The moment you take up arms and try to force the government out and put your own government in place, I expect you to be shot down and arrested.
You do realize this is exactly how America started, right?
Not for the lack of the British fighting back. It just so happens the revolutionaries won.
I like the US government, even with all of it faults. If somebody tries to take it down by force, I expect the government to fight back. I can fight for one side, but I can't control who wins.
Really? I don't believe that. What about when your political opponents are wrong? Is it not the time for coercive paternalism? "In many cases it would advance our goals more effectively if government were to prevent us from acting in accordance with our decisions."
So, agree or disagree?
I'm old enough that I've lost count of how many times I've been proven wrong. So, in order to minimize the damage, I try to live my life always allowing for the possibility that the other guy is right, and I'm the one who is wrong.
That obviously doesn't mean I won't believe I'm right and the other guy is wrong. For example, in this conversation, I clearly think you're the one who is wrong. I've also already said I think the Tea Party has some crappy ideas and that communism can't work. It means that I don't discount the possibility that I'm just not seeing something they (or you) are seeing. What that does is allow me to listen to your arguments and try to find the merits in them, not just try to find how I can discredit you. If your arguments don't convince me, than I'll present my counterarguments. If I can't convince you, and you can't convince me, than one of us is wrong. I may continue believing I'm the one who's right, but I don't know that's true. So I'll vote my way, you'll vote another. If most people are voting against me in an issue I feel strongly about, I'll try to move someplace where more people believe as I do, but I won't try to force everyone else to change to my beliefs because I have no way of knowing for sure that I'm not the one being stubbornly wrong.
If you care about something enough to not want to see it turn to crap, you have to exert effort on that thing to let it know when it's being crap.
The problem is that you don't know if other people think it's crap. You're assuming your opinion is the important one. I'm tired of this attitude.
If an article is crap, and it doesn't get enough views, slashdot editors will take notice, because it hurts their bottom line. If you think an article is crap, but other people are viewing it, then it's just not for you. Either way, whether it's legitimately crap, or just not to your tastes, the solution is to just not participate and wait for an article you do enjoy.
When your political beliefs include the violent overthrow of the U.S. government, that's where the line is drawn. The 50s Communists believed exactly that. They weren't being persecuted for their political beliefs, they were being persecuted for the fact that they wanted to do the federal government what the Tea Party wants to do today. Do you agree with the Tea Party?
I don't agree with the Communists, and I don't agree with the Tea Party. I don't want to prevent either of them from being in positions in government, however. Other than by not voting for them, that is. If other people vote them in, that's their right, because I do believe in a representative government.
The line, by the way, isn't whether your political beliefs include violent overthrow of the U.S. government. It's when your actions support that. The moment you take up arms and try to force the government out and put your own government in place, I expect you to be shot down and arrested. I'm not going to support the government going after you for pre- or thought-crime, though.
To be fair, McCarthy was right. There really were Communists in the State Department.
Even if that's true, it doesn't make McCarthy right. In this country, the government isn't allowed to prosecute people for their political beliefs. The problem with McCarthy wasn't just that there was a witch hunt in place. The problem was that if every single person he accused to be a communist was indeed a communist, the proper response is, "so what?"
You, and the Slashdot editors that posted this, are wasting everyone's time with this question. What's next, an Ask Slashdot for shaking crumbs and pubes out of your keyboard?
Let me get this straight. You read an article you don't like, take the time to go into the comments and post how much you don't like the question. Then you accuse others of wasting YOUR time.
Doesn't seem like your time is particularly valuable, so I don't see why anyone should feel bad about wasting it. I'm wasting my time responding to you, but at least I'm taking responsibility for wasting it myself. I could have just as easily ignored it if I deemed my time was more valuable. Perhaps you should have done that with this article.
Amanda Palmer - who expected her backing musicians to be enough of a fan to play for nothing but the honor of being on the same stage as her.
I'm not a music guy, and I had no idea who Amanda Palmer was. In addition, the whole "art of asking" presentation was pretty horrible. That said, upon looking up the controversy to which you refer...I see absolutely nothing wrong with it.
You make it sound like she expected her backing musicians to play for free, but found nobody. Actually, there were plenty of people who were willing to play for free. Why wouldn't they? You get to hang out with an artist you're a fan of and you get exposure for your local band. It's just that those who wouldn't be willing to play for free were completely outraged that others would, so they sought to make a villain out of her.
Repeat after me: doing things for no monetary compensation is not fucking evil. Asking people to do things for no monetary compensation is not evil. If compensation is agreed upon, but not given, that is evil.
Need? Because ISS's most important mission is giving rich people a place to float around in microgravity. That this is even an issue that a celebrity is getting bumped in favor of a scientist is absurd.
There's a market to send rich people up to the ISS to float around in microgravity. Doesn't that mean it's extremely important? If you can make money off them, then sending them up is a way to fund some of the science. What's the problem with that?
A singer/tourist might have to give up a spot to someone who will do science. What's the downside, again?
Sending up tourists isn't really a bad thing for science. They pay money to go, which gets used to fund a small portion of the science. It's a net gain.
I don't find any problem with her giving up the spot for a researcher for this trip because they need it, but I also don't see any issue with the fact that the Russians send up tourists to the ISS. Sounds like a good idea to me, and back when we had the shuttle, my guess is the only reason NASA didn't do it was the fear of expensive lawsuits if someone got hurt.
Heh...I meant to say that last part jokingly but it sounds too damn plausible to be funny.
Giving a discourse in which the answers are included may ultimately convey the same information, but it is dismissive to the questioner. Effectively he's saying, "Your questions are so stupidly uninformed that they are beneath me, so instead of responding I'm going to give you an extended lecture in the hopes of rescuing you from your ignorance."
After which you should say, "thank you" and not be both rude and arrogant by believing that he's not rescuing you from your ignorance. I think this is the best response for a slashdot interview I've seen in a long time. It was very interesting, and it looks like he took a great deal of time and invested a lot of effort into it.
This sounds great in theory and I would support this wholeheartedy if you can solve one issue; how does one establish objectivelu if someone has put i.n enough effort to educate themselves before voting.
You don't. This is why I said you need to self-select yourself out if you know you haven't put in the effort. It's the honor-based system. It's not perfect, but I think it's better than the alternative.
I only propose to change the "get out and vote" style campaigns to the more accurate, "put some effort into getting informed, and then vote." I want to stop giving people the idea that showing up to a poll location and clicking people's names, most of them they haven't even heard of before, is doing their civic duty.
Human interaction can be invigorating, and psychologically refreshing.
I'm an introvert. Human interaction is energy-draining. If I'm in a great and energetic mood, if talking to people takes too much of my time during a day, I'll feel like I've been traveling for the last 30 hours.
Quite frankly, with an attitude like yours? I don't think they want much want to talk to you, anyways.
I wish. However, they don't generally try to get rid of me fast enough. They try to chit-chat. I don't want to be impolite, so I smile and try my best to always act courteous, but one of the reasons I prefer going through kiosks and machines is because people don't tend to just keep their questions to the information they need to send me on my way. See, it's not the fact that I'm interacting with a human that bothers me, it's the fact that the interaction is revolving around things I don't care about, and it's slowing me down.
I'm not saying that because of people like me, we should be moving in this direction, because I understand introverts are a minority. I'm mostly agreeing with your "to each their own" comment and offering another perspective.
I am less forgiving - because people like you are responsible for the rise of Sirius Cybernetics, the robotics company behind some of the galaxy's most aggravating robots. "Share and enjoy!"
Actually, I'm not going to take the blame for that one. Robots are cheaper than humans, that's why they started replacing humans with them in the service industry. But extroverts like you complained. In order to make you happy, they decided they needed to give robots real human personalities. I certainly don't want that any more than you do, that's what I'm trying to run away from.
then any and all advances that came from nazi research should be shunned post haste! the same for any companies( and their products) doing ANY business dealings, too. where does it end (or start for that matter)?
The difference is that if the TPB was really being hosted in NK (it's not), then presumably NK would be getting some benefit out of it. In that case you would be literally supporting north korea by not boycotting the site, as opposed to making use of advances from atrocities you did not help perform.
What we need is an iPocketwatch. Make it fit into old gold watch cases and work as a cell phone.
Eh. Do you know why pocket watches went out of fashion in favor of wristwatches? Because people don't like having to reach into their pockets and take a device out in order to tell the time.
I don't think the iWatch is it, but that's because I don't like apple's products in general. I think there's a market for a good programmable watch that can interface with your phone, to help you not have to take that device out of your pocket less.
Why do you assume you'd cancel out the vote of a more responsible citizen?
I don't make that assumption. Especially considering most of the uninformed people I see voting.
Chances are, you can vote better than most people with a minimum of effort.
I could, but I'd have to make that minimum effort. If I've failed to do so by election day, then at least I won't be a hypocrite, and I'll play by the same rules I wish everybody else played by. If I haven't done my due diligence, I'll stay home. It's not ideal, and I don't claim I've made my civic duty by staying home. However, I don't intend on making things worse by voting based on emotion instead of facts. There are so many things to consider. What are the issues I care about? That one is easy. What the are stances of every candidate on the ballot? That can be found pretty quickly. Do the candidates' voting records imply that they will keep their campaign promises? That takes a bit more searching. Finally, and this is the key one, what is the evidence that their way of dealing with the issue I care about would be successful? What is the evidence against? Overall, it takes at least 3 or 4 weekends of research to actually be prepared to vote.
In the end, I really don't care who you vote for if you can give me real answers to the questions above. I'm not going to claim my opinion or my issues are better than yours. However, you better be aware of all the facts before you come up with an opinion.
the problem is the alternative: a world where a self-appointed subclass has deemed that they are more worthy than the people themselves to decide what is good for you
There's another alternative to that. One in which everyone is allowed to vote, but instead of encouraging everyone to get up the day of the election and cast a vote, it doesn't matter who, we teach them that the civil responsibility is to get informed on the issues and the candidates, and then going out and voting. The important part of the voting process is the getting informed part. If you failed to do that because you didn't have the time, then you've already failed at your civil responsibility, and you should self-select yourself to stay home.
I don't support telling any citizen they're not allowed to vote, even if I think they're voting for the wrong person or they're not informed enough to be voting, because who I am to decide that?. That said, I can't support breeding a culture in which we think the value of our democratic government is in pushing a few buttons and then wearing an "I voted!" sticker. I often don't find the time to do my civic duty and being truly informed myself, but I self-select myself out of the voting pool when that happens. I'm not going to my part in this even worse by canceling out the vote of a more responsible citizen.
I'm not doing any sort of "detailed" analysis, I'm pointing out that your conclusion is based on a false equivalence a child could identify.
I'm pretty relaxed about it, as well.
Considering you start almost every post with an insult such as "you're abusing statistics" and "a false equivalent a child could identify" instead of just making your point, I assumed you were pretty livid. Sorry, I guess.
If any actual pilots want to chime in an explain why it's safer to be in a twin-engined plane running on one engine than a single-engined plane running on no engines, I'm happy to listen. However, from a passenger perspective, I'd much rather be in the former situation than the latter.
I am an actual pilot. The full disclosure with that statement is that I'm not rated to flying multiengine planes, and that I am a pretty young pilot. I've only logged 52 hours. So, if a more experienced pilot comes in and tells me I'm full of shit, and explains why, I'll most certainly insert my foot in my mouth and be glad for the lesson. However, what I'm telling you is what I've been taught as part of my training.
Any competent sysadmin will treat a drive failure in a 2-drive mirror as an emergency condition.
The problem I was attempting to point out with your analogy is that a drive failure in a 2-drive mirror is the exact same as running a non-raid box with one drive. Unless you want to say that flying a single engine plane is an emergency condition by itself, then you know that's not what I mean.
How is that a worse situation than losing 100% of climb performance ?
I agree with you, it's not. But going back to the first point, statistically speaking, the probability that you will lose that 80 to 90 percent climb performance in a twin engine plane is greater than the probability you will lose 100% of your climb performance in a single engine plane. Let's put it this way. We're going to play russian roulette. I get to shoot you in the chest with a gun that has 3 bullets in it or in the head with a gun that has 1 bullet in it (out of 6, both times). Yes, you're more likely to survive a chest wound, but more likely to get shot in the first place if you take that option, so if I had to take one of those options, so it's safer to choose the option of getting the gun pointed at your head.
In reality, airplanes are incredibly safe machines, not russian roulette. They're required to be inspected on a regular basis, and the situation of engine failure isn't really that likely in either case. In addition, the reason I repeatedly pointed out that it matters where you're flying is that landing a plane unpowered is not really that big of a deal if you have some place to land. They really are excellent gliders, and you can find plenty of videos on youtube of people landing Cessna 172s or 182s with the propeller powered off on purpose. Obviously they do this around the airport they're going to land, and they know they're cleared of traffic, and it's pretty quick to turn the propeller back on, but the point is that they're good gliders. Which doesn't help you if you're over the ocean, so the multiengine is safer in that scenario.
Relax, man. I didn't mean this to be a general and detailed analysis. I was pointing out that the reasoning for assuming 4 wheels are safer than 2 was flawed. I admit I oversimplified things and explained it further in that post. It depends on the circumstances. Clearly if you're going to be making an overseas trip, or going over mountains, a twin-engine is preferable, because being able to travel for a longer time in said emergency condition is important when there's no place to land. If you're not going to be doing that, you'd rather just minimize the chances of entering any emergency condition. I pointed this out the first time someone posted a response that questioned my statement.
A system with a RAID1 array is twice as likely to have a drive failure than a system with a single drive. But the system with a single drive is more likely to suffer data loss because when it has a drive failure, data loss is inevitable.
A twin engine plane running on a single engine is an emergency condition, it's not like running a RAID system in which everything keeps working just fine until you lose more drives. Especially if it happens at the most likely time, during takeoff, where you can lose 80 to 90 percent of climb performance. Which also means that, just like landing a plane in unpowered flight, you better get that landing right the first time, because you can't count on being able to go around.
You're missing the part where by flying a twin-engine plane, you're increasing your chances of having an engine failure. So you're more likely to be in that twin-engined plane with one failed engine than you are to be in a single-engined plane with one failed engine.
Why would any given engine be more likely to fail in a twin engine configuration than a single-engine configuration ?
You're abusing statistics.
I'm just trying to explain things calmly here, but for politeness sake, in order to avoid putting your foot in your mouth, you really need to think about your understanding of statistics before you call someone else out for abusing it.
Let's think about coin-flipping. The probability of a coin flipping tails is 50%. Now let's flip two coins. Coin A, and Coin B. The probability of P(A | tails) = 50%, P(B | tails) = 50%. Just like you were flipping a single coin, because they're independent events. Now let's say the coin represents the engine, and flipping tails represents engine failure. Coin A is the left engine, coin B is the right engine. As you've said yourself, the chances of a any given engine to fail is exactly the same in twin configuration as by themselves. However, I don't care about the chances of my left engine failing vs the chances of my right engine failing. I care about the chances of either A or B failing. Chances of A and B being heads is 25%, chances of A being heads and B being tails is 25%, chances of A being tails and B being heads is 25%, chances of A and B being heads is 25%. In other words, chances that at least one of the engines fail is 75% if you're independently running both of them, instead of the 50% of flipping a single coin.
Would the average pilot rather be in a twin-engined plane with one failed engine or a single-engined plane with one failed engine ?
You're missing the part where by flying a twin-engine plane, you're increasing your chances of having an engine failure. So you're more likely to be in that twin-engined plane with one failed engine than you are to be in a single-engined plane with one failed engine.
To answer your question, it depends. If I'm making a cross-ocean trip, the twin-engine is actually safer, because of that reason, and because the chances of both engines failing is less likely. If I'm skydiving, I'm probably safer in the single-engine. Skydiving planes push their engines hard, because they're constantly taking off all day, and I'll take the decreased chance of engine failure anyday that I'm close to a good landing location. A Cessna 182 will glide and land softly just fine with no engine.
You have more tires in the road with 4 wheels than one. The chances of at least one of them going flat is therefore higher, since you're covering more surface area with the road. There may be other factors, I'm not an expert in the field, and I wasn't even disagreeing with your premise that the car is more dangerous, it could very well be. I'm simply pointing out that your explanation is too simplistic and you need to know all the probabilities at hand before making that determination.
2. What do pilots base that on? and why would they be qualified to make such a determination? As far as I can tell the FAA disagrees considering the rules favoring many engined planes for commercial use.
Pilots base that on their training. It's part of what you study for your written private pilot's test. That said, in attempting to make my point, I will admit to oversimplifying the situation, and there are a lot more factors involved. If you're making an overseas flight, or are flying over a mountain range, the additional range given to you in case of engine failure is clearly going to make a twin-engine plane safer, because you're four times less likely to suffer a complete engine failure, and there's no place to land if you're only gliding. I don't know what FAA rules you were referring to in particular, but I assume they relate to those types of flights.
Instead of turning cars into motorcycles and making them less safe in the process (one flat tire on a four-wheeled vehicle is dramatically less serious than one flat tire on a two-wheeled vehicle; now consider the case of two flat tires!)...
I don't know if it's true a gyro car is less safe than a four-wheeled car, but I do want to point out that you're reasoning is flawed because you don't account for how much less likely it would be to get a flat tire in the first place.
For example, instinctively people think that two-engine airplanes are safer than single-engine ones, because the plane can still fly after one engine failure. Any pilot will tell you the opposite is true, however. All else being equal, a plane with two engines is twice as likely to have an engine failure, and a two-engine plane flying with one engine is less safe than a single-engine plane with its one engine working.
Feel free to google "trauma trigger" or "PTSD trigger" for more.
That you've never heard of something and can't wrap your head around it immediately doesn't mean that is must be bullshit.
I don't think the triggers are bullshit. I think avoiding certain topics because there may be some people in the audience that has gone through a horrible traumatic experience and may be triggered as a result is bullshit.
My grandfather was a WWII vet. Once I was watching Full Metal Jacket, my grandfather walked in during the training scene in which people were crawling below live bullets fired over their heads, one guy panicked, and got shot. My grandfather immediately got up and walked out. Later I found he actually saw someone die exactly like that when he was in training. There's no way I think his reaction was "bullshit" and that it wasn't a reminder of something tragic that happened in his life. However, to outright ban Full Metal Jacket in case any vets might see it and have a PTSD trigger is ridiculous, and the incorrect response.
Similarly, I have the deepest sympathies for anyone who was raped. I can't imagine what they've been through and understand their lives have been forever changed as a result. That said, if you're a rape victim and you think you might be triggered by the subject of a talk that involves sex, then you should be smart enough not to attend said talk. Asking instead for the talk to be banned so that nobody else can see it is an unacceptable response.
It's not at all shocking that it was politically motivated. What's shocking is that they admitted it.
They didn't. The blog post is a really biased interpretation of the article it is commenting upon.
What was actually said is that the manifesto was taken into account because it was evidence of his intent to distribute the papers he downloaded. Now, I personally agree with Aaron's views, but if you consider the current copyright law just as it is, it's perfectly acceptable to use that manifesto as evidence that his motives was to commit widespread copyright violations. There's nothing political about it in the sense of "we need to shut this guy up." In the way the law is currently written, what he wanted to do is illegal. That's why Aaron himself called it civil disobedience in his manifesto.
That said, the whole, "we can get you for a maximum sentence of 30 years, but we'll agree to a plea bargain of 3 months" is really bullshit, and I'd really like to see it go away. We all agree that 30 years for downloading and distributing some digital files is unacceptable, and the DoJ's excuse is, "well, we weren't really going to imprison him for that long. It was going to be 3 months, and his lawyer might even successfully argue for no jail time." That's not the point. The point is that the maximum sentence should be set to a reasonable value, so that it can't be used to blackmail someone into plea bargaining.
Slashdot Mirror
The moment you take up arms and try to force the government out and put your own government in place, I expect you to be shot down and arrested.
You do realize this is exactly how America started, right?
Not for the lack of the British fighting back. It just so happens the revolutionaries won.
I like the US government, even with all of it faults. If somebody tries to take it down by force, I expect the government to fight back. I can fight for one side, but I can't control who wins.
Really? I don't believe that. What about when your political opponents are wrong? Is it not the time for coercive paternalism? "In many cases it would advance our goals more effectively if government were to prevent us from acting in accordance with our decisions."
So, agree or disagree?
I'm old enough that I've lost count of how many times I've been proven wrong. So, in order to minimize the damage, I try to live my life always allowing for the possibility that the other guy is right, and I'm the one who is wrong.
That obviously doesn't mean I won't believe I'm right and the other guy is wrong. For example, in this conversation, I clearly think you're the one who is wrong. I've also already said I think the Tea Party has some crappy ideas and that communism can't work. It means that I don't discount the possibility that I'm just not seeing something they (or you) are seeing. What that does is allow me to listen to your arguments and try to find the merits in them, not just try to find how I can discredit you. If your arguments don't convince me, than I'll present my counterarguments. If I can't convince you, and you can't convince me, than one of us is wrong. I may continue believing I'm the one who's right, but I don't know that's true. So I'll vote my way, you'll vote another. If most people are voting against me in an issue I feel strongly about, I'll try to move someplace where more people believe as I do, but I won't try to force everyone else to change to my beliefs because I have no way of knowing for sure that I'm not the one being stubbornly wrong.
If you care about something enough to not want to see it turn to crap, you have to exert effort on that thing to let it know when it's being crap.
The problem is that you don't know if other people think it's crap. You're assuming your opinion is the important one. I'm tired of this attitude.
If an article is crap, and it doesn't get enough views, slashdot editors will take notice, because it hurts their bottom line. If you think an article is crap, but other people are viewing it, then it's just not for you. Either way, whether it's legitimately crap, or just not to your tastes, the solution is to just not participate and wait for an article you do enjoy.
When your political beliefs include the violent overthrow of the U.S. government, that's where the line is drawn. The 50s Communists believed exactly that. They weren't being persecuted for their political beliefs, they were being persecuted for the fact that they wanted to do the federal government what the Tea Party wants to do today. Do you agree with the Tea Party?
I don't agree with the Communists, and I don't agree with the Tea Party. I don't want to prevent either of them from being in positions in government, however. Other than by not voting for them, that is. If other people vote them in, that's their right, because I do believe in a representative government.
The line, by the way, isn't whether your political beliefs include violent overthrow of the U.S. government. It's when your actions support that. The moment you take up arms and try to force the government out and put your own government in place, I expect you to be shot down and arrested. I'm not going to support the government going after you for pre- or thought-crime, though.
To be fair, McCarthy was right. There really were Communists in the State Department.
Even if that's true, it doesn't make McCarthy right. In this country, the government isn't allowed to prosecute people for their political beliefs. The problem with McCarthy wasn't just that there was a witch hunt in place. The problem was that if every single person he accused to be a communist was indeed a communist, the proper response is, "so what?"
You, and the Slashdot editors that posted this, are wasting everyone's time with this question. What's next, an Ask Slashdot for shaking crumbs and pubes out of your keyboard?
Let me get this straight. You read an article you don't like, take the time to go into the comments and post how much you don't like the question. Then you accuse others of wasting YOUR time.
Doesn't seem like your time is particularly valuable, so I don't see why anyone should feel bad about wasting it. I'm wasting my time responding to you, but at least I'm taking responsibility for wasting it myself. I could have just as easily ignored it if I deemed my time was more valuable. Perhaps you should have done that with this article.
Amanda Palmer - who expected her backing musicians to be enough of a fan to play for nothing but the honor of being on the same stage as her.
I'm not a music guy, and I had no idea who Amanda Palmer was. In addition, the whole "art of asking" presentation was pretty horrible. That said, upon looking up the controversy to which you refer...I see absolutely nothing wrong with it.
You make it sound like she expected her backing musicians to play for free, but found nobody. Actually, there were plenty of people who were willing to play for free. Why wouldn't they? You get to hang out with an artist you're a fan of and you get exposure for your local band. It's just that those who wouldn't be willing to play for free were completely outraged that others would, so they sought to make a villain out of her.
Repeat after me: doing things for no monetary compensation is not fucking evil. Asking people to do things for no monetary compensation is not evil. If compensation is agreed upon, but not given, that is evil.
Need? Because ISS's most important mission is giving rich people a place to float around in microgravity. That this is even an issue that a celebrity is getting bumped in favor of a scientist is absurd.
There's a market to send rich people up to the ISS to float around in microgravity. Doesn't that mean it's extremely important? If you can make money off them, then sending them up is a way to fund some of the science. What's the problem with that?
A singer/tourist might have to give up a spot to someone who will do science. What's the downside, again?
Sending up tourists isn't really a bad thing for science. They pay money to go, which gets used to fund a small portion of the science. It's a net gain.
I don't find any problem with her giving up the spot for a researcher for this trip because they need it, but I also don't see any issue with the fact that the Russians send up tourists to the ISS. Sounds like a good idea to me, and back when we had the shuttle, my guess is the only reason NASA didn't do it was the fear of expensive lawsuits if someone got hurt.
Heh...I meant to say that last part jokingly but it sounds too damn plausible to be funny.
Giving a discourse in which the answers are included may ultimately convey the same information, but it is dismissive to the questioner. Effectively he's saying, "Your questions are so stupidly uninformed that they are beneath me, so instead of responding I'm going to give you an extended lecture in the hopes of rescuing you from your ignorance."
After which you should say, "thank you" and not be both rude and arrogant by believing that he's not rescuing you from your ignorance. I think this is the best response for a slashdot interview I've seen in a long time. It was very interesting, and it looks like he took a great deal of time and invested a lot of effort into it.
Patient records are riddled with notes intended only for internal use...could be medically important.
Not all of those notes are. Friend of mine got access to her medical records. One of the notes was, "pleasant young female."
Wtf?
This sounds great in theory and I would support this wholeheartedy if you can solve one issue; how does one establish objectivelu if someone has put i.n enough effort to educate themselves before voting.
You don't. This is why I said you need to self-select yourself out if you know you haven't put in the effort. It's the honor-based system. It's not perfect, but I think it's better than the alternative.
I only propose to change the "get out and vote" style campaigns to the more accurate, "put some effort into getting informed, and then vote." I want to stop giving people the idea that showing up to a poll location and clicking people's names, most of them they haven't even heard of before, is doing their civic duty.
Human interaction can be invigorating, and psychologically refreshing.
I'm an introvert. Human interaction is energy-draining. If I'm in a great and energetic mood, if talking to people takes too much of my time during a day, I'll feel like I've been traveling for the last 30 hours.
Quite frankly, with an attitude like yours? I don't think they want much want to talk to you, anyways.
I wish. However, they don't generally try to get rid of me fast enough. They try to chit-chat. I don't want to be impolite, so I smile and try my best to always act courteous, but one of the reasons I prefer going through kiosks and machines is because people don't tend to just keep their questions to the information they need to send me on my way. See, it's not the fact that I'm interacting with a human that bothers me, it's the fact that the interaction is revolving around things I don't care about, and it's slowing me down.
I'm not saying that because of people like me, we should be moving in this direction, because I understand introverts are a minority. I'm mostly agreeing with your "to each their own" comment and offering another perspective.
I am less forgiving - because people like you are responsible for the rise of Sirius Cybernetics, the robotics company behind some of the galaxy's most aggravating robots. "Share and enjoy!"
Actually, I'm not going to take the blame for that one. Robots are cheaper than humans, that's why they started replacing humans with them in the service industry. But extroverts like you complained. In order to make you happy, they decided they needed to give robots real human personalities. I certainly don't want that any more than you do, that's what I'm trying to run away from.
then any and all advances that came from nazi research should be shunned post haste! the same for any companies( and their products) doing ANY business dealings, too. where does it end (or start for that matter)?
The difference is that if the TPB was really being hosted in NK (it's not), then presumably NK would be getting some benefit out of it. In that case you would be literally supporting north korea by not boycotting the site, as opposed to making use of advances from atrocities you did not help perform.
What we need is an iPocketwatch. Make it fit into old gold watch cases and work as a cell phone.
Eh. Do you know why pocket watches went out of fashion in favor of wristwatches? Because people don't like having to reach into their pockets and take a device out in order to tell the time.
I don't think the iWatch is it, but that's because I don't like apple's products in general. I think there's a market for a good programmable watch that can interface with your phone, to help you not have to take that device out of your pocket less.
Why do you assume you'd cancel out the vote of a more responsible citizen?
I don't make that assumption. Especially considering most of the uninformed people I see voting.
Chances are, you can vote better than most people with a minimum of effort.
I could, but I'd have to make that minimum effort. If I've failed to do so by election day, then at least I won't be a hypocrite, and I'll play by the same rules I wish everybody else played by. If I haven't done my due diligence, I'll stay home. It's not ideal, and I don't claim I've made my civic duty by staying home. However, I don't intend on making things worse by voting based on emotion instead of facts. There are so many things to consider. What are the issues I care about? That one is easy. What the are stances of every candidate on the ballot? That can be found pretty quickly. Do the candidates' voting records imply that they will keep their campaign promises? That takes a bit more searching. Finally, and this is the key one, what is the evidence that their way of dealing with the issue I care about would be successful? What is the evidence against? Overall, it takes at least 3 or 4 weekends of research to actually be prepared to vote.
In the end, I really don't care who you vote for if you can give me real answers to the questions above. I'm not going to claim my opinion or my issues are better than yours. However, you better be aware of all the facts before you come up with an opinion.
the problem is the alternative: a world where a self-appointed subclass has deemed that they are more worthy than the people themselves to decide what is good for you
There's another alternative to that. One in which everyone is allowed to vote, but instead of encouraging everyone to get up the day of the election and cast a vote, it doesn't matter who, we teach them that the civil responsibility is to get informed on the issues and the candidates, and then going out and voting. The important part of the voting process is the getting informed part. If you failed to do that because you didn't have the time, then you've already failed at your civil responsibility, and you should self-select yourself to stay home.
I don't support telling any citizen they're not allowed to vote, even if I think they're voting for the wrong person or they're not informed enough to be voting, because who I am to decide that?. That said, I can't support breeding a culture in which we think the value of our democratic government is in pushing a few buttons and then wearing an "I voted!" sticker. I often don't find the time to do my civic duty and being truly informed myself, but I self-select myself out of the voting pool when that happens. I'm not going to my part in this even worse by canceling out the vote of a more responsible citizen.
I'm not doing any sort of "detailed" analysis, I'm pointing out that your conclusion is based on a false equivalence a child could identify.
I'm pretty relaxed about it, as well.
Considering you start almost every post with an insult such as "you're abusing statistics" and "a false equivalent a child could identify" instead of just making your point, I assumed you were pretty livid. Sorry, I guess.
If any actual pilots want to chime in an explain why it's safer to be in a twin-engined plane running on one engine than a single-engined plane running on no engines, I'm happy to listen. However, from a passenger perspective, I'd much rather be in the former situation than the latter.
I am an actual pilot. The full disclosure with that statement is that I'm not rated to flying multiengine planes, and that I am a pretty young pilot. I've only logged 52 hours. So, if a more experienced pilot comes in and tells me I'm full of shit, and explains why, I'll most certainly insert my foot in my mouth and be glad for the lesson. However, what I'm telling you is what I've been taught as part of my training.
Any competent sysadmin will treat a drive failure in a 2-drive mirror as an emergency condition.
The problem I was attempting to point out with your analogy is that a drive failure in a 2-drive mirror is the exact same as running a non-raid box with one drive. Unless you want to say that flying a single engine plane is an emergency condition by itself, then you know that's not what I mean.
How is that a worse situation than losing 100% of climb performance ?
I agree with you, it's not. But going back to the first point, statistically speaking, the probability that you will lose that 80 to 90 percent climb performance in a twin engine plane is greater than the probability you will lose 100% of your climb performance in a single engine plane. Let's put it this way. We're going to play russian roulette. I get to shoot you in the chest with a gun that has 3 bullets in it or in the head with a gun that has 1 bullet in it (out of 6, both times). Yes, you're more likely to survive a chest wound, but more likely to get shot in the first place if you take that option, so if I had to take one of those options, so it's safer to choose the option of getting the gun pointed at your head.
In reality, airplanes are incredibly safe machines, not russian roulette. They're required to be inspected on a regular basis, and the situation of engine failure isn't really that likely in either case. In addition, the reason I repeatedly pointed out that it matters where you're flying is that landing a plane unpowered is not really that big of a deal if you have some place to land. They really are excellent gliders, and you can find plenty of videos on youtube of people landing Cessna 172s or 182s with the propeller powered off on purpose. Obviously they do this around the airport they're going to land, and they know they're cleared of traffic, and it's pretty quick to turn the propeller back on, but the point is that they're good gliders. Which doesn't help you if you're over the ocean, so the multiengine is safer in that scenario.
Relax, man. I didn't mean this to be a general and detailed analysis. I was pointing out that the reasoning for assuming 4 wheels are safer than 2 was flawed. I admit I oversimplified things and explained it further in that post. It depends on the circumstances. Clearly if you're going to be making an overseas trip, or going over mountains, a twin-engine is preferable, because being able to travel for a longer time in said emergency condition is important when there's no place to land. If you're not going to be doing that, you'd rather just minimize the chances of entering any emergency condition. I pointed this out the first time someone posted a response that questioned my statement.
A system with a RAID1 array is twice as likely to have a drive failure than a system with a single drive. But the system with a single drive is more likely to suffer data loss because when it has a drive failure, data loss is inevitable.
A twin engine plane running on a single engine is an emergency condition, it's not like running a RAID system in which everything keeps working just fine until you lose more drives. Especially if it happens at the most likely time, during takeoff, where you can lose 80 to 90 percent of climb performance. Which also means that, just like landing a plane in unpowered flight, you better get that landing right the first time, because you can't count on being able to go around.
You're missing the part where by flying a twin-engine plane, you're increasing your chances of having an engine failure. So you're more likely to be in that twin-engined plane with one failed engine than you are to be in a single-engined plane with one failed engine.
Why would any given engine be more likely to fail in a twin engine configuration than a single-engine configuration ?
You're abusing statistics.
I'm just trying to explain things calmly here, but for politeness sake, in order to avoid putting your foot in your mouth, you really need to think about your understanding of statistics before you call someone else out for abusing it.
Let's think about coin-flipping. The probability of a coin flipping tails is 50%. Now let's flip two coins. Coin A, and Coin B. The probability of P(A | tails) = 50%, P(B | tails) = 50%. Just like you were flipping a single coin, because they're independent events. Now let's say the coin represents the engine, and flipping tails represents engine failure. Coin A is the left engine, coin B is the right engine. As you've said yourself, the chances of a any given engine to fail is exactly the same in twin configuration as by themselves. However, I don't care about the chances of my left engine failing vs the chances of my right engine failing. I care about the chances of either A or B failing. Chances of A and B being heads is 25%, chances of A being heads and B being tails is 25%, chances of A being tails and B being heads is 25%, chances of A and B being heads is 25%. In other words, chances that at least one of the engines fail is 75% if you're independently running both of them, instead of the 50% of flipping a single coin.
Would the average pilot rather be in a twin-engined plane with one failed engine or a single-engined plane with one failed engine ?
You're missing the part where by flying a twin-engine plane, you're increasing your chances of having an engine failure. So you're more likely to be in that twin-engined plane with one failed engine than you are to be in a single-engined plane with one failed engine.
To answer your question, it depends. If I'm making a cross-ocean trip, the twin-engine is actually safer, because of that reason, and because the chances of both engines failing is less likely. If I'm skydiving, I'm probably safer in the single-engine. Skydiving planes push their engines hard, because they're constantly taking off all day, and I'll take the decreased chance of engine failure anyday that I'm close to a good landing location. A Cessna 182 will glide and land softly just fine with no engine.
1. How would it avoid flat tires?
You have more tires in the road with 4 wheels than one. The chances of at least one of them going flat is therefore higher, since you're covering more surface area with the road. There may be other factors, I'm not an expert in the field, and I wasn't even disagreeing with your premise that the car is more dangerous, it could very well be. I'm simply pointing out that your explanation is too simplistic and you need to know all the probabilities at hand before making that determination.
2. What do pilots base that on? and why would they be qualified to make such a determination? As far as I can tell the FAA disagrees considering the rules favoring many engined planes for commercial use.
Pilots base that on their training. It's part of what you study for your written private pilot's test. That said, in attempting to make my point, I will admit to oversimplifying the situation, and there are a lot more factors involved. If you're making an overseas flight, or are flying over a mountain range, the additional range given to you in case of engine failure is clearly going to make a twin-engine plane safer, because you're four times less likely to suffer a complete engine failure, and there's no place to land if you're only gliding. I don't know what FAA rules you were referring to in particular, but I assume they relate to those types of flights.
Instead of turning cars into motorcycles and making them less safe in the process (one flat tire on a four-wheeled vehicle is dramatically less serious than one flat tire on a two-wheeled vehicle; now consider the case of two flat tires!)...
I don't know if it's true a gyro car is less safe than a four-wheeled car, but I do want to point out that you're reasoning is flawed because you don't account for how much less likely it would be to get a flat tire in the first place.
For example, instinctively people think that two-engine airplanes are safer than single-engine ones, because the plane can still fly after one engine failure. Any pilot will tell you the opposite is true, however. All else being equal, a plane with two engines is twice as likely to have an engine failure, and a two-engine plane flying with one engine is less safe than a single-engine plane with its one engine working.
Triggers are not an invention of SF Hippies or Feminists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trauma_trigger
Feel free to google "trauma trigger" or "PTSD trigger" for more.
That you've never heard of something and can't wrap your head around it immediately doesn't mean that is must be bullshit.
I don't think the triggers are bullshit. I think avoiding certain topics because there may be some people in the audience that has gone through a horrible traumatic experience and may be triggered as a result is bullshit.
My grandfather was a WWII vet. Once I was watching Full Metal Jacket, my grandfather walked in during the training scene in which people were crawling below live bullets fired over their heads, one guy panicked, and got shot. My grandfather immediately got up and walked out. Later I found he actually saw someone die exactly like that when he was in training. There's no way I think his reaction was "bullshit" and that it wasn't a reminder of something tragic that happened in his life. However, to outright ban Full Metal Jacket in case any vets might see it and have a PTSD trigger is ridiculous, and the incorrect response.
Similarly, I have the deepest sympathies for anyone who was raped. I can't imagine what they've been through and understand their lives have been forever changed as a result. That said, if you're a rape victim and you think you might be triggered by the subject of a talk that involves sex, then you should be smart enough not to attend said talk. Asking instead for the talk to be banned so that nobody else can see it is an unacceptable response.
It's not at all shocking that it was politically motivated. What's shocking is that they admitted it.
They didn't. The blog post is a really biased interpretation of the article it is commenting upon.
What was actually said is that the manifesto was taken into account because it was evidence of his intent to distribute the papers he downloaded. Now, I personally agree with Aaron's views, but if you consider the current copyright law just as it is, it's perfectly acceptable to use that manifesto as evidence that his motives was to commit widespread copyright violations. There's nothing political about it in the sense of "we need to shut this guy up." In the way the law is currently written, what he wanted to do is illegal. That's why Aaron himself called it civil disobedience in his manifesto.
That said, the whole, "we can get you for a maximum sentence of 30 years, but we'll agree to a plea bargain of 3 months" is really bullshit, and I'd really like to see it go away. We all agree that 30 years for downloading and distributing some digital files is unacceptable, and the DoJ's excuse is, "well, we weren't really going to imprison him for that long. It was going to be 3 months, and his lawyer might even successfully argue for no jail time." That's not the point. The point is that the maximum sentence should be set to a reasonable value, so that it can't be used to blackmail someone into plea bargaining.