I know I should... I know its safer, but, it just pisses me off that some nosy busibody thinks what I do is any of his business.
I always wear a seat belt, but I do hate the seat belt laws myself. If adults want to risk their lives, no matter how stupid and preventable the risk is, they have a right to. It's their own life. The government should spend money educating people that seat belts save lives, but when people know that and still make a decision to not wear them, that's their problem and no one else's.
Decisions based merely on results, divorced from ethics and morality can bring disastrous results. Think how quickly we could advance medicine if we started experimenting on humans unchecked, or how "safe" we could be if we lived in a police state.
You can frame that question in terms of ethics and morality, but you can also frame it in terms of results only. Is this hypothetical government's goal to quickly advance medicine? Then experimenting on humans unchecked fulfills that goal. Is this government's goal to ensure that individuals are protected? If so, experimenting on them without regard to safety is counter-productive.
Is your government's goal to keep everyone safe at all costs? Then a police-state achieves that goal. Is your government's goal to protect individual freedoms? Then that route is counter-productive once again.
If you define the goal based on people's values, and then act entirely pragmatically to achieve those values, then pragmatism is clearly not dangerous. The problem, as always, is to agree on what those values are. Good luck with that.
Ok, let's assume you connect, allow consciousness to transfer, then sever the connection but *don't* destroy the biological part. Who am I? I'd wager I'd still be the biological one, albeit the sillicon part may be a perfect copy. Now, kill the biological part. I'm dead. Thanks, but no, thanks. Not until we pinpoint conscience beyond "I think therefore I am".
I think differently. I think both the biological and silicon versions are you. There's no reason to pick one over the other. If you allow the biological one to wake up and make new memories, now the two versions have had different experiences and are two different people, and killing the biological one is murder. If you do it before there's been a chance for this to happen, it doesn't matter, the copy is identical.
I personally wouldn't upload my brain into a computer for the same reason that I'd never agree to use a Star Trek style transporter if one is ever invented. Both are essentially a method of suicide that gets covered up by a replacement that appears to be the original.
If the replacement copy can be considered exact, what's the problem with that? The original who committed suicide isn't going to be alive to regret the decision and the replacement thinks he's the original, so he's happy. That's functionally equivalent to the original living through the transport / upload.
Where do you draw the line? Suppose our medical technology is so advanced we can essentially be treated like machines. Your heart starts to fail, you get a mechanical one. Are you still you? Now your lungs. Your kidneys. Is the line your brain? What if your brain doesn't get replaced at once? You get a stroke and can no longer move the left part of your body, so they go in and put in electronic replacement parts to the brain to give you full control again. Later you get Alzheimer's and you get implants to help with memory. This keeps happening until everything has been replaced, but maintain the exact same functionality and memories you've had before. At what point did you cease to be you?
He honestly believes the reason everyone is pissed off at him is because he mistreated Mike Krahulik, not the customer.
He probably got that part right... Lots of people know about it and got pissed off about it because Mike jumped in the FFA.
That's how we found out there was something to be angry about, yes. Nobody is denying Mike indeed has the power and the connections that the customer didn't have. That's why the customer copied his correspondence to the press guys, so they could use their influence.
That said, that's also why nobody (who isn't a psychopath) cares that Mike was mistreated. Mike can take care of himself. We're angry at his bullying of the guy who couldn't, and happy that Mike stood up for him.
He just doesn't get it. You should treat people, especially your customers, good no matter who they are. He still isn't sorry for what happened, he is "sorry" because someone famous caught him.
What's fascinating to me is that most people who are really only sorry to have been caught know better than to tell everyone that's why they're sorry. You know, they're smart enough to fake having learned a lesson.
He honestly believes the reason everyone is pissed off at him is because he mistreated Mike Krahulik, not the customer. I actually feel sorry for the guy, who truly believes somebody's worth is dictated by how much power they have. He says, "I want to have connections Mike has, I want to have the power to destroy people like he destroyed me. Look Mike, I respect your power, I know my place is beneath you, and I'd never have overstepped my bounds had I known who you were. You don't need to be angry at me, I know my place, honestly. I was just putting that nobody in HIS place, you have to agree he's beneath me."
Is Google doing this automatically, like face-blurring in StreetView? Or do they have thousands of low-paid employees somewhere doing this? It doesn't seem cost-effective.
They probably only look at it once someone flags it as an inappropriate image.
Whoa, whoa. No good can come from that attitude. Who decides what is civil? It doesn't really fit into, "it's an American value" mantra, I'm sure many of the people showing their middle fingers in those pictures ARE Americans. I'm an American and I'm considering joining the profile protest even though I'm not the type of person who would throw that out there normally (and my family has my google+ info, so it's going to be annoying explaining that to the more conservative among them).
If you don't want to be associated with people who would post pictures you consider crass, don't visit their google pages. Don't go trying to "create civility" by censuring them.
I'll give you the answer that I think you're looking for, but I will rant a bit at the bottom about what I believe is a flaw in your attitude. If the rant is something you will ignore because you're not interested in constructive criticism, feel free to not bother reading anything after the explanation.
The goal is to build circuits that are not electronic, but optical in nature. This could result in faster computers (if we can make fast enough optical switches), but it will almost certainly result in more efficient computers, as losses due to heat can be minimized. In an electronic circuit, you have conduction losses, switching losses, etc. An optical circuit would produce heat as part of light production, and wherever light is absorbed. Presumably, those losses would be lower than in an electronic circuit.
How does this development move us in the direction of optical computing? Well:
A logic gate is something that gives an output based on the inputs given and a certain rule. For example, and "and" gate will output "true" if all of its inputs are "true", and will instead output "false" if any of its inputs are "false". Every single thing implemented in binary computers are a combination of logic gates, and in fact you don't even need different types of gates, since every boolean logic expression can be simplified to a combination of certain types of gates, such as the NAND gate. In the world of electronic components "true" and "false" are sometimes referred to as "high" and "low" because we consider voltages above a given threshold as true, and below a threshold as false.
An important part of implementing logic gates is that the electrical signal doesn't flow the wrong way. For example, you don't want whatever is connected to the output to influence what the input is. A diode is just that. It allows flow in one direction, but not another.
Diode behavior is just part what we want though. What we really want are controlled switches, which are what transistors are. You want to allow light through a path only if a light is shined upon the "gate". Using those, you can build the logic gates discussed above.
Now for the rant:
This is barely one step above the pretentious douchery of a LMGTFY link. If you can't be fucked writing a simple explanation of why it's a positive thing then don't bother.
You're missing the point of the LMGTFY link and not learning the lesson it is supposed to impart with a bit of humor. You're probably missing the lesson because you're too busy being offended by it. Don't be, it's light humor.
It's not that we think you're not smart enough. It's that it's really confusing that you could have typed up "diode" on google and arrived at a page that explains what diodes are in less time than it took you to make a post asking somebody to explain to you what diodes and logic gates are. In addition, you wouldn't have to wait for somebody to reply, or filter the messages of people like the guy above and mine. So you're not actually being lazy or doing less work, you're just not using your time efficiently, and LMGTFY and wikipedia links are our way of telling you how you can go about becoming more self-sufficient.
Now, depending on your background, the wikipedia page may offer you no help at all, so it's perfectly ok to come here after you've done that bit of work, and ask for clarification on a specific point. I wrote a lot of stuff up there, some of it you may know, some of it you may not. I may be far off base on what it is that you actually wanted to know. If you had said, "I don't understand how diodes are useful in creating logic gates", then I'd just have included the bit about not wanting the output to affect the input, and how what you really want is not a diode per se, but a controlled switch. If you instead had said, "I don't understand how logic gates can be used in computing", then nothing I wrote above is really useful, and I should have really given you a little bit more on boolean logic and digital circuits.
You obviously never lived in a city. If you leave enough space for the two second rule to apply, some asswipe will actually cut you off and insert his Hummer between you and the driver in front of you. Then the same scenario applies again.
And then, because you're a better driver than the asswipe who cut you off, you're going to slow down and increase the space between him and you. And continue doing so all the way to your destination as more people enter that space. What's the problem?
Hell, if anything that behavior would improve traffic, as you're making it easier for people to change lanes.
In many states drivers are taught to enter the intersection to take a left turn, and it's legal.
He said when it isn't clear. If the guy turning ahead of you has entered the intersection, you're not supposed to enter it until he has turned. If the light is yellow, you're also not supposed to enter it, unless traffic allows you to make the turn.
What? No, if you know of a case where free speech has caused problems, bring it up.
Not that I agree with GP's point, but in the interest of completeness:
Westboro Baptist Church.
Well, whether or not they cause problems is arguable. I think the fact that people don't just ignore them causes problems. Let the WBC speak their bullshit, they have the right to. We, on the other hand, have the right to not listen.
The best single way to handle the WBC is with more free speech. Look up the counter-protests people have organized, the comic-con one being one of my favorite examples. People turn an offensive hate speech event into a hilarious ridiculing of the WBC's bigoted views. The thing about allowing free speech is that we allow the truth to actually shine through. We don't need to be afraid of bigoted morons speaking their mind because their arguments are weak.
Since China is a democratic country, shouldn't they be able to decide it themselves, without US trying to manipulate?
Free speech is the one thing that I would answer no to that question. I'd be ok with people deciding for themselves the merits of murder over deciding whether or not to allow free speech. Why? Because you can't decide anything if given incomplete information, and that's what denying free speech allows a government to do. None of their decisions they make are valid if they can't hear the arguments and facts from all sides.
Besides, free speech in Western world is relative too. Just try yelling fire in a crowded theater. Or dance around a monument in US. [wtop.com]
I agree, and that's a huge problem in the west right now that we need to fix.
I'm a Christian and I agree completely. It's surprising to me how many skeptics are willing to tar all people of faith with the same brush. I don't agree with "religious nut-jobs" any more than you do, and there are a lot of believers like me.
Just wanted to say a thank you for chiming in (and for your tolerance of other beliefs).
I'm not religious, but I have plenty of Christian friends who think as you do. They do not attack my lack of belief, and if we want to spend an evening talking about philosophy will be happy to discuss their beliefs without being offended by my questions or lack of faith. These are good people, and it is not my goal in life to crush their faith. Whether I share that faith or not, I do see that it benefits them and gets them through tough times easier than I would get through those same times. I wouldn't want to take that away from anyone. Similarly, they spend no time trying to convert me. I'm sure they'd be happy if I converted, due to the nature of their beliefs, but they respect my rights and free will as much as I respect theirs.
Based on the all the responses I've gotten, I think this may be somewhat recent, a reaction to the crash of 2008. It may also depend on location. I've had other friends buying houses who are as well off as I am, minus the inheritance thing, and they've had the same experience. We are all in the same city, so I don't know for sure if it varies around the country. I was under the impression it was the same everywhere, but I got some responses here that seem to imply other people haven't gone through this level of scrutiny.
I know what you're talking about with the car insurance thing. I've been seeing an ad for an insurance company here in the US that is offering discounts if you put a similar device in your car. My concerns are similar to yours. While I think that it's ok to voluntarily give that information to the insurance company if you want to save money by giving them more complete information, I fear that they will eventually raise the costs of insurance prohibitively for everyone who does not agree to have that device installed.
You can't authorize someone to get information that you don't have access to yourself.
I have access to everything they gave them. I can walk in to HR and say, "I want to see my folder." They direct me to the cabinet and give me complete access to everything they have on me, including all the evaluations I've gotten, which are directly related to my chances of getting fired.
"In fact, I had a 820 credit score, no debt (but plenty of credit history), and enough money in investment accounts that I could have bought the house outright (inheritance from grandparents)"
must be nice...
It is, and I'm grateful for my parents to have raised me knowing the value of a good education so that I could get a nice job, and I'm thankful for my grandparents who put a lot of thought into saving up money they could leave me to give me a boost in life once they were gone. I've been very lucky with my life and my family, and I miss my grandparents greatly.
I'm sorry if you haven't had similar luck, and I wish you success in the future. I'm not sure what the source of resentment is, though. The entire point of my post was that I'm concerned for how people who haven't been as lucky manage to get their loans. I'm not saying that I deserve tax breaks or any advantage over people who are not as better off, I'm glad to pay my share to improve our society. I really don't understand the other AC who said, "fuck you, 1%." Would I be hearing similar comments if I had said I won the lottery, or is this strictly an inheritance thing? Did you expect me to give all of the inherited money to charity? What exactly have I done wrong?
Personally, I think you should have bought the house outright, then taken the projected cost of the mortgage and deposit it into a range of mutual funds.
I didn't inherit THAT much money. I could have bought the house and spent pretty much all the inheritance, or gotten the loan and left the inheritance money in the mutual funds, which is what I've done. I didn't lose the ability to pay off the house if need be. In fact, in case I do lose my job, I can use that money to make the mortgage payments or pay off the remaining balance in its entirety, whatever makes more sense at the time.
It's not like I planned to go and spend that money now. I was just looking at what makes more sense for my retirement. It's a very manageable risk.
You want me to apologize for being lucky enough to have money? I understand the 99% being pissed off that the people better off than them have lower tax rates, but you're actually pissed off about people existing that are better off than you? I won't.
So you could buy the house with cash, yet you deliberately decided to pay interest instead? You chose, say 3-4% interest or whatever it was over effectively 0% interest? Yeah, you definitely inherited your money.
Over a period of 30 years, your invested money will yield more than 4% on average, so it makes sense to take the loan.
First, Banks don't investigate you, they just check with the Credit Agency.
Never got a mortgage, have you? Well, I recently bought my first house.
Banks check with the credit agency for the prequalification process. After that they require you to submit a record of all your bank accounts and all of your bills. They call your landlord, then they call your employer, and not just for a generic "is he really employed there?" call, but also to grill your boss about what the chances are that you're going to get fired in the next 1-2 years. When I got my mortgage, they had my boss fax them three different statements regarding my employment over the course of one day. One of these was to confirm that I had indeed gotten a raise in the middle of the year, because they had done the math on my pay stubs and decided that the year-to-date earnings didn't match the twice a month salary showing on the stub for the last two months. The difference for the whole year would have been less than $3,000 due to when I got the raise. I could have easily qualified with my pre-raise salary.
In fact, I had a 820 credit score, no debt (but plenty of credit history), and enough money in investment accounts that I could have bought the house outright (inheritance from grandparents). I just wanted to take opportunity of the incredibly low interest rates these days. I shudder to think what the process is like for somebody who actually needs the loan.
The TSA is a bureaucratic, money-sucking nightmare that entirely fails to live up to the promises of the politicians who created it. It is incompetently managed and its policies are inept, ineffective, capricious, opaque, invasive, disrespectful, and I would argue they are also fundamentally unconstitutional. All that said, though, the question remains: if the TSA were to vanish overnight, what would take its place? What SHOULD take its place? These are not easy questions to answer
That's a very easy question to answer. We go back to the same system we had before 9/11. When you went through a simple x-ray and metal detector, were allowed to take liquids through, and your family could accompany you to the gate.
Security was plenty sufficient back then. Case in point, the terrorists didn't manage to sneak guns or bombs in, they had box cutters. There are two fundamental changes that we've already made which plugs the 9/11 security hole: cockpit doors are locked and passengers no longer believe sitting down and waiting for the hijacking to be resolved through negotiations by the authorities is the best strategy. A few people armed with knives can't subdue a whole plane of passengers or take over if they can't get into the cockpit.
Sure they are. All the time. "Reckless endangerment
At which point you are arrested for "reckless endangerment", not for the accident. Reckless being defined as not taking the appropriate precautions.
If I go in my backyard and take "appropriate precautions" and then almost kill a family with a homemade cannon, I'm going to be arrested.
If you're firing a homemade cannon in your backyard, your precautions aren't appropriate by definition. "Appropriate" precautions involve going to the right place to do these things, such as a bomb range.
Manufacturers won't have to void warranties for jailbroken devices. They can just deny owners access to online services like Xbox LIVE and the App Store because security can't be guaranteed if modded devices are allowed into a walled garden.
I am 100% ok with that scenario. I don't think the EFF will manage to get that far, though.
Slashdot Mirror
I know I should... I know its safer, but, it just pisses me off that some nosy busibody thinks what I do is any of his business.
I always wear a seat belt, but I do hate the seat belt laws myself. If adults want to risk their lives, no matter how stupid and preventable the risk is, they have a right to. It's their own life. The government should spend money educating people that seat belts save lives, but when people know that and still make a decision to not wear them, that's their problem and no one else's.
Decisions based merely on results, divorced from ethics and morality can bring disastrous results. Think how quickly we could advance medicine if we started experimenting on humans unchecked, or how "safe" we could be if we lived in a police state.
You can frame that question in terms of ethics and morality, but you can also frame it in terms of results only. Is this hypothetical government's goal to quickly advance medicine? Then experimenting on humans unchecked fulfills that goal. Is this government's goal to ensure that individuals are protected? If so, experimenting on them without regard to safety is counter-productive.
Is your government's goal to keep everyone safe at all costs? Then a police-state achieves that goal. Is your government's goal to protect individual freedoms? Then that route is counter-productive once again.
If you define the goal based on people's values, and then act entirely pragmatically to achieve those values, then pragmatism is clearly not dangerous. The problem, as always, is to agree on what those values are. Good luck with that.
Ok, let's assume you connect, allow consciousness to transfer, then sever the connection but *don't* destroy the biological part. Who am I? I'd wager I'd still be the biological one, albeit the sillicon part may be a perfect copy. Now, kill the biological part. I'm dead. Thanks, but no, thanks. Not until we pinpoint conscience beyond "I think therefore I am".
I think differently. I think both the biological and silicon versions are you. There's no reason to pick one over the other. If you allow the biological one to wake up and make new memories, now the two versions have had different experiences and are two different people, and killing the biological one is murder. If you do it before there's been a chance for this to happen, it doesn't matter, the copy is identical.
I personally wouldn't upload my brain into a computer for the same reason that I'd never agree to use a Star Trek style transporter if one is ever invented. Both are essentially a method of suicide that gets covered up by a replacement that appears to be the original.
If the replacement copy can be considered exact, what's the problem with that? The original who committed suicide isn't going to be alive to regret the decision and the replacement thinks he's the original, so he's happy. That's functionally equivalent to the original living through the transport / upload.
Where do you draw the line? Suppose our medical technology is so advanced we can essentially be treated like machines. Your heart starts to fail, you get a mechanical one. Are you still you? Now your lungs. Your kidneys. Is the line your brain? What if your brain doesn't get replaced at once? You get a stroke and can no longer move the left part of your body, so they go in and put in electronic replacement parts to the brain to give you full control again. Later you get Alzheimer's and you get implants to help with memory. This keeps happening until everything has been replaced, but maintain the exact same functionality and memories you've had before. At what point did you cease to be you?
He honestly believes the reason everyone is pissed off at him is because he mistreated Mike Krahulik, not the customer.
He probably got that part right... Lots of people know about it and got pissed off about it because Mike jumped in the FFA.
That's how we found out there was something to be angry about, yes. Nobody is denying Mike indeed has the power and the connections that the customer didn't have. That's why the customer copied his correspondence to the press guys, so they could use their influence.
That said, that's also why nobody (who isn't a psychopath) cares that Mike was mistreated. Mike can take care of himself. We're angry at his bullying of the guy who couldn't, and happy that Mike stood up for him.
He just doesn't get it. You should treat people, especially your customers, good no matter who they are. He still isn't sorry for what happened, he is "sorry" because someone famous caught him.
What's fascinating to me is that most people who are really only sorry to have been caught know better than to tell everyone that's why they're sorry. You know, they're smart enough to fake having learned a lesson.
He honestly believes the reason everyone is pissed off at him is because he mistreated Mike Krahulik, not the customer. I actually feel sorry for the guy, who truly believes somebody's worth is dictated by how much power they have. He says, "I want to have connections Mike has, I want to have the power to destroy people like he destroyed me. Look Mike, I respect your power, I know my place is beneath you, and I'd never have overstepped my bounds had I known who you were. You don't need to be angry at me, I know my place, honestly. I was just putting that nobody in HIS place, you have to agree he's beneath me."
Is Google doing this automatically, like face-blurring in StreetView? Or do they have thousands of low-paid employees somewhere doing this? It doesn't seem cost-effective.
They probably only look at it once someone flags it as an inappropriate image.
Someone has to create civility.
Whoa, whoa. No good can come from that attitude. Who decides what is civil? It doesn't really fit into, "it's an American value" mantra, I'm sure many of the people showing their middle fingers in those pictures ARE Americans. I'm an American and I'm considering joining the profile protest even though I'm not the type of person who would throw that out there normally (and my family has my google+ info, so it's going to be annoying explaining that to the more conservative among them).
If you don't want to be associated with people who would post pictures you consider crass, don't visit their google pages. Don't go trying to "create civility" by censuring them.
I'll give you the answer that I think you're looking for, but I will rant a bit at the bottom about what I believe is a flaw in your attitude. If the rant is something you will ignore because you're not interested in constructive criticism, feel free to not bother reading anything after the explanation.
The goal is to build circuits that are not electronic, but optical in nature. This could result in faster computers (if we can make fast enough optical switches), but it will almost certainly result in more efficient computers, as losses due to heat can be minimized. In an electronic circuit, you have conduction losses, switching losses, etc. An optical circuit would produce heat as part of light production, and wherever light is absorbed. Presumably, those losses would be lower than in an electronic circuit.
How does this development move us in the direction of optical computing? Well:
A logic gate is something that gives an output based on the inputs given and a certain rule. For example, and "and" gate will output "true" if all of its inputs are "true", and will instead output "false" if any of its inputs are "false". Every single thing implemented in binary computers are a combination of logic gates, and in fact you don't even need different types of gates, since every boolean logic expression can be simplified to a combination of certain types of gates, such as the NAND gate. In the world of electronic components "true" and "false" are sometimes referred to as "high" and "low" because we consider voltages above a given threshold as true, and below a threshold as false.
An important part of implementing logic gates is that the electrical signal doesn't flow the wrong way. For example, you don't want whatever is connected to the output to influence what the input is. A diode is just that. It allows flow in one direction, but not another.
Diode behavior is just part what we want though. What we really want are controlled switches, which are what transistors are. You want to allow light through a path only if a light is shined upon the "gate". Using those, you can build the logic gates discussed above.
Now for the rant:
This is barely one step above the pretentious douchery of a LMGTFY link. If you can't be fucked writing a simple explanation of why it's a positive thing then don't bother.
You're missing the point of the LMGTFY link and not learning the lesson it is supposed to impart with a bit of humor. You're probably missing the lesson because you're too busy being offended by it. Don't be, it's light humor.
It's not that we think you're not smart enough. It's that it's really confusing that you could have typed up "diode" on google and arrived at a page that explains what diodes are in less time than it took you to make a post asking somebody to explain to you what diodes and logic gates are. In addition, you wouldn't have to wait for somebody to reply, or filter the messages of people like the guy above and mine. So you're not actually being lazy or doing less work, you're just not using your time efficiently, and LMGTFY and wikipedia links are our way of telling you how you can go about becoming more self-sufficient.
Now, depending on your background, the wikipedia page may offer you no help at all, so it's perfectly ok to come here after you've done that bit of work, and ask for clarification on a specific point. I wrote a lot of stuff up there, some of it you may know, some of it you may not. I may be far off base on what it is that you actually wanted to know. If you had said, "I don't understand how diodes are useful in creating logic gates", then I'd just have included the bit about not wanting the output to affect the input, and how what you really want is not a diode per se, but a controlled switch. If you instead had said, "I don't understand how logic gates can be used in computing", then nothing I wrote above is really useful, and I should have really given you a little bit more on boolean logic and digital circuits.
hmmm... what's 1 - 1 ?
The answer is:
You obviously never lived in a city. If you leave enough space for the two second rule to apply, some asswipe will actually cut you off and insert his Hummer between you and the driver in front of you. Then the same scenario applies again.
And then, because you're a better driver than the asswipe who cut you off, you're going to slow down and increase the space between him and you. And continue doing so all the way to your destination as more people enter that space. What's the problem?
Hell, if anything that behavior would improve traffic, as you're making it easier for people to change lanes.
In many states drivers are taught to enter the intersection to take a left turn, and it's legal.
He said when it isn't clear. If the guy turning ahead of you has entered the intersection, you're not supposed to enter it until he has turned. If the light is yellow, you're also not supposed to enter it, unless traffic allows you to make the turn.
What? No, if you know of a case where free speech has caused problems, bring it up.
Not that I agree with GP's point, but in the interest of completeness:
Westboro Baptist Church.
Well, whether or not they cause problems is arguable. I think the fact that people don't just ignore them causes problems. Let the WBC speak their bullshit, they have the right to. We, on the other hand, have the right to not listen.
The best single way to handle the WBC is with more free speech. Look up the counter-protests people have organized, the comic-con one being one of my favorite examples. People turn an offensive hate speech event into a hilarious ridiculing of the WBC's bigoted views. The thing about allowing free speech is that we allow the truth to actually shine through. We don't need to be afraid of bigoted morons speaking their mind because their arguments are weak.
Since China is a democratic country, shouldn't they be able to decide it themselves, without US trying to manipulate?
Free speech is the one thing that I would answer no to that question. I'd be ok with people deciding for themselves the merits of murder over deciding whether or not to allow free speech. Why? Because you can't decide anything if given incomplete information, and that's what denying free speech allows a government to do. None of their decisions they make are valid if they can't hear the arguments and facts from all sides.
Besides, free speech in Western world is relative too. Just try yelling fire in a crowded theater. Or dance around a monument in US. [wtop.com]
I agree, and that's a huge problem in the west right now that we need to fix.
I'm a Christian and I agree completely. It's surprising to me how many skeptics are willing to tar all people of faith with the same brush. I don't agree with "religious nut-jobs" any more than you do, and there are a lot of believers like me.
Just wanted to say a thank you for chiming in (and for your tolerance of other beliefs).
I'm not religious, but I have plenty of Christian friends who think as you do. They do not attack my lack of belief, and if we want to spend an evening talking about philosophy will be happy to discuss their beliefs without being offended by my questions or lack of faith. These are good people, and it is not my goal in life to crush their faith. Whether I share that faith or not, I do see that it benefits them and gets them through tough times easier than I would get through those same times. I wouldn't want to take that away from anyone. Similarly, they spend no time trying to convert me. I'm sure they'd be happy if I converted, due to the nature of their beliefs, but they respect my rights and free will as much as I respect theirs.
Based on the all the responses I've gotten, I think this may be somewhat recent, a reaction to the crash of 2008. It may also depend on location. I've had other friends buying houses who are as well off as I am, minus the inheritance thing, and they've had the same experience. We are all in the same city, so I don't know for sure if it varies around the country. I was under the impression it was the same everywhere, but I got some responses here that seem to imply other people haven't gone through this level of scrutiny.
I know what you're talking about with the car insurance thing. I've been seeing an ad for an insurance company here in the US that is offering discounts if you put a similar device in your car. My concerns are similar to yours. While I think that it's ok to voluntarily give that information to the insurance company if you want to save money by giving them more complete information, I fear that they will eventually raise the costs of insurance prohibitively for everyone who does not agree to have that device installed.
You can't authorize someone to get information that you don't have access to yourself.
I have access to everything they gave them. I can walk in to HR and say, "I want to see my folder." They direct me to the cabinet and give me complete access to everything they have on me, including all the evaluations I've gotten, which are directly related to my chances of getting fired.
"In fact, I had a 820 credit score, no debt (but plenty of credit history), and enough money in investment accounts that I could have bought the house outright (inheritance from grandparents)"
must be nice...
It is, and I'm grateful for my parents to have raised me knowing the value of a good education so that I could get a nice job, and I'm thankful for my grandparents who put a lot of thought into saving up money they could leave me to give me a boost in life once they were gone. I've been very lucky with my life and my family, and I miss my grandparents greatly.
I'm sorry if you haven't had similar luck, and I wish you success in the future. I'm not sure what the source of resentment is, though. The entire point of my post was that I'm concerned for how people who haven't been as lucky manage to get their loans. I'm not saying that I deserve tax breaks or any advantage over people who are not as better off, I'm glad to pay my share to improve our society. I really don't understand the other AC who said, "fuck you, 1%." Would I be hearing similar comments if I had said I won the lottery, or is this strictly an inheritance thing? Did you expect me to give all of the inherited money to charity? What exactly have I done wrong?
Personally, I think you should have bought the house outright, then taken the projected cost of the mortgage and deposit it into a range of mutual funds.
I didn't inherit THAT much money. I could have bought the house and spent pretty much all the inheritance, or gotten the loan and left the inheritance money in the mutual funds, which is what I've done. I didn't lose the ability to pay off the house if need be. In fact, in case I do lose my job, I can use that money to make the mortgage payments or pay off the remaining balance in its entirety, whatever makes more sense at the time.
It's not like I planned to go and spend that money now. I was just looking at what makes more sense for my retirement. It's a very manageable risk.
also to grill your boss about what the chances are that you're going to get fired in the next 1-2 years.
Well, that would have been illegal for them to ask and illegal for your boss to answer. Did you sue them and your boss?
I signed a release authorizing them to ask the question. That's pretty standard.
Fuck you, 1%.
You want me to apologize for being lucky enough to have money? I understand the 99% being pissed off that the people better off than them have lower tax rates, but you're actually pissed off about people existing that are better off than you? I won't.
So you could buy the house with cash, yet you deliberately decided to pay interest instead? You chose, say 3-4% interest or whatever it was over effectively 0% interest? Yeah, you definitely inherited your money.
Over a period of 30 years, your invested money will yield more than 4% on average, so it makes sense to take the loan.
First, Banks don't investigate you, they just check with the Credit Agency.
Never got a mortgage, have you? Well, I recently bought my first house.
Banks check with the credit agency for the prequalification process. After that they require you to submit a record of all your bank accounts and all of your bills. They call your landlord, then they call your employer, and not just for a generic "is he really employed there?" call, but also to grill your boss about what the chances are that you're going to get fired in the next 1-2 years. When I got my mortgage, they had my boss fax them three different statements regarding my employment over the course of one day. One of these was to confirm that I had indeed gotten a raise in the middle of the year, because they had done the math on my pay stubs and decided that the year-to-date earnings didn't match the twice a month salary showing on the stub for the last two months. The difference for the whole year would have been less than $3,000 due to when I got the raise. I could have easily qualified with my pre-raise salary.
In fact, I had a 820 credit score, no debt (but plenty of credit history), and enough money in investment accounts that I could have bought the house outright (inheritance from grandparents). I just wanted to take opportunity of the incredibly low interest rates these days. I shudder to think what the process is like for somebody who actually needs the loan.
The TSA is a bureaucratic, money-sucking nightmare that entirely fails to live up to the promises of the politicians who created it. It is incompetently managed and its policies are inept, ineffective, capricious, opaque, invasive, disrespectful, and I would argue they are also fundamentally unconstitutional. All that said, though, the question remains: if the TSA were to vanish overnight, what would take its place? What SHOULD take its place? These are not easy questions to answer
That's a very easy question to answer. We go back to the same system we had before 9/11. When you went through a simple x-ray and metal detector, were allowed to take liquids through, and your family could accompany you to the gate.
Security was plenty sufficient back then. Case in point, the terrorists didn't manage to sneak guns or bombs in, they had box cutters. There are two fundamental changes that we've already made which plugs the 9/11 security hole: cockpit doors are locked and passengers no longer believe sitting down and waiting for the hijacking to be resolved through negotiations by the authorities is the best strategy. A few people armed with knives can't subdue a whole plane of passengers or take over if they can't get into the cockpit.
Sure they are. All the time. "Reckless endangerment
At which point you are arrested for "reckless endangerment", not for the accident. Reckless being defined as not taking the appropriate precautions.
If I go in my backyard and take "appropriate precautions" and then almost kill a family with a homemade cannon, I'm going to be arrested.
If you're firing a homemade cannon in your backyard, your precautions aren't appropriate by definition. "Appropriate" precautions involve going to the right place to do these things, such as a bomb range.
Manufacturers won't have to void warranties for jailbroken devices. They can just deny owners access to online services like Xbox LIVE and the App Store because security can't be guaranteed if modded devices are allowed into a walled garden.
I am 100% ok with that scenario. I don't think the EFF will manage to get that far, though.