...are 1.5 times harder than topics that can be easily turned in to fun activities and games. Voila!
IMO, if it's not something that you can "turn into" a practical application, it's probably not something I want to waste my time "learning."
I will offer the caveat of things like theoretical physics, which have no useful application (useful as in, "can do real world stuff with," not "something that further enhances our understanding of things").
It kind of is, since if someone is released they are meant to be considered rehabilitated.
Why release them back to society if they are not going to be given a fair chance?
Exactly - not to mention, part of the whole point of a punitive justice system is that you commit a crime, you serve your punishment, then you get to go back to being a full-fledged member of society. Giving non-violent, non-repeat offenders a lifetime black mark just means that they never really stop serving their time, and that is absolute bullshit to those of us who have a sense of what the word "justice" actually means.
Financing is often a cause of crushing poverty, not a way out of it...my state has been trying for years to shut down payday loan joints .
"Often" is a terrible misrepresentation of a useful tool that helps a LOT of people.
No, "Always" or even "Most of the time" would be terrible misrepresentations. "Often" is, sadly, fairly accurate, as we get to see every few decades with our modern, bubble-burst-bubble form of economics. On top of that, a lot of people get crushed under payday loan and similar types of predatory debt. Hell, it wasn't a decade ago that shit-tons of American households got hosed by predatory banking practices, a la the "Mortgage Meltdown," and subsequent TARP bailouts.
Financing can be a problem, but usually small business loans are not that kind as you shed the debt if the business does not work out (especially micro-loans). Don't throw out a civilization with the bathwater.
Hyperbole. I never suggested any sort of end to financing, only pointed out that the reality of predatory financing is anathema to your apparent contention that financial devices are an alternative to "crushing poverty," as opposed to being a cause of it, even if the occasion is rare (which it's not).
We'd be better off with a dollar that's actually worth something and decent wages than any amount of financing./em
And how do you intend to have decent wages Mr Anderson, when there are no jobs to begin with... *cue wicked smile*.
If only there were a program to help people create small companies so there could be more jobs that would eventually pay better...
What would be even even better is if the government had a reasonable definition of "small business," so the handful of SBA loans being given out annually don't end up being gobbled up by some multi-million dollar, Fortune 500 company. Here's a Forbes article that illustrates my point.
I had a buddy in high school who drove a Pontiac Fiero to its limits, and lemme tell ya - I've done some stupid, scary shit in cars before, but I've never been frightened (like, frightened) like I was riding around gravel roads in that old rust-bucket, when he would let off the throttle mid-corner, and the next thing I know we're spinning off through some farmer's field.
Now that I think about it, those experiences (and pulling seat foam out of my ass for a week) may have colored my opinion on the handling aspects of mid-engine cars. Just a little.
Can't speak for everywhere, but my state made it mandatory to include a trigger/action lock with every firearm sold some years ago.
Of course, it's still up to the owner to actually use the damn thing... and I don't see how you could enforce such a thing without grossly violating several other civil liberties in the process.
Well, other than posthumous enforcement, but that kinda defeats the purpose. Maybe a better idea would be to make firearms education mandatory in schools, that way kids grow up knowing real stuff about guns and what they do, rather than getting all their experience and "knowledge" from Call of friggin' Duty.
"Punishment" implies that someone did something wrong, which is not necessarily true of all gunshot victims. Like the unarmed homeless guy my local PD shot in the back last week.
Unless, of course, we consider being homeless as a punishable offense.
Haha, I'm using hyperbole?
Yes, for obvious reasons which I already pointed out - not every gunshot victim was shot out of punishment. Yes, it's a pedantic difference, but so was your completely unnecessary addition about gunshot victims, so fair's fair.
Wasn't it equally hyperbole when you talked about the "population as a whole" being punished
No, because that's exactly what laws that would remove everyone's civil liberties based on what a few people might do are for - punishing everyone for the (potential) actions of a few. It's not hyperbolic if it's not an exaggeration. For the record, your statement wouldn't have been hyperbolic if you'd have qualified it with something like, "... and some of those who get shot by them." Again, it's a pedantic difference, but pedantry is what got us to this point in the conversation.
The point is that, to make a balanced comparison, you have to consider the positive and negative effects experienced by everyone in society. If (and, of course, it is very much an "if") the negative effects on the population as a whole of (insert proposed freedom-reducing gun control measure here) are less than the positive effects that come from people not getting shot as a result, that's a strong argument that that measure should be implemented; if that's not the case (because the measure is so draconian that its negative effects are large, and/or the measure is not effective, or actually counterproductive, in reducing gun crime injuries), then the measure should clearly not be implemented.
Maybe I'm missing something, but you don't seem to be making a cogent point in this paragraph, but rather are stating two possible ideologies as though they are the only two possible? If you can apply whatever it is you're trying to say here to the topic at hand ("cops won't carry 'em, neither should I") it might make a bit more sense.
Balancing these factors is hard to do in any scientific way - not least because the value of "freedom" versus the value of not being shot is very hard to pin down quantitavely - but neglecting the harm done by gun crime is bound to unbalance the equation.
Again, how does this apply to the conversation at hand?
Micro finance is indeed capable of a lot of good. But it's also still debt, and still carries with if all the personal (and macroeconomic) evils of debt.
I'll take that evil over the evil of crushing poverty and mental stagnation any day.
Financing is often a cause of crushing poverty, not a way out of it. That's why my state has been trying for years to shut down payday loan joints and their 400-500 % interest rates.
We'd be better off with a dollar that's actually worth something and decent wages than any amount of financing.
I read about the Ford's. I know they've been replacing parts with aluminum for a few years on the F series. But the all aluminum one isn't out quite yet is it? I thought that was for the 2015 model year.
Yea, you'll probably start seeing them on showroom floors around late September, if I remember my automobile release cycles properly. That's assuming Ford doesn't scrap the idea between now and then (which seems unlikely, but always possible).
My favorite part of that article was the little '94 aluminum Sables with SHO V6 engines; I've always had a soft spot for experimental '90s cars, moreso if they actually made it to a decent production run, like the GMC Syclone.
My entire point was that Carbon fiber is already as mainstream as aluminum in car bodies.
Fair enough, from what I can tell you're pretty much spot on about that.
Not really, cornering in a regular car (we are not talking race vehicles here) depends mostly on the coefficient of friction between the tires and road surface and the amount of body roll (suspension and weight). Decreasing the weight doesn't change the coefficient of friction but will decrease the amount of body roll so making things lighter will help out in cornering.
Decreasing the weight does decreases the coefficient of friction, as it lessens the amount of force that's pushing the tires against the pavement. That is, if I understand the Wiki article correctly when it states:
The coefficient of friction (COF), often symbolized by the Greek letter , is a dimensionless scalar value which describes the ratio of the force of friction between two bodies and the force pressing them together.
If being light weight meant it would handle like crap then those tiny little Lotus Elises would probably be amongst the worst handling vehicles on the road today but instead considered to be pretty close to the best.
One of the best, under $100K, in America. But, according to the article I just cited, even with a large amount of that handling prowess being the result of fancy electronic nannies, there were still issues of lift-off understeer, likely a result of poor weight distribution common with mid/rear engine cars.
Gotta admit, though, today's mid/rear engine cars are far more well-engineered (and thus, better able to handle higher power/weight ratios) than the ones I grew up with in the '80s and '90s.
It also had a 0-60 time of 13 seconds, a top speed of 90 mph, and a fair amount of its total weight hovering over the control wheels; and I still wouldn't recommend trying to take a hard corner at any decent rate of speed in one of those things, any more than I would recommend doing the same in a Model A.
Look at F1 cars as an example: when not screaming down the track, generating tons of downforce, and keeping the slicks nice and hot, they're damn near impossible to control, let alone corner.
There'll be plenty enough weight to corner safely, even with a full carbon monocoque, for passenger car driving.
Extra downforce is really only needed on racing cars.
It's needed on race cars for 2 reasons: A) some of them go really, really fast (like, obscenely fast), and B) race cars are typically far, far lighter than your average street going vehicle.
Believe me, you start making road cars that weigh as little as an Ariel Atom, but don't generate enough downforce to compensate, there're going to be problems.
You can be weightless for about $150/hr for plane and pilot. Granted it won't be in more than about 20 second incriments, but my kid and his friends love it: "Daddy make the plane do the weightless thing again" alternates with 'are we there yet".
The looks you get when filing a parabolic flight plan must be priceless.
For the amount of money paid, I would have read the fucking contract!
People who can afford that kind of money for a joy flight won't really care about any scientific definitions of space. It's all just about having flown on the Virgin Galactic bragging rights. Like, being hauled up Mt. Everest by Sherpas, or a helicopter flight to Machu Picchu.
Besides, look at the bright side - if you know any of the people who signed up, you can enjoy a bit of smug intellectual superiority as you correct them when they're droning on in the bar for the umpteenth time about their trip to "space."
The best I can find is stats on gun fatalities in homes not linked to self defense, and they are pretty high (over 10 times), but I do not see any stats out there regarding a gun owner being killed with their own gun while it is in the hands of someone else.
Meaning no such statistic exists, or if it does, the number is statistically irrelevant.
However, looks like there is stuff out there regarding accidents or suicide using someone else's gun, and gun locks have a rather mixed track record. So while it would be less dramatic, a better argument for smart guns might be 'stop your kids from shooting themselves'.
Which is a good reason to make 'smart' guns an option, but not a reason to make them mandatory. Not every house with guns has kids, and vice-versa. Trouble is, as mentioned in TFA, some states have decided to go the mandatory route (except for cop guns, which, as we all know, never get used on innocent people, either intentionally or accidentally. Ever. Nope, nothin' to see here...).
Now, a device that would really save lives would be something that could stop people who are drunk from firing....
Slashdot Mirror
... until they counter with "well, how high have you been" and you have no answer better than 40,000 feet...
Unless, of course, the person correcting them happens to be Felix Baumgartner...
"Not only have I been to space, I've jumped off of it."
Yea, er, after posting I thought, "well that just sounds silly; shoulda said 'no immediatelyuseful application."
...are 1.5 times harder than topics that can be easily turned in to fun activities and games. Voila!
IMO, if it's not something that you can "turn into" a practical application, it's probably not something I want to waste my time "learning."
I will offer the caveat of things like theoretical physics, which have no useful application (useful as in, "can do real world stuff with," not "something that further enhances our understanding of things").
It kind of is, since if someone is released they are meant to be considered rehabilitated.
Why release them back to society if they are not going to be given a fair chance?
Exactly - not to mention, part of the whole point of a punitive justice system is that you commit a crime, you serve your punishment, then you get to go back to being a full-fledged member of society. Giving non-violent, non-repeat offenders a lifetime black mark just means that they never really stop serving their time, and that is absolute bullshit to those of us who have a sense of what the word "justice" actually means.
Financing is often a cause of crushing poverty, not a way out of it...my state has been trying for years to shut down payday loan joints .
"Often" is a terrible misrepresentation of a useful tool that helps a LOT of people.
No, "Always" or even "Most of the time" would be terrible misrepresentations. "Often" is, sadly, fairly accurate, as we get to see every few decades with our modern, bubble-burst-bubble form of economics. On top of that, a lot of people get crushed under payday loan and similar types of predatory debt. Hell, it wasn't a decade ago that shit-tons of American households got hosed by predatory banking practices, a la the "Mortgage Meltdown," and subsequent TARP bailouts.
Financing can be a problem, but usually small business loans are not that kind as you shed the debt if the business does not work out (especially micro-loans). Don't throw out a civilization with the bathwater.
Hyperbole. I never suggested any sort of end to financing, only pointed out that the reality of predatory financing is anathema to your apparent contention that financial devices are an alternative to "crushing poverty," as opposed to being a cause of it, even if the occasion is rare (which it's not).
We'd be better off with a dollar that's actually worth something and decent wages than any amount of financing./em
And how do you intend to have decent wages Mr Anderson, when there are no jobs to begin with... *cue wicked smile*.
If only there were a program to help people create small companies so there could be more jobs that would eventually pay better...
What would be even even better is if the government had a reasonable definition of "small business," so the handful of SBA loans being given out annually don't end up being gobbled up by some multi-million dollar, Fortune 500 company. Here's a Forbes article that illustrates my point.
I had a buddy in high school who drove a Pontiac Fiero to its limits, and lemme tell ya - I've done some stupid, scary shit in cars before, but I've never been frightened (like, frightened) like I was riding around gravel roads in that old rust-bucket, when he would let off the throttle mid-corner, and the next thing I know we're spinning off through some farmer's field.
Now that I think about it, those experiences (and pulling seat foam out of my ass for a week) may have colored my opinion on the handling aspects of mid-engine cars. Just a little.
Can't speak for everywhere, but my state made it mandatory to include a trigger/action lock with every firearm sold some years ago.
Of course, it's still up to the owner to actually use the damn thing... and I don't see how you could enforce such a thing without grossly violating several other civil liberties in the process.
Well, other than posthumous enforcement, but that kinda defeats the purpose. Maybe a better idea would be to make firearms education mandatory in schools, that way kids grow up knowing real stuff about guns and what they do, rather than getting all their experience and "knowledge" from Call of friggin' Duty.
Hyperbole never fixes anything.
"Punishment" implies that someone did something wrong, which is not necessarily true of all gunshot victims. Like the unarmed homeless guy my local PD shot in the back last week.
Unless, of course, we consider being homeless as a punishable offense.
Haha, I'm using hyperbole?
Yes, for obvious reasons which I already pointed out - not every gunshot victim was shot out of punishment. Yes, it's a pedantic difference, but so was your completely unnecessary addition about gunshot victims, so fair's fair.
Wasn't it equally hyperbole when you talked about the "population as a whole" being punished
No, because that's exactly what laws that would remove everyone's civil liberties based on what a few people might do are for - punishing everyone for the (potential) actions of a few. It's not hyperbolic if it's not an exaggeration. For the record, your statement wouldn't have been hyperbolic if you'd have qualified it with something like, "... and some of those who get shot by them." Again, it's a pedantic difference, but pedantry is what got us to this point in the conversation.
The point is that, to make a balanced comparison, you have to consider the positive and negative effects experienced by everyone in society. If (and, of course, it is very much an "if") the negative effects on the population as a whole of (insert proposed freedom-reducing gun control measure here) are less than the positive effects that come from people not getting shot as a result, that's a strong argument that that measure should be implemented; if that's not the case (because the measure is so draconian that its negative effects are large, and/or the measure is not effective, or actually counterproductive, in reducing gun crime injuries), then the measure should clearly not be implemented.
Maybe I'm missing something, but you don't seem to be making a cogent point in this paragraph, but rather are stating two possible ideologies as though they are the only two possible? If you can apply whatever it is you're trying to say here to the topic at hand ("cops won't carry 'em, neither should I") it might make a bit more sense.
Balancing these factors is hard to do in any scientific way - not least because the value of "freedom" versus the value of not being shot is very hard to pin down quantitavely - but neglecting the harm done by gun crime is bound to unbalance the equation.
Again, how does this apply to the conversation at hand?
Yea, but the feds tend to get all pissy when you start running 'shine.
So would good storage discipline.
Micro finance is indeed capable of a lot of good. But it's also still debt, and still carries with if all the personal (and macroeconomic) evils of debt.
I'll take that evil over the evil of crushing poverty and mental stagnation any day.
Financing is often a cause of crushing poverty, not a way out of it. That's why my state has been trying for years to shut down payday loan joints and their 400-500 % interest rates.
We'd be better off with a dollar that's actually worth something and decent wages than any amount of financing.
Venice, the new Atlantis!
Well, there's also the issue of the numerous global financial centers along various coasts.
Yea, not seeing the problem...
I read about the Ford's. I know they've been replacing parts with aluminum for a few years on the F series. But the all aluminum one isn't out quite yet is it? I thought that was for the 2015 model year.
Yea, you'll probably start seeing them on showroom floors around late September, if I remember my automobile release cycles properly. That's assuming Ford doesn't scrap the idea between now and then (which seems unlikely, but always possible).
My favorite part of that article was the little '94 aluminum Sables with SHO V6 engines; I've always had a soft spot for experimental '90s cars, moreso if they actually made it to a decent production run, like the GMC Syclone.
My entire point was that Carbon fiber is already as mainstream as aluminum in car bodies.
Fair enough, from what I can tell you're pretty much spot on about that.
Not really, cornering in a regular car (we are not talking race vehicles here) depends mostly on the coefficient of friction between the tires and road surface and the amount of body roll (suspension and weight). Decreasing the weight doesn't change the coefficient of friction but will decrease the amount of body roll so making things lighter will help out in cornering.
Decreasing the weight does decreases the coefficient of friction, as it lessens the amount of force that's pushing the tires against the pavement. That is, if I understand the Wiki article correctly when it states:
The coefficient of friction (COF), often symbolized by the Greek letter , is a dimensionless scalar value which describes the ratio of the force of friction between two bodies and the force pressing them together.
If being light weight meant it would handle like crap then those tiny little Lotus Elises would probably be amongst the worst handling vehicles on the road today but instead considered to be pretty close to the best.
One of the best, under $100K, in America. But, according to the article I just cited, even with a large amount of that handling prowess being the result of fancy electronic nannies, there were still issues of lift-off understeer, likely a result of poor weight distribution common with mid/rear engine cars.
Gotta admit, though, today's mid/rear engine cars are far more well-engineered (and thus, better able to handle higher power/weight ratios) than the ones I grew up with in the '80s and '90s.
I figured as much (even went so far as to do a little research), but couldn't let a little thing like reality get in the way of a laugh.
It also had a 0-60 time of 13 seconds, a top speed of 90 mph, and a fair amount of its total weight hovering over the control wheels; and I still wouldn't recommend trying to take a hard corner at any decent rate of speed in one of those things, any more than I would recommend doing the same in a Model A.
Look at F1 cars as an example: when not screaming down the track, generating tons of downforce, and keeping the slicks nice and hot, they're damn near impossible to control, let alone corner.
There'll be plenty enough weight to corner safely, even with a full carbon monocoque, for passenger car driving.
Extra downforce is really only needed on racing cars.
It's needed on race cars for 2 reasons: A) some of them go really, really fast (like, obscenely fast), and B) race cars are typically far, far lighter than your average street going vehicle.
Believe me, you start making road cars that weigh as little as an Ariel Atom, but don't generate enough downforce to compensate, there're going to be problems.
With a purposeful grimace
and a terrible sound,
he pulls the spitting high tension wires down,
GODZILLA!
You can't advertise "We're going to take you into space" and then put "we're not actually going to take you into space" into the tiny print.
Why not? My cousin is a lawyer, and he says you can put anything you want in the fine print.
Does your cousin's name happen to be Vinny?
Oh no, it still meant "homosexual" back then, but it wasn't considered derogatory.
"Gay" == "happy" was more like 1930's slang.
You can be weightless for about $150/hr for plane and pilot. Granted it won't be in more than about 20 second incriments, but my kid and his friends love it: "Daddy make the plane do the weightless thing again" alternates with 'are we there yet".
The looks you get when filing a parabolic flight plan must be priceless.
For the amount of money paid, I would have read the fucking contract!
People who can afford that kind of money for a joy flight won't really care about any scientific definitions of space. It's all just about having flown on the Virgin Galactic bragging rights. Like, being hauled up Mt. Everest by Sherpas, or a helicopter flight to Machu Picchu.
Besides, look at the bright side - if you know any of the people who signed up, you can enjoy a bit of smug intellectual superiority as you correct them when they're droning on in the bar for the umpteenth time about their trip to "space."
The best I can find is stats on gun fatalities in homes not linked to self defense, and they are pretty high (over 10 times), but I do not see any stats out there regarding a gun owner being killed with their own gun while it is in the hands of someone else.
Meaning no such statistic exists, or if it does, the number is statistically irrelevant.
However, looks like there is stuff out there regarding accidents or suicide using someone else's gun, and gun locks have a rather mixed track record. So while it would be less dramatic, a better argument for smart guns might be 'stop your kids from shooting themselves'.
Which is a good reason to make 'smart' guns an option, but not a reason to make them mandatory. Not every house with guns has kids, and vice-versa. Trouble is, as mentioned in TFA, some states have decided to go the mandatory route (except for cop guns, which, as we all know, never get used on innocent people, either intentionally or accidentally. Ever. Nope, nothin' to see here...).
Now, a device that would really save lives would be something that could stop people who are drunk from firing....
... Or doing anything else of consequence.
The new Ford F-150 is aluminum bodied, and the 2003 Jaguar XJ (made by Ford) also had one.
Matter of fact, Ford has been experimenting with aluminum car bodies since the 1990's.