There are any number you can grow yourself. All of the traditional drugs are of biological origin. That's why they work upon the biology of the person taking them. Most of the modern synthetics in some way mimic the biological ones.
You can make alcohol simply by leaving the apple juice out for a while. You can make liqour by freezing the result and skimming the alcohol off the top, since it has a lower freezing point than the water content.
But I'll note that I said "profit," not make direct charge for, and there are those who profit simply by your getting drunk.
I've always found clear headed and deliberate nonparticipation with a bit of agent provocatuer to be an overall more effective tactic, both personally and and in the larger scheme of things.
All modern governments have some form of censorship. Not all societies do. It would be truer to say that all societies have taboos, but many of those societies have/had no stricture on speech, per se. Many taboos are enforced by nothing more than fear of what your neighbors might think.
Do you, for instance, really always dress the way you would like to?
But I might also point out that demand for child porn crosses all those same lines.
It's also interesting to note that in traditional cultures with no particular strictures on eroticism there is no "kiddie" porn. There's a certain amount of bondage and torture, group sex, bestiality, etc., but no erotic depictions of adults having sex with toddlers.
There are issues here that are culturally deep.
Nor have I provided any personal definition of "Puritan," so any ideas you have along that line are largely assumptional based on a single, very short, post. If I were to do so it certainly wouldn't be restricted to the Texas evengelist. One may well overtly reject certain religious tenets and still hold closely to them if your society does. The American "work ethic," for instance, is essentially Calvinist; yet many good atheists adhere to it. Some other cultures have their own work ethics embedded in the culture, some look upon the work ethic as repulsive.
I believe very deeply in many of our cultural values when it comes to ideas of personal freedom. I have no great love for Islamic law. Nor do I have any great love for Mosaic law, although even a cursory reading of American legal code reveals a descendency from such.
I can't really see any difference, for instance, in a stricture requiring a women to veil her face and one requiring her to veil her breasts. It's really just a matter of the size of the veil and it's placement, the principle is the same.
As one who believes in personal liberty I am not comfortable with the idea of compulsion. I would much rather see America exporting whatever is of value in its values by virtue of their virtues.
And if people do not see the virtue its virtue is in question. I'm perfectly happy with the idea that a people may democratically chose to adopt law that I am not personally comfortable with, so long as that democracy is fashioned in such a manner that it protects minority opinions.
As a lover of liberty I'm no great fan of democracy either.
I don't think they have changed that much from the "bad ol' days"
They haven't changed at all, and it's best not to forget that. There's really no way to resolve the issue. If you really want to be proactive about it the only thing you can do is take what they give away for free and use it for your benefit while not actually providing them with direct profit; and letting them know you're doing it.
Not, I'll note, in the sense of a boycott. Just out of a real sense of personal ethics. Then even if it has no ultimate effect you still "win."
Ghandi repeatedly tried to point out that nonviolence wasn't a political technique. It was a personal way of life.
In one sense you're right, but the definition of child porn varies wildly, even within a single legal structure.
So wildly that "child porn" has no real meaning. Hell, just "child" is a major issue of debate. And to the extent that it is universally illegal is due mostly to an American promotion, with the usual strong arm tactics, to create a universal condemnation, not due to any cultural aversion in and of itself.
Governments tend to do things for purely politica reasons, and right now, in the world scheme of things, it's politically advantageous to adopt certain tenets of American Puritanism.
Note that Japan has a long history of prostitution as not only a cultural norm, but in some respects a respected profession. Now it is illegal.
But not because the Japanese themselves really see anything innately wrong with it. It's politics.
Nothing in particular is communist about China. It's Confucianism dressed up in Marxist clothing. China is always Chinese and always has been, even when conquered. The "conquerers" always end up "going native."
However, Confucianism is based on a concept of society as being more important than the individual. An essentially commun-al idea. Kind of a fuedalism with an innate sense of ethics and true noblesse oblige.
If you really want to understand China today and have a lot of fun doing it read some of the Judge Dee mystery novels of Robert van Gulik. Set in the Tang dynasty (the golden age of ancient Chinese culture) the society it depicts is still very much relevant.
Then read the Little Red Book.
Overlay Mao's peculiarly Chinese "Marxism" with the tradtitional Chinese culture and there you are. Modern China.
It has more factories than the old China, but that's really the biggest difference.
Well, I suppose one of the things you could do is let companies like IBM know you aren't happy doing business with someone providing censorship technologies to China.
More important, I'm afraid, is that people should stop wanting crap they don't need.
People have proven sheep like enough that the marketers have learned to pump demand for products that have no particular value. It's no longer even about supplying consumer demand. It's about coming up something vaguely novel and then figuring out how to manipulate people into buying it.
This is the dark side to the free market that the PR flacks have polished up and convinced enough people that it isn't really just a smoother piece of shit.
For the free market to really produce value to the customer the customer must insist on spending its money only those things that return value in some way. If it will buy any old thing that's "Ooooo, shiney," then what the market will produce is a lot of shiney, cheap to produce, high priced junk.
And the market, I'm afraid, is driven by the average Wal-Mart shopper these days.
Is it any wonder that the cell phone manufacturers might get confused if people don't snap up their N-Gages, now with the slice and dice feature?
KFG
On the other hand there are people. . .
on
KISS
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
who are simply impressed by complication. Rube Goldberg devices actually have a market. Maybe not a huge all encompassing market, but a market nonetheless.
As an engineer I appreciate simplicity and it's much, much harder to design a simple device that does the same thing as a complicated one.
One of the things I do is design and build human powered machinery. I have a particular fondness for Human Powered Vehicles. I've played around with a lot of front suspension designs, mostly just for fun and personal edification, but the one that's really serious has the entire front suspension whittled down to a single part. Just one. A shaped composite leaf spring with a bit of damping material in its core. The two front wheels (it's a trike, two in front, one in back. Morgan style) basically just get stuck on the ends of the spring.
People who look at my machines completely ignore this lovely bit of work and Ooo and Ahhhh over all the complicated tubular multilink stuff that I put together more as a testbed for formula car suspension systems.
If I were to sell my machines I'd hazard a guess that the complicated beast would outsell the superiour, but simpler machine.
See all those folks out riding the paved roads on 40 pound, double suspension, downhill mountain bikes and wondering why they can't keep up with their friend's rusty old "ten speed"?
. . . designed to intimidate people" -Darl McBride
You're absolutely right Mr. McBride. Now, about this letter you sent me about a license fee for something you don't have any known rights to, complete with a threat to raise said fee if I don't comply in a timely manner?
Keep talking, maybe next year you can break into the top 50.
"To keep in an existing state, preserve or retain."
One places them on shelves, keeps them in their little boxes, moves them every time you move, maybe dust them a bit now and again, rent or purchase the housing space they take up, etc.
As opposed to tossing the naked disks all over the floor, walking on them, then abandoning the worthless things when you move.
Not quite as much work as maintaining books, but not entirely without costs.
Would you trust such a kid out of HS to write software that runs the autopilot on a 747, or the heart monitor in your hospital, or for that matter the firmware of your cell phone?
No, but I'd certainly trust him to start learning how. Otherwise none of us would be here.
It's also rather insulting to imply a man with a medical degree and years of experience in the field is the intellectual and educational equivilent of a recent HS grad.
I would advise him to try to find a copy of "How to Dissect a Chicken." If he couldn't find one I'd consider violating copyright to provide him with one.
I'd further advise he pick up any decent college intro to biology, chemistry and precalc. If he had already covered these in college he could just brush up with his old text books if needed and move right on to organic.
Yes, reading Gray's while you dissect chickens would be a great idea. You could even try simulating specific surgical procedures on your chicken cadavers.
No harm in getting a head start in going over physician's references either, as well as becoming comfortable with Latin.
If he ran into any difficulties I'd advise him to come back to me and I'd do what I could to help him out, for free if it's no skin off my nose or for a reasonable tutoring fee if he needed real work.
If after all of this he still felt like he wanted to work as a physician I'd recommend a medical school program suitable for his specific career goals.
What's so hard about that? I really don't see anything wrong with someone deciding he might like to be a doctor and to start studying on his own. I think it's admirable and the absolute worst thing that could happen is his becoming far more educated.
On the other hand I really wouldn't be overly concerned about how much software he screwed up or computers he fried.
In fact my advice to a physician who wished to break into the computer science field would, well, don't, as per nearly everyone else here, but if he just plain loved computers. ..
Well, I assume he has money, I can take it for granted he has drive and discipline if he made it through med school and residency.
So buy a some cheap used computers, Meyers A+ guide, a shitload of O'Reilly books, some popular software packages, download Mandrake. ..
And have at.
Like it's a big deal if he kills a cheap used computer? I'd feel more ethical angst for the poor chicken.
I also take it for granted that someone who has managed to get through medical school has a certain amount of smarts, certainly at least as much as most of the computer/IT folk I know. I think it's kind of insulting to suggest he can't just teach himself about computing on his own.
But if he has trouble he can certainly go to usenet and ask questions.
What intrigued me in particular, since I was already in the field and came to their attention because of that ( I wasn't simply a resume sitting on a desk, I was asked to apply because the sales manager had already been on the receiving end of my pitch in a real world situation), was that nobody ever bothered to ask me how thick my prospect book was.
I filled out a form detailing my private social contacts (from their point of view none) and told to go home. Period.
The Orkut seed group was surely chosen in like manner. Not to keep the place exclusive, but because they were known joiners who would invite a lot of people, and those people would also likely be the sort begging to be let in.
Fortunately for me my daughter's age predates any interest she might have had for Barney in her youth.
Any attempts to blockade the homstead from infiltration by Strawberry Shortcake and My Pretty Pony failed utterly, however.
In my defense I can only state that I managed to turn her into a complete Danger Mouse fanatic and we used to go skipping around the house together singing; "He's the greatest. He's fantastic! Wherever there is danger he'll be there. . . "
The answer to my question would appear to be yes, since you do not know how to spell this word, thus don't know how to pronounce it either, and cannot simply deduce that the word is German.
A broader temporal outlook might have saved you from this error.
It's true that I'm not exactly the typical case, but I've known of Pixar as a name unto itself since the days of Luxor Jr. and go to see a movie specifically because it's a Pixar production.
I'm also a classic Disney fan. Snow White is one of the finest films in any catagory ever made. In terms of classic animation it also remains without peer. Only Pixar stands as a rival.
On the flip side there are plenty of Disney films I don't bother with because they aren't Pixar films, and because I know in advance that they just plain suck.
They might well lose something by giving up the association with Disney, but I think what they gain in terms of independence will be well worth it and the loses minimal.
Slashdot Mirror
There are any number you can grow yourself. All of the traditional drugs are of biological origin. That's why they work upon the biology of the person taking them. Most of the modern synthetics in some way mimic the biological ones.
You can make alcohol simply by leaving the apple juice out for a while. You can make liqour by freezing the result and skimming the alcohol off the top, since it has a lower freezing point than the water content.
But I'll note that I said "profit," not make direct charge for, and there are those who profit simply by your getting drunk.
I've always found clear headed and deliberate nonparticipation with a bit of agent provocatuer to be an overall more effective tactic, both personally and and in the larger scheme of things.
KFG
All modern governments have some form of censorship. Not all societies do. It would be truer to say that all societies have taboos, but many of those societies have/had no stricture on speech, per se. Many taboos are enforced by nothing more than fear of what your neighbors might think.
Do you, for instance, really always dress the way you would like to?
KFG
But I might also point out that demand for child porn crosses all those same lines.
It's also interesting to note that in traditional cultures with no particular strictures on eroticism there is no "kiddie" porn. There's a certain amount of bondage and torture, group sex, bestiality, etc., but no erotic depictions of adults having sex with toddlers.
There are issues here that are culturally deep.
Nor have I provided any personal definition of "Puritan," so any ideas you have along that line are largely assumptional based on a single, very short, post. If I were to do so it certainly wouldn't be restricted to the Texas evengelist. One may well overtly reject certain religious tenets and still hold closely to them if your society does. The American "work ethic," for instance, is essentially Calvinist; yet many good atheists adhere to it. Some other cultures have their own work ethics embedded in the culture, some look upon the work ethic as repulsive.
I believe very deeply in many of our cultural values when it comes to ideas of personal freedom. I have no great love for Islamic law. Nor do I have any great love for Mosaic law, although even a cursory reading of American legal code reveals a descendency from such.
I can't really see any difference, for instance, in a stricture requiring a women to veil her face and one requiring her to veil her breasts. It's really just a matter of the size of the veil and it's placement, the principle is the same.
As one who believes in personal liberty I am not comfortable with the idea of compulsion. I would much rather see America exporting whatever is of value in its values by virtue of their virtues.
And if people do not see the virtue its virtue is in question. I'm perfectly happy with the idea that a people may democratically chose to adopt law that I am not personally comfortable with, so long as that democracy is fashioned in such a manner that it protects minority opinions.
As a lover of liberty I'm no great fan of democracy either.
KFG
And who do you think profits from commercial drug trade?
KFG
And CISCO now owns Linksys. The webs reach farther and draw tighter all at the same time.
KFG
I don't think they have changed that much from the "bad ol' days"
They haven't changed at all, and it's best not to forget that. There's really no way to resolve the issue. If you really want to be proactive about it the only thing you can do is take what they give away for free and use it for your benefit while not actually providing them with direct profit; and letting them know you're doing it.
Not, I'll note, in the sense of a boycott. Just out of a real sense of personal ethics. Then even if it has no ultimate effect you still "win."
Ghandi repeatedly tried to point out that nonviolence wasn't a political technique. It was a personal way of life.
KFG
communism was a big flop.
Have you visited a monastary or a state sponsored public school lately?
Communism is alive and well and living amongst us.
You'll find very little Marxism though, as Marxism is an industrial theory, not a social one.
KFG
In one sense you're right, but the definition of child porn varies wildly, even within a single legal structure.
So wildly that "child porn" has no real meaning. Hell, just "child" is a major issue of debate. And to the extent that it is universally illegal is due mostly to an American promotion, with the usual strong arm tactics, to create a universal condemnation, not due to any cultural aversion in and of itself.
Governments tend to do things for purely politica reasons, and right now, in the world scheme of things, it's politically advantageous to adopt certain tenets of American Puritanism.
Note that Japan has a long history of prostitution as not only a cultural norm, but in some respects a respected profession. Now it is illegal.
But not because the Japanese themselves really see anything innately wrong with it. It's politics.
KFG
Nothing in particular is communist about China. It's Confucianism dressed up in Marxist clothing. China is always Chinese and always has been, even when conquered. The "conquerers" always end up "going native."
However, Confucianism is based on a concept of society as being more important than the individual. An essentially commun-al idea. Kind of a fuedalism with an innate sense of ethics and true noblesse oblige.
If you really want to understand China today and have a lot of fun doing it read some of the Judge Dee mystery novels of Robert van Gulik. Set in the Tang dynasty (the golden age of ancient Chinese culture) the society it depicts is still very much relevant.
Then read the Little Red Book.
Overlay Mao's peculiarly Chinese "Marxism" with the tradtitional Chinese culture and there you are. Modern China.
It has more factories than the old China, but that's really the biggest difference.
KFG
Well, I suppose one of the things you could do is let companies like IBM know you aren't happy doing business with someone providing censorship technologies to China.
At least it's a start.
Then maybe put up a Freenet node.
KFG
More important, I'm afraid, is that people should stop wanting crap they don't need.
People have proven sheep like enough that the marketers have learned to pump demand for products that have no particular value. It's no longer even about supplying consumer demand. It's about coming up something vaguely novel and then figuring out how to manipulate people into buying it.
This is the dark side to the free market that the PR flacks have polished up and convinced enough people that it isn't really just a smoother piece of shit.
For the free market to really produce value to the customer the customer must insist on spending its money only those things that return value in some way. If it will buy any old thing that's "Ooooo, shiney," then what the market will produce is a lot of shiney, cheap to produce, high priced junk.
And the market, I'm afraid, is driven by the average Wal-Mart shopper these days.
Is it any wonder that the cell phone manufacturers might get confused if people don't snap up their N-Gages, now with the slice and dice feature?
KFG
who are simply impressed by complication. Rube Goldberg devices actually have a market. Maybe not a huge all encompassing market, but a market nonetheless.
As an engineer I appreciate simplicity and it's much, much harder to design a simple device that does the same thing as a complicated one.
One of the things I do is design and build human powered machinery. I have a particular fondness for Human Powered Vehicles. I've played around with a lot of front suspension designs, mostly just for fun and personal edification, but the one that's really serious has the entire front suspension whittled down to a single part. Just one. A shaped composite leaf spring with a bit of damping material in its core. The two front wheels (it's a trike, two in front, one in back. Morgan style) basically just get stuck on the ends of the spring.
People who look at my machines completely ignore this lovely bit of work and Ooo and Ahhhh over all the complicated tubular multilink stuff that I put together more as a testbed for formula car suspension systems.
If I were to sell my machines I'd hazard a guess that the complicated beast would outsell the superiour, but simpler machine.
See all those folks out riding the paved roads on 40 pound, double suspension, downhill mountain bikes and wondering why they can't keep up with their friend's rusty old "ten speed"?
KFG
. . . designed to intimidate people" -Darl McBride
You're absolutely right Mr. McBride. Now, about this letter you sent me about a license fee for something you don't have any known rights to, complete with a threat to raise said fee if I don't comply in a timely manner?
Keep talking, maybe next year you can break into the top 50.
KFG
DEATH TO ALL EUROPEANS AND ASIANS!
And then to all of their descendants!
Right on brother, I'm going go to builded me an alter in the evening dews and damps right now.
America for the Americans. Remember Cuzco and Wounded Knee!
Yaaaaaaaaaa!
Oh, ummmmm, that was what you had in mind, wasn't it?
KFG
They used to show it daily on Nickelodeon.
Man, those were the days.
KFG
"To keep in an existing state, preserve or retain."
One places them on shelves, keeps them in their little boxes, moves them every time you move, maybe dust them a bit now and again, rent or purchase the housing space they take up, etc.
As opposed to tossing the naked disks all over the floor, walking on them, then abandoning the worthless things when you move.
Not quite as much work as maintaining books, but not entirely without costs.
KFG
You can't fool me sonny. There is No Such Agency.
KFG
I'm a freaking moron.
Ah, don't sweat it. The evidence suggests you'll fit in here just fine.
KFG
Would you trust such a kid out of HS to write software that runs the autopilot on a 747, or the heart monitor in your hospital, or for that matter the firmware of your cell phone?
No, but I'd certainly trust him to start learning how. Otherwise none of us would be here.
It's also rather insulting to imply a man with a medical degree and years of experience in the field is the intellectual and educational equivilent of a recent HS grad.
KFG
I would advise him to try to find a copy of "How to Dissect a Chicken." If he couldn't find one I'd consider violating copyright to provide him with one.
.
.
I'd further advise he pick up any decent college intro to biology, chemistry and precalc. If he had already covered these in college he could just brush up with his old text books if needed and move right on to organic.
Yes, reading Gray's while you dissect chickens would be a great idea. You could even try simulating specific surgical procedures on your chicken cadavers.
No harm in getting a head start in going over physician's references either, as well as becoming comfortable with Latin.
If he ran into any difficulties I'd advise him to come back to me and I'd do what I could to help him out, for free if it's no skin off my nose or for a reasonable tutoring fee if he needed real work.
If after all of this he still felt like he wanted to work as a physician I'd recommend a medical school program suitable for his specific career goals.
What's so hard about that? I really don't see anything wrong with someone deciding he might like to be a doctor and to start studying on his own. I think it's admirable and the absolute worst thing that could happen is his becoming far more educated.
On the other hand I really wouldn't be overly concerned about how much software he screwed up or computers he fried.
In fact my advice to a physician who wished to break into the computer science field would, well, don't, as per nearly everyone else here, but if he just plain loved computers. .
Well, I assume he has money, I can take it for granted he has drive and discipline if he made it through med school and residency.
So buy a some cheap used computers, Meyers A+ guide, a shitload of O'Reilly books, some popular software packages, download Mandrake. .
And have at.
Like it's a big deal if he kills a cheap used computer? I'd feel more ethical angst for the poor chicken.
I also take it for granted that someone who has managed to get through medical school has a certain amount of smarts, certainly at least as much as most of the computer/IT folk I know. I think it's kind of insulting to suggest he can't just teach himself about computing on his own.
But if he has trouble he can certainly go to usenet and ask questions.
KFG
If you keep an almanac on your desk next to your Mac you ain't ever going to see the light of day again buddy.
KFG
What intrigued me in particular, since I was already in the field and came to their attention because of that ( I wasn't simply a resume sitting on a desk, I was asked to apply because the sales manager had already been on the receiving end of my pitch in a real world situation), was that nobody ever bothered to ask me how thick my prospect book was.
I filled out a form detailing my private social contacts (from their point of view none) and told to go home. Period.
The Orkut seed group was surely chosen in like manner. Not to keep the place exclusive, but because they were known joiners who would invite a lot of people, and those people would also likely be the sort begging to be let in.
KFG
Fortunately for me my daughter's age predates any interest she might have had for Barney in her youth.
Any attempts to blockade the homstead from infiltration by Strawberry Shortcake and My Pretty Pony failed utterly, however.
In my defense I can only state that I managed to turn her into a complete Danger Mouse fanatic and we used to go skipping around the house together singing; "He's the greatest. He's fantastic! Wherever there is danger he'll be there. . . "
KFG
kindergarTen?
The answer to my question would appear to be yes, since you do not know how to spell this word, thus don't know how to pronounce it either, and cannot simply deduce that the word is German.
A broader temporal outlook might have saved you from this error.
Have you ignored everything since???
The answer to your question is "No." See above.
I win.
KFG
It's true that I'm not exactly the typical case, but I've known of Pixar as a name unto itself since the days of Luxor Jr. and go to see a movie specifically because it's a Pixar production.
I'm also a classic Disney fan. Snow White is one of the finest films in any catagory ever made. In terms of classic animation it also remains without peer. Only Pixar stands as a rival.
On the flip side there are plenty of Disney films I don't bother with because they aren't Pixar films, and because I know in advance that they just plain suck.
They might well lose something by giving up the association with Disney, but I think what they gain in terms of independence will be well worth it and the loses minimal.
KFG