My understanding of his post was that he was pondering a long term reduction in American food consumption. He posited that this kind of reduction could not be accomplished voluntarily, it would require rationing. He talked about rationing as it was accomplished over there.
I used the term describe. This was a poor word choice. He does describe rationing during WWII, but only as way of arguing that rationing modern America would be a very different effort.
My understanding of your post was that you were arguing that because rationing was accomplished over here during WWII, a long term consumption reduction was feasible. I disagreed on the basis that Americans would not voluntarily agree to such a reduction because we will lose so many of our luxuries. If I've misinterpreted your post than I apologize. Communication over the internet makes conversations like this difficult...
...but that is no excuse for your hostility, sarcasm, and condescension. Relax bro, this a hypothetical conversation about US food production. No need to get emotional.
Rationing here during WWII was a lot different than what the GP describes. It was short term and necessary to support a war effort against a very specific threat. Americans also distrust our government a lot more now than they did in the 1940's (AFAIK. I wasn't around yet).
Long term food rationing to support a less lavish lifestyle is something that I think modern America will strongly resist. Of course I say this as an overweight, caffeine addicted walking stereotype. The thought of not having fresh coffee and frozen pizza available whenever I want it is something that I have difficulty comprehending.
Threatening end users who make modifications to the console that they PURCHASED is as ridiculous as Ford suing me for buying one of their cars then changing the rims so I can put a different size of tire on them...
Sony doesn't mind if you open up your PS3 and start soldering bits yourself. Sony is actively trying to stop the distribution of these dongles. It sounds like a petty distinction, but it is an important one. Ford wouldn't have sued you for modifying the rims. He would have sued you for purchasing third party rims whose sole reason for existence is modifying one of his cars.
I'm not saying it's right. I'm just saying that Sony isn't pursuing the physical modifications themselves as much as they are pursuing the market of modification enabling devices.
Yeah, but to be fair one of his points was that the current terms were created by what he views as the open source community. The terms were already defined to put his product in a bad light. Of course he is trying to redefine terms in the debate, the current terms are unfair.
His main point, about Android not in fact being an open community, was really spot on. Android might be "open" as in FOSS, but most of the community is definitely not able to take advantage of Android's openness.
But the openness doesn't come from the handset itself. Unless you buy direct from a manufacturer, the handsets will be locked down to the specifications of whichever service provider you bought it from.
Androids openness comes from the distribution of the platform. Once you do root you have an incredible amount of options and level of freedom on an Android device. Much more AFAIK than on any iOS device.
I was. Until recently I was limited to 1.6 on my apparently ancient G1/HTC Dream. When I finally got around to getting a custom ROM on it, I did have to reinstall all my apps and data. This was expected of course, but I think I would have preferred just getting the updates to 2.2.
Funnily enough (and back OT) it was the fragmented nature of the platform that pushed me towards a community ROM. In that respect I am very grateful that the platform is open. I happen to be geeky enough that I looked at this as a challenge to overcome as a hobby. But as always, geeks beget geeking. I personally enjoy the experience. But I can certainly understand why some users would prefer a phone that "just works".
Unfortunately it sounds like you're absolutely right. Simmons would be just as happy going after some 16 year old script kiddie who thought it might be fun to play along with a DDoS attack. The guy(s?) who called this are probably competent enough to know a little about hiding their tracks. The kid that Simmons will persecute is probably not so aware.
A problem with our system is that "we" don't even really get to choose our candidates. Our candidates are provided to us by the two dominant parties. We have them jump through hoops for our amusement to whittle the field down to just two, then we pick the better of the two.
American's didn't just fail to do their homework on the Obama vs. McCain election. We failed to do our homework on the 15 candidates that made credible bids for the Democrat and Republican Primaries. We can easily look at Obama and criticize him. But how many of use could realistically compare Obama to Fred Thompson or Mitt Romney? (for example). Or McCain to Kucinich?
We are waaayy to apathetic about our presidential elections. We allow ourselves to be spoon fed two candidates that were chosen on the basis that they are the least offensive available candidate. Few people really care until November, at which point all they can do is pick either...or. That's no way to elect our leadership.
I'm not a physicist, but I believe that unless we can do enough nuking to destroy a significant amount of the material that makes up the body, all we will do is break it up into little pieces. This would eliminate the single uber-disastrous impact, but might only result in a number of moderately disastrous impacts with a similar net disaster. The same amount of rock is still hitting the planet.
(although those stealing trailers have apparently stolen entire rolls of copper wire rather than copper wire already in the ground).
This.
I used to work summers as an electricians helper. The electricians would haul around big copper spools in trailers and the back of their trucks. Trailers loaded with copper would disappear every now and then if left unattended at a job site. I have no idea how much they would get for it, it seems like it would be pretty obvious what's going on when they try to sell that brand new 1/2 ton spool of copper to a scrapper, but it happened.
We used to make a good pile of cash on the side though. Whenever we were working a renovation on a government building we would usually wind up with a couple truckbeds worth of copper wiring and plumbing. The city had no mechanism for recycling it directly, so we would usually walk away with few extra dollars in our pockets every week.
That's got a lot to do with really old and poorly insulated houses. I live in Boston, I've had two apartments with oil heat. One came out to $350-$400 a month, one was more like $170 a month. Now I'm on LNG and pay $50/month.
Our seasons out here do suck, don't get me wrong, but a lot of our homes could be more efficiently insulated.
The scary part though is that a determined thief could be monitoring your traffic and you would never know. If someone smashes a window and breaks into your house you will know about it. If someone is monitoring my traffic while I'm trying to file my tax returns, for example, they might have all sorts of valuable information about me and I would never know. Especially if I am the sort of under-experienced user that leaves my wi-fi open.
In the experience that you described, do you think things would've turned out any differently if you just quietly shuffled out the door without explaining why you were leaving?
I think things might have gone differently had my team members raised our concerns in a more proactive manner. If issues are raised and the company continues not to take action, then leaving might be the most responsible choice.
My only point was that the time to raise those concerns is not while you are quitting. Too many people keep their frustrations bottled up until their exit interview, at which point the company sees no need to resolve the problem.
That kind of gang-resignation just smacks of organizational mutiny, and leaves the company in a position where it is incapable of taking any action to correct the issue. Their focus is a replacing a number of key employees as quickly as possible.
Plus from the organizations perspective, if the team has just lost one or more of its most talented core members then it cannot afford to also lose the group leader. No matter how incompetent the person might be.
In my experience employees that jump ship like that are seen as immature, and any issues that they raise during their resignation are chalked up to that employee having poor conflict resolution skills. I've done something similar to what the GP described, and in hindsight I regret it. After speaking with contacts at my former organization, the company's management looked at the situation as my supervisor being cursed with a number of disloyal employees, and gave her an opportunity to restructure her team.
Remember that throwing your immediate manager under the bus to their boss is not always a good strategy. That persons boss is likely the person that hired or promoted them in the first place.
It's not the bottom ranks that's the problem in larger corporations. As the crowd thins towards the top and the roles are primarily managerial, the temptation to promote those you like becomes more prevalent.
From what I've observed, this is really true in large organizations where departments are constantly politicking over staff, budget, space, etc. Managers have a need to promote subordinates whom they trust and expect will not throw them under the bus for their own advantage. Those people have a value to them that is separate from objective assessments of their work performance.
This is not inherently a bad thing. But if unchecked in can definitely lead to a disastrous work environment where competent and ambitious workers are passed over in favor of loyal underlings.
That's the proof that I learned (kind of, for me it was 1/9+1/9...=1 and.1111+.1111...=.9999). I've seen other more complicated proofs, but this is the only one that doesn't feel like I'm cheating when I write it out.
And honestly it didn't feel right until my HS Physics teacher convinced me of the idea that our written numbering system is not mathematics itself, it is just representative of mathematics. Our notation system does not have to be perfect in every case for the math to be correct. This was really helpful in getting me not to complain about relativity not making any sense.
Because you have no idea why that person is kneeling down next to your car. Maybe he's tampering. Maybe he's just reaching under it to grab his dog that ran under there. You've got no idea what he is doing.
Most States lethal force laws require that the actor have a reasonable expectation of imminent criminal activity. I don't see how a reasonable person would think it's ok to simply start shooting without asking the question "what are you doing on my land".
And realistically, if you've already drawn on them and you are in fact catching them in the act of tampering with your car, they will not be able to draw and shoot faster than you. The instructor on a home defense course I took was of the opinion that the sound of racking the slide on your shotgun is worth more than shooting it. It defuses the situation and gets the invader running without any unnecessary shooting or loss of life.
You can access the engine compartment on some vehicles very easily from underneath. It's super easy on my Jeep. You wouldn't need to break into anything to get access.
How to get power from my battery without at least stripping a wire I don't know. Every terminal I've ever seen under my vehicle is sealed up really tight. Perhaps some kind of elaborate hook could be used to reach up to the battery from the ground.
Or, if you leave your blinds open and your big screen T.V. on, should I be able to stand on the public sidewalk and watch?
Well that is a special case, there might be local laws regarding peering into open windows.
But I think your point is valid. If I leave my wireless unsecured and it is spilling outside my house such that someone on the street can connect to the network, I can't really claim anyone is stealing my wireless. I made it accessible to the public. If I left a bowl of candy sitting on my front step, I'm not going to get angry at kids for stealing my candy.
Contracting Do not into Don't weakens the authority of the statement. This is not a hard and fast grammatical rule, merely an observation after reviewing countless arguments here on slashdot. Your statement would have more boom if you left it non contracted.
Just to thrown on my Devils Advocate hat for a moment...
A flat tax scheme is just about as egalitarian as you can get. Everyone pays the same. Every person pays the same tax on goods that they purchase. Incomes and accumulated wealth do not have a tax burden, but individual citizens do. Taxing the rich simply because they can pay more places an unequal tax burden on a very small portion of our society. "..from each according to his ability" is a historically un-American taxation strategy.
/Devils Advocate
I don't know what the right answer is. I do agree that a flat tax strategy will functionally eliminate class mobility. But that doesn't mean that it isn't the right thing to do. If as a society we decide that poor people are entitled to some forms of protection from onerous taxes then a national sales tax is a bad idea. If we take the idea of "every person being equal under the eyes of the law" to it's extreme logical conclusion then a flat tax system works.
I had the same thing happen. Though I suspect that most of the lenience came because I had filed well before the April 15 deadline and still had time to correct my mistake, which makes things easier for everyone involved.
Whichever way you slice it, it still smells like a marketing neologism.
Languages change over time. The pronunciations and cultural meanings of words drift. This is a good thing, it allows us to label and discuss concepts that we were previously unable to. I like the term "incentivize". But that's because I'm a researcher, and I am constantly working on better ways to attract potential participants and get them to participate in my studies.
For better or worse, we are a society in which marketing plays an increasingly important role. It makes absolute sense that we develop new terminology and language to discuss our new social conditions.
Slashdot Mirror
My understanding of his post was that he was pondering a long term reduction in American food consumption. He posited that this kind of reduction could not be accomplished voluntarily, it would require rationing. He talked about rationing as it was accomplished over there.
I used the term describe. This was a poor word choice. He does describe rationing during WWII, but only as way of arguing that rationing modern America would be a very different effort.
My understanding of your post was that you were arguing that because rationing was accomplished over here during WWII, a long term consumption reduction was feasible. I disagreed on the basis that Americans would not voluntarily agree to such a reduction because we will lose so many of our luxuries. If I've misinterpreted your post than I apologize. Communication over the internet makes conversations like this difficult...
...but that is no excuse for your hostility, sarcasm, and condescension. Relax bro, this a hypothetical conversation about US food production. No need to get emotional.
Rationing here during WWII was a lot different than what the GP describes. It was short term and necessary to support a war effort against a very specific threat. Americans also distrust our government a lot more now than they did in the 1940's (AFAIK. I wasn't around yet).
Long term food rationing to support a less lavish lifestyle is something that I think modern America will strongly resist. Of course I say this as an overweight, caffeine addicted walking stereotype. The thought of not having fresh coffee and frozen pizza available whenever I want it is something that I have difficulty comprehending.
Threatening end users who make modifications to the console that they PURCHASED is as ridiculous as Ford suing me for buying one of their cars then changing the rims so I can put a different size of tire on them...
Sony doesn't mind if you open up your PS3 and start soldering bits yourself. Sony is actively trying to stop the distribution of these dongles. It sounds like a petty distinction, but it is an important one. Ford wouldn't have sued you for modifying the rims. He would have sued you for purchasing third party rims whose sole reason for existence is modifying one of his cars.
I'm not saying it's right. I'm just saying that Sony isn't pursuing the physical modifications themselves as much as they are pursuing the market of modification enabling devices.
Yeah, but to be fair one of his points was that the current terms were created by what he views as the open source community. The terms were already defined to put his product in a bad light. Of course he is trying to redefine terms in the debate, the current terms are unfair.
His main point, about Android not in fact being an open community, was really spot on. Android might be "open" as in FOSS, but most of the community is definitely not able to take advantage of Android's openness.
Good. Use your aggressive feelings, boy. Let the hate flow through you.
But the openness doesn't come from the handset itself. Unless you buy direct from a manufacturer, the handsets will be locked down to the specifications of whichever service provider you bought it from.
Androids openness comes from the distribution of the platform. Once you do root you have an incredible amount of options and level of freedom on an Android device. Much more AFAIK than on any iOS device.
Were you an early adopter?
I was. Until recently I was limited to 1.6 on my apparently ancient G1/HTC Dream. When I finally got around to getting a custom ROM on it, I did have to reinstall all my apps and data. This was expected of course, but I think I would have preferred just getting the updates to 2.2.
Funnily enough (and back OT) it was the fragmented nature of the platform that pushed me towards a community ROM. In that respect I am very grateful that the platform is open. I happen to be geeky enough that I looked at this as a challenge to overcome as a hobby. But as always, geeks beget geeking. I personally enjoy the experience. But I can certainly understand why some users would prefer a phone that "just works".
Hopefully they'll find the guy who called it.
Unfortunately it sounds like you're absolutely right. Simmons would be just as happy going after some 16 year old script kiddie who thought it might be fun to play along with a DDoS attack. The guy(s?) who called this are probably competent enough to know a little about hiding their tracks. The kid that Simmons will persecute is probably not so aware.
A problem with our system is that "we" don't even really get to choose our candidates. Our candidates are provided to us by the two dominant parties. We have them jump through hoops for our amusement to whittle the field down to just two, then we pick the better of the two.
American's didn't just fail to do their homework on the Obama vs. McCain election. We failed to do our homework on the 15 candidates that made credible bids for the Democrat and Republican Primaries. We can easily look at Obama and criticize him. But how many of use could realistically compare Obama to Fred Thompson or Mitt Romney? (for example). Or McCain to Kucinich?
We are waaayy to apathetic about our presidential elections. We allow ourselves to be spoon fed two candidates that were chosen on the basis that they are the least offensive available candidate. Few people really care until November, at which point all they can do is pick either...or. That's no way to elect our leadership.
I'm not a physicist, but I believe that unless we can do enough nuking to destroy a significant amount of the material that makes up the body, all we will do is break it up into little pieces. This would eliminate the single uber-disastrous impact, but might only result in a number of moderately disastrous impacts with a similar net disaster. The same amount of rock is still hitting the planet.
(although those stealing trailers have apparently stolen entire rolls of copper wire rather than copper wire already in the ground).
This.
I used to work summers as an electricians helper. The electricians would haul around big copper spools in trailers and the back of their trucks. Trailers loaded with copper would disappear every now and then if left unattended at a job site. I have no idea how much they would get for it, it seems like it would be pretty obvious what's going on when they try to sell that brand new 1/2 ton spool of copper to a scrapper, but it happened.
We used to make a good pile of cash on the side though. Whenever we were working a renovation on a government building we would usually wind up with a couple truckbeds worth of copper wiring and plumbing. The city had no mechanism for recycling it directly, so we would usually walk away with few extra dollars in our pockets every week.
That's got a lot to do with really old and poorly insulated houses. I live in Boston, I've had two apartments with oil heat. One came out to $350-$400 a month, one was more like $170 a month. Now I'm on LNG and pay $50/month.
Our seasons out here do suck, don't get me wrong, but a lot of our homes could be more efficiently insulated.
The scary part though is that a determined thief could be monitoring your traffic and you would never know. If someone smashes a window and breaks into your house you will know about it. If someone is monitoring my traffic while I'm trying to file my tax returns, for example, they might have all sorts of valuable information about me and I would never know. Especially if I am the sort of under-experienced user that leaves my wi-fi open.
In the experience that you described, do you think things would've turned out any differently if you just quietly shuffled out the door without explaining why you were leaving?
I think things might have gone differently had my team members raised our concerns in a more proactive manner. If issues are raised and the company continues not to take action, then leaving might be the most responsible choice.
My only point was that the time to raise those concerns is not while you are quitting. Too many people keep their frustrations bottled up until their exit interview, at which point the company sees no need to resolve the problem.
That kind of gang-resignation just smacks of organizational mutiny, and leaves the company in a position where it is incapable of taking any action to correct the issue. Their focus is a replacing a number of key employees as quickly as possible.
Plus from the organizations perspective, if the team has just lost one or more of its most talented core members then it cannot afford to also lose the group leader. No matter how incompetent the person might be.
In my experience employees that jump ship like that are seen as immature, and any issues that they raise during their resignation are chalked up to that employee having poor conflict resolution skills. I've done something similar to what the GP described, and in hindsight I regret it. After speaking with contacts at my former organization, the company's management looked at the situation as my supervisor being cursed with a number of disloyal employees, and gave her an opportunity to restructure her team.
Remember that throwing your immediate manager under the bus to their boss is not always a good strategy. That persons boss is likely the person that hired or promoted them in the first place.
It's not the bottom ranks that's the problem in larger corporations. As the crowd thins towards the top and the roles are primarily managerial, the temptation to promote those you like becomes more prevalent.
From what I've observed, this is really true in large organizations where departments are constantly politicking over staff, budget, space, etc. Managers have a need to promote subordinates whom they trust and expect will not throw them under the bus for their own advantage. Those people have a value to them that is separate from objective assessments of their work performance.
This is not inherently a bad thing. But if unchecked in can definitely lead to a disastrous work environment where competent and ambitious workers are passed over in favor of loyal underlings.
That's the proof that I learned (kind of, for me it was 1/9+1/9...=1 and .1111+.1111...=.9999). I've seen other more complicated proofs, but this is the only one that doesn't feel like I'm cheating when I write it out.
And honestly it didn't feel right until my HS Physics teacher convinced me of the idea that our written numbering system is not mathematics itself, it is just representative of mathematics. Our notation system does not have to be perfect in every case for the math to be correct. This was really helpful in getting me not to complain about relativity not making any sense.
Because you have no idea why that person is kneeling down next to your car. Maybe he's tampering. Maybe he's just reaching under it to grab his dog that ran under there. You've got no idea what he is doing.
Most States lethal force laws require that the actor have a reasonable expectation of imminent criminal activity. I don't see how a reasonable person would think it's ok to simply start shooting without asking the question "what are you doing on my land".
And realistically, if you've already drawn on them and you are in fact catching them in the act of tampering with your car, they will not be able to draw and shoot faster than you. The instructor on a home defense course I took was of the opinion that the sound of racking the slide on your shotgun is worth more than shooting it. It defuses the situation and gets the invader running without any unnecessary shooting or loss of life.
You can access the engine compartment on some vehicles very easily from underneath. It's super easy on my Jeep. You wouldn't need to break into anything to get access.
How to get power from my battery without at least stripping a wire I don't know. Every terminal I've ever seen under my vehicle is sealed up really tight. Perhaps some kind of elaborate hook could be used to reach up to the battery from the ground.
While I agree with you on that, I think the FBI would disagree.
Being a Federal agency they could bone you in 16 different ways all while you were still within the limits of what is allowed in Texas.
Also, I have a hard time believing that you would not have some obligation to offer a verbal warning before using lethal force.
Or, if you leave your blinds open and your big screen T.V. on, should I be able to stand on the public sidewalk and watch?
Well that is a special case, there might be local laws regarding peering into open windows.
But I think your point is valid. If I leave my wireless unsecured and it is spilling outside my house such that someone on the street can connect to the network, I can't really claim anyone is stealing my wireless. I made it accessible to the public. If I left a bowl of candy sitting on my front step, I'm not going to get angry at kids for stealing my candy.
Just my $.02 and a little feedback:
Contracting Do not into Don't weakens the authority of the statement. This is not a hard and fast grammatical rule, merely an observation after reviewing countless arguments here on slashdot. Your statement would have more boom if you left it non contracted.
Just to thrown on my Devils Advocate hat for a moment...
A flat tax scheme is just about as egalitarian as you can get. Everyone pays the same. Every person pays the same tax on goods that they purchase. Incomes and accumulated wealth do not have a tax burden, but individual citizens do. Taxing the rich simply because they can pay more places an unequal tax burden on a very small portion of our society. "..from each according to his ability" is a historically un-American taxation strategy.
/Devils Advocate
I don't know what the right answer is. I do agree that a flat tax strategy will functionally eliminate class mobility. But that doesn't mean that it isn't the right thing to do. If as a society we decide that poor people are entitled to some forms of protection from onerous taxes then a national sales tax is a bad idea. If we take the idea of "every person being equal under the eyes of the law" to it's extreme logical conclusion then a flat tax system works.
I had the same thing happen. Though I suspect that most of the lenience came because I had filed well before the April 15 deadline and still had time to correct my mistake, which makes things easier for everyone involved.
Whichever way you slice it, it still smells like a marketing neologism.
Languages change over time. The pronunciations and cultural meanings of words drift. This is a good thing, it allows us to label and discuss concepts that we were previously unable to. I like the term "incentivize". But that's because I'm a researcher, and I am constantly working on better ways to attract potential participants and get them to participate in my studies.
For better or worse, we are a society in which marketing plays an increasingly important role. It makes absolute sense that we develop new terminology and language to discuss our new social conditions.