legal and brute force when necessary. They should just do it without any MONEY or RESOURCES. Oh wait, I take that back, CLEARLY people would willingly pay money they don't absolutely have to for a service that is not of immediately apparent use... oh wait..."
Who out there REALLY worries about their rights being upheld properly until they find themselves in dire need of just that? And if everybody is paying a willing tithe for this service, how would that really be any different from tax? Would it make you FEEL better? Because yeah, it really makes sense to have the government pick and choose whose rights are upheld. You want the police walking around with a big list, checking, "Hmm, can we save this guy from armed robbery? I dunno if he paid his protection money..." That's a great ethical option right there...
Yeah, great idea. That is, except for anything that constitutes a natural monopoly, which is pretty much every kind of public service. Then you end up with one provider, no competition, and the public getting fucked up every orifice they have. Or for some reason you are expecting companies to behave altruistically in a system you have set up as being fundamentally non-altruistic and profit motivated? Cognitive dissonance much? The simple fact is that in the real world natural monopolies ABSOLUTELY NEED regulation or all sorts of greedy corporate hell breaks loose (just look at pretty much every company in American history that has qualified as a natural monopoly to see a good example of this kind of battle).
Maybe my response has been overly harsh, but your position just comes across as being dangerously naive.
Who is actually at fault has little to nothing to do with who takes the blame. After all the rhetoric and spin from Bush and his handlers over the last eight years, if there were anything like that kind of incident again he'd be chased out of the white house in his bedclothes by a pitchfork wielding mob. Sure the Democrats would be partly at fault (the lesser part) if that were to happen, but the blame and public outcry would fall solidly on Bush's shoulders. As for how different the parties really are, that's another matter entirely.
I think it's just a little ironic this will be a PC only title, considering how loudly these guys bitched and moaned about piracy and swore up and down they'd never put out another PC exclusive title.
You are so full of shit. All signs point to EITHER ONE OF THEM having a clear lead over McCain--yes, Clinton's lead is slightly larger, but the ACTUAL situation is absolutely NOTHING like your left-field claims. I have no idea where you're pulling this notion that Obama is some kind of crazy unsupportable idealist who doesn't stand a chance against McCain from. Nearly every single source of actual evidence I've seen shows otherwise. In fact, if you look into the actual detailed statistics you'll find on that site, you'll find that in recent months Obama and Clinton have tracked eachother almost identically in terms of how they're expected to fare against McCain (both coming out ahead).
So please, spare us your tirades against Obama supporters. They have no basis in reality.
I know in its original form it's been mostly discredited, but I'm wondering if something like the "hundredth monkey effect" is going to take hold with Firefox in the near future. Will there be an inflection point in its usage share?
Or for maybe a more familiar example, Hawai'i. Although in that example the apostrophe has come to actually be neglected most of the time. (Hawaiian language is full of glottal stops; almost every island has one in its name)
Am I the only person who finds that this degree of arrogance, particularly in the video game industry, is unfalteringly correlated with horrible failure? John Romero, I'm looking at you. (Among many others)
If there's anybody he can sue, it would only be his ISP for divulging his information without his permission and also without a warrant. While the company was certainly out of line in the lengths they went through to accomplish this, there's nothing ILLEGAL about discovering an internet persona's true identity. They were perfectly free to ask all the questions they did. Whether the ISP had any right to divulge that information is another matter I don't really care to guess on.
This would have been much more amusing if it had been moderated +5 Informative.
Translation: Yes, that's all there is to the game, but you get to do it all with other people.
You can always install a Tango theme in KDE if you don't like their awful default icons. It's what my default KDE setup does actually. I'll agree, the default KDE theming (at least in KDE3) is godawful, but once you customize it with actually attractive alternatives, I find it's actually much more attractive than GNOME (at least for me, I think it's a product of my liking the way QT lays stuff out moreso than GTK). As for the pedigree of these themes, I believe they're both independently derived from Bluecurve.
While I don't want to debate the nature of "the good," whatever that means (I was leaving it in quotes for a reason because its definition is nebulous, and such a debate is too far outside the context here), I will say one thing: however you unpack that definition, ethics, IS a concern with "the good." Ethics and morals are essentially two sides of the same coin; specifically, they are the theory on one hand, and the practice on the other--both aimed at "the good." If you don't believe me, do some research on your own.
It's only a logical fallacy if his moral character weren't actual substantive grounds for such a dismissal. If you have a scientist whose ideas you are dismissing on the basis of his moral character, that's one thing, and an obvious fallacy. For someone who is pretending to dictate morality, to start a religion even, that person's moral character is very much in question. PARTICULARLY if that moral character gives you direct reason to believe he had ulterior motives for his supposed divine revelations.
You are using what, even charitably, can only be described as a non-standard definition of evolution. It sets up a convenient straw man, but it just isn't what any scientists actually hold to be the case. Evolution is NOT, I repeat NOT defined, by ANYBODY in terms of "genetic incompatibility." That's not what scientists mean when they say evolution, and it's at best a cum hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy to argue otherwise.
I will nip your argument in the bud though. It does not take millions of years for a species to become genetically incompatible for breeding purposes. You need look no further than domesticated dogs to see an example of that. So if that's the measure by which you would have us gauge evolution, then I refute you thus, with the domestic dog: something that has indisputably been observed throughout the recorded course of human history to have "evolved" (by your definition at least).
But that's all pointless because you're arguing against a straw man. You've defined evolution to be something that nobody is claiming it to be for purposes of arguing against that which it isn't. I will say it again: evolution is change in inheritable traits over time. Full stop. That's it. Nothing more. Nothing less. It is not "genetic incompatibility" (speciation is probably what you mean by this I'm guessing), although that is obviously an eventual product of evolution.
The reason most people obviously refuse to debate you is that you refuse to debate on the actual grounds that are in question. If you don't argue against what evolution actually is there's absolutely no point in pursuing that folly.
I have to admit that A.I. is one of the few movies I've ever actually fallen asleep during. I don't really remember whether I was really tired or whether I found it boring at the time, but my pillow (read: girlfriend) tells me I missed the best parts at the end. Oh well.