If you admit context, then I can even do it with "black":
"Bob is a typical black man. Raised by a caring mother and hard-working father in the 70s, he served 4 years in the US Army before obtaining a degree in Something from A University. Today he works as a Some Job and lives with his wife and two children."
Without context, I'd say that "soldier", "father", "mother", "worker", "student", and many others would qualify in addition to "white". Individuals may take offense at such phrases but they are not going to have the universal disapproval that you'd get from "black".
Why would she want of remove herself? She has bargaining power and the presidency is all about ambition and power. Why would anyone torture themselves and their families otherwise? Yes, that's what I said. If she is absolutely selfish, which she may very well be, then she has no reason to remove herself exactly as you say. On the other hand if she cares about her party or her country then she has plenty of reasons.
It's a defining factor in stereotypes, certainly. And yes, it's only racist if it's bad. Technically, in the sense that it's "racist" to use race as a defining characteristic in any way then yes, it's racist no matter what, but nobody cares if you do this in a good way. It's not offensive.
The phrase "Typical X person" is not inherently bad, even when X is the color of their skin. It is perfectly valid to talk about the habits, outlook, social status, etc. of the typical example of a particular race. Where it gets offensive is when the stereotype being invoked is negative. In my opinion the use of this phrase with "white" does not invoke a negative stereotype, simply because anti-white racism is relatively rare in the US, whereas the use of this phrase with "black" does invoke a negative stereotype precisely because anti-black racism was and is still common.
If I were thinking of neutrons, I would have said neutrons.
The name "neutrino" is in fact a play on the word "neutron". It is so called because "neutrino" is a diminutive form of "neutron" in Italian, the native language of Enrico Fermi, who created the name. The name was chosen because neutrinos, like neutrons, are neutrally charged but they have much smaller (possibly no) mass.
You're the one who said it would be racist. You can't then turn around and criticize me for this idea.
In any case, you are incorrect. My opinion of this phrase does not reflect on my opinion of black people. It reflects on my opinion of the general stereotype which this phrase creates in the minds of the general population. This is not a particularly difficult concept to grasp.
As for which party consists of racists, I'm sure they both are far more racist than I am. I have many friends of many races and really just don't care about it, but at the same time I realize that the issue is still deeply embedded in society, and there are a lot of phrases which you can say about white people without implying anything bad which suddenly become vastly more harmful when you substitute "black" for "white".
It is. So what? "Typical black person" brings up a negative stereotype, whereas "typical white person" generally does not. You may not like this, but that is how it is.
How is it ridiculous? You're claiming a matter of opinion as being a matter of fact. Whether you want someone as President is a matter of opinion. A whole lot of people have the opinion that Obama is the right man for the job, and I have seen no evidence that every single one of them is profoundly ignorant about the man.
Politics is the most opinionated field known to man. There are essentially no facts to be had in the entire field, aside from obvious and mundane stuff such as who held what office when. One of the major problems with the USA today is that a huge number of people simply can't grasp this idea. They think that politics is a matter consisting only of facts, unsurprisingly facts which lead to the inevitable conclusion which perfectly matches their position on every issue. They think that people who hold differing opinions are either mistaken or malicious, and thus that differing opinions are not worthwhile. This destroys political discourse and the possibility of compromise, because neither side really takes the other side seriously. You are one of these people, and thus you are what's wrong with America today.
Did you ever hear about a country called Japan, and how they bombed the crap out of a piece of Hawaii and took over the Philippines, both of which were American territories at the time? The Asian theater was definitely America's war.
Actually, if you run time backwards then things still fall down. Think about throwing a ball up in the air. It goes up, comes down, hits the ground, and its energy dissipates into vibrations in the ground. If you run it backwards, random vibrations in the ground come together to launch the ball into the air. It goes up, then falls back down into your hand.
Also I think that business with antimatter being normal matter going backwards in time was only for electrons and positrons.
Are you sure you have a degree in physics? Neutrinos have no charge, and thus are not affected by electromagnetic fields. The name sounds like "neutral" because of this. If they were charged they would be called something else.
I've certainly noticed. I haven't paid that much attention to his campaign in general, but the TV ads which I've seen have been disturbingly content-free.
On the other hand, it may just mean that he's more up-front about it than the others.
In the end, I'd rather have someone who's all air and no substance than someone with a lot of substance, most of it bad. Of course I'd rather not have to make that choice in the first place, but that is not the world we live in.
My grandmother is a typical white woman. It's just the facts, not derogatory in any way.
Historically the Republicans have plenty of ties to terrorists, and nobody seems to care.
It's entirely possible to love and admire your spiritual advisor while thinking that his more worldly theories are insane. There is at least one person in my life like that, although his theories are somewhat more tame.
But anyone who has done research on this man doesn't want him as president. I'm utterly sick of this kind of bullshit talk. If you don't like him, fine. Say so. But saying that it is impossible to like him if you know him is ridiculous. Plenty of people do. Accept that other people can have opinions which do not match yours.
She only has no practical reason to "go away" if she is absolutely selfish, something which I concede may very well be the case. If she cares at all about her party or her country then she'll admit defeat and get her ass in gear promoting Obama to the masses in every way possible.
I say this as a dedicated third-party supporter who thinks that every serious Presidential candidate fielded over the past decade or so has been completely useless, from either major party.
Security and safety are not binary properties. Macs are perfectly safe out of the box, particularly if you're talking about security from remote exploits, which is how people generally use the term. But if you want to take it further and get even more out of it, this is how. It's probably mostly an exercise in paranoia, although I imagine there are quite a few tips in there which will help prevent data loss in the event that the machine is physically stolen.
Also, they're physics teachers, not history teachers. Get your history from those who have been trained in it. You shouldn't even trust what your teachers tell you in their area of expertise, much less random stuff that they tell you that's completely outside of it.
I don't understand what this exercise is supposed to prove, other than the blindingly obvious fact that upperclassmen have on average lived in that town for much longer and thus know it much better.
I tend to agree, but I still think that a government such as China's will be able to make more use of such a system than, say, the UK's.
One reason is because China can probably hire more people to integrate with such a system, both to watch the cameras and to respond on the street, simply because Chinese people work so cheap and they spend much less money on social programs and other such things.
Another reason is that Chinese police may be more willing to act on vague activities, and be more willing to carry through those actions further. For example, if a group of people get together at an odd time of day and talk for a while but do nothing else, I assume (hope?) that British police will just shrug it off. Chinese police may start keeping track of them or pay them a visit, and this could lead to worse.
And lastly, oppressive countries have more public crimes. Think about participating in an unsanctioned demonstration, for example. In the UK mostly nobody cares, but if you do this in China then bad things happen soon. An extensive camera network significantly reduces your chances of being able to get away from something like that without punishment, and thus having such an extensive camera network will cut down on such demonstrations in the first place, even if it doesn't help with what Westerners would consider to be "real" crime.
From what I can tell from watching my wife buy melons and tasting the result, the technique is to hit them with the flat of your hand, listen to the sound they make, and then after doing this to about a dozen, choose one completely at random and hope for the best.
Re:If it hasn't worked for England, why anywhere?
on
China's All-Seeing Eye
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I believe that the unspoken opinion on Slashdot is that cameras are only useless in free societies, and that totalitarian societies are much better able to make use of them. This is how people are simultaneously able to hold the opinion that 1984 warned us about all of this and these cameras aren't all that useful anyway.
I'm not even sure that this unspoken opinion is wrong. If cameras can be sufficiently automated, or even just enough people can be put on duty watching them, then they can be used to compile behavior habits which don't pass the threshold of crime but which can be used for other oppressive purposes. The big worry with the proliferation of cameras in free societies is that the push to make use of the cameras will result in those societies becoming much less free.
The issue is illegal immigrants crowding the city schools. A single bad student or one with limited english can drop the whole class average by a large margin. I fail to understand why these two sentences are adjacent. Legal residents can be bad students or have limited English too.
Thus why the intent is so important. If the prosecutor or plaintiff can prove deliberate intent to force the employees into this position then the people in question should be held responsible. But if they were just fools, they should not be. You seem to think that the simple fact of putting their employees in an impossible position is enough to prove intent, but I think that underestimates the power of stupidity.
Slashdot Mirror
If you admit context, then I can even do it with "black":
"Bob is a typical black man. Raised by a caring mother and hard-working father in the 70s, he served 4 years in the US Army before obtaining a degree in Something from A University. Today he works as a Some Job and lives with his wife and two children."
Without context, I'd say that "soldier", "father", "mother", "worker", "student", and many others would qualify in addition to "white". Individuals may take offense at such phrases but they are not going to have the universal disapproval that you'd get from "black".
It's a defining factor in stereotypes, certainly. And yes, it's only racist if it's bad. Technically, in the sense that it's "racist" to use race as a defining characteristic in any way then yes, it's racist no matter what, but nobody cares if you do this in a good way. It's not offensive.
The phrase "Typical X person" is not inherently bad, even when X is the color of their skin. It is perfectly valid to talk about the habits, outlook, social status, etc. of the typical example of a particular race. Where it gets offensive is when the stereotype being invoked is negative. In my opinion the use of this phrase with "white" does not invoke a negative stereotype, simply because anti-white racism is relatively rare in the US, whereas the use of this phrase with "black" does invoke a negative stereotype precisely because anti-black racism was and is still common.
If the offense depends on context, you'd better put the offending phrase into context when you try to offend people with it, now shouldn't you?
If I were thinking of neutrons, I would have said neutrons.
The name "neutrino" is in fact a play on the word "neutron". It is so called because "neutrino" is a diminutive form of "neutron" in Italian, the native language of Enrico Fermi, who created the name. The name was chosen because neutrinos, like neutrons, are neutrally charged but they have much smaller (possibly no) mass.
You're the one who said it would be racist. You can't then turn around and criticize me for this idea.
In any case, you are incorrect. My opinion of this phrase does not reflect on my opinion of black people. It reflects on my opinion of the general stereotype which this phrase creates in the minds of the general population. This is not a particularly difficult concept to grasp.
As for which party consists of racists, I'm sure they both are far more racist than I am. I have many friends of many races and really just don't care about it, but at the same time I realize that the issue is still deeply embedded in society, and there are a lot of phrases which you can say about white people without implying anything bad which suddenly become vastly more harmful when you substitute "black" for "white".
It is. So what? "Typical black person" brings up a negative stereotype, whereas "typical white person" generally does not. You may not like this, but that is how it is.
How is it ridiculous? You're claiming a matter of opinion as being a matter of fact. Whether you want someone as President is a matter of opinion. A whole lot of people have the opinion that Obama is the right man for the job, and I have seen no evidence that every single one of them is profoundly ignorant about the man.
Politics is the most opinionated field known to man. There are essentially no facts to be had in the entire field, aside from obvious and mundane stuff such as who held what office when. One of the major problems with the USA today is that a huge number of people simply can't grasp this idea. They think that politics is a matter consisting only of facts, unsurprisingly facts which lead to the inevitable conclusion which perfectly matches their position on every issue. They think that people who hold differing opinions are either mistaken or malicious, and thus that differing opinions are not worthwhile. This destroys political discourse and the possibility of compromise, because neither side really takes the other side seriously. You are one of these people, and thus you are what's wrong with America today.
Did you ever hear about a country called Japan, and how they bombed the crap out of a piece of Hawaii and took over the Philippines, both of which were American territories at the time? The Asian theater was definitely America's war.
Actually, if you run time backwards then things still fall down. Think about throwing a ball up in the air. It goes up, comes down, hits the ground, and its energy dissipates into vibrations in the ground. If you run it backwards, random vibrations in the ground come together to launch the ball into the air. It goes up, then falls back down into your hand.
Also I think that business with antimatter being normal matter going backwards in time was only for electrons and positrons.
Are you sure you have a degree in physics? Neutrinos have no charge, and thus are not affected by electromagnetic fields. The name sounds like "neutral" because of this. If they were charged they would be called something else.
I've certainly noticed. I haven't paid that much attention to his campaign in general, but the TV ads which I've seen have been disturbingly content-free.
On the other hand, it may just mean that he's more up-front about it than the others.
In the end, I'd rather have someone who's all air and no substance than someone with a lot of substance, most of it bad. Of course I'd rather not have to make that choice in the first place, but that is not the world we live in.
Historically the Republicans have plenty of ties to terrorists, and nobody seems to care.
It's entirely possible to love and admire your spiritual advisor while thinking that his more worldly theories are insane. There is at least one person in my life like that, although his theories are somewhat more tame. But anyone who has done research on this man doesn't want him as president. I'm utterly sick of this kind of bullshit talk. If you don't like him, fine. Say so. But saying that it is impossible to like him if you know him is ridiculous. Plenty of people do. Accept that other people can have opinions which do not match yours.
She only has no practical reason to "go away" if she is absolutely selfish, something which I concede may very well be the case. If she cares at all about her party or her country then she'll admit defeat and get her ass in gear promoting Obama to the masses in every way possible.
I say this as a dedicated third-party supporter who thinks that every serious Presidential candidate fielded over the past decade or so has been completely useless, from either major party.
Security and safety are not binary properties. Macs are perfectly safe out of the box, particularly if you're talking about security from remote exploits, which is how people generally use the term. But if you want to take it further and get even more out of it, this is how. It's probably mostly an exercise in paranoia, although I imagine there are quite a few tips in there which will help prevent data loss in the event that the machine is physically stolen.
What exactly do you do to benefit mankind as a whole, besides displaying your obviously monstrous intellect on slashdot?
Also, they're physics teachers, not history teachers. Get your history from those who have been trained in it. You shouldn't even trust what your teachers tell you in their area of expertise, much less random stuff that they tell you that's completely outside of it.
I don't understand what this exercise is supposed to prove, other than the blindingly obvious fact that upperclassmen have on average lived in that town for much longer and thus know it much better.
Hell, if NASA ever needs more money they should sell tickets to that ride!
I tend to agree, but I still think that a government such as China's will be able to make more use of such a system than, say, the UK's.
One reason is because China can probably hire more people to integrate with such a system, both to watch the cameras and to respond on the street, simply because Chinese people work so cheap and they spend much less money on social programs and other such things.
Another reason is that Chinese police may be more willing to act on vague activities, and be more willing to carry through those actions further. For example, if a group of people get together at an odd time of day and talk for a while but do nothing else, I assume (hope?) that British police will just shrug it off. Chinese police may start keeping track of them or pay them a visit, and this could lead to worse.
And lastly, oppressive countries have more public crimes. Think about participating in an unsanctioned demonstration, for example. In the UK mostly nobody cares, but if you do this in China then bad things happen soon. An extensive camera network significantly reduces your chances of being able to get away from something like that without punishment, and thus having such an extensive camera network will cut down on such demonstrations in the first place, even if it doesn't help with what Westerners would consider to be "real" crime.
From what I can tell from watching my wife buy melons and tasting the result, the technique is to hit them with the flat of your hand, listen to the sound they make, and then after doing this to about a dozen, choose one completely at random and hope for the best.
I believe that the unspoken opinion on Slashdot is that cameras are only useless in free societies, and that totalitarian societies are much better able to make use of them. This is how people are simultaneously able to hold the opinion that 1984 warned us about all of this and these cameras aren't all that useful anyway.
I'm not even sure that this unspoken opinion is wrong. If cameras can be sufficiently automated, or even just enough people can be put on duty watching them, then they can be used to compile behavior habits which don't pass the threshold of crime but which can be used for other oppressive purposes. The big worry with the proliferation of cameras in free societies is that the push to make use of the cameras will result in those societies becoming much less free.
Thus why the intent is so important. If the prosecutor or plaintiff can prove deliberate intent to force the employees into this position then the people in question should be held responsible. But if they were just fools, they should not be. You seem to think that the simple fact of putting their employees in an impossible position is enough to prove intent, but I think that underestimates the power of stupidity.