True. Unions serve a valuable role. There's a good reason they exist. And some of the time they still fill that role.
The problem is that now that unions have accomplished what they originally set out to do (in most cases), they ought to settle for maintaining workers rights.
But now they are big, expensive organisations that must look like they're still doing something in order to stay in business. So, they go too far.
(see http://entertainment.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1799946&cid=33707686)
That explains why a colleague from Britain, who liked unions, could not understand the Australian sentiment. Evidently, in Britain, unions are forced to be sensible.
Not so in Australia.
Here, unions make unreasonable demands and apply bully behaviour to meet their ends. (Found this example when searching for a different case: http://www.ipa.org.au/library/publication/1213763306_document_review39-3_costello-dollarsweets.pdf)
The agreement between employeer and employees was not respected by the union, despite the employer offering to show the union its books. In return the business sufferened superglued locks, assault, etc.
And when someone really does need help, if it's an idividual, they simply can't be bothered. I guess 'cos there's no money in it. (ex. My girlfriend was bullied at the school she works at, and the school didn't help. Her teachers' union couldn't be bothered. Then the union couldn't understand why she stopped being a member.)
I've often thought that if any of these alien witessings are actually true, then aliens appear to be pretty fragile, clever and more technologically advanced compared to us.
That would make us the galactic equivalent of orcs... driving around with clunky combustion powered vehicles, just starting out with remote communication, managing to get to the moon and back, once, by placing 3 people on tonnes of explosives... and then being proud of those achievements. We can't stop brutal violence in our societies, and even accept it as normal to a degree (perhaps they do too) and we often even idolise violence. (Hey, even I like my martial arts.) Sounds just like orks in WH40K, or orcs in general.
So, if aliens did exist, and this view of us as being the galactic equivalent of orcs is even somewhat accurate, then I wouldn't blame aliens for being shy from us, and closely monitoring our most powerful weapons.
In their position, I would be rather cautious too.
All other posts under parent seem to be discussing lost revenue from damaged fishing grounds. Fair enough, but money can always be made in other ways.
This bit worries me much more...
It is drifting 3,000 to 4,300 feet below the gulf's surface, in vast clouds of atomized droplets that could alter links in the chain of life.
There could be an entire ecosystem at that depth that we are unaware of that could be (and probably already is) severly damaged by this. That ecosystem might (or might not) be too far from the surface to impact fishing very much.
Just because we can't see what's going on down there doesn't mean we can/should ignore it.
Sure, BP can't rectify that damage (we can't even know how much damage is actually caused). But most important, IMHO, is that we (en masse, not just leaving it up to irresposible sub-groups) really do everything possible to the best of our abilities, to prevent ourselves from causing these sorts of disasters from happening at all.
Human eyes tend to see better in backlight than cameras. Is this why?
Are some of our photoreceptors more sensitive than others, giving us effectively the same affect as the article describes, but on the same retina?
I had 3D glasses for my old games computer a few years ago. (The drivers only worked with CRT's.) Some people had no problems, while others got headaches after just a few moments. I was fine for an hour at a time. I think newer tech makes 3D much more comfortable though.
Anyway, stereoscopic gaming was great! A couple of experiences:
WoW
Wandering in a cave, cave walls are made up of mottled bitmaps...
Monoscopic: Even though the map shows a branch in a cave, it can sometimes be hard to find it, and one walks back and forth to see if it's there.
Stereoscopic: You simply cannot miss the branch. The cave now looks like a proper shape, that just happens to be patterened with mottled bitmaps.
Rome: Total War
- You get a better feel for distances, so you can see exactly when to tell the archers to unleash a volley of arrows against advancing troops for maximum effect.
- You get a better idea of how well catapults will be able to shoot over the crest of a hill, or whether the rocks will hit the hill/fly over the enemy.
- Also, position the camera among those being shot at, and see the cloud of arrows coming at you. Awsome! =)
Basically, with a sterescopic view, you get a much better idea of the lay of the land, and distances (and therefore timing).
To me, 3D vision helped so much, that it almost felt like an unfair advantage. Almost.
What if the mining vessel either stops at Earth's orbit, deposits the ore, then returns? Or even better...
What if mining vessels don't even bother returning, and send chunks of ore in the direction of Earth with small directional rockets? Then we could steer the chunks into orbit.
Spare parts could be manufactured in orbit and sent back to the mining vessels (such as the small directional rockets, though their fuel could be collected from asteroids).
Ore that we want on Earth, could then be selectively sent down (somehow).
The cost of launching one vessel into space might then be mitigated by it being reused for a long time, for much more than a single load of ore.
Besides, when scarcity on Earth becomes severe, the cost of space mining might become alot more viable. And when I say "cost" I don't mean only financial cost.
Gorillas are quite peaceful. They like to eat leaves in misty mountains.
Guerrillas, on the other hand, are humans who fight in small skirmishes.
Also, I disagree.
You only win a war when you convince your enemy to stop fighting,
whether due to exhaustion, lack of ability, or lack of incentive.
The ultimate victory is not to wipe out your enemy. That’s usually very costly, extremely difficult and can earn you more enemies. (In fact, these are the very reasons why terrorist attacks are counter productive, in that they generate more animosity.)
The ultimate victory is to turn your enemy into your friend. That usually costs less, is still difficult, but you earn respect from everyone, and you gain a willing ally.
Having said that, finding a way to make peace can be very difficult. And that’s exactly why situations such as the current floods in northern Pakistan are so important politically, as they give an opportunity for people to show that they want to be friends. If the Taliban hinders foreign aid, then the people will more likely prefer to help friendly foreigners rather than disruptive Taliban, if they can.
The difference is that the brain accepts the sound of crashing waves as background information that requires little thought.
The argument is that there is now so much information that "demands" thought, that it overwhelms us, and we start "dropping packets"... including packets containing important information.
Are humans the only ones who make tools for making tools?
It's one think to use an implement.
Its another thing to fashion and then use a tool.
It's a third thing to fashion and then use a tool for the purpose of making another tool.
How many other types of animals have reached that third stage?
Slashdot Mirror
Well, that's good. At least they're that won't cause bloat like GIANT binaries would.
In principle, yes, I agree.
In practice, ah, I think we'd need an entirely new form of police-ing/policy-ing to deal with internet crime.
Maybe you guys have fond memories of clustering underneath the bare bulb in your bedroom for warmth when you ran out of heating oil or something.
Q. What do misers do when it's cold?
A. Sit round a candle.
Q. What do misers do when it gets very cold?
A. Light the candle.
It's a really old joke, and and know it's not funny. But it's not my joke. Honest. I read it somewhere.
A small fan, using electric resistance heat, is one of the most efficient ways to heat up a small room.
"The intelligence could be obtained through computers
Computers aren't very intelligent. But, perhaps, they're more intelligent than grunts.
A skill can be taught.
An art is a skill that's been honed with alot of practice.
I agree; too many people underestimate, or even fail to understand, the value of experience/practice/art.
True. Unions serve a valuable role. There's a good reason they exist. And some of the time they still fill that role.
The problem is that now that unions have accomplished what they originally set out to do (in most cases), they ought to settle for maintaining workers rights.
But now they are big, expensive organisations that must look like they're still doing something in order to stay in business. So, they go too far.
(see http://entertainment.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1799946&cid=33707686)
That explains why a colleague from Britain, who liked unions, could not understand the Australian sentiment. Evidently, in Britain, unions are forced to be sensible.
Not so in Australia.
Here, unions make unreasonable demands and apply bully behaviour to meet their ends. (Found this example when searching for a different case: http://www.ipa.org.au/library/publication/1213763306_document_review39-3_costello-dollarsweets.pdf)
The agreement between employeer and employees was not respected by the union, despite the employer offering to show the union its books. In return the business sufferened superglued locks, assault, etc.
And when someone really does need help, if it's an idividual, they simply can't be bothered. I guess 'cos there's no money in it. (ex. My girlfriend was bullied at the school she works at, and the school didn't help. Her teachers' union couldn't be bothered. Then the union couldn't understand why she stopped being a member.)
Is there any other form of discourse left after these three are removed?
Fantasy?
I've often thought that if any of these alien witessings are actually true, then aliens appear to be pretty fragile, clever and more technologically advanced compared to us.
That would make us the galactic equivalent of orcs... driving around with clunky combustion powered vehicles, just starting out with remote communication, managing to get to the moon and back, once, by placing 3 people on tonnes of explosives... and then being proud of those achievements. We can't stop brutal violence in our societies, and even accept it as normal to a degree (perhaps they do too) and we often even idolise violence. (Hey, even I like my martial arts.) Sounds just like orks in WH40K, or orcs in general.
So, if aliens did exist, and this view of us as being the galactic equivalent of orcs is even somewhat accurate, then I wouldn't blame aliens for being shy from us, and closely monitoring our most powerful weapons.
In their position, I would be rather cautious too.
I want to mod you funny, but I've got no mod points. :)
Anyway, I suspect the answer is...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Light_Orchestra
This bit worries me much more...
It is drifting 3,000 to 4,300 feet below the gulf's surface, in vast clouds of atomized droplets that could alter links in the chain of life.
There could be an entire ecosystem at that depth that we are unaware of that could be (and probably already is) severly damaged by this. That ecosystem might (or might not) be too far from the surface to impact fishing very much.
Just because we can't see what's going on down there doesn't mean we can/should ignore it.
Sure, BP can't rectify that damage (we can't even know how much damage is actually caused). But most important, IMHO, is that we (en masse, not just leaving it up to irresposible sub-groups) really do everything possible to the best of our abilities, to prevent ourselves from causing these sorts of disasters from happening at all.
Does that mean that transcendental meditation is irrational too?
The summary being... "New features are good, as long as the user can control their use."
Could someone please mod both parent and grand-parent up, please? They're both good points and I have no mod points.
Human eyes tend to see better in backlight than cameras. Is this why?
Are some of our photoreceptors more sensitive than others, giving us effectively the same affect as the article describes, but on the same retina?
As though debugging wasn't hard enough already!
Debugging can be hard enough with an honest computer.
That's hilarious. :D
:)
I have a cat and I can just imagine the feline expression: "Oh shit! I'm busted!"
Never occurred to me to pretend to have a useful sense of smell. Goes to show how useless I am at deception.
Thanks for the advice.
Jellyfish would be spineless overlords. Attack them, and they'll just quiver in fear like, um, jelly.
On the other hand, they'd be a much softer set of leaders than we have today, and they'd provide a more transparent leadership.
I had 3D glasses for my old games computer a few years ago. (The drivers only worked with CRT's.) Some people had no problems, while others got headaches after just a few moments. I was fine for an hour at a time. I think newer tech makes 3D much more comfortable though.
Anyway, stereoscopic gaming was great! A couple of experiences:
WoW
Wandering in a cave, cave walls are made up of mottled bitmaps...
Monoscopic: Even though the map shows a branch in a cave, it can sometimes be hard to find it, and one walks back and forth to see if it's there.
Stereoscopic: You simply cannot miss the branch. The cave now looks like a proper shape, that just happens to be patterened with mottled bitmaps.
Rome: Total War
- You get a better feel for distances, so you can see exactly when to tell the archers to unleash a volley of arrows against advancing troops for maximum effect.
- You get a better idea of how well catapults will be able to shoot over the crest of a hill, or whether the rocks will hit the hill/fly over the enemy.
- Also, position the camera among those being shot at, and see the cloud of arrows coming at you. Awsome! =)
Basically, with a sterescopic view, you get a much better idea of the lay of the land, and distances (and therefore timing).
To me, 3D vision helped so much, that it almost felt like an unfair advantage. Almost.
What if the mining vessel either stops at Earth's orbit, deposits the ore, then returns? Or even better...
What if mining vessels don't even bother returning, and send chunks of ore in the direction of Earth with small directional rockets? Then we could steer the chunks into orbit.
Spare parts could be manufactured in orbit and sent back to the mining vessels (such as the small directional rockets, though their fuel could be collected from asteroids).
Ore that we want on Earth, could then be selectively sent down (somehow).
The cost of launching one vessel into space might then be mitigated by it being reused for a long time, for much more than a single load of ore.
Besides, when scarcity on Earth becomes severe, the cost of space mining might become alot more viable. And when I say "cost" I don't mean only financial cost.
Gorillas are quite peaceful. They like to eat leaves in misty mountains.
Guerrillas, on the other hand, are humans who fight in small skirmishes.
Also, I disagree.
You only win a war when you convince your enemy to stop fighting,
whether due to exhaustion, lack of ability, or lack of incentive.
The ultimate victory is not to wipe out your enemy. That’s usually very costly, extremely difficult and can earn you more enemies. (In fact, these are the very reasons why terrorist attacks are counter productive, in that they generate more animosity.)
The ultimate victory is to turn your enemy into your friend. That usually costs less, is still difficult, but you earn respect from everyone, and you gain a willing ally.
Having said that, finding a way to make peace can be very difficult. And that’s exactly why situations such as the current floods in northern Pakistan are so important politically, as they give an opportunity for people to show that they want to be friends. If the Taliban hinders foreign aid, then the people will more likely prefer to help friendly foreigners rather than disruptive Taliban, if they can.
Why reinvent the wheel... or rather, the environmentally conscious home?
http://www.perrinepod.com/
http://www.perrinepod.com/eco/default.aspx
http://www.perrinepod.com/photogallery/default.aspx
The difference is that the brain accepts the sound of crashing waves as background information that requires little thought.
The argument is that there is now so much information that "demands" thought, that it overwhelms us, and we start "dropping packets"... including packets containing important information.
Are humans the only ones who make tools for making tools?
It's one think to use an implement.
Its another thing to fashion and then use a tool.
It's a third thing to fashion and then use a tool for the purpose of making another tool.
How many other types of animals have reached that third stage?
"No subatomic particles were hurt in the making of this movie."