Even for the Cowpox vaccine, it wasn't completely random - it was as a result of an investigation into dairy workers to discover why smallpox didn't affect them. The discovery was part of a planned research project aimed at exactly that target.
This seems to carry with it the implication that the discovery of the smallpox vaccine was the result of a carefully-crafted study undertaken by a major pharmaceutical corporation. Keep in mind that the smallpox vaccine was discovered more than two hundred years ago by a lone guy who took a huge risk by infecting a boy with cowpox and then deliberately trying to infect him with smallpox. If the theory wasn't correct, well... oops! Vaccination was not exactly old hat at the time, either. The smallpox vaccine was the first vaccine, and the word "vaccine" itself is derived from - you guessed it - the latin word for cow, which is "vacca".
If you didn't mean to imply this, then I apologize.
and enough customers will tell Verizon to cram it that they will diminish into irrelevance in a matter of days or weeks.
I think you're overstating Google's power a tad here. Sure Verizon will lose customers, but in the end it's a lot easier to switch search engines than it is to switch ISPs. Rule #1: Never underestimate the laziness of the average American.
Also, I don't think 24 hours would be enough to get a lot of people to cancel. Sure they'll talk about cancelling while they can't search for their pr0n or the latest Britney Spears gossip, but as soon as Google flicks back on they'll forget they were ever going to cancel. Rule #2: Never overestimate the memory of the average American. (And if Google were to keep the block on longer than 24 hours, see Rule #1.)
Whoa... Are people scalping Photoshop on EBay now? The full version of PS is $650. Adobe's entire Creative Suite (PS, Acrobat, Illustrator, InDesign, and GoLive) is still "only" $1200.
If they see a pirated version of Photoshop vs. a free version of GIMP, nearly everyone goes for Photoshop on name recognition alone.
And even if they DIDN'T recognize the Photoshop name, which do you think they would choose, based on name alone? "The GIMP" has to be the worst name for a product in the history of the world. I'm embarrassed to even say it if someone asks me what software I used to make an image.
16bpp seems... crude. Besides, there should be nothing in the palette that can't be produced in a 24-bit mode, since it's just a table of RGB values.
He meant 16 bits per SAMPLE, not 16 bits per PIXEL. DSLRs and some point-and-shoots offer the capability to save files in raw mode rather than JPEG. Canon's sensors are 12 bits per sample I think, and the raw images can be decoded into 16 bit per sample TIFFs. Versions of Photoshop earlier than 7 had minimal 16-bit support, but the latest version of PS has not only much better 16-bit support, but also native support for many camera manufacturers' raw formats.
So no, nobody wants 64k (16bpp) color, that was so 1994. They want 64k^3 (48bpp) color.
Do a whois on them and you will see thier physical address is the exact same as the address Fenton.com which is a left wing PR firm that represents liberal organizations including moveon.org.
They addressed that almost a year ago. Why they wouldn't be more cognizant of the appearance of conflict of interest, I don't know.
I agree, they should do those things. But take a look at local papers, and listen to local radio news readers. Hot off the press from the AP and onto the front page, with barely a cut or paste to slow it down. Go to Google News and search for a topic of the past few days. You get page after page of the same article, written once and published dozens of times across the country by different papers.
There's a big difference between printing an article verbatim off the AP wire, and printing a press release verbatim as if it were a news article.
I agree with your point, though - one of the papers in my parents' town is basically just a printout of the wire news. Might as well just read it online and save the money.
They do these things called "Press Releases" that put the organization's spin on events. Why the refinery explosion isn't as bad as it seems, how the layoffs are going to help the economy, why discovering the tainted baby formula shows the system really works.
And a responsible media outlet takes those press releases, along with the opinions of others outside the organization, and writes a balanced article. For example, "Company A says the layoffs are going to help the economy, but Professor B at local University C says that the newly unemployed will in fact drain the economy, due to the cost on the region's taxpayers from new unemployment and welfare claims." They don't just publish press releases verbatim. (There are exceptions to this, for example non-controversial press releases where a company of local interest announces an acquisition or a new contract, etc, but even then the newspaper usually cuts pieces out of the release and writes an article around that, rather than just publishing the release itself.)
Also, even if the press release is published verbatim, it is clear that it is coming from the organization itself -- "Company A today announced that... ". They're not dressed up as if they're news articles written by the newspaper itself, which was the case with the DOD-written articles in the Iraqi papers.
As to your assertion of the U.S. media doing the same thing, that's just an attempt at moral equivalence. It's just as reprehensible for the U.S. media to do it.
Your little exchange about the 5th amendment proves that you don't have a clue what you're talking about regarding the Constitution. First, a little refresher.
The GP wrote: Due process is gone.... if the government decides that by posting this message, I am indeed a "terrorist", I can be locked up... without due process, without being allowed to contact my lawyer, without access to my family, and without the ability to post bail... indefinitely.
There's one civil right gone. 5th Amendment... blown to bits.
Then you wrote: So you've been forced to testify against yourself in a trial? I think not.
I hope you don't really believe that the only thing in the 5th Amendment is that you don't have to testify against yourself. Just for good measure, let's quote the text of the 5th Amendment: No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Oh, look at that clause that's in bold. I'll repeat it for you, just for good measure: "No person shall... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". As the GP asserted, if due process is gone, then the 5th amendment has been blown to bits.
Please go get yourself a minimal education on the Constitution (hell, just reading it would be a start) before spouting off on what is and what isn't constitutional.
The post I responded to didn't say COMBINED Taxes, just the portion the person pays.
No, he didn't. But he did say "on top of the 15% SS/Medicaid tax". 12.4% + 2.9% is suspiciously close to 15%. So either he was incredibly far off base, which is certainly possible (especially given that he said Medicaid not Medicare), or he was figuring in the employer's contribution. We don't know. Yet you jumped all over him with the ad hominem attack. And like I said in my post, "the portion the person pays" IS the full 15+% when they are self-employed.
No, it would NOT be passed on as higher wages. It would be moved to the bottom line.
Perhaps, perhaps not. The employer's FICA contribution is basically a payment on behalf of the employee. As such, if it were to go away, I could see some employers giving a portion of it to the employee. It's all speculation either way, but I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility.
I'll hit the limit in about August if all goes to plan.
Good for you. What did this statement contribute to the discussion again?
Tell everyone 30 years of age and younger you'll never get SS and phaze it out as old people die off.
Yeah... do that while still collecting SS taxes from them for the rest of their lives and you'll have a lot of very pissed off people. I know I would be. Of course, people at that age don't vote en masse, so maybe the politicians wouldn't care. Either way though, I agree, in its current form it's unsustainable. And privatizing it simply turns it into a retirement account, which it was never meant to be, though a lot of people don't seem to understand that.
Of course, you also run into the problem that a lot of the anti-abortion crowd are also pro abstinence as the only form of sex education
I've never understood this one either... I've heard people on the right say that abstinence is, as you said, the only acceptable form of sex education, and people on the left say that abstinence education won't work so the only acceptable way is to teach safe sex. Why oh why is it that black and white? Is there a problem with encouraging abstinence, while acknowledging that some percentage of the teenage population will still have sex no matter what, and encouraging them to engage in safe sex? This doesn't even really strike me as a "compromise", it strikes me as a no-brainer.
a penny a week raise for not missing any days or having any problems at work that week. It doesn't sound like much but it adds up. A normal decent work week can earn you $80/yr more.
Huh? Are you increasing their weekly wage by a penny? Or are you increasing their hourly wage by a penny? The former amounts to a bonus of, ahem, 52 cents over the course of a year, or $13 if a raise is given and compounded weekly. The latter is just under $21. So I'm a bit fuzzy on where you get $80. And while it's a nice gesture, I make over $20 in an hour, so an extra $20 (or even $80) a year really isn't a big deal. Call me ungrateful.
Yes, but your employer must pony up a matching 6.2% of your salary, making a total FICA contribution of around $12k at the SS limit. And in the case of self-employed individuals, the full 12.4% comes out of the worker's pocket. Even for the non-self-employed I would argue that without their employer having to pay that half of the FICA taxes, some portion of the savings would be passed on to employees as higher wages. This may have been where the OP got the $12k number, so perhaps you shouldn't be so quick to judge his math skills.
Also, before you go spouting off about the the "typical liberal," perhaps you should check your own post. The upper limit on SS-taxable income is $94,200 for 2006, not $96,400 as you assert.
He's not making up the "too clean" bit; I saw an article in the newspaper about the theory a while ago. The wikipedia article on allergies talks about it. As far as I know, it's not necessarily an explanation as to why all allergies occur, but more of an explanation for why they are so much more prevalent today.
They didn't have common carrier status to begin with. Remember this? The Wikipedia article on common carrier also says that ISPs are not generally considered common carriers, and do not wish to be so. Unfortunately, it's a bit thin on the details aside from saying that common carrier status carries "obligations they would rather avoid".
You made a post that tried to sound as if you were an authority on all things related to upstate, having admittedly spent only a year there and having admittedly not gotten much outside of Ithaca (hell, 15 or 20 minutes outside of Ithaca would've done the trick). Yet you managed to get the fundamental political leaning of the region entirely backwards, not to mention the fact that you called Cayuga Lake (which is visible from Cornell's campus no less, and also mentioned prominently in the alma mater) the Cayuga River.
Maybe his use of "moron" was a bit harsh, but if the shoe fits...
In defense of your main point, however, yes, the people here generally like to talk politics (moreso than people in other rural regions? I don't know). But it's usually bitching about government involvement, not supporting the latest liberal cause-du-jour. Especially in the Adirondacks, where you could live your whole life, but if you weren't born there, you'll remain an outsider until you die. Speaking of which, I'd encourage you to get up there. It's beautiful.
If you drive that way - without thinking - you deserve to die.
Oh please... His point was that in a car, you are far less attuned than you are when you go similar speeds without the giant cage of protection that a car surrounds you with. For example, the fastest I've ever been on a bicycle is 55mph, and believe me, I was paying a hell of a lot closer attention to what I was doing than I ever do in a car. Why? Because you FEEL vulnerable. You know that the slightest little mistake and you're going to die. You don't get that feeling in a car. If you spent all your time behind the wheel as on-edge as I was cruising down that hill at 55mph on two narrow wheels, even a 5 minute trip to the grocery store would be absolutely exhausting. Downhill skiing is the same thing, if you get going fast enough.
There's a big difference between the feeling I'm describing, and mere "thinking".
I solved this one. I don't use my credit card for anything that couldn't be tracked anyway (phone bill, cable bill, etc). I'll be damned if my credit union and VISA are going to know what I'm eating this week, or what brand of toilet paper I use, how often I buy gas or where I drink and party.
VISA isn't going to be able to find out what you're eating or what brand of toilet paper you use anyway. The individual items you buy are not sent along with a credit card authorization request, just the amount that's being asked for, the merchant, and your card info. So sure, they can guess you're buying groceries if you're at the grocery store, but they don't even know that you're buying toilet paper, let alone what kind. They might be able to tell how often you buy gas, but if you don't pay at the pump (and maybe even if you do) they'd have a hard time telling whether you bought gas or you just had a $25 case of the munchies.
The insurance companies (who have presumably researched the probability of a crash with and without daytime running lights) disagree with you that cars with lights on are harder to see, or else they wouldn't give discounts for said lights. Though I agree, people that drive with high beams on at any time of day when other cars are around need to be shot.
Slashdot Mirror
Ever used PhotoShop?
If you're going to use Photoshop all day, get a tablet.
Even for the Cowpox vaccine, it wasn't completely random - it was as a result of an investigation into dairy workers to discover why smallpox didn't affect them. The discovery was part of a planned research project aimed at exactly that target.
This seems to carry with it the implication that the discovery of the smallpox vaccine was the result of a carefully-crafted study undertaken by a major pharmaceutical corporation. Keep in mind that the smallpox vaccine was discovered more than two hundred years ago by a lone guy who took a huge risk by infecting a boy with cowpox and then deliberately trying to infect him with smallpox. If the theory wasn't correct, well... oops! Vaccination was not exactly old hat at the time, either. The smallpox vaccine was the first vaccine, and the word "vaccine" itself is derived from - you guessed it - the latin word for cow, which is "vacca".
If you didn't mean to imply this, then I apologize.
and enough customers will tell Verizon to cram it that they will diminish into irrelevance in a matter of days or weeks.
I think you're overstating Google's power a tad here. Sure Verizon will lose customers, but in the end it's a lot easier to switch search engines than it is to switch ISPs. Rule #1: Never underestimate the laziness of the average American.
Also, I don't think 24 hours would be enough to get a lot of people to cancel. Sure they'll talk about cancelling while they can't search for their pr0n or the latest Britney Spears gossip, but as soon as Google flicks back on they'll forget they were ever going to cancel. Rule #2: Never overestimate the memory of the average American. (And if Google were to keep the block on longer than 24 hours, see Rule #1.)
"MPecker" kind of makes me chuckle. "The GIMP" makes me cringe.
rather than plonk down $2,000 for photoshop.
Whoa... Are people scalping Photoshop on EBay now? The full version of PS is $650. Adobe's entire Creative Suite (PS, Acrobat, Illustrator, InDesign, and GoLive) is still "only" $1200.
If they see a pirated version of Photoshop vs. a free version of GIMP, nearly everyone goes for Photoshop on name recognition alone.
And even if they DIDN'T recognize the Photoshop name, which do you think they would choose, based on name alone? "The GIMP" has to be the worst name for a product in the history of the world. I'm embarrassed to even say it if someone asks me what software I used to make an image.
16bpp seems... crude. Besides, there should be nothing in the palette that can't be produced in a 24-bit mode, since it's just a table of RGB values.
He meant 16 bits per SAMPLE, not 16 bits per PIXEL. DSLRs and some point-and-shoots offer the capability to save files in raw mode rather than JPEG. Canon's sensors are 12 bits per sample I think, and the raw images can be decoded into 16 bit per sample TIFFs. Versions of Photoshop earlier than 7 had minimal 16-bit support, but the latest version of PS has not only much better 16-bit support, but also native support for many camera manufacturers' raw formats.
So no, nobody wants 64k (16bpp) color, that was so 1994. They want 64k^3 (48bpp) color.
Do a whois on them and you will see thier physical address is the exact same as the address Fenton.com which is a left wing PR firm that represents liberal organizations including moveon.org.
They addressed that almost a year ago. Why they wouldn't be more cognizant of the appearance of conflict of interest, I don't know.
I agree, they should do those things. But take a look at local papers, and listen to local radio news readers. Hot off the press from the AP and onto the front page, with barely a cut or paste to slow it down. Go to Google News and search for a topic of the past few days. You get page after page of the same article, written once and published dozens of times across the country by different papers.
There's a big difference between printing an article verbatim off the AP wire, and printing a press release verbatim as if it were a news article.
I agree with your point, though - one of the papers in my parents' town is basically just a printout of the wire news. Might as well just read it online and save the money.
Canada has its own nuclear submarines (I kid you not).
As the other poster said, no, they don't.
Here's a list of ships in the Canadian Navy. The four subs are all Victoria class, which are diesel-electrics.
The U.S. Navy, by comparison, has 73 subs (all nuclear).
They do these things called "Press Releases" that put the organization's spin on events. Why the refinery explosion isn't as bad as it seems, how the layoffs are going to help the economy, why discovering the tainted baby formula shows the system really works.
... ". They're not dressed up as if they're news articles written by the newspaper itself, which was the case with the DOD-written articles in the Iraqi papers.
And a responsible media outlet takes those press releases, along with the opinions of others outside the organization, and writes a balanced article. For example, "Company A says the layoffs are going to help the economy, but Professor B at local University C says that the newly unemployed will in fact drain the economy, due to the cost on the region's taxpayers from new unemployment and welfare claims." They don't just publish press releases verbatim. (There are exceptions to this, for example non-controversial press releases where a company of local interest announces an acquisition or a new contract, etc, but even then the newspaper usually cuts pieces out of the release and writes an article around that, rather than just publishing the release itself.)
Also, even if the press release is published verbatim, it is clear that it is coming from the organization itself -- "Company A today announced that
As to your assertion of the U.S. media doing the same thing, that's just an attempt at moral equivalence. It's just as reprehensible for the U.S. media to do it.
Your little exchange about the 5th amendment proves that you don't have a clue what you're talking about regarding the Constitution. First, a little refresher.
... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". As the GP asserted, if due process is gone, then the 5th amendment has been blown to bits.
The GP wrote:
Due process is gone.... if the government decides that by posting this message, I am indeed a "terrorist", I can be locked up... without due process, without being allowed to contact my lawyer, without access to my family, and without the ability to post bail... indefinitely.
There's one civil right gone. 5th Amendment... blown to bits.
Then you wrote:
So you've been forced to testify against yourself in a trial? I think not.
I hope you don't really believe that the only thing in the 5th Amendment is that you don't have to testify against yourself. Just for good measure, let's quote the text of the 5th Amendment:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Oh, look at that clause that's in bold. I'll repeat it for you, just for good measure: "No person shall
Please go get yourself a minimal education on the Constitution (hell, just reading it would be a start) before spouting off on what is and what isn't constitutional.
My guess is Jennifer Love Hewitt because in her new TV show (Ghost Whisperer) she can communicate with the dead.
The post I responded to didn't say COMBINED Taxes, just the portion the person pays.
No, he didn't. But he did say "on top of the 15% SS/Medicaid tax". 12.4% + 2.9% is suspiciously close to 15%. So either he was incredibly far off base, which is certainly possible (especially given that he said Medicaid not Medicare), or he was figuring in the employer's contribution. We don't know. Yet you jumped all over him with the ad hominem attack. And like I said in my post, "the portion the person pays" IS the full 15+% when they are self-employed.
No, it would NOT be passed on as higher wages. It would be moved to the bottom line.
Perhaps, perhaps not. The employer's FICA contribution is basically a payment on behalf of the employee. As such, if it were to go away, I could see some employers giving a portion of it to the employee. It's all speculation either way, but I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility.
I'll hit the limit in about August if all goes to plan.
Good for you. What did this statement contribute to the discussion again?
Tell everyone 30 years of age and younger you'll never get SS and phaze it out as old people die off.
Yeah... do that while still collecting SS taxes from them for the rest of their lives and you'll have a lot of very pissed off people. I know I would be. Of course, people at that age don't vote en masse, so maybe the politicians wouldn't care. Either way though, I agree, in its current form it's unsustainable. And privatizing it simply turns it into a retirement account, which it was never meant to be, though a lot of people don't seem to understand that.
Of course, you also run into the problem that a lot of the anti-abortion crowd are also pro abstinence as the only form of sex education
I've never understood this one either... I've heard people on the right say that abstinence is, as you said, the only acceptable form of sex education, and people on the left say that abstinence education won't work so the only acceptable way is to teach safe sex. Why oh why is it that black and white? Is there a problem with encouraging abstinence, while acknowledging that some percentage of the teenage population will still have sex no matter what, and encouraging them to engage in safe sex? This doesn't even really strike me as a "compromise", it strikes me as a no-brainer.
a penny a week raise for not missing any days or having any problems at work that week. It doesn't sound like much but it adds up. A normal decent work week can earn you $80/yr more.
Huh? Are you increasing their weekly wage by a penny? Or are you increasing their hourly wage by a penny? The former amounts to a bonus of, ahem, 52 cents over the course of a year, or $13 if a raise is given and compounded weekly. The latter is just under $21. So I'm a bit fuzzy on where you get $80. And while it's a nice gesture, I make over $20 in an hour, so an extra $20 (or even $80) a year really isn't a big deal. Call me ungrateful.
Yes, but your employer must pony up a matching 6.2% of your salary, making a total FICA contribution of around $12k at the SS limit. And in the case of self-employed individuals, the full 12.4% comes out of the worker's pocket. Even for the non-self-employed I would argue that without their employer having to pay that half of the FICA taxes, some portion of the savings would be passed on to employees as higher wages. This may have been where the OP got the $12k number, so perhaps you shouldn't be so quick to judge his math skills.
Also, before you go spouting off about the the "typical liberal," perhaps you should check your own post. The upper limit on SS-taxable income is $94,200 for 2006, not $96,400 as you assert.
He's not making up the "too clean" bit; I saw an article in the newspaper about the theory a while ago. The wikipedia article on allergies talks about it. As far as I know, it's not necessarily an explanation as to why all allergies occur, but more of an explanation for why they are so much more prevalent today.
They didn't have common carrier status to begin with. Remember this? The Wikipedia article on common carrier also says that ISPs are not generally considered common carriers, and do not wish to be so. Unfortunately, it's a bit thin on the details aside from saying that common carrier status carries "obligations they would rather avoid".
And I bet you turned the lights off when you left the room, didn't you?
Dude,
You made a post that tried to sound as if you were an authority on all things related to upstate, having admittedly spent only a year there and having admittedly not gotten much outside of Ithaca (hell, 15 or 20 minutes outside of Ithaca would've done the trick). Yet you managed to get the fundamental political leaning of the region entirely backwards, not to mention the fact that you called Cayuga Lake (which is visible from Cornell's campus no less, and also mentioned prominently in the alma mater) the Cayuga River.
Maybe his use of "moron" was a bit harsh, but if the shoe fits...
In defense of your main point, however, yes, the people here generally like to talk politics (moreso than people in other rural regions? I don't know). But it's usually bitching about government involvement, not supporting the latest liberal cause-du-jour. Especially in the Adirondacks, where you could live your whole life, but if you weren't born there, you'll remain an outsider until you die. Speaking of which, I'd encourage you to get up there. It's beautiful.
- A lifelong upstater.
If you drive that way - without thinking - you deserve to die.
Oh please... His point was that in a car, you are far less attuned than you are when you go similar speeds without the giant cage of protection that a car surrounds you with. For example, the fastest I've ever been on a bicycle is 55mph, and believe me, I was paying a hell of a lot closer attention to what I was doing than I ever do in a car. Why? Because you FEEL vulnerable. You know that the slightest little mistake and you're going to die. You don't get that feeling in a car. If you spent all your time behind the wheel as on-edge as I was cruising down that hill at 55mph on two narrow wheels, even a 5 minute trip to the grocery store would be absolutely exhausting. Downhill skiing is the same thing, if you get going fast enough.
There's a big difference between the feeling I'm describing, and mere "thinking".
I solved this one. I don't use my credit card for anything that couldn't be tracked anyway (phone bill, cable bill, etc). I'll be damned if my credit union and VISA are going to know what I'm eating this week, or what brand of toilet paper I use, how often I buy gas or where I drink and party.
VISA isn't going to be able to find out what you're eating or what brand of toilet paper you use anyway. The individual items you buy are not sent along with a credit card authorization request, just the amount that's being asked for, the merchant, and your card info. So sure, they can guess you're buying groceries if you're at the grocery store, but they don't even know that you're buying toilet paper, let alone what kind. They might be able to tell how often you buy gas, but if you don't pay at the pump (and maybe even if you do) they'd have a hard time telling whether you bought gas or you just had a $25 case of the munchies.
The insurance companies (who have presumably researched the probability of a crash with and without daytime running lights) disagree with you that cars with lights on are harder to see, or else they wouldn't give discounts for said lights. Though I agree, people that drive with high beams on at any time of day when other cars are around need to be shot.