Come on! It doesn't take a rocket scientist to derive those values.
Here's a list of government requests per million people, rounded and only including the countries where the number of datums requested was shown.
Argentina - - - 3.307095
Australia - - - 8.901248
Austria - - - 0.238865
Belgium - - - 6.557971
Brazil - - - 12.581119
Chile - - - 6.712585
France - - - 15.539203
Germany - - - 8.166034
Hong Kong - - - 7.11602
India - - - 1.203775
Israel - - - 3.932982
Italy - - - 10.7777
Japan - - - 0.439595
Libya - - - 22.761992
Portugal - - - 6.86291
Singapore - - - 20.879705
South Korea - - - 3.415496
Spain - - - 8.074172
Switzerland - - - 4.497038
Taiwan - - - 5.620141
Turkey - - - 0.702854
United Kingdom - - - 21.658479
United States - - - 13.815395
When I was in high school, I used to try to cram for history exams the night before, having never cracked the book prior to the test. I would fall asleep sometime during the night, with my face in the middle of a chapter on, say, the Byzantine Empire.
I would wake up in the morning without really recalling anything from the previous night. I must have dreamed, though, that I finished the chapter. I would walk into my exam feeling good about it: Constantinople was named after Emperor Constantine, there was some guy named Justinian, they all got vanquished by the Turks. Then I would get the exam handed to me and realize that half the stuff I thought I knew was ethereal---the random sensory noise of a dream, and the harder I tried to grasp what the dream-state had told me, the more it slipped through my fingers.
Nowadays I have a better sense of when I'm unprepared.
Precisely. A goatherder who tried to make an IED is most likely going to end up with a smelly, burning mess.
Not to mention that your average goatherder doesn't really have a disposable income to spend on terrorist stuff. He's out herding goats. When he's done, he's tired, and the last thing on his mind is bringing down whatever government. Even if he decides to go off to Waziristan and trains on Bin Laden's dime, he's got family obligations: his uncle really needs him to herd those damn goats, what do you think you're doing running off to fight America, now drink your blue milk.* Sure, "the terrorists" don't have a Western standard of living, but if you're going to be successful at it, you really need some free time and money. So the people who would be likely candidates for successful terrorism would be professionals---businessmen, engineers, doctors, lawyers---who are comfortable enough not to have to worry about these things.
* Anybody else wonder what the hell they harvest on Tatooine? Like anything grows there.
the idea of a branch-based movie theater experience is new
For you, maybe. I'd like to add that I remember specifically going to a movie theater around a mall in Texas that did exactly that. That was in...oh, '95 or '96.
The basic premise was some private detective who went around solving mysteries. Every few minutes, he would turn to the audience and ask them what he should do next. The seats were equipped with a joystick with color-coded buttons---pushing a button would cast a vote in favor of a particular course of action. The theater staff explained that there was no limit on the number of votes that could be cast from a particular seat, so every time a decision came up, people would spam votes for whichever choice they preferred.
I thought it was the coolest thing ever, but my parents made us leave early because it was riddled with some rather suggestive humor. To be fair, my sister and I really were a bit young for it---I fully credit that movie with introducing me to the concept of S&M. But they practically had to drag me out of the theater.
I guess this might be the right place to ask---does anybody know the name of that movie? I'd really like to look it up.
You remember incorrectly. There was no M rating when Mortal Kombat came out, or any content rating system at all for video games. The success of Mortal Kombat was one of the reasons why they exist.
I know that pharmaceutical companies will do lab experiments and intentionally shape the results to their liking, but I really think that doing groundbreaking scientific research in a lab is far superior to attempting it in a courtroom.
I was thinking, specifically, of the Sandman adaptation that is supposed to be happening at some point in the near future. That's an arty kind of show that needs a large budget and a lot of creative freedom, if it's going to be made at all. The point being, that there are a lot of potential adaptations of existing material, and I'm sure plenty of brilliant new material, that demand this kind of treatment. I think one of the basic cable stations (AMC, USA, FX) could get quite a bit of mileage by fielding late-evening R-rated dramas.
I don't know of any instance in which it actually has done anything. (Although a citation would be welcome.)
Reductio ad absurdum is, like most things written in Latin, a useful rhetorical skill, but not particularly practical. In practice, if someone tried to issue license agreements with more traditional media, the response would likely be to distinguish it from the software by the physical nature of the product: first sale doctrine applies to a paperback, but not an ebook; to CDs, but not mp3s. These hairs are easy to split. And software, software is different because even when you are distributing it on a disk, it's the installed product that counts.
Not really my feelings, but I'm wondering how you say reductio admoreabsurdum in Latin.
It's funny, if HBO picked up every show that "really should be on HBO," they'd never be able to fit it into a 24 hour schedule.
Personally, I think that if more basic cable stations were less skittish about "what would the advertisers think?", then the advertisers would thank them.
Hmmm. So do I want a locked-down, shiny piece of Jobsified crap, or do I want a television that watches me? [insert pre-emptive "In Soviet Russia..." here]
I don't see how being able to determine race by examining hair samples differs significantly from being able to determine race from, you know, just looking at someone. Or being able to determine racial characteristics from DNA. It's sort of obvious that there are a variety of ways to distinguish racial groups---we, unlike Stephen Colbert, can tell. That sort of misses the point of the sociological statement. Whatever that is.
Also, I'm not a big fan of that particular XKCD, mainly because he forgot to put the philosopher 20 billion pixels to the right.
As someone who took a semester of Sociology 101 years ago, I am here to snobbishly inform you that race is a social construction and that you can divvy it up however you wish.
(Actually, as I vaguely recall reading---I took more than just the 101 course---there's a wealth of fascinating legal history about the construction of race in this country other than the typical White/Black/Native American issues, mainly due to naturalization law. I think I remember something about Indians arguing that they were white once science caught on to the genesis, but were ruled nonwhite because they had darker skin. And a Japanese guy who argued that he was white because he had light skin, but was ruled nonwhite because...I forget. Slanty eyes, maybe.)
Slashdot Mirror
I was about to sort them, but then realized what I was doing and stopped. ;-)
Argh, WTB newline for Argentina.
Come on! It doesn't take a rocket scientist to derive those values. Here's a list of government requests per million people, rounded and only including the countries where the number of datums requested was shown. Argentina - - - 3.307095
Australia - - - 8.901248
Austria - - - 0.238865
Belgium - - - 6.557971
Brazil - - - 12.581119
Chile - - - 6.712585
France - - - 15.539203
Germany - - - 8.166034
Hong Kong - - - 7.11602
India - - - 1.203775
Israel - - - 3.932982
Italy - - - 10.7777
Japan - - - 0.439595
Libya - - - 22.761992
Portugal - - - 6.86291
Singapore - - - 20.879705
South Korea - - - 3.415496
Spain - - - 8.074172
Switzerland - - - 4.497038
Taiwan - - - 5.620141
Turkey - - - 0.702854
United Kingdom - - - 21.658479
United States - - - 13.815395
No, it isn't.
Columbia is a clothing company, a university, and a district. Colombia is a South American country.
Had a prof who would take off 10 points on an essay for every time you misspelled the name of the country. Drove her up the wall.
When I was in high school, I used to try to cram for history exams the night before, having never cracked the book prior to the test. I would fall asleep sometime during the night, with my face in the middle of a chapter on, say, the Byzantine Empire.
I would wake up in the morning without really recalling anything from the previous night. I must have dreamed, though, that I finished the chapter. I would walk into my exam feeling good about it: Constantinople was named after Emperor Constantine, there was some guy named Justinian, they all got vanquished by the Turks. Then I would get the exam handed to me and realize that half the stuff I thought I knew was ethereal---the random sensory noise of a dream, and the harder I tried to grasp what the dream-state had told me, the more it slipped through my fingers.
Nowadays I have a better sense of when I'm unprepared.
Apparently you missed the GP's mathematical insight. This helpful video will explain the error in your argument.
Raspberry. As in, "Delicious Raspberry Marmalade."
Although I still don't know why you'd put it on your Blu-Ray disks.
Precisely. A goatherder who tried to make an IED is most likely going to end up with a smelly, burning mess.
Not to mention that your average goatherder doesn't really have a disposable income to spend on terrorist stuff. He's out herding goats. When he's done, he's tired, and the last thing on his mind is bringing down whatever government. Even if he decides to go off to Waziristan and trains on Bin Laden's dime, he's got family obligations: his uncle really needs him to herd those damn goats, what do you think you're doing running off to fight America, now drink your blue milk.* Sure, "the terrorists" don't have a Western standard of living, but if you're going to be successful at it, you really need some free time and money. So the people who would be likely candidates for successful terrorism would be professionals---businessmen, engineers, doctors, lawyers---who are comfortable enough not to have to worry about these things.
* Anybody else wonder what the hell they harvest on Tatooine? Like anything grows there.
That would be it. I probably misremembered half of it. Thanks.
the idea of a branch-based movie theater experience is new
For you, maybe. I'd like to add that I remember specifically going to a movie theater around a mall in Texas that did exactly that. That was in...oh, '95 or '96.
The basic premise was some private detective who went around solving mysteries. Every few minutes, he would turn to the audience and ask them what he should do next. The seats were equipped with a joystick with color-coded buttons---pushing a button would cast a vote in favor of a particular course of action. The theater staff explained that there was no limit on the number of votes that could be cast from a particular seat, so every time a decision came up, people would spam votes for whichever choice they preferred.
I thought it was the coolest thing ever, but my parents made us leave early because it was riddled with some rather suggestive humor. To be fair, my sister and I really were a bit young for it---I fully credit that movie with introducing me to the concept of S&M. But they practically had to drag me out of the theater.
I guess this might be the right place to ask---does anybody know the name of that movie? I'd really like to look it up.
You remember incorrectly. There was no M rating when Mortal Kombat came out, or any content rating system at all for video games. The success of Mortal Kombat was one of the reasons why they exist.
Funny, I say the same thing about censorship advocates. Or they're ultra-cynical, depending.
You forget, tight white clothing and top hats.
And preferably a giant sculpture of a penis.
Not to mention every deck of cards!
Wjell, yjou jjust add an extrja "j" aftjer a cjonsjnjant and bjefjore a spjokjen vjowjel, and yjou are spjeakjing Njorwjegjian.
+1, Sexist?
I know that pharmaceutical companies will do lab experiments and intentionally shape the results to their liking, but I really think that doing groundbreaking scientific research in a lab is far superior to attempting it in a courtroom.
Huh, for some reason I thought Fox News was the Fox News of the Internet.
I knew there was a reason I stockpiled all that thorium back in Burning Crusade!
Ha, I'm going to own the Auction House!
I was thinking, specifically, of the Sandman adaptation that is supposed to be happening at some point in the near future. That's an arty kind of show that needs a large budget and a lot of creative freedom, if it's going to be made at all. The point being, that there are a lot of potential adaptations of existing material, and I'm sure plenty of brilliant new material, that demand this kind of treatment. I think one of the basic cable stations (AMC, USA, FX) could get quite a bit of mileage by fielding late-evening R-rated dramas.
I don't know of any instance in which it actually has done anything. (Although a citation would be welcome.)
Reductio ad absurdum is, like most things written in Latin, a useful rhetorical skill, but not particularly practical. In practice, if someone tried to issue license agreements with more traditional media, the response would likely be to distinguish it from the software by the physical nature of the product: first sale doctrine applies to a paperback, but not an ebook; to CDs, but not mp3s. These hairs are easy to split. And software, software is different because even when you are distributing it on a disk, it's the installed product that counts.
Not really my feelings, but I'm wondering how you say reductio ad more absurdum in Latin.
It's funny, if HBO picked up every show that "really should be on HBO," they'd never be able to fit it into a 24 hour schedule. Personally, I think that if more basic cable stations were less skittish about "what would the advertisers think?", then the advertisers would thank them.
Hmmm. So do I want a locked-down, shiny piece of Jobsified crap, or do I want a television that watches me? [insert pre-emptive "In Soviet Russia..." here]
Oh, who am I kidding, I want them both.
I don't see how being able to determine race by examining hair samples differs significantly from being able to determine race from, you know, just looking at someone. Or being able to determine racial characteristics from DNA. It's sort of obvious that there are a variety of ways to distinguish racial groups---we, unlike Stephen Colbert, can tell. That sort of misses the point of the sociological statement. Whatever that is. Also, I'm not a big fan of that particular XKCD, mainly because he forgot to put the philosopher 20 billion pixels to the right.
As someone who took a semester of Sociology 101 years ago, I am here to snobbishly inform you that race is a social construction and that you can divvy it up however you wish.
(Actually, as I vaguely recall reading---I took more than just the 101 course---there's a wealth of fascinating legal history about the construction of race in this country other than the typical White/Black/Native American issues, mainly due to naturalization law. I think I remember something about Indians arguing that they were white once science caught on to the genesis, but were ruled nonwhite because they had darker skin. And a Japanese guy who argued that he was white because he had light skin, but was ruled nonwhite because...I forget. Slanty eyes, maybe.)