We are all taught that this is the best way to let our voices be heard by government, but unfortunately unless your name happens to be listed on a major stock exchange your voice will just be ignored. It's naive to think that writing your congress(wo)man or senator will have any affect and it hasn't for decades. If your write to one of these people your letter will be processed by an intern and if you are lucky you will receive a form letter reply after having your name and address entered into a database associated with the issue at hand. Here is an interesting take on the issue from the inside: Write your congressman? Don't even bother / His signature is phony, so is his interest http://articles.sfgate.com/2004-01-11/opinion/17406204_1_beltway-signature-smudge Here is an excerpt from the above link: Letters written by people who will vote for or against the congressman in the next election receive the following treatment: 1. The letter is scanned by an intern for the central issue. 2. The letter is labeled with the issue. 3. The writer's address is entered into a database. 4. The address is married to the issue's form response found in another database. 5. The response is printed and fed into the signature machine (when it's working). 6. The response is stuffed into the envelope printed with the matching address. 7. The response is mailed. If this sounds like a worthwhile process, then you should go ahead and send that letter on solar energy you've been working on so hard. I It's sad that that's what things have come to.
What kinds of nefarious outcomes can this technology lead to? Insurance companies and DHS using it in ways that help no one but themselves (and the children) immediately come to mind.
I know that they have plenty of lawyers, but that can't be the full story. I just have to stop and wonder what makes them think that their right to entertain should outweigh other people's civil rights.
And why would you think Russians are any less capable of building space vehicles than Americans?
I was not implying that they are less capable (In spite of a recent string of bad luck) but the media frenzy that would follow such an unfortunate event would presumably have such an effect and force congress to react to angry demands that they should "do something about it" and it may even lead to "serious" studies as to why America may be starting to fall behind in such endeavors. "If 'merican astronauts are gonna get killed being launched into space, then gosh darnit' it should be 'merican rockets that they get killed in!"
[i]Actually the U.S. government can, but chooses not to.[/i]
Perhaps it will reconsider once American astronauts are killed being launched into space on a Russian rocket? It's a grim thought, that that may be what it takes to give congress the wakeup call it needs.
"There is compelling evidence [that] fine particles of moondust, when sufficiently charged-up, actually float above the lunar surface. This could create a temporary nighttime atmosphere of dust ready to blacken spacesuits, clog machinery, scratch faceplates (moondust) is very abrasive) and generally make life difficult for astronauts." http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/17apr_magnetotail/
If this is the case then SETI may be wasting their time looking for any kind of ancient tracks in the dust on the moon.
Such a calendar scheme would have some interesting repercussions for countries such as Germany. Germans do not get Monday off of work if the 25th of December falls on a Saturday. which means that they could also forget about ever getting the first of January or several other holidays off if such a calendar system were to cause current holidays to fall on weekends. Perhaps they would have to adopt the Anglo-Saxon practice of taking a following Monday/Tuesday off which would essentially end up shifting entire holidays by two days in their perspective?
Perhaps the best way to deal with the Taliban for the next several years is to deny Afghanistan access to all modern technology. No transport, medical, communication, industrial, agricultural, textile, (especially) military - absolutely nothing. We could start by taking out what little electricity they already have so in about a week most cellphones and computers will become useless. I realize that this may sound cruel but in the long run it may be what is needed to drive the Taliban out once and for all.
Why would anyone consider a crop "dangerous" simply because it may have had some gene spliced or DNA sequence slightly altered? After ingesting food doesn't the body break the food down anyway then build its own proteins as it sees fit?
How long will it be before some "terrorist" figures this out that this is possible and uses it for more nefarious purposes? Before it was cellphones being used to trigger IED, next it will be flying IEDs on "toys". I can't wait to see the news on Fox.
Even if it were punishable (which is probably already is) there would be little or no effect as most people negatively affected by such behavior do not have the resources to sue in court as the large media corporations do. This is just another tool to be used along with SLAPP lawsuits.
The whole thing is designed so that people must have debt in order to beg the banks for more debt. It's absolutely crazy
I have noticed this myself. Now that I have almost completely paid off my credit cards and am actually starting to save money saved my credit score has actually gotten worse. Just thinking about it gives me a headache.
Now, about the real problem. Why is everybody so concerned about their credit worthness? You must be from Europe. Over the past 20 years in the USA (and I think Canada) a person's credit worthiness is everything. Both positive as well as negative information is reported and not having a decent credit score can negatively impact your quality of life. It is not at all uncommon for potential employers to investigate prospective employees' credit scores. As an American I find these increasingly intrusive trends in the US quite disturbing as it all seems to somehow fall under employers' rights to "free speech" as everything seems to be a "public record" these days. What the US needs are EU style data protection laws.
Hasn't this judge ever heard of the Streisand Effect? By requiring this guy to delete his blog the judge probably made the woman's problems even worse. When will the legal establishment ever learn?
Although most Slashdotters do not. Most "normal" users out there do however require as much handholding as they can get and it's a major selling point for commercial OS manufacturers. (They call it "user friendliness") I also switched the interface to "classic" (or whatever it's called) on my windows 7 installation which I hardly ever boot anyway.
The correct way to protest is to make a 'no vote'. This is where you tick all the boxes, or none of them, or you write a message voicing your dissatisfaction on the ballot, or smear faeces or stick chewing gum on the ballot, or you vote for a joke candidate. Unfortunately this is at best not a very effective and at worst counter-productive in the US given our winner-takes-all voting system which results in a zero-sum-game. We saw this happen in the 2004 where any vote for Ralph Nader was effectively a vote for George W. Bush. Kerry probably would have won the election had Nader not been on the ballet.
Slashdot Mirror
We are all taught that this is the best way to let our voices be heard by government, but unfortunately unless your name happens to be listed on a major stock exchange your voice will just be ignored. It's naive to think that writing your congress(wo)man or senator will have any affect and it hasn't for decades. If your write to one of these people your letter will be processed by an intern and if you are lucky you will receive a form letter reply after having your name and address entered into a database associated with the issue at hand. Here is an interesting take on the issue from the inside: Write your congressman? Don't even bother / His signature is phony, so is his interest
http://articles.sfgate.com/2004-01-11/opinion/17406204_1_beltway-signature-smudge
Here is an excerpt from the above link:
Letters written by people who will vote for or against the congressman in the next election receive the following treatment: 1. The letter is scanned by an intern for the central issue. 2. The letter is labeled with the issue. 3. The writer's address is entered into a database. 4. The address is married to the issue's form response found in another database. 5. The response is printed and fed into the signature machine (when it's working). 6. The response is stuffed into the envelope printed with the matching address. 7. The response is mailed. If this sounds like a worthwhile process, then you should go ahead and send that letter on solar energy you've been working on so hard. I
It's sad that that's what things have come to.
What kinds of nefarious outcomes can this technology lead to? Insurance companies and DHS using it in ways that help no one but themselves (and the children) immediately come to mind.
I know that they have plenty of lawyers, but that can't be the full story. I just have to stop and wonder what makes them think that their right to entertain should outweigh other people's civil rights.
or at least I'm not aware of having seen them flying overhead. Are they easily identifiable from the ground?
Geeks worldwide seem to manage two steps forward for every step "forward" that governments make. Hopefully the trend will continue. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mafiaafire-gee-no-evil/
This Firefox addon re-enables censored "suggestion" content from Google.
It's a great plugin, but I'm curious as to how it actually works.
And why would you think Russians are any less capable of building space vehicles than Americans?
I was not implying that they are less capable (In spite of a recent string of bad luck) but the media frenzy that would follow such an unfortunate event would presumably have such an effect and force congress to react to angry demands that they should "do something about it" and it may even lead to "serious" studies as to why America may be starting to fall behind in such endeavors. "If 'merican astronauts are gonna get killed being launched into space, then gosh darnit' it should be 'merican rockets that they get killed in!"
[i]Actually the U.S. government can, but chooses not to.[/i]
Perhaps it will reconsider once American astronauts are killed being launched into space on a Russian rocket? It's a grim thought, that that may be what it takes to give congress the wakeup call it needs.
This airplane has been nicknamed "the Doctor Killer".
https://aviatorcollege.wordpress.com/2010/06/25/why-is-the-%E2%80%9Cdoctor-killer%E2%80%9D-airplane-so-dangerous/
"There is compelling evidence [that] fine particles of moondust, when sufficiently charged-up, actually float above the lunar surface. This could create a temporary nighttime atmosphere of dust ready to blacken spacesuits, clog machinery, scratch faceplates (moondust) is very abrasive) and generally make life difficult for astronauts."
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/17apr_magnetotail/
If this is the case then SETI may be wasting their time looking for any kind of ancient tracks in the dust on the moon.
Such a calendar scheme would have some interesting repercussions for countries such as Germany. Germans do not get Monday off of work if the 25th of December falls on a Saturday. which means that they could also forget about ever getting the first of January or several other holidays off if such a calendar system were to cause current holidays to fall on weekends. Perhaps they would have to adopt the Anglo-Saxon practice of taking a following Monday/Tuesday off which would essentially end up shifting entire holidays by two days in their perspective?
From what time I have spent in Russia I get the impression that nearly every town there has a street by that name.
Or blunt trauma
Perhaps the best way to deal with the Taliban for the next several years is to deny Afghanistan access to all modern technology. No transport, medical, communication, industrial, agricultural, textile, (especially) military - absolutely nothing. We could start by taking out what little electricity they already have so in about a week most cellphones and computers will become useless. I realize that this may sound cruel but in the long run it may be what is needed to drive the Taliban out once and for all.
Why would anyone consider a crop "dangerous" simply because it may have had some gene spliced or DNA sequence slightly altered? After ingesting food doesn't the body break the food down anyway then build its own proteins as it sees fit?
...and creation of a police state was never necessary prior to today.
Since when was this ever necessary?
How long will it be before some "terrorist" figures this out that this is possible and uses it for more nefarious purposes? Before it was cellphones being used to trigger IED, next it will be flying IEDs on "toys". I can't wait to see the news on Fox.
Even if it were punishable (which is probably already is) there would be little or no effect as most people negatively affected by such behavior do not have the resources to sue in court as the large media corporations do. This is just another tool to be used along with SLAPP lawsuits.
The whole thing is designed so that people must have debt in order to beg the banks for more debt. It's absolutely crazy
I have noticed this myself. Now that I have almost completely paid off my credit cards and am actually starting to save money saved my credit score has actually gotten worse. Just thinking about it gives me a headache.
Now, about the real problem. Why is everybody so concerned about their credit worthness?
You must be from Europe. Over the past 20 years in the USA (and I think Canada) a person's credit worthiness is everything. Both positive as well as negative information is reported and not having a decent credit score can negatively impact your quality of life. It is not at all uncommon for potential employers to investigate prospective employees' credit scores. As an American I find these increasingly intrusive trends in the US quite disturbing as it all seems to somehow fall under employers' rights to "free speech" as everything seems to be a "public record" these days. What the US needs are EU style data protection laws.
Hasn't this judge ever heard of the Streisand Effect? By requiring this guy to delete his blog the judge probably made the woman's problems even worse. When will the legal establishment ever learn?
There is a lot to criticize in life, but this study is not one.
Although most Slashdotters do not. Most "normal" users out there do however require as much handholding as they can get and it's a major selling point for commercial OS manufacturers. (They call it "user friendliness") I also switched the interface to "classic" (or whatever it's called) on my windows 7 installation which I hardly ever boot anyway.
The correct way to protest is to make a 'no vote'. This is where you tick all the boxes, or none of them, or you write a message voicing your dissatisfaction on the ballot, or smear faeces or stick chewing gum on the ballot, or you vote for a joke candidate.
Unfortunately this is at best not a very effective and at worst counter-productive in the US given our winner-takes-all voting system which results in a zero-sum-game. We saw this happen in the 2004 where any vote for Ralph Nader was effectively a vote for George W. Bush. Kerry probably would have won the election had Nader not been on the ballet.
Yeah, how dare the TSA overstep its bounds! Only real cops should be the ones allowed to routinely sexually assault and humiliate their victims.
While there may appear to be justifiable reasons to implement this now, the long term unintended consequences may be devastating.