Many open-source projects need more than just programmers. If you have an artistic bent, whether it's musical or with actual artwork, look around and see if there are any open-source games that require input.
According to the libertarian (and Koch-funded) Tax Foundation, California has paid more into federal coffers than it has taken in federal spending since 1986 ( http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/22685.html page 5). And its share that it has given has grown in relation to the amount that it has taken.
There are eighteen states that actually pay their own way, or better, according to the latest data they have collected
One does not have to be a conservative to pass judgment on states leeching government money, but it helps perhaps to be in one when 94.4% of the states that do pay their own way went Democratic in the last Presidential election.
The question is therefore not "why is California spending so much more?", but why are the Red States outstripping California's spending with nothing to back up THEIR leeching ways, playing bootstrappy cowboy at the expense of people in LA, New York, Chicago, etc.?
And the phone number they have, (202) 346-8825, is the same phone number as the number for the previously mentioned Institute for Energy Research, an organization whose President (Robert L. Bradley) was formerly Director of Public Relations Policy at Enron and a former speechwriter for their old CEO Kenneth Lay... you mean THAT website?
This isn't spin, it's established science. So seeing fear, anti-government sentiment, and a parroting of the Glenn Beckesque rhetoric that's unfortunately a large part of the news here in the US right now doesn't surprise me one bit.
Can timothy confirm if he's the same person that submitted this to Fark? Or is Fark stealing headlines (with the added advantage of making money from t-shirts of the headline, should anyone wish to buy one)?
Asimov stories featuring robots and deceit: one short story has a candidate that people think is a robot, but this islaid to rest when the candidate punches out a loud-mouthed yob at a function. Only at the end of the story, it's revealed the yob was also a humaniform robot. The candidate did not harm a human, but was also not exactly being truthful in all regards concerning the situation. However, since nobody thought to take the conspiracy idea a step further and accuse both the candidate AND the protesting reprobate of being robots, the robot was able to run with no further questions concerning his humanity and was elected. Wish I could remember the story's name.
There was another story, can't remember its name (help with these story titles please, people) where the android sees that a woman left at home is emotionally harmed because her husband pays her no attention. So it romances the woman in an attempt to alleviate the First Law conflict.
There's also the "Zeroth Law", where the robot would not allow the whole of human civilization to come to harm through action or inaction. Because there are so many conflicting desires in groups of people, and making one decision that helps one group may emotionally hurt a second group, the robots elect to withdraw and watch mankind from a distance as they colonize the galaxy. I remember this happens at the end of the Foundation trilogy.
And I don't just think it's products.
The first time I noticed it was this spring. My wife and I had a long weekend in Boston, and for weeks afterwards I was receiving banner ads to buy Red Sox tickets (as a Yankees fan, ain't happening if they're not there). We didn't reserve the hotel room online, but we did do a lot of online tourism thanks to Google Maps StreetView.
More recently, I was looking for a backup battery for my iPhone. An external portable charger that could top up the 'phone and then rechange itself either by wall socket or 12v in-car. My Google Desktop shows me I looked at TheNerds.net at a few, and I eventually bought the Griffin PowerJolt Reserve at Target. Every ad for TheNerds I've seen since has the PowerJolt on it. OK already, it's good, I just didn't buy it from you!
Search YouTube for Star Wars revisited. A fan by the name of adywan has created his own Special Editions of the original trilogy...including The Imperial March into the Battle of Yavin IV, as well as there actually being thirty Rebel ships to count (and a bucketload more in the dogfighting department) are included. Episode IV is available in its entirity in 13 parts.
As a teaser, here is the beginning of the battle (YouTube video) showing the DVD version and adywan's version. Notice the engines are now red instead of pink, the increase in ship numbers as mentioned above, and how the gas giant of Yavin is now viewable in cockpit scenes. The annoying discrepancy with the screen countdown (where '7 minutes' to the Rebel base was shown as 18 seconds, counting in 1/24ths of a second) has also been corrected.
It got that hot in The Bronx at the weekend. Especially inside the new Yankee Stadium (112 deg.F 44.5 deg.C). I was there.
Oh and: "It doesn't matter what temperature a room is, it's always room temperature." -- Stephen Wright.
Isaac Asimov had a way, when talking about Robert Heinlein. "He always pictured himself a libertarian, which to my way of thinking means "I want the liberty to grow rich and you can have the liberty to starve". It's easy to believe that no one should depend on society for help when you yourself happen not to need such help."
Harry Browne, Presidential candidate of the United States Libertarian Party in 1996 and 2000, once said "we are not fiscally conservative and socially liberal. We are Libertarians, who believe in individual liberty and personal responsibility on all issues at all times". It's a shame so many of them fold on this philosophy when times get tough for them (see: businessman Lawrence Fink asking for regulation of the insurance industry during the recent banking collapse, whereas he previously stated repeatedly that government just gets in the way of long term profits).
In 1969, Berkeley professors Jack and Jeanne Block embarked on a study of childhood personality, asking nursery school teachers to rate children's temperaments.
They weren't even thinking about political orientation. And why would they? They're psychology professors researching personality theory, personality development, research methodology, and stuff like that.
Twenty years later, they decided to compare the subjects' childhood personalities with their political preferences as adults. Why? Who knows. Maybe for craps and giggles. Maybe because they had a column blank on their spreadsheet and wanted to fill it with one more metric to see if there was a link between voting and eating the erasers on the tops of pencils.
What was interesting to them was the arresting patterns they found.
As kids, liberals had developed close relationships with peers and were rated by their teachers as self-reliant, energetic, impulsive, and resilient.
People who were conservative at age 23 had been described by their teachers as easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and vulnerable at age 3.
Don't forget: the Blocks had NO IDEA what political affiliation any of the three year-olds would have when they did the survey in 1969. But go forward twenty years, and there it is. Everything that people say they want their kids to be: kids just like that became Libs. Everything that makes short-tempered parents scream and beat their kids: future applicants for a CPAC pass and an EIB golf shirt request on the Christmas list.
The reason for the difference, the Blocks hypothesized, was that insecure kids most needed the reassurance of tradition and authority, and they found it in conservative politics. The article doesn't say if Professor N.S.Sherlock lit his pipe and smiled knowingly to himself upon hearing the results, but I wouldn't die of surprise if it happened.
Pure science: sometimes, the truth just hurts. Especially if you've been easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and vulnerable all your life.
Western businessmen don't employ certain races to make themselves look multicultural. That's what stock photos in the Annual Report are for. And they don't use people from any particular continent to give the illusion of success, but that doesn't mean they don't do it. A Mercedes Benz with driver here, conspicuous use of the Amex Centurion Card there, and soon enough your Mister Big Shot to your prospective clients.
Everything counts in large amounts. It seems that some businessmen are easily impressed by a backpacker in a new suit and a fresh haircut.
In 1969, Berkeley professors Jack and Jeanne Block embarked on a study of childhood personality, asking nursery school teachers to rate children's temperaments. They weren't even thinking about political orientation.
Twenty years later, they decided to compare the subjects' childhood personalities with their political preferences as adults. They found arresting patterns. As kids, liberals had developed close relationships with peers and were rated by their teachers as self-reliant, energetic, impulsive, and resilient. People who were conservative at age 23 had been described by their teachers as easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and vulnerable at age 3. The reason for the difference, the Blocks hypothesized, was that insecure kids most needed the reassurance of tradition and authority, and they found it in conservative politics.
This may go some way to explaining why nobody from the conservative ranks in the US has stood up to their own bullies, going so far as to apologize to them when they say something out of line.
It also explains why the bullies themselves also seem easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and vulnerable too.
I know that this will either be marked as Insightful or Troll-bait. I also know that will be because of someone's opinion. But facts are cold, hard things.
Slashdot Mirror
Many open-source projects need more than just programmers. If you have an artistic bent, whether it's musical or with actual artwork, look around and see if there are any open-source games that require input.
In my case, I contributed (as 'Pangloss') to an open-source remake and update of 'Elite' (the first open-ended 3D space trading and combat game) called Oolite. Once you learn a few things about the game, you start posting hints and tips for other people on the forum and before you know it you're getting involved in multi-participant submissions and developing planets like you're Slartibartfast...
According to the libertarian (and Koch-funded) Tax Foundation, California has paid more into federal coffers than it has taken in federal spending since 1986 ( http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/22685.html page 5). And its share that it has given has grown in relation to the amount that it has taken.
There are eighteen states that actually pay their own way, or better, according to the latest data they have collected
( http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.html they're in the process of collecting funds for an updated look at more recent numbers). Seventeen of those states went for Obama / Biden in 2008.
One does not have to be a conservative to pass judgment on states leeching government money, but it helps perhaps to be in one when 94.4% of the states that do pay their own way went Democratic in the last Presidential election.
The question is therefore not "why is California spending so much more?", but why are the Red States outstripping California's spending with nothing to back up THEIR leeching ways, playing bootstrappy cowboy at the expense of people in LA, New York, Chicago, etc.?
...and as the rebuttal, you post a link from a pro-oil-and-gas drilling industry front group formed by the American Petroleum Institute, the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) and dozens of additional industry organizations specifically set up for the purpose of denouncing legislation proposed by a representative from Colorado to regulate underground hydraulic fracturing fluids? A group funded by the El Paso Corporation, XTO Energy, Occidental Petroleum, BP, Anadarko, Marathon, EnCana, Chevron, Talisman, Shell, API, the Independent Petroleum Association of America, Halliburton, Schlumberger and the Ohio Oil and Gas Association? A website registered by the PR firm Dittus Communications (now known as FD Americas Public Affairs) which boasts on its website that "energy clients have formed the backbone of FD Americas Public Affairs’ clientele for more than a decade."? With clients such as Alabama Power, American Energy Alliance, Center for Clean Air Policy, Consumer Energy Alliance, FutureGen, Georgia Power, Independent Petroleum Association of America, and the Institute for Energy Research?
And the phone number they have, (202) 346-8825, is the same phone number as the number for the previously mentioned Institute for Energy Research, an organization whose President (Robert L. Bradley) was formerly Director of Public Relations Policy at Enron and a former speechwriter for their old CEO Kenneth Lay... you mean THAT website?
I wonder why you posted anonymously...
No sex. Less space than a girlfriend. Lame.
I keed, I keed. Happy VD, all.
What?
Winston Smith and his viewscreen without an Off switch, is that you?!?
Conservatives, scientifically, are more scared of loud noises and scary pictures, were described as being frightened and easily offended as three year olds, and have a larger 'fear' center and smaller 'anticipation and decision-making' center
This isn't spin, it's established science. So seeing fear, anti-government sentiment, and a parroting of the Glenn Beckesque rhetoric that's unfortunately a large part of the news here in the US right now doesn't surprise me one bit.
New TRON movie? Dillinger had a combination computer / monitor / desk at ENCOM in 1982.
Word for word, that is.
Can timothy confirm if he's the same person that submitted this to Fark? Or is Fark stealing headlines (with the added advantage of making money from t-shirts of the headline, should anyone wish to buy one)?
Asimov stories featuring robots and deceit: one short story has a candidate that people think is a robot, but this islaid to rest when the candidate punches out a loud-mouthed yob at a function. Only at the end of the story, it's revealed the yob was also a humaniform robot. The candidate did not harm a human, but was also not exactly being truthful in all regards concerning the situation. However, since nobody thought to take the conspiracy idea a step further and accuse both the candidate AND the protesting reprobate of being robots, the robot was able to run with no further questions concerning his humanity and was elected. Wish I could remember the story's name.
There was another story, can't remember its name (help with these story titles please, people) where the android sees that a woman left at home is emotionally harmed because her husband pays her no attention. So it romances the woman in an attempt to alleviate the First Law conflict.
There's also the "Zeroth Law", where the robot would not allow the whole of human civilization to come to harm through action or inaction. Because there are so many conflicting desires in groups of people, and making one decision that helps one group may emotionally hurt a second group, the robots elect to withdraw and watch mankind from a distance as they colonize the galaxy. I remember this happens at the end of the Foundation trilogy.
We are all made of stars.
Sounds impressive, until you think of how many of these fragments were flying around in all directions.
Think of it as a More Dakka situation of stellar proportions.
And I don't just think it's products. The first time I noticed it was this spring. My wife and I had a long weekend in Boston, and for weeks afterwards I was receiving banner ads to buy Red Sox tickets (as a Yankees fan, ain't happening if they're not there). We didn't reserve the hotel room online, but we did do a lot of online tourism thanks to Google Maps StreetView. More recently, I was looking for a backup battery for my iPhone. An external portable charger that could top up the 'phone and then rechange itself either by wall socket or 12v in-car. My Google Desktop shows me I looked at TheNerds.net at a few, and I eventually bought the Griffin PowerJolt Reserve at Target. Every ad for TheNerds I've seen since has the PowerJolt on it. OK already, it's good, I just didn't buy it from you!
With the breaking news in the last 24 hours that the dangerous radical Saudi financing the 'Ground Zero' 'Mosque' through a series of charities was none other than the largest non-Murdoch shareholder of Fox News , is there a connection to any of these blogs and Alwaleed Bin Talal, the man Fox News itself says funds radical madrasses all over the world? Do any of these blogs have connections to members of think-tanks and PACs like The Heritage Foundation or FreedomWorks? Secretive organizations which appear often on a news channel funded by this same Saudi money that many on Fox News openly question may have financial ties to Iran?
Search YouTube for Star Wars revisited. A fan by the name of adywan has created his own Special Editions of the original trilogy ...including The Imperial March into the Battle of Yavin IV, as well as there actually being thirty Rebel ships to count (and a bucketload more in the dogfighting department) are included. Episode IV is available in its entirity in 13 parts.
As a teaser, here is the beginning of the battle (YouTube video) showing the DVD version and adywan's version. Notice the engines are now red instead of pink, the increase in ship numbers as mentioned above, and how the gas giant of Yavin is now viewable in cockpit scenes. The annoying discrepancy with the screen countdown (where '7 minutes' to the Rebel base was shown as 18 seconds, counting in 1/24ths of a second) has also been corrected.
40 Celsius is 104 Fahrenheit. Maybe room temperature in Arizona.
It got that hot in The Bronx at the weekend. Especially inside the new Yankee Stadium (112 deg.F 44.5 deg.C). I was there. Oh and: "It doesn't matter what temperature a room is, it's always room temperature." -- Stephen Wright.
Confirmation Bias.
Isaac Asimov had a way, when talking about Robert Heinlein. "He always pictured himself a libertarian, which to my way of thinking means "I want the liberty to grow rich and you can have the liberty to starve". It's easy to believe that no one should depend on society for help when you yourself happen not to need such help."
Harry Browne, Presidential candidate of the United States Libertarian Party in 1996 and 2000, once said "we are not fiscally conservative and socially liberal. We are Libertarians, who believe in individual liberty and personal responsibility on all issues at all times". It's a shame so many of them fold on this philosophy when times get tough for them (see: businessman Lawrence Fink asking for regulation of the insurance industry during the recent banking collapse, whereas he previously stated repeatedly that government just gets in the way of long term profits).
It would sound like the perfect troll: find out how timid a kid was at age 3, that tells you how conservative he'll be at 23.
As it goes, it's completely backed up by research. And the researchers weren't looking for that info, it just sat there in the data.
In 1969, Berkeley professors Jack and Jeanne Block embarked on a study of childhood personality, asking nursery school teachers to rate children's temperaments.
They weren't even thinking about political orientation. And why would they? They're psychology professors researching personality theory, personality development, research methodology, and stuff like that.
Twenty years later, they decided to compare the subjects' childhood personalities with their political preferences as adults. Why? Who knows. Maybe for craps and giggles. Maybe because they had a column blank on their spreadsheet and wanted to fill it with one more metric to see if there was a link between voting and eating the erasers on the tops of pencils.
What was interesting to them was the arresting patterns they found.
As kids, liberals had developed close relationships with peers and were rated by their teachers as self-reliant, energetic, impulsive, and resilient.
People who were conservative at age 23 had been described by their teachers as easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and vulnerable at age 3.
Don't forget: the Blocks had NO IDEA what political affiliation any of the three year-olds would have when they did the survey in 1969. But go forward twenty years, and there it is. Everything that people say they want their kids to be: kids just like that became Libs. Everything that makes short-tempered parents scream and beat their kids: future applicants for a CPAC pass and an EIB golf shirt request on the Christmas list.
The reason for the difference, the Blocks hypothesized, was that insecure kids most needed the reassurance of tradition and authority, and they found it in conservative politics. The article doesn't say if Professor N.S.Sherlock lit his pipe and smiled knowingly to himself upon hearing the results, but I wouldn't die of surprise if it happened.
Pure science: sometimes, the truth just hurts. Especially if you've been easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and vulnerable all your life.
Western businessmen don't employ certain races to make themselves look multicultural. That's what stock photos in the Annual Report are for. And they don't use people from any particular continent to give the illusion of success, but that doesn't mean they don't do it. A Mercedes Benz with driver here, conspicuous use of the Amex Centurion Card there, and soon enough your Mister Big Shot to your prospective clients.
Everything counts in large amounts. It seems that some businessmen are easily impressed by a backpacker in a new suit and a fresh haircut.
Greenwashing: the practice of companies disingenuously spinning their products and policies as environmentally friendly. For example - if your company spends more in a year on redesigning and distributing its logo to look like a Spirograph green sun than it spent on solar power development in a six year period, that's greenwashing.
If you want to know just how the PTC takes 'freedom of speech' and twists it into something far from pure, here's a statistic for one year.
99.8%.
The one organization was responsible for 99.8% of all complaints received by the FCC. If you're ever interested in how that looks like as a pie chart, click on this link.
Gives a whole new meaning to the old phrase "we've received hundreds of complaints from one or two people..."
Interesting trolling. I see you know how to use the paragraph tag, for example.
In relation to having "healthy social and emotional skills", this study from a while back came to mind.
In 1969, Berkeley professors Jack and Jeanne Block embarked on a study of childhood personality, asking nursery school teachers to rate children's temperaments. They weren't even thinking about political orientation.
Twenty years later, they decided to compare the subjects' childhood personalities with their political preferences as adults. They found arresting patterns. As kids, liberals had developed close relationships with peers and were rated by their teachers as self-reliant, energetic, impulsive, and resilient. People who were conservative at age 23 had been described by their teachers as easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and vulnerable at age 3. The reason for the difference, the Blocks hypothesized, was that insecure kids most needed the reassurance of tradition and authority, and they found it in conservative politics.
This may go some way to explaining why nobody from the conservative ranks in the US has stood up to their own bullies, going so far as to apologize to them when they say something out of line.
It also explains why the bullies themselves also seem easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and vulnerable too.
I know that this will either be marked as Insightful or Troll-bait. I also know that will be because of someone's opinion. But facts are cold, hard things.
THANK YOU.
What's next? Missles carrying nuculur weapons?