Singing technique can't hold off the effects of months of singing a few hours non-stop every evening, while dancing and changing costumes, with rehearsals and traveling every day, with a diet of fast food and liquid lunches. It's not just the singing that's suffering from the touring - it's every aspect of the performer's lifestyle, but the voice is the only thing Autotune can help.
Before modern electronically-enhanced music, people went to shows expecting to see people perform. Errors in the performance are part of the show. The musician and his music are the attractions. Today, the show itself is the attraction, with giant props and increasingly-intricate dance. I dare say that Justin Bieber has a more technically difficult show than Elvis... and that's okay.
Elvis' style is from a bygone era, where intonation is expected to be slightly off, and music is expected to be simple enough to be played by a small band. As a tech, I've mixed modern bands "in the style of" older artists, and I've used some interesting tricks to get it sounding perfectly wrong... I'll overload amps, muffle mics, and even use intentionally-bad placement to mimic the distortion that was the best older studios could do.
That's what opera expects, too. Opera is almost always run acoustically in venues that support it (generally anything named "opera house" or "hall"), but they'll use hidden mics in venues that don't work so well (generally "arena"). If there's any reinforcement at all, it's up to the producers and directors what kind of tone control or pitch correction they want, but again, the genre typically demands imperfection, and that's okay.
Take a look in the audio racks of professional theaters and performance venues. There's good odds you'll find a few Antares units in there, adding options to what the techs can accommodate. Today's most popular musicians aren't selling concerts. They're selling shows. Guests arrive expecting to hear the songs exactly as they're heard on the high-quality digital radio, played on their high-end stereos, and accompanied by an ever-more-impressive effects display. Bieber may not be able to croon like Elvis, but he can still put on an entertaining show... and that's exactly what people are buying today.
Sadly devoid of mod points, but I would like you to know I appreciate your perspective. Patent articles on Slashdot can be safely assumed to be trolling. There's a critical mass of patent-haters on the site that ensures every story casting patents in a negative light gets promoted to the front page, with no concern for relevance or factual accuracy.
Yes, patents are hard to read now. We've spent the last few centuries moving away from the idea that laws were general guidelines (with specific appeals to be passed up to the nobles or kings), toward a system ruled by laws, where the written legislation ideally covers every case and prescribes judgement. This means patents are inherently detailed and specific, and stuffed full of "legalese" - plugging all of the loopholes that 300 years of smart lawyers have poked.
Yes, patents are often granted for simple concepts that seem obvious in hindsight. They don't protect the idea of "add A to B", but rather cover the details of the invention that make it work (or work better). Gluing rubber to a pencil may not meet the needs for a patent, but attaching it with a metal ferrule just might.
Yes, patents are used offensively. This is bad, about equally as bad as using someone else's research to harm them. This is why it goes to a court to decide whether such infringement is illegal. What's particularly bad is that damages are based on the owner's perceived value of the patent, rather than actual economic harm.
Yes, software patents are algorithms, and algorithms are math, and math is a fundamental law of the universe that is explicitly not patentable. Then again, so is physics, and mechanical engineering, and chemistry. Of all fields, computer science and genetics are practically the only ones developed after the general realization that everything boils down to basic universal laws - so it's no surprise that those are the contested fields.
None of this means that patents are inherently bad, or that some patents are naturally better than others by virtue of being in an older field, or that patents in general are weapons of economic destruction controlled by The Man. Rather, patents are a legal protection for an inventor. Instead of mocking patents with poor strawman examples, we should be debating how to apply that protection fairly (not necessarily equally) to encourage both research and sharing.
Aw, who am I kidding? This is Slashdot! Let the flamewars commence!
For what it's worth, professional musicians often do use autotune. The difference is that they don't rely on it. It's a safety net, in case that sore throat from the past 5 weeks of touring throws off the key line in the chorus. Most of the time, the autotune just sits there doing nothing, because the singers hit the notes perfectly.
A well-tuned sound system adds a lot to a party environment. No, it's not going to be cranked up to full volume, nor playing death metal, but it will be on and loud enough to understand. The room should be fairly well-padded, so the music is heard but doesn't produce echoes. With such a setup, the music is a diversion, filling the empty space that otherwise is an "awkward silence". If and only if there's a gap in the conversation or someone wants to hear it, the music comes through.
Not all music must be loud, and not all parties must be quiet.
Exactly my thoughts. Yeah, there are problems, but they're all solvable as long as profit margins are high enough. Google's general procedure seems to have low-margin services, and make them appeal universally enough that they can make profit in volume.
On another branch of thought, consider that most of these criticisms apply to current taxis (2, 3) or subway systems (1, 4, 5). Generally, in a taxi, the vehicle isn't restricted to a rail, so it can get lost or stranded far away from where the passenger expects to be. They can call their dispatchers for help. In a subway, it's common to pay at an automated gate, and never see the driver. Crimes are common, but not uncontrollable. For the most part, surveillance and passenger caution resolves their issues.
In-car audio advertisement as you start moving or approach the destination. It serves as a welcome and a warning, and is presented to a captive audience with a profile of where they go and what they're probably doing.
With that definition, there can exist nothing not-natural.
Well, yes. There can of course be supernatural things, but I haven't seen any of those those myself...
It is important to denote the universe of discourse. In the case of finding a car on a planet, literally the entire physical universe could hold a "natural" reason for the car's presence. On the other hand, if we consider only the planet itself to be the realm of possibility, finding an "unnatural" object means it is obviously supernatural.
From the perspective of a hypothetical Martian having Neanderthal-level technology, our rovers are probably supernatural. These things fell from the sky, act on their own, consume no food, and require no sleep. They are alien, but the concept of extraterrestrial civilizations doesn't exist. Since they don't fit within the Martians' accustomed universe of discourse, they cannot be understood as "natural", and require baseless speculation for their origin. That speculation, given a few thousand years of favoritism, becomes religion.
In the interest of pedantic drivel, please define "naturally occurring".
Steel, paint, and plastic are all natural if you consider humans to be an agent for natural processes. As much as protein synthesis is a natural process governed my organelles, why not the synthesis of polymers governed by animals? Is there some moment where humans are just barely smart enough that the results of their chemical processes are unnatural?
As for the original scenario, if we were to find a car on another planet, a thorough analysis must be done to determine the exact details of the situation, such as whether it's actually a car from Earth, or just something similar. Then we must check the neighboring planets for similar evidence of perhaps a failed civilization. We must also consider how such an artifact could have arrived at its resting place if it were to arrive there from somewhere else. Finally, if there is still no explanation that fits our understanding of the physical laws of the universe, we must accept that the car was placed there by means of magic.
By "magic", of course, I mean "sufficiently advanced technology", which may very well be the thoughts of a being capable of massive and precise spacetime manipulation through an as-yet-unknown means. I'm inclined to doubt it, though.
As a professional paranoid*, I must ask whether you also had a permanent black marker in your possession, or could have had an accomplice carry one for you.
A few minutes in the bathroom completing a hasty art project makes a passable prop, and some convincing theatrics will make the passengers swear you had a full-size semi-automatic pistol aimed right at their head. Ask for anything, and you can probably get it.
The danger the TSA is looking for isn't what you have, but rather what you can do. Unfortunately, people can do anything, including lying about what they can do with what they have, and ultimately that lets unscrupulous people do whatever they want.
* I work in IT, with a focus on security. I have a well-honed sense of paranoia.
"A little deterrence" means the terrorists need to do more planning, and involve more people, and take more risks - and ideally that means more chances for the NSA or CIA to find them.
...where kindergarten teachers repeat the Golden Rule to him.
I've seen Linus get into an argument with someone of the same style. After a few rounds, it became obviously different that the debate was not like the typical Internet insult-hurling flame war. Rather, each side had points and counter-points and presented a persuasive case... just peppered with insults and offenses, as a separate layer of argument. It's sort of like real insult swordfighting.
Forget about the houses... America has a glass neighborhood.
Let's assume for just a moment that the government has magically secured its own systems against any particular attack. The next target of convenience for any retaliation is everybody else. Remember the headaches when Anonymous lashed out at Mastercard? Now add in a military's knowledge and resources, and it won't just be credit cards that won't work. Everybody from health care to restaurants becomes a target, and the usual rules of engagement don't really apply.
The government will survive. It might take a few hits, but I suspect the American military's networks are disparate enough that no single attack will completely cripple their ability to function. The civilians, though, are far less protected and far less resilient. One bad week can mean the end for many small businesses, leading to widespread fear, and another economic crisis.
A war over the Internet is the current nuclear option. We don't want it, and we can't survive it, but it is one heck of a powerful weapon.
You're forgetting that those "assholes" carry the support of their followers, often because of promises that they'll wipe out the Other Guys (Jews, Communists, Taliban, homosexuals, Republicans) who are the ones really causing the problems. In the locals' eyes, those warlords are legitimate leaders, and now America's just killing them off to further its own oppressive regime.
Pretty soon, our well-compensated servicemen have just exterminated half a country for the capital crime of wanting to be free from the influence of the Other Guys. At least then we'll know who the real assholes are.
Peace Corps specifically does a long pre-volunteer process to get local support for the work. The people may not care about the volunteers' work, but the local chief does, and they'll listen to him. The locals understand that the volunteers are trying to help, and they're bound by the local customs to accept it. Sure, there are some funny looks, but once that granary protects the crops from rodents and other thieves, it's appreciated. Finally, starvation is less of a problem in the village, and the locals accept help.
No, it's not all roses and happiness. Nobody ever said it was. It's usually hard work in some of the harshest climates on Earth, trying to work through corrupt governments and isolationist locals. Sometimes, it outright sucks. You see people mistreated or dying, and you can't do anything about it because the customs demand it. Then other days, you see someone benefiting from your work, and they have a better future because of it. That's the moment that makes it worthwhile.
You have to realize that volunteering isn't about solving the world's problems. Giving a village a granary or teaching better farming techniques isn't going to magically make everything better. Once your project's complete, you know it might be destroyed by a civil war next year. Ultimately, you can't bring civilization to people who don't want it. That's not the real point of the project, though.
The locals aren't uncivilized. They aren't savages who need Western technology to save them from their heathen ways. They're people. They're people who, for various people-related reasons, have a harder life than they could. The Peace Corps and other volunteer organizations exist not to mold them to our ways, but to offer them a better life, and hopefully inspire a peaceful search for a brighter future. If that one granary inspires a local to learn about safer food handling, they might be able to promote using a new latrine, or even convince street vendors to wash their hands before preparing food. With less disease and starvation, they can move up Maslow's Hierarchy, and worry less about whether they'll die tomorrow or not.
Volunteers don't bring civilization to the world. They bring the world to civilization.
As I understand it, the short version of Christian Science is that God made everybody perfect, including their intelligence. We're supposed to be able to research, and learn, and improve our ability to use the resources we have. There is no forbidden knowledge, and no praise for ignorance. Most science is pretty universally accepted (and reported in the CSM).
Medicine is a somewhat different matter. Depending on the branch, all illness is either God's punishment or his plan, and that's the idea that leads the fundamentalists to deny medical treatment and let their children die. It should be noted well that many (if not most) Christian Scientists accept modern medicine more, as a tool developed by the aforementioned God-given intelligence. Prayer and other spiritual practices heal the mind and spirit, while doctors can take care of the physical symptoms. Between the two, the body can heal and the mind can guide it for a full recovery.
That all depends on how little "very little time" is. Crashing at 30MPH is apparently survivable, but note that the forces involved are greatly diminished by having extra space (and therefore time) to decelerate. That comes from having a helicopter body that deforms properly, so it absorbs kinetic energy rather than transferring it into the occupants.
Ideally, in a vertical crash the humans end up sitting right on the ground, with the whole fuselage under them deformed at a rate that keeps the peak acceleration they experience in survivable levels. No, it certainly wouldn't be fun, but it could mean the difference between death and just having survivable internal damage... and if the rest of the helicopter's deformation has been engineered with as much care, there (also ideally) would be no hazard from debris, fire, or other environmental effects, so the victims are relatively safe just lying there waiting for rescue... Perhaps a crushed spine, but no disconnected vital organs.
Overreach your ability and fail spectacularly and your career is over. Same for everybody
Until you move to a new market, don't mention the old failures, and try again. With that nice union vouching for your supposed competence, you can't not be hired.
Executives that make major failures can't hide in obscurity. A string of two or three failures is the end of their career as an executive, and they'll have to be coasting on that golden parachute through retirement... Working in finance, I've actually seen a few clients in exactly that situation. They're unemployable as executives because their last few ventures failed, and they're now working low-level management jobs trying to cover the ongoing expenses they have from their earlier lifestyle.
I'm not saying they deserve a 300x salary, or even 50x, but just that the higher the rank, the more the risk of failure becomes personal.
Then that's a clear-cut management failure. The same as if they negotiated exclusive contracts with a materials supplier without having any escape clause in case of abuse.
Exclusive contracts are par for the union course. Most unions forbid their members from working in non-union shops without special arrangement, so a company must either deal with the union or hire all non-union employees... but the non-union hiring pool is pretty shallow indeed, since most places are exclusive union shops. It's a chicken-or-egg problem, and once a particular labor market has joined exclusive unions, there's no course for return to a non-union market. So much for that level playing field.
This is the big issue behind the "right to work" laws that force separation between employment eligibility and union membership. Ideally, employees could get offers from employers, and perhaps have different (maybe better) offers if they're union members. The employee gets to pick what's best for their situation, so rather than an adversarial power struggle, the employers and unions compete to have control over the employees, inflating conditions steadily over time.
You sound like a manager who get his ass handed to him in a few grievances.
I'm lucky enough to have never been a manager at a union shop. I have, however, worked in a theatre where the union-backed construction crew showed up an hour late and smelling of beer, and built a set that collapsed during rehearsal. Of course, the union protects their members, and the contract allowed two such incidents (one of which injured a cast member) before any discipline could occur.
There's certainly grieving, but it's mostly from a dancer who can no longer dance.
You actually [believe companies] give you what you have now if not being forced [to]? Minimum wage or the threat of a Union being formed.
Every company I've worked for (6 in the past decade) but one has paid well with decent benefits, and interestingly, the one that was the worst was the mostly-union shop. Of course, I mostly work in software development now, where there is no real threat of unions, and overtime and short deadlines are the norm. I know it's hard for a die-hard union fan to accept, but managers are actually real human beings, too! I've had places offer below average compensation, and they were quick to bring it up when asked. I've had a place that had really bad pay, but great benefits that lowered my personal expenses. What's great is that I was able to adapt my employment to my particular situation at the time. Back when I had no family commitments and my youthful health, I could take a high-paying job with no benefits. Heck, in one case I went to my boss and talked him into giving me overtime at regular rate, so I could take an extra vacation later. Not really kosher per labor laws, but it was the deal I wanted.
I got where I am today because I had the spine to go ask for it, and I don't feel eternally indebted to the unions for the progress they made sixty years ago. Unions want to be cast as heroes, always fighting for the underdogs, but that loses its luster quickly when they keep begging for credit every time someone gets a weekend off, and the underdogs they protect can get away with incompetence.
How about tackling the big workplace problems we still have, like how difficult it is to change between jobs (changing insurance providers, retirement plans, etc)? Or maybe tying executive salaries to medians? Or doing pretty much anything other than demanding more bargaining power?
"Limited liability" means that the corporation's liabilities are separate from the owners' personal liabilities. If the corporation damages you, you sue the corporation, not the owners. If the owner damages you, you sue the owner, not the corporation.
Nobody escapes liabilities, but owners are only risking what assets they put into the company.
Your sig has inspired me. I'm not really going to argue, but merely raise some points.
So why exactly shouldn't employees, the ones actually doing the work that's generating the profit, be negotiating for a bigger piece of the profit?
What are they investing to deserve the profit? Usually, it's just time. In comparison, the executives face personal risk and effectively career-ending public shame if something bad happens on their watch. As an example, people expect Tesla to do well because Elon Musk is leading it. SpaceX was riskier, and PayPal was even riskier before that. Zip2 was rather scary. What makes executives' careers is their trail of successes more than their actual expertise, in a similar manner to how credit scores determine a credit card's limit. A major failure can end a career, and the fallout from that can ruin a once-millionaire's finances. Executives' salaries are not so much directly paying for skill, but rather the payout for gambling in a contest of skill.
they're probably plenty to give everybody a 10-20% raise and still let the executives make 50x as much as the janitors
I don't like "probably". Let me do some math. Say a janitor makes $10, so an executive makes $3000. Increase the janitor's salary 10% to $11, and cut the executive's salary to 50x that: $550. That leaves a surplus of $2450, to provide the $1 raise to 2450 employees..
some unions overreached themselves and started cutting in to operating costs. That's a bad thing and those unions deserve to crumble, and the company deserves to collapse if they can't find more reasonable employees
...but they can't hire any reasonable employees because they have exclusive contracts with the union. Even if the contract isn't fully exclusive, there are usually clauses that forbid non-union workers from having any benefit better than the union workers'. For example, employers can't offer lower pay with more vacation time, because their union contract would require both the current pay and the higher vacation time for the union workers.
Employers can't really even leave the unions, because the union members are effectively banned from holding non-union jobs. That means that if the company doesn't renew their contract, they have to convince their employees to leave the union entirely (and lose the much-loved seniority), or reinvest in a whole new workforce. Then there's the influence of the collaboration between unions. Stop working with the welders' union, and your truck drivers suddenly demand triple pay.
In my opinion, today's unions are an absolute mess of bureaucracies that have lost all capability of helping employees. They now help the unions first, and if employees benefit, that's sort-of okay, too.
Yeah, that's pretty much how it works. Ideally, a competent employee periodically goes to their boss, says "Look, I'm doing the job as agreed, but my expenses have inflated and so have our profits, so I need a bit more", and since the deal was agreeable and fair the first time around, it's still fair once adjusted for inflation, cost-of-living increases, and the employee's improved expertise. In other words, if you agreed to a fair deal when you started, you're expected to work under a fair deal until you retire*. If you didn't agree to a fair deal... you're either evil or stupid.
Striking is taking an agree deal and forcing it into something else. Once hired, the employer sank time and money into training and administration, and perhaps even some contracts they expect to fulfill. By striking, you're extorting them into agreeing to a new deal. Either they take the higher payroll or costlier benefits, or they have to take the loss of all that investment and start over.
*...Or until it's just not possible to work out a fair deal. Perhaps you've gained more expertise than the company is willing to pay for, or perhaps your contributions toward the company's goals were less than agreed. Perhaps it was the ancillary benefits that made the original deal acceptably-fair, and those may have changed.
Perhaps while we're at it we should thank the slave traders who brought our ancestors over, the inquisitors who inspired secular politics, and the dictators who started the wars that stimulated our economy. Focusing on just the unions, should we also thank them for crippling police departments in the 20s and 30s while the Mob ran rampant?
Yeah, the unions did some good things a handful of times over the past century, but they've also raised the cost of doing business substantially. They've driven companies out of business by requiring unnecessary employment and benefits, and thanks to their effective monopoly on labor across industries, they can cut off supplies to companies that don't bow to their rule. With exclusive contracts with both employers and members, the union's influence infects workers and markets. Small companies can't afford to start, and big companies can't even hire non-union workers. Let's all take a moment to thank the unions for pushing jobs overseas.
Another Slashdotter recently commented that the best union is the one that you're threatening to form. It should apply a slight pressure to a company to improve worker relations, but it shouldn't have the legal ability to cripple a business. Sadly, today's unions have no interest in actually improving working conditions, but rather they seek mainly to improve the union's own power and bargaining position. Concessions are minimal, contract terms are long, and bureaucracy piles higher.
Don't like what the almighty union has contracted? Too bad; you're stuck. You can't negotiate your own employment, because as far as the union's concerned, you are not a human being. You are a product to be sold. Let's all thank our masters for the privilege of taking the bullshit they feed us.
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Singing technique can't hold off the effects of months of singing a few hours non-stop every evening, while dancing and changing costumes, with rehearsals and traveling every day, with a diet of fast food and liquid lunches. It's not just the singing that's suffering from the touring - it's every aspect of the performer's lifestyle, but the voice is the only thing Autotune can help.
Before modern electronically-enhanced music, people went to shows expecting to see people perform. Errors in the performance are part of the show. The musician and his music are the attractions. Today, the show itself is the attraction, with giant props and increasingly-intricate dance. I dare say that Justin Bieber has a more technically difficult show than Elvis... and that's okay.
Elvis' style is from a bygone era, where intonation is expected to be slightly off, and music is expected to be simple enough to be played by a small band. As a tech, I've mixed modern bands "in the style of" older artists, and I've used some interesting tricks to get it sounding perfectly wrong... I'll overload amps, muffle mics, and even use intentionally-bad placement to mimic the distortion that was the best older studios could do.
That's what opera expects, too. Opera is almost always run acoustically in venues that support it (generally anything named "opera house" or "hall"), but they'll use hidden mics in venues that don't work so well (generally "arena"). If there's any reinforcement at all, it's up to the producers and directors what kind of tone control or pitch correction they want, but again, the genre typically demands imperfection, and that's okay.
Take a look in the audio racks of professional theaters and performance venues. There's good odds you'll find a few Antares units in there, adding options to what the techs can accommodate. Today's most popular musicians aren't selling concerts. They're selling shows. Guests arrive expecting to hear the songs exactly as they're heard on the high-quality digital radio, played on their high-end stereos, and accompanied by an ever-more-impressive effects display. Bieber may not be able to croon like Elvis, but he can still put on an entertaining show... and that's exactly what people are buying today.
Sadly devoid of mod points, but I would like you to know I appreciate your perspective. Patent articles on Slashdot can be safely assumed to be trolling. There's a critical mass of patent-haters on the site that ensures every story casting patents in a negative light gets promoted to the front page, with no concern for relevance or factual accuracy.
None of this means that patents are inherently bad, or that some patents are naturally better than others by virtue of being in an older field, or that patents in general are weapons of economic destruction controlled by The Man. Rather, patents are a legal protection for an inventor. Instead of mocking patents with poor strawman examples, we should be debating how to apply that protection fairly (not necessarily equally) to encourage both research and sharing.
Aw, who am I kidding? This is Slashdot! Let the flamewars commence!
For what it's worth, professional musicians often do use autotune. The difference is that they don't rely on it. It's a safety net, in case that sore throat from the past 5 weeks of touring throws off the key line in the chorus. Most of the time, the autotune just sits there doing nothing, because the singers hit the notes perfectly.
Audio technician here.
A well-tuned sound system adds a lot to a party environment. No, it's not going to be cranked up to full volume, nor playing death metal, but it will be on and loud enough to understand. The room should be fairly well-padded, so the music is heard but doesn't produce echoes. With such a setup, the music is a diversion, filling the empty space that otherwise is an "awkward silence". If and only if there's a gap in the conversation or someone wants to hear it, the music comes through.
Not all music must be loud, and not all parties must be quiet.
Exactly my thoughts. Yeah, there are problems, but they're all solvable as long as profit margins are high enough. Google's general procedure seems to have low-margin services, and make them appeal universally enough that they can make profit in volume.
On another branch of thought, consider that most of these criticisms apply to current taxis (2, 3) or subway systems (1, 4, 5). Generally, in a taxi, the vehicle isn't restricted to a rail, so it can get lost or stranded far away from where the passenger expects to be. They can call their dispatchers for help. In a subway, it's common to pay at an automated gate, and never see the driver. Crimes are common, but not uncontrollable. For the most part, surveillance and passenger caution resolves their issues.
In-car audio advertisement as you start moving or approach the destination. It serves as a welcome and a warning, and is presented to a captive audience with a profile of where they go and what they're probably doing.
Why would Google not do this?
With that definition, there can exist nothing not-natural.
Well, yes. There can of course be supernatural things, but I haven't seen any of those those myself...
It is important to denote the universe of discourse. In the case of finding a car on a planet, literally the entire physical universe could hold a "natural" reason for the car's presence. On the other hand, if we consider only the planet itself to be the realm of possibility, finding an "unnatural" object means it is obviously supernatural.
From the perspective of a hypothetical Martian having Neanderthal-level technology, our rovers are probably supernatural. These things fell from the sky, act on their own, consume no food, and require no sleep. They are alien, but the concept of extraterrestrial civilizations doesn't exist. Since they don't fit within the Martians' accustomed universe of discourse, they cannot be understood as "natural", and require baseless speculation for their origin. That speculation, given a few thousand years of favoritism, becomes religion.
In the interest of pedantic drivel, please define "naturally occurring".
Steel, paint, and plastic are all natural if you consider humans to be an agent for natural processes. As much as protein synthesis is a natural process governed my organelles, why not the synthesis of polymers governed by animals? Is there some moment where humans are just barely smart enough that the results of their chemical processes are unnatural?
As for the original scenario, if we were to find a car on another planet, a thorough analysis must be done to determine the exact details of the situation, such as whether it's actually a car from Earth, or just something similar. Then we must check the neighboring planets for similar evidence of perhaps a failed civilization. We must also consider how such an artifact could have arrived at its resting place if it were to arrive there from somewhere else. Finally, if there is still no explanation that fits our understanding of the physical laws of the universe, we must accept that the car was placed there by means of magic.
By "magic", of course, I mean "sufficiently advanced technology", which may very well be the thoughts of a being capable of massive and precise spacetime manipulation through an as-yet-unknown means. I'm inclined to doubt it, though.
As a professional paranoid*, I must ask whether you also had a permanent black marker in your possession, or could have had an accomplice carry one for you.
A few minutes in the bathroom completing a hasty art project makes a passable prop, and some convincing theatrics will make the passengers swear you had a full-size semi-automatic pistol aimed right at their head. Ask for anything, and you can probably get it.
The danger the TSA is looking for isn't what you have, but rather what you can do. Unfortunately, people can do anything, including lying about what they can do with what they have, and ultimately that lets unscrupulous people do whatever they want.
* I work in IT, with a focus on security. I have a well-honed sense of paranoia.
"A little deterrence" means the terrorists need to do more planning, and involve more people, and take more risks - and ideally that means more chances for the NSA or CIA to find them.
...where kindergarten teachers repeat the Golden Rule to him.
I've seen Linus get into an argument with someone of the same style. After a few rounds, it became obviously different that the debate was not like the typical Internet insult-hurling flame war. Rather, each side had points and counter-points and presented a persuasive case... just peppered with insults and offenses, as a separate layer of argument. It's sort of like real insult swordfighting.
They are the ones who advertised a "season pass" product that is really only half of the season.
Forget about the houses... America has a glass neighborhood.
Let's assume for just a moment that the government has magically secured its own systems against any particular attack. The next target of convenience for any retaliation is everybody else. Remember the headaches when Anonymous lashed out at Mastercard? Now add in a military's knowledge and resources, and it won't just be credit cards that won't work. Everybody from health care to restaurants becomes a target, and the usual rules of engagement don't really apply.
The government will survive. It might take a few hits, but I suspect the American military's networks are disparate enough that no single attack will completely cripple their ability to function. The civilians, though, are far less protected and far less resilient. One bad week can mean the end for many small businesses, leading to widespread fear, and another economic crisis.
A war over the Internet is the current nuclear option. We don't want it, and we can't survive it, but it is one heck of a powerful weapon.
You're forgetting that those "assholes" carry the support of their followers, often because of promises that they'll wipe out the Other Guys (Jews, Communists, Taliban, homosexuals, Republicans) who are the ones really causing the problems. In the locals' eyes, those warlords are legitimate leaders, and now America's just killing them off to further its own oppressive regime.
Pretty soon, our well-compensated servicemen have just exterminated half a country for the capital crime of wanting to be free from the influence of the Other Guys. At least then we'll know who the real assholes are.
Absolutely true, but what's your point?
Peace Corps specifically does a long pre-volunteer process to get local support for the work. The people may not care about the volunteers' work, but the local chief does, and they'll listen to him. The locals understand that the volunteers are trying to help, and they're bound by the local customs to accept it. Sure, there are some funny looks, but once that granary protects the crops from rodents and other thieves, it's appreciated. Finally, starvation is less of a problem in the village, and the locals accept help.
No, it's not all roses and happiness. Nobody ever said it was. It's usually hard work in some of the harshest climates on Earth, trying to work through corrupt governments and isolationist locals. Sometimes, it outright sucks. You see people mistreated or dying, and you can't do anything about it because the customs demand it. Then other days, you see someone benefiting from your work, and they have a better future because of it. That's the moment that makes it worthwhile.
You have to realize that volunteering isn't about solving the world's problems. Giving a village a granary or teaching better farming techniques isn't going to magically make everything better. Once your project's complete, you know it might be destroyed by a civil war next year. Ultimately, you can't bring civilization to people who don't want it. That's not the real point of the project, though.
The locals aren't uncivilized. They aren't savages who need Western technology to save them from their heathen ways. They're people. They're people who, for various people-related reasons, have a harder life than they could. The Peace Corps and other volunteer organizations exist not to mold them to our ways, but to offer them a better life, and hopefully inspire a peaceful search for a brighter future. If that one granary inspires a local to learn about safer food handling, they might be able to promote using a new latrine, or even convince street vendors to wash their hands before preparing food. With less disease and starvation, they can move up Maslow's Hierarchy, and worry less about whether they'll die tomorrow or not.
Volunteers don't bring civilization to the world. They bring the world to civilization.
As I understand it, the short version of Christian Science is that God made everybody perfect, including their intelligence. We're supposed to be able to research, and learn, and improve our ability to use the resources we have. There is no forbidden knowledge, and no praise for ignorance. Most science is pretty universally accepted (and reported in the CSM).
Medicine is a somewhat different matter. Depending on the branch, all illness is either God's punishment or his plan, and that's the idea that leads the fundamentalists to deny medical treatment and let their children die. It should be noted well that many (if not most) Christian Scientists accept modern medicine more, as a tool developed by the aforementioned God-given intelligence. Prayer and other spiritual practices heal the mind and spirit, while doctors can take care of the physical symptoms. Between the two, the body can heal and the mind can guide it for a full recovery.
We must make this happen.
For science.
That all depends on how little "very little time" is. Crashing at 30MPH is apparently survivable, but note that the forces involved are greatly diminished by having extra space (and therefore time) to decelerate. That comes from having a helicopter body that deforms properly, so it absorbs kinetic energy rather than transferring it into the occupants.
Ideally, in a vertical crash the humans end up sitting right on the ground, with the whole fuselage under them deformed at a rate that keeps the peak acceleration they experience in survivable levels. No, it certainly wouldn't be fun, but it could mean the difference between death and just having survivable internal damage... and if the rest of the helicopter's deformation has been engineered with as much care, there (also ideally) would be no hazard from debris, fire, or other environmental effects, so the victims are relatively safe just lying there waiting for rescue... Perhaps a crushed spine, but no disconnected vital organs.
Overreach your ability and fail spectacularly and your career is over. Same for everybody
Until you move to a new market, don't mention the old failures, and try again. With that nice union vouching for your supposed competence, you can't not be hired.
Executives that make major failures can't hide in obscurity. A string of two or three failures is the end of their career as an executive, and they'll have to be coasting on that golden parachute through retirement... Working in finance, I've actually seen a few clients in exactly that situation. They're unemployable as executives because their last few ventures failed, and they're now working low-level management jobs trying to cover the ongoing expenses they have from their earlier lifestyle.
I'm not saying they deserve a 300x salary, or even 50x, but just that the higher the rank, the more the risk of failure becomes personal.
Then that's a clear-cut management failure. The same as if they negotiated exclusive contracts with a materials supplier without having any escape clause in case of abuse.
Exclusive contracts are par for the union course. Most unions forbid their members from working in non-union shops without special arrangement, so a company must either deal with the union or hire all non-union employees... but the non-union hiring pool is pretty shallow indeed, since most places are exclusive union shops. It's a chicken-or-egg problem, and once a particular labor market has joined exclusive unions, there's no course for return to a non-union market. So much for that level playing field.
This is the big issue behind the "right to work" laws that force separation between employment eligibility and union membership. Ideally, employees could get offers from employers, and perhaps have different (maybe better) offers if they're union members. The employee gets to pick what's best for their situation, so rather than an adversarial power struggle, the employers and unions compete to have control over the employees, inflating conditions steadily over time.
You sound like a manager who get his ass handed to him in a few grievances.
I'm lucky enough to have never been a manager at a union shop. I have, however, worked in a theatre where the union-backed construction crew showed up an hour late and smelling of beer, and built a set that collapsed during rehearsal. Of course, the union protects their members, and the contract allowed two such incidents (one of which injured a cast member) before any discipline could occur.
There's certainly grieving, but it's mostly from a dancer who can no longer dance.
You actually [believe companies] give you what you have now if not being forced [to]? Minimum wage or the threat of a Union being formed.
Every company I've worked for (6 in the past decade) but one has paid well with decent benefits, and interestingly, the one that was the worst was the mostly-union shop. Of course, I mostly work in software development now, where there is no real threat of unions, and overtime and short deadlines are the norm. I know it's hard for a die-hard union fan to accept, but managers are actually real human beings, too! I've had places offer below average compensation, and they were quick to bring it up when asked. I've had a place that had really bad pay, but great benefits that lowered my personal expenses. What's great is that I was able to adapt my employment to my particular situation at the time. Back when I had no family commitments and my youthful health, I could take a high-paying job with no benefits. Heck, in one case I went to my boss and talked him into giving me overtime at regular rate, so I could take an extra vacation later. Not really kosher per labor laws, but it was the deal I wanted.
I got where I am today because I had the spine to go ask for it, and I don't feel eternally indebted to the unions for the progress they made sixty years ago. Unions want to be cast as heroes, always fighting for the underdogs, but that loses its luster quickly when they keep begging for credit every time someone gets a weekend off, and the underdogs they protect can get away with incompetence.
How about tackling the big workplace problems we still have, like how difficult it is to change between jobs (changing insurance providers, retirement plans, etc)? Or maybe tying executive salaries to medians? Or doing pretty much anything other than demanding more bargaining power?
"Limited liability" means that the corporation's liabilities are separate from the owners' personal liabilities. If the corporation damages you, you sue the corporation, not the owners. If the owner damages you, you sue the owner, not the corporation.
Nobody escapes liabilities, but owners are only risking what assets they put into the company.
Your sig has inspired me. I'm not really going to argue, but merely raise some points.
So why exactly shouldn't employees, the ones actually doing the work that's generating the profit, be negotiating for a bigger piece of the profit?
What are they investing to deserve the profit? Usually, it's just time. In comparison, the executives face personal risk and effectively career-ending public shame if something bad happens on their watch. As an example, people expect Tesla to do well because Elon Musk is leading it. SpaceX was riskier, and PayPal was even riskier before that. Zip2 was rather scary. What makes executives' careers is their trail of successes more than their actual expertise, in a similar manner to how credit scores determine a credit card's limit. A major failure can end a career, and the fallout from that can ruin a once-millionaire's finances. Executives' salaries are not so much directly paying for skill, but rather the payout for gambling in a contest of skill.
they're probably plenty to give everybody a 10-20% raise and still let the executives make 50x as much as the janitors
I don't like "probably". Let me do some math. Say a janitor makes $10, so an executive makes $3000. Increase the janitor's salary 10% to $11, and cut the executive's salary to 50x that: $550. That leaves a surplus of $2450, to provide the $1 raise to 2450 employees..
some unions overreached themselves and started cutting in to operating costs. That's a bad thing and those unions deserve to crumble, and the company deserves to collapse if they can't find more reasonable employees
...but they can't hire any reasonable employees because they have exclusive contracts with the union. Even if the contract isn't fully exclusive, there are usually clauses that forbid non-union workers from having any benefit better than the union workers'. For example, employers can't offer lower pay with more vacation time, because their union contract would require both the current pay and the higher vacation time for the union workers.
Employers can't really even leave the unions, because the union members are effectively banned from holding non-union jobs. That means that if the company doesn't renew their contract, they have to convince their employees to leave the union entirely (and lose the much-loved seniority), or reinvest in a whole new workforce. Then there's the influence of the collaboration between unions. Stop working with the welders' union, and your truck drivers suddenly demand triple pay.
In my opinion, today's unions are an absolute mess of bureaucracies that have lost all capability of helping employees. They now help the unions first, and if employees benefit, that's sort-of okay, too.
Yeah, that's pretty much how it works. Ideally, a competent employee periodically goes to their boss, says "Look, I'm doing the job as agreed, but my expenses have inflated and so have our profits, so I need a bit more", and since the deal was agreeable and fair the first time around, it's still fair once adjusted for inflation, cost-of-living increases, and the employee's improved expertise. In other words, if you agreed to a fair deal when you started, you're expected to work under a fair deal until you retire*. If you didn't agree to a fair deal... you're either evil or stupid.
Striking is taking an agree deal and forcing it into something else. Once hired, the employer sank time and money into training and administration, and perhaps even some contracts they expect to fulfill. By striking, you're extorting them into agreeing to a new deal. Either they take the higher payroll or costlier benefits, or they have to take the loss of all that investment and start over.
* ...Or until it's just not possible to work out a fair deal. Perhaps you've gained more expertise than the company is willing to pay for, or perhaps your contributions toward the company's goals were less than agreed. Perhaps it was the ancillary benefits that made the original deal acceptably-fair, and those may have changed.
In what way, exactly, does owning a corporation allow one to escape their liabilities?
Perhaps while we're at it we should thank the slave traders who brought our ancestors over, the inquisitors who inspired secular politics, and the dictators who started the wars that stimulated our economy. Focusing on just the unions, should we also thank them for crippling police departments in the 20s and 30s while the Mob ran rampant?
Yeah, the unions did some good things a handful of times over the past century, but they've also raised the cost of doing business substantially. They've driven companies out of business by requiring unnecessary employment and benefits, and thanks to their effective monopoly on labor across industries, they can cut off supplies to companies that don't bow to their rule. With exclusive contracts with both employers and members, the union's influence infects workers and markets. Small companies can't afford to start, and big companies can't even hire non-union workers. Let's all take a moment to thank the unions for pushing jobs overseas.
Another Slashdotter recently commented that the best union is the one that you're threatening to form. It should apply a slight pressure to a company to improve worker relations, but it shouldn't have the legal ability to cripple a business. Sadly, today's unions have no interest in actually improving working conditions, but rather they seek mainly to improve the union's own power and bargaining position. Concessions are minimal, contract terms are long, and bureaucracy piles higher.
Don't like what the almighty union has contracted? Too bad; you're stuck. You can't negotiate your own employment, because as far as the union's concerned, you are not a human being. You are a product to be sold. Let's all thank our masters for the privilege of taking the bullshit they feed us.