I don't really understand the outcry against death panels. Any insurance program, government or private has to have a process whereby coverage is denied to people who will die without it. For the fast majority of people every dollar spent could increase quality/length of life, likely with logarithmic return.
So...you can have the (potentially corrupt and inefficient) government decide when you die, or you can have a for-profit corporation do it. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." - H L Mencken
Of course this is dicey, as the current proposition is, in my opinion a good idea. But we all know that GP's right.
While I generally favor no-fault insurance for cases where there's no obvious fault, I'd still want the other guy to pay (or be willing to pay if I am the other guy) if he fucked up badly. Intentional ramming, drunk driving, reckless speeding (not just the speeding everyone does, I'm talking 25 over here in a residential), running lights, etc.
Graze my car on the side, you're likely as torn up as I am and I have no interest in going to court/fighting insurance companies to determine who was wronger.
Hehe yes, they've made great progress, and generally been responsive to my bug reports. I've been using it since I was a freshman in college, to type all my problemsets and exams, and to take notes in class. Even back then (2005), it was significantly faster than writing math down by hand.
I should look at texmacs or upgrade lyx. Perhaps both.
As a longtime faithful LyX user, in addition to agreeing with you completely, I should also mention that stability, consistent output, and less confusingness are needed. They could go one of two routes: either integrate better with LaTeX so that I can do my layout with it, or use it only as a backend and make layout work better. They do neither of these.
Personally I'd like to see a click-editable one-pane LaTeX editor with dual mode view for source view (even if the live rendering isn't perfect, eg LyX, it's good enough).
LyX also has terrible version compatibility; often a document saved in one version will not render in later versions.
It has a great start, but LyX needs tons of polish before it's anywhere close to achieving its full potential.
Britain was involved in the settlement and creation of modern-day Israel. Israelis and Palestinians often kill each other. It's not a real connection but I think this is what he's going for.
"Bruce Springsteen, Madonna Way before Nirvana There was U2 and Blondie And music still on MTV Her two kids in high school They tell her that sheâ(TM)s uncool Cause she's still preoccupied With 19, 19, 1985" --BFS
Healthy people account for roughly 90% of the population
Which is why they're used in most studies unless the purpose is to/specifically/ study some illness.
And studying either doesn't tell us a whole lot.
Yes it does. It tells us about healthy people. If that's not what you wanted then you picked the wrong people to study.
Studying the edge cases reveals a lot more about the underlying dynamics of a system than studying its average cases.
No, it introduces noise which makes it harder to perceive the underlying patterns. If the scientists restrict their claim that this applies on average to/heterosexual/ men, then it is perfectly scientifically sound.
It's perfectly valid if they don't claim it generalizes past the confines of the experiment. Of course the/. headline is then inaccurate, but it's not like that doesn't happen anyway. The problem is that there are thousands of variables that can affect an experiment, and you can't test them all in one go. What about testosterone level? Time since last having sex? Relationship status? Heterosexuals account for roughly 90% of the population, which makes them a reasonable group of test subjects for an experiment.
That said, I'd be extremely interested to see a similar study that takes sexual preference into account. Even more interesting would be to study transsexuals whose mind and body disagree on sex; as you might find that straight FTMs exhibit the same behavior as the heterosexual males, despite having female bodies themselves.
Playing devils advocate (here agreeing with you I guess), don't forget that not everyone can be cleanly lumped into those four bins of preference, you insensitive clod!;)
I'll gladly not look in your window but it's hard to overlook some kid tripped out of his mind on "marihuana" (a dangerous, illegal, narcotic) breaking into my house and attempting to rob me while twitching compulsively and speaking to people who aren't there.
Get The Facts: Marihuana is as addictive and violence inducing as methamphetamine.
Not to nitpick, but the cutting accuracy issue is with drugs that have a close effective and lethal dose. LSD's high potency has little to do with it.
As an aside, my high school physics teacher had a friend who was given a brownie with about 24mg of LSD in it (about 300 effective doses) at a party, as someone needed to dispose of it quickly and was afraid of any other method which might leave traces for the police. Surprisingly, the man survived, but developed terrible schizophrenia and had to be committed.
Well to be honest, I'm not entirely sure it matters what someone did when it comes to humanitarian grounds. I'm also not sure I support humanitarian releases at all, but that's a different issue.
If it mattered what they did, we'd just give them a shorter sentence. Really I think it comes down to what you believe the justice system is for. I believe in its use for prevention, protection, and rehabilitation. When a man is about to die, prevention and protection are achieved naturally and rehabilitation is pointless. Unfortunately, most in my country seem to think vengeance is the most important role it plays. Of course this is all down to opinions, and it's not for anyone to say whose is correct.
When you combine it with the pretty flimsy evidence on this guy, I can't really bring myself to condemn his release.
Slashdot Mirror
....wait...refusing to commit a crime is illegal in America now? What's next, thoughtcrime? sigh.
Hans? They have internet in maximum security prison?
Sorry what was that? I was too busy enjoying an ice-cold Cola-Cola to pay conscious attention to your post.
So how long until someone finds an exploit in your brain using specially crafted broadcasts?
I don't really understand the outcry against death panels. Any insurance program, government or private has to have a process whereby coverage is denied to people who will die without it. For the fast majority of people every dollar spent could increase quality/length of life, likely with logarithmic return.
So...you can have the (potentially corrupt and inefficient) government decide when you die, or you can have a for-profit corporation do it. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." - H L Mencken
Of course this is dicey, as the current proposition is, in my opinion a good idea. But we all know that GP's right.
*woosh* Better duck!
While I generally favor no-fault insurance for cases where there's no obvious fault, I'd still want the other guy to pay (or be willing to pay if I am the other guy) if he fucked up badly. Intentional ramming, drunk driving, reckless speeding (not just the speeding everyone does, I'm talking 25 over here in a residential), running lights, etc.
Graze my car on the side, you're likely as torn up as I am and I have no interest in going to court/fighting insurance companies to determine who was wronger.
Hehe yes, they've made great progress, and generally been responsive to my bug reports. I've been using it since I was a freshman in college, to type all my problemsets and exams, and to take notes in class. Even back then (2005), it was significantly faster than writing math down by hand.
I should look at texmacs or upgrade lyx. Perhaps both.
As a longtime faithful LyX user, in addition to agreeing with you completely, I should also mention that stability, consistent output, and less confusingness are needed. They could go one of two routes: either integrate better with LaTeX so that I can do my layout with it, or use it only as a backend and make layout work better. They do neither of these.
Personally I'd like to see a click-editable one-pane LaTeX editor with dual mode view for source view (even if the live rendering isn't perfect, eg LyX, it's good enough).
LyX also has terrible version compatibility; often a document saved in one version will not render in later versions.
It has a great start, but LyX needs tons of polish before it's anywhere close to achieving its full potential.
Britain was involved in the settlement and creation of modern-day Israel. Israelis and Palestinians often kill each other. It's not a real connection but I think this is what he's going for.
Postal 2 would lose tons of appeal if killing people were necessary. It's just not as funny.
"Bruce Springsteen, Madonna
Way before Nirvana
There was U2 and Blondie
And music still on MTV
Her two kids in high school
They tell her that sheâ(TM)s uncool
Cause she's still preoccupied
With 19, 19, 1985"
--BFS
Healthy people account for roughly 90% of the population
Which is why they're used in most studies unless the purpose is to /specifically/ study some illness.
And studying either doesn't tell us a whole lot.
Yes it does. It tells us about healthy people. If that's not what you wanted then you picked the wrong people to study.
Studying the edge cases reveals a lot more about the underlying dynamics of a system than studying its average cases.
No, it introduces noise which makes it harder to perceive the underlying patterns. If the scientists restrict their claim that this applies on average to /heterosexual/ men, then it is perfectly scientifically sound.
It's perfectly valid if they don't claim it generalizes past the confines of the experiment. Of course the /. headline is then inaccurate, but it's not like that doesn't happen anyway. The problem is that there are thousands of variables that can affect an experiment, and you can't test them all in one go. What about testosterone level? Time since last having sex? Relationship status? Heterosexuals account for roughly 90% of the population, which makes them a reasonable group of test subjects for an experiment.
That said, I'd be extremely interested to see a similar study that takes sexual preference into account. Even more interesting would be to study transsexuals whose mind and body disagree on sex; as you might find that straight FTMs exhibit the same behavior as the heterosexual males, despite having female bodies themselves.
Playing devils advocate (here agreeing with you I guess), don't forget that not everyone can be cleanly lumped into those four bins of preference, you insensitive clod!;)
No California's on fire, it's part of the stimulus package;)
If JPL burns down it'll cost a lot to build a new one.
...we need to start funding our police better!
No, it's likely not concentrated enough to be economically viable.
works fine for me.
yes... "forgot" to put in batteries...
I'll gladly not look in your window but it's hard to overlook some kid tripped out of his mind on "marihuana" (a dangerous, illegal, narcotic) breaking into my house and attempting to rob me while twitching compulsively and speaking to people who aren't there.
Get The Facts: Marihuana is as addictive and violence inducing as methamphetamine.
Sorry, I was assuming a harmless adulterant, as did the person I was replying to. Of course what they're cut with is also a serious concern.
If I don't know they're doing drugs, then everything is just peachy. Or if I do know and it doesn't affect me.
Not to nitpick, but the cutting accuracy issue is with drugs that have a close effective and lethal dose. LSD's high potency has little to do with it.
As an aside, my high school physics teacher had a friend who was given a brownie with about 24mg of LSD in it (about 300 effective doses) at a party, as someone needed to dispose of it quickly and was afraid of any other method which might leave traces for the police. Surprisingly, the man survived, but developed terrible schizophrenia and had to be committed.
Well to be honest, I'm not entirely sure it matters what someone did when it comes to humanitarian grounds. I'm also not sure I support humanitarian releases at all, but that's a different issue.
If it mattered what they did, we'd just give them a shorter sentence. Really I think it comes down to what you believe the justice system is for. I believe in its use for prevention, protection, and rehabilitation. When a man is about to die, prevention and protection are achieved naturally and rehabilitation is pointless. Unfortunately, most in my country seem to think vengeance is the most important role it plays. Of course this is all down to opinions, and it's not for anyone to say whose is correct.
When you combine it with the pretty flimsy evidence on this guy, I can't really bring myself to condemn his release.