I wonder if someone will be able to successfully sue Slashdot for promoting this particular pyramid scheme once the bottom falls out of it? Now THAT would be a perfect Slashdot story.
Well... if it somehow managed to include Apple and Microsoft hate and Linux. In that order.
A pyramid scheme is a non-sustainable business model that involves promising participants payment, services or ideals, primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme or training them to take part, rather than supplying any real investment or sale of products or services to the public. Pyramid schemes are a form of fraud.
No real investment, products or services? Check. Promising participants payment? Check. Priority in enrolling other people into the scheme? Check. Non-sustainable business model? Hmmm... Converting electricity into ones and zeroes of highly volatile value and no practical use beyond said value, which can't be readily converted to goods, services or even monetary units...? Oh, SO check.
There's no hierarchy of "agency rights", and, even metaphorically, bitcoins have never been sold as "a remedy for all diseases." It's like kids don't know what words mean.
Seriously? You'll be the one to pull the "kids don't know what words mean" AND "metaphorically" card(s)? When arguing about lite-FUCKING-ral meaning of a meta-FUCKING-phor for a FUCKING SCAM?
This is threading deeply into Ignoratio elenchi, cause regardless of your preferred method of punishment the fact remains that it is... well... fucking stupid.
And if USA was going to be delivering press reports on on how many civilians they have killed for every american soldier who stubbed his toe, they might just as well start each one with "ACHTUNG! ACHTUNG!". Some form of a salute in the end would also be nice. Like "Until we are victorious!", "For Victory!' or "Hail Victory!". Everyone pointing to the sky, as the source of punishment (also implying that it is actually divine retribution), while doing the salute - would also be a nice touch. Some skulls would also be nice. They've been known to tie the whole thing together rather nicely.
Kill by a drone... that's just a statistic. Like death/maiming by a land mine. Or a car accident. No kills are counted, or medals awarded for laying mines. At best, someone somewhere is taking account of the ratio of dead/maimed people per mine.
And the victims have nobody to blame but some mythical boogieman they themselves created from their actual enemy (Yankee, Charlie, Jerry, Tommy, Johnie, Commie...) and their own bad luck.
Punishment on the other hand is a VERY personal thing. You want the other side to know who, why and what for is punishing them BEFORE the actual punishment is "administered".
Give repercussions to people willing to kill themselves for there cause, group punishments again rather nasty business to punish the people that the terrorists cared for.
Just like it worked for Germans in every country they occupied during the WWII. Killing civilians also does wonders for the morale of "our boys" out there.
In fact, why even bother with recruiting and training anymore? Simply scour the prisons for rapists, murderers and other sociopaths, give them guns and flamethrowers and parachute them into civilian settlements. That should fix that pesky terrorist problem by Christmas or so. What could possibly go wrong, right?
They didn't just use software - girls bought couple of thousands of dollars worth of smart meters from their... umm... sponsors? Mentors? What do you call that when a company helps you earn a grant, which you then spend at the said company, earning further contracts to the company with a bonus of international promotion through UNICEF?
âoeHarkerâ(TM)s going to continue to support the philosophy of green thinking, to create buildings that have a warm and open environment, and weâ(TM)ll continue to seek out the very best products to promote the sustainability of our planet in future construction projects.â â" Mike Bassoni
In early December. Zhuâ(TM)s application emphasized incentivizing investment in sustainable energies such as solar, wind and geothermal power, and modernizing electricity grids worldwide. âoeItâ(TM)s important to get as much information about climate change policy out there as possible, as it has a major impact now and will have an even bigger one on future generations,â said Zhu.
Priya Bhikha, Gr. 12, And a team of upper school students are preparing a segment for Harkerâ(TM)s 2010 fashion show, with clothes made out of recycled materials. Bhikha has put out a call to all three campuses to help supply her with plastic bags, soda can tabs, paper clips, coffee filters, cds, drinking straws and more to make her recycled fashions.
Shreya Indukuri and Daniela Lapidous, both Gr. 10, Took it upon themselves to apply for a grant to improve Harkerâ(TM)s energy efficiency. The girls, with the help of Valence Energy, successfully earned a $5,500 environmental grant, allowing Valance to install smart meters, devices for monitoring energy use, at the lower school campus. They also hope to apply some of the grant money towards an organic garden and window-insulating film at the upper school, and plans are underway to install smart meters at that campus, as well. This fall the pair attended the Governorsâ(TM) Global Climate Summit in Los Angeles as two of 25 climate youth leaders; they presented their findings to the assembly and enjoyed an audience with Gov. Schwarzenegger. Unicef picked up on the girlsâ(TM) story from there, and sent a camera crew from New York in October to interview them for a documentary on youth activism.
âoeIf we donâ(TM)t do anything about [global warming] now, weâ(TM)ll really regret it in the future and history will label us as the generation who sat back and watched the world go up in flames. People will either be part of the problem or part of the solution, and it will take an extremely grueling period of effort by a lot of people to come up with even a fraction of a solution, but every contribution counts. We know the work is hard, and it does seem rather intimidating, but weâ(TM)re just taking it one baby step at a time,â said Lapidous.
A gold, green building? Students ready to effect change? A strong history of environmental awareness that will continue long into the future? Check.
Who's now copyrighted what now? You mean that when YOU take a photo of THE SKY, you think that YOU are breaking copyright? Whose copyright? God's?
Also, when YOU upload YOUR photo to an online service for the purpose of adding various clip-art drawings and or text, you actually think that you are breaking more copyright? Whose copyright would that be? You from 5 minutes ago? Are you really THAT big of a prick, that you would sue your future self for copyright infringement? AND invasion of privacy.
Are you schizophrenic or something? Do many people live in your head, fucking with your mail and erasing your phone messages while you sleep? If so, you should see a psychiatrist. Now. Before they take over again.
Once again, how it works.
YOU take photo of sky. YOU upload photo to M$-patented-thingamajig. YOU write "I suck many cocks" across the image of that part of the sky using their built in interface. I believe that you already see the appeal of THAT. M$-patented-thingamajig records your location and the stuff you wrote/draw, and puts that (location and your text/drawing) into their database. It's OK... You clicked [yes] on their EULA. YOU then tell your friend to use his M$-patented-thingamajig phone app, take a snapshot of the sky "over there" (he could be across town, but in the line of sight to that piece of sky) and read you what it says. Your friend takes a snapshot of the sky using M$-patented-thingamajig phone app. M$-patented-thingamajig takes his photo and checks his location, analyzes its relation to your original position, photo and text, renders visual representation what HE would see on HIS photo and sends HIS photo back to HIM. He reads "rtb61 sucks many cocks" back to you.
And any copyright issue Microsoft might have with you writing copyrighted text/drawing copyrighted images in the virtual sky of your photos is dealt with simply by a line of text in the EULA. Line that says that YOU take all responsibility for all instances of "I suck many cocks" that you will write, which don't already fall under fair use.
As for use of this as an advertising device... On second thought, unless they start charging money to have parts of the "virtual sky" protected from vandalism, and thereby destroy the appeal to the common user - there would be too many instances of Cock-A-Cola or similar "sky graffiti" over existing commercials for this to ever be profitable.
Besides... Advertising is something Google would do. Microsoft would just force you to use their Zune-Phone or something in order to use the app.
Superimposed images are only the visual representation - the end product, so to speak. I guess writer of the article was too busy being all "OMG! Evil M$ empire steals photo, spreads lies!" to pay any attention to the actual idea behind the patent.
What they are actually patenting is a service that lets its users take photos of the sky and superimpose text and/or images over that image to appear like skywriting. Said service then STORES THE LOCATION OF THE USER, and then allows other users to see those (and other) superimposed images when they take a photo of that piece of the sky.
Think virtual Bat-signal, not "lame automated Photoshop plugin". Or, for the daylight photos "Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's - the new Coca-Cola commercial".
Funny that you say that it's not necessarily due to discrimination, and then go on to list a bunch of groups that are/have been discriminated against.
I have a feeling you have a difficulty of discerning between being discriminated upon due to being in a group AND being in a group due to disability of some kind. Correlation does not a causation make.
Yeah, you pretty much just explained why there are no good options.
I have a feeling you have a difficulty of discerning between terms like "good" and ones that mean "easy" and "quick".
Social Darwinism is the mentality of a very large minority of the country, and apathy is the mentality of another significant minority. I think that those that actually want things to be better are severely outnumbered.
And there lies your problem (your problem being of the "forest for the trees" variety).
There is no "country". That's an imaginary distinction applied on a geographical area, a product of treaties and agreements - while the problem is actually of psychological and sociological nature of the humanity as a whole, and of every single person as a part of the said humanity. One might as well be talking about should the right hand be called right or dexter and left hand sinister OR the other way around - when trying to surgically fix a head injury that cause twitches in one side of the body.
The other part of your problem is that you seem to think that people actually actively try to make things worse, or at best don't care if things turn worse all around them. And while the second part may be true on the smallest of scales (like the guy tossing a plastic bottle out of the window, not caring for recycling), it is actually WAY OFF when talking about societies, politicians, businesses etc. - and even your regular Joe Average. Most of us are actually hardwired for empathy - it's why we have this society thing instead of just spending our days getting our bellies full and trying to get laid. As for the people who end up responsible for the global problems we're experiencing - they don't spend their free time twirling their mustache dreaming up evil schemes and plans how to kill Superman. The most tragic thing is they are actually trying to help and make things better most of the time.
It's just that they are doing their planing and executing their actions based on faulty data, bad ideas, wrong assumptions and plain old wishful thinking and arrogance combined with the need to fix everything instantly. You know... like in the next two years at the most, cause they will need next two years of their term to campaign for the next term. And cause the public wants it all done yesterday. With no effort or responsibility on their part. And a lollipop. And a pony.
There ARE solutions but they are VERY hard and none of them are instant. Most of them would not even show results within our generation. Mostly cause it's the case of fighting centuries of preconceptions on top of millennia of evolution (Although, some of those millennia actually work for you, as do some of those centuries.). And there is no fucking chance in hell you could fix those in the time-space of couple of generations, let alone in a mandate or two. Even if we don't generate more problems along the way - which we will.
But we still have to keep working on it, regardless. It's not like there is some "invisible hand" (of god or Market) that will fix everything for us if we just let things run as they are.
The idea behind that is that those Purple people are getting shafted in a lot of other places due to discrimination, so there are more of them in need of charity.
Not necessarily due to discrimination - you can have a more disadvantaged group with no discrimination implied or applied. I used neutral colors on purpose - Purple people could just as well be handicapped, single mothers, people with AIDS... or any racial/cultural minority of your choosing. Take your pick.
The problem is that there is not enough available aid, that which is available does not accurately match the population and the fact that it often gets mismanaged.
there aren't really any good options that will rectify the problem.
Sorry, but that's nonsense.
Sure there are good options. Problem is, they cost a lot. And not just money-wise. If it was just money, problem could be solved simply by getting enough people to donate more money and all those discrimination problems would disappear. They cost a lot in will, the cost a lot in change, they cost a lot in education, they cost a lot in work, they cost a lot in privileges AND they cost a lot in money. And the worst (best?) part is - all those costs would have to be applied on ALL SIDES.
Getting those filthy Purple people to civilize-up and become self sufficient is worthless unless you get everyone else to stop thinking about them and treating them as filthy Purples instead of simply as people.
Oh and... More than anything else, it would cost in time. I'm talking centuries. We still haven't really gotten to apply those "Thou shall not kill, steal, lie, cheat..." rules. We're sorta getting there, although very gradually and with many relapses. To expect that we will finally adopt that "Love thy fellow man" in under a couple of millennia would be highly optimistic.
But that does not mean we should give it all up. Just that we should stop trying to fix everything instantly, and then getting disappointed when we fail.
But the kind of investors they are looking for (and probably have already - that does not look like a garage-made model) don't really read slashdot or gizmag comments. They arrange for a live presentation. And everyone knows that you never mention gizmag if you want credibility - there's always a 50% chance someone will pronounce it as jiz-mag.
Also, you are kinda contradicting yourself with that "one chance with the press" and then complaining about BS articles about non-existent technology coming out every week.
An engine attached to wires lifting of ground and maybe moving a meter or two left-right and ahead and back, probably with not that much stability... Not really something one would want to "present".
And I'm guessing here, but I assume that they are in it for the money - not so they could "do some crappy low res video" and "get clicks" and "likes" on their fan-book thingamajig. In fact, something like that might prove detrimental to their long-term plans. Cause there sure as fuck exists such a thing as "bad publicity".
And if you are pitching your aircraft as an UAV and "an autonomous pallet-transportation-system", you probably want to keep more under wraps than not - your main prospective client being military and all that.
At least not yet. All they have is a proof of concept laboratory prototype.
The current status of D-DALUS
D-DALUS is currently in prototype stage. Over recent weeks IAT21 have conducted extensive constrained flight tests in a specially prepared laboratory near Salzburg, including the transition from vertical to forward flight, and are now ready to move to an open test range for free flight tests. In trials to date D-DALUS has met the performance criteria placed upon it and appears to be scalable, becoming more efficient and less complex as it increases in size. It will therefore be ideally suited for applications that range from maritime search and rescue, through the carriage of freight, to operating alongside and within buildings during fires or, for example, nuclear accidents.
They could probably do a CG presentation, but for those satisfied with that, those couple of images on their site should suffice.
They are apparently also planning "an autonomous pallet-transportation-system" and a small roof-sized power plant based on the underlying technology. These last two apparently only existing in text form so far.
Let's say that some charity organization has a budget of a 1000 dollars. And let's say that it caters to the needs of Blue people, Green people and Purple people. But, as the Purple people are a minority, they get a leg up - they get a priority of service. Same service, they just get it first.
Theoretically, since Purples are a minority giving them priority in service shouldn't unbalance the system. BUT, the charity's budget does not accurately match the population, and is also very limited. Also, while the Purple people are a minority in the population, there may be equal or even a greater number of them in the queue for the charity. After all, it is only logical that they will show up in greater numbers there where they have priority, right? Also, being a minority, they probably DO need more help than other groups as their social network simply can't provide as much assistance as the Blue or Green one can - as less people in the network also means that there are less WELL-OFF people in the network.
So... Let's say that the charity above decides to distribute $100 donations, and that Blue, Green and Purple people show up in equal numbers. But, as Purple people have priority, they get pushed at the front of the queue. So out of a queue like BGP, PGB, GPB, GBP - Blue and Green people groups will get $300 each, while Purple people will get $400. Those last two Green and Blue get zip. And that's when you have equal number of Blue, Green and Purple people in the queue.
That would be the fabled "positive discrimination".
Or you can turn that around, and apply it to your particular case where you are the representative of the Purple people BUT without any particular perks or advantages as in your case Purple people are not a minority. It's just that in your particular case Green and Blue people get the "regular" discrimination treatment.
House used an imaginary drug which he injected himself with - not an implant.
an implantable extracellular matrix that can re-grow tissue. The matrix is a biological scaffold, enriched with proteins and growth factors, which recruits stem cells and other cell precursors to the site of the injury, according to the McGowan Instituteâ(TM)s website. The therapy stimulates further tissue regeneration, essentially rebuilding the lost muscle.
Problem with your solution lies in the word "buy". "Resistance fighters" don't do much of that either, not just play Far Cry.
And that's besides general unavailability of such devices in an "untraceable fashion". It's not exactly like you can just waltz into any supermarket, pick them up from the shelf and pay for them in cash. One way or another you are VERY likely to be using the aforementioned "government controlled, regulated and monitored pipes", setting off various flags along the way. And with the limited number of suppliers of such "unregulated hardware" it would be very easy to simply monitor the supplier instead of chasing around for all possible buyers out there.
There's no need to regulate the hardware if you can "regulate" the user.
You know... From self-deprecating humor like "I think of volunteering..." to movie/book references like Starship Troopers (Come on, you apes! You wanna live forever?) or Planet of the Apes... I mean there's one of those coming up just around the corner.
Instead, the thread is full of "ZOMG THE IRANIANS ARE MONKEYS LOL!" as you've put it. I mean... FFS... It's such a lame xenophobic approach, particularly since the first monkey in space was American.
Slashdot Mirror
Pyramid scheme. On a computer.
I wonder if someone will be able to successfully sue Slashdot for promoting this particular pyramid scheme once the bottom falls out of it?
Now THAT would be a perfect Slashdot story.
Well... if it somehow managed to include Apple and Microsoft hate and Linux. In that order.
Pyramid scheme: A system of selling goods in which agency rights are sold to an increasing number of distributors at successively lower levels
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme
A pyramid scheme is a non-sustainable business model that involves promising participants payment, services or ideals, primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme or training them to take part, rather than supplying any real investment or sale of products or services to the public. Pyramid schemes are a form of fraud.
No real investment, products or services? Check.
Promising participants payment? Check.
Priority in enrolling other people into the scheme? Check.
Non-sustainable business model?
Hmmm... Converting electricity into ones and zeroes of highly volatile value and no practical use beyond said value, which can't be readily converted to goods, services or even monetary units...? Oh, SO check.
There's no hierarchy of "agency rights", and, even metaphorically, bitcoins have never been sold as "a remedy for all diseases." It's like kids don't know what words mean.
Seriously?
You'll be the one to pull the "kids don't know what words mean" AND "metaphorically" card(s)?
When arguing about lite-FUCKING-ral meaning of a meta-FUCKING-phor for a FUCKING SCAM?
For fucks sake... Kids these days...
...they go after someone every other day.
Have you noticed that YOU are already conditioned to consider that to be perfectly normal?
You're saying MySpace WAS useful for something after all?
Why not an axe?
This is threading deeply into Ignoratio elenchi, cause regardless of your preferred method of punishment the fact remains that it is... well... fucking stupid.
And if USA was going to be delivering press reports on on how many civilians they have killed for every american soldier who stubbed his toe, they might just as well start each one with "ACHTUNG! ACHTUNG!".
Some form of a salute in the end would also be nice. Like "Until we are victorious!", "For Victory!' or "Hail Victory!".
Everyone pointing to the sky, as the source of punishment (also implying that it is actually divine retribution), while doing the salute - would also be a nice touch.
Some skulls would also be nice. They've been known to tie the whole thing together rather nicely.
...doing nasty things to other humans.
Kill by a drone... that's just a statistic. Like death/maiming by a land mine. Or a car accident.
No kills are counted, or medals awarded for laying mines. At best, someone somewhere is taking account of the ratio of dead/maimed people per mine.
And the victims have nobody to blame but some mythical boogieman they themselves created from their actual enemy (Yankee, Charlie, Jerry, Tommy, Johnie, Commie...) and their own bad luck.
Punishment on the other hand is a VERY personal thing.
You want the other side to know who, why and what for is punishing them BEFORE the actual punishment is "administered".
Give repercussions to people willing to kill themselves for there cause, group punishments again rather nasty business to punish the people that the terrorists cared for.
Just like it worked for Germans in every country they occupied during the WWII.
Killing civilians also does wonders for the morale of "our boys" out there.
In fact, why even bother with recruiting and training anymore?
Simply scour the prisons for rapists, murderers and other sociopaths, give them guns and flamethrowers and parachute them into civilian settlements.
That should fix that pesky terrorist problem by Christmas or so. What could possibly go wrong, right?
Welcome to Slashdot.
No! I'm Asparagus!
...if they are using any pre-Taliban C-64s in their setup, and if Junis is involved?
They didn't just use software - girls bought couple of thousands of dollars worth of smart meters from their... umm... sponsors? Mentors?
What do you call that when a company helps you earn a grant, which you then spend at the said company, earning further contracts to the company with a bonus of international promotion through UNICEF?
http://issuu.com/theharkerschool/docs/harker_quarterly
âoeHarkerâ(TM)s going to continue to support the philosophy of green thinking, to create buildings that have a warm and open environment, and weâ(TM)ll continue to seek out the very best products to promote the sustainability of our planet in future construction projects.â
â" Mike Bassoni
In early December. Zhuâ(TM)s application emphasized incentivizing investment in sustainable energies such as solar, wind and geothermal power, and modernizing electricity grids worldwide. âoeItâ(TM)s important to get as much information about climate change policy out there as possible, as it has a major impact now and will have an even bigger one on future generations,â said Zhu.
Priya Bhikha, Gr. 12, And a team of upper school students are preparing a segment for Harkerâ(TM)s 2010 fashion show, with clothes made out of recycled materials. Bhikha has put out a call to all three campuses to help supply her with plastic bags, soda can tabs, paper clips, coffee filters, cds, drinking straws and more to make her recycled fashions.
Shreya Indukuri and Daniela Lapidous, both Gr. 10, Took it upon themselves to apply for a grant to improve Harkerâ(TM)s energy efficiency.
The girls, with the help of Valence Energy, successfully earned a $5,500 environmental grant, allowing Valance to install smart meters, devices for monitoring energy use, at the lower school campus. They also hope to apply some of the grant money towards an organic garden and window-insulating film at the upper school, and plans are underway to install smart meters at that campus, as well. This fall the pair attended the Governorsâ(TM) Global Climate Summit in Los Angeles as two of 25 climate youth leaders; they presented their findings to the assembly and enjoyed an audience with Gov. Schwarzenegger. Unicef picked up on the girlsâ(TM) story from there, and sent a camera crew from New York in October to interview them for a documentary on youth activism.
âoeIf we donâ(TM)t do anything about [global warming] now, weâ(TM)ll really regret it in the future and history will label us as the generation who sat back and watched the world go up in flames. People will either be part of the problem or part of the solution, and it will take an extremely grueling period of effort by a lot of people to come up with even a fraction of a solution, but every contribution counts. We know the work is hard, and it does seem rather intimidating, but weâ(TM)re just taking it one baby step at a time,â said Lapidous.
A gold, green building? Students ready to effect change? A strong history of environmental awareness that will continue long into the future? Check.
What am I missing?
Billions of dollars and thousands of lobbyists?
...or do you dye your hair?
Who's now copyrighted what now?
You mean that when YOU take a photo of THE SKY, you think that YOU are breaking copyright? Whose copyright? God's?
Also, when YOU upload YOUR photo to an online service for the purpose of adding various clip-art drawings and or text, you actually think that you are breaking more copyright? Whose copyright would that be?
You from 5 minutes ago? Are you really THAT big of a prick, that you would sue your future self for copyright infringement?
AND invasion of privacy.
Are you schizophrenic or something?
Do many people live in your head, fucking with your mail and erasing your phone messages while you sleep? If so, you should see a psychiatrist.
Now. Before they take over again.
Once again, how it works.
YOU take photo of sky.
YOU upload photo to M$-patented-thingamajig.
YOU write "I suck many cocks" across the image of that part of the sky using their built in interface. I believe that you already see the appeal of THAT.
M$-patented-thingamajig records your location and the stuff you wrote/draw, and puts that (location and your text/drawing) into their database. It's OK... You clicked [yes] on their EULA.
YOU then tell your friend to use his M$-patented-thingamajig phone app, take a snapshot of the sky "over there" (he could be across town, but in the line of sight to that piece of sky) and read you what it says.
Your friend takes a snapshot of the sky using M$-patented-thingamajig phone app.
M$-patented-thingamajig takes his photo and checks his location, analyzes its relation to your original position, photo and text, renders visual representation what HE would see on HIS photo and sends HIS photo back to HIM.
He reads "rtb61 sucks many cocks" back to you.
And any copyright issue Microsoft might have with you writing copyrighted text/drawing copyrighted images in the virtual sky of your photos is dealt with simply by a line of text in the EULA.
Line that says that YOU take all responsibility for all instances of "I suck many cocks" that you will write, which don't already fall under fair use.
As for use of this as an advertising device...
On second thought, unless they start charging money to have parts of the "virtual sky" protected from vandalism, and thereby destroy the appeal to the common user - there would be too many instances of Cock-A-Cola or similar "sky graffiti" over existing commercials for this to ever be profitable.
Besides... Advertising is something Google would do.
Microsoft would just force you to use their Zune-Phone or something in order to use the app.
Superimposed images are only the visual representation - the end product, so to speak.
I guess writer of the article was too busy being all "OMG! Evil M$ empire steals photo, spreads lies!" to pay any attention to the actual idea behind the patent.
What they are actually patenting is a service that lets its users take photos of the sky and superimpose text and/or images over that image to appear like skywriting.
Said service then STORES THE LOCATION OF THE USER, and then allows other users to see those (and other) superimposed images when they take a photo of that piece of the sky.
Think virtual Bat-signal, not "lame automated Photoshop plugin".
Or, for the daylight photos "Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's - the new Coca-Cola commercial".
Funny that you say that it's not necessarily due to discrimination, and then go on to list a bunch of groups that are/have been discriminated against.
I have a feeling you have a difficulty of discerning between being discriminated upon due to being in a group AND being in a group due to disability of some kind.
Correlation does not a causation make.
Yeah, you pretty much just explained why there are no good options.
I have a feeling you have a difficulty of discerning between terms like "good" and ones that mean "easy" and "quick".
Social Darwinism is the mentality of a very large minority of the country, and apathy is the mentality of another significant minority. I think that those that actually want things to be better are severely outnumbered.
And there lies your problem (your problem being of the "forest for the trees" variety).
There is no "country".
That's an imaginary distinction applied on a geographical area, a product of treaties and agreements - while the problem is actually of psychological and sociological nature of the humanity as a whole, and of every single person as a part of the said humanity.
One might as well be talking about should the right hand be called right or dexter and left hand sinister OR the other way around - when trying to surgically fix a head injury that cause twitches in one side of the body.
The other part of your problem is that you seem to think that people actually actively try to make things worse, or at best don't care if things turn worse all around them.
And while the second part may be true on the smallest of scales (like the guy tossing a plastic bottle out of the window, not caring for recycling), it is actually WAY OFF when talking about societies, politicians, businesses etc. - and even your regular Joe Average.
Most of us are actually hardwired for empathy - it's why we have this society thing instead of just spending our days getting our bellies full and trying to get laid.
As for the people who end up responsible for the global problems we're experiencing - they don't spend their free time twirling their mustache dreaming up evil schemes and plans how to kill Superman.
The most tragic thing is they are actually trying to help and make things better most of the time.
It's just that they are doing their planing and executing their actions based on faulty data, bad ideas, wrong assumptions and plain old wishful thinking and arrogance combined with the need to fix everything instantly.
You know... like in the next two years at the most, cause they will need next two years of their term to campaign for the next term.
And cause the public wants it all done yesterday. With no effort or responsibility on their part.
And a lollipop.
And a pony.
There ARE solutions but they are VERY hard and none of them are instant. Most of them would not even show results within our generation.
Mostly cause it's the case of fighting centuries of preconceptions on top of millennia of evolution (Although, some of those millennia actually work for you, as do some of those centuries.).
And there is no fucking chance in hell you could fix those in the time-space of couple of generations, let alone in a mandate or two.
Even if we don't generate more problems along the way - which we will.
But we still have to keep working on it, regardless.
It's not like there is some "invisible hand" (of god or Market) that will fix everything for us if we just let things run as they are.
The idea behind that is that those Purple people are getting shafted in a lot of other places due to discrimination, so there are more of them in need of charity.
Not necessarily due to discrimination - you can have a more disadvantaged group with no discrimination implied or applied.
I used neutral colors on purpose - Purple people could just as well be handicapped, single mothers, people with AIDS... or any racial/cultural minority of your choosing. Take your pick.
The problem is that there is not enough available aid, that which is available does not accurately match the population and the fact that it often gets mismanaged.
there aren't really any good options that will rectify the problem.
Sorry, but that's nonsense.
Sure there are good options. Problem is, they cost a lot. And not just money-wise.
If it was just money, problem could be solved simply by getting enough people to donate more money and all those discrimination problems would disappear.
They cost a lot in will, the cost a lot in change, they cost a lot in education, they cost a lot in work, they cost a lot in privileges AND they cost a lot in money.
And the worst (best?) part is - all those costs would have to be applied on ALL SIDES.
Getting those filthy Purple people to civilize-up and become self sufficient is worthless unless you get everyone else to stop thinking about them and treating them as filthy Purples instead of simply as people.
Oh and... More than anything else, it would cost in time. I'm talking centuries.
We still haven't really gotten to apply those "Thou shall not kill, steal, lie, cheat..." rules. We're sorta getting there, although very gradually and with many relapses.
To expect that we will finally adopt that "Love thy fellow man" in under a couple of millennia would be highly optimistic.
But that does not mean we should give it all up. Just that we should stop trying to fix everything instantly, and then getting disappointed when we fail.
But the kind of investors they are looking for (and probably have already - that does not look like a garage-made model) don't really read slashdot or gizmag comments. They arrange for a live presentation.
And everyone knows that you never mention gizmag if you want credibility - there's always a 50% chance someone will pronounce it as jiz-mag.
Also, you are kinda contradicting yourself with that "one chance with the press" and then complaining about BS articles about non-existent technology coming out every week.
An engine attached to wires lifting of ground and maybe moving a meter or two left-right and ahead and back, probably with not that much stability...
Not really something one would want to "present".
And I'm guessing here, but I assume that they are in it for the money - not so they could "do some crappy low res video" and "get clicks" and "likes" on their fan-book thingamajig.
In fact, something like that might prove detrimental to their long-term plans.
Cause there sure as fuck exists such a thing as "bad publicity".
And if you are pitching your aircraft as an UAV and "an autonomous pallet-transportation-system", you probably want to keep more under wraps than not - your main prospective client being military and all that.
At least not yet. All they have is a proof of concept laboratory prototype.
The current status of D-DALUS
D-DALUS is currently in prototype stage. Over recent weeks IAT21 have conducted extensive constrained flight tests in a specially prepared laboratory near Salzburg, including the transition from vertical to forward flight, and are now ready to move to an open test range for free flight tests. In trials to date D-DALUS has met the performance criteria placed upon it and appears to be scalable, becoming more efficient and less complex as it increases in size. It will therefore be ideally suited for applications that range from maritime search and rescue, through the carriage of freight, to operating alongside and within buildings during fires or, for example, nuclear accidents.
They could probably do a CG presentation, but for those satisfied with that, those couple of images on their site should suffice.
They are apparently also planning "an autonomous pallet-transportation-system" and a small roof-sized power plant based on the underlying technology.
These last two apparently only existing in text form so far.
Let's say that some charity organization has a budget of a 1000 dollars.
And let's say that it caters to the needs of Blue people, Green people and Purple people.
But, as the Purple people are a minority, they get a leg up - they get a priority of service. Same service, they just get it first.
Theoretically, since Purples are a minority giving them priority in service shouldn't unbalance the system.
BUT, the charity's budget does not accurately match the population, and is also very limited.
Also, while the Purple people are a minority in the population, there may be equal or even a greater number of them in the queue for the charity.
After all, it is only logical that they will show up in greater numbers there where they have priority, right?
Also, being a minority, they probably DO need more help than other groups as their social network simply can't provide as much assistance as the Blue or Green one can - as less people in the network also means that there are less WELL-OFF people in the network.
So... Let's say that the charity above decides to distribute $100 donations, and that Blue, Green and Purple people show up in equal numbers.
But, as Purple people have priority, they get pushed at the front of the queue.
So out of a queue like BGP, PGB, GPB, GBP - Blue and Green people groups will get $300 each, while Purple people will get $400. Those last two Green and Blue get zip.
And that's when you have equal number of Blue, Green and Purple people in the queue.
That would be the fabled "positive discrimination".
Or you can turn that around, and apply it to your particular case where you are the representative of the Purple people BUT without any particular perks or advantages as in your case Purple people are not a minority.
It's just that in your particular case Green and Blue people get the "regular" discrimination treatment.
House used an imaginary drug which he injected himself with - not an implant.
an implantable extracellular matrix that can re-grow tissue.
The matrix is a biological scaffold, enriched with proteins and growth factors, which recruits stem cells and other cell precursors to the site of the injury, according to the McGowan Instituteâ(TM)s website.
The therapy stimulates further tissue regeneration, essentially rebuilding the lost muscle.
...infinite poop?
Sorry for the delay... was AFK for a while.
Problem with your solution lies in the word "buy". "Resistance fighters" don't do much of that either, not just play Far Cry.
And that's besides general unavailability of such devices in an "untraceable fashion".
It's not exactly like you can just waltz into any supermarket, pick them up from the shelf and pay for them in cash.
One way or another you are VERY likely to be using the aforementioned "government controlled, regulated and monitored pipes", setting off various flags along the way.
And with the limited number of suppliers of such "unregulated hardware" it would be very easy to simply monitor the supplier instead of chasing around for all possible buyers out there.
There's no need to regulate the hardware if you can "regulate" the user.
You know...
From self-deprecating humor like "I think of volunteering..." to movie/book references like Starship Troopers (Come on, you apes! You wanna live forever?) or Planet of the Apes...
I mean there's one of those coming up just around the corner.
Instead, the thread is full of "ZOMG THE IRANIANS ARE MONKEYS LOL!" as you've put it.
I mean... FFS... It's such a lame xenophobic approach, particularly since the first monkey in space was American.