I'd like to see you back up the claim that people are regularly denied healthcare because they're too old in Europe. You make it sound like we put them out to the wolves, if we can find them a cheap enough bus ride out to the forest.
But even if we accept that you're right for the sake of argument, if you're going to deny someone healthcare, it's better to do it because the treatment would help very little, cost a lot and the resources could be better used on someone else, than to deny it because how treatment affects your corporate bottom line and shareholder profit margins.
Also, I'm having trouble envisioning an insurance company who would cut off health care for a young person for some bullshit reason, that would still magnanimously spend millions on adding a few months to an old person's life. But maybe I'm wrong and insurance companies suddenly like to spend a lot of cash on someone who has very few payments left to make. In that case, I'd have to apologize, but I'll hold off on writing my apology just yet.
When we're capable of creating a human-like AI, it would seem trivial in comparison to give it different motivations than we have. Instead of survival, self-fulfillment and such, you create an AI whose purpose is its task. Completing it is like sex to us.
A human slave that has his brain rewired to connect, say, repetetive manual labor with his pleasure centers, won't be a bored slave.
I'm hoping that the EU can strike this down somehow. But IIRC, the European Convention on Human Rights isn't binding, unless the Lisbon treaty is signed, which amusingly Ireland is probably putting a stop to. Also, articles 9 and 10 in the convention would seem to go against blasphemy laws, but both have convenient loopholes for exceptions that are "necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals".
The Flickr photos were just examples. There are many more. My point was that it pays to ask around.
Aren't the people making you sign permits interested in publically available photos for fans? Judging from the article, PR people seem shocked at the crummy Wikipedia photos. A simple solution would be to have you to release a few photos under a CC license.
I had that problem before with the article on Hayo Miyazaki that I'm contributing to, but I went to Flickr, found a bunch of good, professional-looking pictures of Miyazaki-san and asked the photographers to release their picture under the correct CC license. I got one in less than a a week. The photographer was only glad to help and have his work seen.
We have archeologists who dig up the most mundane objects from more than 1000 years ago and make a big deal out of it. I'm sure the guy who wrote his diary on stone tablets back in the day didn't worry about us being interested in his day, or having a way to read it. And yet we do.
As for your other predictions of the future, I'm sure they have about the same level of accuracy as that of a man living 1000 years ago.
and yet the world has cooled over the last 10 years so one of your assumptions is wrong.
Which one is it?
Alternatively, you're wrong. NASA's figures says you are.
I can spot more than five decades of supposed cooling during the 20th century as per you definition, but as you can clearly see the overall trend is not cooling.
Nowadays we're also used to pie-in-the-sky technologies that we can imagine, but that are always 10-20 years in the future. Clean fusion energy is one such thing. The free car market in the US has failed to provide green cars so far, while government emission and fuel effiency regulations in other places have given us much cleaner and more efficient cars.
With that said, I'm an AGW proponent but I'm positive that a big part of the solution is technological. I just don't have blind faith in technology, the free market and our own ability to make informed choices and purchases all the time.
"Global warming" is a misleading term. Climate change is better, because it tells us we won't just get warmer. Maybe you'll get warm and dry, or be drenched in more rain, or some such. Rising sea levels might negate any food increase by reducing usable farm land. There are also non-climate effects of increasing CO2 levels to worry about, such as ocean acidification.
Also, I'm guessing you're writing from a part of the world that will be less affected by the effects of climate change and has better means of dealing with them. Not everyone is so lucky.
All the people hurt by big corporations all over the world would like to disagree, like the people in Bhopal. I'm sure you can think of a long list of big and small disasters brought on by corporate greed, corruption or incompetence. You can't simply blame the victims for not knowing they were being lied to, especially no when corporations spend billions to convince them the lies are true. When they're not providing good, truthful information to base your acceptance or rejection on, corporations can ruin your life just as well as any state bureacrat.
Sony are much closer to the Wii with their motion control wand they showed off at E3.
But I don't really care about who was first. I care only about who does it best. Nintendo have done a great job with the Wii, but they seriously need some competition in the casual market.
The Pirate Party could very well fade away quite quickly after this. Quite a few small parties seem to end up that way.
But if I'm not mistaken the Swedish green party start out as pretty much a small party with narrow focus. After some initial troubles they broadened their politics and established themselves as a party like the others. The fact that all other parties deal with green issues doesn't mean the end for them.
If the Pirate Party plays the political game well they could concievably make a similar journey. The only trouble I see is how they avoid placing themselves on the right-left scale. Right now it's a perfect strategy, but I doubt it can last forever.
I'll gladly pay for a service like Hulu if I can watch it from outside the US. No silly "this video isn't available in your region". Just show the damn thing and take my money. Preferably, there's a choice between a small fee per episode or a subcription model.
But I expect they won't do that. So in effect, they don't want my money, they like to trouble me online and would rather see me download tv series.
Why does it require perfect information? If it's to work perfectly, sure, but noone is proposing that. Making an informed choice doesn't require perfect information, just good enough information.
Otherwise, we could say that for a planned economy to work, we'd need perfect planning. But that's similarly untrue.
But looking at an online comparison service for ISPs, with every detail I'd like to know, I'm pretty close to perfect information in this case.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd like to see you back up the claim that people are regularly denied healthcare because they're too old in Europe. You make it sound like we put them out to the wolves, if we can find them a cheap enough bus ride out to the forest.
But even if we accept that you're right for the sake of argument, if you're going to deny someone healthcare, it's better to do it because the treatment would help very little, cost a lot and the resources could be better used on someone else, than to deny it because how treatment affects your corporate bottom line and shareholder profit margins.
Also, I'm having trouble envisioning an insurance company who would cut off health care for a young person for some bullshit reason, that would still magnanimously spend millions on adding a few months to an old person's life. But maybe I'm wrong and insurance companies suddenly like to spend a lot of cash on someone who has very few payments left to make. In that case, I'd have to apologize, but I'll hold off on writing my apology just yet.
When we're capable of creating a human-like AI, it would seem trivial in comparison to give it different motivations than we have. Instead of survival, self-fulfillment and such, you create an AI whose purpose is its task. Completing it is like sex to us.
A human slave that has his brain rewired to connect, say, repetetive manual labor with his pleasure centers, won't be a bored slave.
I'm hoping that the EU can strike this down somehow. But IIRC, the European Convention on Human Rights isn't binding, unless the Lisbon treaty is signed, which amusingly Ireland is probably putting a stop to. Also, articles 9 and 10 in the convention would seem to go against blasphemy laws, but both have convenient loopholes for exceptions that are "necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals".
Their three weapons are stupidity, narrow-mindedness and oppression of freedom... and and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.
The Flickr photos were just examples. There are many more. My point was that it pays to ask around.
Aren't the people making you sign permits interested in publically available photos for fans? Judging from the article, PR people seem shocked at the crummy Wikipedia photos. A simple solution would be to have you to release a few photos under a CC license.
I had that problem before with the article on Hayo Miyazaki that I'm contributing to, but I went to Flickr, found a bunch of good, professional-looking pictures of Miyazaki-san and asked the photographers to release their picture under the correct CC license. I got one in less than a a week. The photographer was only glad to help and have his work seen.
A quick search on Flickr quickly reveals a good photo of Ms Berry and Mr Clooney. So, I suggests someone gets to it.
Scientists should rename Uranus to end that silly joke.
I propose the new name should be Urectum.
We have archeologists who dig up the most mundane objects from more than 1000 years ago and make a big deal out of it. I'm sure the guy who wrote his diary on stone tablets back in the day didn't worry about us being interested in his day, or having a way to read it. And yet we do.
As for your other predictions of the future, I'm sure they have about the same level of accuracy as that of a man living 1000 years ago.
I think you mean Crysis with graphics set to maximum.
Now all I need is for every BOINC user to download the HertzaHaeon plays Crysis project.
Just as it did 1910-1920, 1940-1950, 1960-1965 and 1990-1995. If you don't see the overall trend, you might need to check your glasses.
and yet the world has cooled over the last 10 years so one of your assumptions is wrong. Which one is it?
Alternatively, you're wrong. NASA's figures says you are.
I can spot more than five decades of supposed cooling during the 20th century as per you definition, but as you can clearly see the overall trend is not cooling.
If they can't make stuff last, they should makes stuff that can either be reused (like putting old cpu's in toys) or recycled. Intel could design chips so they can easily be turned back into raw materials. Here's a guy who recycles 100% material and makes a good profit on it, besides the obvious environmental benefits.
Nowadays we're also used to pie-in-the-sky technologies that we can imagine, but that are always 10-20 years in the future. Clean fusion energy is one such thing. The free car market in the US has failed to provide green cars so far, while government emission and fuel effiency regulations in other places have given us much cleaner and more efficient cars.
With that said, I'm an AGW proponent but I'm positive that a big part of the solution is technological. I just don't have blind faith in technology, the free market and our own ability to make informed choices and purchases all the time.
"Global warming" is a misleading term. Climate change is better, because it tells us we won't just get warmer. Maybe you'll get warm and dry, or be drenched in more rain, or some such. Rising sea levels might negate any food increase by reducing usable farm land. There are also non-climate effects of increasing CO2 levels to worry about, such as ocean acidification.
Also, I'm guessing you're writing from a part of the world that will be less affected by the effects of climate change and has better means of dealing with them. Not everyone is so lucky.
All the people hurt by big corporations all over the world would like to disagree, like the people in Bhopal. I'm sure you can think of a long list of big and small disasters brought on by corporate greed, corruption or incompetence. You can't simply blame the victims for not knowing they were being lied to, especially no when corporations spend billions to convince them the lies are true. When they're not providing good, truthful information to base your acceptance or rejection on, corporations can ruin your life just as well as any state bureacrat.
As for climate change, there are such corporations such as Exxon that are well-known to spread information that isn't helping anyone to take or leave their products.
You just exploded a few Slashdot heads with that conundrum, I think.
Sony are much closer to the Wii with their motion control wand they showed off at E3.
But I don't really care about who was first. I care only about who does it best. Nintendo have done a great job with the Wii, but they seriously need some competition in the casual market.
The Pirate Party could very well fade away quite quickly after this. Quite a few small parties seem to end up that way.
But if I'm not mistaken the Swedish green party start out as pretty much a small party with narrow focus. After some initial troubles they broadened their politics and established themselves as a party like the others. The fact that all other parties deal with green issues doesn't mean the end for them.
If the Pirate Party plays the political game well they could concievably make a similar journey. The only trouble I see is how they avoid placing themselves on the right-left scale. Right now it's a perfect strategy, but I doubt it can last forever.
I'll gladly pay for a service like Hulu if I can watch it from outside the US. No silly "this video isn't available in your region". Just show the damn thing and take my money. Preferably, there's a choice between a small fee per episode or a subcription model.
But I expect they won't do that. So in effect, they don't want my money, they like to trouble me online and would rather see me download tv series.
This could be a cool tool for playing RPGs (of the pen and paper variant) online.
Use the chat or Skype for talking, and the Wave functions for posting maps and stuff, and clients for rolling dice and such.
I don't know about atmospheric radiation in general, but the 2006 underground nuclear test was confirmed by analyzing trace amounts of radioactive xenon isotopes in the air, as far away as in Canada.
Puritanism - the fear that someone, somewhere, is having fun.
Why does it require perfect information? If it's to work perfectly, sure, but noone is proposing that. Making an informed choice doesn't require perfect information, just good enough information.
Otherwise, we could say that for a planned economy to work, we'd need perfect planning. But that's similarly untrue.
But looking at an online comparison service for ISPs, with every detail I'd like to know, I'm pretty close to perfect information in this case.
True, but parchment was the death of the stone tablet industry back in the day. They must still be hurting, I guess.
That will only last until someone hijacks and crashes trains into the new WTC.