reading the responses here is so depressing! you pepole have no vision! this idea is largely possible, we just have to do it. don't wait for the telcos to make a high speed network in your neighborhood or apartment building. DO IT YOURSELF. NOW.
1. create a high speed ad-hoc network covering say 100 households
2. create a high speed connection to a neighboring community who has done similar.
3. repeat
stir in Internet connections via radio or fiber as needed.
and while you are at it, get some good bandwidth back from the military (through government lobbying).
no really, we can have free high speed internet access. i give my neighbors free access through a wireless router.
do you want fiber access from your house or do you want verizon to make lots of money?
what incentive do they have to provide you with servce?
the incentive is profit but that means that they could provide access only to the most well off and make a profit. if working so you can pay for overpriced services is your thing this is good. it's bad for me.
what is needed is a third party to lay the lines then lease the lines to many providers at cost. a government agency (or something wihtout profit motive) is best suited for this. as long as profit is the motivator we will have spotty, shitty service or service only for those willing to pay a lot.
the fucked up thing that could happen is that verizon runs the lines and, with a flurry of advertising (think qwest "you will be watching movies on demand soon!"), the stock price rises. then they quietly claim it's too expensive to complete, write off the project and leave the fiber dark.
dunno, we'll see. but i predict that community based wireless networks are far more likely to provide service (to me) than this.
nature is diverse. humans fight diversity then spread the strongest scavengers (rats, piegons, roaches) accidentally or intentionally and in the end could create a single large eco-system and call it nature. i don't believe humans raised in western civilization (myself included) are natural.
'natural' is defined as being produced by nature.
we are not natural. we are grown in cement and asphalt and lawn filled worlds, fed on processed foods and transported in machines whose metals are not found in a composition or concentration which is useful without human intervention. not to mention the plastics. our entertainment comes, increasingly, from computers. 'returning to nature' for most is visiting a ski resort or maybe the beach, both groomed by rakes pulled by tractors to make sure we don't have to experience the chaos of nature. we were not produced by nature, we are not natural. we are man made. and so is everything we use.
that doesn't mean we can't say 'sorry nature!', clean up our mess and leave nature alone
arguing with a christian about the origins of life is like arguing with a 7 year old about the orgins of presents christmas morning.
not that christians are 7 year olds. but it's silly. there is no documented evidence of creationism aside from a book that gives three slightly different accounts of how we came into existance.
i am completely against organized religion (and as i interpret the bible, Jesus was too but that's another argument) and think that the biblical story of creation is irrelevant to us in a scientific time. the bible has many important lessons but the origin of man is not one of them. really, what are we to learn from this? that God is all powerful (it says he is in other places) that God is our uniting 'father' so we should worship him (wouldn't that make Israel (father of the 12 tribes) just as worshipable).
how we got here is not important to the lessons to be learned from religion.
but the most important point in the context of this article is that in america we believe (ostensibly) in the seperation of church and state. we shouldn't teach something on the grounds that the most popular religion says it is true. and we shouldn't and (generally don't) teach minority views of the scientific community in H.S. science classes; we teach what is the commonly held views of scientists in these times.
as for evolution being a fact, it is not -- it is a theory and it is the overwhelmingly prevailing SCIENTIFIC theory in these times (see previous paragraph). really, it's theoretical science.
but seriously, i don't agree with the current implementation of patents. they were intended to give a small inventor time to get a product to market but now they are just used to create a legal monopoly. i'd be more down with patents if they brought the finincial size of the applicant into question and set the length of the patent according to the amount of time expected for getting the product to market.
but i think what you are 'fine with' is the place for copyright which i have less of a problem with. copyrighting an algorithm is better. without seeing this patent (i checked uspto.gov, couldn't find it) i can't say how ridiculous it is. if it's like 'we patent micropayments based on amassing charges then charging credit cards en mass' i'm going to be pissed.
and my sig is only slightly tounge in cheek -- i don't believe in god.
actually, i noticed there are several men there too.
but this marketing tactic, though hardly uncommon, unsettles me in this instance. this is supposed to be a financial institution and they fill 1/3 of the screen with hip, attractive models (some are actually disgustingly skinny).
whatever, i'm sticking with my first assumption that this slashdot submission is entirely a marketing ploy and i hope everyone involved with this company gets diarrhea and their car tiers go flat on the way to pickup medicine.
this looks like hidden advertising to me but i won't argue that point....
and it's based on 'patent pending technology' that is somehow acceptable by slashdotters (see here for more info)
this sounds like a lot of marketing hype. why not just have a company that processes micropayments in mass -- if i buy 10 songs for $1.00 each from 10 record labels during 3 months i should be charged $10 as soon as it is profitable to charge me, possibly at the end of the three months, possibly after my tab is at $5.00. i think this is basically what happens with peppercoin but in a more complex, mathematically obtuse way.
finally, what's up with all the hot women on the peppercoin page? it's like i'm supposed to be able to buy them with peppercoins.
i don't deny that iraq has had chemical or biological weapons. but an april, 2002 interview with a former UN weapons inspector convinced me that the last inspections proved over 90% compliance and the remaining percentages were mostly due to iraq's poor documentation of weapons destruction. he went into great detail on all sorts of weapons. i don't have links but IIRC, he said "weapons grade anthrax", kept under ideal conditions, is only viable for 3 years and the last facility capable of producing it in reasonable quantity was destroyed in 1996 (the Halabja incident was in 1988). also, the missiles capable of distributing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons were destroyed -- the missile remains were dug up and serial numbers checked. only 2 missiles were missing but he claimed that this could easily be due to the serial numbers destruction and, among the rubble, extra parts were found (possibly from the missing missiles).
i don't think my political bent blinds me to facts, i just get my facts from 'alternative' sources. i am skeptical of all news sources (including those i cite) so i admit that there may be some (very little) 'bad stuff' in iraq. but i also precieve a historical US attitude of 'US uber alles'. this and the fact that iraq would be foolish to actually challenge the US lead me to seriously doubt that iraq has nearly the power that our president says they have. also, there is the (sorry) slippery issue of oil and a president with a possible conflict of interest.
i read the guardian's world dispatches daily, espically those from brian whitaker and his reports on al-bab. he claims that US papers are preparing US citizens for war by seriously distorting the facts. if you read one of those, read the last link.
as for the mickey mouse war, yes the example i cited (radio sawa) is infecting culture but really, the damage is already done. the middle east as we know it was created by European imperialism and has been proped up ever since by US and European intervention and military aid in return for cheap oil. radio sawa isn't playing brittany spears, it's popular music of the region with some educational messages meant to empower the listeners. i see sawa (IIRC, means 'together') on a fine line between the alternative views that should exist in a free people and waging a mickey mouse war. the program is commercial free, and free of any obvious US influence -- it is run by former citizens of middle eastern countries. it's not perfect, it's not everything, it's the beginning.
the reasons that we are hated are many, complex and different depending on where you are talking about. but US media isn't it. to skim the shell of the nut(?), i'll say that the saudi royal family making millions off oil and none of that money making its way to the populace and the horrid human rights and squalid living conditions would cause more anger.
it's a large complex knot that can't be blasted through.
i have typed and re-typed. this whole thing is cloudy and would be better served by a real discussion with points clarified but...
Can you identify for me a point of view, be it Air Force One,...
my lunch analogy, yes it was poor. but, ok, i'll point my finger -- it was the job of the president and his staff to drop everything and find out what's going on. maybe his staff did but he did not seem to. the president does have the authority to order the military to an immediate state of alert. perhaps asking the FAA what happened (FAA: a plane deviated from course and ceased responding) and if similar actions were occuring (FAA: yes) would have helped. but the second question is the clincher -- he had to know this wasn't isolated.
really, i'm less interested in what happened on 9/11 than i am in what happened next and what happens now. i posted that (and this) without the +1 bonus 'cause it's admittedly silly speculation on my part.
The contrast you are attempting to make is poorly supported by the practices and doctrine of the US military, which takes incredible measures to protect the lives of enemy civilians, and by the fact that the only people being shot at in Iraq right now are U.S. pilots. I therefore find your suggestion as to the state of mind of military planners with regard to said civilians to be extremely suspect.
from my armchair, i hear strategists claiming that the only way to oust saddam is to engage in military action in densely populated areas which i expect would result in civilian lives lost. this is purely speculation and hopefully we can find a better solution (my briefly suggestions come later). until this point the loss of life has been limited to the Iraqi side -- no coalition pilots have been killed since the beginning of the no fly zone. sure we've been fired at but they have actually taken hits.
yes, the US will try to avoid civilian losses but in a war such as this there will be civilian casualties (*see next paragraph). the only way to avoid these casualties is to avoid war. and the reasons for war that the US has proposed (iraq's possession of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons) are suspect. so we're checking it out -- Kofi says the inspections are going well, George says they're going poorly. i guess it comes down to who you belive.
for the long term stability of relations between the middle east and us (US, Europe, etc.) we need to 'make friends'. bombing a nation of people that hates us is going to leave more people more angry -- even if we don't kill anyone we will be imposing our will on them. i propose that we work towards a political resolution rather than another military coup. we probably will never be friends with saddam but the people of iraq are another story. just look at the progress in iran (don't believe George, they're not evil in fact before George we had made great progress towards 'friendship'). the very large and influencial demographic of youth in iran want more democracy and like much western culture but it must happen to them -- we can't force it.
briefly, my suggestion promoting friendship is to take a close look at the damage the embargo did to iraq and determine what can be done to reverse this damage. beyond this it comes down to education. in iran radio sawa has the largest market share with youth. radio sawa is run by the international broadcasting bureau, funded by the US but run entirely seperate. it plays music with brief news stories promoting democracy and cultural activities outlawed by current government.
i could go on but want to get to one more point:
I find that we are instinctively driven to find a meaning in disaster, so that we can try to create a construct of belief that we can avoid it in the future.
if i read this right, i mostly agree with this paragraph. what happened happened. we are human, humans make mistakes and maybe the only way to avoid the outcome was to know the future. what matters is that it happened in one day and hopefully won't happen ever again. however the reasons for what happened remain and i think that is part of why we are still talking about this.
there are still thousands (millions?) who hate the actions and influence of the US in their country. some say this hatred is because the US is the last superpower and they're mad about that. though a born citizen, i'm also mad that the US is the last superpower -- there should be no superpower and i'm doing what i can to move towards an egalitarian world and will never use violence to make my point.
shit, i hope that wasn't too long scattered -- my longest post yet. my thoughts flow better when talking instead of typing in a 10x50 char box...
how do you see the moderation numbers? i get them sometimes (maybe when looking at my own posts) but i can't see what happened to your post. i'm guessing that someone modded you down which is totally lame. i disagree with what you said but i would not have been able to disagree with (and reply to) your post if it hadn't been modded up.
and another point i should mention that i didn't on my other post is that it's easy for me to criticize from my bedroom, with broad hind sight. all i can hope is that we keep learning.
we're not talking about a plane that flew a bit off course -- it was flying to a different city and not responding to air traffic controllers. according to the TV (cops) if i drive the wrong way on an empty freeway and cops tell me to stop but i don't they will shoot or find a way to stop me well within 50 minutes.
it's a situation that we havn't encountered but we should be flexible enough to handle these situations. a lame analogy to my line of work would be having a production server crashing while i'm eating lunch and lesurely enjoying my lunch instead of fixing the problem. the point is that people (i won't point fingers) didn't do their job.
I don't know what a careful decision on the part of the Commander in Chief to use deadly force against innocent civilians looks like in your political universe, but I sleep better at night knowing that my president is reluctant to take such action.
first, he is reluctant to take military action against US civilians -- if you listen to the rhetoric coming from washington at the moment (take out saddam) you will note little indication that the loss of civilian lives weighs heavy on the minds of military planners (considering large civilian losses are expected if an invasion is to actually take out saddam).
second, when prematurely ending the lives of 120 doomed airline passengers saves a thousand or so other lives i would prefer the trigger be pulled. it's trite, but consider spock's line "The lives of many outweigh the lives of few" and i'm note even a trekkie...
Until we get around to editing the old newspapers so that we can replace Iraq with North Korea.
i would suggest that we will not be at war with Iraq when there is no need for oil or no oil left in Iraq. we don't really care about some formerly 2nd world, now nearly 3rd world dictator who has the capability of launching an attack on its nuclear equipped neighbor (Israel) and recompenses the families of anti-Israel suicide bombers with a few thousand dollars and has no specific, government acknowledged links to terrorist organizations threatening the US. it's about the oil.
damn, there i go again. getting all political on slashdot... sorry
your evidence is buried in a lot of text and i happen to know of another site that has a brief write up on the accusation:
A remarkable event happened on 8. April 1476. At this time it was usual to put anonymous accusations in a wooden box (called tamburo), which was put up in front of the Palazzo Vecchio
On 8. April Leonardo and four others were accused. The anonymous person accused Leonardo to have a homosexual affair with Jacopo Saltarelli, who was a model. The procedure ended for all participants with an acquittal of the charge.
This story is an indication of the supposed homosexuality of Leonardo da Vinci.
i am vegetarian and lunch was always a problem until i learned how to cook. i still eat out for lunch occasionally but i usually make food before i go to work. this takes me a minute to prepare then another 3 to boil -- good time to eat some fruit for breakfast.
i cook using a camping kit that includes a stuff sack. put the following ingredients in the pot, cover and bring to boil:
1C red (best) or green (ok) lentils
0.5C rice
2.75 C water
chopped onion
crushed garlic
ginger
oil (olive, butter, ghee...)
curry (i make my own)
salt
when the water boils wrap the pot (with its lid on and hot water inside) in a thick t-shirt and put it in the stuff bag -- the ingredients will be cooked by lunch and still be warm. i find it more satisfing than a sandwich and one of the cheapest things to eat (i bring some fruit for later in the afternoon). try it with some vegetables -- i suggest tomato, cilantro (corriander), celery, and broccoli. it's not gourmet but very tasty and you can make enough changes that you don't get tired of it.
many (most?) coleman products are manufactured by other companies who then pay coleman to use the brand name. a brand name can really change how much you can charge and how well something sells. i worked for a company that sold crappy portable tvs and radios, among other things, that were not selling well enough so they licensed the coleman name (for like $0.70 per piece) and the sales went up. i wonder how much the coleman name cost this case. funny thing, that consumer perception.
yeah, we will need a space station when we colonize the moon, mars, your anus, etc... but do you really think this station is going to last until we get to that point? if it's sustaining life in a hostile environment that you need to research why not just build a space station prototype on earth and have some people live inside. face it, we're not colonizing other planets within our lifetime. really. i'll be you a pile of moon rocks.
i just read the page you cited, and many of the examples are really weak. basically, they are advances that would have been made in the private sector regardless of what nasa did. like cordless tools, aluminum insulation, activated carbon filtration, and freeze dried food.
i tell you, give me 40 billion and i'll make some cool stuff too.
ok, so we got some good stuff. but i can't help but think what if that money went directly into persuing technology that can make a difference in our lives instead of making products that nasa can use.
or to put it another way, lets go shopping our selves instead of getting nasa's hand-me-downs.
historically, yes. but who is to say that we will continue this growth. the 'western' world does not contribute nearly as much to this growth as china or india does. i reserve hope that these trends of rapid growth in certain parts of the world will not continue. china, for example is moving towards (or already?) a capitalist society heavily influenced by 'western' culture which no longer has such large families. mmmm, capitalism...
who knows. i'm talking about things i don't really know about... it's slashdot, what's new?
we have different kinds of plastics for different applications. some are well suited for heat, others for flexibility. well, now we will have one that mcdonalds can use and claim to be helping the environment. don't worry your little american schitzo-from-the-doomsaying-tv brain, we won't have a rash of sprinkler systems degrading because the construction company bought 'biodegradable' plastic.
whew! good thing i plan to use my roommate's printer, scanner, and paper to forge us some tickets! then i get to see the movie, avoid supporting the MPAA and void the argument that the only way to see a new release for free is to watch a bootleg. don't worry, some day i'll buy dvd to make up for the studio's loss.
true, better use of existing light is good for future development but many existing buildings can't easily take advantage of light this way (using mirrors and fiber optics). for those older buildings i think it would make sense to at least suppliment the 'grid electricity' with electricity produced on-site in a minimally polluting way.
it works OK if you live in suburbia but for those who live in apartments or work in multilevel offices this could provide energy for us too. a 2 story office building will consume more power per square foot than a house (more electronics, lights always on, plus air conditioning) and the office has less roof space compared to the house.
also, there are plenty of other uses that would benefit form efficiency like cars, cameras, boats, etc.
Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so.
Slashdot Mirror
reading the responses here is so depressing! you pepole have no vision! this idea is largely possible, we just have to do it. don't wait for the telcos to make a high speed network in your neighborhood or apartment building. DO IT YOURSELF. NOW.
1. create a high speed ad-hoc network covering say 100 households
2. create a high speed connection to a neighboring community who has done similar.
3. repeat
stir in Internet connections via radio or fiber as needed.
and while you are at it, get some good bandwidth back from the military (through government lobbying).
no really, we can have free high speed internet access. i give my neighbors free access through a wireless router.
it happens gradually.
do you want fiber access from your house or do you want verizon to make lots of money?
what incentive do they have to provide you with servce?
the incentive is profit but that means that they could provide access only to the most well off and make a profit. if working so you can pay for overpriced services is your thing this is good. it's bad for me.
what is needed is a third party to lay the lines then lease the lines to many providers at cost. a government agency (or something wihtout profit motive) is best suited for this. as long as profit is the motivator we will have spotty, shitty service or service only for those willing to pay a lot.
the fucked up thing that could happen is that verizon runs the lines and, with a flurry of advertising (think qwest "you will be watching movies on demand soon!"), the stock price rises. then they quietly claim it's too expensive to complete, write off the project and leave the fiber dark.
dunno, we'll see. but i predict that community based wireless networks are far more likely to provide service (to me) than this.
or lack thereof.
nature is diverse. humans fight diversity then spread the strongest scavengers (rats, piegons, roaches) accidentally or intentionally and in the end could create a single large eco-system and call it nature. i don't believe humans raised in western civilization (myself included) are natural.
'natural' is defined as being produced by nature. we are not natural. we are grown in cement and asphalt and lawn filled worlds, fed on processed foods and transported in machines whose metals are not found in a composition or concentration which is useful without human intervention. not to mention the plastics. our entertainment comes, increasingly, from computers. 'returning to nature' for most is visiting a ski resort or maybe the beach, both groomed by rakes pulled by tractors to make sure we don't have to experience the chaos of nature. we were not produced by nature, we are not natural. we are man made. and so is everything we use.
that doesn't mean we can't say 'sorry nature!', clean up our mess and leave nature alone
arguing with a christian about the origins of life is like arguing with a 7 year old about the orgins of presents christmas morning.
not that christians are 7 year olds. but it's silly. there is no documented evidence of creationism aside from a book that gives three slightly different accounts of how we came into existance.
i am completely against organized religion (and as i interpret the bible, Jesus was too but that's another argument) and think that the biblical story of creation is irrelevant to us in a scientific time. the bible has many important lessons but the origin of man is not one of them. really, what are we to learn from this? that God is all powerful (it says he is in other places) that God is our uniting 'father' so we should worship him (wouldn't that make Israel (father of the 12 tribes) just as worshipable).
how we got here is not important to the lessons to be learned from religion.
but the most important point in the context of this article is that in america we believe (ostensibly) in the seperation of church and state. we shouldn't teach something on the grounds that the most popular religion says it is true. and we shouldn't and (generally don't) teach minority views of the scientific community in H.S. science classes; we teach what is the commonly held views of scientists in these times.
as for evolution being a fact, it is not -- it is a theory and it is the overwhelmingly prevailing SCIENTIFIC theory in these times (see previous paragraph). really, it's theoretical science.
churches can teach creation science.
Not all patents are bad
<FLAME>yeah, you probably use windows too</FLAME>
but seriously, i don't agree with the current implementation of patents. they were intended to give a small inventor time to get a product to market but now they are just used to create a legal monopoly. i'd be more down with patents if they brought the finincial size of the applicant into question and set the length of the patent according to the amount of time expected for getting the product to market.
but i think what you are 'fine with' is the place for copyright which i have less of a problem with. copyrighting an algorithm is better. without seeing this patent (i checked uspto.gov, couldn't find it) i can't say how ridiculous it is. if it's like 'we patent micropayments based on amassing charges then charging credit cards en mass' i'm going to be pissed.
and my sig is only slightly tounge in cheek -- i don't believe in god.
actually, i noticed there are several men there too.
but this marketing tactic, though hardly uncommon, unsettles me in this instance. this is supposed to be a financial institution and they fill 1/3 of the screen with hip, attractive models (some are actually disgustingly skinny).
whatever, i'm sticking with my first assumption that this slashdot submission is entirely a marketing ploy and i hope everyone involved with this company gets diarrhea and their car tiers go flat on the way to pickup medicine.
this looks like hidden advertising to me but i won't argue that point....
and it's based on 'patent pending technology' that is somehow acceptable by slashdotters (see here for more info)
this sounds like a lot of marketing hype. why not just have a company that processes micropayments in mass -- if i buy 10 songs for $1.00 each from 10 record labels during 3 months i should be charged $10 as soon as it is profitable to charge me, possibly at the end of the three months, possibly after my tab is at $5.00. i think this is basically what happens with peppercoin but in a more complex, mathematically obtuse way.
finally, what's up with all the hot women on the peppercoin page? it's like i'm supposed to be able to buy them with peppercoins.
i don't deny that iraq has had chemical or biological weapons. but an april, 2002 interview with a former UN weapons inspector convinced me that the last inspections proved over 90% compliance and the remaining percentages were mostly due to iraq's poor documentation of weapons destruction. he went into great detail on all sorts of weapons. i don't have links but IIRC, he said "weapons grade anthrax", kept under ideal conditions, is only viable for 3 years and the last facility capable of producing it in reasonable quantity was destroyed in 1996 (the Halabja incident was in 1988). also, the missiles capable of distributing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons were destroyed -- the missile remains were dug up and serial numbers checked. only 2 missiles were missing but he claimed that this could easily be due to the serial numbers destruction and, among the rubble, extra parts were found (possibly from the missing missiles).
i don't think my political bent blinds me to facts, i just get my facts from 'alternative' sources. i am skeptical of all news sources (including those i cite) so i admit that there may be some (very little) 'bad stuff' in iraq. but i also precieve a historical US attitude of 'US uber alles'. this and the fact that iraq would be foolish to actually challenge the US lead me to seriously doubt that iraq has nearly the power that our president says they have. also, there is the (sorry) slippery issue of oil and a president with a possible conflict of interest.
i read the guardian's world dispatches daily, espically those from brian whitaker and his reports on al-bab. he claims that US papers are preparing US citizens for war by seriously distorting the facts. if you read one of those, read the last link.
as for the mickey mouse war, yes the example i cited (radio sawa) is infecting culture but really, the damage is already done. the middle east as we know it was created by European imperialism and has been proped up ever since by US and European intervention and military aid in return for cheap oil. radio sawa isn't playing brittany spears, it's popular music of the region with some educational messages meant to empower the listeners. i see sawa (IIRC, means 'together') on a fine line between the alternative views that should exist in a free people and waging a mickey mouse war. the program is commercial free, and free of any obvious US influence -- it is run by former citizens of middle eastern countries. it's not perfect, it's not everything, it's the beginning.
the reasons that we are hated are many, complex and different depending on where you are talking about. but US media isn't it. to skim the shell of the nut(?), i'll say that the saudi royal family making millions off oil and none of that money making its way to the populace and the horrid human rights and squalid living conditions would cause more anger.
it's a large complex knot that can't be blasted through.
i have typed and re-typed. this whole thing is cloudy and would be better served by a real discussion with points clarified but...
Can you identify for me a point of view, be it Air Force One,...
my lunch analogy, yes it was poor. but, ok, i'll point my finger -- it was the job of the president and his staff to drop everything and find out what's going on. maybe his staff did but he did not seem to. the president does have the authority to order the military to an immediate state of alert. perhaps asking the FAA what happened (FAA: a plane deviated from course and ceased responding) and if similar actions were occuring (FAA: yes) would have helped. but the second question is the clincher -- he had to know this wasn't isolated.
really, i'm less interested in what happened on 9/11 than i am in what happened next and what happens now. i posted that (and this) without the +1 bonus 'cause it's admittedly silly speculation on my part.
The contrast you are attempting to make is poorly supported by the practices and doctrine of the US military, which takes incredible measures to protect the lives of enemy civilians, and by the fact that the only people being shot at in Iraq right now are U.S. pilots. I therefore find your suggestion as to the state of mind of military planners with regard to said civilians to be extremely suspect.
from my armchair, i hear strategists claiming that the only way to oust saddam is to engage in military action in densely populated areas which i expect would result in civilian lives lost. this is purely speculation and hopefully we can find a better solution (my briefly suggestions come later). until this point the loss of life has been limited to the Iraqi side -- no coalition pilots have been killed since the beginning of the no fly zone. sure we've been fired at but they have actually taken hits.
yes, the US will try to avoid civilian losses but in a war such as this there will be civilian casualties (*see next paragraph). the only way to avoid these casualties is to avoid war. and the reasons for war that the US has proposed (iraq's possession of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons) are suspect. so we're checking it out -- Kofi says the inspections are going well, George says they're going poorly. i guess it comes down to who you belive.
for the long term stability of relations between the middle east and us (US, Europe, etc.) we need to 'make friends'. bombing a nation of people that hates us is going to leave more people more angry -- even if we don't kill anyone we will be imposing our will on them. i propose that we work towards a political resolution rather than another military coup. we probably will never be friends with saddam but the people of iraq are another story. just look at the progress in iran (don't believe George, they're not evil in fact before George we had made great progress towards 'friendship'). the very large and influencial demographic of youth in iran want more democracy and like much western culture but it must happen to them -- we can't force it.
briefly, my suggestion promoting friendship is to take a close look at the damage the embargo did to iraq and determine what can be done to reverse this damage. beyond this it comes down to education. in iran radio sawa has the largest market share with youth. radio sawa is run by the international broadcasting bureau, funded by the US but run entirely seperate. it plays music with brief news stories promoting democracy and cultural activities outlawed by current government.
i could go on but want to get to one more point:
I find that we are instinctively driven to find a meaning in disaster, so that we can try to create a construct of belief that we can avoid it in the future.
if i read this right, i mostly agree with this paragraph. what happened happened. we are human, humans make mistakes and maybe the only way to avoid the outcome was to know the future. what matters is that it happened in one day and hopefully won't happen ever again. however the reasons for what happened remain and i think that is part of why we are still talking about this.
there are still thousands (millions?) who hate the actions and influence of the US in their country. some say this hatred is because the US is the last superpower and they're mad about that. though a born citizen, i'm also mad that the US is the last superpower -- there should be no superpower and i'm doing what i can to move towards an egalitarian world and will never use violence to make my point.
shit, i hope that wasn't too long scattered -- my longest post yet. my thoughts flow better when talking instead of typing in a 10x50 char box...
how do you see the moderation numbers? i get them sometimes (maybe when looking at my own posts) but i can't see what happened to your post. i'm guessing that someone modded you down which is totally lame. i disagree with what you said but i would not have been able to disagree with (and reply to) your post if it hadn't been modded up.
;)
and another point i should mention that i didn't on my other post is that it's easy for me to criticize from my bedroom, with broad hind sight. all i can hope is that we keep learning.
consider yourself censored, call the ACLU!
we're not talking about a plane that flew a bit off course -- it was flying to a different city and not responding to air traffic controllers. according to the TV (cops) if i drive the wrong way on an empty freeway and cops tell me to stop but i don't they will shoot or find a way to stop me well within 50 minutes.
it's a situation that we havn't encountered but we should be flexible enough to handle these situations. a lame analogy to my line of work would be having a production server crashing while i'm eating lunch and lesurely enjoying my lunch instead of fixing the problem. the point is that people (i won't point fingers) didn't do their job.
I don't know what a careful decision on the part of the Commander in Chief to use deadly force against innocent civilians looks like in your political universe, but I sleep better at night knowing that my president is reluctant to take such action.
first, he is reluctant to take military action against US civilians -- if you listen to the rhetoric coming from washington at the moment (take out saddam) you will note little indication that the loss of civilian lives weighs heavy on the minds of military planners (considering large civilian losses are expected if an invasion is to actually take out saddam).
second, when prematurely ending the lives of 120 doomed airline passengers saves a thousand or so other lives i would prefer the trigger be pulled. it's trite, but consider spock's line "The lives of many outweigh the lives of few" and i'm note even a trekkie...
It was just a paraphrase from the book (actually the movie as I never read it)
oh, i get it now. i really should read that or at least see the movie -- there is a whole world of satire i only sort of get...
Until we get around to editing the old newspapers so that we can replace Iraq with North Korea.
i would suggest that we will not be at war with Iraq when there is no need for oil or no oil left in Iraq. we don't really care about some formerly 2nd world, now nearly 3rd world dictator who has the capability of launching an attack on its nuclear equipped neighbor (Israel) and recompenses the families of anti-Israel suicide bombers with a few thousand dollars and has no specific, government acknowledged links to terrorist organizations threatening the US. it's about the oil.
damn, there i go again. getting all political on slashdot... sorry
your evidence is buried in a lot of text and i happen to know of another site that has a brief write up on the accusation:
A remarkable event happened on 8. April 1476. At this time it was usual to put anonymous accusations in a wooden box (called tamburo), which was put up in front of the Palazzo Vecchio
On 8. April Leonardo and four others were accused. The anonymous person accused Leonardo to have a homosexual affair with Jacopo Saltarelli, who was a model. The procedure ended for all participants with an acquittal of the charge. This story is an indication of the supposed homosexuality of Leonardo da Vinci.
i cook using a camping kit that includes a stuff sack. put the following ingredients in the pot, cover and bring to boil:
- 1C red (best) or green (ok) lentils
- 0.5C rice
- 2.75 C water
- chopped onion
- crushed garlic
- ginger
- oil (olive, butter, ghee...)
- curry (i make my own)
- salt
when the water boils wrap the pot (with its lid on and hot water inside) in a thick t-shirt and put it in the stuff bag -- the ingredients will be cooked by lunch and still be warm. i find it more satisfing than a sandwich and one of the cheapest things to eat (i bring some fruit for later in the afternoon). try it with some vegetables -- i suggest tomato, cilantro (corriander), celery, and broccoli. it's not gourmet but very tasty and you can make enough changes that you don't get tired of it.many (most?) coleman products are manufactured by other companies who then pay coleman to use the brand name. a brand name can really change how much you can charge and how well something sells. i worked for a company that sold crappy portable tvs and radios, among other things, that were not selling well enough so they licensed the coleman name (for like $0.70 per piece) and the sales went up. i wonder how much the coleman name cost this case. funny thing, that consumer perception.
yeah, we will need a space station when we colonize the moon, mars, your anus, etc... but do you really think this station is going to last until we get to that point? if it's sustaining life in a hostile environment that you need to research why not just build a space station prototype on earth and have some people live inside. face it, we're not colonizing other planets within our lifetime. really. i'll be you a pile of moon rocks.
i just read the page you cited, and many of the examples are really weak. basically, they are advances that would have been made in the private sector regardless of what nasa did. like cordless tools, aluminum insulation, activated carbon filtration, and freeze dried food.
i tell you, give me 40 billion and i'll make some cool stuff too.
ok, so we got some good stuff. but i can't help but think what if that money went directly into persuing technology that can make a difference in our lives instead of making products that nasa can use.
or to put it another way, lets go shopping our selves instead of getting nasa's hand-me-downs.
Our population doubles every 30 years or so.
historically, yes. but who is to say that we will continue this growth. the 'western' world does not contribute nearly as much to this growth as china or india does. i reserve hope that these trends of rapid growth in certain parts of the world will not continue. china, for example is moving towards (or already?) a capitalist society heavily influenced by 'western' culture which no longer has such large families. mmmm, capitalism...
who knows. i'm talking about things i don't really know about... it's slashdot, what's new?
i hope you were kidding.
we have different kinds of plastics for different applications. some are well suited for heat, others for flexibility. well, now we will have one that mcdonalds can use and claim to be helping the environment. don't worry your little american schitzo-from-the-doomsaying-tv brain, we won't have a rash of sprinkler systems degrading because the construction company bought 'biodegradable' plastic.
i say use a mug
whew! good thing i plan to use my roommate's printer, scanner, and paper to forge us some tickets! then i get to see the movie, avoid supporting the MPAA and void the argument that the only way to see a new release for free is to watch a bootleg. don't worry, some day i'll buy dvd to make up for the studio's loss.
true, better use of existing light is good for future development but many existing buildings can't easily take advantage of light this way (using mirrors and fiber optics). for those older buildings i think it would make sense to at least suppliment the 'grid electricity' with electricity produced on-site in a minimally polluting way.
it works OK if you live in suburbia but for those who live in apartments or work in multilevel offices this could provide energy for us too. a 2 story office building will consume more power per square foot than a house (more electronics, lights always on, plus air conditioning) and the office has less roof space compared to the house.
also, there are plenty of other uses that would benefit form efficiency like cars, cameras, boats, etc.
is not a word
Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so.