No, it's the other way around. Believing that the only goal of your life is to please and praise some guy called "The Lord" at any cost, means that you are a horrible person regardless of who "The Lord" is, and if he exists in the first place.
Let's be fair - there are plenty of very nice people who just happen to believe in $DIETY. I don't think there's a correlation at all between belief and "goodness". The difference (if there is one) is that some people need that belief that someone is watching them, and some don't.
My, these Americans have a most devious encryption... so secure that they send their messages in public! Flunky! Create me one of these... Cryptograms... mua ha ha...
If you are a decent person you are on the good path to salvation. And being an asshole.... What did you guys expect?
There, fixed that for ya.
(Really, never understood the logic behind "you're a wonderful person, but because you don't believe in $DIETY I must assume your afterlife will be unpleasant". Makes me wonder if "Hell" is really a beach-front resort, filled with all the nice non-Christians...)
I'm comparing the Academic coming as compared to the wikipedia guy who has no real experience in teh particular field but since he has constributed to 10,000+ wikipedia articles gets a bump a in credulity.
Realistically, we should be ranking that in reverse - the person who has contributed 10K articles is far more likely to be talking out of his ass than someone who's only worked on one article. (Unless we want to believe that there are people who both have the time to write 10K wiki articles AND is best-of-breed knowledgeable in all of them)
The only reason that people ditched netbooks is that tablets fill that niche better. The market didn't disappear for a lightweight, long-battery-life computer, it just migrated.
On the other hand, I'm fine with Microsoft staying out of the market.
I'll try to dig up the link later, but the libraries (and the e-book vendors they use) simply stopped carrying Harper-Collins books in response.
HC will lose out because they set their "wear out" number so insultingly low - 26 checkouts is *nothing* for a physical book. (One library actually showed video of their books with notes showing how many times it had been checked out - 26 might as well be new.)
And librarians tend to have a very strong stubborn stream when it comes to accessibility - they'll happily tell Harper Collins where they can shove their "limited checkout ebooks".
I'm surprised their lawyer team didn't work things out with the various studios, the RIAA, and the mole people before going live with this thing.
That doesn't surprise me at all. As the saying goes, it's easier to get forgiveness than permission. If they'd negotiated in advance, RIAA can make up all the possible horror stories they want as reasons why It Can't Be Done. Having a live service up and running means that RIAA has to argue against what's actually happening (as others have noted - essentially DropBox), which is a trickier thing to sell to politicians and consumers.
My favorite is that after winning the argument that you have to pay royalties for playing music in a bar or office (since it's a business environment and the company is benefiting from it), they were suggesting that truckers should have to pay royalties for listening to the radio.
Will law enforcement treat this like the photo systems that capture speed/red light infractions eventually? The infraction is not associated to the user but rather the connected device. Having received a speed violation (sent to me, but my wife was the operator, given the location), I dislike the fault association with the owner, but it seems that someone would likely create it to stop people from using the "open wifi" defense.
The flip side is that getting a photo-radar ticket is substantially less expensive than getting pulled over. Since you (as the driver) aren't charged, you don't get demerits, for instance. (At least up here where I am - they define photo radar speeding as a "non-moving violation". Yes, the irony is stunning.)
I think the current IP tracing does make a few assumptions, not the least of which is that there is only one user who is ever on that address - no roommates, visitors, people hacking your wireless, and so on. It's the equivalent of charging someone with theft because they traced the crime to the bus you were riding on that day - with no additional evidence. Realistically, I'd think an IP trace would be good enough for a warrant or other discovery document, but that's it.
Had they not cut taxes on the rich since Reagan this would not be a problem. Rich people don't like to use their own money to pay for their governing the rest of us.
I thought they figured they shouldn't have to pay the flat fee when they already pay the politicians directly.
it also impacts the cost of delivered goods.
So, don't think of a gas tax would just impact only people who drive.
This is a red herring - trucking companies pay *very* close attention to their fuel economy, and raising the fuel tax will only spur them to upgrade their fleets more than they already are. Which also has the nice side effect of getting older vehicles that lack current safety features off the road. Most big companies won't even hire trucks that don't hit a certain efficiency numbers. And the really smart companies have live data on the dashboard - they're watching their fuel consumptions as they drive.
Assuming that the tax increase isn't something truly stupid, the effect will get washed out in the normal "rise before holiday" changes we all currently suffer.
Yes and no. The argument is that electric/hybrid cars aren't "paying their fair share", since they can drive more miles on less gallons (so while they pay the same per-gallon, they effectively pay less per-mile). So, in the interest of fairness, we should all buy these new shiny electronic widgets.
hint: if you want to know who's backing this plan, find the company that just released a new line of shiny mileage-tracking widgets.
Just where do these kids get outdoors living in a city? Where can they go fishing, or hiking or hunting--like normal kids should? I'd love to see a kid carrying a tackle box and rod/reel on a bus; or how about a bow and some arrows? In the city, you stay locked in your home and play HALO. Bah.. I was raised on a steady diet of 'Go outside and play'; something parents in the large cities can't/don't say. Of course, this goes on in suburbia too; mom and dad won't make the kids go out and play.
Sorry, got to call BS on this one - I'm in the middle of a city, and there's a ravine about five minutes away from my house. Thirty minutes puts me at the river valley. My kid gets plenty of time to hike and get outside. (If anything, she's probably limited more by her bookworm parents and the weather than her inclinations). Even if we lived in the 'burbs (or even out on a farm), we'd have to drive somewhere for hunting/fishing. (And really, that's what camping trips are for).
So let's put the blame where it belongs - parents are fed a steady diet of "hide your kids, the bad men are coming!", along with a side order of guilt-trip whenever they even consider letting their kids do something unsupervised (I was admonished for considering ever letting my kid walk two blocks to school, because "how could you live with yourself if something happened?!?"). Add the fact that most playgrounds have been severely wussified, schools don't let you throw balls anymore (because you could hit another kid! *winge*), and we have to face facts - kids don't want to play outside, because we've made the outside boring, and parents are taught not to let their kids outside because Something Bad Will Happen. The city or country has nothing to do with it.
A smart way to improve the economy would be to make SPACIOUS housing affordable, thereby encouraging families and shopping.
I'll do you one better - a smart way to improve the economy is to stop trying to convince people that they need massive square footage so that they have their own personal castle. Live with smaller space, and get out into your neighborhood.
Not all of us can afford a decent quality apartment downtown, let alone a private school for our kids. And not all of us live in cities with decent public transit. I live in a house in the suburbs mostly because it was my best option for my money.
The question would be, if you had better public transit, would you use it?
Agreed that not everyone can afford the stupid prices some neighborhoods command - I gave up on my first-choice when we shopped because it added $100K to the price, and took a massive hit in the quality of homes offered. And I dislike private schools on general principle.
Cars put very little burden on road paving. Trucks are what damage roads. Tax them more and shipping will move to more efficient rail. Right now shippers are being subsidized by gas taxes providing them with low cost roads.
Working in the transportation industry, I can tell you that a lot of distribution centers would happily switch to rail, except that rail can't meet the JIT deadlines required in today's age. (Trains don't really do reliable "overnight shipping"). It also doesn't remove the need for that trucking fleet, but merely relocates them to all your rail destinations - instead of having 50 trucks running out of a central facility, you have 50 trucks spread out across hither and yon, which increases your management costs.
Not to mention that not everyone wants to live in a city. My dad commutes an hour each way to/from work simply because my parents wanted to live somewhere rural and quiet, and actually have some land. Both my brother and I are out of school so that's irrelevant; it has nothing to do with the practicality of living in a city. A lot of people just hate that kind of environment. If they wanted to live near the office they could afford to do so, they just don't want that.
And I agree that's a perfectly valid option - my parents did something similar.
On the other hand, my wife and I specifically looked for a house with good transit service, because that way she can bus to work rather than us having to buy a second car (or put 100km/day on our current car). It cost us slightly more than the new suburbs, but we're walking distance to my kid's school, our grocery store, and the library. Half an hour's walk puts us at the zoo. And we'll easily make up the extra house price in reduced expenses.
I don't watch much TV anymore and what I do watch I find...ummm...online from...legitimate, yeah that's it, legitimate...sources (in Russia).
Here in Canada, I can get three of the four major networks via iApp. (CTV seems to be the slowpoke in this regard). I buy internet, but not cable, and can watch the two or three shows I sorta-care about that way. (The shows I *actually* care about - my must-sees - I buy from iTunes).
Even if I was in a Time Warner area, I wouldn't be interested in their app, because I'm sure it would require me to pay for the cable service first, and I don't want to pay for all the various tiers required so I can get at the four channels I actually want to watch.
You've got it backwards - Times Warner is trying to pre-emptively take over another distribution channel without having to pay for it.
I've got to side with the networks on this one - they sold the television rights, not the internet rights. And if they have any brains, they'll have their own apps up and running ASAP so that they are collecting the cash from that revenue stream - because consumers won't care who's getting the cash, as long as they can watch their show.
I think we need to draw a distinction between "there are ghosts here" and "we can't explain why things are happening here". While I don't believe in ghosts in the "booga booga" sense, I will accept that there are things that we can't currently explain. That doesn't prove or disprove supernatural causes - it just means we can't describe it just yet.
Just like how if you're 18 and you go to Europe and drink a beer, you can be extradited and the USA will criminally charge you for underage drinking. This is a huge problem for American foreign exchange students, who when caught drinking (legally in the country they're studying in) are sent back to America under legal penalty and lose their scholarships and are forced to pay back all the money they got for free sometimes etc.
Citation? Not saying it's impossible (I can see the theory), but I'd be unpleasantly surprised if the US is actually going through the paperwork to extradite for underage-in-the-US drinking.
Heck, I always thought the reason we had so many American college tourists up here in Canada was *because* you could drink three years earlier...
Slashdot Mirror
No, it's the other way around. Believing that the only goal of your life is to please and praise some guy called "The Lord" at any cost, means that you are a horrible person regardless of who "The Lord" is, and if he exists in the first place.
Let's be fair - there are plenty of very nice people who just happen to believe in $DIETY. I don't think there's a correlation at all between belief and "goodness". The difference (if there is one) is that some people need that belief that someone is watching them, and some don't.
What if your little sister works for the government?
Then you, my friend, are very screwed.
My, these Americans have a most devious encryption... so secure that they send their messages in public! Flunky! Create me one of these... Cryptograms... mua ha ha...
(Really, never understood the logic behind "you're a wonderful person, but because you don't believe in $DIETY I must assume your afterlife will be unpleasant". Makes me wonder if "Hell" is really a beach-front resort, filled with all the nice non-Christians...)
I'm comparing the Academic coming as compared to the wikipedia guy who has no real experience in teh particular field but since he has constributed to 10,000+ wikipedia articles gets a bump a in credulity.
Realistically, we should be ranking that in reverse - the person who has contributed 10K articles is far more likely to be talking out of his ass than someone who's only worked on one article. (Unless we want to believe that there are people who both have the time to write 10K wiki articles AND is best-of-breed knowledgeable in all of them)
[citation needed]
You're reading /. and you need a citation for this?
[citation needed]
The only reason that people ditched netbooks is that tablets fill that niche better. The market didn't disappear for a lightweight, long-battery-life computer, it just migrated.
On the other hand, I'm fine with Microsoft staying out of the market.
Then what rights do I need to obtain before writing my own songs?
Didn't they ban that already? Writing your own songs reduces RIAA profits and hence must be illegal.
Not to mention that legally, all melodies have been written, so anything you write will by definition be derivative.
I hear some of the e-book publishers are still trying a variation on this theme
http://ilmk.wordpress.com/2011/02/28/harpercollins-limits-public-library-check-outs/
I'll try to dig up the link later, but the libraries (and the e-book vendors they use) simply stopped carrying Harper-Collins books in response.
HC will lose out because they set their "wear out" number so insultingly low - 26 checkouts is *nothing* for a physical book. (One library actually showed video of their books with notes showing how many times it had been checked out - 26 might as well be new.)
And librarians tend to have a very strong stubborn stream when it comes to accessibility - they'll happily tell Harper Collins where they can shove their "limited checkout ebooks".
I'm surprised their lawyer team didn't work things out with the various studios, the RIAA, and the mole people before going live with this thing.
That doesn't surprise me at all. As the saying goes, it's easier to get forgiveness than permission. If they'd negotiated in advance, RIAA can make up all the possible horror stories they want as reasons why It Can't Be Done. Having a live service up and running means that RIAA has to argue against what's actually happening (as others have noted - essentially DropBox), which is a trickier thing to sell to politicians and consumers.
My favorite is that after winning the argument that you have to pay royalties for playing music in a bar or office (since it's a business environment and the company is benefiting from it), they were suggesting that truckers should have to pay royalties for listening to the radio.
strangely this doesn't seem to stop the authorities from charging many people and ruining their lives in the process before dropping the charges
That's because some areas score their law enforcement like they do sports teams - how many times did you "win"?
Will law enforcement treat this like the photo systems that capture speed/red light infractions eventually? The infraction is not associated to the user but rather the connected device. Having received a speed violation (sent to me, but my wife was the operator, given the location), I dislike the fault association with the owner, but it seems that someone would likely create it to stop people from using the "open wifi" defense.
The flip side is that getting a photo-radar ticket is substantially less expensive than getting pulled over. Since you (as the driver) aren't charged, you don't get demerits, for instance. (At least up here where I am - they define photo radar speeding as a "non-moving violation". Yes, the irony is stunning.)
I think the current IP tracing does make a few assumptions, not the least of which is that there is only one user who is ever on that address - no roommates, visitors, people hacking your wireless, and so on. It's the equivalent of charging someone with theft because they traced the crime to the bus you were riding on that day - with no additional evidence. Realistically, I'd think an IP trace would be good enough for a warrant or other discovery document, but that's it.
Had they not cut taxes on the rich since Reagan this would not be a problem. Rich people don't like to use their own money to pay for their governing the rest of us.
I thought they figured they shouldn't have to pay the flat fee when they already pay the politicians directly.
it also impacts the cost of delivered goods. So, don't think of a gas tax would just impact only people who drive.
This is a red herring - trucking companies pay *very* close attention to their fuel economy, and raising the fuel tax will only spur them to upgrade their fleets more than they already are. Which also has the nice side effect of getting older vehicles that lack current safety features off the road. Most big companies won't even hire trucks that don't hit a certain efficiency numbers. And the really smart companies have live data on the dashboard - they're watching their fuel consumptions as they drive.
Assuming that the tax increase isn't something truly stupid, the effect will get washed out in the normal "rise before holiday" changes we all currently suffer.
Yes and no. The argument is that electric/hybrid cars aren't "paying their fair share", since they can drive more miles on less gallons (so while they pay the same per-gallon, they effectively pay less per-mile). So, in the interest of fairness, we should all buy these new shiny electronic widgets.
hint: if you want to know who's backing this plan, find the company that just released a new line of shiny mileage-tracking widgets.
Just where do these kids get outdoors living in a city? Where can they go fishing, or hiking or hunting--like normal kids should? I'd love to see a kid carrying a tackle box and rod/reel on a bus; or how about a bow and some arrows? In the city, you stay locked in your home and play HALO. Bah.. I was raised on a steady diet of 'Go outside and play'; something parents in the large cities can't/don't say. Of course, this goes on in suburbia too; mom and dad won't make the kids go out and play.
Sorry, got to call BS on this one - I'm in the middle of a city, and there's a ravine about five minutes away from my house. Thirty minutes puts me at the river valley. My kid gets plenty of time to hike and get outside. (If anything, she's probably limited more by her bookworm parents and the weather than her inclinations). Even if we lived in the 'burbs (or even out on a farm), we'd have to drive somewhere for hunting/fishing. (And really, that's what camping trips are for).
So let's put the blame where it belongs - parents are fed a steady diet of "hide your kids, the bad men are coming!", along with a side order of guilt-trip whenever they even consider letting their kids do something unsupervised (I was admonished for considering ever letting my kid walk two blocks to school, because "how could you live with yourself if something happened?!?"). Add the fact that most playgrounds have been severely wussified, schools don't let you throw balls anymore (because you could hit another kid! *winge*), and we have to face facts - kids don't want to play outside, because we've made the outside boring, and parents are taught not to let their kids outside because Something Bad Will Happen. The city or country has nothing to do with it.
A smart way to improve the economy would be to make SPACIOUS housing affordable, thereby encouraging families and shopping.
I'll do you one better - a smart way to improve the economy is to stop trying to convince people that they need massive square footage so that they have their own personal castle. Live with smaller space, and get out into your neighborhood.
Not all of us can afford a decent quality apartment downtown, let alone a private school for our kids. And not all of us live in cities with decent public transit. I live in a house in the suburbs mostly because it was my best option for my money.
The question would be, if you had better public transit, would you use it?
Agreed that not everyone can afford the stupid prices some neighborhoods command - I gave up on my first-choice when we shopped because it added $100K to the price, and took a massive hit in the quality of homes offered. And I dislike private schools on general principle.
Cars put very little burden on road paving. Trucks are what damage roads. Tax them more and shipping will move to more efficient rail. Right now shippers are being subsidized by gas taxes providing them with low cost roads.
Working in the transportation industry, I can tell you that a lot of distribution centers would happily switch to rail, except that rail can't meet the JIT deadlines required in today's age. (Trains don't really do reliable "overnight shipping"). It also doesn't remove the need for that trucking fleet, but merely relocates them to all your rail destinations - instead of having 50 trucks running out of a central facility, you have 50 trucks spread out across hither and yon, which increases your management costs.
Not to mention that not everyone wants to live in a city. My dad commutes an hour each way to/from work simply because my parents wanted to live somewhere rural and quiet, and actually have some land. Both my brother and I are out of school so that's irrelevant; it has nothing to do with the practicality of living in a city. A lot of people just hate that kind of environment. If they wanted to live near the office they could afford to do so, they just don't want that.
And I agree that's a perfectly valid option - my parents did something similar.
On the other hand, my wife and I specifically looked for a house with good transit service, because that way she can bus to work rather than us having to buy a second car (or put 100km/day on our current car). It cost us slightly more than the new suburbs, but we're walking distance to my kid's school, our grocery store, and the library. Half an hour's walk puts us at the zoo. And we'll easily make up the extra house price in reduced expenses.
I don't watch much TV anymore and what I do watch I find...ummm...online from...legitimate, yeah that's it, legitimate...sources (in Russia).
Here in Canada, I can get three of the four major networks via iApp. (CTV seems to be the slowpoke in this regard). I buy internet, but not cable, and can watch the two or three shows I sorta-care about that way. (The shows I *actually* care about - my must-sees - I buy from iTunes).
Even if I was in a Time Warner area, I wouldn't be interested in their app, because I'm sure it would require me to pay for the cable service first, and I don't want to pay for all the various tiers required so I can get at the four channels I actually want to watch.
You've got it backwards - Times Warner is trying to pre-emptively take over another distribution channel without having to pay for it.
I've got to side with the networks on this one - they sold the television rights, not the internet rights. And if they have any brains, they'll have their own apps up and running ASAP so that they are collecting the cash from that revenue stream - because consumers won't care who's getting the cash, as long as they can watch their show.
Disclaimer: I don't watch any of those shows.
I think we need to draw a distinction between "there are ghosts here" and "we can't explain why things are happening here". While I don't believe in ghosts in the "booga booga" sense, I will accept that there are things that we can't currently explain. That doesn't prove or disprove supernatural causes - it just means we can't describe it just yet.
Just like how if you're 18 and you go to Europe and drink a beer, you can be extradited and the USA will criminally charge you for underage drinking. This is a huge problem for American foreign exchange students, who when caught drinking (legally in the country they're studying in) are sent back to America under legal penalty and lose their scholarships and are forced to pay back all the money they got for free sometimes etc.
Citation? Not saying it's impossible (I can see the theory), but I'd be unpleasantly surprised if the US is actually going through the paperwork to extradite for underage-in-the-US drinking.
Heck, I always thought the reason we had so many American college tourists up here in Canada was *because* you could drink three years earlier...