I don't understand the angst over the tear gas canister; it's a non-lethal police weapon. Surely that's exactly the sort of weaponry you WANT your police to have? I bet the kids at Kent State or Tienanmen Square wish they had only been tear-gassed. The U.S.-made canister provided its owners with a non-lethal option; that the option existed may have saved lives.
I do understand that there is an underlying context (U.S. aid that contributed to the military/police) but this seems to me like a really poor example for that argument.
Isn't your paranoid view of aliens just as anthropomorphic, though? You use as evidence Human behavior, but there is no reason to assume that will apply in any way. I'm also puzzled at how you are willing to grant these aliens the technology of FTL travel but not better telescopes. If you believe that aliens are as aggressive as we are, then arguably the safest thing to do is to preemptively present ourselves as a non-threat, just to avoid triggering a fear response. I do not find your position to be internally consistent.
I would be somewhat surprised if we were ever to meet aliens more aggressive than we are. It seems to me that Humans are on the very edge of successful aggression; any more aggressive and we'd probably all be dead.
I would argue that anyone who considers themselves infallible does not qualify as a genuinely smart person. They can be skilled but they are not smart.
I think that the intended way to play WoW now is as a single-player game while leveling, with multiplayer breaks for the occasional dungeon run, then full multiplayer at the end game. If you play like that then phasing is great, since whether other people see what you see while you're leveling is immaterial - you're in single player mode anyway - and at end-game you all do see the same thing since you've all completed the same quest lines.
Horizons had some great ideas buried in a mess of a game. I paid the subscription to that game for a good year after I stopped playing, in hopes that it would find itself, but it never did. I think that is the kind of thing required for a real "WoW-killer," though; it won't be "WoW done better," it'll be something that runs against some Blizzard conventional wisdom altogether; the elimination of grinding, an end-game that isn't about raiding, or a truly dynamic world. Some sort of procedural generation would seem to be a requirement, too; to me, the greatest flaw in WoW's design is the requirement for daily quests.
When the USA charges in to change a government people scream and shout and say the the USA is imperliaistic and being mean. When the USA doesn't invade they are looked at with disdain for not helping out those who need it.
You can't have it both ways, however no matter what the USA does it is wrong.
It might help if the US got some sort of international support and helped the countries who most people believed needed helping, instead of unilaterally invading the ones with the most natural resources. Just saying.
Probably not, but it might have the effect of making all the simpletons into islands of stupidity instead of two huge voting blocs that control the nation.
If you guys end up invading & annexing Canada, I would like to point out that it would pretty much guarantee that the Democrats would run both houses plus be in the white house for the next 100 years. Just something to consider: Canadian Conservative = American Democrat.
Not necessarily. Canadian population = California.
Given that we've pretty much cleaned house in the last ten years and it's still business as usual up there, I question the practicality of your assertion. Even if you came up with hundreds of reputable, qualified independents, how would they run? Even if they were people everyone in America would get behind, how would America hear about them? Elections are about money, and the money game is dominated by the Democrats and Republicans. I think the institution is the problem, not the individuals, and I think that the institution is more powerful than you think.
I have heard many times, for many different nerdy professions stories or surveys that show countless nerds were inspired to their professions by some work of fiction. Yet, I rarely hear that about non-nerdy professions.
I have never heard a police officer point to a cop movie as a source of inspiration, nor a fireman, nor a teacher, nor an athelete, nor a soldier...
OK, I can think of one exception to this, I have heard some pilots point to movies, but other than that it always seems to be nerds. What gives?
I think the question is being asked backwards. Nerds are nerds because they are interested in nerdy things. If a movie presents that proclivity in a positive light, the nerd is pleased and remembers the movie warmly. I don't think scientists were "inspired" by movies - they might have gotten some sort of idea or new image in their minds, but they were always going to be scientists/hackers/whatever. The movies are beloved because they showed something positive coming out of it.
Most people don't identify with their jobs so closely (secretaries rarely see themselves as secretaries first and foremost), and their fields don't have an image problem to begin with; firemen don't need a Hollywood film to make heroes out of people in their field, for example.
Hog-poop. IQ is a rough measure of problem-solving ability. Science is about problem-solving, medicine largely is, and law should be. If you don't have the neurons for it, you don't have the ability; someone with a greater than 150 IQ is five standard deviations above the average and is going to master (solve) a lot of problems faster and better than the average joe.
Anything else is liberal BS and wishful thinking. Deal with it.
He didn't say it wasn't useful; he said it wasn't everything. A 150 IQ on an unmotivated individual will just smoke a lot of weed and say funny/clever things related to muskrats. An average Joe who's engaged and willing to work hard is going to be more of an asset, even if it takes him longer than it might have taken Lord Highmind.
If nothing else, once you have kids growing up with self-driving buses, they won't think twice about self-driving cars and will roll their eyes at their parents' concern.
I suspect the barriers to a woman becoming an astronaut are higher; if nothing else, societal pressures would almost preclude the option for most American girls. Perhaps being able to meet the physical requirements are more rare in women, as well; I don't know. At any rate, if it's harder for a woman to become an astronaut then it's a bigger deal when she makes it, isn't it? And when she does make it, it's bound to be reported; people love an underdog story.
In addition, in our society woman have historically been left behind in the workplace due solely to their sex - it is not a coincidence that there were zero American women astronauts until the 1980s; because of this, it might well be in NASA's best interest to point out that they are no longer using such practices. In that case, differentiating women may be simply a PR move.
I think you are seeing political correctness where it doesn't need to be involved at all. Recognizing women isn't the same as preferring them.
You're right. From the press release:
'“Importantly, the monitoring system continued to operate and gather information, but transmissions were delayed until the system was restored. Offender activity logged while the server was being worked on was effectively processed at 7:25 p.m. MT when the system was restored. Alerts that may have occurred during this period were transmitted to our customers at that time."'
Blizzard already doesn't allow anonymous postings, and never did. Their proposal was to involuntarily switch from handles to real names pulled from original account information that could not be changed and up until then was kept confidential.
If all these people were paying a monthly fee to access the news site they might also feel more invested in how it was run.
You're not seeing the same reaction because the situations have nothing in common except the word "anonymous," which never actually applied to Blizzard's forum anyway; Blizzard has always known exactly who every poster was. That entire debate was a smokescreen to keep the entire conversation revolving around whether Blizzard should use the information to plug their players' accounts into Facebook, which was the real reason for the proposed change.
They seem to be hoping for fairly wide adoption eventually:
"Clinical trials are scheduled for early 2011, with a limited release in select American rehabilitation clinics within the second half of that year. Training will be provided for therapists, and patients will be able to apply to take part in the eLEGS gait training program. Farther down the road, Berkeley would like to see the product available for home users, so they could put it on in the morning and use it all day."
Maybe it's a clue that it's a technical term, and not simply "exactly 0 degrees". Since the obvious inference is discouraged maybe someone will look up the phrase. I have a hard time imagining that many people who would care enough to look it up don't already know, but I might still argue that it's only mostly pointless.
I would think at this point that anyone annoyed by ads has already taken the necessary steps to preclude them. I've seen this in action and it isn't very obtrusive; if this bothers you then so does most of the Internet, and you are already running NoScript, AdBlock, or both.
I would argue that having enough money to waste on things you probably don't need is a good working definition of the sense of security the article is talking about leading to increased happiness.
Someone should write a book about a small Mars colony that toughs it out for 500 years, and then recolonizes the Earth after a super asteroid. Who knows what they would find?
Zombies. You've just written the next big first-person shooter.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't understand the angst over the tear gas canister; it's a non-lethal police weapon. Surely that's exactly the sort of weaponry you WANT your police to have? I bet the kids at Kent State or Tienanmen Square wish they had only been tear-gassed. The U.S.-made canister provided its owners with a non-lethal option; that the option existed may have saved lives.
I do understand that there is an underlying context (U.S. aid that contributed to the military/police) but this seems to me like a really poor example for that argument.
Isn't your paranoid view of aliens just as anthropomorphic, though? You use as evidence Human behavior, but there is no reason to assume that will apply in any way. I'm also puzzled at how you are willing to grant these aliens the technology of FTL travel but not better telescopes. If you believe that aliens are as aggressive as we are, then arguably the safest thing to do is to preemptively present ourselves as a non-threat, just to avoid triggering a fear response. I do not find your position to be internally consistent.
I would be somewhat surprised if we were ever to meet aliens more aggressive than we are. It seems to me that Humans are on the very edge of successful aggression; any more aggressive and we'd probably all be dead.
I would argue that anyone who considers themselves infallible does not qualify as a genuinely smart person. They can be skilled but they are not smart.
I think that the intended way to play WoW now is as a single-player game while leveling, with multiplayer breaks for the occasional dungeon run, then full multiplayer at the end game. If you play like that then phasing is great, since whether other people see what you see while you're leveling is immaterial - you're in single player mode anyway - and at end-game you all do see the same thing since you've all completed the same quest lines.
Horizons had some great ideas buried in a mess of a game. I paid the subscription to that game for a good year after I stopped playing, in hopes that it would find itself, but it never did. I think that is the kind of thing required for a real "WoW-killer," though; it won't be "WoW done better," it'll be something that runs against some Blizzard conventional wisdom altogether; the elimination of grinding, an end-game that isn't about raiding, or a truly dynamic world. Some sort of procedural generation would seem to be a requirement, too; to me, the greatest flaw in WoW's design is the requirement for daily quests.
I don't see how you can call Mass Effect 2 a good sequel and not like Deus Ex: Invisible War. They made pretty much the same changes.
His name was Jesse Schell. Here is the talk.
When the USA charges in to change a government people scream and shout and say the the USA is imperliaistic and being mean. When the USA doesn't invade they are looked at with disdain for not helping out those who need it.
You can't have it both ways, however no matter what the USA does it is wrong.
It might help if the US got some sort of international support and helped the countries who most people believed needed helping, instead of unilaterally invading the ones with the most natural resources. Just saying.
Large percentage?
Why in the hell is the moonbat myth believer far right wing a major percentage in a first world nation?
I am not disagreeing, I am just in utter shock each time this is brought up. What is in the water in these places?
Her popularity is greatly exaggerated at this point; her fan base faded long ago.
Probably not, but it might have the effect of making all the simpletons into islands of stupidity instead of two huge voting blocs that control the nation.
If you guys end up invading & annexing Canada, I would like to point out that it would pretty much guarantee that the Democrats would run both houses plus be in the white house for the next 100 years. Just something to consider: Canadian Conservative = American Democrat.
Not necessarily. Canadian population = California.
Given that we've pretty much cleaned house in the last ten years and it's still business as usual up there, I question the practicality of your assertion. Even if you came up with hundreds of reputable, qualified independents, how would they run? Even if they were people everyone in America would get behind, how would America hear about them? Elections are about money, and the money game is dominated by the Democrats and Republicans. I think the institution is the problem, not the individuals, and I think that the institution is more powerful than you think.
I have heard many times, for many different nerdy professions stories or surveys that show countless nerds were inspired to their professions by some work of fiction. Yet, I rarely hear that about non-nerdy professions.
I have never heard a police officer point to a cop movie as a source of inspiration, nor a fireman, nor a teacher, nor an athelete, nor a soldier...
OK, I can think of one exception to this, I have heard some pilots point to movies, but other than that it always seems to be nerds. What gives?
I think the question is being asked backwards. Nerds are nerds because they are interested in nerdy things. If a movie presents that proclivity in a positive light, the nerd is pleased and remembers the movie warmly. I don't think scientists were "inspired" by movies - they might have gotten some sort of idea or new image in their minds, but they were always going to be scientists/hackers/whatever. The movies are beloved because they showed something positive coming out of it.
Most people don't identify with their jobs so closely (secretaries rarely see themselves as secretaries first and foremost), and their fields don't have an image problem to begin with; firemen don't need a Hollywood film to make heroes out of people in their field, for example.
Hog-poop. IQ is a rough measure of problem-solving ability. Science is about problem-solving, medicine largely is, and law should be. If you don't have the neurons for it, you don't have the ability; someone with a greater than 150 IQ is five standard deviations above the average and is going to master (solve) a lot of problems faster and better than the average joe.
Anything else is liberal BS and wishful thinking. Deal with it.
He didn't say it wasn't useful; he said it wasn't everything. A 150 IQ on an unmotivated individual will just smoke a lot of weed and say funny/clever things related to muskrats. An average Joe who's engaged and willing to work hard is going to be more of an asset, even if it takes him longer than it might have taken Lord Highmind.
I think it's inevitable.
If nothing else, once you have kids growing up with self-driving buses, they won't think twice about self-driving cars and will roll their eyes at their parents' concern.
I suspect the barriers to a woman becoming an astronaut are higher; if nothing else, societal pressures would almost preclude the option for most American girls. Perhaps being able to meet the physical requirements are more rare in women, as well; I don't know. At any rate, if it's harder for a woman to become an astronaut then it's a bigger deal when she makes it, isn't it? And when she does make it, it's bound to be reported; people love an underdog story.
In addition, in our society woman have historically been left behind in the workplace due solely to their sex - it is not a coincidence that there were zero American women astronauts until the 1980s; because of this, it might well be in NASA's best interest to point out that they are no longer using such practices. In that case, differentiating women may be simply a PR move.
I think you are seeing political correctness where it doesn't need to be involved at all. Recognizing women isn't the same as preferring them.
You're right. From the press release: '“Importantly, the monitoring system continued to operate and gather information, but transmissions were delayed until the system was restored. Offender activity logged while the server was being worked on was effectively processed at 7:25 p.m. MT when the system was restored. Alerts that may have occurred during this period were transmitted to our customers at that time."'
Blizzard already doesn't allow anonymous postings, and never did. Their proposal was to involuntarily switch from handles to real names pulled from original account information that could not be changed and up until then was kept confidential. If all these people were paying a monthly fee to access the news site they might also feel more invested in how it was run. You're not seeing the same reaction because the situations have nothing in common except the word "anonymous," which never actually applied to Blizzard's forum anyway; Blizzard has always known exactly who every poster was. That entire debate was a smokescreen to keep the entire conversation revolving around whether Blizzard should use the information to plug their players' accounts into Facebook, which was the real reason for the proposed change.
In the video on the site, they show a woman who's been paralyzed nearly as long as you using the device.
They seem to be hoping for fairly wide adoption eventually:
"Clinical trials are scheduled for early 2011, with a limited release in select American rehabilitation clinics within the second half of that year. Training will be provided for therapists, and patients will be able to apply to take part in the eLEGS gait training program. Farther down the road, Berkeley would like to see the product available for home users, so they could put it on in the morning and use it all day."
Maybe it's a clue that it's a technical term, and not simply "exactly 0 degrees". Since the obvious inference is discouraged maybe someone will look up the phrase. I have a hard time imagining that many people who would care enough to look it up don't already know, but I might still argue that it's only mostly pointless.
I would think at this point that anyone annoyed by ads has already taken the necessary steps to preclude them. I've seen this in action and it isn't very obtrusive; if this bothers you then so does most of the Internet, and you are already running NoScript, AdBlock, or both.
I would argue that having enough money to waste on things you probably don't need is a good working definition of the sense of security the article is talking about leading to increased happiness.
Someone should write a book about a small Mars colony that toughs it out for 500 years, and then recolonizes the Earth after a super asteroid. Who knows what they would find?
Zombies. You've just written the next big first-person shooter.
It already wasn't actually producing anything. Would a moratorium have changed anything?