That's because, even later in life, breasts are much more important to women than prostates are to men. Men are judged on money and power, but women are still judged on their bodies.
I never said it would give statistical interpretations. I just said it would give statistics. All of them. That would be enough to clean up an awful lot of awful rhetoric. But yes, I agree the whole idea is totally crackpot and should never, will never happen.
The obvious counterargument to this is that even "unsafe" planes can be made to fly into buildings, and I'm not even a big fan of a lot of these TSA measures.
It's only obvious because we're continuously bombarded by sensationalist propaganda even though it's statistically insignificant. Don't forget that you are orders of magnitude more likely to die just by crossing the street than in a terrorist attack on an airplane. Those TSA agents would be saving more lives if they were out stopping drunk and reckless drivers or keeping kids out of gangs.
What you are speculating on are theories, not facts. Such is the state of discourse that theories (like the causes of Autism) are not even our biggest problem any more--people just make up numbers and statements that are absolutely, provably false and expect people to believe them. This agency would be first and foremost charged with stating facts such as "the oil industry paid $91.5 billion in U.S. taxes in 2008" (citation), or "President Obama's birth certificate is valid according every relevant authority." They would not be able to say things like "the oil industry is manipulating prices to drive up profits" unless it was determined in a court of law.
They would not be able to say things like "there is a link between factor X and disease Y" unless there was STRONG agreement in the peer-reviewed journal space (not just a few studies with mixed results). They would, however be able to say "there is no agreement on the link between X and Y" or "there have been no studies on the link between X and Y". They would not be able to say "scientists claim there is no point in studying the link between X and Y" because that is just parroting an opinion, even if it is the collective opinion.
I can see how some this approaches a gray area, but I think the key to maintaining credibility is to stop just short of that gray area and focus on the facts at hand. There's no guaranteeing that people won't misinterpret the facts, but that can only be fixed though education, if at all.
Personally I think H2 is too difficult to handle. I think after a few cars blowup, the consumers will flee. -or- If the manufacturers do manage to make safe, impervious hydrogen cars, the pricetag will be so high (~$100,000) that nobody will be able to afford it. The same flaw that plagues pure EVs.
Never mind the studies showing that hydrogen is safer than gasoline in real-world situations. It's not the safety mechanisms that make the present technology cost $100,000 per car, it's the fuel cells themselves, and the cost will only come down over time because of mass-production and technology advances.
So the worst they could do would be to make a service that's so unusable it may as well not exist? Compared with now, where it actually doesn't exist? I don't see the difference.
Perhaps, but using nuclear weapons against squatters, trolls and spammers has some appeal to me, no matter who does it.
Say that after you find yourself in the house next to the squatter (or the city next to them, for that matter). If we give them a tool to use against "the bad guys" they will simply redefine who "the bad guys" are every time they want to use it. Or do you trust them not to abuse this power in pursuit of their corporate anti-consumer agendas? Have you been paying attention to Sony lately?
It takes an awful lot of awareness-raising martyrs before anything gets done. Netflix is too big and too important to throw under the bus.
If the cable companies force Netflix out of business and Netflix tells all their disappointed customers, "Look what those bastards did to us!", how many people are going to believe that it was really the cable companies' fault and not some bad decision in the single company? If, on the other hand, there are multiple companies that all get squeezed at once, it will be much more obvious that the cable companies are not merely the scapegoat of an ill-tempered CEO. Not only obvious to members of the public, but also members of Congress, who despite the stereotype are more likely to move en masse for a group of companies than a single one.
Netflix just needs to wait a few years for some more streaming companies to get a foothold. Then when the cable companies try to crack down, there will be more than just one company to fight back. It's also a lot easier to get public opinion/lobbyists on your side if an entire industry is the defendant rather than just one company.
If there is no market pressure to actually prepare the alternatives, then the government will have to pay the full cost of research, development, and deployment of the alternatives. Reducing the subsidies on gas prices will gradually push the market in the right direction so that economic forces can decide the best alternatives, rather than the politics of research and development grants. Artificially-low gas prices only perpetuate the current state of using more fossil fuels and depressing investment in alternatives.
Do you honestly think we are going to get out of this mess without paying a price closer to the actual cost of the energy we use?
"This sort of thinking is what led to the lawsuit-crazy period in the '90s. "
Huh?? Do you have some evidence that lawsuits were more prevalent in the '90s as opposed to the '80s or '00s?
It led to the beginning of it in the '90s. The period itself has not ended.
The Commission primarily appears to suffer from a lack of reading comprehension, amnesia regarding what it said earlier, and not being fully aware of its competences.
In other words, they'd fit right in here on Slashdot.
Naw, they wouldn't fit in. They don't spend enough time trying to look smart by talking about how stupid they are.
Okay, I get the dig at biology, but civil engineering is just as technical as any other engineering field. The only reason it's in a slump is because the construction industry is down.
Totalitarianism cannot occur in a laissez-faire capitalistic market, by definition.
True, but only insofar as the moment that totalitarian rule starts, it ceases to be a laissez-faire state. There is nothing in laisse-faire capitalism that prevents bad actors from destroying the system, because such measures are called "regulations".
The only reason the value of each member is less is because the value of the whole remains the same. Shouldn't society be assigning *more* value to discoveries if they take more effort to produce? The trouble is that the impact on society is not guaranteed to be larger even if it takes more people to produce it.
It appears you are misinformed. That's what normal appropriations do. Earmarks go the extra mile to direct funds to *specific projects* handled by those agencies, bypassing their normal approval processes. Like the "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska, corn ethanol subsidies (vs. other biofuels), or the many attempts to make NASA use specifically ATK's solid rocket boosters in a new rocket design instead of something they actually need. There are normally much better places the funds could be used, but because of the earmarks the agencies' hands are tied. That is why so many people are against them.
Slashdot Mirror
That's because, even later in life, breasts are much more important to women than prostates are to men. Men are judged on money and power, but women are still judged on their bodies.
I never said it would give statistical interpretations. I just said it would give statistics. All of them. That would be enough to clean up an awful lot of awful rhetoric. But yes, I agree the whole idea is totally crackpot and should never, will never happen.
The obvious counterargument to this is that even "unsafe" planes can be made to fly into buildings, and I'm not even a big fan of a lot of these TSA measures.
It's only obvious because we're continuously bombarded by sensationalist propaganda even though it's statistically insignificant. Don't forget that you are orders of magnitude more likely to die just by crossing the street than in a terrorist attack on an airplane. Those TSA agents would be saving more lives if they were out stopping drunk and reckless drivers or keeping kids out of gangs.
That is the best idea I've heard in a long time. Plus, you can make the screened flight cost extra! Just how much is "safety" worth to those people?
What you are speculating on are theories, not facts. Such is the state of discourse that theories (like the causes of Autism) are not even our biggest problem any more--people just make up numbers and statements that are absolutely, provably false and expect people to believe them. This agency would be first and foremost charged with stating facts such as "the oil industry paid $91.5 billion in U.S. taxes in 2008" (citation), or "President Obama's birth certificate is valid according every relevant authority." They would not be able to say things like "the oil industry is manipulating prices to drive up profits" unless it was determined in a court of law.
They would not be able to say things like "there is a link between factor X and disease Y" unless there was STRONG agreement in the peer-reviewed journal space (not just a few studies with mixed results). They would, however be able to say "there is no agreement on the link between X and Y" or "there have been no studies on the link between X and Y". They would not be able to say "scientists claim there is no point in studying the link between X and Y" because that is just parroting an opinion, even if it is the collective opinion.
I can see how some this approaches a gray area, but I think the key to maintaining credibility is to stop just short of that gray area and focus on the facts at hand. There's no guaranteeing that people won't misinterpret the facts, but that can only be fixed though education, if at all.
Personally I think H2 is too difficult to handle. I think after a few cars blowup, the consumers will flee. -or- If the manufacturers do manage to make safe, impervious hydrogen cars, the pricetag will be so high (~$100,000) that nobody will be able to afford it. The same flaw that plagues pure EVs.
Because conventional gas tanks never explode, gas engines never catch fire, and we're paying a fair price for perfectly safe gasoline storage and transport?
Never mind the studies showing that hydrogen is safer than gasoline in real-world situations. It's not the safety mechanisms that make the present technology cost $100,000 per car, it's the fuel cells themselves, and the cost will only come down over time because of mass-production and technology advances.
If it's a sharp knife, it will be easier to clean up after.
So the worst they could do would be to make a service that's so unusable it may as well not exist? Compared with now, where it actually doesn't exist? I don't see the difference.
Trading one corporate overlord for another. Big whoop. For the sake of argument, can you tell me how Google could be worse than the RIAA?
Perhaps, but using nuclear weapons against squatters, trolls and spammers has some appeal to me, no matter who does it.
Say that after you find yourself in the house next to the squatter (or the city next to them, for that matter). If we give them a tool to use against "the bad guys" they will simply redefine who "the bad guys" are every time they want to use it. Or do you trust them not to abuse this power in pursuit of their corporate anti-consumer agendas? Have you been paying attention to Sony lately?
It takes an awful lot of awareness-raising martyrs before anything gets done. Netflix is too big and too important to throw under the bus.
If the cable companies force Netflix out of business and Netflix tells all their disappointed customers, "Look what those bastards did to us!", how many people are going to believe that it was really the cable companies' fault and not some bad decision in the single company? If, on the other hand, there are multiple companies that all get squeezed at once, it will be much more obvious that the cable companies are not merely the scapegoat of an ill-tempered CEO. Not only obvious to members of the public, but also members of Congress, who despite the stereotype are more likely to move en masse for a group of companies than a single one.
Netflix just needs to wait a few years for some more streaming companies to get a foothold. Then when the cable companies try to crack down, there will be more than just one company to fight back. It's also a lot easier to get public opinion/lobbyists on your side if an entire industry is the defendant rather than just one company.
If there is no market pressure to actually prepare the alternatives, then the government will have to pay the full cost of research, development, and deployment of the alternatives. Reducing the subsidies on gas prices will gradually push the market in the right direction so that economic forces can decide the best alternatives, rather than the politics of research and development grants. Artificially-low gas prices only perpetuate the current state of using more fossil fuels and depressing investment in alternatives.
Do you honestly think we are going to get out of this mess without paying a price closer to the actual cost of the energy we use?
"This sort of thinking is what led to the lawsuit-crazy period in the '90s. " Huh?? Do you have some evidence that lawsuits were more prevalent in the '90s as opposed to the '80s or '00s?
It led to the beginning of it in the '90s. The period itself has not ended.
Except that by the time the sun burns out, the Earth's core will be long-dead.
Advice is one thing but this is a "do my job for me because I'm not qualified to do it" question.
You mean this is not Slashdot Consultants, LLC?
I'll believe it when I see their name on my paycheck ... *checks mailbox* ... nope, nothing yet.
Perpetual motion FTW!
Life on Earth is only perpetual until you turn off the sun.
My current job has me doing this. 7 days of 12+ hours. And 45 OT hours each week, or 200 per month. (jumps off roof)
What does your hourly rate work out to after overtime pay? I'll bet it's more than theirs (adjusted for local cost of living, of course).
It's easy to remember some words and 13 random digits if they are important enough to you. Apparently this guy devotes his life to Dell-bashing. ;-)
The Commission primarily appears to suffer from a lack of reading comprehension, amnesia regarding what it said earlier, and not being fully aware of its competences.
In other words, they'd fit right in here on Slashdot.
Naw, they wouldn't fit in. They don't spend enough time trying to look smart by talking about how stupid they are.
Okay, I get the dig at biology, but civil engineering is just as technical as any other engineering field. The only reason it's in a slump is because the construction industry is down.
Because plutocracies are so much better.
How about we just leave all the content online and let people pick and choose what they want.
That's the [redacted by crowd-sourced censors] joy of the internet
FTFY.
Totalitarianism cannot occur in a laissez-faire capitalistic market, by definition.
True, but only insofar as the moment that totalitarian rule starts, it ceases to be a laissez-faire state. There is nothing in laisse-faire capitalism that prevents bad actors from destroying the system, because such measures are called "regulations".
The only reason the value of each member is less is because the value of the whole remains the same. Shouldn't society be assigning *more* value to discoveries if they take more effort to produce? The trouble is that the impact on society is not guaranteed to be larger even if it takes more people to produce it.
It appears you are misinformed. That's what normal appropriations do. Earmarks go the extra mile to direct funds to *specific projects* handled by those agencies, bypassing their normal approval processes. Like the "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska, corn ethanol subsidies (vs. other biofuels), or the many attempts to make NASA use specifically ATK's solid rocket boosters in a new rocket design instead of something they actually need. There are normally much better places the funds could be used, but because of the earmarks the agencies' hands are tied. That is why so many people are against them.