Seriously, probably 2/3 of my time is allocated to just sending and receiving emails. And I work in a major, highly profitable company. I just don't understand how we do it.
Labor-saving devices at all levels of your operation, painstakingly integrated into your operation over more years than you've been alive, allow you to get more work done than previous generations even in the face of greater distractions.
(Indeed, it allows your employer to grow into a major, highly profitable company even while employing people who don't have any clue how the company actually runs.)
Are you seriously arguing there's been no "true" software innovation since Microsoft released Window Manager?
Not only will the OS innovators of the past twenty years have some very harsh words for you, but all the hundreds of thousands of innovators working on software that has nothing at all to do with PC operating systems will probably want to point and laugh at you.
On second thought, I dunno. I mean, the trickle-down effect is great and all, but it's not what you'd call a major effect over a short period of time.
I don't think you can make a rapid, major change to a large company, then wave your "trickle-down effect" wand and magically make the short-term problems go away.
but many in America still have an irrational fear of sciences that they do not, and can not, understand... Very few people... understand how stem cells may help medical science. Without helping them understand (politicians included), we still have a long way to go before the public openly accepts stem cell research and is comfortable in pumping large amounts of tax money into the research system.
Are you talking about the Americans in the Federal government who are quite happy to fund all kinds of stem cell research, except the one or two kinds that involve destroying human embryos?
Or are you talking about the Americans in California, who are quite happy to fund even embryonic stem cell research?
As it turns out, Americans are actually quite comfortable pumping large amounts of tax money into the (stem cell) research system. You really shouldn't believe all the media hype, or the partisan rhetoric.
I can't speak about "many" people like you, but it seems to me like you in particular have an irrational fear of Americans and their scientific attitudes.
With the next generation of telescope, we should be able to see earth size planets around other stars than our sun.
And this affects Pluto's status how?
In a few generation, we may see Pluton size objects.
And this affects Pluto's status how?
In Our Solar system, we may see shoe size object around pluto. Would that be a moon of Pluto?
We may indeed. And calling it a Plutonian moon works for me. Do you have a problem with such a thing?
Teatcher : What are the name of the 394956874 moons of Neptune?
Would this be the same teacher that quizzed me on the names of all the asteroids in the Asteroid Belt, the names of all the nebulae in the Milky Way, and the names of all the galaxies in the Universe?
Ah, the magical switch that flips when a kid turns 18, making him a responsible adult....
The switch flips somewhere between 14 and 21 for most people, I think, with the majority flipping somewhere between 16 and 17.
We give the slow starters an extra year to get up to speed, on account of there seems to be a consensus among the responsible adults that it's better to hold back the rare mature 14 year-old than to give an immature 17 year-old adult responsibility before he's had a chance to learn whatever valuable life lesson it is that will (hopefully) flip that switch for him in the coming year.
It's not so much that there's a switch at all, though. It's more like we give people a good long window in which to mature, before we give them the responsibilities of a mature adult. Of course there are statistical outliers, but mostly the system works out pretty well.
Obviously every field of human activity is different. Fields that have a lot of free market competition will tend to pass production costs on to the consumer much more readily than fields that have little to no competition, and are further encumbered by government bureaucracy.
In essence, I dispute the OP's implication that there's a worldwide energy technology conspiracy, that will conspire to keep energy prices high in the face of a free energy device.
Which makes this totally unlike the Galileo situation.
I mean, seriously. These guys claim to have made "the discovery of the millennium", and they're avoiding timely scientific validation because they want to keep the patent?
Either they should be lynched for trying to hoard the salvation of the world, or they should be ignored as charlatans.
Fair enough, but Galileo could actually show his work and prove his case mathematically, so that his critics were obviously wrong when they contradicted him for polical or social reasons.
This is very different from what's going on here, where the claimants aren't showing their work, don't provide a mathematical proof, and can't demonstrate that their critics are wrong to contradict their claims for scientific and technical reasons.
Actually, people think of more efficient ways to do work all the time, with the result being that things are constantly getting cheaper, and the savings are being passed on to you, because of human greed.
Clearly this is all just a cover. The Templars are using Consumer Reports as a cover to train a stable of elite Black Hat hackers, with which to take over the world. They're in a race against Communist China, the Russian Mob, and the NSA.
First, I'm accusing the ACLU of judge-shopping. Now, this is wrong. I totally misunderstood the situation, and jumped to a conclusion without doing proper research. I have no evidence that the ACLU engaged in judge-shopping in order to get this decision. Some people, including myself, have formed the opinion that the ACLU shopped for a judge in this case. But that's just an opinion. I do not know if there are any facts which support it.
Second, I'm arguing that judge-shopping undermines the justice system. When organizations do go shopping for judges, it undermines the justice system and discredits the legal victory the judge-shopper seeks. If the ACLU were judge-shopping, it would undermine the justice system by definition.
However, the second thing is pretty much moot, since I was wrong about the ACLU judge-shopping in this case. I think it's still interesting as a hypothetical case, and as something to take seriously and think deeply about the next time my favorite activists win a legal victory for my faction.
I think that what you see as the people's inability to overthrow the government is actually nothing more than governing authority being shared by several million people who don't all agree on anything. I am not at all surprised nor at all bitter that my idea of how to run this country never seems to get implemented. Even my elected representatives, in addition to being fallible human beings in their own right, are also the elected representatives of hundreds of thousands of my fellow citizens, none of whom actually agree with me on all or even any aspects of governmental policy.
I chalk it all up to simply being how democracy works, especially when that democracy's system of government was precision-engineered to damp tendencies towards radical, meaningful changes in policy.
Some people look at a goverment that doesn't do what they want and assume the government is broken. I assume it's working perfectly, and that mostly what people want is broken--if not for them, then for their fellow citizens.
I know the two examples are very different, but the underlying principles: the ends justify the means, fight fire with fire, and two wrongs make a right; all seem universally applicable.
If we are justified in defeating government evil by engaging in the same evil ourselves, then it seems to me that the same philisophy that provides that justification also provides justification for destroying the village to save the village.
In fact, I think that the underlying philosophy is bankrupt for that very reason, and that we are not actually helped when the ACLU reacts to politicians undermining the justice system by further undermining the justice system themselves.
When politicians undermine the justice system, it is to their discredit. It reveals them as corrupt and incompetent, and devalues everything they do. It also devalues the justice system itself. We can't trust a politician who says the courts are on his side, and we can't trust courts when they side with politicians.
Likewise, when the ACLU uses the same tactics, they may score a few points against politicians, but only at the price of making their score meaningless. We can no longer point to the legal victories of the ACLU and say that they mean something, because the ACLU has sacrificed meaning for victory.
We can't even say that the ACLU had to commit a small evil to achieve a great good, because we only have the ACLU's word that they have achieved a great good. Instead of turning to the judiciary as an independent arbitrator that will give constitutional weight to the ACLU's legal opinion, the ACLU cynically uses the judiciary as a propaganda mouthpiece for their legal opinion.
And while the branches of government have checks and balances to mitigate the effects of incompetent and corruption, and elections to give the citizenry itself some voice and authority in government, the ACLU has neither of these things. This judge-shopping tactic undermines the only thing remotely like an independent arbitrator with proper binding authority over the nation, without actually increasing the ACLU's credibility or the validity of the ACLU's opinion.
Good point. For some reason, I was under the impression that another judge, on another circuit, had already ruled the other way. But a quick Google search turns up nothing like that.
Kinda undermines my whole primary argument, doesn't it?
I could say that the Executive and Legislative branches are co-equal in authority to the Judiciary branch, and that therefore the Administration's claim--absent arbitration by the Supreme Court--carries just as much authority as the claim of a circuit court judge, but that formulation doesn't carry quite the same pep.
Ah, well.
At least my secondary arguments still stand, since I still see this as a case of judge-shopping, and I still think that such things undermine the ACLU's value to us as citizens.
Thank you, Ms. Coulter. You have been uncharacteristicly civil in advocating your position. Have an Opus Day.
Aaah, Internet sarcasm at its finest.
I take it, then, that you can't actually find anything wrong with my position, on account of you'd be pointing out its flaws rather than calling me names, if that were the case.
Slashdot Mirror
Labor-saving devices at all levels of your operation, painstakingly integrated into your operation over more years than you've been alive, allow you to get more work done than previous generations even in the face of greater distractions.
(Indeed, it allows your employer to grow into a major, highly profitable company even while employing people who don't have any clue how the company actually runs.)
Are you seriously arguing there's been no "true" software innovation since Microsoft released Window Manager?
Not only will the OS innovators of the past twenty years have some very harsh words for you, but all the hundreds of thousands of innovators working on software that has nothing at all to do with PC operating systems will probably want to point and laugh at you.
If you say so.
On second thought, I dunno. I mean, the trickle-down effect is great and all, but it's not what you'd call a major effect over a short period of time.
I don't think you can make a rapid, major change to a large company, then wave your "trickle-down effect" wand and magically make the short-term problems go away.
Oh, totally. All those jobs aren't really necessary in today's economy anyway.
How does cutting R&D and the workforce = good business plan?
And why would Microsoft need to borrow "megabillions" anyway, let alone at the cost of their workforce and R&D?
Are you talking about the Americans in the Federal government who are quite happy to fund all kinds of stem cell research, except the one or two kinds that involve destroying human embryos?
Or are you talking about the Americans in California, who are quite happy to fund even embryonic stem cell research?
As it turns out, Americans are actually quite comfortable pumping large amounts of tax money into the (stem cell) research system. You really shouldn't believe all the media hype, or the partisan rhetoric.
I can't speak about "many" people like you, but it seems to me like you in particular have an irrational fear of Americans and their scientific attitudes.
And this affects Pluto's status how?
And this affects Pluto's status how?
We may indeed. And calling it a Plutonian moon works for me. Do you have a problem with such a thing?
Would this be the same teacher that quizzed me on the names of all the asteroids in the Asteroid Belt, the names of all the nebulae in the Milky Way, and the names of all the galaxies in the Universe?
Works for me. As far as I can tell, the whole of society is long overdue for a proper sorting-out.
The switch flips somewhere between 14 and 21 for most people, I think, with the majority flipping somewhere between 16 and 17.
We give the slow starters an extra year to get up to speed, on account of there seems to be a consensus among the responsible adults that it's better to hold back the rare mature 14 year-old than to give an immature 17 year-old adult responsibility before he's had a chance to learn whatever valuable life lesson it is that will (hopefully) flip that switch for him in the coming year.
It's not so much that there's a switch at all, though. It's more like we give people a good long window in which to mature, before we give them the responsibilities of a mature adult. Of course there are statistical outliers, but mostly the system works out pretty well.
I am curious to know more about your idea, that a community can be organized without in some practical sense being governed.
Please tell me more.
Obviously every field of human activity is different. Fields that have a lot of free market competition will tend to pass production costs on to the consumer much more readily than fields that have little to no competition, and are further encumbered by government bureaucracy.
In essence, I dispute the OP's implication that there's a worldwide energy technology conspiracy, that will conspire to keep energy prices high in the face of a free energy device.
PC components are cheaper now than they were ten years ago.
Automobiles are cheaper now than they were ten years ago.
Advanced technology weapons are cheaper now than they were ten years ago.
Everything in your life is cheaper now than it was ten years ago, all on account of innovations in efficiency.
You're just too busy hating Bush to engage reality.
Which makes this totally unlike the Galileo situation.
I mean, seriously. These guys claim to have made "the discovery of the millennium", and they're avoiding timely scientific validation because they want to keep the patent?
Either they should be lynched for trying to hoard the salvation of the world, or they should be ignored as charlatans.
Sorry, I'm not sure where you're seeing hostility in my reply.
I certainly didn't feel hostile when I wrote it, only helpful.
Why the paranoia?
Fair enough, but Galileo could actually show his work and prove his case mathematically, so that his critics were obviously wrong when they contradicted him for polical or social reasons.
This is very different from what's going on here, where the claimants aren't showing their work, don't provide a mathematical proof, and can't demonstrate that their critics are wrong to contradict their claims for scientific and technical reasons.
Actually, people think of more efficient ways to do work all the time, with the result being that things are constantly getting cheaper, and the savings are being passed on to you, because of human greed.
Clearly this is all just a cover. The Templars are using Consumer Reports as a cover to train a stable of elite Black Hat hackers, with which to take over the world. They're in a race against Communist China, the Russian Mob, and the NSA.
Actually, I'm doing two different things here.
First, I'm accusing the ACLU of judge-shopping. Now, this is wrong. I totally misunderstood the situation, and jumped to a conclusion without doing proper research. I have no evidence that the ACLU engaged in judge-shopping in order to get this decision. Some people, including myself, have formed the opinion that the ACLU shopped for a judge in this case. But that's just an opinion. I do not know if there are any facts which support it.
Second, I'm arguing that judge-shopping undermines the justice system. When organizations do go shopping for judges, it undermines the justice system and discredits the legal victory the judge-shopper seeks. If the ACLU were judge-shopping, it would undermine the justice system by definition.
However, the second thing is pretty much moot, since I was wrong about the ACLU judge-shopping in this case. I think it's still interesting as a hypothetical case, and as something to take seriously and think deeply about the next time my favorite activists win a legal victory for my faction.
HTH. HAND.
I think that what you see as the people's inability to overthrow the government is actually nothing more than governing authority being shared by several million people who don't all agree on anything. I am not at all surprised nor at all bitter that my idea of how to run this country never seems to get implemented. Even my elected representatives, in addition to being fallible human beings in their own right, are also the elected representatives of hundreds of thousands of my fellow citizens, none of whom actually agree with me on all or even any aspects of governmental policy.
I chalk it all up to simply being how democracy works, especially when that democracy's system of government was precision-engineered to damp tendencies towards radical, meaningful changes in policy.
Some people look at a goverment that doesn't do what they want and assume the government is broken. I assume it's working perfectly, and that mostly what people want is broken--if not for them, then for their fellow citizens.
I know the two examples are very different, but the underlying principles: the ends justify the means, fight fire with fire, and two wrongs make a right; all seem universally applicable.
If we are justified in defeating government evil by engaging in the same evil ourselves, then it seems to me that the same philisophy that provides that justification also provides justification for destroying the village to save the village.
In fact, I think that the underlying philosophy is bankrupt for that very reason, and that we are not actually helped when the ACLU reacts to politicians undermining the justice system by further undermining the justice system themselves.
When politicians undermine the justice system, it is to their discredit. It reveals them as corrupt and incompetent, and devalues everything they do. It also devalues the justice system itself. We can't trust a politician who says the courts are on his side, and we can't trust courts when they side with politicians.
Likewise, when the ACLU uses the same tactics, they may score a few points against politicians, but only at the price of making their score meaningless. We can no longer point to the legal victories of the ACLU and say that they mean something, because the ACLU has sacrificed meaning for victory.
We can't even say that the ACLU had to commit a small evil to achieve a great good, because we only have the ACLU's word that they have achieved a great good. Instead of turning to the judiciary as an independent arbitrator that will give constitutional weight to the ACLU's legal opinion, the ACLU cynically uses the judiciary as a propaganda mouthpiece for their legal opinion.
And while the branches of government have checks and balances to mitigate the effects of incompetent and corruption, and elections to give the citizenry itself some voice and authority in government, the ACLU has neither of these things. This judge-shopping tactic undermines the only thing remotely like an independent arbitrator with proper binding authority over the nation, without actually increasing the ACLU's credibility or the validity of the ACLU's opinion.
Wolfgang Pauli was a well-established expert in his field.
Who the fuck are you?
Actually, I can't. You're not the first person to raise questions of this nature. I'm in the process of rethinking my point here.
Thank you for providing such a compact justification for fighting terrorism with terrorism. Can we stop blaming Israel for bombing civilians now, too?
Hrm.
Good point. For some reason, I was under the impression that another judge, on another circuit, had already ruled the other way. But a quick Google search turns up nothing like that.
Kinda undermines my whole primary argument, doesn't it?
I could say that the Executive and Legislative branches are co-equal in authority to the Judiciary branch, and that therefore the Administration's claim--absent arbitration by the Supreme Court--carries just as much authority as the claim of a circuit court judge, but that formulation doesn't carry quite the same pep.
Ah, well.
At least my secondary arguments still stand, since I still see this as a case of judge-shopping, and I still think that such things undermine the ACLU's value to us as citizens.
Aaah, Internet sarcasm at its finest.
I take it, then, that you can't actually find anything wrong with my position, on account of you'd be pointing out its flaws rather than calling me names, if that were the case.