Squaring the circle? Ummm... that one is really too good to be true. I know you don't see why not, but that has been proven impossible.
There are some things that we THINK are impossible [Denise Richards in a good movie] but turn out to be possible [Drop Dead Gorgeous]. But some things are proven impossible, like the existance of an even prime natural number greater than two.
Is it too good to be true? That is pretty much the only thing you need to check.
Sorry, that is cynical crap.
The internet? Too good to be true. But it IS true. If you told me fifteen years ago that one day I would be in my office, discussing science issues with people from all over the world, at the same time playing scrabble with a woman from australia, and at the same time having a "beep" go off whenever my brother in California wanted to send me a message, I would say, "Too good to be true."
A portly math geek like me getting a gorgeous, intelligent woman to move in with me? Too good to be true! I would never have agreed to go on that first date if I did the "too good to be true" check. But wow.
All you can eat Chinese food for $6? Too good to be true! If I followed that rule of thumb I wouldn't have gone into the restaurant a half mile from my office because I would have a "proof" of its nonexistance.
The question was: When has Congress passed legislation to give power to someone other than themselves.
Rural electrification did that. Literally. The question was not "When has Congress passed legislation to give power only to someone other than themselves."
After Civ 1 came out, I mailed in a suggestion. Remember how important announcements in Civ 1 were printed as newspaper headlines?
My idea was that, once the United Nations was built, whenever a civilization declared war, a headline would read that the United Nations voted to censure the president of the aggressor nation, and to condemn the act. This condemnation would have no effect on the game.
Am I the only one who remembers that Larry Page was the president/icon of the "Sticky Stuff Club" that appeared in ads for a certain brand of "glue-stick"?
Isn't that the POINT of a sequel game? Keep the basic game play, which people like, intacted but also add as many new features as you can.
No! No! I disagree and I hate when they do that!
I would agree is that the basic game play should be the same, but the thing should be SIMPLIFIED!
Make the user interface CLEANER! (Example: I am so glad that in Civ III I no longer have to move the fucking camels around)
Emphasize the things that people LIKED about the game, and remove the fiddly bits that people did NOT like. (Example: allowing you to let an AI "advisor" do things that you don't want to control manually)
Simplified doesn't mean "not improved" though. Things that are good can be HEIGHTENED and enriched, without just "lookit all the new features. To use Civ III again as an example, they didn't just add more "features" to diplomacy as much as enriched it. Yes, it is more complex from one point of view, but I would say it is simpler in that the types of things you can do seem more natural. An "alliance" feels more like what I would expect an alliance to be like, for example.
And... of course... I think part of the point of a sequel is to make the AI SMARTER.
(and yes, I like it when the whole thing is purtier too)
But once one person have bought smith.whatever, the remaining 3 million people with Smith as their lastname will be out of luck. Hence.name, where all of them still have a chance at getting their firstname@smith.name (Disclaimer: I work for Personal Names)
So let's say (for the sake of an argument) that there are one-thousand first names. You still have 2,999,000 people who are out of luck.
Anyone wanting to impose sales tax on groceries (I'll have to leave as an unproven assertion your claim that they're 'conservatives' -- I suspect what you mean is that they're Republicans, which is a completely different thing) a bunch of cretious dickwads, that's my reaction.
Fair enough.
Unlike the attachees of the liberal hive mind, I have no problem denouncing friend or foe if they're going against my beliefs.
You are way off base here. Al Gore would have won the election if the liberals had not denounced him and ultimately voted for a third party. Bill Clinton certainly was criticized in liberal journals and articles, and many people call him a Liberal. (What they usually mean is that he's a Democrat, which is a completely different thing.) Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are often denounced by liberals, as is Catherine McKinnon. (sp?)
Why is it that you can't give the same respect to Liberals that you wish liberals to give Conservatives? Can't you disagree with them without invoking a mythical "hive-mind"?
Touchee on my confusing "Conservatives" with "Republicans." Now can you agree that not all Democrats are liberal, and not all liberals are Democrats?
Your page is too interesting to passingly comment on in an aging slashdot forum - please send me your email address and I'll take some time and email you a thought-out response.
I'm glad to hear that you have data, can recall a source for your data (in as much or as little detail as you can remember)?
I can't - it was a comparison of how the US economy did in relation to when we raised the minimum wage. What it showed was that whenever we raised the minimum wage in the US, the economy did better. I remember Bob Dole telling us all that the economy would tank if we got our last minimum wage increase, and he lost that fight, and the economy did not tank. I'm sorry I can't do better than that.
I completely agree with your argument about the $200/hour. But I also think it is clear that if there were NO minimum wage then our economy would become... well more like a third world country.
The "obvious" reason I was referring to is this: Give minimum-wage workers a slight raise, they have more money to spend, and they spend it domestically. It can be called a "trickle-up" effect.
No shit sherlock, Socialism exists only on paper and in the head of utopian hippies who are pathologically incapable of dealing with reality.
And in Scandinavian countries with an incredibly good quality of life, and personal freedoms that would give a Libertarian an Adam-Smith sized erection.
Read a book, jeez.
The reality is that big government destroys civil rights and encourages violence.
Really? Why is there more violence in the United States than there is in countries with much larger governments? Singapore is hardly a land of "small government"
I don't believe in socialism, but you are making statements that are not only false and dogmatic, but more than a little stupid.
You want to make a difference? Vote for a Libertarian
Yeah, that would make a HUGE difference. Talk about somebody being completely unrealistic.
homeless shelter or a free medical clinic. Those people genuinely care. The money won't get lost in a bureacracy and will actually help the poor.
Homeless shelters used to have a lot more support before the Libertarians got involved with government.
You can tell the hypocrisy this way: The PATRIOT act passsed. Did they go out and fight the Republicans? Did they say anything bad about GWB? A few did. One article I read was shocked (shocked!) that GWB turned out to be WORSE for the Libertarians than the "clintonistas"
Anybody with half a brain knew that GWB was out for civil rights... was out to take our American freedoms away from us. But the Libertarians? They either didn't vote (THAT showed them) or voted for Bush. And they will still not admit that as much as an ass that Gore was, we would not have anything nearly like the PATRIOT act or operation TIPS under him. They fucked up big time, during the one time in history when they could have made a difference, and now are acting like petulant babies, threatening to take their ball and go home.
The Libertarians? Read "The Prisoners Dilemma", look up the big words, and then get back to us.
Prepared food, yes, but even the nutlogs of California haven't (yet) started taxing groceries
No, they haven't. But the conservatives of Texas are trying to start taxing groceries. Does that make them "nutlogs"? Or do you only call people names if... well if Rush told you to?
The conservatives of Texas are trying to start taxing groceries. What is your reaction? Where is your invective? Where is your outrage?
Though, even without taxes, why would a consumer pay $10 shipping for something he can get a 10-mile drive away?
The United States is more than just Nevada, California, New York, and Washington DC.
I live deep in the heart of Darkest Iowa. The nearest large bookstore is an hour drive away. I shop for my books on line. Many, if not most, of the population of the United States live very far from things that you city-folk take for granted. For example, most teen-agers sole source of CDs is the Walmart....that is, unless they use the internet.
Now it's a Saturday morning cartoon starring Captain Wacky (aka Homer).
I would LOVE a Saturday morning cartoon with a superhero named Captain Wacky!!!
By Day he is an ordinary accountant. But when there is crime - when it is night - when the big April 15 crunchtime is over - then he patrols the street!
My problem was that I just don't care about these people any more. It has been years and years. Maybe it is that the actors are getting older, like many of the/.ers have been saying, but in my case I think it is that I am getting older. I've seen these characters far too much. I think I just have lost interest.
1. Lose the Political Correctness. Seriously. We don't appreciate being preached to. We watch Star Trek for the science fiction, not to have some leftist Californians tell us how great their sensibilities are. I stopped watching Enterprise in the middle of the first season for this reason (go Farscape!!)
As has been previously pointed out, TOS had a great deal of what people seem to call "political correctness." Rodenberry refused to allow the characters to smoke, for example, even though the studio wanted them too. Why? Umm... leftist Californian sensibility.
Have you SEEN TOS? Do you KNOW what "political correctness" is? Or do you just use it as a pseudonym for "anything I don't like."
You couldn't do crap with the damn things when they were new
What an ignorant statement. I know two people who ran businesses using the C-64. It did light accounting, printed out checks, etc.
I wrote a program for my brother's business - it sent out telexes (remember them?) in four different languages.
The Paperclip word processor, while not as feature-filled as Microsoft Word, certainly did its job, and had all the features (except for spellcheck) that a person needed to write papers for college, and letters to friends.
The games were fun - they didn't look as good as the games do now, but four friends could get together with their favorite beverages and have a great time playing M*U*L*E and Raid on Bungling Bay.
Computers are obviously better now, but if you "couldn't do crap" on a Commodore 64, you must not have had access to software, and were probably not the most creative of programmers.
So the courts are just there as a place to convene the high-priced lawyers?
Yes.
I'd like to think that if the plaintiff has a 100% legitimate case, or the defendant has a 100% air tight defence then either will win on that alone.
I would, too. But there is a difference in what you would like to think, and the truth.
Let's take a simple example. You and I sign a contract saying that we will split the money we get from selling ashtrays we made.
I collect $100. I don't give you your half. You take me to court. You are clearly in the right.
The next day, at your doorstep, is a stack of legal briefs and motions that I have filed using my team of lawyers to do the research. Let's say a total of 1000 pages of text, each one that needs an answer. You are still clearly in the right, and can refute every single brief and motion. But there are 1000 pages, and our court date is in two weeks. If you leave one unanswered, then (for procedural reasons) the case will be dismissed, and you won't even get to SEE that judge and make your argument.
Your one low-priced lawyer isn't going to be able to file the approptiate paperwork in two weeks - he is going to need help. You can't afford it? Case dismissed.
Please, continue to convince yourself that NOBODY becomes rich through hard work or brain power. That way, you won't feel so bad about not being rich.
Please tell me when I said "nobody." And I wasn't talking about "rich" I was talking about the top 5 or 1 (don't recall) percent.
I would say that the majority of people in the top 1% were born wealthy. And you probably would agree. Bill Gates got there the old fashioned way. But GWB certainly didn't get there through brain power (and lest you accuse me of being liberal, neither did William Kennedy Smith)
Slashdot Mirror
Squaring the circle? Ummm... that one is really too good to be true. I know you don't see why not, but that has been proven impossible.
There are some things that we THINK are impossible [Denise Richards in a good movie] but turn out to be possible [Drop Dead Gorgeous]. But some things are proven impossible, like the existance of an even prime natural number greater than two.
Is it too good to be true? That is pretty much the only thing you need to check.
Sorry, that is cynical crap.
The internet? Too good to be true. But it IS true. If you told me fifteen years ago that one day I would be in my office, discussing science issues with people from all over the world, at the same time playing scrabble with a woman from australia, and at the same time having a "beep" go off whenever my brother in California wanted to send me a message, I would say, "Too good to be true."
A portly math geek like me getting a gorgeous, intelligent woman to move in with me? Too good to be true! I would never have agreed to go on that first date if I did the "too good to be true" check. But wow.
All you can eat Chinese food for $6? Too good to be true! If I followed that rule of thumb I wouldn't have gone into the restaurant a half mile from my office because I would have a "proof" of its nonexistance.
In fact, I think I'm going to go now.
The question was: When has Congress passed legislation to give power to someone other than themselves.
Rural electrification did that. Literally. The question was not "When has Congress passed legislation to give power only to someone other than themselves."
When was the last time Congress ever voted to give anybody more power other than to themselves?
Rural electrification?
Voting rights act?
Motor voter bill?
After Civ 1 came out, I mailed in a suggestion. Remember how important announcements in Civ 1 were printed as newspaper headlines?
My idea was that, once the United Nations was built, whenever a civilization declared war, a headline would read that the United Nations voted to censure the president of the aggressor nation, and to condemn the act. This condemnation would have no effect on the game.
Am I the only one who remembers that Larry Page was the president/icon of the "Sticky Stuff Club" that appeared in ads for a certain brand of "glue-stick"?
... we won't know how to find it otherwise.
Google is hard to find! If you try to search for it, using google, then well you know
Dave King from the incomprable Bob And Dave strip? I'm still a fan, Bananaman
Isn't that the POINT of a sequel game? Keep the basic game play, which people like, intacted but also add as many new features as you can.
No! No! I disagree and I hate when they do that!
I would agree is that the basic game play should be the same, but the thing should be SIMPLIFIED!
Make the user interface CLEANER! (Example: I am so glad that in Civ III I no longer have to move the fucking camels around)
Emphasize the things that people LIKED about the game, and remove the fiddly bits that people did NOT like. (Example: allowing you to let an AI "advisor" do things that you don't want to control manually)
Simplified doesn't mean "not improved" though. Things that are good can be HEIGHTENED and enriched, without just "lookit all the new features. To use Civ III again as an example, they didn't just add more "features" to diplomacy as much as enriched it. Yes, it is more complex from one point of view, but I would say it is simpler in that the types of things you can do seem more natural. An "alliance" feels more like what I would expect an alliance to be like, for example.
And... of course... I think part of the point of a sequel is to make the AI SMARTER.
(and yes, I like it when the whole thing is purtier too)
But once one person have bought smith.whatever, the remaining 3 million people with Smith as their lastname will be out of luck. Hence .name, where all of them still have a chance at getting their firstname@smith.name (Disclaimer: I work for Personal Names)
So let's say (for the sake of an argument) that there are one-thousand first names. You still have 2,999,000 people who are out of luck.
I wish I could mod you +6 Funny for that
Anyone wanting to impose sales tax on groceries (I'll have to leave as an unproven assertion your claim that they're 'conservatives' -- I suspect what you mean is that they're Republicans, which is a completely different thing) a bunch of cretious dickwads, that's my reaction.
Fair enough.
Unlike the attachees of the liberal hive mind, I have no problem denouncing friend or foe if they're going against my beliefs.
You are way off base here. Al Gore would have won the election if the liberals had not denounced him and ultimately voted for a third party. Bill Clinton certainly was criticized in liberal journals and articles, and many people call him a Liberal. (What they usually mean is that he's a Democrat, which is a completely different thing.) Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are often denounced by liberals, as is Catherine McKinnon. (sp?)
Why is it that you can't give the same respect to Liberals that you wish liberals to give Conservatives? Can't you disagree with them without invoking a mythical "hive-mind"?
Touchee on my confusing "Conservatives" with "Republicans." Now can you agree that not all Democrats are liberal, and not all liberals are Democrats?
Your page is too interesting to passingly comment on in an aging slashdot forum - please send me your email address and I'll take some time and email you a thought-out response.
Doug
I'm glad to hear that you have data, can recall a source for your data (in as much or as little detail as you can remember)?
I can't - it was a comparison of how the US economy did in relation to when we raised the minimum wage. What it showed was that whenever we raised the minimum wage in the US, the economy did better. I remember Bob Dole telling us all that the economy would tank if we got our last minimum wage increase, and he lost that fight, and the economy did not tank. I'm sorry I can't do better than that.
I completely agree with your argument about the $200/hour. But I also think it is clear that if there were NO minimum wage then our economy would become... well more like a third world country.
The "obvious" reason I was referring to is this: Give minimum-wage workers a slight raise, they have more money to spend, and they spend it domestically. It can be called a "trickle-up" effect.
No shit sherlock, Socialism exists only on paper and in the head of utopian hippies who are pathologically incapable of dealing with reality.
And in Scandinavian countries with an incredibly good quality of life, and personal freedoms that would give a Libertarian an Adam-Smith sized erection.
Read a book, jeez.
The reality is that big government destroys civil rights and encourages violence.
Really? Why is there more violence in the United States than there is in countries with much larger governments? Singapore is hardly a land of "small government"
I don't believe in socialism, but you are making statements that are not only false and dogmatic, but more than a little stupid.
You want to make a difference? Vote for a Libertarian
Yeah, that would make a HUGE difference. Talk about somebody being completely unrealistic.
homeless shelter or a free medical clinic. Those people genuinely care. The money won't get lost in a bureacracy and will actually help the poor.
Homeless shelters used to have a lot more support before the Libertarians got involved with government.
You can tell the hypocrisy this way: The PATRIOT act passsed. Did they go out and fight the Republicans? Did they say anything bad about GWB? A few did. One article I read was shocked (shocked!) that GWB turned out to be WORSE for the Libertarians than the "clintonistas"
Anybody with half a brain knew that GWB was out for civil rights... was out to take our American freedoms away from us. But the Libertarians? They either didn't vote (THAT showed them) or voted for Bush. And they will still not admit that as much as an ass that Gore was, we would not have anything nearly like the PATRIOT act or operation TIPS under him. They fucked up big time, during the one time in history when they could have made a difference, and now are acting like petulant babies, threatening to take their ball and go home.
The Libertarians? Read "The Prisoners Dilemma", look up the big words, and then get back to us.
Prepared food, yes, but even the nutlogs of California haven't (yet) started taxing groceries
No, they haven't. But the conservatives of Texas are trying to start taxing groceries. Does that make them "nutlogs"? Or do you only call people names if... well if Rush told you to?
The conservatives of Texas are trying to start taxing groceries. What is your reaction? Where is your invective? Where is your outrage?
Though, even without taxes, why would a consumer pay $10 shipping for something he can get a 10-mile drive away?
...that is, unless they use the internet.
The United States is more than just Nevada, California, New York, and Washington DC.
I live deep in the heart of Darkest Iowa. The nearest large bookstore is an hour drive away. I shop for my books on line. Many, if not most, of the population of the United States live very far from things that you city-folk take for granted. For example, most teen-agers sole source of CDs is the Walmart.
Davis raised the minimum wage, which I think contributes to unemployment and a higher cost of living.
Actually, the data disagrees with you here. When the minimum wage goes up, the economy tends to get better. For obvious reasons, too. Think about it.
Corporations say "oh! oh! we will have to raise prices" But the prices are set by supply and demand.
Emperically, increasing the minimum wage has always helped the economy. So far, at least.
Now it's a Saturday morning cartoon starring Captain Wacky (aka Homer).
I would LOVE a Saturday morning cartoon with a superhero named Captain Wacky!!!
By Day he is an ordinary accountant.
But when there is crime - when it is night - when the big April 15 crunchtime is over - then he patrols the street!
ALL FEAR CAPTAIN WACKY!
My problem was that I just don't care about these people any more. It has been years and years. Maybe it is that the actors are getting older, like many of the /.ers have been saying, but in my case I think it is that I am getting older. I've seen these characters far too much. I think I just have lost interest.
1. Lose the Political Correctness. Seriously. We don't appreciate being preached to. We watch Star Trek for the science fiction, not to have some leftist Californians tell us how great their sensibilities are. I stopped watching Enterprise in the middle of the first season for this reason (go Farscape!!)
As has been previously pointed out, TOS had a great deal of what people seem to call "political correctness." Rodenberry refused to allow the characters to smoke, for example, even though the studio wanted them too. Why? Umm... leftist Californian sensibility.
Have you SEEN TOS? Do you KNOW what "political correctness" is? Or do you just use it as a pseudonym for "anything I don't like."
You couldn't do crap with the damn things when they were new
What an ignorant statement.
I know two people who ran businesses using the C-64. It did light accounting, printed out checks, etc.
I wrote a program for my brother's business - it sent out telexes (remember them?) in four different languages.
The Paperclip word processor, while not as feature-filled as Microsoft Word, certainly did its job, and had all the features (except for spellcheck) that a person needed to write papers for college, and letters to friends.
The games were fun - they didn't look as good as the games do now, but four friends could get together with their favorite beverages and have a great time playing M*U*L*E and Raid on Bungling Bay.
Computers are obviously better now, but if you "couldn't do crap" on a Commodore 64, you must not have had access to software, and were probably not the most creative of programmers.
So the courts are just there as a place to convene the high-priced lawyers?
Yes.
I'd like to think that if the plaintiff has a 100% legitimate case, or the defendant has a 100% air tight defence then either will win on that alone.
I would, too. But there is a difference in what you would like to think, and the truth.
Let's take a simple example. You and I sign a contract saying that we will split the money we get from selling ashtrays we made.
I collect $100. I don't give you your half. You take me to court. You are clearly in the right.
The next day, at your doorstep, is a stack of legal briefs and motions that I have filed using my team of lawyers to do the research. Let's say a total of 1000 pages of text, each one that needs an answer. You are still clearly in the right, and can refute every single brief and motion. But there are 1000 pages, and our court date is in two weeks. If you leave one unanswered, then (for procedural reasons) the case will be dismissed, and you won't even get to SEE that judge and make your argument.
Your one low-priced lawyer isn't going to be able to file the approptiate paperwork in two weeks - he is going to need help. You can't afford it? Case dismissed.
It sucks.
Please, continue to convince yourself that NOBODY becomes rich through hard work or brain power. That way, you won't feel so bad about not being rich.
Please tell me when I said "nobody." And I wasn't talking about "rich" I was talking about the top 5 or 1 (don't recall) percent.
I would say that the majority of people in the top 1% were born wealthy. And you probably would agree. Bill Gates got there the old fashioned way. But GWB certainly didn't get there through brain power (and lest you accuse me of being liberal, neither did William Kennedy Smith)
How horrible, letting people keep more of the money they actually earned.
"they actually earned"?
You mean "inherited" don't you? Their grandparents "earned" the money.