BSG actually handled that scene pretty well IMO. They stated up front that while the decompression would suck, people had been known to survive hard vacuum for a minute or two. That said, I did take one issue with how the depicted the aftermath of hard vacuum. While your body won't burst, you WILL burst every single capillary on the surface of your skin. That isn't lethal, but it certainly would be unpleasant. More to the point, it would leave you with a giant body wide hickey. Think of what an overly enthusiastic kiss on your neck can do with that minor vacuum. Now imagine exposing your entire body to a near perfect vacuum. You might live, but you would look funny for a little while.
If Iraqis are willing to turn to racist ethnic militias to keep the their rival racist militias from killing them, I bet they could tolerate the invasion of privacy of a few cameras.
Nurture certainly has an extremely strong influence on the 'type' of spirituality that one has, but there is a pretty good argument that a feeling of spirituality itself is pretty common among humans. Nearly every single human group that we have been able to observe through archeology or directly has had some sort of spiritualism.
As to what causes spiritual beliefs, there are a pile of possibilities.
1) There could be something to be spiritual about. There are god/gods/spirits and we have a limited perception in them that results in the verities of religions that we have.
2) There is some sort of survival advantage of being spiritual. Maybe it makes you a happier person, maybe you feel the need to be a socially better person so you are not punished when you die. Whatever the case, there might be some very direct benefit to being spiritual and so the majority of humans innately have this spiritual sense.
3) Spiritualism could be a side effect of some other evolutionary advantage. Humans are horrifically skilled seeing patterns. Hell, we are basically gloried pattern recognition machines that blow the collective computing power in the world out of the water. One consequence of such an ability is that we see patterns in everything, even stuff that doesn't really have a pattern. We seek answers and to divine explanations for everything, and as a result a common answer to problems we can't answer is to believe that there must be a higher power at work. Believing in a lightening god is only silly today because we know what causes lightening and it has passed out of the realm of the unexplainable.
[quote]Sony has no right to tell another website what they may or may not publish.[/quote]
Sony didn't tell them what they can and can not publish. They just told them that there would be a consequence of they did publish... namely they would not get anything other then press releases from Sony from that point on. That is a perfectly fair thing to do.
I don't know what Sony said exactly to the blog, but what they should have done was offer a deal. In exchange for not publishing the rumor, Sony should have offered an exclusive interview or something like that. This is general what is done. The deal is "okay, you got us, but don't tell and we will reward you. Tell, and we will punish you." Most journalist are happy to take such deals.
Both sides are playing fair. Sony doesn't need to be nice to journalist/bloggers that leak information (even if they didn't get it from Sony), and bloggers/journalist don't need abide by requests of a corporation.
The issue is that if you get 300 resumes from a job posting on HotJobs, how the hell do you weed out 290 of those resumes? One quick and easy way is to start dumping people without certs. Are you dumping lots of qualified people? Sure, but you can almost guarantee that the 50 or 100 resumes you have left are on average more qualified then the average resume you just tossed.
Finding a job is a really painful process, but don't forget that it is a pain in the ass for the person looking to get the job filled as well. The first pass through any stack of resumes is usually a cruel and inhumane tossing of resumes based upon tiny and minor details. Endeavoring to make sure that there is not a reason to toss your resume at a glance is a good thing. This sort of cruel treatment of resumes is a good reason to try and avoid job posting all together get jobs through contacts.
Almost all of Western Europe has either stagnant or shrinking populations. That isn't a sign of "too much" immigration. Western Europe's problem is that its social welfare system makes immigration a problem. Western Europe also struggles to assimilate immigration populations into their population. While it might be "too much" immigration for much of Western Europe's taste, it is certainly "too little" to keep Western Europe from developing some truly terrifying demographic problems that should be scaring the pants off of the citizens of these nations.
Well, the US is pretty damn big and has a large population. In terms of raw power, the US is pretty damn hard to top. That said, there are some Eastern European nations like Estonia who are really toying around with some truly alternative forms of government. While I doubt Estonia is ever going to drop the US to its knees, it could very well wield the power of a nation like Japan... which is not bad for a little Eastern European country that is smaller then most US states.
The big countries that have the mass to match the US pound for pound really just don't have their shit together. Western European nations are in the process of shedding off more population then they can afford to dump due to low population growth and low immigration. Europe is going into a death phase and their social system is not changing to keep up with the shifting demographics. The leaders of EU see the problem and are trying to get their shit together, but the people of Europe really want nothing to do with it. Sadly, due to the EU's current structure it only takes one nation to throw the wrench into the gears of reform. I am deeply skeptical that the EU is going to pull itself together and deal with the challenges facing it.
China, India, and Russia while certainly having the man power to be rivals to the US, but really are too shackled with government control, bureaucracy, and corruption to ever hope to match the US in the next few decades. They are just too big and massive to change direction. Nothing short of a political revolution can fix these nations.
The Middle East is FAR too socially dysfunctional to even dream of matching the US. They will be lucky to make it through the next decade or two without suffering the collapse of multiple governments and a genocide or three.
Africa, while mostly screwed up, does have some bright spots of hope. They are very much behind the rest of the world, but so was Korea, Taiwan, and Japan for much of history. That said, they really have the deck stacked against them, and most of Africa is such a mess that they stand little chance of getting a toe hold in the world economy.
The only nation that can take down the US is the US. The US could very well find itself in a death cycle with unadaptive social programs like Western Europe under the right conditions. Some might argue that the US is inching its way in that direction, but at the pace it is going, it is going to be a long time before the US gets there.
If the only thing you need to kick ass was mineral wealth, Japan should have just thrown themselves upon a sword and given up from day 1. Japan has absolutely no mineral wealth, nor does Hong Kong. Taiwan is pretty sparse in mineral wealth as well. Plenty of African nations are up to their necks in valuable things you can dig out of the ground.
Mineral wealth is nice, but it is hardly a deal maker. China has some serious, crippling problems that is going to keep it from being the magical fairy tail land that people hope for. The demographic imbalances of China in the male to female ratio are horrifying and an invitation to civil strife. China's bureaucracy is corrupt and crippling to industry. China is very lucky it has 1.2 billion people running around it, because unlike the US, China's xenophobia does a handy job preventing it from doing a world wide brain drain as the US is so notorious for. China's government has its hands so far up the ass of its own economy that one incompetent move on the government could spell disaster for the entire nation's economy. We saw and example of this yesterday when the Chinese stock market dumped 10% of its value on a rumor that the government was about to do something dumb.
China has some very sever problems. True, China is a big growth engine right now, but a lot of that has to do with the fact that China was so desperately poor in the past. The Chinese government has done some things right in opening up their markets. They have also managed to keep law and order (which set them well ahead of most of Africa) which counts for a lot. That said, China has some very sever organizational problems with their government. Unless China commits to a real restructuring of their government, I really don't fear all that much for the US position of #1 in the world economy.
Sure, I agree that DRM = teh sux00r, and if Jobs wants to spout off on how evil it is great. That said, I'll assume that Jobs, the head of a company with a product that is completely locked down by DRM that not only prevents copying, but also prevents using on any other device, is speaking to get headlines and drum up PR support. If Jobs wants to prove me other wise with something other then talk, awesome. Until he does more then grab headlines with empty talk though, I'll just assume that Jobs is just being a good marketer, and not a friend to people that are against DRM.
If Apple can not figure out how to offer two different formats, then they have some seriously incompetent software engineers. I mean hell, they currently offer movie files and music files... has offering up two different types of files destroy the fabric of the universe over at Apple? Get off defending Apple. Apple likes DRM because DRM is good for Apple. No one is forcing Apple to DRM indie labels other then Apple.
[quote]Or it could be that the big studios required Apple to put DRM on all songs regardless to avoid having to compete with DRM-free music.[/quote]
It could be, but it isn't. If they did, Apple could just merrily role their eyes and just hand over the contract that states they need to DRM all music, even music not owned by the record labels negotiating to the contract, to anti-trust lawyers and get whatever they want.
Apple's excuse for DRMing indie labels that don't want it is that 'it is hard' and it might open up 'exploits'. Yeah, they some how can magically offer up non-DRMed podcasts, but indie songs... well, that is just too hard.
Despite Jobs PR stunt, then reason why Apple has DRM is because it helps Apple. People, it isn't like this is new strategy on Apple's part. There is a reason why you can't install a Mac OS onto a non-Mac (without some serious hacking). It isn't because some evil computer equivalent to the RIAA forces them to demand that their hardware and software come bundled. Apple bundles hardware, software, and content because it is good for their business and locks people into their products. If you can't pull the two apart, it means that you have to throw out the entire package in order to replace it with a competitor.
Seriously people, open your eyes. It isn't like this is some new Apple strategy. This is the same old thing they have been doing for two decades. The only reason why Jobs is spouting off is because A) it is good PR and B) he knows there is not a slim chance in hell the RIAA will relent from their position. It is really safe to declare that you want a DRM free world, even if you don't, when you know that the powers that be will never let this DRM free world come to pass.
Uh, Howard Dean was not a quasi-libertarian... hence he stood a chance. Seriously, with Ron Paul's it is completely impossible for him to win the primaries, much less the presidency. A guy who advocates slashing all social programs doesn't stand a chance. I am not saying that all of his positions are bad, just that they are utterly impossible to win with in a world where promising universal health care ups your poll numbers. This is a reality, believing other wise is delusional. You can like and agree with the guy and still recognize that hell will freeze over long before he wins the nomination, much less the presidency.
Ron's Libertarian credentials start to slide on moral issues. From wikipedia...
Congressman Paul's position on gay marriage is that defining and recognizing marriages is not a federal or constitutional matter, but should be left as the States' right. In 1999 he voted for H.R. 2587 that banned gay couples adopting children in the District of Columbia.
He voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2004. In a 2004 speech before Congress he expressed support for the Federal Defense of Marriage Act and expressed his support for the Marriage Protection Act as an alternative to the FMA. As for immigration, I direct you to his own words. This is the opening paragraph.
More and more of my constituents are asking me when Congress will address the problem of illegal immigration. The public correctly perceives that neither political party has the courage to do what is necessary to prevent further erosion of both our border security and our national identity. As a result, immigration may be the sleeper issue that decides the 2008 presidential election. http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul269.html
Yes, he objects to illegal immigration in a welfare state, but that is hardly the limit of his objections. Fear of a loss of 'national identity' is hardly a libertarian stance.
I consider myself libertarian leaning, but the libertarians have two very large problems.
First, people like Ron Paul. Libertarians should be a advocating a liberal (in the traditional meaning of the word) society, not one where we pass laws on how you have to fuck in order to adopt a child. We don't need moral conservatives who want to use the power of the government to back up their ideology.
Second, the libertarian COULD provide a reasonable alternative. Instead, the Libertarian Party is a joke party. It takes the most extreme positions it can possibly take and as a result doesn't stand a slim chance in hell of ever getting representatives elected. I would much rather see the LP advocate pushing TOWARDS social and economic liberty, instead of demanding a libertarian utopian society to spring into existence all at once. Instead of demanding that crack cocaine be made legal tomorrow, they could work to repeal laws against marijuana. Instead of demanding that one social program or another be abolished, they could push for reform of these programs, like the wildly successful 90's and money saving welfare reform.
There are lots of people that are advocates of social and economic liberty that are disgusted by both parties, neither of which advocate social or economic liberty these days. There are lots of people that want more social and economic liberty, but who are not yet ready to see the entire state torn down and some sort of libertarian utopia magically appear in its place. I would rather see the LP actually work towards a goal, rather then serve as a joke taken about as seriously as the communist party.
The day Ron Paul wins the nomination, much less the presidency, is the day hell freezes over. Not only does his piss of anyone who is moderate, but he also manages the amazing feat of pissing off Libertarians who don't want a moral authoritarian obsessed with scapegoating immigration for the worlds ills. I consider myself a Libertarian leaning fellow, but I would vote for Hillary before I vote for Ron*.
*Unless the democrats have a majority in the congress, in which case I would laugh merrily as the two block and veto every thing that they try. Nothing would get done... which is preferable to the alternative (something getting done, poorly).
I'm surprised she's closest to you. I can't get past how wrong she is on Iraq and the Middle East in general. The flag burning and censorship crap bugs me as well. I really hate to stick up for Hillary because I loath the women, but liberals are far to hard on her for her Middle East policy. The only thing liberals hear when she speaks about the Middle East is that she voted for to authorize Bush to use force and that she is against pulling out immediately.
The truth is that when she voted for the resolution to authorize the war she started up front her reservations and her expectations. She stated pretty clearly that she was handing over the authorization so that Bush could bargain with a stick. She further went on to state that under no circumstance should the US go it alone, do it without UN support, or go in without a plan.
As far as he reluctance to pull out, I think the reasoning is pretty clear. She doesn't want to collapse the government there. She, rightly, doesn't want to be responsible for a Rwanda or Darfur style genocide... you know, the two genocides every complained that the US DIDN'T get involved in. She does want to get out, she doesn't mind if the Iraq's bleed a little as a result, but she doesn't want to rip the rug out from under them. She wants to withdraw slowly enough to keep the government stable and she wants to continue to train the military. She doesn't want the US to act as policemen, but she also doesn't want to kick over another government just because the US public is bored with war. She is against the surge, and she does want to start pulling out, just is just against doing it all at once and all but assuring a genocide.
There are a lot of reasons to hate Hillary. She doesn't give two shits about freedom of speech when it is politically inconvenient, as she showed with he support of the flag burning amendment and her support of desire to create a board of censorship to regulate video games. Her pandering to moral conservative should raise hackles with any good liberal. She also arguably has some serious personality issues where power might rate a little higher list then other things resulting in a husband with a good last name and a complete inability to keep his pant fly zipped around anything with a pulse.
So yeah, hate Hillary for lots of reasons, but I suggest taking a closer look at her Iraq war position before dismissing that one position out of hand.
Israel has had nukes for a long time without the entire Middle East taking up nuclear arms. Egypt and Saudi Arabia doesn't want nukes because Israel has them. No one in the Middle East is trying to actually compete with Israel. They just want Israel to stay the fuck away, and Israel wants them to do likewise. Israel is not looking to bring a revolution.
Iran on the other hand wants to export revolution. Most of the Sunni states in the Middle East have large Shiite minorities that they are terrified are going to start causing trouble. Iran wants them to start causing trouble, as is being seen with crystal clear clarity in Lebanon right now. The rest of the Middle East looks at what Iran's proxy organizations did in Lebanon and are rightly afraid. Not only did they manage to provoke Israel into going to war against Lebanon, but they also are currently in the process of trying to topple of the government with riots.
There is no denying it, an Iran with nukes is going to provoke everyone else to have them. Everyone complains about Israel having nukes, but no one threatens to get their own. Saudi Arabia and Egypt on the other hand have both threatened to start their own nuclear program is Iran isn't dealt with.
Under normal circumstances, Iran tossing things into space probably would not be much cause for concern. The issue is more the timing and the posture of the nation. Plausible deny ability is of course the game they are playing, but the rest of the world tends to not be interested in playing.
The issue with Iran is that it is a lynch pin in the stability of the Middle East. The rest of the Sunni Arab nations around Iran are all very worried when they see Iranian based organizations start a war with Israel and nearly kick over the government of Lebanon. The idea of Iran having a nuke scares the piss out of these nations far more then it bothers the US or the EU. The US and the EU have the big old 'turn your nation into glass' button, the other Sunni Middle Eastern nations do not.
The real is that if Iran gets nukes, then the rest of the Middle East is going to start arming itself with nukes. I don't know about you, but the last thing in the world I want to see is more nations with unstable governments and powerful extremist populations getting their hands on nukes. It doesn't take much imagination to see the scenario where a nuclear armed Egypt or Saudi Arabia has its government collapse and a crazy extremist group getting their hands on the nations launch codes.
Is a nuclear armed Iran all that scary? Nah. They have a fairly stable government and a very antagonistic view of the other enemies of the US and EU, namely they hate Al-Qaeda and Sunni extremist groups as much we do (if not more so). The real concern is the response of everyone else around Iran. It has the potential to force the US into sticking its arms even deeper Middle East politics.
Imagine this; Iran gets nukes. Saudi Arabia and Egypt then declare their intentions to get nuclear weapons as well to compete with Iran. The only thing the US could do at that point to prevent even more nukes from coming into existence would be to sign defense treaties with those nations that basically state that the US will defend them by any means necessary, including retaliatory nuclear strikes. This is the only thing that could convince these nations not to pursue nuclear weapons. Now, I don't know about you, but the LAST thing in this world I want to see is the US tie itself even more to these unstable states and promise to initiate MAD if anyone fucks with them.
A nuclear armed Iran is a bad thing. Every step Iran takes towards arming itself, the greater of a frigging mess they make of the Middle East, and it isn't like the Middle East actually needs any more help being a mess these days. Launching long range rockets is just one more thing on the road to nuclear proliferation.
Yeah, us yanks keep developing more weapons and keep a military that can drop a few hundred thousand people in the world fairly quickly... and if we can't drop a few hundred thousand people, we can certainly drop a few hundred thousand pounds of explosives.
As a damned yank myself, I would love to see us slash our military budget and put it to more useful things. I would LOVE it if Europe would pick up some god damn slack and be able to project a little bit. Utterly ignoring Iraq and Afghanistan, for a moment, no one but the US has shown the ability to actually DO something with their military. Europe didn't come running to stop the 10 year genocide going committed by Serbia on their own back door. None of the old world powers take some fucking responsibility for their old colonies when they descend into genocide (Rwanda, Sudan). Even when nations are begging for some sort of military back up, the EU doesn't step up to send it (Somalia) And sure as shit, no one else was keeping the USSR at bay.
It is easy to whine about the US and its big ol' mean military. Believe me, the US would be happy to dump the military and let someone else pick up the slack and play worlds police... but no one else ever steps up. The best we have accomplished is we play good cop / bad cop by having the US threaten the stick while the EU offers a carrot.
Does anyone honestly believe that the EU would step in and risk a few thousand troops to stop a genocide? Of course not. Would the EU jump into the way of China to stop them from invading Taiwan? Hell no. Would anyone but the US at least make a reasonable attempt to keep nukes out of the hands of North Korea and Iran? Fuck no.
So yes, the Yanks are developing more weapons. Until some other democracy steps up to the plate, the US is going to keep blowing its money building up a military to do work that the whole damn world should be doing.
Global warming is not a "fact" in terms of a long term trend. We just came out of an ice age. The claim that global warming will go on for the next, 10, 100, or 1000 years is far from a "fact". It is entirely possible that global warming we have seen recently is either a brief phenomenon, like the "little ice age" or a result of faulty measurements (the data we use to look back in history can be disputed). Global warming is a relatively recent trend that, for all we know, could suddenly reverse, stop, or do something we can't predict.
Now, that is not to say that any of the above is likely, nor that the majority of scientist believe that this global warming is a short term trend or a fluke. The point is that to make any claim about the future of global warming with 100% certainty is no more correct then physicians just after Newton declaring that they understand the inner working of physics. Even though it looked like they had it right, they didn't.
Look, my whole point is simple; don't mod people down just because you disagree. If someone brings a point of view to the table that is contrary to the consensus (especially if they also bring evidence), debate their view on its merit. Don't sit there trying to mod it into silence, no matter how much you disagree with it. Debate your disagreement, but don't try and silence opposition. Further, don't mod people up for saying inane and obvious shit that you agree with. A one line "OMFG, who still doesn't believe in global warming!?!??!1/1/1/?!???!?!?!1?" isn't worthy of a mod up.
Just use some common sense people, and show some dignity and courtesy even if in disagreement. We don't know the absolute truth of ANY situation. At best we can say what the consensus is.. and guess what people, the consensus throughout history has been shown to be wrong far more the once. Show dissidents some respect. You don't have to agree with them, just don't try and silence them.
For the same reason why people post as AC whenever it is on a topic where there is a strong majority opinion opposing them; they know that they are likely to get modded into hell and have their precious karma torn apart.
One thing that does and always has moderate me is that when the group think really gets going it can result in comments that are certainly insightful/informative/whatever getting modded down because they are going against the consensus of the group. The point of the moderation system is not to sit around jerking each other off about how much you agree. The point of discussion is to explore different points of view, debate, pontificate, and in general act like intellectuals who are not afraid of dissidents from the group.
I personally think that glaciers melting is a bad thing and that humans probably can take a hunk of the blame for it. That said, it pisses me off when I see completely reasonable arguments to the opposite getting modded down as flames, trolls, or (the slightly more reasonable) overrated. At the same time, we get a dozen one line "See!!!! When will people realize global warming is real!!!!" post modded up like that actually brings something intelligent to the conversation.
This isn't a battle to mod the other sides opinion into oblivion. The point is to actually converse. People are posting as AC because the environment of conversation is completely broken when it comes to this topic. Utter crap that agrees with the majority opinion is getting modded up, and well thought out arguments against the majority opinion are getting slammed down. People shouldn't have to post AC to post a dissenting opinion.
Population density is not the issue. Population concentration is the issue. Greenland for instance has an extremely low population density (people per area), but it is also the most urbanized nation in the world with something like over 80% of its population living inside a couple of cities. The US has extremely low population concentration. Americans are a very spread out and a very suburban people, much more so then almost all European nations. Americans also do not directly subsidies Internet connections, resulting in users having to pay higher rates then many European nations, but they pay less in taxes.
Finally, you guys know that it is OK if the US is not #1 in EVERYTHING. Every time the US isn't on the top of some statistic, it is treated like the end of the world. It isn't bad to strive for #1, but #11 sure as shit isn't bad either. Take a breather folks. The US is first in all sorts of things such that you guys don't need to flip your shit every time the US isn't taking first in one statistic or another. Seriously, breathe. I feel like Americans would have a heart attack if they lived in some quiet little European nation that occupied cozy spots in the top 20 instead of always scoring in the top 3.
They certainly have the 'right' to copy them. That doesn't mean I will shell up money for a WoW clone though. Like it or not, WoW came first with its gameplay. Why bother playing a clone? Just for a graphics upgrade?
MMORPGs need to do more. We have seen nothing but upgraded version of Everquest since... well, Everquest.
Everyone is 'dissing' this guy because he video taped a crime and then refused to turn over the evidence. If you are standing on the street and someone comes up and cracks you in the skull while another person video tapes, that person can't refuse to turn over the tape. The government damn well has every single right to go take that tape and use it as evidence. There is nothing in the constitution (or the law) that states "you only have to turn over evidence of a crime if you feel like it". This guy video taped a crime, and the government rightfully wants to use it as evidence. His ass belongs in jail until he turns it over.
The fact that he is a blogger or a "journalist" is utterly irrelevantly. You can't throw up a MySpace blog and then go around with your friends video taping them committing crimes and get special protection when the police come to use your tapes against them. Yes, even journalist (and "bloggers") have to hand over video taped evidence if they see a crime getting committed.
This guy is no free speech martyr and his imprisonment is not a sign of a dooming police state. There are a lot of things wrong with the direction of the nation and how police operate. Police throwing one ass hole blogger in jail for refusing to hand over video taped evidence of a criminal assault not one of those injustices.
He is not in jail for being a 'journalist'. He is in jail for withholding evidence of an assault. This is what the system looks like when it is actually working.
I don't disagree that the 'screw you guys, we are going home' option doesn't have its merits. I just wish that people would put it in perspective and not play it up like a black and white binary option between war and peace. If you realize that the result of leaving is a possible genocide and still think it is a worth while idea because it is cheap and saves American lives, score, I can respect that position. I can't respect the OMFG MAKE PEACE NOT WAR NO BLOOD FOR OIL!!!11!!!!
I think we are arguing the same thing. Nothing short of the systematic destruction of a nations entire communications grid can stop a bot controller from launching an attack. You can't just 'block' them. You would need to go out and physically destroy every single link to the outside world. Now, in practical terms, you probably don't need to be completely thorough. Even if a nation still has a few lines of communication open, that doesn't mean that the bot controller is in any position to get to it. Further, for an Internet pwning attacking you would certainly need more then one bot net controller. You would likely need hundreds or thousands of controllers working together. This is why an infrastructure attack could actually work, if you were vicious enough. If you can knock enough people off, you can probably get a handle on the situation.
Of course, it pretty much goes without saying that tearing a nation limb from limb should be a last resort. We should probably start by... you known... securing our computers. A few patches tend to be cheaper then mobilizing enough airplanes to wipe out the communications infrastructure of an entire nation.
You can't just 'cut' a nations connections. Even if you nailed all of the obvious connection, they certainly have satellite connections. Hell they could even use old fashion modems. It is impossible to remotely take out a nations entire communications grid, which is exactly what you would need to do in order to cut off bot net controllers from their bots. I rate it pretty unlikely, but for a truly determined attacker who has expected getting his communications remotely cut, the only option left might be to physically wipe out that nations communications infrastructure.
Like I said, I rate it as a pretty low likelihood. I doubt that any bot net could do any real "OMFG the sky is falling" damage for more then a couple of hours. That said, I won't lose any sleep at night if my government draws up targets it would need to hit in case someone did manage to pull of such an attack and sustain it.
Slashdot Mirror
BSG actually handled that scene pretty well IMO. They stated up front that while the decompression would suck, people had been known to survive hard vacuum for a minute or two. That said, I did take one issue with how the depicted the aftermath of hard vacuum. While your body won't burst, you WILL burst every single capillary on the surface of your skin. That isn't lethal, but it certainly would be unpleasant. More to the point, it would leave you with a giant body wide hickey. Think of what an overly enthusiastic kiss on your neck can do with that minor vacuum. Now imagine exposing your entire body to a near perfect vacuum. You might live, but you would look funny for a little while.
If Iraqis are willing to turn to racist ethnic militias to keep the their rival racist militias from killing them, I bet they could tolerate the invasion of privacy of a few cameras.
Nurture certainly has an extremely strong influence on the 'type' of spirituality that one has, but there is a pretty good argument that a feeling of spirituality itself is pretty common among humans. Nearly every single human group that we have been able to observe through archeology or directly has had some sort of spiritualism.
As to what causes spiritual beliefs, there are a pile of possibilities.
1) There could be something to be spiritual about. There are god/gods/spirits and we have a limited perception in them that results in the verities of religions that we have.
2) There is some sort of survival advantage of being spiritual. Maybe it makes you a happier person, maybe you feel the need to be a socially better person so you are not punished when you die. Whatever the case, there might be some very direct benefit to being spiritual and so the majority of humans innately have this spiritual sense.
3) Spiritualism could be a side effect of some other evolutionary advantage. Humans are horrifically skilled seeing patterns. Hell, we are basically gloried pattern recognition machines that blow the collective computing power in the world out of the water. One consequence of such an ability is that we see patterns in everything, even stuff that doesn't really have a pattern. We seek answers and to divine explanations for everything, and as a result a common answer to problems we can't answer is to believe that there must be a higher power at work. Believing in a lightening god is only silly today because we know what causes lightening and it has passed out of the realm of the unexplainable.
[quote]Sony has no right to tell another website what they may or may not publish.[/quote]
Sony didn't tell them what they can and can not publish. They just told them that there would be a consequence of they did publish... namely they would not get anything other then press releases from Sony from that point on. That is a perfectly fair thing to do.
I don't know what Sony said exactly to the blog, but what they should have done was offer a deal. In exchange for not publishing the rumor, Sony should have offered an exclusive interview or something like that. This is general what is done. The deal is "okay, you got us, but don't tell and we will reward you. Tell, and we will punish you." Most journalist are happy to take such deals.
Both sides are playing fair. Sony doesn't need to be nice to journalist/bloggers that leak information (even if they didn't get it from Sony), and bloggers/journalist don't need abide by requests of a corporation.
Sounds like good old free speech working to me.
The issue is that if you get 300 resumes from a job posting on HotJobs, how the hell do you weed out 290 of those resumes? One quick and easy way is to start dumping people without certs. Are you dumping lots of qualified people? Sure, but you can almost guarantee that the 50 or 100 resumes you have left are on average more qualified then the average resume you just tossed.
Finding a job is a really painful process, but don't forget that it is a pain in the ass for the person looking to get the job filled as well. The first pass through any stack of resumes is usually a cruel and inhumane tossing of resumes based upon tiny and minor details. Endeavoring to make sure that there is not a reason to toss your resume at a glance is a good thing. This sort of cruel treatment of resumes is a good reason to try and avoid job posting all together get jobs through contacts.
Almost all of Western Europe has either stagnant or shrinking populations. That isn't a sign of "too much" immigration. Western Europe's problem is that its social welfare system makes immigration a problem. Western Europe also struggles to assimilate immigration populations into their population. While it might be "too much" immigration for much of Western Europe's taste, it is certainly "too little" to keep Western Europe from developing some truly terrifying demographic problems that should be scaring the pants off of the citizens of these nations.
Well, the US is pretty damn big and has a large population. In terms of raw power, the US is pretty damn hard to top. That said, there are some Eastern European nations like Estonia who are really toying around with some truly alternative forms of government. While I doubt Estonia is ever going to drop the US to its knees, it could very well wield the power of a nation like Japan... which is not bad for a little Eastern European country that is smaller then most US states.
The big countries that have the mass to match the US pound for pound really just don't have their shit together. Western European nations are in the process of shedding off more population then they can afford to dump due to low population growth and low immigration. Europe is going into a death phase and their social system is not changing to keep up with the shifting demographics. The leaders of EU see the problem and are trying to get their shit together, but the people of Europe really want nothing to do with it. Sadly, due to the EU's current structure it only takes one nation to throw the wrench into the gears of reform. I am deeply skeptical that the EU is going to pull itself together and deal with the challenges facing it.
China, India, and Russia while certainly having the man power to be rivals to the US, but really are too shackled with government control, bureaucracy, and corruption to ever hope to match the US in the next few decades. They are just too big and massive to change direction. Nothing short of a political revolution can fix these nations.
The Middle East is FAR too socially dysfunctional to even dream of matching the US. They will be lucky to make it through the next decade or two without suffering the collapse of multiple governments and a genocide or three.
Africa, while mostly screwed up, does have some bright spots of hope. They are very much behind the rest of the world, but so was Korea, Taiwan, and Japan for much of history. That said, they really have the deck stacked against them, and most of Africa is such a mess that they stand little chance of getting a toe hold in the world economy.
The only nation that can take down the US is the US. The US could very well find itself in a death cycle with unadaptive social programs like Western Europe under the right conditions. Some might argue that the US is inching its way in that direction, but at the pace it is going, it is going to be a long time before the US gets there.
If the only thing you need to kick ass was mineral wealth, Japan should have just thrown themselves upon a sword and given up from day 1. Japan has absolutely no mineral wealth, nor does Hong Kong. Taiwan is pretty sparse in mineral wealth as well. Plenty of African nations are up to their necks in valuable things you can dig out of the ground.
Mineral wealth is nice, but it is hardly a deal maker. China has some serious, crippling problems that is going to keep it from being the magical fairy tail land that people hope for. The demographic imbalances of China in the male to female ratio are horrifying and an invitation to civil strife. China's bureaucracy is corrupt and crippling to industry. China is very lucky it has 1.2 billion people running around it, because unlike the US, China's xenophobia does a handy job preventing it from doing a world wide brain drain as the US is so notorious for. China's government has its hands so far up the ass of its own economy that one incompetent move on the government could spell disaster for the entire nation's economy. We saw and example of this yesterday when the Chinese stock market dumped 10% of its value on a rumor that the government was about to do something dumb.
China has some very sever problems. True, China is a big growth engine right now, but a lot of that has to do with the fact that China was so desperately poor in the past. The Chinese government has done some things right in opening up their markets. They have also managed to keep law and order (which set them well ahead of most of Africa) which counts for a lot. That said, China has some very sever organizational problems with their government. Unless China commits to a real restructuring of their government, I really don't fear all that much for the US position of #1 in the world economy.
Sure, I agree that DRM = teh sux00r, and if Jobs wants to spout off on how evil it is great. That said, I'll assume that Jobs, the head of a company with a product that is completely locked down by DRM that not only prevents copying, but also prevents using on any other device, is speaking to get headlines and drum up PR support. If Jobs wants to prove me other wise with something other then talk, awesome. Until he does more then grab headlines with empty talk though, I'll just assume that Jobs is just being a good marketer, and not a friend to people that are against DRM.
If Apple can not figure out how to offer two different formats, then they have some seriously incompetent software engineers. I mean hell, they currently offer movie files and music files... has offering up two different types of files destroy the fabric of the universe over at Apple? Get off defending Apple. Apple likes DRM because DRM is good for Apple. No one is forcing Apple to DRM indie labels other then Apple.
[quote]Or it could be that the big studios required Apple to put DRM on all songs regardless to avoid having to compete with DRM-free music.[/quote]
It could be, but it isn't. If they did, Apple could just merrily role their eyes and just hand over the contract that states they need to DRM all music, even music not owned by the record labels negotiating to the contract, to anti-trust lawyers and get whatever they want.
Apple's excuse for DRMing indie labels that don't want it is that 'it is hard' and it might open up 'exploits'. Yeah, they some how can magically offer up non-DRMed podcasts, but indie songs... well, that is just too hard.
Despite Jobs PR stunt, then reason why Apple has DRM is because it helps Apple. People, it isn't like this is new strategy on Apple's part. There is a reason why you can't install a Mac OS onto a non-Mac (without some serious hacking). It isn't because some evil computer equivalent to the RIAA forces them to demand that their hardware and software come bundled. Apple bundles hardware, software, and content because it is good for their business and locks people into their products. If you can't pull the two apart, it means that you have to throw out the entire package in order to replace it with a competitor.
Seriously people, open your eyes. It isn't like this is some new Apple strategy. This is the same old thing they have been doing for two decades. The only reason why Jobs is spouting off is because A) it is good PR and B) he knows there is not a slim chance in hell the RIAA will relent from their position. It is really safe to declare that you want a DRM free world, even if you don't, when you know that the powers that be will never let this DRM free world come to pass.
Ron's Libertarian credentials start to slide on moral issues. From wikipedia... Congressman Paul's position on gay marriage is that defining and recognizing marriages is not a federal or constitutional matter, but should be left as the States' right. In 1999 he voted for H.R. 2587 that banned gay couples adopting children in the District of Columbia.
He voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2004. In a 2004 speech before Congress he expressed support for the Federal Defense of Marriage Act and expressed his support for the Marriage Protection Act as an alternative to the FMA. As for immigration, I direct you to his own words. This is the opening paragraph. More and more of my constituents are asking me when Congress will address the problem of illegal immigration. The public correctly perceives that neither political party has the courage to do what is necessary to prevent further erosion of both our border security and our national identity. As a result, immigration may be the sleeper issue that decides the 2008 presidential election. http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul269.html
Yes, he objects to illegal immigration in a welfare state, but that is hardly the limit of his objections. Fear of a loss of 'national identity' is hardly a libertarian stance.
I consider myself libertarian leaning, but the libertarians have two very large problems.
First, people like Ron Paul. Libertarians should be a advocating a liberal (in the traditional meaning of the word) society, not one where we pass laws on how you have to fuck in order to adopt a child. We don't need moral conservatives who want to use the power of the government to back up their ideology.
Second, the libertarian COULD provide a reasonable alternative. Instead, the Libertarian Party is a joke party. It takes the most extreme positions it can possibly take and as a result doesn't stand a slim chance in hell of ever getting representatives elected. I would much rather see the LP advocate pushing TOWARDS social and economic liberty, instead of demanding a libertarian utopian society to spring into existence all at once. Instead of demanding that crack cocaine be made legal tomorrow, they could work to repeal laws against marijuana. Instead of demanding that one social program or another be abolished, they could push for reform of these programs, like the wildly successful 90's and money saving welfare reform.
There are lots of people that are advocates of social and economic liberty that are disgusted by both parties, neither of which advocate social or economic liberty these days. There are lots of people that want more social and economic liberty, but who are not yet ready to see the entire state torn down and some sort of libertarian utopia magically appear in its place. I would rather see the LP actually work towards a goal, rather then serve as a joke taken about as seriously as the communist party.
The day Ron Paul wins the nomination, much less the presidency, is the day hell freezes over. Not only does his piss of anyone who is moderate, but he also manages the amazing feat of pissing off Libertarians who don't want a moral authoritarian obsessed with scapegoating immigration for the worlds ills. I consider myself a Libertarian leaning fellow, but I would vote for Hillary before I vote for Ron*.
*Unless the democrats have a majority in the congress, in which case I would laugh merrily as the two block and veto every thing that they try. Nothing would get done... which is preferable to the alternative (something getting done, poorly).
The truth is that when she voted for the resolution to authorize the war she started up front her reservations and her expectations. She stated pretty clearly that she was handing over the authorization so that Bush could bargain with a stick. She further went on to state that under no circumstance should the US go it alone, do it without UN support, or go in without a plan.
As far as he reluctance to pull out, I think the reasoning is pretty clear. She doesn't want to collapse the government there. She, rightly, doesn't want to be responsible for a Rwanda or Darfur style genocide... you know, the two genocides every complained that the US DIDN'T get involved in. She does want to get out, she doesn't mind if the Iraq's bleed a little as a result, but she doesn't want to rip the rug out from under them. She wants to withdraw slowly enough to keep the government stable and she wants to continue to train the military. She doesn't want the US to act as policemen, but she also doesn't want to kick over another government just because the US public is bored with war. She is against the surge, and she does want to start pulling out, just is just against doing it all at once and all but assuring a genocide.
There are a lot of reasons to hate Hillary. She doesn't give two shits about freedom of speech when it is politically inconvenient, as she showed with he support of the flag burning amendment and her support of desire to create a board of censorship to regulate video games. Her pandering to moral conservative should raise hackles with any good liberal. She also arguably has some serious personality issues where power might rate a little higher list then other things resulting in a husband with a good last name and a complete inability to keep his pant fly zipped around anything with a pulse.
So yeah, hate Hillary for lots of reasons, but I suggest taking a closer look at her Iraq war position before dismissing that one position out of hand.
Israel has had nukes for a long time without the entire Middle East taking up nuclear arms. Egypt and Saudi Arabia doesn't want nukes because Israel has them. No one in the Middle East is trying to actually compete with Israel. They just want Israel to stay the fuck away, and Israel wants them to do likewise. Israel is not looking to bring a revolution.
Iran on the other hand wants to export revolution. Most of the Sunni states in the Middle East have large Shiite minorities that they are terrified are going to start causing trouble. Iran wants them to start causing trouble, as is being seen with crystal clear clarity in Lebanon right now. The rest of the Middle East looks at what Iran's proxy organizations did in Lebanon and are rightly afraid. Not only did they manage to provoke Israel into going to war against Lebanon, but they also are currently in the process of trying to topple of the government with riots.
There is no denying it, an Iran with nukes is going to provoke everyone else to have them. Everyone complains about Israel having nukes, but no one threatens to get their own. Saudi Arabia and Egypt on the other hand have both threatened to start their own nuclear program is Iran isn't dealt with.
Under normal circumstances, Iran tossing things into space probably would not be much cause for concern. The issue is more the timing and the posture of the nation. Plausible deny ability is of course the game they are playing, but the rest of the world tends to not be interested in playing.
The issue with Iran is that it is a lynch pin in the stability of the Middle East. The rest of the Sunni Arab nations around Iran are all very worried when they see Iranian based organizations start a war with Israel and nearly kick over the government of Lebanon. The idea of Iran having a nuke scares the piss out of these nations far more then it bothers the US or the EU. The US and the EU have the big old 'turn your nation into glass' button, the other Sunni Middle Eastern nations do not.
The real is that if Iran gets nukes, then the rest of the Middle East is going to start arming itself with nukes. I don't know about you, but the last thing in the world I want to see is more nations with unstable governments and powerful extremist populations getting their hands on nukes. It doesn't take much imagination to see the scenario where a nuclear armed Egypt or Saudi Arabia has its government collapse and a crazy extremist group getting their hands on the nations launch codes.
Is a nuclear armed Iran all that scary? Nah. They have a fairly stable government and a very antagonistic view of the other enemies of the US and EU, namely they hate Al-Qaeda and Sunni extremist groups as much we do (if not more so). The real concern is the response of everyone else around Iran. It has the potential to force the US into sticking its arms even deeper Middle East politics.
Imagine this; Iran gets nukes. Saudi Arabia and Egypt then declare their intentions to get nuclear weapons as well to compete with Iran. The only thing the US could do at that point to prevent even more nukes from coming into existence would be to sign defense treaties with those nations that basically state that the US will defend them by any means necessary, including retaliatory nuclear strikes. This is the only thing that could convince these nations not to pursue nuclear weapons. Now, I don't know about you, but the LAST thing in this world I want to see is the US tie itself even more to these unstable states and promise to initiate MAD if anyone fucks with them.
A nuclear armed Iran is a bad thing. Every step Iran takes towards arming itself, the greater of a frigging mess they make of the Middle East, and it isn't like the Middle East actually needs any more help being a mess these days. Launching long range rockets is just one more thing on the road to nuclear proliferation.
Yeah, us yanks keep developing more weapons and keep a military that can drop a few hundred thousand people in the world fairly quickly... and if we can't drop a few hundred thousand people, we can certainly drop a few hundred thousand pounds of explosives.
As a damned yank myself, I would love to see us slash our military budget and put it to more useful things. I would LOVE it if Europe would pick up some god damn slack and be able to project a little bit. Utterly ignoring Iraq and Afghanistan, for a moment, no one but the US has shown the ability to actually DO something with their military. Europe didn't come running to stop the 10 year genocide going committed by Serbia on their own back door. None of the old world powers take some fucking responsibility for their old colonies when they descend into genocide (Rwanda, Sudan). Even when nations are begging for some sort of military back up, the EU doesn't step up to send it (Somalia) And sure as shit, no one else was keeping the USSR at bay.
It is easy to whine about the US and its big ol' mean military. Believe me, the US would be happy to dump the military and let someone else pick up the slack and play worlds police... but no one else ever steps up. The best we have accomplished is we play good cop / bad cop by having the US threaten the stick while the EU offers a carrot.
Does anyone honestly believe that the EU would step in and risk a few thousand troops to stop a genocide? Of course not. Would the EU jump into the way of China to stop them from invading Taiwan? Hell no. Would anyone but the US at least make a reasonable attempt to keep nukes out of the hands of North Korea and Iran? Fuck no.
So yes, the Yanks are developing more weapons. Until some other democracy steps up to the plate, the US is going to keep blowing its money building up a military to do work that the whole damn world should be doing.
Global warming is not a "fact" in terms of a long term trend. We just came out of an ice age. The claim that global warming will go on for the next, 10, 100, or 1000 years is far from a "fact". It is entirely possible that global warming we have seen recently is either a brief phenomenon, like the "little ice age" or a result of faulty measurements (the data we use to look back in history can be disputed). Global warming is a relatively recent trend that, for all we know, could suddenly reverse, stop, or do something we can't predict.
Now, that is not to say that any of the above is likely, nor that the majority of scientist believe that this global warming is a short term trend or a fluke. The point is that to make any claim about the future of global warming with 100% certainty is no more correct then physicians just after Newton declaring that they understand the inner working of physics. Even though it looked like they had it right, they didn't.
Look, my whole point is simple; don't mod people down just because you disagree. If someone brings a point of view to the table that is contrary to the consensus (especially if they also bring evidence), debate their view on its merit. Don't sit there trying to mod it into silence, no matter how much you disagree with it. Debate your disagreement, but don't try and silence opposition. Further, don't mod people up for saying inane and obvious shit that you agree with. A one line "OMFG, who still doesn't believe in global warming!?!??!1/1/1/?!???!?!?!1?" isn't worthy of a mod up.
Just use some common sense people, and show some dignity and courtesy even if in disagreement. We don't know the absolute truth of ANY situation. At best we can say what the consensus is.. and guess what people, the consensus throughout history has been shown to be wrong far more the once. Show dissidents some respect. You don't have to agree with them, just don't try and silence them.
For the same reason why people post as AC whenever it is on a topic where there is a strong majority opinion opposing them; they know that they are likely to get modded into hell and have their precious karma torn apart.
One thing that does and always has moderate me is that when the group think really gets going it can result in comments that are certainly insightful/informative/whatever getting modded down because they are going against the consensus of the group. The point of the moderation system is not to sit around jerking each other off about how much you agree. The point of discussion is to explore different points of view, debate, pontificate, and in general act like intellectuals who are not afraid of dissidents from the group.
I personally think that glaciers melting is a bad thing and that humans probably can take a hunk of the blame for it. That said, it pisses me off when I see completely reasonable arguments to the opposite getting modded down as flames, trolls, or (the slightly more reasonable) overrated. At the same time, we get a dozen one line "See!!!! When will people realize global warming is real!!!!" post modded up like that actually brings something intelligent to the conversation.
This isn't a battle to mod the other sides opinion into oblivion. The point is to actually converse. People are posting as AC because the environment of conversation is completely broken when it comes to this topic. Utter crap that agrees with the majority opinion is getting modded up, and well thought out arguments against the majority opinion are getting slammed down. People shouldn't have to post AC to post a dissenting opinion.
Population density is not the issue. Population concentration is the issue. Greenland for instance has an extremely low population density (people per area), but it is also the most urbanized nation in the world with something like over 80% of its population living inside a couple of cities. The US has extremely low population concentration. Americans are a very spread out and a very suburban people, much more so then almost all European nations. Americans also do not directly subsidies Internet connections, resulting in users having to pay higher rates then many European nations, but they pay less in taxes.
Finally, you guys know that it is OK if the US is not #1 in EVERYTHING. Every time the US isn't on the top of some statistic, it is treated like the end of the world. It isn't bad to strive for #1, but #11 sure as shit isn't bad either. Take a breather folks. The US is first in all sorts of things such that you guys don't need to flip your shit every time the US isn't taking first in one statistic or another. Seriously, breathe. I feel like Americans would have a heart attack if they lived in some quiet little European nation that occupied cozy spots in the top 20 instead of always scoring in the top 3.
They certainly have the 'right' to copy them. That doesn't mean I will shell up money for a WoW clone though. Like it or not, WoW came first with its gameplay. Why bother playing a clone? Just for a graphics upgrade?
MMORPGs need to do more. We have seen nothing but upgraded version of Everquest since... well, Everquest.
Everyone is 'dissing' this guy because he video taped a crime and then refused to turn over the evidence. If you are standing on the street and someone comes up and cracks you in the skull while another person video tapes, that person can't refuse to turn over the tape. The government damn well has every single right to go take that tape and use it as evidence. There is nothing in the constitution (or the law) that states "you only have to turn over evidence of a crime if you feel like it". This guy video taped a crime, and the government rightfully wants to use it as evidence. His ass belongs in jail until he turns it over.
The fact that he is a blogger or a "journalist" is utterly irrelevantly. You can't throw up a MySpace blog and then go around with your friends video taping them committing crimes and get special protection when the police come to use your tapes against them. Yes, even journalist (and "bloggers") have to hand over video taped evidence if they see a crime getting committed.
This guy is no free speech martyr and his imprisonment is not a sign of a dooming police state. There are a lot of things wrong with the direction of the nation and how police operate. Police throwing one ass hole blogger in jail for refusing to hand over video taped evidence of a criminal assault not one of those injustices.
He is not in jail for being a 'journalist'. He is in jail for withholding evidence of an assault. This is what the system looks like when it is actually working.
I don't disagree that the 'screw you guys, we are going home' option doesn't have its merits. I just wish that people would put it in perspective and not play it up like a black and white binary option between war and peace. If you realize that the result of leaving is a possible genocide and still think it is a worth while idea because it is cheap and saves American lives, score, I can respect that position. I can't respect the OMFG MAKE PEACE NOT WAR NO BLOOD FOR OIL!!!11!!!!
I think we are arguing the same thing. Nothing short of the systematic destruction of a nations entire communications grid can stop a bot controller from launching an attack. You can't just 'block' them. You would need to go out and physically destroy every single link to the outside world. Now, in practical terms, you probably don't need to be completely thorough. Even if a nation still has a few lines of communication open, that doesn't mean that the bot controller is in any position to get to it. Further, for an Internet pwning attacking you would certainly need more then one bot net controller. You would likely need hundreds or thousands of controllers working together. This is why an infrastructure attack could actually work, if you were vicious enough. If you can knock enough people off, you can probably get a handle on the situation.
Of course, it pretty much goes without saying that tearing a nation limb from limb should be a last resort. We should probably start by... you known... securing our computers. A few patches tend to be cheaper then mobilizing enough airplanes to wipe out the communications infrastructure of an entire nation.
You can't just 'cut' a nations connections. Even if you nailed all of the obvious connection, they certainly have satellite connections. Hell they could even use old fashion modems. It is impossible to remotely take out a nations entire communications grid, which is exactly what you would need to do in order to cut off bot net controllers from their bots. I rate it pretty unlikely, but for a truly determined attacker who has expected getting his communications remotely cut, the only option left might be to physically wipe out that nations communications infrastructure.
Like I said, I rate it as a pretty low likelihood. I doubt that any bot net could do any real "OMFG the sky is falling" damage for more then a couple of hours. That said, I won't lose any sleep at night if my government draws up targets it would need to hit in case someone did manage to pull of such an attack and sustain it.