Pointing may be learned in humans, but it comes pretty damn naturally. We can recognize a pointing a gesture at an extremely early age, and months before we've learned how to linguistically communicate (although babies can communicate surprisingly well themselves with gestures such as pointing *far* earlier than they start to speak).
And suggesting that people stop taking vitamins helps how, exactly? Not taking vitamins does not translate to living healthier, so all that would happen is that more people would have vitamin deficiencies. If that's something you're advocating under the belief that it might actually result in a lifestyle change, I believe you may be mistaken about the consequences.
It's only necessary in rare cases, you suggest... but then you state that it requires work and effort to eat healthy.
So no... it's not rare at all. Most people don't eat as properly as they should. Cutting out vitamin supplements won't change that... it will just lead to more people with vitamin deficiencies.
I suspect that you underestimate a private party's abilities. Maybe the former can't ruin your life the exact same way the latter can, that doesn't mean that they can't still ruin your life.
Damn typo... didn't notice until I hit submit. WHat i mean was that if enough people would have been okay with B from group *C* instead voted for B, then B would win... not from group A.
Being able to rank candidates instead of just picking one, acheives precisely what you are asking for. People can vote for who they like most.
Okay... but bearing in mind from your example, under a ranked voting policy that I'm most familiar with (I forget the name of it), with the percentages that you cited, B, being the lowest ranked first choice of most people, would still have no chance of winning... People who voted for B, the least popular first choice, would then have their votes transferred to their second choice, A... which would allow A to win. 45% of the country might dislike A, but that's still better than if C wins, no question.
But that kind of electoral reform can't even happen unless election results start to change.... and that means that electors have to start voting more proactively instead of reactively... voting for who they actually prefer instead of casting a vote to simply try to cancel somebody else's. And even though allegedly some 40% or so of Americans would identify themselves as independent in pre-election polls (a figure I remember hearing from before the last USA election), the actual election results do not reflect that, because if they did, we just might see that election reform that is so desperately needed. In your example of A, B, and C, with B having the lowest score and representing an independent under the current system, it is probably the case they could get an additional 15% of the vote. which would put them as 40%. If enough people who would have been okay with B from group A actually would have identified as independent in the polls, then that *WOULD* mean that B would win... even with this current lousy first past the post system. But even if B didn't win, then that would still mean that A, supposedly one of the "main two" candidates, didn't even rank in 2nd place nationwide. That'd be the far bigger news, and would give irrefutable hard evidence that some kind of election reform is long overdue.
Of course, a guaranteed solution to accomplish election reform would be if nobody actually voted at all... but really, one is not going to practically accomplish this, because they cannot help what other people do. Again, you can only control what you do,so instead of complaining about the way things are, even if they *do* suck, why not do the most that *YOU* can to try to bring about the change that is so desperately needed?
The best option in this scenario is was clearly and obviously B.
Of course... but who would end up voting for B?
My point is that the way things are right now, people don't. People who vote strategically would see B has having no real chance of winning, and instead would bow to outside pressure to spend their vote on their second choice, quite probably giving A the victory. This is supposedly rational behavior on the part of voters, but if B is truly the best option, then how is it rational for people who really *DO* prefer B to vote for anyone but B? Obviously the most sensible thing is to happen is for a majority to vote for B. You can't help how other people choose to vote... you are only in control of who you personally vote for, so why not make the most rational choice that *YOU* can, for yourself? Particularly when holding onto some idealistic notion about trying to do what's best for the country by voting for somebody you didn't care for doesn't actually result in any change? Being all "noble" and voting for somebody you don't like for some greater good is bullshit, plain and simple... and at best is a self-delusion that enables a person to live with themselves more easily afterward.
Having an elected president that isn't really liked by most Americans is hardly without precedent..
And that in no way excuses it.
I wouldn't suggest it is, but in general, people who are "okay" with a particular candidate, especially one that has any significant chance of winning the election, don't really like the candidate as much as often only believe that the candidate they are supposedly "okay" with would merely be preferable to some other option that has a significant chance of winning, and that they dislike with a passion. So while C might win being actively disliked by 55% of the population, if A won, the elected president would be disliked by as much as 70%, which I would think is actually much worse.
And again... if an independent actually achieved 25% of the popular vote nationwide, that would be *HUGE* news.... and, as I said, could probably even be the precursor to electoral reform, which would result in the changing of the rules that are so desperately needed.
If you can get as much as 45% of a population of 300 million to actually agree on a single unified idea as the single best option when there's more than 2 choices available, then you're doing pretty damn well. The fact that it may be disliked by a majority is largely irrelevant. Having an elected president that isn't really liked by most Americans is hardly without precedent.
And if an independent managed to get 25% of the vote, that would be HUGE news.... and could very well result in electoral reform... which amounts to "changing the rules of the game" that was being mentioned previously.
But voters still have to be less caught up in what they are afraid of instead of what they actually want for it to materialize.
You do not have to pay any tax on a banking error in your favor unless you actually use (ie, withdraw) any of the extra money before the error is corrected... and even then you only get taxed on what you withdrew, not the amount of the error (plus you still have to pay back any difference between what you withdrew and what you otherwise could have withdrawn to the bank, with interest accumulating from the time you withdrew the money).
Right... so how can you blame them? I mean if they're only reacting as rationally as possible to their circumstances... it's hardly really a freely made choice in the first place, but more of an instinctive reaction to what they were afraid would otherwise happen. In other words, voters don't ever have to feel even partly responsible for how they voted, even if things don't turn out the way they hoped. Nice.
But when one decides to behave a certain way based not on the values dictated by their own moral and ethical conscience, but more by how they feel or expect that other people will behave, in any other situation, that would be called peer pressure, and while in some circumstances such behavior is necessarily what is appropriate, by no stretch of the imagination should peer pressure *EVER* be a good enough reason to vote for somebody.
The only way the rules can ever change in a democratic society is when the voters do. Shifting the blame to a poor choice of "main" candidates is just finger pointing.
Agreed. There is, if I remember correctly, about a lunar mass worth of gold in the entire solar system alone. And there's about 20 times as much lead as gold. I think about 100 lunar masses worth of heavy elements is probably a better estimate.
There's about a lunar mass worth of gold *ALONE* in the solar system. And there are several heavier elements than gold that are much more common (lead coming to mind as one obvious one). I'dthink the mass of all of the heavy elements in the solar system combined is probably closer to 100 to 200 lunar masses.
The rules are fairly simple in that whoever gets the most votes wins. If enough people really didn't like the "main two candidates" (which by all appearances, generally seems to generally be the case already), and weren't so deathly afraid of what everybody else was going to vote like to risk voting for somebody they might have had more in common with, but think that they don't have a chance of winning (this one's a harder problem to tackle), that the nationwide cumulative effect of enough people of people voting for who they actually *want* could could very well lead to an independent could actually become president (albeit probably still with a minority share of the total votes).
But of course, it will never happen... because most voters spend far too much worrying about trying to cancel out votes for somebody they really *don't* want in... which is thinking more about how other people vote than how one really wants to vote themselves... and ultimately extremely silly way to exercise a right that as directly as possible puts citizens in charge of who will form their next government.
The only advantage this style of voting has that I can see is that it doesn't take much effort... plus, one doesn't overly have to worry about feeling accountable for how things turn out afterwards if the person they vote for gets in and happens to start implementing undesirable policies, since such a vote is not really a consequence of a persons' own freely made choice, but instead more of a reactionary consequence to some outside influence that they perceived as a greater and more immediate threat. How can one really be held personally responsible for making what may turn out to a bad choice when at the time, the choice was only made in what seemed to be self-defense?
If it were really all over at that point, it would only be because a majority of voters who don't like either of the main two candidates will still only ever vote for one of them, choosing what they feel is the "lesser of two evils", and in particular, they will do this even *if* there was an independent that might have more closely represented their own views than either of the primary candidates.
But, a combination of apathy and a rather large helping of paranoia about "the wrong guy winning" overrides practically any chance that change through an independent party could actually ever happen in the USA.
It is the voters and the idiotic first-past-the-post system that are to blame. not the candidates.
Actually, people *ARE* willing to bear those prices. The fact that many still quite happily pay those amounts is testament to that fact. While the numbers may be smaller than what they used to be, the conglomerates are far from any danger of needing to change their business model.
If somebody wearing equipment that can record you is sufficient reason for you to attack them, then you have anger management issues, and need counselling. That's not a fault in the technology.
As for the other responses, well, again that's not a flaw in the design of glass... that's a societal issue that arises because of false expectations that people have about privacy in public. If somebody can see you with their eyes in a public place, they are essentially recording you already in their brain, which is conceptually no different from being recorded by a device, unless one has intent to be duplicitous about what it was that they were doing.
I'm not suggesting that if you're doing nothing wrong you have nothing to hide, because everyone has things that they consider private... but I am saying that by definition "public" and "private" are opposites, and I don't really feel that one should have any expectation of privacy in a place that is open to the public. If one wants privacy, they should go someplace private.
The glasses do not fold, so they cannot just be put away in your pocket like sunglasses when you don't want to wear them. They come with a case that can keep them pretty safe, but the case won't fit in your pocket.
Battery life is abysmal. On the neighborhood of about 2 hours of use. The very concept of "wearable computing" does sort of lend itself to the notion of devices that can remain turned on at all times, and Glass falls short of this ideal by such a large factor that it is laughable. The battery life needs to be improved by at least a factor of 4.
What they can afford to do is entirely irrelevant to how much they can get away with charging for it.
My point being, that people with money will spend it. And people with less money, I'm afraid, just aren't part of these conglomerates' target demographic, so they don't care if you or I think that the seasons cost too much.
Piracy also refers to the unauthorized copying of another person's works. The word has been used in this sense for about as long as copyright itself has existed... it is not something new.
Just a heads up.... words can have more than one meaning... and it's also entirely normal for definitions of words to evolve based on how they are actually used.
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Pointing may be learned in humans, but it comes pretty damn naturally. We can recognize a pointing a gesture at an extremely early age, and months before we've learned how to linguistically communicate (although babies can communicate surprisingly well themselves with gestures such as pointing *far* earlier than they start to speak).
And suggesting that people stop taking vitamins helps how, exactly? Not taking vitamins does not translate to living healthier, so all that would happen is that more people would have vitamin deficiencies. If that's something you're advocating under the belief that it might actually result in a lifestyle change, I believe you may be mistaken about the consequences.
It is when that's not the lifestyle that most people live by today.
So no... it's not rare at all. Most people don't eat as properly as they should. Cutting out vitamin supplements won't change that... it will just lead to more people with vitamin deficiencies.
I suspect that you underestimate a private party's abilities. Maybe the former can't ruin your life the exact same way the latter can, that doesn't mean that they can't still ruin your life.
Damn typo... didn't notice until I hit submit. WHat i mean was that if enough people would have been okay with B from group *C* instead voted for B, then B would win... not from group A.
Okay... but bearing in mind from your example, under a ranked voting policy that I'm most familiar with (I forget the name of it), with the percentages that you cited, B, being the lowest ranked first choice of most people, would still have no chance of winning... People who voted for B, the least popular first choice, would then have their votes transferred to their second choice, A... which would allow A to win. 45% of the country might dislike A, but that's still better than if C wins, no question.
But that kind of electoral reform can't even happen unless election results start to change.... and that means that electors have to start voting more proactively instead of reactively... voting for who they actually prefer instead of casting a vote to simply try to cancel somebody else's. And even though allegedly some 40% or so of Americans would identify themselves as independent in pre-election polls (a figure I remember hearing from before the last USA election), the actual election results do not reflect that, because if they did, we just might see that election reform that is so desperately needed. In your example of A, B, and C, with B having the lowest score and representing an independent under the current system, it is probably the case they could get an additional 15% of the vote. which would put them as 40%. If enough people who would have been okay with B from group A actually would have identified as independent in the polls, then that *WOULD* mean that B would win... even with this current lousy first past the post system. But even if B didn't win, then that would still mean that A, supposedly one of the "main two" candidates, didn't even rank in 2nd place nationwide. That'd be the far bigger news, and would give irrefutable hard evidence that some kind of election reform is long overdue.
Of course, a guaranteed solution to accomplish election reform would be if nobody actually voted at all... but really, one is not going to practically accomplish this, because they cannot help what other people do. Again, you can only control what you do,so instead of complaining about the way things are, even if they *do* suck, why not do the most that *YOU* can to try to bring about the change that is so desperately needed?
... for a 10% downpayment on a Death Star.
Of course... but who would end up voting for B?
My point is that the way things are right now, people don't. People who vote strategically would see B has having no real chance of winning, and instead would bow to outside pressure to spend their vote on their second choice, quite probably giving A the victory. This is supposedly rational behavior on the part of voters, but if B is truly the best option, then how is it rational for people who really *DO* prefer B to vote for anyone but B? Obviously the most sensible thing is to happen is for a majority to vote for B. You can't help how other people choose to vote... you are only in control of who you personally vote for, so why not make the most rational choice that *YOU* can, for yourself? Particularly when holding onto some idealistic notion about trying to do what's best for the country by voting for somebody you didn't care for doesn't actually result in any change? Being all "noble" and voting for somebody you don't like for some greater good is bullshit, plain and simple... and at best is a self-delusion that enables a person to live with themselves more easily afterward.
I wouldn't suggest it is, but in general, people who are "okay" with a particular candidate, especially one that has any significant chance of winning the election, don't really like the candidate as much as often only believe that the candidate they are supposedly "okay" with would merely be preferable to some other option that has a significant chance of winning, and that they dislike with a passion. So while C might win being actively disliked by 55% of the population, if A won, the elected president would be disliked by as much as 70%, which I would think is actually much worse.
And again... if an independent actually achieved 25% of the popular vote nationwide, that would be *HUGE* news.... and, as I said, could probably even be the precursor to electoral reform, which would result in the changing of the rules that are so desperately needed.
If you can get as much as 45% of a population of 300 million to actually agree on a single unified idea as the single best option when there's more than 2 choices available, then you're doing pretty damn well. The fact that it may be disliked by a majority is largely irrelevant. Having an elected president that isn't really liked by most Americans is hardly without precedent.
And if an independent managed to get 25% of the vote, that would be HUGE news.... and could very well result in electoral reform... which amounts to "changing the rules of the game" that was being mentioned previously.
But voters still have to be less caught up in what they are afraid of instead of what they actually want for it to materialize.
You do not have to pay any tax on a banking error in your favor unless you actually use (ie, withdraw) any of the extra money before the error is corrected... and even then you only get taxed on what you withdrew, not the amount of the error (plus you still have to pay back any difference between what you withdrew and what you otherwise could have withdrawn to the bank, with interest accumulating from the time you withdrew the money).
Right... so how can you blame them? I mean if they're only reacting as rationally as possible to their circumstances... it's hardly really a freely made choice in the first place, but more of an instinctive reaction to what they were afraid would otherwise happen. In other words, voters don't ever have to feel even partly responsible for how they voted, even if things don't turn out the way they hoped. Nice.
But when one decides to behave a certain way based not on the values dictated by their own moral and ethical conscience, but more by how they feel or expect that other people will behave, in any other situation, that would be called peer pressure, and while in some circumstances such behavior is necessarily what is appropriate, by no stretch of the imagination should peer pressure *EVER* be a good enough reason to vote for somebody.
The only way the rules can ever change in a democratic society is when the voters do. Shifting the blame to a poor choice of "main" candidates is just finger pointing.
Agreed. There is, if I remember correctly, about a lunar mass worth of gold in the entire solar system alone. And there's about 20 times as much lead as gold. I think about 100 lunar masses worth of heavy elements is probably a better estimate.
There's about a lunar mass worth of gold *ALONE* in the solar system. And there are several heavier elements than gold that are much more common (lead coming to mind as one obvious one). I'dthink the mass of all of the heavy elements in the solar system combined is probably closer to 100 to 200 lunar masses.
The rules are fairly simple in that whoever gets the most votes wins. If enough people really didn't like the "main two candidates" (which by all appearances, generally seems to generally be the case already), and weren't so deathly afraid of what everybody else was going to vote like to risk voting for somebody they might have had more in common with, but think that they don't have a chance of winning (this one's a harder problem to tackle), that the nationwide cumulative effect of enough people of people voting for who they actually *want* could could very well lead to an independent could actually become president (albeit probably still with a minority share of the total votes).
But of course, it will never happen... because most voters spend far too much worrying about trying to cancel out votes for somebody they really *don't* want in... which is thinking more about how other people vote than how one really wants to vote themselves... and ultimately extremely silly way to exercise a right that as directly as possible puts citizens in charge of who will form their next government.
The only advantage this style of voting has that I can see is that it doesn't take much effort... plus, one doesn't overly have to worry about feeling accountable for how things turn out afterwards if the person they vote for gets in and happens to start implementing undesirable policies, since such a vote is not really a consequence of a persons' own freely made choice, but instead more of a reactionary consequence to some outside influence that they perceived as a greater and more immediate threat. How can one really be held personally responsible for making what may turn out to a bad choice when at the time, the choice was only made in what seemed to be self-defense?
... for an event like that.
If it were really all over at that point, it would only be because a majority of voters who don't like either of the main two candidates will still only ever vote for one of them, choosing what they feel is the "lesser of two evils", and in particular, they will do this even *if* there was an independent that might have more closely represented their own views than either of the primary candidates.
But, a combination of apathy and a rather large helping of paranoia about "the wrong guy winning" overrides practically any chance that change through an independent party could actually ever happen in the USA.
It is the voters and the idiotic first-past-the-post system that are to blame. not the candidates.
Care to elaborate as to why that's so? You may find, in fact, that such a problem does not lie with a person who wears them at all.
I imagine it's because the people who do pay more for it feel that the product isn't inferior.
Actually, people *ARE* willing to bear those prices. The fact that many still quite happily pay those amounts is testament to that fact. While the numbers may be smaller than what they used to be, the conglomerates are far from any danger of needing to change their business model.
If somebody wearing equipment that can record you is sufficient reason for you to attack them, then you have anger management issues, and need counselling. That's not a fault in the technology.
As for the other responses, well, again that's not a flaw in the design of glass... that's a societal issue that arises because of false expectations that people have about privacy in public. If somebody can see you with their eyes in a public place, they are essentially recording you already in their brain, which is conceptually no different from being recorded by a device, unless one has intent to be duplicitous about what it was that they were doing.
I'm not suggesting that if you're doing nothing wrong you have nothing to hide, because everyone has things that they consider private... but I am saying that by definition "public" and "private" are opposites, and I don't really feel that one should have any expectation of privacy in a place that is open to the public. If one wants privacy, they should go someplace private.
The glasses do not fold, so they cannot just be put away in your pocket like sunglasses when you don't want to wear them. They come with a case that can keep them pretty safe, but the case won't fit in your pocket.
Battery life is abysmal. On the neighborhood of about 2 hours of use. The very concept of "wearable computing" does sort of lend itself to the notion of devices that can remain turned on at all times, and Glass falls short of this ideal by such a large factor that it is laughable. The battery life needs to be improved by at least a factor of 4.
Some lotteries *DO* cost $100 a ticket.
Again, they charge that much because they can... and people still buy them.
What they can afford to do is entirely irrelevant to how much they can get away with charging for it.
My point being, that people with money will spend it. And people with less money, I'm afraid, just aren't part of these conglomerates' target demographic, so they don't care if you or I think that the seasons cost too much.
Piracy also refers to the unauthorized copying of another person's works. The word has been used in this sense for about as long as copyright itself has existed... it is not something new.
Just a heads up.... words can have more than one meaning... and it's also entirely normal for definitions of words to evolve based on how they are actually used.