The government requires tax stamps on marijuana to get around that pesky Constitution. After Capone got taken down for tax evasion, someone noted that forcing criminals to declare income from illegal sources runs afoul of the 5th amendment. So, the government now has to find ways to allow criminals to pay their taxes without self incrimination.
Look, I support people'e right to change genders and all the rest, but I'd scale back the rhetoric here. Technically, gender is self identity, sex is biological (although it should still be noted that virtually all dictionaries will list the two as synonyms), but of course once one starts hormone treatments the line starts to blur. So, in the modern age where sex change is entirely attainable, we're talking about a distinction almost without a difference. Yes, there are those, such as yourself, who are born female but take the male gender identity, and then for whatever reason forgo any form of medical sex reassignment, but at this point we're so far removed from a discussion of violence caused by videogames that we really need to stop.
I'm not sure I'd say the existence of the intersexed means there's "more than two sexes," but I suppose that's something of a semantical quibble. To me, it seems that to qualify as a seperate sex, one needs unique sexual traits not found in either males or females. Otherwise I'd argue that the person is part male, part female.
I think the argument he was making is that killing people requires two things: ability and desire. You argue that videogames break down the instinctive resistance to pulling the trigger, improving one's ability. However, that doesn't show that it makes someone more likely to see violence as a solution to their problems. As far as I know, people who have military training are not more likely to commit murder than other people from the same socio-economic background. However, it seems safe to assume that those with military training are more likely to SUCCEED in murder attempts.
Except that Fiorina is an idiot. She'd already run Lucent into the ground in perhaps one of the biggest losses of market value EVER in the history of business! She has no business running a corner deli, much less a tech company. It doesn't matter what industry she is in, she's a crap CEO.
So, HP is NOT a great example of "CEO skills," it's an example of a LACK of CEO skills. The key mistakes she made (buying Compaq, refusing to spin off the printer division) cannot be blamed on a lack of technical understanding. Besides, as mentioned above, her background was Lucent, and AT&T before that. Sure, communications tech is different than computer tech, but it's hardly like she'd been running General Mills or something like that, so I think your little rant about promoting "within your own industry" is misplaced.
I don't think there are any real razors with 5 blades, the guy was being facetious. There is one with 4 though (Schick Quattro). Personally, I found the Mach 3 to be a big improvement (especially for shaving my chest, which may or may not be an issue for you). I haven't tried the Quattro, but I can't imagine how it would be any better.
I'm not entirely sure what the original guy was talking about, but there WAS an article on CNN about a group (known rather oddly as the "sea gypsies," totally unrelated to regular gypsies) who had as one of their bits of hereditary lore that "if the sea receeds, it always comes back doubled." When the water suddenly rushed out, as preceeds tsunamis, they immediately headed to higher ground, and were safe.
IANAL, but it seems to me that it probably would be illegal if there is no consent. Spyware programs only occasionally force themselves onto computers, 99% of the time they DID ask the user, it was just done in such a manner that they clicked "Yes" without paying attention. In the remaining 1% of cases, yeah, they might have a problem.
Children usually do not have the same kinds of legal protection from their parents as adults. In this case, even if they do, all you need is consent, and it should be pretty easy to obtain consent simply by making it a condition of allowing them to use the computer (the same way employers obtain consent for monitoring various forms of employee communication at work).
I'm well aware of the dose rates given off by heavily shielded used fuel (basically nothing), and the health effects of certain dose thresholds.....
Just out of curiosity, are you taking into account reproductive effects of a given dose? I'm not sure that's as well known, and would be the reason I might be a little more concerned about potential waste dumps nearby.
Regardless, I agree with the general thrust of your post, and it's always seemed to me that for the truly paranoid, it should be simple enough to install a radiation detector in your house, stick it next to your carbon monoxide detector, and prove to yourself that you're not getting any extra radiation. If there IS a leak, you'll know before it'll cause any appreciable damage.
The grandparent was talking more about the notion that WITHOUT eugenics, the genepool would decay. The laws he's referring to include forced sterilization of the mentally retarded, under the theory that these people "should have" died in childhood, and that allowing them to reproduce would mean a greater proportion of mentally retarded people in each successive generation. I remember reading a passage by Huxley in a bit of commentary he wrote on Brave New World in which he posits that from this point onwards, any medical improvement would be offset by a corresponding decrease in genetic health, resulting in a stagnant life expectancy.
Just as with global warming, any debate is not on the subject of whether the principle works (selective breeding clearly can bring out certain traits, and a higher concentration of CO2 clearly increases temperatures) but whether or not it is a threat to humanity's survival.
Another element of the comparison worth noting, I think, is that while it is POSSIBLE that there has been a very slow gene pool "decay," this has been more than offset by rapid development. The average American IQ has risen some 3 points per decade, largly due to reduced use of lead based paint. Life expectancies have risen because medical science outstrips any possible "decay" by orders of magnitude. In the next few decades, even the possiblity of this problem will likely be eliminated as increasing numbers of future parents turn to genetic screening of gametes to avoid passing on genetic diseases (a la Gattaca; IMHO, not the dystopia they make it out to be).
Likewise, our technologies today are much cleaner than they were 100 years ago. There is a dramatically lower pollution output per, say, ton of steel produced. Also, there is more forest land in the US today than there was 100 years ago, as less room is needed to grow the crops to feed our population. For the future, we've gotten fusion about to the breakeven point, and some car companies are embracing fuel cells as a possible way to revitalize the market.
I'm not really arguing that global warming isn't a threat, I think there's a very good chance that it is. However, I did want to clarify the point the guy was trying to make, as I thought it was fairly interesting to consider, at any rate.
I'd actually guess the opposite. If most space missions succeed, but only 1 in 3 Mars missions succeeds, then it seems reasonable to guess that space agencies have a tendancy to underestimate the difficulty of landing on Mars, and underengineer many of their probes.
As for the original idea, I'm somewhat confused how having 3 probes all land near each other would improve communication. They already have satellites in orbit to relay communications, how would having another lander nearby help?
Well, note that in many states, having sex with a drunk person who does not resist CAN be considered rape (esp. if it was your intention to get them drunk to make them more receptive to your advances). Not statutory rape, plain old every day rape.
Had a sober 19 year old man had consentual sex with a sober 15 year old girl, they probably wouldn't have prosecuted. The combination of alcohol (which has legal implications) and "deviant" sex (which doesn't, and shouldn't, but probably affected the decision to prosecute anyway) was what did it.
I'm telling you, the frame in which the shot actually takes place is all white. The laser bolt (or bolts) is never shown onscreen. There's no proof in the original that they didn't both shoot at the same time.
Ironically, having watched the scene in frame advance on the laserdisc rips, I am forced to conclude that the movie is UNCLEAR on who shoots first. There is a flash of light, and Greedo slumps over. There is no visible proof in the original version that they did not both shoot.
However, the fact that everyone ASSUMED that only Han shot simply underscores the idiocy of the change for the special edition. Everyone assumed that only Han shot because it would have been absurd for Greedo to have missed from that range.
Re:Sounds like a piracy crackdown, not a ban.
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China Bans 50 Games
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· Score: 1
Just because China accepts the compromise doesn't mean they support it. They may still participate in FIFA or the Olympics or whatever, but be sufficiently frustrated by the status quo to ban games which include the Chinese Taipei team.
Actually, if one Reads The Fine Article, it acctually states that the agreement was with the player's union, not MLB. So the deal is probably ONLY for player names, and stadiums and team names are still available to all.
I'm actually not sure I agree. Capitalism may be the best system for producing the best product at the lowest price. However, the goal of the NFL is not to produce the best possible football team, it is to product the most exciting games possible, which is generally produced by having teams which are very close to the same skill level. Hence salary caps, draft picks, and other such "socialist" practices.
Of course, with European football (soccer) I guess you need uneven teams just to make sure that someone's going to get on the scoreboard... God what a boring game. Why don't they widen the goals or something? Jesus.
$A should really be $0, because if one received NO compensation for one's work, no one would do anything (even in communist countries, there was some sort of work compensation).
Moreover, don't forget that median adult female height under 5'4"! Of course women are always going to choose price over legroom, because they've already got plenty of legroom.
I haven't watched it in a while, but I have it on good authority that in the scene at the end where Neo is running from the subway to find another exit, the directions he's being given are all Chicago street names.
Oh, I'm not making any statement one way or the other about whether the robots are good, but the fact is that if Toyota wants to continue to produce their cars in Japan (another statement I'm not going to comment on the merits of) they have to find a solution other than human workers.
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Then why would you want Jackson to remake the Simarillion? You probably wouldn't like that either.
The government requires tax stamps on marijuana to get around that pesky Constitution. After Capone got taken down for tax evasion, someone noted that forcing criminals to declare income from illegal sources runs afoul of the 5th amendment. So, the government now has to find ways to allow criminals to pay their taxes without self incrimination.
I'm not sure I'd say the existence of the intersexed means there's "more than two sexes," but I suppose that's something of a semantical quibble. To me, it seems that to qualify as a seperate sex, one needs unique sexual traits not found in either males or females. Otherwise I'd argue that the person is part male, part female.
I think the argument he was making is that killing people requires two things: ability and desire. You argue that videogames break down the instinctive resistance to pulling the trigger, improving one's ability. However, that doesn't show that it makes someone more likely to see violence as a solution to their problems. As far as I know, people who have military training are not more likely to commit murder than other people from the same socio-economic background. However, it seems safe to assume that those with military training are more likely to SUCCEED in murder attempts.
So, HP is NOT a great example of "CEO skills," it's an example of a LACK of CEO skills. The key mistakes she made (buying Compaq, refusing to spin off the printer division) cannot be blamed on a lack of technical understanding. Besides, as mentioned above, her background was Lucent, and AT&T before that. Sure, communications tech is different than computer tech, but it's hardly like she'd been running General Mills or something like that, so I think your little rant about promoting "within your own industry" is misplaced.
I don't think there are any real razors with 5 blades, the guy was being facetious. There is one with 4 though (Schick Quattro). Personally, I found the Mach 3 to be a big improvement (especially for shaving my chest, which may or may not be an issue for you). I haven't tried the Quattro, but I can't imagine how it would be any better.
I'm not entirely sure what the original guy was talking about, but there WAS an article on CNN about a group (known rather oddly as the "sea gypsies," totally unrelated to regular gypsies) who had as one of their bits of hereditary lore that "if the sea receeds, it always comes back doubled." When the water suddenly rushed out, as preceeds tsunamis, they immediately headed to higher ground, and were safe.
IANAL, but it seems to me that it probably would be illegal if there is no consent. Spyware programs only occasionally force themselves onto computers, 99% of the time they DID ask the user, it was just done in such a manner that they clicked "Yes" without paying attention. In the remaining 1% of cases, yeah, they might have a problem.
Children usually do not have the same kinds of legal protection from their parents as adults. In this case, even if they do, all you need is consent, and it should be pretty easy to obtain consent simply by making it a condition of allowing them to use the computer (the same way employers obtain consent for monitoring various forms of employee communication at work).
Just out of curiosity, are you taking into account reproductive effects of a given dose? I'm not sure that's as well known, and would be the reason I might be a little more concerned about potential waste dumps nearby.
Regardless, I agree with the general thrust of your post, and it's always seemed to me that for the truly paranoid, it should be simple enough to install a radiation detector in your house, stick it next to your carbon monoxide detector, and prove to yourself that you're not getting any extra radiation. If there IS a leak, you'll know before it'll cause any appreciable damage.
Just as with global warming, any debate is not on the subject of whether the principle works (selective breeding clearly can bring out certain traits, and a higher concentration of CO2 clearly increases temperatures) but whether or not it is a threat to humanity's survival.
Another element of the comparison worth noting, I think, is that while it is POSSIBLE that there has been a very slow gene pool "decay," this has been more than offset by rapid development. The average American IQ has risen some 3 points per decade, largly due to reduced use of lead based paint. Life expectancies have risen because medical science outstrips any possible "decay" by orders of magnitude. In the next few decades, even the possiblity of this problem will likely be eliminated as increasing numbers of future parents turn to genetic screening of gametes to avoid passing on genetic diseases (a la Gattaca; IMHO, not the dystopia they make it out to be).
Likewise, our technologies today are much cleaner than they were 100 years ago. There is a dramatically lower pollution output per, say, ton of steel produced. Also, there is more forest land in the US today than there was 100 years ago, as less room is needed to grow the crops to feed our population. For the future, we've gotten fusion about to the breakeven point, and some car companies are embracing fuel cells as a possible way to revitalize the market.
I'm not really arguing that global warming isn't a threat, I think there's a very good chance that it is. However, I did want to clarify the point the guy was trying to make, as I thought it was fairly interesting to consider, at any rate.
As for the original idea, I'm somewhat confused how having 3 probes all land near each other would improve communication. They already have satellites in orbit to relay communications, how would having another lander nearby help?
Had a sober 19 year old man had consentual sex with a sober 15 year old girl, they probably wouldn't have prosecuted. The combination of alcohol (which has legal implications) and "deviant" sex (which doesn't, and shouldn't, but probably affected the decision to prosecute anyway) was what did it.
I'm telling you, the frame in which the shot actually takes place is all white. The laser bolt (or bolts) is never shown onscreen. There's no proof in the original that they didn't both shoot at the same time.
However, the fact that everyone ASSUMED that only Han shot simply underscores the idiocy of the change for the special edition. Everyone assumed that only Han shot because it would have been absurd for Greedo to have missed from that range.
Just because China accepts the compromise doesn't mean they support it. They may still participate in FIFA or the Olympics or whatever, but be sufficiently frustrated by the status quo to ban games which include the Chinese Taipei team.
Heh, I just bought Madden '03 on Ebay for $5, the gameplay's almost exactly the same as '05 but the 49ers don't suck ass!
Actually, if one Reads The Fine Article, it acctually states that the agreement was with the player's union, not MLB. So the deal is probably ONLY for player names, and stadiums and team names are still available to all.
Of course, with European football (soccer) I guess you need uneven teams just to make sure that someone's going to get on the scoreboard... God what a boring game. Why don't they widen the goals or something? Jesus.
$A should really be $0, because if one received NO compensation for one's work, no one would do anything (even in communist countries, there was some sort of work compensation).
Moreover, don't forget that median adult female height under 5'4"! Of course women are always going to choose price over legroom, because they've already got plenty of legroom.
I haven't watched it in a while, but I have it on good authority that in the scene at the end where Neo is running from the subway to find another exit, the directions he's being given are all Chicago street names.
Seriously, I wish we could go back in time and tell him not to look forward to it too much...
Oh, I'm not making any statement one way or the other about whether the robots are good, but the fact is that if Toyota wants to continue to produce their cars in Japan (another statement I'm not going to comment on the merits of) they have to find a solution other than human workers.
Note that only the population 65 and up will increase. Other age groups (which is to say, people young enough to not be retired) are ALREADY declining in Japan.