Toyota issued a blanket request to demand the immediate removal of all member-uploaded wallpapers featuring a Toyota, Lexus, or Scion vehicle (citing copyright violation), regardless of whether Toyota legally holds the copyright to the photos or not. When site owner Harry Maugans requested clarification on exactly which wallpapers were copyrighted by Toyota, he was told that for them to cite specifics (in order to file proper DMCA Takedown Notices), they would invoice Desktop Nexus for their labor."
You see, in my neighborhood, there are many photo-radars and I'd love to let Toyota fight my speeding tickets.
Why not just stick a big heat sink with fins all over it in there. The metal could transfer the heat from the inside air to the outside air. There must be some reason why rotating would make it better.
Although metal is an excellent conductor of heat, if air is not moving past it, the whole wheel will reach thermal equilibrium -- very quickly, since metal is such an excellent conductor. Mind you, I'm not saying it will reach a uniform temperature, it will be cooler on the side exposed to cooler air and warmer on the side of the warm computer hardware, but the distribution of heat throughout the mass will reach a steady state.
The article says they mix the air, which you wouldn't have to do with a solid metal heatsink heat exchanger.
I think that may have been an exaggeration. As has been noted, this was a Slashvertisement. If the warm exhaust heats a couple of the fins, which then rotate until they're exposed to the cool intake air, then it's thermally equivalent to mixing inside and outside air, without the problems of humidity and dust contamination. So, what the article said about mixing the air was true, from a certain point of view.
I agree. I picked up the set a few years ago based on Surely You're Joking and I'd recommend them to anybody beginning in physics, especially to Professors of freshman physics, which is usually not so much taught as shoveled. The lectures are taken from his lessons in first year physics, so not too difficult for a math grad student with no previous physics.
Well, based mostly on the diagram and reading the first article but none of the articles linked from it, I'd say you got it wrong, but I wouldn't bet more than $0.05 against you. I'm not really sure, either. It looks to me like the hot air is forced out, by some mechanism that isn't shown in the diagram. The force of the moving hot air then pushes the fins on the lower half of the wheel causing the wheel to turn, then the fins on the upper half of the wheel push the intake of cool outside air. The way this might save energy is that you only have to push this wheel less than "half" as hard, because once it's in motion it will tend to remain in motion. Thus, with just a little force put behind the exhaust air to overcome the dynamic friction on the wheel (lower than static friction, the friction to get a stationary object in motion), the intake is basically "forced" for no additional energetic cost.
Why is all of humanity on the brink of extinction?
Because that's how you make them continue to pay.
To "make them continue to pay" for example for worthless, disposable, plastic crap because no other viable options are available to purchase, wouldn't one need to hold a monopoly, or a few hold an oligopoly? Ah, I just remembered our recent re-distribution of wealth to the richest 1% of Americans via the tax code, followed by a $700,000,000,000 bailout which is to be funded by borrowing from China, further impoverishing all of us via inflation, except for the wealthiest 1%, who never earned anything but obtain wealth only by movement of capital and re-calculating of abstractions of value according to advantages they've purchased from Congress. Never mind, "how you make them continue to pay" makes perfect sense.
A scientifically minded atheist is right to dismiss the religious as their claims don't seem credible in light of their worldview.
The religious person is right to dismiss the atheist since that could lead to a loss of faith, and in turn to being tricked by the Devil.
Each is right in the context of their own overriding belief. (That religion X either is / isn't true.)
Independent of who is right about any of your stupid questions
To get back on topic though, if you say "God is responsible for everything", is he why I ate a peanut butter sandwich today instead of a hamburg? Did I have no choice? Does He allow Humans free will, but nothing else happens except by His explicit will? I find it odd that he would allow the appearance of geological processes but not the processes themselves. (Or was the woman wrong and the rock was made by the Devil to encourage my geological falsehoods?) ...
o prove ID, you'd need some sort of signature. Something like a particular action that could be performed that would put a person into a trace, after which they would recite some message from the creator, paraphrased into their language. You would need to be able to go to some primitive tribe and do this with them as well as with people from more civilized countries. Perhaps aliens DID create us, but even if it's true... etc., etc.
The first important question is who has the right. And the answer is always, whoever makes it our task to be free from compulsion. Once that is answered, we return to our pursuits of happiness, which is "the task at hand" only after we are free to pursue it. Until then, we battle against the tyranny of the mindless. Back to the context of the current task at hand, the scientific pursuit of knowledge, religious dogmas are constantly attempting to intrude on the process. The faithful have no complaint, only fault in this context. Your false equivalences are not welcome and not worthy of respect. I do bite my finger, and at you, sir.
The stakes for each are too high to compromise.
Christian: hell, and possibly helping to lead others to hell.
Atheist: promoting known falsehoods instead of helping society move beyond them. (And by doing so encouraging holy wars, repression / oppression, ritual mutilation, inability to think for oneself as a result of a life of conditioning, wastes of $ on tithes, making bad decisions based on faulty data (the pi = 3 fear) etc)
"Compromise" is valid when both sides are partly right, which is here not the case. Pay to God what is God's and to Caesar what is Caesar's. And pay me for my time.
Classmates.com "knew at all times that the individuals, members, and/or users who were making attempts to contact Plaintiff and the Class were not former classmates when they... made false representations regarding the attempted contacts," reads the complaint. "The Defendants... intended to deceive, and did deceive Plaintiff and the Class by concealing and failing to disclose the fact that the individuals, members, and/or users who were making attempts to contact Plaintiff and the Class were not former classmates."
As a result, Michaels hopes that a judge will approve his case as a class-action and award general, special, and punitive damages to him and the rest of the class. He also asks for injunctive relief against Classmates.com, as well as restitution, attorney's fees, and pre- and post-judgment interest.
At first glance, it certainly seems as if Michaels has a case against the company, but this isn't just any false advertising claim. A number of websites--especially dating sites--use similar tactics to nudge people into paying, so a win for Michaels could change how these sites advertise their services. Even a simple change, like adding the name of the person trying to contact you, would make things better, as it would at least show that the person is real and allow the potential customer to make a judgment call on whether to subscribe (and offer proof that the person is real, too).
No, just "adding the name of the person trying to contact you" would not "show [me, or any other recipient] that the person is real" because so far, the persons trying to contact the marks have not been real, nor known to us. To show classmates.com's victims that the persons are real, those persons must be both real and known to the recipients of their SPAM messages. So unsurprisingly, classmates.com's unethical business practices are the direct result of an untenable business model, in which they serve the non-existent [at best, inconsequential compared to the number of recipients of their fraudulent messages] market for persons desperate to contact former classmates, but unable to do so via alumni offices, informal networks of common acquaintances, or search engines.
Psychology is not a science. Never was, probably never will be.
One psychological study positively correlates symmetry of faces to the description by other people of those faces as attractive. Pseudoscience about topics in psychology is disproportionately popular on trash TV, but it isn't the fault of psychologists that you have bad taste and get your information from unreliable sources.
I have never seen a single theory from the field of psychology.
Have you ever seen an atom? Do you believe one exists?
A theory is something that can be falsified.
That, finally, is correct. And for the same reason that falsifiability is a standard of science, I have been able to falsify your lies about psychology; because your statements were about reality, they could be compared to reality and found contrary to it.
I'm so sick of the Fundies making the rest of us look like idiots.
Good, I'm glad that they offend you, too.
Because, as a scientist and atheist, I know they offend me, but the facts that they continue to have public platforms and occasional majority votes sometimes makes me wonder about religious folk who call yourselves "moderates" and your tolerance of intolerance, as long as it's practiced in the name of faith.
I'm so sick of the Fundies making the rest of us look like idiots.
Good, I'm glad that they offend you.
Of course, all the anti-religion atheist intellectuals running around bashing any form of belief in God doesn't help, either.
Who do you mean? I know I don't say anything about "any form of belief in God," ever, unless the subject intrudes into science, public education, or politics. When it does, I tend to state the same case that you & GP just stated, in a manner that in the past has been characterized as what you just said "doesn't help, either." The difference, and the reason I don't apologize for expressing my disagreements with the fundies in a style that reveals my contempt, is that I don't barge into anybody's church or religious school and instigate dissension based on my view of contradictions between science and scripture or theology. Neither do Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins, and neither did Bertrand Russell. If fundies will simply practice their faith as it was instructed by its founder, a matter for oneself, fellow believers and one's Creator, not something to impose via the state in any way, ever, then "all the anti-religion atheist intellectuals" would have no complaints. We are not "running around" picking fights, the fundies are, every time they presume to give to their gods what is Caesar's, which in my country means, what belongs to all the people, equally, regardless of faith.
(Note, just to make it clear, I'm not saying all atheists or scientists are like this, just that there are those that are quite vocal.)
I have hitherto sometimes spoken as if the variations -- so common and multiform with organic beings under domestication, and in a lesser degree with those under nature -- were due to chance. This, of course, is a wholly incorrect expression, but it serves to acknowledge plainly our ignorance of the cause of each particular variation. Some authors believe it to be as much the function of the reproductive system to produce individual differences, or slight deviations of structure, as to make the child like its parents. But the fact of variations and monstrosities occurring much more frequently under domestication than under nature, and the greater variability of species having wider ranges than of those with restricted ranges, lead to the conclusion that variability is gneerally related to the conditions of life to which each species has been exposed during several successive generations.
And so on. Yet, as careful as Charles Darwin was to not overstate what he knew, and not to exaggerate his confidence in his own hypotheses, each new insight into genetics is announced in the same arrogant tone of condescension, like an underachiever turned schoolteacher, with an overactive red pen:
What they are saying is that evolution is not entirely random, as Darwin believed.
... said the flat Earth, Creationist, mouth-breather. In fact, Darwin never asserted any such thing.
Their work seems to confirm ideas held by Darwin's colleague Alfred Wallace, who co-discovered the theory of evolution. Wallace believed that life forms undergoing natural selection could adjust their evolutionary course "exactly like that of the centrifugal governor of the steam engine, which checks and corrects any irregularities almost before they become evident."
"Exactly"? What part of the Princeton team's report says that this mechanism depends on rotation or angular momentum of the newly-discovered proteins?
In other words: Wallace believed that organisms had a kind of evolutionary feedback control mechanism.
Oh, "in other words," nice try! See how the paraphrase supports the Wallace-was-right-and-Darwin-was-wrong editorial bias of the author, but the direct quote does not? Disgusting.
Also, common people do not create bogey men. Only politicians do. This argument is completely backwards - politicians use fear for control. If the power is in hands of the people, there is no need for irrational fears.
I would have modded you up higher, but I felt compelled to put similar ideas into my own words. Has anybody ever felt that legal recognition of homosexual marriage cost them anything before a craven, manipulative politician manufactured that issue?
The answer to this is of course, that in a direct democracy, we would have more influence (votes) in the areas of our specialization.
"The answer"? That obviously hybridizes technocracy and democracy, but I am not convinced that such a compromise is valid, morally or pragmatically. Instead of having more votes of your own, every time your "area(s) [determined by whom?] of specialization" [and, I assume, competence, which also, too begs the same question again: determined by whom?], democracy allows us to exercise such specialized competence as [we believe] we have, to present our opinions and their basis in fact to the electorate. If the difficulty of doing so to voters less educated in our specialties exceeds our interest in the referendum at hand, so be it.
If I cannot, or will not bother, to convince the majority of affected voters, all they would have as justification of the rule of what then would be dictatorship, is my "assurance" that I'm right. As I think I said already, and certainly intended to say already, the transition from democracy to republic, and the conflated premise that some are more suited to self-govern than others, is the first step on the slippery slope to tyranny. In every society, some megalomaniacs will exist, urging us to make that compromise in some form, thus the price of liberty really is eternal vigilance. The danger of demagoguery and consensus in mythology is far greater than the danger of an entire populace making the same technical error. Explaining the technology in simplified terms is a relatively small price to pay. I stand by democracy over technocracy based on the arguments presented so far.
I would have a much greater say in IT, especially software, than would say for instance a doctor.
Possibly, but only in proportion to your ability to convince voters, one referendum at a time, that what you say about each measure is technically correct and in the best interests of the most voters. In other words, only if I, + at least 50% of the other voters, agree that you know as much about IT as you believe you do, shall we effectively "give" you our votes. But we will never do so officially. Never expect nor assume any kind of blank check, including that inherent in technocracy.
With this approach we could get back to a situation where the wise are making the important decisions.
With direct democracy we can do better still. We offer those who believe they have superior wisdom the options to put up or to shut up. [literally, to prove it or be ignored, but retain their right to embarrass themselves by the ongoing exercise of free speech] We then get the rule of wisdom instead of the rule of "the wise," and a government of laws [potentially at least, objective and just] instead of a government of men [always suspect of corruption and never trustworthy, any farther than throwable].
In a technocracy , this is solved easily : a model is defined to determine which approach generates the least noise , and is best for the planes.
Nothing in a democracy prevents the discovery of that or any other information. It only prevents the appointed or self-anointed technocrats from imposing their will on the populace. And, we'll decide what's best for the persons, not what's best for the planes. QED again.
Anyways, I just think if you are for censorship you should be helping people make a "better mousetrap" so what is deemed valid material isn't getting blocked.
I agree if, and only if, they will implement it within their own homes, not on the public "series of tubes." [Ted Stevens, convicted felon and current candidate for US Senate from Alaska] Anybody who is not really concerned enough about what your children can access to take care of it yourself, get the hell out of my way. 333MHz is enough to run a filtering proxy server for anybody's home. Nothing is preventing you from protecting your own children from the Internet, but your own damned sloth.
This includes making competitors fight on their home turf - i.e., taking the battle to Windows and Office. So this still seems an odd move.
Google's "home turf" is the web and the only thing that seems odd to me is the speculation at pcpro.uk that any Ballmer noises are shaping Google's business strategy. Does anybody here believe Google got where they are by taking Steve Ballmer's suggestions?
Unconscionability does not apply...
As long as you can decline the contract with no harm then it cannot be an unconscionable contract. A computer game is a luxury good.
I disagree. I mean, obviously, a computer game is a luxury good, but the previous assumption, that "you can decline the contract with no harm" presupposes "you can decline the contract," and specifically the onerous part of this contract, at all even though the acceptance of residue is never stated, but is supposedly implied. Of course it isn't, and being held to a contract or portion of a contract which one has no way of knowing is of course unconscionable, even if it is a luxury item.
There is no possible harm from not being able to play a computer game, and thus from declining the contract.
No, and nobody claimed "possible harm from not being able to play a computer game, and thus from declining the contract." The harm is in undisclosed strings attached, which is illegal regardless of the price of the incentive. I have the right to be told, in advance, what your "gift" will do to my existing property.
"The inclusion of undisclosed, secretly installed DRM protection measures with a program that was freely distributed constitutes a major violation of computer owners' absolute right to control what does and what does not get loaded onto their computers, and how their computers shall be used... [SecuROM] cannot be completely uninstalled."
Why wasn't this in v1.0 of consumer GPS? It's not like collecting data from client devices to compute on the server, for use by the client community, is mind-boggling genius. It's kind of the reason for the client-server model in the first place. Don't get me wrong, I'm not panning the article, just suggesting this industry does not appear to be very competitive.
Actually, the practical experience with direct democracy (for example from Switzerland) says the exact opposite.
Yes and no.
Wrong; it's just "yes."
Switzerland, clearly yes, their practical direct democracy works well. However for the "mother of all direct democracies" you have to look at the ancient Greek city-states, Athens being the prime example. Direct democracy in Athens resulted in the legalized slaughter and enslavement of many Athenian enemies.
No, Athenians voted for severe military action against actual enemies, not as a result of their democratic form of government, and for comparison, not because of an incompetent Executive Office of the republic, so blinded by ideology and paternal disappointment that even a source named "curveball" was called "credible" and "slam-dunk" when it said what he wanted to hear. The invasion of Iraq for the petro-military complex could only happen in a dictatorship, or a secretive republic subverted by an Executive who never had any intention to stick to his promised "non-interventionist foreign policy," ie, a totalitarian republic such as immediately preceded the fall of the Roman Empire. Representative DeFazio was denied access to information he has the legal right to review, just not to share, by virtue of his membership on the House Homeland Security Committee. I think a respectably active republic would be sufficient to prevent this particular abuse by the White House of the privilege of classifying some information as crucial state secrets, but certainly the legal grey area in which the White House is maneuvering would never stand a chance in a direct democracy, nor would the invasion of a foreign power on a false pretext. Obviously, the invasion of Afghanistan on a true pretext had popular as well as Legislative and Executive support, so there is no reason to believe that legitimate self-defense would be impeded by more direct democracy.
Also , pure direct democracy , if everyone would really from their own opninion , would slow everything done , because
... which we have already decided is so overwhelmingly a Good Thing that it is the reason we have three separate branches of government, as well as a bipartate legislature. A system of checks and balances is not a flaw, it's a feature, and one that is wise to retain regardless of the details of how the responsibilities of governance are divided up. We want enough time and enough inertia, meaning tendency to resist change, that we can realistically identify the results of the changes we make so as to repeal the stupid changes. The same technologies that allow more direct, more truly democratic participation in government also allow more rapid feedback in the process of distinguishing the desired effects of our changes from undesirable side effects. We'll all keep an eye on it of course, but your basic assumption of inherent inefficiency is disproven.
there is always someone who disagrees with it , resulting in endless discussions and debates , and no real solutions.
That is in fact a greater problem with government by an elected few than a direct democracy, and I can prove it to you right now on one page, using your own example!
You underestimate how easy people can be influenced by the media.
No, azgard is correct, and underestimated nothing. You have underestimated the propensity of people to ignore their job descriptions to collect easy money. It is not true that all politicians are crooks, but it is certainly true that some people are crooked, and likely that some can fool enough of the people enough of the time to be elected. The question, therefore, is whether a republic of elected representatives or a direct democracy is more susceptible to corruption from the interests of the populace. When we represent ourselves, our tendencies to corruption cancel one another out to a degree not possible with a representative few, or class, or elite. It is the republic model itself which is the problem, the very source of institutionalized corruption.
Sure , this isn't completely flawless either , i'm sure , but it may solve some of todays problems ( for instance , by solving the problem of global warming rather than endlessly debating it )
In fact, in a direct democracy, doing "more to address global warming" would pass with a veto-proof majority: 68%. Furthermore, we would do so despite the (false) impression that significant doubt exists among competent, reputable scientists. "Almost seven-in-ten (68%) Americans think the government should do more to address global warming, according to the poll; however, 64% think scientists disagree with one another about global warming." Although study and refinement of the models continue, legitimate debates are on the periphery, not the basics, and anybody who tells you otherwise is a liar or a moron. It's a fact beyond dispute that carbon dioxide tends to retain heat by not radiating photons in the infrared range. Arrhenius discovered that in the 1800's! Another fact beyond a shadow of a doubt is that the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have increased since the beginning of the Industrial, and in proportion to the industrial combustion of hydrocarbons. Thus we know, not guess, that increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the resulting increase in thermal energy are the direct result of combustion of petroleum and other hydrocarbons. Ergo, it is a fact, not an hypothesis or theory, that use of gasoline and other hydrocarbons for vehicle fuel and to generate electricity for power grids are causing the measured observables increased mean atmospheric temperature; increased mean ocean temperature; increased severity and frequency of tropical storms; increased polar melting and de
As a goverment type , i think a good idea to try might be technocracy : decisions are made according to what the best solution the problem is , based on scientifical approach and simulation models , that can veryfied by everyone.
That is such a terrible idea, the ancient Greek word for that political philosophy now means a vapid, mentally incompetent person! "Idiot" originally referred to a person who willingly relinquished decision-making power to the state. Even if the state is composed of elected, hired representatives, turning over the basic power to any ruling class is plain stupid. Democratically deciding to hire experts for very complicated problems can be smart in cases that it's necessary, but voting on whether to enact their proposals should still be up to the citizens.
Just because Democrats run around saying "Vote or Die!" doesn't make them innocent of voter suppression. They are in the same boat. Those lawsuits did voter suppression: discourage voters from voting, exactly what artificially making large lines does. Democrats just have a better propaganda wing when it comes to looking cuddly and innocent.
In the states that the Democratic Party sued to keep Nader off the ballots, did Nader meet or exceed all legal requirements to get onto the ballot in the first place? If so, did he collect the required number of signatures by just a small enough margin that a few forged signatures could plausibly make the difference? I don't know, but I'd be interested if you have URLs, and if you post them I'll read the articles.
Even though I agree with a lot of what he says about corporate influence on government, I'm not generally all that interested in Nader any more because his mantra "get corporations out of politics" could be better pursued by state and local referenda requiring that all political donations be given by individuals, and recorded in publicly viewable databases [or otherwise prohibiting corporate donations; I just phrased it the way I'd want it done. Like I said, I don't pay close attention to Nader so I don't claim to know the details of his plan(s).]. He should know by now, he is not a viable candidate for President, but a very likely candidate for spoiler. No, both parties are not "just the same." Some members of each are corrupt, corporate property, but the Democratic Party does not by and large support the corporate/government partnerships with Halliburton, Blackwater, and the agricultural lobby that recently drove up food prices and helped to discredit green energy by bribing Congress to subsidize the use of corn as fuel, despite the fact that corn is woefully ill-suited to that purpose. When only race cars used ethanol -- at the same time that petrol was in relative abundance -- the inefficiency didn't matter that much, but now it's important to distinguish intelligent bio-ethanol [usually called "cellulosic"] from idiotic corn ethanol. But I digress, predictably, to the single political issue I consider most important. I admit I have that tendency in common with Nader.
Back on topic, Nader does not belong on ballots for President, his proposals belong on local ballots, in the Ballot Measures not the Candidates sections. It would make national news long before all 50 states pass measures creating statutes specifying that individuals, not corporations, have the right to free speech which includes and guarantees the right to donate to political candidates and parties. A realistic avenue to his stated goal is available, and Ralph Nader is not pursuing it. I ask you, an avowed supporter, why do you think that is?
Slashdot Mirror
Toyota issued a blanket request to demand the immediate removal of all member-uploaded wallpapers featuring a Toyota, Lexus, or Scion vehicle (citing copyright violation), regardless of whether Toyota legally holds the copyright to the photos or not. When site owner Harry Maugans requested clarification on exactly which wallpapers were copyrighted by Toyota, he was told that for them to cite specifics (in order to file proper DMCA Takedown Notices), they would invoice Desktop Nexus for their labor."
You see, in my neighborhood, there are many photo-radars and I'd love to let Toyota fight my speeding tickets.
Why not just stick a big heat sink with fins all over it in there. The metal could transfer the heat from the inside air to the outside air. There must be some reason why rotating would make it better.
Although metal is an excellent conductor of heat, if air is not moving past it, the whole wheel will reach thermal equilibrium -- very quickly, since metal is such an excellent conductor. Mind you, I'm not saying it will reach a uniform temperature, it will be cooler on the side exposed to cooler air and warmer on the side of the warm computer hardware, but the distribution of heat throughout the mass will reach a steady state.
The article says they mix the air, which you wouldn't have to do with a solid metal heatsink heat exchanger.
I think that may have been an exaggeration. As has been noted, this was a Slashvertisement. If the warm exhaust heats a couple of the fins, which then rotate until they're exposed to the cool intake air, then it's thermally equivalent to mixing inside and outside air, without the problems of humidity and dust contamination. So, what the article said about mixing the air was true, from a certain point of view.
I agree. I picked up the set a few years ago based on Surely You're Joking and I'd recommend them to anybody beginning in physics, especially to Professors of freshman physics, which is usually not so much taught as shoveled. The lectures are taken from his lessons in first year physics, so not too difficult for a math grad student with no previous physics.
Well, based mostly on the diagram and reading the first article but none of the articles linked from it, I'd say you got it wrong, but I wouldn't bet more than $0.05 against you. I'm not really sure, either. It looks to me like the hot air is forced out, by some mechanism that isn't shown in the diagram. The force of the moving hot air then pushes the fins on the lower half of the wheel causing the wheel to turn, then the fins on the upper half of the wheel push the intake of cool outside air. The way this might save energy is that you only have to push this wheel less than "half" as hard, because once it's in motion it will tend to remain in motion. Thus, with just a little force put behind the exhaust air to overcome the dynamic friction on the wheel (lower than static friction, the friction to get a stationary object in motion), the intake is basically "forced" for no additional energetic cost.
Why is all of humanity on the brink of extinction?
Because that's how you make them continue to pay.
To "make them continue to pay" for example for worthless, disposable, plastic crap because no other viable options are available to purchase, wouldn't one need to hold a monopoly, or a few hold an oligopoly? Ah, I just remembered our recent re-distribution of wealth to the richest 1% of Americans via the tax code, followed by a $700,000,000,000 bailout which is to be funded by borrowing from China, further impoverishing all of us via inflation, except for the wealthiest 1%, who never earned anything but obtain wealth only by movement of capital and re-calculating of abstractions of value according to advantages they've purchased from Congress. Never mind, "how you make them continue to pay" makes perfect sense.
How can we reduce the risk of human extinction?
Think
A scientifically minded atheist is right to dismiss the religious as their claims don't seem credible in light of their worldview.
The religious person is right to dismiss the atheist since that could lead to a loss of faith, and in turn to being tricked by the Devil.
Each is right in the context of their own overriding belief. (That religion X either is / isn't true.)
Independent of who is right about any of your stupid questions
To get back on topic though, if you say "God is responsible for everything", is he why I ate a peanut butter sandwich today instead of a hamburg? Did I have no choice? Does He allow Humans free will, but nothing else happens except by His explicit will? I find it odd that he would allow the appearance of geological processes but not the processes themselves. (Or was the woman wrong and the rock was made by the Devil to encourage my geological falsehoods?)
... ... etc., etc.
o prove ID, you'd need some sort of signature. Something like a particular action that could be performed that would put a person into a trace, after which they would recite some message from the creator, paraphrased into their language. You would need to be able to go to some primitive tribe and do this with them as well as with people from more civilized countries. Perhaps aliens DID create us, but even if it's true
The first important question is who has the right. And the answer is always, whoever makes it our task to be free from compulsion. Once that is answered, we return to our pursuits of happiness, which is "the task at hand" only after we are free to pursue it. Until then, we battle against the tyranny of the mindless. Back to the context of the current task at hand, the scientific pursuit of knowledge, religious dogmas are constantly attempting to intrude on the process. The faithful have no complaint, only fault in this context. Your false equivalences are not welcome and not worthy of respect. I do bite my finger, and at you, sir.
The stakes for each are too high to compromise.
Christian: hell, and possibly helping to lead others to hell.
Atheist: promoting known falsehoods instead of helping society move beyond them. (And by doing so encouraging holy wars, repression / oppression, ritual mutilation, inability to think for oneself as a result of a life of conditioning, wastes of $ on tithes, making bad decisions based on faulty data (the pi = 3 fear) etc)
"Compromise" is valid when both sides are partly right, which is here not the case. Pay to God what is God's and to Caesar what is Caesar's. And pay me for my time.
Classmates.com "knew at all times that the individuals, members, and/or users who were making attempts to contact Plaintiff and the Class were not former classmates when they... made false representations regarding the attempted contacts," reads the complaint. "The Defendants... intended to deceive, and did deceive Plaintiff and the Class by concealing and failing to disclose the fact that the individuals, members, and/or users who were making attempts to contact Plaintiff and the Class were not former classmates."
As a result, Michaels hopes that a judge will approve his case as a class-action and award general, special, and punitive damages to him and the rest of the class. He also asks for injunctive relief against Classmates.com, as well as restitution, attorney's fees, and pre- and post-judgment interest.
At first glance, it certainly seems as if Michaels has a case against the company, but this isn't just any false advertising claim. A number of websites--especially dating sites--use similar tactics to nudge people into paying, so a win for Michaels could change how these sites advertise their services. Even a simple change, like adding the name of the person trying to contact you, would make things better, as it would at least show that the person is real and allow the potential customer to make a judgment call on whether to subscribe (and offer proof that the person is real, too).
No, just "adding the name of the person trying to contact you" would not "show [me, or any other recipient] that the person is real" because so far, the persons trying to contact the marks have not been real, nor known to us. To show classmates.com's victims that the persons are real, those persons must be both real and known to the recipients of their SPAM messages. So unsurprisingly, classmates.com's unethical business practices are the direct result of an untenable business model, in which they serve the non-existent [at best, inconsequential compared to the number of recipients of their fraudulent messages] market for persons desperate to contact former classmates, but unable to do so via alumni offices, informal networks of common acquaintances, or search engines.
Psychology is not a science. Never was, probably never will be.
One psychological study positively correlates symmetry of faces to the description by other people of those faces as attractive. Pseudoscience about topics in psychology is disproportionately popular on trash TV, but it isn't the fault of psychologists that you have bad taste and get your information from unreliable sources.
I have never seen a single theory from the field of psychology.
Have you ever seen an atom? Do you believe one exists?
A theory is something that can be falsified.
That, finally, is correct. And for the same reason that falsifiability is a standard of science, I have been able to falsify your lies about psychology; because your statements were about reality, they could be compared to reality and found contrary to it.
I'm so sick of the Fundies making the rest of us look like idiots.
Good, I'm glad that they offend you, too.
Because, as a scientist and atheist, I know they offend me, but the facts that they continue to have public platforms and occasional majority votes sometimes makes me wonder about religious folk who call yourselves "moderates" and your tolerance of intolerance, as long as it's practiced in the name of faith.
I'm so sick of the Fundies making the rest of us look like idiots.
Good, I'm glad that they offend you.
Of course, all the anti-religion atheist intellectuals running around bashing any form of belief in God doesn't help, either.
Who do you mean? I know I don't say anything about "any form of belief in God," ever, unless the subject intrudes into science, public education, or politics. When it does, I tend to state the same case that you & GP just stated, in a manner that in the past has been characterized as what you just said "doesn't help, either." The difference, and the reason I don't apologize for expressing my disagreements with the fundies in a style that reveals my contempt, is that I don't barge into anybody's church or religious school and instigate dissension based on my view of contradictions between science and scripture or theology. Neither do Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins, and neither did Bertrand Russell. If fundies will simply practice their faith as it was instructed by its founder, a matter for oneself, fellow believers and one's Creator, not something to impose via the state in any way, ever, then "all the anti-religion atheist intellectuals" would have no complaints. We are not "running around" picking fights, the fundies are, every time they presume to give to their gods what is Caesar's, which in my country means, what belongs to all the people, equally, regardless of faith.
(Note, just to make it clear, I'm not saying all atheists or scientists are like this, just that there are those that are quite vocal.)
That's a false equivalence.
Just because somebody is writing for a less technically expert audience is no excuse for sensationalism, and far less for the scientifically illiterate misstatement already noted before the article was even posted on Slashdot.
I have hitherto sometimes spoken as if the variations -- so common and multiform with organic beings under domestication, and in a lesser degree with those under nature -- were due to chance. This, of course, is a wholly incorrect expression, but it serves to acknowledge plainly our ignorance of the cause of each particular variation. Some authors believe it to be as much the function of the reproductive system to produce individual differences, or slight deviations of structure, as to make the child like its parents. But the fact of variations and monstrosities occurring much more frequently under domestication than under nature, and the greater variability of species having wider ranges than of those with restricted ranges, lead to the conclusion that variability is gneerally related to the conditions of life to which each species has been exposed during several successive generations.
And so on. Yet, as careful as Charles Darwin was to not overstate what he knew, and not to exaggerate his confidence in his own hypotheses, each new insight into genetics is announced in the same arrogant tone of condescension, like an underachiever turned schoolteacher, with an overactive red pen:
What they are saying is that evolution is not entirely random, as Darwin believed.
... said the flat Earth, Creationist, mouth-breather. In fact, Darwin never asserted any such thing.
Their work seems to confirm ideas held by Darwin's colleague Alfred Wallace, who co-discovered the theory of evolution. Wallace believed that life forms undergoing natural selection could adjust their evolutionary course "exactly like that of the centrifugal governor of the steam engine, which checks and corrects any irregularities almost before they become evident."
"Exactly"? What part of the Princeton team's report says that this mechanism depends on rotation or angular momentum of the newly-discovered proteins?
In other words: Wallace believed that organisms had a kind of evolutionary feedback control mechanism.
Oh, "in other words," nice try! See how the paraphrase supports the Wallace-was-right-and-Darwin-was-wrong editorial bias of the author, but the direct quote does not? Disgusting.
Also, common people do not create bogey men. Only politicians do. This argument is completely backwards - politicians use fear for control. If the power is in hands of the people, there is no need for irrational fears.
I would have modded you up higher, but I felt compelled to put similar ideas into my own words. Has anybody ever felt that legal recognition of homosexual marriage cost them anything before a craven, manipulative politician manufactured that issue?
The answer to this is of course, that in a direct democracy, we would have more influence (votes) in the areas of our specialization.
"The answer"? That obviously hybridizes technocracy and democracy, but I am not convinced that such a compromise is valid, morally or pragmatically. Instead of having more votes of your own, every time your "area(s) [determined by whom?] of specialization" [and, I assume, competence, which also, too begs the same question again: determined by whom?], democracy allows us to exercise such specialized competence as [we believe] we have, to present our opinions and their basis in fact to the electorate. If the difficulty of doing so to voters less educated in our specialties exceeds our interest in the referendum at hand, so be it.
If I cannot, or will not bother, to convince the majority of affected voters, all they would have as justification of the rule of what then would be dictatorship, is my "assurance" that I'm right. As I think I said already, and certainly intended to say already, the transition from democracy to republic, and the conflated premise that some are more suited to self-govern than others, is the first step on the slippery slope to tyranny. In every society, some megalomaniacs will exist, urging us to make that compromise in some form, thus the price of liberty really is eternal vigilance. The danger of demagoguery and consensus in mythology is far greater than the danger of an entire populace making the same technical error. Explaining the technology in simplified terms is a relatively small price to pay. I stand by democracy over technocracy based on the arguments presented so far.
I would have a much greater say in IT, especially software, than would say for instance a doctor.
Possibly, but only in proportion to your ability to convince voters, one referendum at a time, that what you say about each measure is technically correct and in the best interests of the most voters. In other words, only if I, + at least 50% of the other voters, agree that you know as much about IT as you believe you do, shall we effectively "give" you our votes. But we will never do so officially. Never expect nor assume any kind of blank check, including that inherent in technocracy.
With this approach we could get back to a situation where the wise are making the important decisions.
With direct democracy we can do better still. We offer those who believe they have superior wisdom the options to put up or to shut up. [literally, to prove it or be ignored, but retain their right to embarrass themselves by the ongoing exercise of free speech] We then get the rule of wisdom instead of the rule of "the wise," and a government of laws [potentially at least, objective and just] instead of a government of men [always suspect of corruption and never trustworthy, any farther than throwable].
I won't turn down some easy money.
In a technocracy , this is solved easily : a model is defined to determine which approach generates the least noise , and is best for the planes.
Nothing in a democracy prevents the discovery of that or any other information. It only prevents the appointed or self-anointed technocrats from imposing their will on the populace. And, we'll decide what's best for the persons, not what's best for the planes. QED again.
Anyways, I just think if you are for censorship you should be helping people make a "better mousetrap" so what is deemed valid material isn't getting blocked.
I agree if, and only if, they will implement it within their own homes, not on the public "series of tubes." [Ted Stevens, convicted felon and current candidate for US Senate from Alaska] Anybody who is not really concerned enough about what your children can access to take care of it yourself, get the hell out of my way. 333MHz is enough to run a filtering proxy server for anybody's home. Nothing is preventing you from protecting your own children from the Internet, but your own damned sloth.
This includes making competitors fight on their home turf - i.e., taking the battle to Windows and Office. So this still seems an odd move.
Google's "home turf" is the web and the only thing that seems odd to me is the speculation at pcpro.uk that any Ballmer noises are shaping Google's business strategy. Does anybody here believe Google got where they are by taking Steve Ballmer's suggestions?
Unconscionability does not apply...
As long as you can decline the contract with no harm then it cannot be an unconscionable contract. A computer game is a luxury good.
I disagree. I mean, obviously, a computer game is a luxury good, but the previous assumption, that "you can decline the contract with no harm" presupposes "you can decline the contract," and specifically the onerous part of this contract, at all even though the acceptance of residue is never stated, but is supposedly implied. Of course it isn't, and being held to a contract or portion of a contract which one has no way of knowing is of course unconscionable, even if it is a luxury item.
There is no possible harm from not being able to play a computer game, and thus from declining the contract.
No, and nobody claimed "possible harm from not being able to play a computer game, and thus from declining the contract." The harm is in undisclosed strings attached, which is illegal regardless of the price of the incentive. I have the right to be told, in advance, what your "gift" will do to my existing property. ... [SecuROM] cannot be completely uninstalled."
"The inclusion of undisclosed, secretly installed DRM protection measures with a program that was freely distributed constitutes a major violation of computer owners' absolute right to control what does and what does not get loaded onto their computers, and how their computers shall be used
The corporation's difficulty identifying thieves does not excuse vandalizing the property of law-abiding users of tryware.
Why wasn't this in v1.0 of consumer GPS? It's not like collecting data from client devices to compute on the server, for use by the client community, is mind-boggling genius. It's kind of the reason for the client-server model in the first place. Don't get me wrong, I'm not panning the article, just suggesting this industry does not appear to be very competitive.
Actually, the practical experience with direct democracy (for example from Switzerland) says the exact opposite.
Yes and no.
Wrong; it's just "yes."
Switzerland, clearly yes, their practical direct democracy works well. However for the "mother of all direct democracies" you have to look at the ancient Greek city-states, Athens being the prime example. Direct democracy in Athens resulted in the legalized slaughter and enslavement of many Athenian enemies.
No, Athenians voted for severe military action against actual enemies, not as a result of their democratic form of government, and for comparison, not because of an incompetent Executive Office of the republic, so blinded by ideology and paternal disappointment that even a source named "curveball" was called "credible" and "slam-dunk" when it said what he wanted to hear. The invasion of Iraq for the petro-military complex could only happen in a dictatorship, or a secretive republic subverted by an Executive who never had any intention to stick to his promised "non-interventionist foreign policy," ie, a totalitarian republic such as immediately preceded the fall of the Roman Empire. Representative DeFazio was denied access to information he has the legal right to review, just not to share, by virtue of his membership on the House Homeland Security Committee. I think a respectably active republic would be sufficient to prevent this particular abuse by the White House of the privilege of classifying some information as crucial state secrets, but certainly the legal grey area in which the White House is maneuvering would never stand a chance in a direct democracy, nor would the invasion of a foreign power on a false pretext. Obviously, the invasion of Afghanistan on a true pretext had popular as well as Legislative and Executive support, so there is no reason to believe that legitimate self-defense would be impeded by more direct democracy.
Also , pure direct democracy , if everyone would really from their own opninion , would slow everything done , because
... which we have already decided is so overwhelmingly a Good Thing that it is the reason we have three separate branches of government, as well as a bipartate legislature. A system of checks and balances is not a flaw, it's a feature, and one that is wise to retain regardless of the details of how the responsibilities of governance are divided up. We want enough time and enough inertia, meaning tendency to resist change, that we can realistically identify the results of the changes we make so as to repeal the stupid changes. The same technologies that allow more direct, more truly democratic participation in government also allow more rapid feedback in the process of distinguishing the desired effects of our changes from undesirable side effects. We'll all keep an eye on it of course, but your basic assumption of inherent inefficiency is disproven.
there is always someone who disagrees with it , resulting in endless discussions and debates , and no real solutions.
That is in fact a greater problem with government by an elected few than a direct democracy, and I can prove it to you right now on one page, using your own example!
You underestimate how easy people can be influenced by the media.
No, azgard is correct, and underestimated nothing. You have underestimated the propensity of people to ignore their job descriptions to collect easy money. It is not true that all politicians are crooks, but it is certainly true that some people are crooked, and likely that some can fool enough of the people enough of the time to be elected. The question, therefore, is whether a republic of elected representatives or a direct democracy is more susceptible to corruption from the interests of the populace. When we represent ourselves, our tendencies to corruption cancel one another out to a degree not possible with a representative few, or class, or elite. It is the republic model itself which is the problem, the very source of institutionalized corruption.
Sure , this isn't completely flawless either , i'm sure , but it may solve some of todays problems ( for instance , by solving the problem of global warming rather than endlessly debating it )
In fact, in a direct democracy, doing "more to address global warming" would pass with a veto-proof majority: 68%. Furthermore, we would do so despite the (false) impression that significant doubt exists among competent, reputable scientists. "Almost seven-in-ten (68%) Americans think the government should do more to address global warming, according to the poll; however, 64% think scientists disagree with one another about global warming." Although study and refinement of the models continue, legitimate debates are on the periphery, not the basics, and anybody who tells you otherwise is a liar or a moron. It's a fact beyond dispute that carbon dioxide tends to retain heat by not radiating photons in the infrared range. Arrhenius discovered that in the 1800's! Another fact beyond a shadow of a doubt is that the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have increased since the beginning of the Industrial, and in proportion to the industrial combustion of hydrocarbons. Thus we know, not guess, that increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the resulting increase in thermal energy are the direct result of combustion of petroleum and other hydrocarbons. Ergo, it is a fact, not an hypothesis or theory, that use of gasoline and other hydrocarbons for vehicle fuel and to generate electricity for power grids are causing the measured observables increased mean atmospheric temperature; increased mean ocean temperature; increased severity and frequency of tropical storms; increased polar melting and de
As a goverment type , i think a good idea to try might be technocracy : decisions are made according to what the best solution the problem is , based on scientifical approach and simulation models , that can veryfied by everyone.
That is such a terrible idea, the ancient Greek word for that political philosophy now means a vapid, mentally incompetent person! "Idiot" originally referred to a person who willingly relinquished decision-making power to the state. Even if the state is composed of elected, hired representatives, turning over the basic power to any ruling class is plain stupid. Democratically deciding to hire experts for very complicated problems can be smart in cases that it's necessary, but voting on whether to enact their proposals should still be up to the citizens.
Just because Democrats run around saying "Vote or Die!" doesn't make them innocent of voter suppression. They are in the same boat. Those lawsuits did voter suppression: discourage voters from voting, exactly what artificially making large lines does. Democrats just have a better propaganda wing when it comes to looking cuddly and innocent.
In the states that the Democratic Party sued to keep Nader off the ballots, did Nader meet or exceed all legal requirements to get onto the ballot in the first place? If so, did he collect the required number of signatures by just a small enough margin that a few forged signatures could plausibly make the difference? I don't know, but I'd be interested if you have URLs, and if you post them I'll read the articles.
Even though I agree with a lot of what he says about corporate influence on government, I'm not generally all that interested in Nader any more because his mantra "get corporations out of politics" could be better pursued by state and local referenda requiring that all political donations be given by individuals, and recorded in publicly viewable databases [or otherwise prohibiting corporate donations; I just phrased it the way I'd want it done. Like I said, I don't pay close attention to Nader so I don't claim to know the details of his plan(s).]. He should know by now, he is not a viable candidate for President, but a very likely candidate for spoiler. No, both parties are not "just the same." Some members of each are corrupt, corporate property, but the Democratic Party does not by and large support the corporate/government partnerships with Halliburton, Blackwater, and the agricultural lobby that recently drove up food prices and helped to discredit green energy by bribing Congress to subsidize the use of corn as fuel, despite the fact that corn is woefully ill-suited to that purpose. When only race cars used ethanol -- at the same time that petrol was in relative abundance -- the inefficiency didn't matter that much, but now it's important to distinguish intelligent bio-ethanol [usually called "cellulosic"] from idiotic corn ethanol. But I digress, predictably, to the single political issue I consider most important. I admit I have that tendency in common with Nader.
Back on topic, Nader does not belong on ballots for President, his proposals belong on local ballots, in the Ballot Measures not the Candidates sections. It would make national news long before all 50 states pass measures creating statutes specifying that individuals, not corporations, have the right to free speech which includes and guarantees the right to donate to political candidates and parties. A realistic avenue to his stated goal is available, and Ralph Nader is not pursuing it. I ask you, an avowed supporter, why do you think that is?