Construction company executives, on the other hand, have perfect judgement about what is important and what is not.
~s
Idiots making decisions is inevitable. When talking about goverment regulation vs self regulation, it's question of whether you want the poor decisions to come from someone who is elected through a semi-democratic process with at least a stated goal of public interest or whether you want the poor decisions to come from someone put in place by the executive board whose stated goal is to make money.
An excellent question about a very nuanced and complex issue. I'm guessing the answer they will come up with be "Experts will define it" and the experts will be whoever set the default settings for censoring software that successfully schmoozes the right ISP executives and or politicians.
On the violent media thing, the logic there is that kids are more likely to have sex than go on violent rampages, which is not totally crazy. The crazy part is that kids are going to be brainwashed by media out there, and that sex is as worrisome as violence, but the being more concerned about youths reproducing than worrying about youths reenacting Terminator, that makes some sense at least.
Name one tyranny that allows for the people to be armed. Just one.
The US government under the patriot act and PRISM.
Anyway, you're dodging my point. Gun control and tyranny could be correlated, but they ARE NOT THE SAME THING. Yet nothing aside from gun control seems to provoke a response. I suspect that if we were to gradually suspend the constitution but not touch guns, most gun rights activists would let it stand.
Guns are a false hope in defending against any tyrannical government. If we are too incompetent to use the soap, ballot, or jury box to defend our liberty, what makes you think we're competent to use guns to defend it? Especially given that any gun you have, the government has much much bigger ones and a lot more of them.
At any rate, where were the second amendment activists with the patriot act or prism? It seems to me that most gun activists define "tyranny" as "gun control," nothing more and nothing less. If a candidate were to say "I'm in favor of abolishing the patriot act, prism, ending the outrageous drug war and war on terror, and abolishing homeland security, and also limiting sales of any gun bigger than a handgun," the NRA would be calling for his blood. Meanwhile, we have wave after wave of politicians who chip away at every amendment but the second (and third I suppose), and you guys don't ever discuss at what point you'd take up arms.
Speaking as a leftist of a stripe, we're not. Seriously. Don't get me wrong, I think you're insane for thinking a gun is going to give you any protection from anyone armed with more than a saturday night special, don't think the constitution says anything about you individually having the right to own a gun, and don't like you personally (for trolling), but I'm actually mad that Obama et al are wasting political capitol on gun control.
It kind of has to. We're evidently too stupid to realize it on our own. We spent 3 billion on the human genome project and it's going to be vital to the eventual cure for cancer. We spend 6 billion PER SUBMARINE to fight... I dunno, terrorists with scuba gear? And we're still cutting the NIH budget.
Headline should be "Industry group says 'You know, what, fuck y'all missile-riding cowboys. See you in hell.'"
I'd suggest that reacting cynically to it makes it less likely that it will be righted. You're throwing a wet blanket on the outrage. No doubt that is an honest reaction, but everyone reading it is at least less motivated to do so much as e-mail their senator about it. Lets, for the moment, pretend that this is positively SHOCKING news, that this CANNOT FUCKING STAND, and that this is an unprecedented invasion of our privacy. Because in many ways it is. This surpasses 1984. Forget cameras in every household, we have unintentionally been giving hourly reports on everything to the government. That's not something that was true ten years ago.
Anyway, you don't get any points for thinking some bit of bad news was obvious before it was news. Well, you get mod points, so maybe you do, but I'd rather have negative karma and a slightly higher chance of the NSA being put back in its place.
They do that! At every opportunity! Eliminating everyone who makes more than minimum wage aside from the few oligarchs is EXACTLY what the oligarchs would prefer. That's why the middle class is being eliminated. It's a lot easier to live like a king when there are fewer nobles running around.
Population doesn't correlate well with carbon emissions. The US for example was the leading emitter of carbon until recently despite being only fourth in terms of population. Moreover, I suspect limiting population growth will be too little too late when discussing climate change: we're on track to change the climate in less than a generation.
Lets take that approach to medicine. "Yes, you are suffering from tuberculosis, but if it weren't for that, you'd just get sick from another disease, so just make yourself immune to disease."
The two goals are not mutually exclusive, and we will be better able to evolve to whatever it is you're suggesting if we have to spend less effort dealing with the effects of climate change.
Also I suspect you're only callous to the effects of climate change because your home doesn't happen to be a low-lying island which has been fine for generations but will soon be underwater because idiots prevented us from switching to nuclear power, and we instead kept burning coal.
If law enforcement is unable to figure out how to follow due process, does anyone expect they're smart enough to figure out any of the smartphone operating systems out there?
"Citizen! Hand me your phone! And then explain to me how to unlock it. Then show me where the text messaging is. Where is the notification section? I have an iphone. What's cyanogenmod? Explain to me the difference between facebook notifications, SMS, google talk, google chat, google voice, e-mail, and twitter. Prove to me that you weren't using any of them! Explain to me automated responses!... actually, no, I'm just going to arrest you if I feel like it, reasons include 'I'm overly sensitive about my intelligence and you made me feel dumb becuase I don't understand technology.' Also being a minority."
Anyways, it makes sense that air quality is worse in areas with less trees leading to higher rates of lung disease, but we didn't need this study to affirm that. Just drive in a major city on a hot afternoon and check out the smog.
That wouldn't tell you if it was the trees that made the difference. To say that, you'd need to go to a forested area, kill the trees, then compare health before to after. Or, in this case, allow insects to do the killing.
Yes, between scientists and religious idiots. Scientists acknowledge they don't know everything. Idiots assume they do, or at least that knowing everything is possible.
The most basic would be answering the question -- why are there more trees in a given area?
Because the pine borer killed them.
In densely populated urban areas, there will be fewer trees, obviously... and we know cities have more pollution than a prestine wilderness. But that doesn't mean the trees are what's making people healthy... it could just be that the absence of pollution is.
The areas are the same. They compared before the bugs killed the trees to after. Human health declined with the trees. Again, same areas. Presumably the bugs didn't move in and build coal fired power plants.
This is an incomplete analysis and an attempt by an amateur scientist to start with a conclusion and work his way back to find supporting facts, while ignoring the fact that in science, you do things the other way around. And if you don't, you get crap like this.
She says, evidently having argued against the title and working back to what the paper must have said rather than reading the paper first. Also, there are seven authors. So not "an amateur scientist" but "seven amateur scientists." Not that I'm quite clear what an amateur scientist is: they all work at research institutions of some sort or another.
I hate to be that guy, but join the PC master race. Steam has a better track record than either sony or MS, you'll save money on hardware, you'll have more control over your property, and you'll get better graphics.
There are some AAA titles that won't come to PC for a while, but you can console yourself with slightly older good games that are a fraction of the price that you'd pay for consoles.
Google: "Here, let me do this free awesome thing for you. I'll be taking notes of course, but you know that."
Gweihir: "How LONG are you going to do it for me?!?"
Google: "Uh, probably a few years at least. And you can use someone else's service if you want when we stop, we'll make it really easy to do so. Like, one button push."
Gweihir: "So, not forever?"
Google: "Well, no, but it's not like we're charging you for..."
Gweihir: "EVIL!!! OMG, YOU'RE JUST LOOKING FOR A PROFIT!!! FUCK YOU!!!"
And note, which party is in office is totally irrelevant here. The Republicans and Democrats have both been in on it.
Just to be clear, I'd argue that's a function of most of the voters being on board with it. It's not ideology or party lines, it's democracy and economics at work in the worst way. When you have such a huge amount of people calling for a sincerely bad idea that politicians can get elected by exploiting, pretty much any politician with a chance of getting elected will parrot the same thing.
Leaders who are capable of telling everyone how stupid this is don't work in politics, and are drowned out by those who want to use the paranoia to their advantage.
Implying your government isn't doing the same thing?It sure sounds like they are. So, as we say in the colonies, put that in your pipe and smoke it, you wanker.
I disagree, I think the sheep willing to give up anything to prevent terrorism IS the larger issue. It ensures that politicians will always be there to make that deal with them. Getting elected by playing to people's paranoia is much easier than getting elected by leading people to actually improve the country.
Politician A: We need to fix the budget. We are spending a ridiculous amount of money on national defense, way too much for how much we're raising in tax revenue...
Politician B: OMG DID YOU HEAR THAT?!?! He wants to RAISE TAXES and CUT THE MILITARY! At a time when terrorists are threatening your children!!!
Politician A should win, but politician B will. That's already going on on a massive scale, while the possibility you present doesn't seem to be happening as much right now. And our grandchildren will be paying it off.
Why try to change the place you live into someplace else when you could simply move to that someplace else?
Were we talking about something trivial like "I don't like the language," that would be fair. But we're talking about the right to privacy, an inalienable right each of us is born with that the government is trampling on. Most people in this country are not saying "Please, government! Take my rights away." I kind of feel like I have an obligation to try to uphold their rights rather than run and just preserve my own.
Besides, there is no heaven on earth. Most countries have governments which do shitty things, we Americans just hear about them less because we don't live there. Exchanging one set of problems for another set of problems I know less about seems like kind of a wash.
I'm not saying they're great journalists. I'm not even saying they're great for a video game news website, just that they are a little more skeptical than supermarket tabloids usually.
I assume you are referencing the HL2 leak. Where valve got the guy to come to the states for a job interview at which point the FBI arrested him. And the same trick was used by valve years before.
So this guy should be skeptical of any job offers he gets from valve, rather than hold an insurance file.
Slashdot Mirror
Construction company executives, on the other hand, have perfect judgement about what is important and what is not.
~s
Idiots making decisions is inevitable. When talking about goverment regulation vs self regulation, it's question of whether you want the poor decisions to come from someone who is elected through a semi-democratic process with at least a stated goal of public interest or whether you want the poor decisions to come from someone put in place by the executive board whose stated goal is to make money.
An excellent question about a very nuanced and complex issue. I'm guessing the answer they will come up with be "Experts will define it" and the experts will be whoever set the default settings for censoring software that successfully schmoozes the right ISP executives and or politicians.
On the violent media thing, the logic there is that kids are more likely to have sex than go on violent rampages, which is not totally crazy. The crazy part is that kids are going to be brainwashed by media out there, and that sex is as worrisome as violence, but the being more concerned about youths reproducing than worrying about youths reenacting Terminator, that makes some sense at least.
Well then thank you for commenting AC and undoing your moderation. You've really shown me who is a fucking idiot.
Name one tyranny that allows for the people to be armed. Just one.
The US government under the patriot act and PRISM.
Anyway, you're dodging my point. Gun control and tyranny could be correlated, but they ARE NOT THE SAME THING. Yet nothing aside from gun control seems to provoke a response. I suspect that if we were to gradually suspend the constitution but not touch guns, most gun rights activists would let it stand.
Guns are a false hope in defending against any tyrannical government. If we are too incompetent to use the soap, ballot, or jury box to defend our liberty, what makes you think we're competent to use guns to defend it? Especially given that any gun you have, the government has much much bigger ones and a lot more of them.
At any rate, where were the second amendment activists with the patriot act or prism? It seems to me that most gun activists define "tyranny" as "gun control," nothing more and nothing less. If a candidate were to say "I'm in favor of abolishing the patriot act, prism, ending the outrageous drug war and war on terror, and abolishing homeland security, and also limiting sales of any gun bigger than a handgun," the NRA would be calling for his blood. Meanwhile, we have wave after wave of politicians who chip away at every amendment but the second (and third I suppose), and you guys don't ever discuss at what point you'd take up arms.
Speaking as a leftist of a stripe, we're not. Seriously. Don't get me wrong, I think you're insane for thinking a gun is going to give you any protection from anyone armed with more than a saturday night special, don't think the constitution says anything about you individually having the right to own a gun, and don't like you personally (for trolling), but I'm actually mad that Obama et al are wasting political capitol on gun control.
It kind of has to. We're evidently too stupid to realize it on our own. We spent 3 billion on the human genome project and it's going to be vital to the eventual cure for cancer. We spend 6 billion PER SUBMARINE to fight... I dunno, terrorists with scuba gear? And we're still cutting the NIH budget.
Headline should be "Industry group says 'You know, what, fuck y'all missile-riding cowboys. See you in hell.'"
I'd suggest that reacting cynically to it makes it less likely that it will be righted. You're throwing a wet blanket on the outrage. No doubt that is an honest reaction, but everyone reading it is at least less motivated to do so much as e-mail their senator about it. Lets, for the moment, pretend that this is positively SHOCKING news, that this CANNOT FUCKING STAND, and that this is an unprecedented invasion of our privacy. Because in many ways it is. This surpasses 1984. Forget cameras in every household, we have unintentionally been giving hourly reports on everything to the government. That's not something that was true ten years ago.
Anyway, you don't get any points for thinking some bit of bad news was obvious before it was news. Well, you get mod points, so maybe you do, but I'd rather have negative karma and a slightly higher chance of the NSA being put back in its place.
They do that! At every opportunity! Eliminating everyone who makes more than minimum wage aside from the few oligarchs is EXACTLY what the oligarchs would prefer. That's why the middle class is being eliminated. It's a lot easier to live like a king when there are fewer nobles running around.
It's caffeinated, tastes like coffee, and there when I need it most. That's at least an A- in my book.
Population doesn't correlate well with carbon emissions. The US for example was the leading emitter of carbon until recently despite being only fourth in terms of population. Moreover, I suspect limiting population growth will be too little too late when discussing climate change: we're on track to change the climate in less than a generation.
Lets take that approach to medicine. "Yes, you are suffering from tuberculosis, but if it weren't for that, you'd just get sick from another disease, so just make yourself immune to disease."
The two goals are not mutually exclusive, and we will be better able to evolve to whatever it is you're suggesting if we have to spend less effort dealing with the effects of climate change.
Also I suspect you're only callous to the effects of climate change because your home doesn't happen to be a low-lying island which has been fine for generations but will soon be underwater because idiots prevented us from switching to nuclear power, and we instead kept burning coal.
If law enforcement is unable to figure out how to follow due process, does anyone expect they're smart enough to figure out any of the smartphone operating systems out there?
"Citizen! Hand me your phone! And then explain to me how to unlock it. Then show me where the text messaging is. Where is the notification section? I have an iphone. What's cyanogenmod? Explain to me the difference between facebook notifications, SMS, google talk, google chat, google voice, e-mail, and twitter. Prove to me that you weren't using any of them! Explain to me automated responses!... actually, no, I'm just going to arrest you if I feel like it, reasons include 'I'm overly sensitive about my intelligence and you made me feel dumb becuase I don't understand technology.' Also being a minority."
Anyways, it makes sense that air quality is worse in areas with less trees leading to higher rates of lung disease, but we didn't need this study to affirm that. Just drive in a major city on a hot afternoon and check out the smog.
That wouldn't tell you if it was the trees that made the difference. To say that, you'd need to go to a forested area, kill the trees, then compare health before to after. Or, in this case, allow insects to do the killing.
Yes, between scientists and religious idiots. Scientists acknowledge they don't know everything. Idiots assume they do, or at least that knowing everything is possible.
The most basic would be answering the question -- why are there more trees in a given area?
Because the pine borer killed them.
In densely populated urban areas, there will be fewer trees, obviously... and we know cities have more pollution than a prestine wilderness. But that doesn't mean the trees are what's making people healthy... it could just be that the absence of pollution is.
The areas are the same. They compared before the bugs killed the trees to after. Human health declined with the trees. Again, same areas. Presumably the bugs didn't move in and build coal fired power plants.
This is an incomplete analysis and an attempt by an amateur scientist to start with a conclusion and work his way back to find supporting facts, while ignoring the fact that in science, you do things the other way around. And if you don't, you get crap like this.
She says, evidently having argued against the title and working back to what the paper must have said rather than reading the paper first. Also, there are seven authors. So not "an amateur scientist" but "seven amateur scientists." Not that I'm quite clear what an amateur scientist is: they all work at research institutions of some sort or another.
I hate to be that guy, but join the PC master race. Steam has a better track record than either sony or MS, you'll save money on hardware, you'll have more control over your property, and you'll get better graphics.
There are some AAA titles that won't come to PC for a while, but you can console yourself with slightly older good games that are a fraction of the price that you'd pay for consoles.
Simply stunning.
Google: "Here, let me do this free awesome thing for you. I'll be taking notes of course, but you know that."
Gweihir: "How LONG are you going to do it for me?!?"
Google: "Uh, probably a few years at least. And you can use someone else's service if you want when we stop, we'll make it really easy to do so. Like, one button push."
Gweihir: "So, not forever?"
Google: "Well, no, but it's not like we're charging you for..."
Gweihir: "EVIL!!! OMG, YOU'RE JUST LOOKING FOR A PROFIT!!! FUCK YOU!!!"
Yeah, you definitely dodged a bullet there.
And note, which party is in office is totally irrelevant here. The Republicans and Democrats have both been in on it.
Just to be clear, I'd argue that's a function of most of the voters being on board with it. It's not ideology or party lines, it's democracy and economics at work in the worst way. When you have such a huge amount of people calling for a sincerely bad idea that politicians can get elected by exploiting, pretty much any politician with a chance of getting elected will parrot the same thing.
Leaders who are capable of telling everyone how stupid this is don't work in politics, and are drowned out by those who want to use the paranoia to their advantage.
Implying your government isn't doing the same thing?It sure sounds like they are. So, as we say in the colonies, put that in your pipe and smoke it, you wanker.
I disagree, I think the sheep willing to give up anything to prevent terrorism IS the larger issue. It ensures that politicians will always be there to make that deal with them. Getting elected by playing to people's paranoia is much easier than getting elected by leading people to actually improve the country.
Politician A: We need to fix the budget. We are spending a ridiculous amount of money on national defense, way too much for how much we're raising in tax revenue...
Politician B: OMG DID YOU HEAR THAT?!?! He wants to RAISE TAXES and CUT THE MILITARY! At a time when terrorists are threatening your children!!!
Politician A should win, but politician B will. That's already going on on a massive scale, while the possibility you present doesn't seem to be happening as much right now. And our grandchildren will be paying it off.
Why try to change the place you live into someplace else when you could simply move to that someplace else?
Were we talking about something trivial like "I don't like the language," that would be fair. But we're talking about the right to privacy, an inalienable right each of us is born with that the government is trampling on. Most people in this country are not saying "Please, government! Take my rights away." I kind of feel like I have an obligation to try to uphold their rights rather than run and just preserve my own.
Besides, there is no heaven on earth. Most countries have governments which do shitty things, we Americans just hear about them less because we don't live there. Exchanging one set of problems for another set of problems I know less about seems like kind of a wash.
I'm not saying they're great journalists. I'm not even saying they're great for a video game news website, just that they are a little more skeptical than supermarket tabloids usually.
Oops! I didn't. Sorry.
I assume you are referencing the HL2 leak. Where valve got the guy to come to the states for a job interview at which point the FBI arrested him. And the same trick was used by valve years before.
So this guy should be skeptical of any job offers he gets from valve, rather than hold an insurance file.