The oil industry pays huge amounts of taxes and it provides the people with all the oil they need for all the uses.
ExxonMobile paid zero taxes in 2009 and 2010.
Also, the reason solar is entirely Chinese-based (both the technology and the manufacturing) is because the oil companies paid their friends in government to make sure America's presence in solar game in the 90's and '00s was marginal.
You're right that government has done a piss poor job of "running the eonomy" when it comes to energy, but you're entirely wrong about the reasons.
Hmm. I know quite a few rich people, because part of my job is working with donors to my University. *Most inherited their wealth. *Those who didn't came from well-off families, who got them jobs out of college or funded their businesses. *Those who are self-made generally made their fortune selling real estate, or on Wall Street (so they produced nothing). *There are a handful (out of hundreds) who started a business (bars, dry cleaners, etc.) and made their fortune by working really, really hard, then buying out the competition, which put all those other small business owners out of work.
But it's all immaterial; it's very rare for Americans to move out of their parents social class, because the people who surround you make up you safety net. Poor people who fail have nothing to fall back on, and will go from having a little to being destitute. Rich people who fail will still be rich.
Had I not reported the burglary I could have wound up in prison for those damned stolen checks.
No, you couldn't have. Had there been substantial evidence that YOU had personally written them (and I mean witnesses identifying you, you on camera doing it, etc.) you MIGHT have gone a jail for a brief period.
Can you imagine the effect on society if you could buy heroin the way you can buy cigarettes?
In high school I could get cocaine and marijuana much easier than I could get alcohol or cigarettes. 2 of those were perfectly legal, but controlled. The others were fully illegal, but available with a simple phone call.
That's why we smoked so much pot; beer was a PITA to obtain, and much more expensive to get a weekend's worth.
For me Siri is unusable because I listen to music and podcasts (at a fairly low volume at that), and Siri can't differentiate background noise, music, talk radio, and me giving commands. I don't get how voice control could be useful in a car unless you keep it silent.
I get annoyed with the assumption that the music, movie and even book publishing industry is in any form of terminal decline. These industries have seen substantial growth over the last decade and are as profitable as ever.
This is true of movies and music. It is demonstrably NOT true of book publishing.
People who want to create a better life for their families within the context of an oppressive regime queue for choice spaces that could potentially help them, and put a little more food on their table.
What good would public opinion do in this case? Those who would boycott Universal have done so for years. At most a real outcry might prod someone in Washington to act, but I'd argue that if that were going to happen, it would have happened after the Dajaz1.com incident.
The main difference I see is that, if you don't believe in evolution, you throw away our understanding of geology, paleontology, pathology, and immunology. Large-scale rejection of evolution sets all of science back hundreds of years.
Climatology (as affected by global warming) isn't a unifying scientific theory. Its importance to us is purely predictive. And while this is worthwhile, comparing its dismissal to that of evolution is ridiculous.
Don't confuse "conservative" with "Republican." The 2 are not even tangentially related, no matter what Republicans would have you believe. (And if you have any doubt, take a look at the size and scope of the Federal government (and the deficit) under Republican administrations since 1980.)
VCR's are mechanical, and so are prone to breaking. TVs are already computers, so adding features is trivial. Do you also argue that your desktop shouldn't play music? After all, that's one more thing that might break.
As long as we have any publicly funded health care, then government is paying for the health consequences of smoking. With that in mind, why is it wrong to tax a behavior that increases an individual's societal burden?
Then where's my big tax break for working out 3 times per week, not smoking, and eating healthy?
There is pretty much zero chance anyone in the private sector is going to sink any money in to interstellar space travel
There's a fair amount of private sector money flowing into space travel now (not specifically interstellar, but have you to walk before you can run). Bigelow Aerospace in Las Vegas is one example (although they've had some cutbacks recently thanks to what Bigelow refers to as the "Obama recession").
It would be hard to argue that working towards private space flight/exploration won't have a vast effect on interstellar study. It would be equally hard to argue that focusing on interstellar travel (one of many, many things DARPA is doing right now) won't have vast, ongoing short-term effects on space flight (and many, many other types of) research, so I'm not sure why you're criticizing it as a long-term goal.
If the teacher doesn't know how to use a smartboard, all involved will suffer. Having a teacher using tech products who doesn't know anything about technology is like having a teacher using textbooks who can't figure out what a book is. A good teacher is an expert not only in the field they're teaching, but in the tools they're using to teach. That doesn't mean they need to know everything about the technology -- they just need to know what it does so they can use it effectively, and how it works so they can troubleshoot if something goes wrong.
I went to grad school almost entirely online. It was very challenging, but I learned just as much as if I'd been in the classroom (not least because, in many cases, I was -- just virtually). I also had a few professors who had no understanding of the technology -- their classes were usually just a waste of time. Some of them had to have WebCT sites, and they'd do such a piss poor job of creating a functional information architecture that actually doing the work meant calling them at home and walking them through using the software (that was 8 years ago, btw. Today every professor at my university has to have an online presence, and it's the same. Some get it and some refuse.)
So to the OP I say this: If ALL the kids did was play games, the fault is with your wife. She wasn't using the tool effectively, and had no control over her classroom.
> authors like J.K Rowling (who IMO don't contribute to the advancement of knowledge)
Right. Because there's nothing to be gained from getting kids to enjoy reading. It's not like they'll carry that forward later into life.
That's an indirect contribution, which would be ineligible for government funds. Write a few grants and see how well such logic translates into funding (which is GP's point about the current system).
Obvious problem: "Rich" people have more money today relative to the rest of us than at any time before 1930.
So if your belief is correct, unemployment is at an all-time low and the economy is humming along nicely.
Illogical beliefs become inconvenient when facts are involved.
What killed the Witch-king? Logically, a magic sword. Thematically, heart and courage.
The movie did just fine.
In that case, why not just make a whole 'nuther movie about "heart and courage" rather than fucking up a story that's already considered a classic just because you feel like it? Hell, why not set it all in present day, remove all magic, and change everyone's name?
Honestly, I don't care either way -- I haven't seen the movies and barely remember the books. But your argument is ridiculous. A movie version of LoTR should be LoTR; not some other story about "heart and courage."
Ater my knee surgeries (also caused by motorcycle accidents!) I was given ridiculous amounts of hydrocodone. Like, a 3-month's supply, plus a refill. More than I could ever have needed for knee pain. In both cases, I used it as an occasional sleep aid for 2 years.
But I also occasionally have back problems, and exactly 1 thing can help me: taking an opiate and a muscle relaxer and staying in bed for a day or 2. But because so many junkies use "back pain" as an excuse to get a fix, and because so many junkies got that way because of medication given to them for back problems, I have a hell of a time finding a doctor to prescribe it, even in very small doses.
I've gotten to the point that I no longer even go see a doctor when I get a flair up; there are always other ways to get pills. It costs more since insurance doesn't cover it, but for under $20 ($3 a pill) I can get the treatment I need and that many doctors will flat out refuse to give me.
Slashdot Mirror
The oil industry pays huge amounts of taxes and it provides the people with all the oil they need for all the uses.
ExxonMobile paid zero taxes in 2009 and 2010.
Also, the reason solar is entirely Chinese-based (both the technology and the manufacturing) is because the oil companies paid their friends in government to make sure America's presence in solar game in the 90's and '00s was marginal.
You're right that government has done a piss poor job of "running the eonomy" when it comes to energy, but you're entirely wrong about the reasons.
Hmm. I know quite a few rich people, because part of my job is working with donors to my University.
/.
*Most inherited their wealth.
*Those who didn't came from well-off families, who got them jobs out of college or funded their businesses.
*Those who are self-made generally made their fortune selling real estate, or on Wall Street (so they produced nothing).
*There are a handful (out of hundreds) who started a business (bars, dry cleaners, etc.) and made their fortune by working really, really hard, then buying out the competition, which put all those other small business owners out of work.
But it's all immaterial; it's very rare for Americans to move out of their parents social class, because the people who surround you make up you safety net. Poor people who fail have nothing to fall back on, and will go from having a little to being destitute. Rich people who fail will still be rich.
But let's face it, if all it took to be wealthy was hard work, you wouldn't be posting on
Had I not reported the burglary I could have wound up in prison for those damned stolen checks.
No, you couldn't have. Had there been substantial evidence that YOU had personally written them (and I mean witnesses identifying you, you on camera doing it, etc.) you MIGHT have gone a jail for a brief period.
Can you imagine the effect on society if you could buy heroin the way you can buy cigarettes?
In high school I could get cocaine and marijuana much easier than I could get alcohol or cigarettes. 2 of those were perfectly legal, but controlled. The others were fully illegal, but available with a simple phone call.
That's why we smoked so much pot; beer was a PITA to obtain, and much more expensive to get a weekend's worth.
This will help you with image quality, but will do NOTHING to solve the central problem that Nokia wanted to solve.
RTFA, fercrissakes.
Deference is earned.
For me Siri is unusable because I listen to music and podcasts (at a fairly low volume at that), and Siri can't differentiate background noise, music, talk radio, and me giving commands. I don't get how voice control could be useful in a car unless you keep it silent.
OpenOffice.org is in version 3.3.0 and remarkably worse than LibreOffice. LibreOffice has way more future.
I agree, but I run OpenOffice Portable in Dropbox. LibreOffice is much larger, and OO does what I need it to.
I get annoyed with the assumption that the music, movie and even book publishing industry is in any form of terminal decline. These industries have seen substantial growth over the last decade and are as profitable as ever.
This is true of movies and music. It is demonstrably NOT true of book publishing.
People who want to create a better life for their families within the context of an oppressive regime queue for choice spaces that could potentially help them, and put a little more food on their table.
I wish them luck.
Public opinion: priceless.
What good would public opinion do in this case? Those who would boycott Universal have done so for years. At most a real outcry might prod someone in Washington to act, but I'd argue that if that were going to happen, it would have happened after the Dajaz1.com incident.
I really wish the Republican crowd would lose the dissonance about huge government.
/. crowd leans more libertarian than Republican. This is the "dissonance" you're seeing.
Love the PATRIOT ACT.
Love the loss of privacy and freedom (habeas corpus & due process suck!)
Love any and all military action.
Love vast expansion of the deficit, as long as it's by Republicans.
Hate the idea of taxes being spent health care (except Medicare part D, a givaway to Big Pharma) and education.
I'd venture to say that most of the
The main difference I see is that, if you don't believe in evolution, you throw away our understanding of geology, paleontology, pathology, and immunology. Large-scale rejection of evolution sets all of science back hundreds of years.
Climatology (as affected by global warming) isn't a unifying scientific theory. Its importance to us is purely predictive. And while this is worthwhile, comparing its dismissal to that of evolution is ridiculous.
Don't confuse "conservative" with "Republican." The 2 are not even tangentially related, no matter what Republicans would have you believe. (And if you have any doubt, take a look at the size and scope of the Federal government (and the deficit) under Republican administrations since 1980.)
VCR's are mechanical, and so are prone to breaking. TVs are already computers, so adding features is trivial. Do you also argue that your desktop shouldn't play music? After all, that's one more thing that might break.
I live in Vegas and get a free pass every year. I can either go to CES or sit in a cubicle -- either way, I get paid.
So I go to CES.
As long as we have any publicly funded health care, then government is paying for the health consequences of smoking. With that in mind, why is it wrong to tax a behavior that increases an individual's societal burden?
Then where's my big tax break for working out 3 times per week, not smoking, and eating healthy?
Oh, wait. Maybe the tobacco tax has nothing to do with health care and is just a money grab.
There is pretty much zero chance anyone in the private sector is going to sink any money in to interstellar space travel
There's a fair amount of private sector money flowing into space travel now (not specifically interstellar, but have you to walk before you can run). Bigelow Aerospace in Las Vegas is one example (although they've had some cutbacks recently thanks to what Bigelow refers to as the "Obama recession").
It would be hard to argue that working towards private space flight/exploration won't have a vast effect on interstellar study. It would be equally hard to argue that focusing on interstellar travel (one of many, many things DARPA is doing right now) won't have vast, ongoing short-term effects on space flight (and many, many other types of) research, so I'm not sure why you're criticizing it as a long-term goal.
Professors are not allowed to collect royalties for books sold at the same college where they teach.
As an academic librarian, I can say with absolute certainty that this is only true at a handful of universities, and is nearly impossible to enforce.
If the teacher doesn't know how to use a smartboard, all involved will suffer. Having a teacher using tech products who doesn't know anything about technology is like having a teacher using textbooks who can't figure out what a book is. A good teacher is an expert not only in the field they're teaching, but in the tools they're using to teach. That doesn't mean they need to know everything about the technology -- they just need to know what it does so they can use it effectively, and how it works so they can troubleshoot if something goes wrong.
I went to grad school almost entirely online. It was very challenging, but I learned just as much as if I'd been in the classroom (not least because, in many cases, I was -- just virtually). I also had a few professors who had no understanding of the technology -- their classes were usually just a waste of time. Some of them had to have WebCT sites, and they'd do such a piss poor job of creating a functional information architecture that actually doing the work meant calling them at home and walking them through using the software (that was 8 years ago, btw. Today every professor at my university has to have an online presence, and it's the same. Some get it and some refuse.)
So to the OP I say this: If ALL the kids did was play games, the fault is with your wife. She wasn't using the tool effectively, and had no control over her classroom.
> authors like J.K Rowling (who IMO don't contribute to the advancement of knowledge)
Right. Because there's nothing to be gained from getting kids to enjoy reading. It's not like they'll carry that forward later into life.
That's an indirect contribution, which would be ineligible for government funds. Write a few grants and see how well such logic translates into funding (which is GP's point about the current system).
Obvious problem: "Rich" people have more money today relative to the rest of us than at any time before 1930. So if your belief is correct, unemployment is at an all-time low and the economy is humming along nicely.
Illogical beliefs become inconvenient when facts are involved.
He meant Mexican ebay.
What killed the Witch-king? Logically, a magic sword. Thematically, heart and courage.
The movie did just fine.
In that case, why not just make a whole 'nuther movie about "heart and courage" rather than fucking up a story that's already considered a classic just because you feel like it? Hell, why not set it all in present day, remove all magic, and change everyone's name?
Honestly, I don't care either way -- I haven't seen the movies and barely remember the books. But your argument is ridiculous. A movie version of LoTR should be LoTR; not some other story about "heart and courage."
I've been on both sides of this:
Ater my knee surgeries (also caused by motorcycle accidents!) I was given ridiculous amounts of hydrocodone. Like, a 3-month's supply, plus a refill. More than I could ever have needed for knee pain. In both cases, I used it as an occasional sleep aid for 2 years.
But I also occasionally have back problems, and exactly 1 thing can help me: taking an opiate and a muscle relaxer and staying in bed for a day or 2. But because so many junkies use "back pain" as an excuse to get a fix, and because so many junkies got that way because of medication given to them for back problems, I have a hell of a time finding a doctor to prescribe it, even in very small doses.
I've gotten to the point that I no longer even go see a doctor when I get a flair up; there are always other ways to get pills. It costs more since insurance doesn't cover it, but for under $20 ($3 a pill) I can get the treatment I need and that many doctors will flat out refuse to give me.