The point you're missing is that not only CAN they be replaced by machines, but they soon WILL BE replaced by machines. In fact robotic factories are already being build in China, because the machines are cheaper than even Chinese labor.
It's true, the government may step in to halt this, out of concern for keeping the population busy. But it hasn't yet, and it may well not. After all, it didn't step in to prohibit outsourcing jobs to Indonesia.
So what is your alternative for people who aren't allowed to develop their minds, and can't compete economicly with machines? Draft them into the army? That's just what we need. Larger armies sitting around waiting to be used.
Sorry, but that approach will not work. Because the voting system is rigged to favor a pair of political parties. If a majority was required to win, this wouldn't be so, but as it only requires a plurality, you can win, in a four party race with 25.00001% of the vote (as counted, I realize that due to the electoral college I'm not talking about popular vote).
This is the reason that Instant Runoff is a better voting system. It's not perfect (I prefer the Condorcet system) but it's sufficiently good, and it's easy to explain. It *would* destroy the two party system, to our immense benefit. And the corporations would need to payoff the legislators after the election, or would need to pay off a much larger number of candidates. Or, I suppose, they *could* be honest, but I'm having trouble stretching my mind that far. (N.B.: I'm not claiming that all corporations pay off politicians, or that all of the ones that do do it without being blackmailed. MS didn't bribe politicians significantly until after they faced anti-trust charges. Then they did, and the charges were essentially dropped. [FWIW, MS was clearly guilty, but that also clearly wasn't the reason either for they charges, or for dropping them.])
There's the problem of the difference between libertarian philosophy and the Libertarian party. I'm generally in favor of libertarian philosophy, though I'm certainly not "small government" enough to really qualify. But last time around the Libertarian party really was pretty much "I'm alright Jack,...". So that's not an unfair characterization.
That said, I have my doubts that the "libertarian philosophy" could be applied in a workable way in a world of dense populations and fast transport. It sort of works if you know your neighbors (though even then it can lead to atrocities when even a small gang of authoritarians invade). So there needs to be a governmental structure. And I also believe in various public goods (streets & roads, water, electricity, communications, defense, environmental protection, civil rights, etc.). What I don't believe in is centralization of power. And I believe in strong penalties for the abuse of power that are enforceable and enforced.
So there isn't a single political party that represents my beliefs. Not one. The Libertarians address some of the problems with the current system. The Greens address other problems. It's not quite a disjoint set, but there isn't that much overlap. Neither one would be satisfactory, but either would be better than what we've had for the last 40 years. (I can't speak about earlier, because history tends to be selective reporting that favors the powerful, even if there are some exceptions. E.g., was it proper for FDR to mousetrap the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor? Lots of reasonable arguments on both sides. Nobody really has enough information to make decisions except, PERHAPS, some of the people who lived through the period. My father thought so, and so did my wife's father. They were there, I wasn't. In fact my father was AT Pearl Harbor during the attack, which gives him more rights than most to an opinion.)
And I also suspect that before information systems became readily available, decentralization of power would have been impractical. But it's practical now. The problem is, it's hard to get from here to there. (Think of it as trying to tunnel through a quantum barrier. The new state might be stable, but the transition is quite unlikely.)
Well, I looked at LaTex via KLyx awhile ago, and it wasn't what I want. Sorry. Mainly I want things to work the way they work in Open/Libre Office. I just want a few extensions.
I do agree that LaTex can do what I want. So can Scribus, and I don't want to use that, either. And Scribus wouldn't require and extensive learning curve.
OTOH, I may be being unfair. It was quite awhile ago that I looked at KLyx (which I'm assuming is the same program as LyX). So I'll give it another look, just to be certain. But since most of what I need is word processing rather than page layout, I have my doubts. (Still, I've got a couple of other reasons for learning LaTex, even if they aren't quite strong enough to get me to actually do it, so I'll give it another look.)
Maybe. And maybe I just haven't used OpenOffice diligently enough. But I prefer the section tags of Word 98 to OpenOffice. I can't talk about any later versions of MSWord, however, as I've never used them. (And at that point MSWord was going downhill from version to version. The best version of MSWord I ever used was a version that I used on a Mac LC II. In many ways it was superior to the current version of Open Office (if you got the correct version...prior and later versions tended to crash unexpectedly).
OTOH, I can imagine scenarios where the page formats would be quite useful. I just don't encounter them.
The automation *is* sometimes annoying. But for that on in particular the FIRST thing I'd try is an underlined tab, with the tab positioned where I wanted the underline to end.
OTOH, as another answer said, you can just turn off the automation. I have some of it turned off already, as it was just too annoying. Other parts I find quite useful, and I would bet that which parts annoy different people is quite different. (I don't like it's automatically correcting capitalizations, as I find that most of it's "corrections" are incorrect. So I turned that feature off.)
1) I want better support for indexes. And in specific I want to be able to maintain several DIFFERENT indexes in the same document. (Think Alphabetic index, index of dates, index of places, etc.)
2) I want bettersupport for tables of contents. And in specific I want to be able to have several different tables of contents in the same document. (Think Table of contents, list of figures, etc.)
The difference between tables of contents and indexes is that indexes are sorted by name. Tables of contents by order within the document.
N.B.: This *MAY* be possible in Open/Libre Office. If so I haven't understood how. So it could just be a problem with interface. (I seem to remember creating a document with several indexes, but I don't currently know how to do it.)
3) I'd *like* to be able to specify things like index entries via markup. A Macintosh word processor a couple of decades ago allowed.i. when formatted as "hidden text" to initiate an index entry. but HTML or XML style markup would be perfectly acceptable, but note that this isn't to handle things like bold (though that *could* be done the same way) but rather tags for the word processor to pickup and use, like "start of header 1" or "end of header text". Naturally this would need to be "hideable" so that like other "invisible characters" you didn't see it if you didn't want to. And it wouldn't EVER need to be printable.
I realize that request 3 is a step away from WYSIWYG, which is one reason it should have optional visibility. But the ability to hand edit such things is often much more convenient than manipulating them via GUI. (And also it often isn't. So don't cripple one function to support the other.)
Another thing I'd like to do is print on quarter sheets, with the text rotated properly to allow the pages to be french folded. Currently this requires a page layout program, and must be manually done. (Or perhaps I don't really understand the page layout program. This is only an occasional requirement after all. I need to do this maybe 2-3 times/year. But then I often need to do it quickly.)
Anyway, that's not needed for a shortcut. Just a simple shell script will suffice. You can also attach an icon to it and stick it in your taskbar. No need for a URL to launch a local application.
N.B.: This comment may not apply to gnome3. I've heard some pretty strange stories about the built-in limitations that *it* has. (No task bar? You're kidding, right?)
Actually, my thought was "OK, now China picks up a bit more business."
I suppose they *could* build their own, but I doubt that there's only one supplier, and I doubt that China would trust a western country will something so essential to government operations. But China is large enough that it's reasonable to build their own. Which means that it's reasonable to sell them for increased profit (in some form, not necessarily cash).
OTOH, check out China's concept of foreign aid. The US etc. gives or loans money, which needs to be spent on US etc. corporate goods. China gives projects, which they build. (Local labor usually is minor.) Then there's this useful project already there, which requires help from China to keep running. It benefit China in a few other ways, too. This does cause local resentment, as locals can't get hired to do the work (except as low level workers), but not to the extent that US loans do, which need to be paid back, and often result in local "austerity measures" being forced on a country that is already nearly broke and operating on a shoestring. And it's cheap for China, compared to the costs to the western governments of equivalent help. (Of course, in the west many financial groups get large payoffs, which the Chinese approach doesn't provide. They take their payment in other ways.)
So if a typical scenario happens, China will offer to install locally a currency printing press, in return for some concessions. (Probably political rather than financial, but no guarantees. They could also ask for resources.) They will install the plant, but it will be dependent on Chinese parts and Chinese experts. No overt threats will be made, even afterwards, but it will be clear to the government that they have been partially 0wn3d. And they will blame the Europeans for forcing them into the position.
It may not play out that way, but if it does you read it here first.
Have you paid any attention to what goes on in those courthouses? They are great and expensive legal games played there. I didn't find much justice. (Some, admittedly. Especially in non-controversial cases.)
If you think that the laws are just, and that having expensive lawyers means you are probably innocent, then you will see justice in those courthouses. If you have a different definition of justice, you might see *some* justice, between people with equal power. But often what you will see won't match justice even under the rules of the laws. Often what you will see is a ritualized form of "forte main" (see Norman law). The word of a police officer is trusted over that of several citizens, even when it is to the officer's advantage to make a statement accusing the prisoner. Sometimes it's more blatant. Often if the officer has killed someone, he doesn't even need to defend himself in court, but only at a closed administrative hearing of the police department. And you don't want me to go on at length about various illegal tactics used by the police, and the lack of repercussions when proven. (And given the nature of these offenses, proof is *probably* infrequently available. No good estimate can be made, however, because such data as is created is hidden. And, naturally, most often no data is kept.)
I am strongly of the opinion that all police should be required to be wearing a working lifelog (camera + mike) the entire time that they are acting officially. And that when they are acting unofficially, they should not be given any more benefit of the doubt than citizens actually are. (Not what it is claimed they are given. When a guy is shot in the back several times by a police officer who claims he was fleeing the crime, there's not much benefit of the doubt.)
No, it's not asceticism. Asceticism seems to flourish in a similar environment, but it's a sadistic kind of dominance game, which is definitely not what asceticism is. I don't think there's really a term for it, though I supose psychaitrists might have one, and it might be listed in the DSM. I suspect, though, that it's considered "normal".
Someone else. I'm dithering between Green and Libertarian, but the main point to not to vote for either of those liars. (Even if whoever I vote for won, congress would ensure that they couldn't do anything.)
OTOH, I'm having trouble believing that Romney would be quite as bad as he's claiming he would be. I suspect that his backers would ensure that his more radical programs are dropped. Just as Obama's were and will be.
OTTH, both of them are liars through and through. You can't trust them to mean a thing they say. And each of them promises so many different things that they can pick and chose which promises to keep, and end up claiming to have kept their campaign pledges, even when they only did the things you were really hoping they'd forget.
Voting for either of them would REALLY be throwing my vote away, even in comparison to voting third party.
Given that this is being done by Anonymous, I think it's fairly clear that they don't trust the government. Asking people who don't trust the government to depend on it to provide justice is, well, a bit unreasonable.
This doesn't mean I think they were right to do what they did. I'm not well enough informed to have an opinion. I *suspect* that they rushed to judgement, without sufficient evidence. OTOH, I've seen little that persuades me that the government is even interested in justice, though they *do* generally prefer that you follow their rules. (Unless it's to their advantage to have something to hang over your head.)
FWIW, I tend to see those who are sexually promiscuous as probably carriers of sexually transmitted diseases. Which are becoming increasingly hard to treat, as they become resistant to more and more antibiotics. I wonder why no vaccines have been developed.
Sorry, but check out St. Paul and some of the other pre-protestant christian saints. The psychosis isn't original to the Puritans. They weren't even close to being the worst.
OTOH, you can even find similar beliefs among Buddhists and (I think) even Taoists. I've never encountered it among followers of Shinto, but I haven't known many. So blaming it on any particular religion isn't fair. It's better to say that it's a mental problem endemic among humans, and that certain social forms, among them certain religions, tend to foster it.
Well, there's this generally lethal variant of the flu that can be transmitted through the air (no contact required). It already exists, and has been proven lethal among ferrets (which were chosen because their reaction to the flu is generally the same as that of humans).
If there's a vaccine against it, I haven't heard of it. It's reportedly 100% lethal, but I don't believe that. I think they just tried it on too small a group. So say it's only 99% lethal.
And it already exists! This is the one that researchers wanted to publish the genetic code of in a paper, but got talked out of. So no need for exotic inventions.
Have you ever heard about "dead zones" caused, largely, by runoffs of agricultural fertilizer?
What happens is the fertilizer causes an algae bloom, then is dies and decays, and uses most of the oxygen in the water. Most sealife can't live in such areas. There are huge ones in the Gulf, off New England, and, IIRC, one off Seattle. (Sewage is fertilizer, after all.)
This could be very bad. But if they don't use too much fertilizer, it might be ok. I don't, however, think it's worth ANY carbon credits. There is little evidence that much of the carbon captured remains out of the atmosphere for very long. There is some evidence that it doesn't. (Small scale experiments only, AFAIK. So perhaps the effects don't scale. Particularly if it DOES cause another dead zone, because the lack of life in the dead zone keeps the carbon from being eaten, which is what mainly happened in the small scale experiments.)
You overstate a basically correct case. Some carbon credits actually do work to generate offset. Some do, but not as much as they claim. Many are, indeed, pure scam.
There is no way to properly regulate carbon credits, and the people who designed the system knew it, and intended ti. A carbon tax was the correct approach. It is reasonably enforceable with only a small bureaucracy needed. But it didn't provide as many opportunities for hidden (and obscured) corruption. Guess which passed.
But the relationship between serum level of HDL and LDL, and what you eat, is rather indirect. You don't directly absorb the large fat molecules, you digest them into much smaller pieces. Cholesterol is made by the body. Etc.
FWIW, I can find NO effective way to raise my HDL. Both my HDL and my LDL are abnormally low, to the point where it is considered dangerous. (Is it? I don't know. Apparently my metabolism is sufficiently unusual that it probably doesn't match the people they studied.) But diet didn't work, exercise didn't work, niacin didn't work, etc.
From *my* particular point of view, the thing to do is to find something that at least "sort of" works for you, and do that. Don't expect that what works for you, though, will also work for your wife or husband. For me what works is a personally created (in process) diet based on the Atkins diet. And some mild exercise. It still hasn't raised my cholesterol, but outside of that it seems to "work for me". And it doesn't bother me, much, to nearly totally abstain from carbohydrates, though recently I've decided that brocolli is too high in carbs, so I'm going to need to cut back on that. That does bother me a bit. (Note I said "cut back", not "cut out".) I would be surprised if my diet suited many people. I know that my wife couldn't stand it.
*But* I also still don't know what you mean by demonized. My diet is sufficiently unusual that it surprises many people, but nobody has told me that I shouldn't eat the way I do. Many people are surprised that I now take whipping cream in my coffee. (I am too. I despise the taste.) But nobody has tried to exorcise my coffee. Nobody has even told me not to do it. (Including my doctor... though she did send me to a dietician to ensure that I wasn't missing anything vital.)
Sorry, the sample size is too small for anyone seriously interested to draw any reasonable statistical conclusions. I didn't even bother to calculate his probable error, as it's clearly too large to take seriously.
Sorry, but although the Republican rhetoric hates government, the Republican politicians only hate the government while they are out of power. Many of the larger increases of government power have developed under the aegiss of Republican administrations. And these aren't limited to directly military build-up, but include such things as "Homeland Security". (Do note, however, that the Democrats on regaining power never [almost never?] remove the increments to governmental power that the Republicans emplace. Likewise the Republicans on gaining power tend to not remove those increments to government power that the Democrats emplace.)
On what grounds do you claim saturated fat has been "demonised"? It's quite possible you are correct, since I don't have a good definition of the term.
OTOH, saturated is definitely bad for most people eating a normal US diet. Possibly not as bad a trans-fats, but that's a different argument. And I've heard reason to believe that if you are currently losing weight, then saturated fat is also not bad for you. (Except, of course, that it tends to slow the rate at which you lose weight...unless it doesn't because it satiates.)
But this doesn't necessarily mean that it hasn't been demonised. There are quite reasonable grounds for saying that it has been. Some people, e.g., may be afraid to get it on their skin.
A note of general agreement, plus a few other consideration:
Well, assuming you want to ability to extract as much energy as you can from the system isn't unreasonable. It's just that there are always costs to efficiently collecting energy, and at some level those costs will exceed the benefits. That said, if we assume nano-machinery, etc. the limit may well be very high.
One question may be whether or not they have (mainly) uploaded. If they haven't, then some appropriate temperature will need to be maintained for the non-uploaded...but possibly only over a small area, and outside the shell...so that may well be undetectable. But if you assume that it's *not* an upload civilization, then temperatures will be affected over a wide area, and should be detectable. (The kind of civilization that builds a Dyson sphere doesn't have a small population.) Since colder temperatures slow chemical reactions, it may well be reasonable to conclude that the ones that are currently present are based on liquid water, or something even hotter. But I think that before one builds a Dyson sphere, one will generally become an upload civilization, which means that the temperature only needs to satisfy the needs of computers...and that can be a lot more flexible.
So I don't think they'll find what they're looking for. But by looking for something, they may well find something, even if it isn't what they're looking for.
Slashdot Mirror
That's not the way to format an SQL injection attack.
And I'm not going to try, because it MIGHT work.
The question in my mind is "Was this computer generated, or did the poster attempt to impersonate a computer generated post?".
I can't decide. If it's computer generated, good job. If it's and impersonation of a computer, well, good job.
The point you're missing is that not only CAN they be replaced by machines, but they soon WILL BE replaced by machines. In fact robotic factories are already being build in China, because the machines are cheaper than even Chinese labor.
It's true, the government may step in to halt this, out of concern for keeping the population busy. But it hasn't yet, and it may well not. After all, it didn't step in to prohibit outsourcing jobs to Indonesia.
So what is your alternative for people who aren't allowed to develop their minds, and can't compete economicly with machines? Draft them into the army? That's just what we need. Larger armies sitting around waiting to be used.
Sorry, but that approach will not work. Because the voting system is rigged to favor a pair of political parties. If a majority was required to win, this wouldn't be so, but as it only requires a plurality, you can win, in a four party race with 25.00001% of the vote (as counted, I realize that due to the electoral college I'm not talking about popular vote).
This is the reason that Instant Runoff is a better voting system. It's not perfect (I prefer the Condorcet system) but it's sufficiently good, and it's easy to explain. It *would* destroy the two party system, to our immense benefit. And the corporations would need to payoff the legislators after the election, or would need to pay off a much larger number of candidates. Or, I suppose, they *could* be honest, but I'm having trouble stretching my mind that far. (N.B.: I'm not claiming that all corporations pay off politicians, or that all of the ones that do do it without being blackmailed. MS didn't bribe politicians significantly until after they faced anti-trust charges. Then they did, and the charges were essentially dropped. [FWIW, MS was clearly guilty, but that also clearly wasn't the reason either for they charges, or for dropping them.])
There's the problem of the difference between libertarian philosophy and the Libertarian party. I'm generally in favor of libertarian philosophy, though I'm certainly not "small government" enough to really qualify. But last time around the Libertarian party really was pretty much "I'm alright Jack, ...". So that's not an unfair characterization.
That said, I have my doubts that the "libertarian philosophy" could be applied in a workable way in a world of dense populations and fast transport. It sort of works if you know your neighbors (though even then it can lead to atrocities when even a small gang of authoritarians invade). So there needs to be a governmental structure. And I also believe in various public goods (streets & roads, water, electricity, communications, defense, environmental protection, civil rights, etc.). What I don't believe in is centralization of power. And I believe in strong penalties for the abuse of power that are enforceable and enforced.
So there isn't a single political party that represents my beliefs. Not one. The Libertarians address some of the problems with the current system. The Greens address other problems. It's not quite a disjoint set, but there isn't that much overlap. Neither one would be satisfactory, but either would be better than what we've had for the last 40 years. (I can't speak about earlier, because history tends to be selective reporting that favors the powerful, even if there are some exceptions. E.g., was it proper for FDR to mousetrap the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor? Lots of reasonable arguments on both sides. Nobody really has enough information to make decisions except, PERHAPS, some of the people who lived through the period. My father thought so, and so did my wife's father. They were there, I wasn't. In fact my father was AT Pearl Harbor during the attack, which gives him more rights than most to an opinion.)
And I also suspect that before information systems became readily available, decentralization of power would have been impractical. But it's practical now. The problem is, it's hard to get from here to there. (Think of it as trying to tunnel through a quantum barrier. The new state might be stable, but the transition is quite unlikely.)
Well, I looked at LaTex via KLyx awhile ago, and it wasn't what I want. Sorry. Mainly I want things to work the way they work in Open/Libre Office. I just want a few extensions.
I do agree that LaTex can do what I want. So can Scribus, and I don't want to use that, either. And Scribus wouldn't require and extensive learning curve.
OTOH, I may be being unfair. It was quite awhile ago that I looked at KLyx (which I'm assuming is the same program as LyX). So I'll give it another look, just to be certain. But since most of what I need is word processing rather than page layout, I have my doubts. (Still, I've got a couple of other reasons for learning LaTex, even if they aren't quite strong enough to get me to actually do it, so I'll give it another look.)
Maybe. And maybe I just haven't used OpenOffice diligently enough. But I prefer the section tags of Word 98 to OpenOffice. I can't talk about any later versions of MSWord, however, as I've never used them. (And at that point MSWord was going downhill from version to version. The best version of MSWord I ever used was a version that I used on a Mac LC II. In many ways it was superior to the current version of Open Office (if you got the correct version...prior and later versions tended to crash unexpectedly).
OTOH, I can imagine scenarios where the page formats would be quite useful. I just don't encounter them.
The automation *is* sometimes annoying. But for that on in particular the FIRST thing I'd try is an underlined tab, with the tab positioned where I wanted the underline to end.
OTOH, as another answer said, you can just turn off the automation. I have some of it turned off already, as it was just too annoying. Other parts I find quite useful, and I would bet that which parts annoy different people is quite different. (I don't like it's automatically correcting capitalizations, as I find that most of it's "corrections" are incorrect. So I turned that feature off.)
OK.
1) I want better support for indexes. And in specific I want to be able to maintain several DIFFERENT indexes in the same document. (Think Alphabetic index, index of dates, index of places, etc.)
2) I want bettersupport for tables of contents. And in specific I want to be able to have several different tables of contents in the same document. (Think Table of contents, list of figures, etc.)
The difference between tables of contents and indexes is that indexes are sorted by name. Tables of contents by order within the document.
N.B.: This *MAY* be possible in Open/Libre Office. If so I haven't understood how. So it could just be a problem with interface. (I seem to remember creating a document with several indexes, but I don't currently know how to do it.)
3) I'd *like* to be able to specify things like index entries via markup. A Macintosh word processor a couple of decades ago allowed .i. when formatted as "hidden text" to initiate an index entry. but HTML or XML style markup would be perfectly acceptable, but note that this isn't to handle things like bold (though that *could* be done the same way) but rather tags for the word processor to pickup and use, like "start of header 1" or "end of header text". Naturally this would need to be "hideable" so that like other "invisible characters" you didn't see it if you didn't want to. And it wouldn't EVER need to be printable.
I realize that request 3 is a step away from WYSIWYG, which is one reason it should have optional visibility. But the ability to hand edit such things is often much more convenient than manipulating them via GUI. (And also it often isn't. So don't cripple one function to support the other.)
Another thing I'd like to do is print on quarter sheets, with the text rotated properly to allow the pages to be french folded. Currently this requires a page layout program, and must be manually done. (Or perhaps I don't really understand the page layout program. This is only an occasional requirement after all. I need to do this maybe 2-3 times/year. But then I often need to do it quickly.)
Anyway, that's not needed for a shortcut. Just a simple shell script will suffice. You can also attach an icon to it and stick it in your taskbar. No need for a URL to launch a local application.
N.B.: This comment may not apply to gnome3. I've heard some pretty strange stories about the built-in limitations that *it* has. (No task bar? You're kidding, right?)
Actually, my thought was "OK, now China picks up a bit more business."
I suppose they *could* build their own, but I doubt that there's only one supplier, and I doubt that China would trust a western country will something so essential to government operations. But China is large enough that it's reasonable to build their own. Which means that it's reasonable to sell them for increased profit (in some form, not necessarily cash).
OTOH, check out China's concept of foreign aid. The US etc. gives or loans money, which needs to be spent on US etc. corporate goods. China gives projects, which they build. (Local labor usually is minor.) Then there's this useful project already there, which requires help from China to keep running. It benefit China in a few other ways, too. This does cause local resentment, as locals can't get hired to do the work (except as low level workers), but not to the extent that US loans do, which need to be paid back, and often result in local "austerity measures" being forced on a country that is already nearly broke and operating on a shoestring. And it's cheap for China, compared to the costs to the western governments of equivalent help. (Of course, in the west many financial groups get large payoffs, which the Chinese approach doesn't provide. They take their payment in other ways.)
So if a typical scenario happens, China will offer to install locally a currency printing press, in return for some concessions. (Probably political rather than financial, but no guarantees. They could also ask for resources.) They will install the plant, but it will be dependent on Chinese parts and Chinese experts. No overt threats will be made, even afterwards, but it will be clear to the government that they have been partially 0wn3d. And they will blame the Europeans for forcing them into the position.
It may not play out that way, but if it does you read it here first.
Have you paid any attention to what goes on in those courthouses? They are great and expensive legal games played there. I didn't find much justice. (Some, admittedly. Especially in non-controversial cases.)
If you think that the laws are just, and that having expensive lawyers means you are probably innocent, then you will see justice in those courthouses. If you have a different definition of justice, you might see *some* justice, between people with equal power. But often what you will see won't match justice even under the rules of the laws. Often what you will see is a ritualized form of "forte main" (see Norman law). The word of a police officer is trusted over that of several citizens, even when it is to the officer's advantage to make a statement accusing the prisoner. Sometimes it's more blatant. Often if the officer has killed someone, he doesn't even need to defend himself in court, but only at a closed administrative hearing of the police department. And you don't want me to go on at length about various illegal tactics used by the police, and the lack of repercussions when proven. (And given the nature of these offenses, proof is *probably* infrequently available. No good estimate can be made, however, because such data as is created is hidden. And, naturally, most often no data is kept.)
I am strongly of the opinion that all police should be required to be wearing a working lifelog (camera + mike) the entire time that they are acting officially. And that when they are acting unofficially, they should not be given any more benefit of the doubt than citizens actually are. (Not what it is claimed they are given. When a guy is shot in the back several times by a police officer who claims he was fleeing the crime, there's not much benefit of the doubt.)
No, it's not asceticism. Asceticism seems to flourish in a similar environment, but it's a sadistic kind of dominance game, which is definitely not what asceticism is. I don't think there's really a term for it, though I supose psychaitrists might have one, and it might be listed in the DSM. I suspect, though, that it's considered "normal".
Someone else. I'm dithering between Green and Libertarian, but the main point to not to vote for either of those liars. (Even if whoever I vote for won, congress would ensure that they couldn't do anything.)
OTOH, I'm having trouble believing that Romney would be quite as bad as he's claiming he would be. I suspect that his backers would ensure that his more radical programs are dropped. Just as Obama's were and will be.
OTTH, both of them are liars through and through. You can't trust them to mean a thing they say. And each of them promises so many different things that they can pick and chose which promises to keep, and end up claiming to have kept their campaign pledges, even when they only did the things you were really hoping they'd forget.
Voting for either of them would REALLY be throwing my vote away, even in comparison to voting third party.
Given that this is being done by Anonymous, I think it's fairly clear that they don't trust the government. Asking people who don't trust the government to depend on it to provide justice is, well, a bit unreasonable.
This doesn't mean I think they were right to do what they did. I'm not well enough informed to have an opinion. I *suspect* that they rushed to judgement, without sufficient evidence. OTOH, I've seen little that persuades me that the government is even interested in justice, though they *do* generally prefer that you follow their rules. (Unless it's to their advantage to have something to hang over your head.)
FWIW, I tend to see those who are sexually promiscuous as probably carriers of sexually transmitted diseases. Which are becoming increasingly hard to treat, as they become resistant to more and more antibiotics. I wonder why no vaccines have been developed.
Sorry, but check out St. Paul and some of the other pre-protestant christian saints. The psychosis isn't original to the Puritans. They weren't even close to being the worst.
OTOH, you can even find similar beliefs among Buddhists and (I think) even Taoists. I've never encountered it among followers of Shinto, but I haven't known many. So blaming it on any particular religion isn't fair. It's better to say that it's a mental problem endemic among humans, and that certain social forms, among them certain religions, tend to foster it.
Well, there's this generally lethal variant of the flu that can be transmitted through the air (no contact required). It already exists, and has been proven lethal among ferrets (which were chosen because their reaction to the flu is generally the same as that of humans).
If there's a vaccine against it, I haven't heard of it. It's reportedly 100% lethal, but I don't believe that. I think they just tried it on too small a group. So say it's only 99% lethal.
And it already exists! This is the one that researchers wanted to publish the genetic code of in a paper, but got talked out of. So no need for exotic inventions.
Have you ever heard about "dead zones" caused, largely, by runoffs of agricultural fertilizer?
What happens is the fertilizer causes an algae bloom, then is dies and decays, and uses most of the oxygen in the water. Most sealife can't live in such areas. There are huge ones in the Gulf, off New England, and, IIRC, one off Seattle. (Sewage is fertilizer, after all.)
This could be very bad. But if they don't use too much fertilizer, it might be ok. I don't, however, think it's worth ANY carbon credits. There is little evidence that much of the carbon captured remains out of the atmosphere for very long. There is some evidence that it doesn't. (Small scale experiments only, AFAIK. So perhaps the effects don't scale. Particularly if it DOES cause another dead zone, because the lack of life in the dead zone keeps the carbon from being eaten, which is what mainly happened in the small scale experiments.)
You overstate a basically correct case. Some carbon credits actually do work to generate offset. Some do, but not as much as they claim. Many are, indeed, pure scam.
There is no way to properly regulate carbon credits, and the people who designed the system knew it, and intended ti. A carbon tax was the correct approach. It is reasonably enforceable with only a small bureaucracy needed. But it didn't provide as many opportunities for hidden (and obscured) corruption. Guess which passed.
But the relationship between serum level of HDL and LDL, and what you eat, is rather indirect. You don't directly absorb the large fat molecules, you digest them into much smaller pieces. Cholesterol is made by the body. Etc.
FWIW, I can find NO effective way to raise my HDL. Both my HDL and my LDL are abnormally low, to the point where it is considered dangerous. (Is it? I don't know. Apparently my metabolism is sufficiently unusual that it probably doesn't match the people they studied.) But diet didn't work, exercise didn't work, niacin didn't work, etc.
From *my* particular point of view, the thing to do is to find something that at least "sort of" works for you, and do that. Don't expect that what works for you, though, will also work for your wife or husband. For me what works is a personally created (in process) diet based on the Atkins diet. And some mild exercise. It still hasn't raised my cholesterol, but outside of that it seems to "work for me". And it doesn't bother me, much, to nearly totally abstain from carbohydrates, though recently I've decided that brocolli is too high in carbs, so I'm going to need to cut back on that. That does bother me a bit. (Note I said "cut back", not "cut out".) I would be surprised if my diet suited many people. I know that my wife couldn't stand it.
*But* I also still don't know what you mean by demonized. My diet is sufficiently unusual that it surprises many people, but nobody has told me that I shouldn't eat the way I do. Many people are surprised that I now take whipping cream in my coffee. (I am too. I despise the taste.) But nobody has tried to exorcise my coffee. Nobody has even told me not to do it. (Including my doctor ... though she did send me to a dietician to ensure that I wasn't missing anything vital.)
Sorry, the sample size is too small for anyone seriously interested to draw any reasonable statistical conclusions. I didn't even bother to calculate his probable error, as it's clearly too large to take seriously.
Sorry, but although the Republican rhetoric hates government, the Republican politicians only hate the government while they are out of power. Many of the larger increases of government power have developed under the aegiss of Republican administrations. And these aren't limited to directly military build-up, but include such things as "Homeland Security". (Do note, however, that the Democrats on regaining power never [almost never?] remove the increments to governmental power that the Republicans emplace. Likewise the Republicans on gaining power tend to not remove those increments to government power that the Democrats emplace.)
On what grounds do you claim saturated fat has been "demonised"? It's quite possible you are correct, since I don't have a good definition of the term.
OTOH, saturated is definitely bad for most people eating a normal US diet. Possibly not as bad a trans-fats, but that's a different argument. And I've heard reason to believe that if you are currently losing weight, then saturated fat is also not bad for you. (Except, of course, that it tends to slow the rate at which you lose weight...unless it doesn't because it satiates.)
But this doesn't necessarily mean that it hasn't been demonised. There are quite reasonable grounds for saying that it has been. Some people, e.g., may be afraid to get it on their skin.
A note of general agreement, plus a few other consideration:
Well, assuming you want to ability to extract as much energy as you can from the system isn't unreasonable. It's just that there are always costs to efficiently collecting energy, and at some level those costs will exceed the benefits. That said, if we assume nano-machinery, etc. the limit may well be very high.
One question may be whether or not they have (mainly) uploaded. If they haven't, then some appropriate temperature will need to be maintained for the non-uploaded...but possibly only over a small area, and outside the shell...so that may well be undetectable. But if you assume that it's *not* an upload civilization, then temperatures will be affected over a wide area, and should be detectable. (The kind of civilization that builds a Dyson sphere doesn't have a small population.) Since colder temperatures slow chemical reactions, it may well be reasonable to conclude that the ones that are currently present are based on liquid water, or something even hotter. But I think that before one builds a Dyson sphere, one will generally become an upload civilization, which means that the temperature only needs to satisfy the needs of computers...and that can be a lot more flexible.
So I don't think they'll find what they're looking for. But by looking for something, they may well find something, even if it isn't what they're looking for.