The US inherited a lot of attitudes from the Puritans who originally settled in the northeast. Among those attitudes are that crimes must be met with harsh retribution, pleasure and sex are evil but violence against those who are evil is good, and so forth.
We'd stop asking for more laws if the 1% allowed the existing ones to be applied. Instead, they get the ones they don't like ignored, and injustices require new laws for the justice system (still 100% justice-free).
Well then, from a Devil's Advocate perspective, what's the point of new laws if we already know they won't be enforced against those we really want them to be enforced against? We know that these sorts of laws will just be enforced against those without resources to fight or evade them, so it seems like a new law is less desirable than just better enforcing an old law.
Yes, let's set out to injure the poor and desperate instead of going after the real crooks - the scrap metal dealers who knowingly buy stolen property in large quantities and are the ones really getting rich. Seriously, close down that market and the thefts will drop off overnight.
They are both equally culpable and equally deserving of punishment.
I don't think the explanation needs to be that complicated.
This isn't a long-term strategy -- it's an expensive system that benefits the contractors that build it which will be abandoned in a decade over health concerns once something better is invented. Then more money will be thrown at contractors to impliment that.
"Health concerns" in the short term can very easily be brushed aside. You don't need to suppress research, it's fine for all of this to be right out in the open. The threat of "terrorism" and weapons smuggling will be seen as the greater evil that needs to be protected against, and we've seen numerous times over the past decade that we're willing to allow the government to sacrifice time, money, and freedom in order to "secure" us.
If you only measure fiction by its cultural impact, then Isaac Asimov and Clarke should be up there, simply because of the quality and impact of their creations. However, it is a *Nobel* prize, and one for good literature -- while Asimov and Clarke were great (and prolific) writers, the quality of their writing in and of itself was nothing spectacular. In fact, this analogy could be extended to other domains, as well. The Nobel in physical sciences or the Fields medal are not given to what has the most impact, but rather what was the hardest nut to crack, and how well someone cracked it. In literature, while there isn't necessarily a problem to solve, the quality of writing and one's style go a long way in determining your qualification.
It's quite possible that like several of the other non-physical Nobel prizes (economics, peace, etc), the Nobel Prize for Literature is just not that meaningful.
Agreed that the newer gen readers do indeed seem to lack much of a sense of humor, or that too much humor passes right over them. No wonder Cmdr T left. Truly it is not the same as old.
I don't think the newer gen readers lack a sense of humor. I think they just laugh at fewer things, or at least they don't laugh at things that are not funny. Geeks have traditionally had shitty senses of humor that, when it exists, seems to depend more on repetition than the actual humor value of the joke.
The "joke" that Marty was replying to... it just wasn't funny. I've no problems replying straight to a joke that fell flat. It embarrasses everyone, and that is funny.
Besides, Marty has a 5-digit uid, he's not a new-gen reader. >_>
When I interview people I want people that are keen to learn, improve and expand.
This means they just wont be happy staying in the job I'm recruiting for.
Right, and so do I, and I try to be a good interviewer. You sound like you're a good interviewer too, but if I walked into your company and met you for the first time I wouldn't know that. I'd have to play it safe. I'm approaching this from the perspective that there are very few jobs out there now thanks to the economy being in the shitter, and there are many many people applying for every single position. Your argument sounds like it comes from the perspective that job openings are plentiful and if they don't get this one position, well there are plenty of other companies they could interview at, but I've known too many talented people in the last few years who have had a hard time getting hired because they're one person among dozens all trying to get the same position. Last year my company received over eighty-five thousand applications for one hundred open positions. It's pretty rough out there.
I want to employ people who will grow in the role, and move into other roles in the organisation.
It's a very fine line to try to walk. Play it the wrong way (and what the wrong way is is entirely dependent on the interviewer) and you could get hit with the dreaded "over-qualified" label. That's what I would be most concerned about; people are scared shitless that an interviewer would think that they're overqualified when all they really want is to be able to put their talents to use and earn money.
I suppose it's important to clarify that the answers could also greatly depend on whether the applicant already has a job and is looking for a different one (in which case he can afford to be a little more honest about his hopes and future plans), or whether the applicant was laid off, unemployed, and is now two months behind on rent (in which case he needs a job. Any job).
The 5 years question is really just asking if you intend to move up the management or technical ladder.
Then why not just ask that directly?
Because you don't know the interviewer yet. And you need the job. In many cases, though this isn't as bad in the tech field, you really really need the job, and the goal is to make yourself as good as you can to get the job. The problem with many interviewers is that they really don't want to hire someone who has his eyes on another job, so when you mention your intention to move up the ladder, the internal response is often "Oh. Well, we want someone for -this- job, not someone whose going to vacate it again in a few years."
Sure, it's great when you can have an honest conversation with an interviewer about this, but that's a pretty risky step.
Whoa - dude -- are you, like, talking to us from the future? What is 2035 like? How far have 3D printers come? Can you print a Ferrari?.... Wait -- forget that -- who won the 2012 World Series?
Didn't you see Back to the Future Part 2? You know that line of questioning isn't going to end well.
In each financial report, Apple management state that that iTunes Music Store operates at almost break even terms. Revenue from this is definitely less than 10% of their profit.
But the iTunes Store wasn't merely an income generator and can't be looked at in isolation, it was necessary to drive business in other sectors. The iPod didn't become a hit all on its own, it became a hit in no small part due to its integration with the iTunes Music Store. Even if the store operated at a loss, it would still be a big overall gain for Apple.
you really think people are so stupid as to believe that would be the reason he vetoed it?
All the ads would have to say is that he voted against supplies for the troops for political reasons. That's all it would take. It would be accurate and damning.
It depends on what you call "infrastructure," these days a generic term. Some people think it means routers. Some think it means web servers. Those familiar with setting up the former will generally choose the former, but really it can refer to both.
Ah, more fearmongering. No, my personal site will never be affected by SOPA because I generate all its content myself. My own photography, videos, thoughts and data feeds.
Are you the webmaster? If so, then yes, you might actually be just fine.
Is someone else the webmaster? Do you mind him pre-approving and filtering all the content that you generate yourself? I think he would mind having to do that since he'd risk liability by not.
If you are a US citizen AND you would say such a thing, I suggest you print out your Constitution and Declaration of Independence and henceforth use it to wipe your ass with.
I'd rather he print it out and then read it. Something I recommend all US citizens do. Most people who aren't used to doing that might get a few surprises.
Simple: Each one of the major players, put up a black splash page with info about SOPA and WHAT to do about it...
It could also be an old-school-Yahoo style of link page. After all, all these blogs, news sites, etc won't be down that day, so you can link to them. It'd be a pre-Facebook/Wikipedia/Google way of conveying information on the Internet.
Make it global from day 1. SOPA would be a problem not just for Americans, but for everyone.
I'm pretty sure that if Google, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and Wikipedia all went down for a day, even Washington would realize that SOPA can't stand.
I'm not sure, you have to balance the dislike for having those sites down... against the amazing productivity gains that would result! If they all went down for a day, we'd have flying cars, cold fusion, and warp drive the next day.
But I didn't think the actual sites would be down, just the front pages.
So I'll ask again, what new and exciting product has IBM come out with ?;)
IBM is very strong, but they got out of the end-user creation business (hardware and software) long ago. You won't hear a lot about it because they don't sell to you. They sell to governments and very large business, and more than anything else, they sell their people as consultants to craft solutions to large problems.
Apple is the exact opposite, they cater to one market (end-user personal consumer) to the exclusion of every other. Of course you will hear of big products that they design.
This might be true with your government and many others, but is much less likely when said government is a military-backed dictatorship.
Then there is little point to the sanctions, isn't it?
The sanctions will always hit those who are lowest in power. Military-backed dictatorships would crumble under pressure from the poor? Then why pressure the poor?
The reason for sanctions is to convince the people that their leaders are too much trouble, but it's very easy for said leaders to use propaganda to convince people that outsiders are suppressing them. So much easier to get people to do what you want when they have an external enemy to band together against.
So you see free trade means that I can buy your banks and phone companies but it does not mean that you can sell us your food.
What are small developing nations supposed to export? Fire engines and ice breakers?
As many in the US could tell you now, free trade has worked fairly poorly for the US as a whole. Our entertainment industry is now the only healthy export industry. It's worked out great for the multi-national corporations, and worked for the US in the short term only, not so much for any individual Western country in the long run.
Economic sanctions kill poor people? I don't think so. Just like most of the rest of the world, Iran is overpopulated. Overpopulation kills more poor people, than economic sanctions can.
It is the unstated mission of Unicef and organizations like them, to force the world to support as large a human population as possible. I can't get behind that mission.
Now, if Unicef's mission were to educate people, and to convince them to control the population, I could support them.
The entire world needs to team up with China, and their once child per couple thing for about 50 to 100 years.
There is an enormous, enormous difference between using birth control to curb population growth and the massacring of civilians to lower population (or lower the rise). That's where I, and almost any civilized person draw the line about what is acceptable.
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The US inherited a lot of attitudes from the Puritans who originally settled in the northeast. Among those attitudes are that crimes must be met with harsh retribution, pleasure and sex are evil but violence against those who are evil is good, and so forth.
We'd stop asking for more laws if the 1% allowed the existing ones to be applied. Instead, they get the ones they don't like ignored, and injustices require new laws for the justice system (still 100% justice-free).
Well then, from a Devil's Advocate perspective, what's the point of new laws if we already know they won't be enforced against those we really want them to be enforced against? We know that these sorts of laws will just be enforced against those without resources to fight or evade them, so it seems like a new law is less desirable than just better enforcing an old law.
You are quite right, the parent should have said "I do not commit crime... that any DA would care about prosecuting."
Yes, let's set out to injure the poor and desperate instead of going after the real crooks - the scrap metal dealers who knowingly buy stolen property in large quantities and are the ones really getting rich. Seriously, close down that market and the thefts will drop off overnight.
They are both equally culpable and equally deserving of punishment.
Unless we all end up sterilized due to them, and the human race simply vanishes.
Yeah, there's pretty much zero chance of that. :-)
I don't think the explanation needs to be that complicated.
This isn't a long-term strategy -- it's an expensive system that benefits the contractors that build it which will be abandoned in a decade over health concerns once something better is invented. Then more money will be thrown at contractors to impliment that.
"Health concerns" in the short term can very easily be brushed aside. You don't need to suppress research, it's fine for all of this to be right out in the open. The threat of "terrorism" and weapons smuggling will be seen as the greater evil that needs to be protected against, and we've seen numerous times over the past decade that we're willing to allow the government to sacrifice time, money, and freedom in order to "secure" us.
Gygax denied D&D was based on Tolkien.
Gygax had great reason to deny it, but that doesn't mean D&D isn't based on Tolkien.
If you only measure fiction by its cultural impact, then Isaac Asimov and Clarke should be up there, simply because of the quality and impact of their creations. However, it is a *Nobel* prize, and one for good literature -- while Asimov and Clarke were great (and prolific) writers, the quality of their writing in and of itself was nothing spectacular. In fact, this analogy could be extended to other domains, as well. The Nobel in physical sciences or the Fields medal are not given to what has the most impact, but rather what was the hardest nut to crack, and how well someone cracked it. In literature, while there isn't necessarily a problem to solve, the quality of writing and one's style go a long way in determining your qualification.
It's quite possible that like several of the other non-physical Nobel prizes (economics, peace, etc), the Nobel Prize for Literature is just not that meaningful.
Agreed that the newer gen readers do indeed seem to lack much of a sense of humor, or that too much humor passes right over them. No wonder Cmdr T left. Truly it is not the same as old.
I don't think the newer gen readers lack a sense of humor. I think they just laugh at fewer things, or at least they don't laugh at things that are not funny. Geeks have traditionally had shitty senses of humor that, when it exists, seems to depend more on repetition than the actual humor value of the joke.
The "joke" that Marty was replying to... it just wasn't funny. I've no problems replying straight to a joke that fell flat. It embarrasses everyone, and that is funny.
Besides, Marty has a 5-digit uid, he's not a new-gen reader. >_>
When I interview people I want people that are keen to learn, improve and expand.
This means they just wont be happy staying in the job I'm recruiting for.
Right, and so do I, and I try to be a good interviewer. You sound like you're a good interviewer too, but if I walked into your company and met you for the first time I wouldn't know that. I'd have to play it safe. I'm approaching this from the perspective that there are very few jobs out there now thanks to the economy being in the shitter, and there are many many people applying for every single position. Your argument sounds like it comes from the perspective that job openings are plentiful and if they don't get this one position, well there are plenty of other companies they could interview at, but I've known too many talented people in the last few years who have had a hard time getting hired because they're one person among dozens all trying to get the same position. Last year my company received over eighty-five thousand applications for one hundred open positions. It's pretty rough out there.
I want to employ people who will grow in the role, and move into other roles in the organisation.
It's a very fine line to try to walk. Play it the wrong way (and what the wrong way is is entirely dependent on the interviewer) and you could get hit with the dreaded "over-qualified" label. That's what I would be most concerned about; people are scared shitless that an interviewer would think that they're overqualified when all they really want is to be able to put their talents to use and earn money.
I suppose it's important to clarify that the answers could also greatly depend on whether the applicant already has a job and is looking for a different one (in which case he can afford to be a little more honest about his hopes and future plans), or whether the applicant was laid off, unemployed, and is now two months behind on rent (in which case he needs a job. Any job).
Its all fine to give a snobbish answer like yours if you are talking to HR.
It is? At many companies HR can really mess you up.
The 5 years question is really just asking if you intend to move up the management or technical ladder.
Then why not just ask that directly?
Because you don't know the interviewer yet. And you need the job. In many cases, though this isn't as bad in the tech field, you really really need the job, and the goal is to make yourself as good as you can to get the job. The problem with many interviewers is that they really don't want to hire someone who has his eyes on another job, so when you mention your intention to move up the ladder, the internal response is often "Oh. Well, we want someone for -this- job, not someone whose going to vacate it again in a few years."
Sure, it's great when you can have an honest conversation with an interviewer about this, but that's a pretty risky step.
Whoa - dude -- are you, like, talking to us from the future? What is 2035 like? How far have 3D printers come? Can you print a Ferrari? .... Wait -- forget that -- who won the 2012 World Series?
Didn't you see Back to the Future Part 2? You know that line of questioning isn't going to end well.
In each financial report, Apple management state that that iTunes Music Store operates at almost break even terms. Revenue from this is definitely less than 10% of their profit.
But the iTunes Store wasn't merely an income generator and can't be looked at in isolation, it was necessary to drive business in other sectors.
The iPod didn't become a hit all on its own, it became a hit in no small part due to its integration with the iTunes Music Store. Even if the store operated at a loss, it would still be a big overall gain for Apple.
you really think people are so stupid as to believe that would be the reason he vetoed it?
All the ads would have to say is that he voted against supplies for the troops for political reasons. That's all it would take. It would be accurate and damning.
It depends on what you call "infrastructure," these days a generic term. Some people think it means routers. Some think it means web servers. Those familiar with setting up the former will generally choose the former, but really it can refer to both.
Ah, more fearmongering. No, my personal site will never be affected by SOPA because I generate all its content myself. My own photography, videos, thoughts and data feeds.
Are you the webmaster? If so, then yes, you might actually be just fine.
Is someone else the webmaster? Do you mind him pre-approving and filtering all the content that you generate yourself? I think he would mind having to do that since he'd risk liability by not.
If you are a US citizen AND you would say such a thing, I suggest you print out your Constitution and Declaration of Independence and henceforth use it to wipe your ass with.
I'd rather he print it out and then read it.
Something I recommend all US citizens do. Most people who aren't used to doing that might get a few surprises.
Simple: Each one of the major players, put up a black splash page with info about SOPA and WHAT to do about it...
It could also be an old-school-Yahoo style of link page. After all, all these blogs, news sites, etc won't be down that day, so you can link to them. It'd be a pre-Facebook/Wikipedia/Google way of conveying information on the Internet.
Make it global from day 1. SOPA would be a problem not just for Americans, but for everyone.
I'm pretty sure that if Google, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and Wikipedia all went down for a day, even Washington would realize that SOPA can't stand.
I'm not sure, you have to balance the dislike for having those sites down... against the amazing productivity gains that would result! If they all went down for a day, we'd have flying cars, cold fusion, and warp drive the next day.
But I didn't think the actual sites would be down, just the front pages.
So I'll ask again, what new and exciting product has IBM come out with ? ;)
IBM is very strong, but they got out of the end-user creation business (hardware and software) long ago. You won't hear a lot about it because they don't sell to you. They sell to governments and very large business, and more than anything else, they sell their people as consultants to craft solutions to large problems.
Apple is the exact opposite, they cater to one market (end-user personal consumer) to the exclusion of every other. Of course you will hear of big products that they design.
This might be true with your government and many others, but is much less likely when said government is a military-backed dictatorship.
Then there is little point to the sanctions, isn't it?
The sanctions will always hit those who are lowest in power. Military-backed dictatorships would crumble under pressure from the poor? Then why pressure the poor?
The reason for sanctions is to convince the people that their leaders are too much trouble, but it's very easy for said leaders to use propaganda to convince people that outsiders are suppressing them. So much easier to get people to do what you want when they have an external enemy to band together against.
So you see free trade means that I can buy your banks and phone companies but it does not mean that you can sell us your food.
What are small developing nations supposed to export? Fire engines and ice breakers?
As many in the US could tell you now, free trade has worked fairly poorly for the US as a whole. Our entertainment industry is now the only healthy export industry. It's worked out great for the multi-national corporations, and worked for the US in the short term only, not so much for any individual Western country in the long run.
Chavez is still the darling of the Hollywood left
Who? Who is he the darling of? I know quite a few people in the "Hollywood left," and he's no friend to them.
Economic sanctions kill poor people? I don't think so. Just like most of the rest of the world, Iran is overpopulated. Overpopulation kills more poor people, than economic sanctions can.
It is the unstated mission of Unicef and organizations like them, to force the world to support as large a human population as possible. I can't get behind that mission.
Now, if Unicef's mission were to educate people, and to convince them to control the population, I could support them.
The entire world needs to team up with China, and their once child per couple thing for about 50 to 100 years.
There is an enormous, enormous difference between using birth control to curb population growth and the massacring of civilians to lower population (or lower the rise). That's where I, and almost any civilized person draw the line about what is acceptable.