That is because you are thinking in terms of the commercial production of commodity products, whereas I am thinking in terms of finding something to eat.
Thus meat isn't a very efficient source of food.
It isn't a question of whether it's efficient. It's a question of whether it's available. If it's there, you can eat it, and thus avoid starvation. Nor is this a minority way of going about things, it is the way 99.999999. ..9 percent of the living orginisms on the the planet go about "making their living," which fact contributes to the fact that our agriculture does not make us exempt from the rules of this system.
However, the advantage of animal products is that animals can eat food that humans can't.
And thus there are times and places where animals are the only local source of human food. That is why people in arid lands, without fail, develop some sort of hunting/herding culture.
While I definately agree that Vegetarianism alone would not solve world hunger, the numbers from 2002 are fairly overwhelming. That site is not the only reference, just a quick overview.
Did I not warn you that you would be preaching to one of the prophets?
Also, I most certainly agree that distribution and polotics are huge contributing factors.
This was an issue that I did not address directly, but did so indirectly by pointing out that there was no particualar shortage of foodstuffs at the present time.
KFG
Re:To Quote Albert Einstein
on
Thanksgiving Bits
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
That, and a damned sight fewer people. The idea that vegetarianism alone, in a geometrically expanding population (which speeds up with an increase in food supply) is the solution, with all due respects to the good doctor, is daft.
We may need to go through a Soylent Green phase before we can adopt a vegetarian phase.
I'll also note that the record seems to indicate that it was evolution from a vegetarian diet to an omnivorous one that allowed us to survive our first ice age (while we were still Australopithicine). It's pretty obvious really that the more things you can eat the more things you will find to eat. The invention of agriculture doesn't change this.
If you live in most of world and are not vegetarian all you need to obtain food is a white sheet and a flashlight. Most hunger (outside of areas that are both arid and overpopulated) is due to fastidiousnous of diet, not a lack of foodstuffs.
Of course this will change when we add a sufficient quantity of new people.
(And please note that I have been a vegetarian for more than 30 years before you respond to me with something along the lines of "You meat eater, you.")
One can argue that functionality is more important than the presentation/interface layer, but seriously, users are more attracted to pretty pictures.
But it's not just the subject of pretty pictures.
Because the command line is an interface.
Ok, this is actually semi-offtopic, given the nature of the story, but I get a bit tired now and again with the word "interface" being used as a synonym for "GUI," and thus all interface usability research and guidelines being GUI centric.
User interface 'friendliness' should span the spectrum of interface types, including at the command line. This doesn't necessarily mean dumbing down the command line for "granny," because even the uber kernel hacker is a user when he sits down to do some work and wants, what for him/her, is a "smart" interface.
There are multiple kinds of user, and the 'friendliest' interface is often going to be different for each type. We need to understand usability issues for all of the types, not just the commodity GUI.
Professional software companies may actually spend several subsequent dollar signs into providing a consistent, easy-to-navigate user interface.
Like the totally braindead "start" menu instead of drop down menus? Even professional software companies can spend all of that money and research to create a monster.
Simply having done research doesn't mean that your research was any good, although most companies seem to fall into this fallacy, at least now and again. You have to test your research methods and assumptions as well, and most 'professional' software companies skip that part, since they don't see the application to a real world product.
The trick isn't to show all functionality. The trick is to present the functionality the user needs, in a logical grouping as the users expect it.
Here I'll agree with you, with this caveat, sometimes what's needed is to train the user in logic, because their expectations may be damnably illogical.
Interfaces should adapt to people, but any particular person may still find himself in need of adapting to the interface. The idea that any user should be able to sit down at any particular interface and just start using it without any training is a flawed assumption in the first place. They've got the axioms wrong. This idea ultimately leads to the "here, just suck on this nipple" interface, which we are (sic) assymptotically approaching.
Now for some users that interface might well be valid (like two year olds), but it will never be terribly friendly (although it might well be fun) to even a casually advanced user. Having to dive through too many layers to find the function you want in the interest of presenting a 'clean' GUI interface isn't any more friendly than having all possible functions presented to you in a mish-mash switch board (the traditional failing of OS GUIs, which is often combined with hiding some key funcitonality someplace where you couldn't possibly ever find it on purpose, or even stumble across it accidentally).
For every complicated issue there is a simple answer that is wrong. Interfaces are a complicated issue. Searching for the simple answer is inherently the wrong approach. It will always take a combination of simple answers (which will sometimes be at odds with each other) tuned to the function and user at hand to create a great GUI.
As soon as a company accepts that there are people who are perfectly happy to pay more for something that looks and feels good, then they might spend a little more on the hardware and less on trying to get it's sales price as low as possible.
There used to be companies like this. In fact, I remember a day when companies like that were quite common and quality was to be expected, especially in the look and feel department. Man, home audio equipment used to be awesome shit to delight every sense and sensibility, you could hug the stuff, not this vacuum formed plastic shit we have now.
So what happened?
Companies that could make and sell stuff cheaper got 98% of the business. People may want a Boyd, but they buy a Ford. Believe it or not, mp3 players aren't anywhere near a mass market item yet. 98% of the American populace has never even seen an mp3 player, and a good many of those haven't even heard of them yet. They're cutting edge, afficiando gear and mass market rules do not apply.
When everybody has an mp3 player because they bought it as an impulse item while standing in line at CVS, well, iPod ain't gonna be the sales leader then.
Can't you see the same damned thing in markets where their is a legitimate mass market commodity competitor to Apple, like, oooooooh, desktop computers? Apple is the Alfa Romeo of the computer world. That's ok, nothing wrong with it, but it inherently means having an Alfa Romeo like market share.
Being an acomplished tight-rope walker (as in, i can do it,) I can tell you that it isnt anything but balance.
Being an accomplished solver of mathematical problems in my head (as in, I can do it) I can tell you that it isn't anything but thinking. That doesn't mean that there aren't tricks of thought that one can learn, if one thinks about them.
The question is, can you walk a tightrope faster than anyone else?
Ah, well, perhaps those of us who can do it faster than you have learned a few analogous tricks of balance.
The method of producing hydrogen kind of reminds me of the way acetylene lamps used to work
Still work. You can buy one at many camping supply stores, as a lot of people find it more convienient to carry a tin of calcium carbide around than a tank of kerosene or a bunch of batteries.
And they're fun to light. Pop!
I've got a lovely old brass one, but most of the newer ones are made out of plastic, which is lighter and doesn't want polishing.
While on the surface it sounds like MS is just trying to be a nice, fuzzy and warm corporation. ..
No, no it doesn't at all. It sounds like they haven't fed their legal rottweilers in three days and intend to have them slake their ravenous hunger by feeding on the living flesh of screaming white box makers.
That's what it sounds like, so you probably don't want to be around to hear what it sounds like.
Can someone please explain to me WHY they would do this?
Oh sure, that's easy enough. OEMs are selling boxes preloaded with pirate versions of Windows. Microsoft would like to set the dogs on them, but it would be prohibitively expensive to track them all down, assuming they could do so at all.
By getting the customers themselves to identify them they find out who they are at no actual cost (since these wouldn't be paying customers anyway, and the cost of goods to MS is zilch).
The Bill of Rights is the traditional nature of progressives, but yes, it's authors considered themselves as reactionaires as well, and were proud of it.
However, I note that you put "Progressives" in scares quotes, as well you should, while at the same time using the word is if it shouldn't be.
Don't fall into the trap of using definitions in their politically motivated doublespeak terms. Ethnic Cleansing is the very antithesis of progressive. It is tyrany.
Next thing you know you'll start thinking that Democrats and Greens are "liberals."
Records of meteorite strikes before 1775 are spotty at best.
There's a dandy one out in Arizona. I like it because it's very photogenic. There are about 150 known major impact craters and God only knows how many actual meteorites predating 1775 just lying around (they can be dated with reasonable accuracy from the strata they are found in).
While there is speculation that a meteorite strike killed the dinosaurs, there is little evidence to suggest that any homo sapiens were around to have been killed by it.
You seem to be laboring under the misaprehension that the lack of homo sapiens around when the "dinosaur meteor" struck has anything to do with whether you will be around when the next meteor strikes.
It's the statistical equivilent of The Gambler's Fallacy (The Gambler's Fallacy is probabilistic). It kills people. Pliny the Elder, for one.
Also, whether or not the meteor was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs has no bearing on whether or not it hit any particular dinosaurs, and it's a rather peculiar idea to think that it makes a difference statistically that it was a dinosaur standing there instead of a person. Dinosaurs, people, hamsters, warthogs, cardboard cutouts, they're all perfectly equivilent with regards to risk factor of being hit by a ten kilometer in diameter rock you know.
In any case, statistics do not determine reality. They are history. This makes them a crude predictive tool for those repetitious things of which we are ignorant of the determinisitc parameters. For those things of which we are certain we have better and more accurate predictive tools.
Statistics can give us some idea of the rate and geographic distribution of meteor impacts. From this we can make a deduction of whether or not there will be people standing where the next "big one" hits, since we also know the geographic distribution of people, and it's the "big ones" that have an overriding influence on the risk factor of being hit.
If a rock the size of Manhatten hits Manhatten we can deduce that it will hit a lot of people, even though the one that hit the dinosaurs only hit dinosaurs.
"Hey, that minefield must be perfectly safe for people, because we ran some dogs across it and only dogs got blowed up, not people."
Oooooooooook, Sparky. You first.
There are people here now, and now is what counts now. Statistics are then.
But let's skip all the shenanigan's over asteroid risk (actually, I was rather critical of the risk factor calculation when it appeared as a Slashdot story some time ago, but I obviously haven't let that influence my arguments now;) ) and look at more plebian, everyday occurances, shall we? My real "gold standard" of risk is the automobile. If I drive without undue fear I don't see any reason to be overly afraid of anything with a lower risk factor.
Annual risk of being in an auto accident (rounded off to pleasing figures):
1 in 12
Dying in an auto accident:
1 in 5000
Having your car spontaneously combust:
1 in 10,000
Having your cell phone spontaneously combust:
1 in 4,000,000 (less than one per state of the union)
Having your cell phone spontaneously combust causing injury (not counting dolls):
1 in 8,500,000
Having your cell phone spontaneously combust causing injury if you aren't using counterfit batteries/chargers:
1 in 100,000,000
Having your cell phone blow up and kill you:
Zipola
Sell your car, buy lots of cell phones. You'll live longer (unless you get hit by a big asteroid, of course).
. ..have pressed some hard-headed folks so far that they're finally pushing back.
They're always pressed hard, they're always pushing back. Christ almighty, just look at the Protestant Reformation and the Inquisition. Reading The Name of the Rose would be a good place to start, therefore:
Be ever vigilant. There is no calm before the storm. The storm is eternal.
And please note that reading, school attendence and homework contribute to obesity.
Children of the world, arise, arise! Loose yourselves from the corpulent shackles that bind you, Gripping your hearts in a greasy fist of early death, Sucking you to the earth with the inexorable force of mass attracted to mass.
Eschew literature. Screw Math. Fuck school!
The stalwart guardians of your interests have spoken. Sitting is bad for you, And in the words of the great prophet Moss, "Movement is serenity."
Reefer Madness probably had exactly the opposite effect from what was intended.
Yes. I refer to any argument so ludicrously framed that it not only discredits any validpoints, but all other related arguments as well (they lied to me about pot, therefore they must be lying to me about heroin. I'm going to get high and shoot up to just to say "Fuck you, assholes") as "Reefer Madness Syndrome."
A Skinnerian might refer to this as "losing your pigeon."
. . . you'd have to be in space to get hit by an asteroid.
I am in space. So are you. So are asteroids, some of which could be both resting on what's left of you and your living room and in outer space at one and the same time! Frickin' awesome, ain't it?
I've never heard of anyone getting hit by a meteorite
And now you have. It happens. And it's far more likely that your house (with you in it) will get hit by one. That happens comparitively often. Shit's falling out of the sky all the time. Not having heard of something is sometimes a sign of ignorance, not a sign that it doesn't happen.
By the way, the odds of getting hit by an asteroid have been calculated at 1 in 20,000.
. ..the story mentions 83 people have had cell phones explode. Hardly the same level of risk.
Exactly. That's roughly 1 in 2,000,000. And only a few of those people suffered any injury, since the risk of it happening to explode while it's on your person is even smaller, and even smaller while actually holding it to your ear.
And how many cars have caught fire today alone? I'm sorry, but if you're plummeting down the highway in a ton and a half projectile gas bomb and worrying about your cell phone exploding I'm going to persist in thinking you have a problem with risk assessment.
Ah, but what if it happened to someone I knew?
Well, a dear, dear friend of mine actually died by falling down stairs. I miss her terribly. I'm not any more afraid of stairs than I was before, as the odds of my dying by falling down stairs remain equally low now as they did before.
Another friend died, at 33 years old, because a bit of her brain just kinda exploded one day. As it turns out brains don't have any kind of warranty at all. More people die from this than have cell phones explode (none of whom have died).
I'm afraid I'm so lackadaisical about the condition of my brain that I really don't even think about it much, even after suffering such a loss of friendship.
You fool they could have someone's eye's out with those hooks. That was something my granny used to say whenever I picked up something she didn't want me to touch. ..
I got back at my granny for saying that. I replied:
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure I follow your logic.
.9 percent of the living orginisms on the the planet go about "making their living," which fact contributes to the fact that our agriculture does not make us exempt from the rules of this system.
That is because you are thinking in terms of the commercial production of commodity products, whereas I am thinking in terms of finding something to eat.
Thus meat isn't a very efficient source of food.
It isn't a question of whether it's efficient. It's a question of whether it's available. If it's there, you can eat it, and thus avoid starvation. Nor is this a minority way of going about things, it is the way 99.999999. .
However, the advantage of animal products is that animals can eat food that humans can't.
And thus there are times and places where animals are the only local source of human food. That is why people in arid lands, without fail, develop some sort of hunting/herding culture.
KFG
While I definately agree that Vegetarianism alone would not solve world hunger, the numbers from 2002 are fairly overwhelming. That site is not the only reference, just a quick overview.
Did I not warn you that you would be preaching to one of the prophets?
Also, I most certainly agree that distribution and polotics are huge contributing factors.
This was an issue that I did not address directly, but did so indirectly by pointing out that there was no particualar shortage of foodstuffs at the present time.
KFG
That, and a damned sight fewer people. The idea that vegetarianism alone, in a geometrically expanding population (which speeds up with an increase in food supply) is the solution, with all due respects to the good doctor, is daft.
We may need to go through a Soylent Green phase before we can adopt a vegetarian phase.
I'll also note that the record seems to indicate that it was evolution from a vegetarian diet to an omnivorous one that allowed us to survive our first ice age (while we were still Australopithicine). It's pretty obvious really that the more things you can eat the more things you will find to eat. The invention of agriculture doesn't change this.
If you live in most of world and are not vegetarian all you need to obtain food is a white sheet and a flashlight. Most hunger (outside of areas that are both arid and overpopulated) is due to fastidiousnous of diet, not a lack of foodstuffs.
Of course this will change when we add a sufficient quantity of new people.
(And please note that I have been a vegetarian for more than 30 years before you respond to me with something along the lines of "You meat eater, you.")
KFG
"Brouhaha" is a much underused word. Everyone should try to use it at least once a day. That will be all.
And for bonus points try to use it with one of my favorite underused words at least once a week: "Behoove."
"It would behoove you to avoid all the brouhaha, otherwise you might get up in a kaboogie dance."
Ok, I slipped another one in there on the sly.
Kaboogie Dance: any overly complicated interaction
"Yeah, it's got a $50 rebate offer, but they make you go through this whole Kaboogie Dance to get it."
KFG
I can't see India being some big party place with women with loose morals.
From which we can deduce you've never been to India.
Where life is cheap, hard and poor, but there are also the fabulously wealthy, is always a big party place with women with loose morals.
If you don't believe me you can test this hypothesis without ever leaving the good ol' US of A.
Just visit Detroit.
KFG
One can argue that functionality is more important than the presentation/interface layer, but seriously, users are more attracted to pretty pictures.
But it's not just the subject of pretty pictures.
Because the command line is an interface.
Ok, this is actually semi-offtopic, given the nature of the story, but I get a bit tired now and again with the word "interface" being used as a synonym for "GUI," and thus all interface usability research and guidelines being GUI centric.
User interface 'friendliness' should span the spectrum of interface types, including at the command line. This doesn't necessarily mean dumbing down the command line for "granny," because even the uber kernel hacker is a user when he sits down to do some work and wants, what for him/her, is a "smart" interface.
There are multiple kinds of user, and the 'friendliest' interface is often going to be different for each type. We need to understand usability issues for all of the types, not just the commodity GUI.
Professional software companies may actually spend several subsequent dollar signs into providing a consistent, easy-to-navigate user interface.
Like the totally braindead "start" menu instead of drop down menus? Even professional software companies can spend all of that money and research to create a monster.
Simply having done research doesn't mean that your research was any good, although most companies seem to fall into this fallacy, at least now and again. You have to test your research methods and assumptions as well, and most 'professional' software companies skip that part, since they don't see the application to a real world product.
The trick isn't to show all functionality. The trick is to present the functionality the user needs, in a logical grouping as the users expect it.
Here I'll agree with you, with this caveat, sometimes what's needed is to train the user in logic, because their expectations may be damnably illogical.
Interfaces should adapt to people, but any particular person may still find himself in need of adapting to the interface. The idea that any user should be able to sit down at any particular interface and just start using it without any training is a flawed assumption in the first place. They've got the axioms wrong. This idea ultimately leads to the "here, just suck on this nipple" interface, which we are (sic) assymptotically approaching.
Now for some users that interface might well be valid (like two year olds), but it will never be terribly friendly (although it might well be fun) to even a casually advanced user. Having to dive through too many layers to find the function you want in the interest of presenting a 'clean' GUI interface isn't any more friendly than having all possible functions presented to you in a mish-mash switch board (the traditional failing of OS GUIs, which is often combined with hiding some key funcitonality someplace where you couldn't possibly ever find it on purpose, or even stumble across it accidentally).
For every complicated issue there is a simple answer that is wrong. Interfaces are a complicated issue. Searching for the simple answer is inherently the wrong approach. It will always take a combination of simple answers (which will sometimes be at odds with each other) tuned to the function and user at hand to create a great GUI.
KFG
As soon as a company accepts that there are people who are perfectly happy to pay more for something that looks and feels good, then they might spend a little more on the hardware and less on trying to get it's sales price as low as possible.
There used to be companies like this. In fact, I remember a day when companies like that were quite common and quality was to be expected, especially in the look and feel department. Man, home audio equipment used to be awesome shit to delight every sense and sensibility, you could hug the stuff, not this vacuum formed plastic shit we have now.
So what happened?
Companies that could make and sell stuff cheaper got 98% of the business. People may want a Boyd, but they buy a Ford. Believe it or not, mp3 players aren't anywhere near a mass market item yet. 98% of the American populace has never even seen an mp3 player, and a good many of those haven't even heard of them yet. They're cutting edge, afficiando gear and mass market rules do not apply.
When everybody has an mp3 player because they bought it as an impulse item while standing in line at CVS, well, iPod ain't gonna be the sales leader then.
Can't you see the same damned thing in markets where their is a legitimate mass market commodity competitor to Apple, like, oooooooh, desktop computers? Apple is the Alfa Romeo of the computer world. That's ok, nothing wrong with it, but it inherently means having an Alfa Romeo like market share.
And there's nothing wrong with that either.
KFG
cos that saying hasnt been said by ANYONE else before.
Some people are just new around here; and I don't mean at Slashdot.
KFG
Poor example. The Alabama factory has abysmal quality standards (for a Mercedes that is).
Yes, if you go back and read it again you might find that that was the entire point of my joke.
KFG
Being an acomplished tight-rope walker (as in, i can do it,) I can tell you that it isnt anything but balance.
Being an accomplished solver of mathematical problems in my head (as in, I can do it) I can tell you that it isn't anything but thinking. That doesn't mean that there aren't tricks of thought that one can learn, if one thinks about them.
The question is, can you walk a tightrope faster than anyone else?
Ah, well, perhaps those of us who can do it faster than you have learned a few analogous tricks of balance.
KFG
The method of producing hydrogen kind of reminds me of the way acetylene lamps used to work
Still work. You can buy one at many camping supply stores, as a lot of people find it more convienient to carry a tin of calcium carbide around than a tank of kerosene or a bunch of batteries.
And they're fun to light. Pop!
I've got a lovely old brass one, but most of the newer ones are made out of plastic, which is lighter and doesn't want polishing.
KFG
We need very efficient solar panels for the hydrogen economy to start.
In other words, it wouldn't be a hydrogen economy at all, but a solar economy, and I'd cheer for that.
Ra, Ra, Ra!
KFG
While on the surface it sounds like MS is just trying to be a nice, fuzzy and warm corporation. . .
No, no it doesn't at all. It sounds like they haven't fed their legal rottweilers in three days and intend to have them slake their ravenous hunger by feeding on the living flesh of screaming white box makers.
That's what it sounds like, so you probably don't want to be around to hear what it sounds like.
KFG
Can someone please explain to me WHY they would do this?
Oh sure, that's easy enough. OEMs are selling boxes preloaded with pirate versions of Windows. Microsoft would like to set the dogs on them, but it would be prohibitively expensive to track them all down, assuming they could do so at all.
By getting the customers themselves to identify them they find out who they are at no actual cost (since these wouldn't be paying customers anyway, and the cost of goods to MS is zilch).
It's pretty straight forward.
KFG
Heavy, high-tariff products, like cars, are being produced in record numbers in the US.
Well, sure, but by foreign companies.
"Ah! I see you bought one of them there high quality German made SUVs. Good show."
"No dude, It's a Mercedes. They're made in Aaaaalabama, Yee Ha!. Don't you know anything?"
It's a crazy, mixed up world, ain't it?
KFG
There has to be a trick to it aside from "thinking really fast"
.plus thinking really fast, as well as having a good memory for numbers.
.
Well of course, there is. Probably two or three tricks combined. .
Walking a tightrope is more than just having "good balance," and it's really just a trick, and not necessarily a very useful one, but. .
It is still pretty impressive and you can't do it.
KFG
The Bill of Rights is the traditional nature of progressives, but yes, it's authors considered themselves as reactionaires as well, and were proud of it.
However, I note that you put "Progressives" in scares quotes, as well you should, while at the same time using the word is if it shouldn't be.
Don't fall into the trap of using definitions in their politically motivated doublespeak terms. Ethnic Cleansing is the very antithesis of progressive. It is tyrany.
Next thing you know you'll start thinking that Democrats and Greens are "liberals."
KFG
Records of meteorite strikes before 1775 are spotty at best.
;) ) and look at more plebian, everyday occurances, shall we? My real "gold standard" of risk is the automobile. If I drive without undue fear I don't see any reason to be overly afraid of anything with a lower risk factor.
There's a dandy one out in Arizona. I like it because it's very photogenic. There are about 150 known major impact craters and God only knows how many actual meteorites predating 1775 just lying around (they can be dated with reasonable accuracy from the strata they are found in).
While there is speculation that a meteorite strike killed the dinosaurs, there is little evidence to suggest that any homo sapiens were around to have been killed by it.
You seem to be laboring under the misaprehension that the lack of homo sapiens around when the "dinosaur meteor" struck has anything to do with whether you will be around when the next meteor strikes.
It's the statistical equivilent of The Gambler's Fallacy (The Gambler's Fallacy is probabilistic). It kills people. Pliny the Elder, for one.
Also, whether or not the meteor was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs has no bearing on whether or not it hit any particular dinosaurs, and it's a rather peculiar idea to think that it makes a difference statistically that it was a dinosaur standing there instead of a person. Dinosaurs, people, hamsters, warthogs, cardboard cutouts, they're all perfectly equivilent with regards to risk factor of being hit by a ten kilometer in diameter rock you know.
In any case, statistics do not determine reality. They are history. This makes them a crude predictive tool for those repetitious things of which we are ignorant of the determinisitc parameters. For those things of which we are certain we have better and more accurate predictive tools.
Statistics can give us some idea of the rate and geographic distribution of meteor impacts. From this we can make a deduction of whether or not there will be people standing where the next "big one" hits, since we also know the geographic distribution of people, and it's the "big ones" that have an overriding influence on the risk factor of being hit.
If a rock the size of Manhatten hits Manhatten we can deduce that it will hit a lot of people, even though the one that hit the dinosaurs only hit dinosaurs.
"Hey, that minefield must be perfectly safe for people, because we ran some dogs across it and only dogs got blowed up, not people."
Oooooooooook, Sparky. You first.
There are people here now, and now is what counts now. Statistics are then.
But let's skip all the shenanigan's over asteroid risk (actually, I was rather critical of the risk factor calculation when it appeared as a Slashdot story some time ago, but I obviously haven't let that influence my arguments now
Annual risk of being in an auto accident (rounded off to pleasing figures):
1 in 12
Dying in an auto accident:
1 in 5000
Having your car spontaneously combust:
1 in 10,000
Having your cell phone spontaneously combust:
1 in 4,000,000 (less than one per state of the union)
Having your cell phone spontaneously combust causing injury (not counting dolls):
1 in 8,500,000
Having your cell phone spontaneously combust causing injury if you aren't using counterfit batteries/chargers:
1 in 100,000,000
Having your cell phone blow up and kill you:
Zipola
Sell your car, buy lots of cell phones. You'll live longer (unless you get hit by a big asteroid, of course).
KFG
Progressive ideas. . .
.have pressed some hard-headed folks so far that they're finally pushing back.
Such as the Bill of Rights?
. .
They're always pressed hard, they're always pushing back. Christ almighty, just look at the Protestant Reformation and the Inquisition. Reading The Name of the Rose would be a good place to start, therefore:
Be ever vigilant. There is no calm before the storm. The storm is eternal.
KFG
And please note that reading, school attendence and homework contribute to obesity.
Children of the world, arise, arise!
Loose yourselves from the corpulent shackles that bind you,
Gripping your hearts in a greasy fist of early death,
Sucking you to the earth with the inexorable force of mass attracted to mass.
Eschew literature. Screw Math. Fuck school!
The stalwart guardians of your interests have spoken. Sitting is bad for you,
And in the words of the great prophet Moss, "Movement is serenity."
Go outside and play. You have their blessings.
KFG
Assuming that more than 120,000 people have died since 1775, I would say that the statistics are wrong.
Or ignoring time before 1775 is wrong.
KFG
Reefer Madness probably had exactly the opposite effect from what was intended.
Yes. I refer to any argument so ludicrously framed that it not only discredits any validpoints, but all other related arguments as well (they lied to me about pot, therefore they must be lying to me about heroin. I'm going to get high and shoot up to just to say "Fuck you, assholes") as "Reefer Madness Syndrome."
A Skinnerian might refer to this as "losing your pigeon."
KFG
But didn't we vote for George Bush under the promise that he'd make all of the bad things in the world go away?
Well yes, but then he's also said that lying is one of the signs of a good leader (no, I'm not quite making that up).
KFG
. . . you'd have to be in space to get hit by an asteroid.
.the story mentions 83 people have had cell phones explode. Hardly the same level of risk.
I am in space. So are you. So are asteroids, some of which could be both resting on what's left of you and your living room and in outer space at one and the same time! Frickin' awesome, ain't it?
The sky is falling on me
I've never heard of anyone getting hit by a meteorite
And now you have. It happens. And it's far more likely that your house (with you in it) will get hit by one. That happens comparitively often. Shit's falling out of the sky all the time. Not having heard of something is sometimes a sign of ignorance, not a sign that it doesn't happen.
By the way, the odds of getting hit by an asteroid have been calculated at 1 in 20,000.
. .
Exactly. That's roughly 1 in 2,000,000. And only a few of those people suffered any injury, since the risk of it happening to explode while it's on your person is even smaller, and even smaller while actually holding it to your ear.
And how many cars have caught fire today alone? I'm sorry, but if you're plummeting down the highway in a ton and a half projectile gas bomb and worrying about your cell phone exploding I'm going to persist in thinking you have a problem with risk assessment.
Ah, but what if it happened to someone I knew?
Well, a dear, dear friend of mine actually died by falling down stairs. I miss her terribly. I'm not any more afraid of stairs than I was before, as the odds of my dying by falling down stairs remain equally low now as they did before.
Another friend died, at 33 years old, because a bit of her brain just kinda exploded one day. As it turns out brains don't have any kind of warranty at all. More people die from this than have cell phones explode (none of whom have died).
I'm afraid I'm so lackadaisical about the condition of my brain that I really don't even think about it much, even after suffering such a loss of friendship.
KFG
You fool they could have someone's eye's out with those hooks. That was something my granny used to say whenever I picked up something she didn't want me to touch. . .
I got back at my granny for saying that. I replied:
"I could? Cool!"
Then ran out of the house with the item.
KFG