"In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."
Ronald Wilson Reagan-January 20, 1981
Is that the same Ronald Wilson Reagan who happily spent hundreds of billions on unnecessary and destabilizing weapons (last time I checked the military was part of the government), and had the USSR so worried that it almost started a nuclear war? In that case I guess government really was the problem.
But these days, being on FB is so expected that you can't even arrange an office party without having to confirm on FB.
I'm not on FB, never will be, and have never even looked at a FB page. If somebody asks about FB, I just say "I don't use it". Period. I've never had any real problem because of that. I find the people most likely to have the same attitude as me are fellow techies.
Civil rights and liberties, cannot exist without economic rights and liberties. The policies of ever increasing regulation and rules are not expanding our economic rights and liberties.
Standard libertarian fare. The "rights" to low taxes, pollute freely, and no zoning regulations are more important than minor considerations like the Bill of Rights.
You should have voted for Cynthia McKinney, or Jill Stein, or John Huntsman.
Don't blame me, I did vote for Stein. I need quite a few million to join me for it to make a difference. I think Ron Paul is nuts in some areas, but I'd gladly take him over the status quo.
Why is nobody outraged about the fact that Verizon is collecting this data?
Because Verizon is beholden only to their shareholders. The US government is supposed to be bound by the Constitution and obligated to serve the US citizenry.
Well, yes, there are times when I have to use the system of measurement used by roughly 5 % of the world population rather than the one used by the other 95%. But there shouldn't be so many of these occasions.
It's not America's fault that the rest of the world can't do arithmetic, and so is reduced to a simplistic system of units where only powers of 10 are used.
Instead of primaries, other countries elect their party leaders at political conventions... which I think is a more sensible system.
Why is it more sensible? The US used to use that system, but it was abandoned because in practice it meant that candidates were chosen by party bosses. Our primary/caucus system is far from perfect (e.g. why does Iowa go first?) but it's still an improvement because members of a party have some say in who the candidates will be,
I also think it is a bit idiotic that... you elect everyone in one big election night.
Why? To me it's a convenience to only go to the polls once. What advantage is there to having separate election days?
We do not use voting machines but rather a simple paper ballot where you mark...
Five years to build with current technology?
The Empire State Building in New York was built in 14 months.
Maybe they should look at using 1930's technology.
IANASE but I believe 1930's tech meant steel framed, whereas ferroconcrete is more popular these days. Concrete takes time to cure. It can be pre-fabbed, but some people are very skeptical of whether prefabbed concrete is good enough for a structure like this. It's also unclear exactly what "completed" means and whether that term is used consistently. Lastly, fast construction often costs more. In many cases it may not be worth the premium.
The building itself is well built from what i can see, but you can't prefab a foundation, and a real foundation takes time.
IANASE (I am not a structural engineer) but there is serious concern about prefab for something this height. FTA:
Head of Structures for WSP Middle East, Bart Leclercq... likes the idea of prefabrication but says concrete poured onsite in tall buildings provides stiffness, and the time it takes concrete to cure is non-negotiable. He thinks the five-year mark set by the Burj Khalifa is about as good as it gets with current techniques and technologies.
I'd be very interested to hear from anyone here who has expertise in concrete.
You still think China is a communist nation de facto and not just in name only?
What matters is that China still has an authoritarian non-representative government. Their economic system is another issue. What they choose to call their political or economic systems is utterly unimportant.
If relations sour enough that China stops rolling over and buying more US T-bills and starts selling off its holdings
You really think China is going to do us that favor? A declining dollar (China doesn't have enough Treasuries to crash it) would make our exports more competitive and improve our economy, while making their exports less competitive and destroy their economy. Why do you think China bought those Treasuries in the first place?
Sure the old drugs are great, but there's plenty of new ones that are great too.
True, but which ones? The FDA requires careful testing for safety, but not efficacy. Claims for the latter can be based on all sorts of horse's ass conflict-of-interest cherry picked studies (e.g. by burying studies that don't paint them in such a golden light, and publicizing the ones that do). There is no major funding for independent testing of efficacy, so it's the drug company marketing departments that call the shots. Trust us, our new $50/pill patented drug is much better than that old $0.05/pill generic.
I'm a Libertarian and I would abolish not just patents, but copyrights and even the existence of corporations themselves.
That's the only honest and consistent position a libertarian can take. Any libertarian who doesn't is really a corporatist. Patents copyrights are government granted monopolies, and incorporation (in the sense of limited liability) is a government protection that flies in the face of any historical or common sense notion of property rights (which must always be paired with property responsibilities).
I'm not a libertarian or a corporatist but I wouldn't support outright abolishing those things. Basically I'm a left leaning pragmatist who believes in evolution rather than revolution, so I'd more support reform. As a pragmatist I also understand that some market "distortions" serve a purpose, and curing us of them can be worse than the disease. Nevertheless it's very important to understand what those things are, where they came from, and what the justifications for them are. They're completely artificial and certainly not part of any "natural order". The law may give people the ability to use those legal inventions, but the idea that they have a right to them is absurd.
This rises a question: is it about time we get rid of general doctors? Inferring a cause from symptoms is a form of bayesian interference, and computers are better than humans at it. And they never skip tests because it's the last patient of Friday.
What makes you think that applies to generalists more than specialists? If anything many specialists (say cardiologists for illustration) are guilty of assuming that every patient referred to them by a generalist has a heart problem. A generalist refers a patient to a cardiologist because he suspects the patient may have a heart problem. The first thing the specialist should do is determine whether that is the case. Often they don't, and they wind up treating a heart problem that doesn't exist while ignoring the real problem. You can bill either way though.
As for expert systems, they may well have a place. I'd like to see it tried more. I suspect though that you won't wind up with a doctor from the Jetsons. Careful of GIGO. Observation, including of things the patient wouldn't think of mentioning, is an important part of medicine.
P.S. Did you think the Founding Fathers were so ignorant or naive as to not know how these games are played? The Bill of Rights was written to prevent abuses that in many cases had been going on for centuries.
For your fear that evidence is found unrelated to the original crime: Tough shit. If they search your house, the same thing happens. Anything that is found while following the orders of the search warrant can be used against you. That is even true if they go to the wrong house by mistake (one case where the police had a search warrant for the apartment on the top floor, didn't realise there were two apartments, and found a gun while searching the wrong one).
IANAL, so I can't say you're wrong, but if you're right, it's a clear violation of the 4th:
no Warrants shall issue, but... particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized
The reason for that specificity is so the police can't go on fishing operations. Yeah, we have a warrant for apt. 2B, oops, we searched 3C, next time we'll hire cops who can read. It's a crock, if you can't get a warrant for 3C, just get one for 2B and "accidentally" go to 3C instead.
She doesn't have to have a golden motivation to speak the truth. We're supposed to have a system of government that takes into account that almost no one has "pure" motivations. The people who wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were realists, they knew that any system of government and rights that depended on "pure" motivations wouldn't work.
Slashdot Mirror
"In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." Ronald Wilson Reagan-January 20, 1981
Is that the same Ronald Wilson Reagan who happily spent hundreds of billions on unnecessary and destabilizing weapons (last time I checked the military was part of the government), and had the USSR so worried that it almost started a nuclear war? In that case I guess government really was the problem.
But these days, being on FB is so expected that you can't even arrange an office party without having to confirm on FB.
I'm not on FB, never will be, and have never even looked at a FB page. If somebody asks about FB, I just say "I don't use it". Period. I've never had any real problem because of that. I find the people most likely to have the same attitude as me are fellow techies.
Civil rights and liberties, cannot exist without economic rights and liberties. The policies of ever increasing regulation and rules are not expanding our economic rights and liberties.
Standard libertarian fare. The "rights" to low taxes, pollute freely, and no zoning regulations are more important than minor considerations like the Bill of Rights.
You should have voted for Cynthia McKinney, or Jill Stein, or John Huntsman.
Don't blame me, I did vote for Stein. I need quite a few million to join me for it to make a difference. I think Ron Paul is nuts in some areas, but I'd gladly take him over the status quo.
Why is nobody outraged about the fact that Verizon is collecting this data?
Because Verizon is beholden only to their shareholders. The US government is supposed to be bound by the Constitution and obligated to serve the US citizenry.
Very informative. Thank you.
Well, yes, there are times when I have to use the system of measurement used by roughly 5 % of the world population rather than the one used by the other 95%. But there shouldn't be so many of these occasions.
It's not America's fault that the rest of the world can't do arithmetic, and so is reduced to a simplistic system of units where only powers of 10 are used.
Your point is well taken, but so far there's still worlds of difference between China and the USA.
Of course you're right. Of course you probably also anticipated the kind of pseudo-sophisticated adolescent nihilist responses you got so many of.
Instead of primaries, other countries elect their party leaders at political conventions ... which I think is a more sensible system.
Why is it more sensible? The US used to use that system, but it was abandoned because in practice it meant that candidates were chosen by party bosses. Our primary/caucus system is far from perfect (e.g. why does Iowa go first?) but it's still an improvement because members of a party have some say in who the candidates will be,
I also think it is a bit idiotic that ... you elect everyone in one big election night.
Why? To me it's a convenience to only go to the polls once. What advantage is there to having separate election days?
We do not use voting machines but rather a simple paper ballot where you mark ...
You mean like I do when I vote?
For the case at hand, it should have been expressed in chi; the building will be 2514.6 chi high.
Nah, in the spirit of Star Trek henceforth Slashdot will use parsecs as the standard unit of distance. The building will be 2.74e-14 parsecs high.
Five years to build with current technology? The Empire State Building in New York was built in 14 months. Maybe they should look at using 1930's technology.
IANASE but I believe 1930's tech meant steel framed, whereas ferroconcrete is more popular these days. Concrete takes time to cure. It can be pre-fabbed, but some people are very skeptical of whether prefabbed concrete is good enough for a structure like this. It's also unclear exactly what "completed" means and whether that term is used consistently. Lastly, fast construction often costs more. In many cases it may not be worth the premium.
The building itself is well built from what i can see, but you can't prefab a foundation, and a real foundation takes time.
IANASE (I am not a structural engineer) but there is serious concern about prefab for something this height. FTA:
Head of Structures for WSP Middle East, Bart Leclercq ... likes the idea of prefabrication but says concrete poured onsite in tall buildings provides stiffness, and the time it takes concrete to cure is non-negotiable. He thinks the five-year mark set by the Burj Khalifa is about as good as it gets with current techniques and technologies.
I'd be very interested to hear from anyone here who has expertise in concrete.
You still think China is a communist nation de facto and not just in name only?
What matters is that China still has an authoritarian non-representative government. Their economic system is another issue. What they choose to call their political or economic systems is utterly unimportant.
"There is no radiation related problems", said the committee chairman, as ge gesticulated wildly with his tentacles.
Listen to him. Anybody that has two heads must be pretty smart.
I see plenty of specs which specifically require that NO parts come from China.
Specs for what kind of stuff? I'm curious.
If relations sour enough that China stops rolling over and buying more US T-bills and starts selling off its holdings
You really think China is going to do us that favor? A declining dollar (China doesn't have enough Treasuries to crash it) would make our exports more competitive and improve our economy, while making their exports less competitive and destroy their economy. Why do you think China bought those Treasuries in the first place?
they'll NEVER put themselves in a position where they can't trade with the US, that would be suicide
Before 1914 the economic importance of "free trade" was used to explain why WWI would never happen.
I worked at Merck for a shirt while back in the late 1980s
I'm also old enough to remember work I did in the 80's, but I also know it's ancient history.
Sure the old drugs are great, but there's plenty of new ones that are great too.
True, but which ones? The FDA requires careful testing for safety, but not efficacy. Claims for the latter can be based on all sorts of horse's ass conflict-of-interest cherry picked studies (e.g. by burying studies that don't paint them in such a golden light, and publicizing the ones that do). There is no major funding for independent testing of efficacy, so it's the drug company marketing departments that call the shots. Trust us, our new $50/pill patented drug is much better than that old $0.05/pill generic.
I'm a Libertarian and I would abolish not just patents, but copyrights and even the existence of corporations themselves.
That's the only honest and consistent position a libertarian can take. Any libertarian who doesn't is really a corporatist. Patents copyrights are government granted monopolies, and incorporation (in the sense of limited liability) is a government protection that flies in the face of any historical or common sense notion of property rights (which must always be paired with property responsibilities).
I'm not a libertarian or a corporatist but I wouldn't support outright abolishing those things. Basically I'm a left leaning pragmatist who believes in evolution rather than revolution, so I'd more support reform. As a pragmatist I also understand that some market "distortions" serve a purpose, and curing us of them can be worse than the disease. Nevertheless it's very important to understand what those things are, where they came from, and what the justifications for them are. They're completely artificial and certainly not part of any "natural order". The law may give people the ability to use those legal inventions, but the idea that they have a right to them is absurd.
This rises a question: is it about time we get rid of general doctors? Inferring a cause from symptoms is a form of bayesian interference, and computers are better than humans at it. And they never skip tests because it's the last patient of Friday.
What makes you think that applies to generalists more than specialists? If anything many specialists (say cardiologists for illustration) are guilty of assuming that every patient referred to them by a generalist has a heart problem. A generalist refers a patient to a cardiologist because he suspects the patient may have a heart problem. The first thing the specialist should do is determine whether that is the case. Often they don't, and they wind up treating a heart problem that doesn't exist while ignoring the real problem. You can bill either way though.
As for expert systems, they may well have a place. I'd like to see it tried more. I suspect though that you won't wind up with a doctor from the Jetsons. Careful of GIGO. Observation, including of things the patient wouldn't think of mentioning, is an important part of medicine.
No use bringing facts and empirical data into the debate when "reason" and ideology can answer all questions.
P.S. Did you think the Founding Fathers were so ignorant or naive as to not know how these games are played? The Bill of Rights was written to prevent abuses that in many cases had been going on for centuries.
For your fear that evidence is found unrelated to the original crime: Tough shit. If they search your house, the same thing happens. Anything that is found while following the orders of the search warrant can be used against you. That is even true if they go to the wrong house by mistake (one case where the police had a search warrant for the apartment on the top floor, didn't realise there were two apartments, and found a gun while searching the wrong one).
IANAL, so I can't say you're wrong, but if you're right, it's a clear violation of the 4th:
no Warrants shall issue, but ... particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized
The reason for that specificity is so the police can't go on fishing operations. Yeah, we have a warrant for apt. 2B, oops, we searched 3C, next time we'll hire cops who can read. It's a crock, if you can't get a warrant for 3C, just get one for 2B and "accidentally" go to 3C instead.
She doesn't have to have a golden motivation to speak the truth. We're supposed to have a system of government that takes into account that almost no one has "pure" motivations. The people who wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were realists, they knew that any system of government and rights that depended on "pure" motivations wouldn't work.