You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna get myself a 1967 Cadillac Eldorado convertible Hot pink, with whale skin hubcaps And all leather cow interior And big brown baby seal eyes for head lights (yeah) And I'm gonna drive in that baby at 115 miles per hour Gettin' 1 mile per gallon Sucking down Quarter Pounder cheeseburgers from McDonald's In the old fashioned non-biodegradable styrofoam containers And when I'm done sucking down those greaseball burgers I'm gonna wipe my mouth with the American flag And then I'm gonna toss the styrofoam containers right out the side And there ain't a goddamn thing anybody can do about it You know why, because we've got the bomb, that's why Two words, nuclear fucking weapons, OK? Russia, Germany, Romania, they can have all the democracy they want They can have a big democracy cakewalk Right through the middle of Tiananmen Square And it won't make a lick of difference Because we've got the bombs, OK?
Yeah, same here, but I had to realize that being 100m above sea level is just too high up to see the seaside come to my turf any time soon. Still, I think it's a good idea to get a shotgun to make sure those that are 5m above sea level stay where they are when the tide comes in...
Yes, the earth had been warmer in the distant past. And yes, life did exist back then. No human life, but if that's not a requirement, you're absolutely right.
I hope so. If, and only if, the companies wanting to build those power plants also take responsibility for dismantling them after use. Now, that takes a lot of money that they maybe don't have yet, so here's a proposal: The money the power plant generates goes into a fund that's locked for cleanup purposes. Once that fund hits the amount of money needed to dismantle and dispose of that power plant, they can have the rest of the money.
I'm kinda tired of companies suddenly going poof whenever power plants reach their EOL and it's time to cover the cost of getting rid of that radioactive pile of junk.
Sure. Think we'll get any wiser just 'cause Summers get insufferably hot, tornados and hurricanes going haywire and island nations cease to exist? Of course you'll still hear it, we'll just be talking at a higher level. Of water, not quality.
Just read the comments here and realize we have arrived at stage 3 of the 4-stages of climate disaster denial:
1: "Oh, there is no such thing as a climate change!" 2: "What you see there is just a variation in weather, not climate!" 3: "Well, yes, there is a change, but it's natural, nothing human makes." 4: "Ok, the change is real and we're fucked, but it's too late to do anything anyway."
The great thing about any of those 4 steps is that you needn't change anything in your behaviour. The only thing that kinda bugs me is how quickly we arrived at 3, I was hoping that I'd at least be on my way out before we arrive at "we're fucked", because back in stage 1, I did actually care about the planet. In the meantime I stopped caring. What for? I am old. I have no kids. And if you can't be assed to keep this planet able to sustain life so your kids can live, why the fuck should I care?
Just like the touch bar itself, no one else gives it positive feedback either...
Hey, who started with giving no feedback! Or any for that matter, hell, those damn things giving you no feedback when typing IS one of the key complaints.
All of these points are very valid, but aside of them I want to stress a fundamental problem of our school system. Our schools are set up to create mediocrity.
Instead of having students concentrate on what they excel in, we force them to do what they're simply not good at. Li'l Johnny is great with math but struggles with Spanish. What would the sensible thing be? Or, if you want to be more right-leaning, what would be sensible from an economic point of view? Well, of course to push Johnny in the math department, what we have here is a potential STEM student candidate. Speed up his math education, maybe he has the aptitude to learn college material long before he's out of high school.
What do we do instead? We tell Johnny that he can stop learning math, because he's good enough there. Instead we force him to focus on Spanish and invest his time there so he can get passing grades.
What we produce in the end that way is a Johnny that will of course still pass math, maybe not at a level he could have attained if we had let him put the emphasis of his studies there, with just enough Spanish retained after he finally can dump what he obviously doesn't enjoy to say that he doesn't speak it.
In the end, we have produce another mediocre high school graduate. Who will most likely never excel at anything, unless we finally leave him alone and hope and pray that we didn't manage to destroy his interest in math, at least.
To make matters worse, that's not what we need out here in the real world. More and more we need specialists. We don't need a mediocre mathematician who can so-so speak Spanish. What we need is a brilliant mathematician, and nobody cares if he can speak a word of Spanish. If I need someone speaking Spanish, I hire someone who loves the language and is fluent in it.
You will also notice that this is a thing of the past, and that these buildings to show off wealth are a relic from times when aristocracy tried to outdo each other in a show of wealth and extravaganza.
Maybe the fact that many countries wiped those aristocrats off the map, along with a culture of modesty, rooted in protestant religions that tried to demonstrate a contrast to the opulence and show of wealth and splendor of the Roman Catholic Church, especially in northern Europe, led to a culture where showing off your wealth is simply not en vogue anymore.
I usually write Lëtzebuerg. Ok, not necessarily when the rest of the text is in English.;)
This aside, you're right. Wanting to show off wealth is mostly common (in Europe) with people who actually have none. The proverbial ghetto car is the BMW "3er series", usually running on leasing because, well, buying is beyond reach. Same with cellphones.
But with the latter it's changing. Mostly because there is no "more" in that area. You can of course buy a cell phone made from 24karat gold with diamonds, but that kind of flashy show of wealth is not very "European". Here, you rather show wealth in status symbols that are expensive but don't look it, it's more an "in-joke" for the rich and those that wanna be. Take a look at a Bentley Mulsanne, it doesn't look flashy (personally, I think it's ugly as sin), you don't get to see a lot of its luxury, but if you know what it is, you know that it's prohibitively expensive and whoever owns one has money to burn. Literally.
Ya know, India is one of those places where people need the stuff they buy first and foremost to accomplish something, not as a fashion statement. It's kinda very "western" to have money to squander on "ohh, shiny!".
That's the problem, we consider pretty much anything tasty that consists mostly of raw energy. Sugar, fat, anything that fuels our body. Evolutionary that makes sense, so trying to explain to your kid that that broccoli is better than the ice cream is pretty hard, considering you have millions of years of evolution working against you.
Reading to children is vital. Because it creates interest in those things that contain the stories children want to have. I could read when I was 4, simply because I wanted to have the stories that my grandmother was reading to me by myself, whenever I wanted them, not only when granny was around and had time to read them to me.
Kids learn best when they have a reason to learn. Give them a reason to want to know how to read and your kids, too, can read before they get to school. Plus, they want to read because they have a useful application for that skill.
The same applies to everything. Math, foreign languages, physics, whatever. Kids learn best when they want to learn. Not when you make them.
Slashdot Mirror
You know what I'm gonna do?
I'm gonna get myself a 1967 Cadillac Eldorado convertible
Hot pink, with whale skin hubcaps
And all leather cow interior
And big brown baby seal eyes for head lights (yeah)
And I'm gonna drive in that baby at 115 miles per hour
Gettin' 1 mile per gallon
Sucking down Quarter Pounder cheeseburgers from McDonald's
In the old fashioned non-biodegradable styrofoam containers
And when I'm done sucking down those greaseball burgers
I'm gonna wipe my mouth with the American flag
And then I'm gonna toss the styrofoam containers right out the side
And there ain't a goddamn thing anybody can do about it
You know why, because we've got the bomb, that's why
Two words, nuclear fucking weapons, OK?
Russia, Germany, Romania, they can have all the democracy they want
They can have a big democracy cakewalk
Right through the middle of Tiananmen Square
And it won't make a lick of difference
Because we've got the bombs, OK?
-- Denis Leary - Asshole
Yeah, same here, but I had to realize that being 100m above sea level is just too high up to see the seaside come to my turf any time soon. Still, I think it's a good idea to get a shotgun to make sure those that are 5m above sea level stay where they are when the tide comes in...
Yes, the earth had been warmer in the distant past. And yes, life did exist back then. No human life, but if that's not a requirement, you're absolutely right.
Where the fuck do you get that bullshit from?
I hope so. If, and only if, the companies wanting to build those power plants also take responsibility for dismantling them after use. Now, that takes a lot of money that they maybe don't have yet, so here's a proposal: The money the power plant generates goes into a fund that's locked for cleanup purposes. Once that fund hits the amount of money needed to dismantle and dispose of that power plant, they can have the rest of the money.
I'm kinda tired of companies suddenly going poof whenever power plants reach their EOL and it's time to cover the cost of getting rid of that radioactive pile of junk.
You can cheaply and quickly spread an aerosol globally that is heavier than the surrounding air, i.e. you can reapply it constantly? And cheaply?
Please elaborate, you're about to become the darling of farmers everywhere.
Sure. Think we'll get any wiser just 'cause Summers get insufferably hot, tornados and hurricanes going haywire and island nations cease to exist? Of course you'll still hear it, we'll just be talking at a higher level. Of water, not quality.
The planet has been trying that. But no, humans have to reverse it...
Just read the comments here and realize we have arrived at stage 3 of the 4-stages of climate disaster denial:
1: "Oh, there is no such thing as a climate change!"
2: "What you see there is just a variation in weather, not climate!"
3: "Well, yes, there is a change, but it's natural, nothing human makes."
4: "Ok, the change is real and we're fucked, but it's too late to do anything anyway."
The great thing about any of those 4 steps is that you needn't change anything in your behaviour. The only thing that kinda bugs me is how quickly we arrived at 3, I was hoping that I'd at least be on my way out before we arrive at "we're fucked", because back in stage 1, I did actually care about the planet. In the meantime I stopped caring. What for? I am old. I have no kids. And if you can't be assed to keep this planet able to sustain life so your kids can live, why the fuck should I care?
Umm... you DO know the law of entropy, yes?
True that. Like in the old joke.
Two planets meet. Said the one
"You look terrible, what's wrong?"
"Oh, I have homo sapiens."
"Ah. Don't worry, I had that too. It's gonna pass."
I still maintain the older model Ms can stop 9mm bullets.
Just like the touch bar itself, no one else gives it positive feedback either ...
Hey, who started with giving no feedback! Or any for that matter, hell, those damn things giving you no feedback when typing IS one of the key complaints.
Old joke:
Employer: You have the choice. A, a MacBook Pro, or B...
Employee: B.
All of these points are very valid, but aside of them I want to stress a fundamental problem of our school system. Our schools are set up to create mediocrity.
Instead of having students concentrate on what they excel in, we force them to do what they're simply not good at. Li'l Johnny is great with math but struggles with Spanish. What would the sensible thing be? Or, if you want to be more right-leaning, what would be sensible from an economic point of view? Well, of course to push Johnny in the math department, what we have here is a potential STEM student candidate. Speed up his math education, maybe he has the aptitude to learn college material long before he's out of high school.
What do we do instead? We tell Johnny that he can stop learning math, because he's good enough there. Instead we force him to focus on Spanish and invest his time there so he can get passing grades.
What we produce in the end that way is a Johnny that will of course still pass math, maybe not at a level he could have attained if we had let him put the emphasis of his studies there, with just enough Spanish retained after he finally can dump what he obviously doesn't enjoy to say that he doesn't speak it.
In the end, we have produce another mediocre high school graduate. Who will most likely never excel at anything, unless we finally leave him alone and hope and pray that we didn't manage to destroy his interest in math, at least.
To make matters worse, that's not what we need out here in the real world. More and more we need specialists. We don't need a mediocre mathematician who can so-so speak Spanish. What we need is a brilliant mathematician, and nobody cares if he can speak a word of Spanish. If I need someone speaking Spanish, I hire someone who loves the language and is fluent in it.
Which will benefit you when you get paid more because there are fewer people available that can do your job.
The system works.
You will also notice that this is a thing of the past, and that these buildings to show off wealth are a relic from times when aristocracy tried to outdo each other in a show of wealth and extravaganza.
Maybe the fact that many countries wiped those aristocrats off the map, along with a culture of modesty, rooted in protestant religions that tried to demonstrate a contrast to the opulence and show of wealth and splendor of the Roman Catholic Church, especially in northern Europe, led to a culture where showing off your wealth is simply not en vogue anymore.
I usually write Lëtzebuerg. Ok, not necessarily when the rest of the text is in English. ;)
This aside, you're right. Wanting to show off wealth is mostly common (in Europe) with people who actually have none. The proverbial ghetto car is the BMW "3er series", usually running on leasing because, well, buying is beyond reach. Same with cellphones.
But with the latter it's changing. Mostly because there is no "more" in that area. You can of course buy a cell phone made from 24karat gold with diamonds, but that kind of flashy show of wealth is not very "European". Here, you rather show wealth in status symbols that are expensive but don't look it, it's more an "in-joke" for the rich and those that wanna be. Take a look at a Bentley Mulsanne, it doesn't look flashy (personally, I think it's ugly as sin), you don't get to see a lot of its luxury, but if you know what it is, you know that it's prohibitively expensive and whoever owns one has money to burn. Literally.
Maybe because they retain a high resale value compared to other cars?
Same way other companies do it. With region locking, warranty voiding and bribing governments to put tariffs on private imports but not their own.
Look at the bright side. The more of those idiots are around, the fewer people will compete for your job.
Ya know, India is one of those places where people need the stuff they buy first and foremost to accomplish something, not as a fashion statement. It's kinda very "western" to have money to squander on "ohh, shiny!".
That's the problem, we consider pretty much anything tasty that consists mostly of raw energy. Sugar, fat, anything that fuels our body. Evolutionary that makes sense, so trying to explain to your kid that that broccoli is better than the ice cream is pretty hard, considering you have millions of years of evolution working against you.
Reading to children is vital. Because it creates interest in those things that contain the stories children want to have. I could read when I was 4, simply because I wanted to have the stories that my grandmother was reading to me by myself, whenever I wanted them, not only when granny was around and had time to read them to me.
Kids learn best when they have a reason to learn. Give them a reason to want to know how to read and your kids, too, can read before they get to school. Plus, they want to read because they have a useful application for that skill.
The same applies to everything. Math, foreign languages, physics, whatever. Kids learn best when they want to learn. Not when you make them.
School needs to learn that students are not "raw material" but humans. Until they realize this, the whole effort is in vain.