Dude, everyone has an agenda. You are naive if you believe otherwise.
I guess I was simplifying a bit there for clarity sake. The family values voters are usually much better organized than those of us who aren't opposed to family values but don't think they're doing it the best way. The coalition that wants to ban videogame sales to children because ohmigoodlord it's causing them to be violent zombies, is MUCH better organized and votes much more in the local elections (where these types of silly proposals are often pursued under the radar of many people) than those of us with the opposite "agenda" which is "No, thats censorship and is stupid."
When one group is focused on making the local government into a morality brigade, and the rest of us who are busy trying to solve (what we see) as real problems with real solutions at the national level (where some of the biggest budget problems, and where the poor foreign policy decisions have been made).
I would definitely characterize them as having an agenda where I have none. I do have agendas, yes, but not on the subject at hand. Which is why this crap is getting passed while most of us don't think it will work and don't care. Why be semantic about it?
Thankfully, the judges can tell the difference between good science and bullshit science. Too bad the fucking family values voters, who vote more often than people who don't have agendas to push and get politicians who pander to their votes, can't.
Fixed that for you. The politicians don't care one way or the other. If those voters got it in their heads that painting the washington monument pink would prevent violence, then we'd have serious proposals to start buying pink paint and lots of rollers.
Yeah, I'm stuck playing it on the 360. It will be a cold day in hell when I get to play the updates, or maybe sooner if I cave in and buy a new computer that can run it.
(Before anyone asks why I don't upgrade now, I don't use the computer I have at home already, buying a new one for a single game I already have is something I can't quite justify.
Why would they even be giving out a secret prototype to an executive? Shouldn't it be behind a locked door?
That's true. And they should have had a sentry gun waiting, maybe had a demo guy or heavy weapons guy waiting as well. Hopefully their scout can bring back the sony prototype phone first.
On an unrelated note, I've been playing a lot of TF2.
Sealand's claims to autonomy are pretty debated, but, they have a more realistic claim then the hundreds of other so called micronations, many of which are just guy's houses that they have changed into a sort of fantasy land with themselves as king.
You dare mock the sovreignty of "Awesomeville"!?! Step foot on our soil and you'll be beheaded!
One should be open to the possibility of IFPI "hacking" themselves to gain popular support. It is, after all, instant sympathy. It wouldn't be the first time something like this has happened.
Doesn't seem like that would be very effective. The only people who even notice are probably going to be those who already have entrenched opinions on RIAA and company already (pro or con). Is this going to make it onto general news anywhere?
Not only that, but how would this be relevant to the actual case?
I don't actually know the answers to those questions, they weren't entirely hypothetical.
Besides, no one has recognized Sealand as a nation.
Did anyone do anything about it though? If not, you could at least get away with semi-independant nation status, where you were independant unless you provoked a nearby real nation to do something. Which seems to me to be somewhat true of those real nations anyway, Iraq and Afghanistan are proof that you only have independance if nobody cares to disagree with you or you can force them to leave you alone.
Steal an ICBM, buy an oil rig, and THEN claim you're an independant nation and you might have a better case for nation status.
Despite how you feel about drugs, it's illegal. It doesn't matter one iota your feelings, there's no "freedom to use drugs as you see fit". Especially since the law states otherwise.
You just stated the obvious, AND appear to have responded to the wrong post.
Anyway, the tired old response to that tired old argument is something along the lines of "I don't really feel the need to follow laws I don't believe in just because bible-pounders and do-gooders happen to have greater political influence than the rest of us who think the drug laws are stupid."
Not sure what the cliche response to that one is, but in case it's relevant, no, I don't use drugs, but that has nothing to do with it being illegal.
That DEA officer, like any officer in the various branches of the police, has as his job to enforce the laws that were put into place by congress, whose members were democratically elected by the american people. So I'd say he shares about the same amount of blame as....pretty much anyone?
You're just trying to get someone to Godwin, aren't you?
Anyway, no, that's absurd. Most of us aren't doing anything to keep the drug laws on the books and enforced, they're already on the books, and there is a fraction of the population who are rabidly opposed to losening them that pretty much keep it going. Even they though are not out there actively enforcing it. Your friend is definitely more responsible for the war on drugs than everyone else is.
Of course in my book that's nothing too bad, I'm opposed to the drug laws, but they're pretty low on my list of laws that are flawed (and very low on my list of things that are wrong with the world), and enforcing them is not like, say, enforcing genocide.
That stupid car shows up on my private property and they'll be lucky to leave with all their blood.
I've heard that in several european countries, Scotland for one, there is no law against walking onto someone else's land, provided you don't damage it. It seems a bit more complicated and debatable than that, but it seems clear that you can hike through someone's farmland and they have no legal right to shoot you. Not the case obviously in the US. What's with our trespassing obsession? I step foot on your land, you'll injure me just because you can? Is it that we think everyone is out to get us?
Finally she is forced to have a little accountability for her actions.
It's still a bit harsh for the actual offense, arbitrary accountability isn't going to curb her immaturity, she's just going to think "The adults here are idiots." And rightfully so, criminal charges for this are ridiculous even given her troubles.
Treat teenagers like adults they act like adults. Don't and they will always act like little children.
Given some adult idiots and their cell phone behaviors (like, say, talking about sex lives on a crowded bus), I wouldn't say this is acting like a child, I'd say this is acting like an adult with a cell phone.
Killzone is not a Halo Killer, it is a Halo Rapist, Beater, Humiliator, Smasher, etc. It simply makes Halo 3 look like a game form XBox 1. And it has a more interesting gameplay and multiplayer.
I guess the joking tone of my post didn't come through. I was not knocking killzone 2, only making fun of the shameful killzone 1.
I am quite sure that THIS time, the killzone franchise will live up to it's "halo killer" predictions from 5 years ago. And by halo killer I do mean that it will be more advanced (and by that I mean graphically) than Halo 1.
They're dull rail shooters with a cool story. They'd make a good film, but as a *game* to, y'know, *play*, they're just typical FPS dreck.
In addition to what's already been corrected abing rail shooters, typical FPS "dreck"? You mean in both it is first person perspective and you shoot stuff? Because that's about all that's typical about those games.
Haven't they heard of Russian and other national's programmers being arrested or threatened with arrest if they land here?
I don't know about them, but I sure haven't. Is this something that's supposed to be common knowledge or do you have a link?
Anyway, what could they be arrested for? They don't appear to have done much besides hold up pictures of other people's faces and notice that the computers were unlocked. Don't tell me companies have made it illegal to notice the huge flaws in their products. I'm cynical, but not paranoid-delusional.
Anyone else, well, maybe there are survival of the fittest selection standards still hitting us, on occasion.
Yes! Those people who are too stupid to figure out how to get out TVs to work will instead resort to sexual activity for recreation, and are more likely to be too stupid to use birth control, and eventually...
What exactly are the advantages over just simply using a boat?
Well, you get to be 100 feet up in the air and spray water at the people on the boat deck, getting their shirts all wet.
It's also a very effective way to say "I have 100K that I apparently don't need" which may impress some of the people on the boat, who now have wet T-shirts...
That's a bit irrelevant, since the capability of genetically engineering a virus was missing until very recently.
Right, and I guess I worded that poorly. My point wasn't "They've always been natural, they can never be man-made" but was instead "Let's not worry too much about man-made diseases when a natural one is so much more likely."
I don't think anyone cringes at exploring technology per se, but at doing so without much safeguards if any. The potential for mass harm is great, and while nobody proposes to outlaw it as such, it would be nice if it stayed only in proper labs and you at least had to tell someone your idea before even starting on it. You know, sorta like the XKCD idea of having your comment read out loud to you so you get a second chance to spot if it sounds bloody stupid.
If you work in a lab, you obviously have to tell your boss what you're up to. If you have your own lab, you're too busy telling the NIH what you've done and why they need to give you more money, to be doing this on the side. If you run into a problem you can't solve, the first thing you do is ask your colleagues for advice. In other words, people know what you're working on, we already talk to each other and hopefully would be able to tell if our colleagues were about to create a supervirus (which, by the way, is unlikely to happen by accident, although it's always good for a horror/scifi movie).
And here we're talking about something which has historically caused more harm than a nuke before.
All the examples you provided were diseases that had natural origins (the smallpox was intentionally spread, but was not created or spread by scientists), which highlights something key here: if there is going to be a killer virus, it's going to be natural. If someone catches an airborn form of ebola and is infectious while in a major international airport... goodnight. Don't worry about the amateurs, the most dangerous and evil biologist is nature itself.
Combine the DNA from these microbes into our. A man who can dive into lava. Survive a freezing Tundra without layers of clothing.
Uh, there are no bacteria that can survive in LAVA. Hot springs yes, but that would be a much lamer superpower.
Hapless civilians: "Oh no! The evil robobt main computer is in Old Faithful! We'll never be able to pull the plug."
Hero: "Stand back citizens, it is I, HOT SPRING MAN!"
Hapless civilians: "Uh... okay..."
And, realistically, you'd have a cooked man who had a few bacterial enzymes that continued functioning. A few added heat resistant proteins do not make a heat resistant man any more than putting a few tiles from the space shuttle on your car would make it fireproof.
But abuse is a centimeter away (cloning botulism toxin into the flu virus anyone?)
What you just said is a lot more than a centimeter away. That's at least 4 years of hard, expensive work right there (for now anyway). And that would probably still be less effective at mass terror, by a longshot, than a pipe bomb or gun.
Sounds like a pretty easy way for people to start making some nasty superbugs.
There are two bigger threats when it comes to dangerous germs the government and nature. People tinkering around with bugs in their home labs generally have no motivation to develop superbugs. It's not like you can create a literal wetware virus that will net you people's credit card information like a computer virus could. And it's not like you could sell a superbug to anyone, the military is probably not going to buy yours, they likely have their own. Those are the ones I worry about.
Most of all though, nature is much better than any microbiologist at making dangerous diseases. If you die in a plague, it's going to be of natural origins spread through airports.
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Dude, everyone has an agenda. You are naive if you believe otherwise.
I guess I was simplifying a bit there for clarity sake. The family values voters are usually much better organized than those of us who aren't opposed to family values but don't think they're doing it the best way. The coalition that wants to ban videogame sales to children because ohmigoodlord it's causing them to be violent zombies, is MUCH better organized and votes much more in the local elections (where these types of silly proposals are often pursued under the radar of many people) than those of us with the opposite "agenda" which is "No, thats censorship and is stupid."
When one group is focused on making the local government into a morality brigade, and the rest of us who are busy trying to solve (what we see) as real problems with real solutions at the national level (where some of the biggest budget problems, and where the poor foreign policy decisions have been made).
I would definitely characterize them as having an agenda where I have none. I do have agendas, yes, but not on the subject at hand. Which is why this crap is getting passed while most of us don't think it will work and don't care. Why be semantic about it?
Thankfully, the judges can tell the difference between good science and bullshit science. Too bad the fucking family values voters, who vote more often than people who don't have agendas to push and get politicians who pander to their votes, can't.
Fixed that for you. The politicians don't care one way or the other. If those voters got it in their heads that painting the washington monument pink would prevent violence, then we'd have serious proposals to start buying pink paint and lots of rollers.
Yeah, I'm stuck playing it on the 360. It will be a cold day in hell when I get to play the updates, or maybe sooner if I cave in and buy a new computer that can run it.
(Before anyone asks why I don't upgrade now, I don't use the computer I have at home already, buying a new one for a single game I already have is something I can't quite justify.
Why would they even be giving out a secret prototype to an executive? Shouldn't it be behind a locked door?
That's true. And they should have had a sentry gun waiting, maybe had a demo guy or heavy weapons guy waiting as well. Hopefully their scout can bring back the sony prototype phone first.
On an unrelated note, I've been playing a lot of TF2.
It can see sexy action at a distance.
Sealand's claims to autonomy are pretty debated, but, they have a more realistic claim then the hundreds of other so called micronations, many of which are just guy's houses that they have changed into a sort of fantasy land with themselves as king.
You dare mock the sovreignty of "Awesomeville"!?! Step foot on our soil and you'll be beheaded!
One should be open to the possibility of IFPI "hacking" themselves to gain popular support. It is, after all, instant sympathy. It wouldn't be the first time something like this has happened.
Doesn't seem like that would be very effective. The only people who even notice are probably going to be those who already have entrenched opinions on RIAA and company already (pro or con). Is this going to make it onto general news anywhere?
Not only that, but how would this be relevant to the actual case?
I don't actually know the answers to those questions, they weren't entirely hypothetical.
Besides, no one has recognized Sealand as a nation.
Did anyone do anything about it though? If not, you could at least get away with semi-independant nation status, where you were independant unless you provoked a nearby real nation to do something. Which seems to me to be somewhat true of those real nations anyway, Iraq and Afghanistan are proof that you only have independance if nobody cares to disagree with you or you can force them to leave you alone.
Steal an ICBM, buy an oil rig, and THEN claim you're an independant nation and you might have a better case for nation status.
Despite how you feel about drugs, it's illegal. It doesn't matter one iota your feelings, there's no "freedom to use drugs as you see fit". Especially since the law states otherwise.
You just stated the obvious, AND appear to have responded to the wrong post.
Anyway, the tired old response to that tired old argument is something along the lines of "I don't really feel the need to follow laws I don't believe in just because bible-pounders and do-gooders happen to have greater political influence than the rest of us who think the drug laws are stupid."
Not sure what the cliche response to that one is, but in case it's relevant, no, I don't use drugs, but that has nothing to do with it being illegal.
That DEA officer, like any officer in the various branches of the police, has as his job to enforce the laws that were put into place by congress, whose members were democratically elected by the american people. So I'd say he shares about the same amount of blame as....pretty much anyone?
You're just trying to get someone to Godwin, aren't you?
Anyway, no, that's absurd. Most of us aren't doing anything to keep the drug laws on the books and enforced, they're already on the books, and there is a fraction of the population who are rabidly opposed to losening them that pretty much keep it going. Even they though are not out there actively enforcing it. Your friend is definitely more responsible for the war on drugs than everyone else is.
Of course in my book that's nothing too bad, I'm opposed to the drug laws, but they're pretty low on my list of laws that are flawed (and very low on my list of things that are wrong with the world), and enforcing them is not like, say, enforcing genocide.
That stupid car shows up on my private property and they'll be lucky to leave with all their blood.
I've heard that in several european countries, Scotland for one, there is no law against walking onto someone else's land, provided you don't damage it. It seems a bit more complicated and debatable than that, but it seems clear that you can hike through someone's farmland and they have no legal right to shoot you. Not the case obviously in the US. What's with our trespassing obsession? I step foot on your land, you'll injure me just because you can? Is it that we think everyone is out to get us?
That would just be silly and expensive. Nothing more.
Lawsuits are very often silly and expensive too, but you're right, that would if anything just alert people that they might be able to get more money.
Actually it's adults acting like children, probably because they never got smack down as a child.
You're right, I guess to be most accurate I would say "She was acting like an adult who was acting like a kid" ;-)
Finally she is forced to have a little accountability for her actions.
It's still a bit harsh for the actual offense, arbitrary accountability isn't going to curb her immaturity, she's just going to think "The adults here are idiots." And rightfully so, criminal charges for this are ridiculous even given her troubles.
Treat teenagers like adults they act like adults. Don't and they will always act like little children.
Given some adult idiots and their cell phone behaviors (like, say, talking about sex lives on a crowded bus), I wouldn't say this is acting like a child, I'd say this is acting like an adult with a cell phone.
Killzone is not a Halo Killer, it is a Halo Rapist, Beater, Humiliator, Smasher, etc. It simply makes Halo 3 look like a game form XBox 1. And it has a more interesting gameplay and multiplayer.
I guess the joking tone of my post didn't come through. I was not knocking killzone 2, only making fun of the shameful killzone 1.
I am quite sure that THIS time, the killzone franchise will live up to it's "halo killer" predictions from 5 years ago. And by halo killer I do mean that it will be more advanced (and by that I mean graphically) than Halo 1.
They're dull rail shooters with a cool story. They'd make a good film, but as a *game* to, y'know, *play*, they're just typical FPS dreck.
In addition to what's already been corrected abing rail shooters, typical FPS "dreck"? You mean in both it is first person perspective and you shoot stuff? Because that's about all that's typical about those games.
Haven't they heard of Russian and other national's programmers being arrested or threatened with arrest if they land here?
I don't know about them, but I sure haven't. Is this something that's supposed to be common knowledge or do you have a link?
Anyway, what could they be arrested for? They don't appear to have done much besides hold up pictures of other people's faces and notice that the computers were unlocked. Don't tell me companies have made it illegal to notice the huge flaws in their products. I'm cynical, but not paranoid-delusional.
Anyone else, well, maybe there are survival of the fittest selection standards still hitting us, on occasion.
Yes! Those people who are too stupid to figure out how to get out TVs to work will instead resort to sexual activity for recreation, and are more likely to be too stupid to use birth control, and eventually...
um... I think I see a problem here.
I assume this is dragging the boat after you.
What exactly are the advantages over just simply using a boat?
Well, you get to be 100 feet up in the air and spray water at the people on the boat deck, getting their shirts all wet.
It's also a very effective way to say "I have 100K that I apparently don't need" which may impress some of the people on the boat, who now have wet T-shirts...
That's a bit irrelevant, since the capability of genetically engineering a virus was missing until very recently.
Right, and I guess I worded that poorly. My point wasn't "They've always been natural, they can never be man-made" but was instead "Let's not worry too much about man-made diseases when a natural one is so much more likely."
I don't think anyone cringes at exploring technology per se, but at doing so without much safeguards if any. The potential for mass harm is great, and while nobody proposes to outlaw it as such, it would be nice if it stayed only in proper labs and you at least had to tell someone your idea before even starting on it. You know, sorta like the XKCD idea of having your comment read out loud to you so you get a second chance to spot if it sounds bloody stupid.
If you work in a lab, you obviously have to tell your boss what you're up to. If you have your own lab, you're too busy telling the NIH what you've done and why they need to give you more money, to be doing this on the side. If you run into a problem you can't solve, the first thing you do is ask your colleagues for advice. In other words, people know what you're working on, we already talk to each other and hopefully would be able to tell if our colleagues were about to create a supervirus (which, by the way, is unlikely to happen by accident, although it's always good for a horror/scifi movie).
And here we're talking about something which has historically caused more harm than a nuke before.
All the examples you provided were diseases that had natural origins (the smallpox was intentionally spread, but was not created or spread by scientists), which highlights something key here: if there is going to be a killer virus, it's going to be natural. If someone catches an airborn form of ebola and is infectious while in a major international airport... goodnight. Don't worry about the amateurs, the most dangerous and evil biologist is nature itself.
Combine the DNA from these microbes into our. A man who can dive into lava. Survive a freezing Tundra without layers of clothing.
Uh, there are no bacteria that can survive in LAVA. Hot springs yes, but that would be a much lamer superpower.
Hapless civilians: "Oh no! The evil robobt main computer is in Old Faithful! We'll never be able to pull the plug."
Hero: "Stand back citizens, it is I, HOT SPRING MAN!"
Hapless civilians: "Uh... okay..."
And, realistically, you'd have a cooked man who had a few bacterial enzymes that continued functioning. A few added heat resistant proteins do not make a heat resistant man any more than putting a few tiles from the space shuttle on your car would make it fireproof.
But abuse is a centimeter away (cloning botulism toxin into the flu virus anyone?)
What you just said is a lot more than a centimeter away. That's at least 4 years of hard, expensive work right there (for now anyway). And that would probably still be less effective at mass terror, by a longshot, than a pipe bomb or gun.
Sounds like a pretty easy way for people to start making some nasty superbugs.
There are two bigger threats when it comes to dangerous germs the government and nature. People tinkering around with bugs in their home labs generally have no motivation to develop superbugs. It's not like you can create a literal wetware virus that will net you people's credit card information like a computer virus could. And it's not like you could sell a superbug to anyone, the military is probably not going to buy yours, they likely have their own. Those are the ones I worry about.
Most of all though, nature is much better than any microbiologist at making dangerous diseases. If you die in a plague, it's going to be of natural origins spread through airports.