In 2000, Rove had a bright idea, and the Republican get-out-the-vote campaign focused on getting people to vote absentee early, so they'd be "locked in". Both parties had get-out-the-vote campaigns, but the results of the Republican one didn't show up in exit polls because those people didn't GO to the polls.
I don't know whether this strategy change explains all the discrepancies, but it could. No illegal vote manipulation was NECESSARY to cause the results... just Neo-Cons. So why do people insist tampering must have occurred anyway, when there's a simpler explanation that doesn't involve a Widely Kept Secret?
Funny you should be all unhappy about motorcycle emissions requirements. I think they make a perfect poster child for why sometimes government regulation can be a good thing, and for how it should be done. Scenario:
California places restrictions on emissions for bikes. People get pissed because their CA model sport bike produces 30% less power than the "49 state" version of the same bike. This is a factory restriction, though, with no policing, so people who care just fix theirs. Harley owners probably got pissed about pushrods being outlawed or helmets required or something, I wouldn't know. But fast forward a few years to now:
California still has these "horrendous" restrictions. But now Yamaha ships (basically) one model of their flagship sport bike to the whole world, passing CA emissions without recourse to stupid hacks. Technology evolved to produce more power (and boy does it) AND be cleaner at the same time, all because of a well placed government regulation. Everybody wins, around the world.
Water cooling and proper cam-operated valves and so-on didn't come into the picture because The Man was trying to keep you down, they came in because they improve performance and reliability (you don't have to fix it yourself if it doesn't break) and those are what customers want. Crazy customers, go figure...
I certainly don't see how any of this "slows the economy", though. The economy is driven by tens of thousands of people buying from major manufacturers, not Shaq buying from Jesse James.
By the time this process makes the world a substantially more dangerous place to live these people and their children will both be dead. Their stockholders don't pay them to care, and they personally have no real interest in it - protecting the environment doesn't make them any money - so why should they care? I mean, I understand why they should care, but from a purely selfish standpoint there's really no reason.
Actually, they STILL shouldn't care. What's the difference between the relatively clean sidewalk air outside my apartment and the really bad crap outside its mirror in __insert_third_world_country__? Money. If the environment's going to crap, only the rich will be able to afford not to care. If you really think that your descendants' best interests aught to be your own best interests, then get rich as quick as you can. Your great great great grand children might appreciate the results of corporate empire, but they won't care how nice you were.
And if that's not an argument for government regulation, I don't know what is:)
This is a seductive idea, but it's not true. The need to advertize a product effects the cost to PRODUCE the product, but consumers pay the product's retail price. Retail price is not equal to product production cost, it's equal to "what the market will bear".
You're only paying for advertising when you buy commodities. If you're buying something else, advertising comes out of the maker's profits.
And yes, of course those profits come out of your pocket, but if they weren't going into ads, they'd be going into the bank, not back into your pocket.
Why has it taken so long for the military to start experimenting with this stuff? I must have been all of five years old when I made the connection between starch and water's impact-absorbing-fluid properties and its flexible armor potential.
In some countries (or maybe only Norway), whenever your ATM card is used in an ATM machine, the machine writes a new unique code to the magnet strip. The next time you use the card, it must contain that specific code, or it is swallowed.
So, make sure you skim the card on the way out of the ATM, not on the way in, then try to use the number in the next week.
Plus, the cards will be wearing out faster, and if you ever use it in a broken ATM, not only will it not work, it will never work again.
I am not a particle physicist, but I think everyone on this thread is being too Newtonian about the experiment.
To say the "cat" is in a superposition of two states is to say that the entire cat system is in a superposition of two states. Part of the cat system is the neural activation pattern that corresponds to a recognition of being alive, OR the (in)activation pattern corresponding to being dead.
The cat is alive and dead, but its brain is within the superposed system, so its brain is in a superposition of being alive and being dead. "It" cannot experience a both-ness because that would imply that there was some "it" that wasn't superposed, which could experience (observe) the phenomenon.
Taking this farther, when you "open the box", what you're really doing is allowing the superposition to leak out of confinement. Anything you can do (read using an MRI to observe the cat without opening the box, etc.) transmits this superposed information out to you too, as you are just another complex of atoms whose state (having seen "alive" or "dead" on the monitor) is a result of the unpredictable cyanide dispersal.
So, when you open the box, do you collapse the superposed state of the cat? No... you entangle your own state. Guess what: you now know what the cat felt like before you opened the box. To an observer who hasn't become entangled with your whole system yet (read hasn't observed you yet) YOU are in a (somewhat less stark) superposition of states, dependent on the outcome of an unpredictable event.... except all there is that can be called "you" is the superposition of these two states, so to the yous observing each potential outcome, the outcome is now plain.
In short, observing doesn't disambiguate the outcome, or collapse the wave equation of the cat; it entangles and ambiguates the "observer" with the superposed state. Hence it doesn't matter what can "observe" the cat... you, computer, air-molecule. When anything observes the system, it takes on the system's ambiguity itself.
Analogous situation: I have the key to the front door of a building, but it's inconvenient to use the front door so I blow a little secret hole in the back wall and use that instead.
A back door is a back door because it provides another way into the system which circumvents whatever access controls already exist, totally regardless of who WRITES this new circumvention path, or whether the access controls would have restricted them in the first place.
You're right that he can't do anything with his back door that he couldn't do as the administrator before (with ingenuity and a lot of time), but you're wrong that he hasn't created a back door.
Rather than modding up debrain, since he did flame, I'll post. Novel idea.
I will contradict your entire argument by quoting from Adam Smith[...]
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages.
The quote is true enough, I suppose, although I've never studied Adam Smith. However, it is not a contradiction. I doubt debrain would disagree (and I certainly wouldn't) that if nobody "looked to the self-love" of producers/actors/etc. (ie payed them) then their product will disappear.
I don't disagree with this because it doesn't matter! As debrain pointed out, the "butcher" analogues DO get their self-love massaged by theatrical performance revenues, and myriad other sources, not all of which are redundant in light of internet piracy. How, for example, would internet piracy cut down on action figure sales?
The fact of the matter is that people will still go to theaters for the same reason they go to live music performances or broadway plays, and they will still purchase [something like DVDs] for the same reason that I have a bookshelf at home AND an oft-used library card. One provides an experience that home-performance can't match, another provides convenience.
Frankly, I don't see how someone could believe the above quoted Smith passage (as I do) and yet not have internalized the principle that things (thoughts, whatever) will command the value which they HAVE. Why should we pay so much for a DVD if (as is not always the case) a free alternative exists that is satisfactory in quality? Why not pay the 2 dollar price which is "worth it"?
Doing so is the only way to keep the movie industry in business? Well if there's only enough demand for 2 movies a year, then that's all that should be made. Don't like it? Raise the demand, don't change the laws.
Slashdot Mirror
In 2000, Rove had a bright idea, and the Republican get-out-the-vote campaign focused on getting people to vote absentee early, so they'd be "locked in". Both parties had get-out-the-vote campaigns, but the results of the Republican one didn't show up in exit polls because those people didn't GO to the polls.
I don't know whether this strategy change explains all the discrepancies, but it could. No illegal vote manipulation was NECESSARY to cause the results... just Neo-Cons. So why do people insist tampering must have occurred anyway, when there's a simpler explanation that doesn't involve a Widely Kept Secret?
Funny you should be all unhappy about motorcycle emissions requirements. I think they make a perfect poster child for why sometimes government regulation can be a good thing, and for how it should be done. Scenario:
California places restrictions on emissions for bikes. People get pissed because their CA model sport bike produces 30% less power than the "49 state" version of the same bike. This is a factory restriction, though, with no policing, so people who care just fix theirs. Harley owners probably got pissed about pushrods being outlawed or helmets required or something, I wouldn't know. But fast forward a few years to now:
California still has these "horrendous" restrictions. But now Yamaha ships (basically) one model of their flagship sport bike to the whole world, passing CA emissions without recourse to stupid hacks. Technology evolved to produce more power (and boy does it) AND be cleaner at the same time, all because of a well placed government regulation. Everybody wins, around the world.
Water cooling and proper cam-operated valves and so-on didn't come into the picture because The Man was trying to keep you down, they came in because they improve performance and reliability (you don't have to fix it yourself if it doesn't break) and those are what customers want. Crazy customers, go figure...
I certainly don't see how any of this "slows the economy", though. The economy is driven by tens of thousands of people buying from major manufacturers, not Shaq buying from Jesse James.
Actually, they STILL shouldn't care. What's the difference between the relatively clean sidewalk air outside my apartment and the really bad crap outside its mirror in __insert_third_world_country__? Money. If the environment's going to crap, only the rich will be able to afford not to care. If you really think that your descendants' best interests aught to be your own best interests, then get rich as quick as you can. Your great great great grand children might appreciate the results of corporate empire, but they won't care how nice you were.
And if that's not an argument for government regulation, I don't know what is
This is a seductive idea, but it's not true. The need to advertize a product effects the cost to PRODUCE the product, but consumers pay the product's retail price. Retail price is not equal to product production cost, it's equal to "what the market will bear".
You're only paying for advertising when you buy commodities. If you're buying something else, advertising comes out of the maker's profits.
And yes, of course those profits come out of your pocket, but if they weren't going into ads, they'd be going into the bank, not back into your pocket.
But does it protect like a stack of phonebooks? :)
Why has it taken so long for the military to start experimenting with this stuff? I must have been all of five years old when I made the connection between starch and water's impact-absorbing-fluid properties and its flexible armor potential.
Oh well, better late than never!
So, make sure you skim the card on the way out of the ATM, not on the way in, then try to use the number in the next week.
Plus, the cards will be wearing out faster, and if you ever use it in a broken ATM, not only will it not work, it will never work again.
Great! A dontwin-lose situation!
I am not a particle physicist, but I think everyone on this thread is being too Newtonian about the experiment.
... except all there is that can be called "you" is the superposition of these two states, so to the yous observing each potential outcome, the outcome is now plain.
To say the "cat" is in a superposition of two states is to say that the entire cat system is in a superposition of two states. Part of the cat system is the neural activation pattern that corresponds to a recognition of being alive, OR the (in)activation pattern corresponding to being dead.
The cat is alive and dead, but its brain is within the superposed system, so its brain is in a superposition of being alive and being dead. "It" cannot experience a both-ness because that would imply that there was some "it" that wasn't superposed, which could experience (observe) the phenomenon.
Taking this farther, when you "open the box", what you're really doing is allowing the superposition to leak out of confinement. Anything you can do (read using an MRI to observe the cat without opening the box, etc.) transmits this superposed information out to you too, as you are just another complex of atoms whose state (having seen "alive" or "dead" on the monitor) is a result of the unpredictable cyanide dispersal.
So, when you open the box, do you collapse the superposed state of the cat? No... you entangle your own state. Guess what: you now know what the cat felt like before you opened the box. To an observer who hasn't become entangled with your whole system yet (read hasn't observed you yet) YOU are in a (somewhat less stark) superposition of states, dependent on the outcome of an unpredictable event.
In short, observing doesn't disambiguate the outcome, or collapse the wave equation of the cat; it entangles and ambiguates the "observer" with the superposed state. Hence it doesn't matter what can "observe" the cat... you, computer, air-molecule. When anything observes the system, it takes on the system's ambiguity itself.
DeusExMachina
Analogous situation: I have the key to the front door of a building, but it's inconvenient to use the front door so I blow a little secret hole in the back wall and use that instead.
A back door is a back door because it provides another way into the system which circumvents whatever access controls already exist, totally regardless of who WRITES this new circumvention path, or whether the access controls would have restricted them in the first place.
You're right that he can't do anything with his back door that he couldn't do as the administrator before (with ingenuity and a lot of time), but you're wrong that he hasn't created a back door.
DeusExMachina
Rather than modding up debrain, since he did flame, I'll post. Novel idea.
I will contradict your entire argument by quoting from Adam Smith[...]
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages.
The quote is true enough, I suppose, although I've never studied Adam Smith. However, it is not a contradiction. I doubt debrain would disagree (and I certainly wouldn't) that if nobody "looked to the self-love" of producers/actors/etc. (ie payed them) then their product will disappear.
I don't disagree with this because it doesn't matter! As debrain pointed out, the "butcher" analogues DO get their self-love massaged by theatrical performance revenues, and myriad other sources, not all of which are redundant in light of internet piracy. How, for example, would internet piracy cut down on action figure sales?
The fact of the matter is that people will still go to theaters for the same reason they go to live music performances or broadway plays, and they will still purchase [something like DVDs] for the same reason that I have a bookshelf at home AND an oft-used library card. One provides an experience that home-performance can't match, another provides convenience.
Frankly, I don't see how someone could believe the above quoted Smith passage (as I do) and yet not have internalized the principle that things (thoughts, whatever) will command the value which they HAVE. Why should we pay so much for a DVD if (as is not always the case) a free alternative exists that is satisfactory in quality? Why not pay the 2 dollar price which is "worth it"?
Doing so is the only way to keep the movie industry in business? Well if there's only enough demand for 2 movies a year, then that's all that should be made. Don't like it? Raise the demand, don't change the laws.
Deus_Ex_Machina