And this is all about getting rid of the oversight - let the market regulate itself my ass.
Let's say you wait too long to get to the gas station and you run out. So you walk up to the first car you see where the owner isn't around and siphon out a gallon of gas. There's no regulation saying you can't do that.
...of course, it's theft. So it's illegal.
"Let the market regulate itself" is an advisement against creating additional rules over and above the law that applies to everyone - I'm not really sure why people keep mistaking this for advocating exemption from the rule of law. In this case there is no market to regulate - you have two co-owners of access points who are destroying one another's systems. We don't need additional regulations - we need to ensure that the current law is applied to this situation.
This sort of manipulative behavior itself should be outlawed[...].
Why outlaw it? Again we're being lazy - demanding that congress make and enforce our work for us. Stop electing people that do it. Have this be one of your voting issues.
If a politician creates, co-sponsors, or votes for a rider that is unrelated, or votes for a bill that has been so ridered, no longer vote for them, and write them a letter saying so. Talk to people, try to show them that it's more important that congress be honest than any individual issue be passed.
Just like it's more important that people be allowed to speak than that they say what you want.
Without the will of the people, there will be on restraint. No matter how many laws you pass.
[Y]ou start taking away stuff. You ground him. Take away everything he owns (music, etc). If he's still out of control, you take his room door off his hinges so he has no privacy.
your phone and your wife's phone probably spend several hours in the same room together, every night
And they're not even married! It's a horrible scandal. Every time I go down to the Cingular store they smirk at me and ask if I need my phone checked "under the hood."
Re:Knowing the drug companies . . .
on
Growing Insulin
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· Score: 3, Interesting
And the consumer price will be increased by 20%.
The insulin market is highly competitive. There's also many varities of insulin. If this one can't make a splash on price or on some other quality, it'll go nowhere.
As much as I dislike the AMA-FDA/Congress-Insurance-Pharma cartel, in this instance it's not all that accurate.
Under a/. type mod system for Wikipedia, dozens of idiot mods could effectively ban experts- the experts in a field are always outnumbered by the less well informed.
It's not the ill-informed versus the experts, it's the malicious and the stubborn ill-informed versus the experts. The numbers there are pretty close - particularly when you count the many near-experts who are accomplished enough to recognize expertise.
And guess what? As of today, the bot is still out there in the exact same location farming the same group of mobs. Bloody disappointing, let me tell you.
Don't be disappointed: Blizzard is actually being pretty smart about this. Once they catch a bot farming, they don't want to immediately shut it down. That's selecting for resistance.
Instead, they flag the account and monitor who it sends money/items to. Those items are flagged. It spreads like so.
Also, you can develop a profile of the bot, perhaps update Warden (the process that Blizzard uses to scan for bots in the background) to detect the software that's being run. Then, over the course of several weeks the software will spread to other users. Then you can start nailing hundreds of them at a time.
And you also hit them harder. You take more accounts out, you remove more stuff from people who are buying gold/items/etc.
So chances are you'll see that guy operating for a while. Feel good: he's helping Blizzard find the rest of his ilk. Oh, and thank you for reporting him!
Aren't Christian Scientists the ones who don't believe in doctors and medicine?
I'm sorry, but I find it hard to stomach an organisation which thinks you can just heal yourself through prayer (or whatever) and whose followers are prepared to let their children die rather than accept medical intervention.
And I don't think I could differentiate the newspaper from the religion/organisation, any more than I would comfortably read one of Rupert Murdoch's rags.
I'm afraid I have not much more than passing familiarity with the church that owns the newspaper. A quick google search has confirmed to me that such incidents have happened - the question remains if this is the norm. It might, indeed, be cult-like. I think it is a testament to the quality of the newspaper or my obtuseness that this bias has never presented itself to me.
As for the differentiation issue...yes, who is saying something is an important quality of information, but not to the point of myopia. If consistent evidence shows that a source is truthful, even in the presence of a quality normally predictive of deceit, it is best not to totally reject the source. Insisting that only people who's beliefs you agree with are capable of giving you information about the world is a vice, not a virtue. Consider the people who only watch Fox News.
I might also compare how few journalism awards Murdoch's organization has received to the numerous accolades of the CS Monitor, and the high favor the Monitor holds amongst reputable journalists (the Columbia Journalism Review likes them quite a bit).
Of course, there is only so much news one cares to read in a day. If you've already found sources you like to read, why bother with a newspaper you are disinclined to like? I've offered a few reasons you might like it, but in the end it's not really that important to many people.
Given that this seems to be a common misconception, shouldn't they change the name of the publication?
Their founder requested that Christian Science remain in the paper's name. She felt it was very important that there be a reminder that the paper is dedicated to truth and the discovery of truth. The paper is not a paper of record, it is a journal of discovery of what the world is and what is going on in it. Flowery language, I know - but there is a difference between just printing news and having a mission and moral obligation to print the truth as best you can find it.
The founder thought that keeping Christian Science would serve as that reminder - in a time before women could vote, she made a fortune and had people try to take it away from her by lying about her in court. Years and years after she died the paper has gone on doing what it is. Maybe she got the culture right. Who knows, maybe even the name is important.
Oh, and I might add that the CS Monitor has managed to avoid the "I'm going to beat the truth out of you" school of investigative journalism. This has kept their quality high. Humility has a lot to do with it. Culture matters.
The Christian Science Monitor is indeed one of the best newspapers around. They're small (my dad threw away the first few he received because they didn't LOOK like a newspaper), but that's because they don't use the AP wire or Reuters to fill out their newspaper, as the parent noted.
Consistently, the CS Monitor has had definitive articles on subjects. Unfortunately their archive isn't available for free or I'd point to their excellent article on the whole Ten Commandments in the courtroom fiasco in Alabama. While every other newspaper was either talking about the Ten Commandments being removed, playing soundbytes from the judge, or talking about what other reporters were talking about[1], the CS Monitor did their research and printed their story a day later. They talked to the people rallying outside both for and against (and covered the fact that many of these people had zero clue what was going on), covered what the judge was saying and why he was saying it - and when his support for the monument started (here's a hint: election upcoming, he started the whole thing just a few months before).
Their coverage on the last election was the coverage to beat. Managed to avoid the horserace of usual election coverage[2] and talk about the campaign, the people behind the campaign, etc, etc.
In Iraq they were one of the few newspapers not afraid to go outside the green zone and interview real people. Incidentally, for their efforts at finding the truth their reporter was kidnapped and held hostage.
In my opinion the religious convictions of the founder and the church (First Church of Christ, Scientist) that owns the operation (keep in mind that church members do not make up the journalists...they hire those) help keep them well-oriented. For their newspaper "it bleeds, it leads" doesn't happen - they want to discover what is happening in the world and to tell everyone. They believe that the truth is liberating, and they want to find it - whatever it may be. Honestly, they have a lot in common with the Quakers.
The religious article they print is more of a philosophy article, is usually well-written and is treated like the opinion section of another paper. It is there at the request of the founder.
Check out their website at www.csmonitor.com, and read a few articles. The major problem with our reporting these days is that the reporters just report events and he-said she-said. The monitor uses reporters with clue who contribute actual analysis.
People are so used to the bible beaters and the kooks. Religion can be a very powerful force for good. I'm glad to see it happen once in a while.
However, to put this all in perspective...the CS Monitor has its shortcomings. Since they don't rely on wire services, if you want to find out about breaking news you can't just read them like you can several other mega-papers. Their articles tend to come out later (it's the flip-side of doing careful research) and are longer - yes, that can be a downside if you're trying to skim. They don't have local, daily delivery in many places, so their stories come even later if you don't read the online site[3].
[1] - In the news when there's no actual content the reporters will often interview each other. It sets up a giant echo chamber. Easiest example? People in flooded New Orleans shooting at rescue helicopters. Turns out it wasn't that common - might not've even happened at all. Hundreds of stories about it, though. Hundreds.
[2] - Elections are often covered as a race. Based on opinion polls candidate A is ahead or behind candidate B. This is done because there is so very, very little news during an election campaign. The same speech
Get used to it. Improve it, Regulate it, Reform it, But you wont remove corruption from government. Where the power is, the corrupt go.
That is part of the reasoning behind libertarianism: get rid of what power you can, keep the rest as close to the voters as possible (city before state, state before federal).
There is one thing that I really like about the Swedes that we have had sometimes here in America, and that's a respect for the rule of law.
I don't mean that as in all Swedes respect the law, but that they have a good sense that the laws apply equally to all.
Fixing parking tickets, the amazing way in which police officers seem to always obey the speed limits in their off-hours, privileged/protected minorities/positions, etc occur there less often than America.
It's actually very refreshing and makes a difference in the personality of Swedes.
Honestly, it's like economic and social freedom: they're all-pervasive, and chilling effects can make it to where you can't quite put a finger on how you're unfree...but how much of both you have over time influences your character.
It's one of the great reasons to travel. If you get a chance you should stop by in Sweden, it's a lovely country with great people. My views on economic freedom make me lean more towards living in Hong Kong than in Sweden, but I still keep a membership card to a bar at Lund University in my wallet - it makes me happy.;-)
The UK requires ISPs to retain information on their customers for several years. It's called "data retention" - I believe it covers emails, URLs requested, and I'm not sure but I thought I heard it covered what IP they had at what time and what IPs you talk to.
Police can get this data without a warrant.
This is relatively recent, and was "anti-terror" legislation.
If it's a condition of his probation to which he agreed in order to stay out of prison, then he has no standing on which to object now. End of discussion.
Generally I agree with the sentiment that contracts should be binding. If you get a loan and don't pay it back, the bank has the right to seize the collateral. If you get paid to do a job and don't, you should have to give the money back (plus damages). I'm a believer in civil suits for breach of contract. I believe that there should be few (if any) restrictions on the agreements that can be made between free persons.
But there is a difference when the agreement is with the government. There is a difference when the government is the only entity with which you can make the agreement. Given the massive power imbalance between one person and the government, given the fact that the government can use force to accomplish its means, there is a special quality to agreements with the government. It is the proper place of the courts to restrict the forms and types of agreements the government can enter.
There is an easy way to get a small glimpse into why this is: the rate of people being parolled did not change with the addition of DNA tracking. In the real world, if you have a contract that millions of people agree to and you add a clause expressly to your benefit and not that of the other party, you will see a drop in the number of people willing to sign that contract. It may be small, depending on the change. It may take a little bit for people to figure out and respond to the change. But the number will change.
Parole isn't an agreement between free men. It's not the moral equivalent of a bank loan. There are things you cannot demand.
There are other "agreements" that are this way: driver's license, military enlistment, passport application, entry to and exit from the country by citizens, raising livestock, interstate commerce, and the list goes on and on. The courts have been lax in enforcing restrictions, but the opportunity is still there.
New Tutorial Sequence in Factions
on
Walking Other Worlds
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· Score: 3, Informative
One of the biggest changes in Factions is the new Tutorial sequence - the "newbie" area.
In old version in Prophecies only gave you a few abilities, and you were put out of it around level 7. In reality, you didn't hit the "main game" (the level 20 areas) for a while after. Also, new abilities were gained as rewards from quests. Your introduction to your class included a few "theme" quests - necromancers had necromancy-looking quests, etc. Some of the quests required you to learn to use a specific ability, but very few.
In Factions, when you get out of the newbie area you're around level 17 (20 if you explore a bit more than normal or if you use the quest rewards to up your experience gain rate) which means that you're pretty much capable of doing anything - and questing with your non-newbie guildmates is reasonable (when you're level 8, having a level 20 around is like enabling god mode - not all that fun when you're trying to learn). You also get a ton of abilities dumped on you at a quick but reasonable pace, and your class quests help explain a bit more of what it means to be your class.
The key, though, is the new Dojo system: after you complete your class quests you can (optionally) do a set of dojo quests, which are heavily-scripted single-player quests that focus around a specific technique. Kiting, dealing with spells, dealing with curses, dealing with conditions, etc. You are given abilities that allow you to deal with these things, and then given the opportunity to test them out. It's brilliant, and it will save a lot of teaching later on (many newbies in Prophecies didn't know these techniques at all - which was okay, they'd never been expected to!).
Also, another big shift: you no longer get abilities as the result of quests. Instead, quests and missions are worth much more gold, and you can use that gold to buy abilities from the skill trainer. Hence you can start mixing and matching much earlier (instead of having a set sequence of skill progression, you can pick and choose). Elite skills are still gained through capture[1].
I wish World of Warcraft had the dojo system, I really do. New players are faced with a very high number of techniques to learn. Getting with a good set of people can take care of this (and plus some!), but it would help raise the waterlevel.
[1] - For non-guild-wars people: some abilities are called "Elite" abilities. You can only have one of these available at a time. These abilities are found on bosses. You "capture" them after defeating the boss if you bring along a special skill called a "signet of capture" - so, the boss is slightly more difficult to kill (you have 7 skills instead of 8), but there is a reward from it.
Neat! Someone who's been there. What sort of stuff was running on the display? What was the purpose? Anything you can tell us would be good - the article was a puff piece with a pretty picture.
The one time she goes to run across the street and stops dead in her tracks when I yell "FREEZE!" just before that truck rolls through at twice the speed limit, it's worth it.
This is, indeed, a good thing. The question is: why will she obey?
Inculcating unthinking obedience is not a virtue. I'm not suggesting always reasoning with a child - anyone who's ever tried to reason with a child who wants something understands that they are not really capable of rational judgement.
There are two major problems with "obedience culture." One large, one small. The small one is that obedience is its own system. Unrealistic demands create "disobedience" when the commanded is incapable of obeying. Failure is punished as willfulness. This goes nowhere good, and I've seen it over and over again.
Secondly, it instills compliance with authority as a virtue. I believe that this can apply later with government. I know many people who think that something is wrong because it is illegal, considering the law a moral code. Unquestioning obedience to government is folly.
If we always set up lines to color within, are we surprised when they only become good at coloring within lines?
I'm not suggesting that obedience is a bad thing. Below a certain age there really can't be any such thing as considered obedience. We need to keep in mind why we are obedient.
You are right about (below a certain age) the best time for considering the rationale behind a yell in an emergency is after complying. A friend of mine in high school got me into some real scrapes a few times by asking "why?" and when I needed him to do something quickly. In case you couldn't tell, his mother was a bit of a psycho and he was raised with constant irrational orders. As a result, any request had to be justified to his standards. I almost knocked his lights out a few times when it became ridiculous.
Lastly, my cousin was in the Marine Corps, and I know how hard they work you guys. Sergeants aren't bred quickly there. Thanks for your service. "First to go, last to know."
The other thing I see is that the game is safe. The player can try things *objectively* without the risk of an *emotional* reaction that a parent might produce. "What the *&#@(% were you THINKING?"
When I was young I screwed up quite a bit. As a result, I got yelled at and given the "I'm very disappointed" speech quite often. I'm 25 now, and to this day if anything rough is going on in my life I will not tell my mother. Even if it's the only real news about what's going on - just thinking about telling her makes me hear the sighs and reprimands.
As parents/minders/authority there is a certain satisfaction in lecturing your charges. The relief in discharge of duty, but also the "I told you so" feeling. I see a lot of people doing it. It also (somewhat) relieves the stress of the situation - the "oh my god how did this ever happen?"
We build the life we later have with our children. As parents and future parents, we need to keep in mind that yelling at our children has an effect. We need to find ways to have them learn from the world and not from "WHAT THE F&*$ DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING?"
PS ask yourself if this sounds familiar: you're about 16, you get into a jam so you ask your (mom|dad) for advice. Said parent yells at you for 5 minutes with "how could this happen?" Then talks about how they feel about the situation ("I'm extremely disappointed"), then moves on to what they're going to do solve the situation ("I'm going to call his parents right now and sort this out."). What have you learned?
While thinking about this idea once, I decided that the closest description of a "proper" parenting style would be "no unnatural way."
For instance, want to teach your kid that a pan on the stove is hot? Heat one up (not as hot as it would be if you were cooking, but hot enough) while he's in the room. As usual, he'll trundle over and try to "help" with what you're doing. Advise him that that's not a good idea, but don't stop him - when he grabs it be ready with the ointment.
It's not cruel - he simultaneously learns that "no" isn't an arbitrary imposition of your will, but "doing this will hurt you" and he learns that pans on the stove are very hot.
As humans, we recognize arbitrary rules quite well. One of the reasons why very intelligent children are difficult to raise is that they will reason for themselves as to why you've said "no."
We say "no" for two reasons: harm and "doing something we don't want you to."
The problem with the former is that often times the harm is random. Sometimes the pan is hot, sometimes it is not. 99% of the time running across the street without looking will not be a problem.
You have to teach the child that the reason you say "no" is that there is harm there, and expect him to check for himself every so often.
As for disobedience (the "doing something we don't want you to") - first examine why you don't want them to. Is it because you like to maintain a nice, ordered house where all is in its place? Well, why did you have a kid, then?
If it's something like tossing all the pots out of the cabinet and onto the floor...yeah, probably best to put a stop to that. Tell them why you don't want to do that - in terms their development age can understand. Outside of fits of beastly pique, most kids want to please you. They want to make you happy.
I get a little upset when people attempt to subvert that into turning their kids into little automatons.
Slashdot Mirror
And this is all about getting rid of the oversight - let the market regulate itself my ass.
Let's say you wait too long to get to the gas station and you run out. So you walk up to the first car you see where the owner isn't around and siphon out a gallon of gas. There's no regulation saying you can't do that.
...of course, it's theft. So it's illegal.
"Let the market regulate itself" is an advisement against creating additional rules over and above the law that applies to everyone - I'm not really sure why people keep mistaking this for advocating exemption from the rule of law. In this case there is no market to regulate - you have two co-owners of access points who are destroying one another's systems. We don't need additional regulations - we need to ensure that the current law is applied to this situation.
This sort of manipulative behavior itself should be outlawed[...].
Why outlaw it? Again we're being lazy - demanding that congress make and enforce our work for us. Stop electing people that do it. Have this be one of your voting issues.
If a politician creates, co-sponsors, or votes for a rider that is unrelated, or votes for a bill that has been so ridered, no longer vote for them, and write them a letter saying so. Talk to people, try to show them that it's more important that congress be honest than any individual issue be passed.
Just like it's more important that people be allowed to speak than that they say what you want.
Without the will of the people, there will be on restraint. No matter how many laws you pass.
[Y]ou start taking away stuff. You ground him. Take away everything he owns (music, etc). If he's still out of control, you take his room door off his hinges so he has no privacy.
...dad?
your phone and your wife's phone probably spend several hours in the same room together, every night
And they're not even married! It's a horrible scandal. Every time I go down to the Cingular store they smirk at me and ask if I need my phone checked "under the hood."
The insulin market is highly competitive. There's also many varities of insulin. If this one can't make a splash on price or on some other quality, it'll go nowhere.
As much as I dislike the AMA-FDA/Congress-Insurance-Pharma cartel, in this instance it's not all that accurate.
Under a /. type mod system for Wikipedia, dozens of idiot mods could effectively ban experts- the experts in a field are always outnumbered by the less well informed.
It's not the ill-informed versus the experts, it's the malicious and the stubborn ill-informed versus the experts. The numbers there are pretty close - particularly when you count the many near-experts who are accomplished enough to recognize expertise.
And guess what? As of today, the bot is still out there in the exact same location farming the same group of mobs. Bloody disappointing, let me tell you.
Don't be disappointed: Blizzard is actually being pretty smart about this. Once they catch a bot farming, they don't want to immediately shut it down. That's selecting for resistance.
Instead, they flag the account and monitor who it sends money/items to. Those items are flagged. It spreads like so.
Also, you can develop a profile of the bot, perhaps update Warden (the process that Blizzard uses to scan for bots in the background) to detect the software that's being run. Then, over the course of several weeks the software will spread to other users. Then you can start nailing hundreds of them at a time.
And you also hit them harder. You take more accounts out, you remove more stuff from people who are buying gold/items/etc.
So chances are you'll see that guy operating for a while. Feel good: he's helping Blizzard find the rest of his ilk. Oh, and thank you for reporting him!
Aren't Christian Scientists the ones who don't believe in doctors and medicine? I'm sorry, but I find it hard to stomach an organisation which thinks you can just heal yourself through prayer (or whatever) and whose followers are prepared to let their children die rather than accept medical intervention. And I don't think I could differentiate the newspaper from the religion/organisation, any more than I would comfortably read one of Rupert Murdoch's rags.
I'm afraid I have not much more than passing familiarity with the church that owns the newspaper. A quick google search has confirmed to me that such incidents have happened - the question remains if this is the norm. It might, indeed, be cult-like. I think it is a testament to the quality of the newspaper or my obtuseness that this bias has never presented itself to me.
As for the differentiation issue...yes, who is saying something is an important quality of information, but not to the point of myopia. If consistent evidence shows that a source is truthful, even in the presence of a quality normally predictive of deceit, it is best not to totally reject the source. Insisting that only people who's beliefs you agree with are capable of giving you information about the world is a vice, not a virtue. Consider the people who only watch Fox News.
I might also compare how few journalism awards Murdoch's organization has received to the numerous accolades of the CS Monitor, and the high favor the Monitor holds amongst reputable journalists (the Columbia Journalism Review likes them quite a bit).
Of course, there is only so much news one cares to read in a day. If you've already found sources you like to read, why bother with a newspaper you are disinclined to like? I've offered a few reasons you might like it, but in the end it's not really that important to many people.
Thank you very much for pointing me at this info. An extremely informative /. reply. I salute you, sir.
Given that this seems to be a common misconception, shouldn't they change the name of the publication?
Their founder requested that Christian Science remain in the paper's name. She felt it was very important that there be a reminder that the paper is dedicated to truth and the discovery of truth. The paper is not a paper of record, it is a journal of discovery of what the world is and what is going on in it. Flowery language, I know - but there is a difference between just printing news and having a mission and moral obligation to print the truth as best you can find it.
The founder thought that keeping Christian Science would serve as that reminder - in a time before women could vote, she made a fortune and had people try to take it away from her by lying about her in court. Years and years after she died the paper has gone on doing what it is. Maybe she got the culture right. Who knows, maybe even the name is important.
Oh, and I might add that the CS Monitor has managed to avoid the "I'm going to beat the truth out of you" school of investigative journalism. This has kept their quality high. Humility has a lot to do with it. Culture matters.
The Christian Science Monitor is indeed one of the best newspapers around. They're small (my dad threw away the first few he received because they didn't LOOK like a newspaper), but that's because they don't use the AP wire or Reuters to fill out their newspaper, as the parent noted.
Consistently, the CS Monitor has had definitive articles on subjects. Unfortunately their archive isn't available for free or I'd point to their excellent article on the whole Ten Commandments in the courtroom fiasco in Alabama. While every other newspaper was either talking about the Ten Commandments being removed, playing soundbytes from the judge, or talking about what other reporters were talking about[1], the CS Monitor did their research and printed their story a day later. They talked to the people rallying outside both for and against (and covered the fact that many of these people had zero clue what was going on), covered what the judge was saying and why he was saying it - and when his support for the monument started (here's a hint: election upcoming, he started the whole thing just a few months before).
Their coverage on the last election was the coverage to beat. Managed to avoid the horserace of usual election coverage[2] and talk about the campaign, the people behind the campaign, etc, etc.
In Iraq they were one of the few newspapers not afraid to go outside the green zone and interview real people. Incidentally, for their efforts at finding the truth their reporter was kidnapped and held hostage.
In my opinion the religious convictions of the founder and the church (First Church of Christ, Scientist) that owns the operation (keep in mind that church members do not make up the journalists...they hire those) help keep them well-oriented. For their newspaper "it bleeds, it leads" doesn't happen - they want to discover what is happening in the world and to tell everyone. They believe that the truth is liberating, and they want to find it - whatever it may be. Honestly, they have a lot in common with the Quakers.
The religious article they print is more of a philosophy article, is usually well-written and is treated like the opinion section of another paper. It is there at the request of the founder.
Check out their website at www.csmonitor.com, and read a few articles. The major problem with our reporting these days is that the reporters just report events and he-said she-said. The monitor uses reporters with clue who contribute actual analysis.
Cruising quickly, the article on Escalating Violence in the Gaza Strip is a good one, as is today's story of President Bush's Visit to Iraq.
People are so used to the bible beaters and the kooks. Religion can be a very powerful force for good. I'm glad to see it happen once in a while.
However, to put this all in perspective...the CS Monitor has its shortcomings. Since they don't rely on wire services, if you want to find out about breaking news you can't just read them like you can several other mega-papers. Their articles tend to come out later (it's the flip-side of doing careful research) and are longer - yes, that can be a downside if you're trying to skim. They don't have local, daily delivery in many places, so their stories come even later if you don't read the online site[3].
[1] - In the news when there's no actual content the reporters will often interview each other. It sets up a giant echo chamber. Easiest example? People in flooded New Orleans shooting at rescue helicopters. Turns out it wasn't that common - might not've even happened at all. Hundreds of stories about it, though. Hundreds.
[2] - Elections are often covered as a race. Based on opinion polls candidate A is ahead or behind candidate B. This is done because there is so very, very little news during an election campaign. The same speech
Posts a screenshot with something like:
mewmew
Get used to it. Improve it, Regulate it, Reform it, But you wont remove corruption from government. Where the power is, the corrupt go.
That is part of the reasoning behind libertarianism: get rid of what power you can, keep the rest as close to the voters as possible (city before state, state before federal).
There is one thing that I really like about the Swedes that we have had sometimes here in America, and that's a respect for the rule of law.
I don't mean that as in all Swedes respect the law, but that they have a good sense that the laws apply equally to all.
Fixing parking tickets, the amazing way in which police officers seem to always obey the speed limits in their off-hours, privileged/protected minorities/positions, etc occur there less often than America.
It's actually very refreshing and makes a difference in the personality of Swedes.
Honestly, it's like economic and social freedom: they're all-pervasive, and chilling effects can make it to where you can't quite put a finger on how you're unfree...but how much of both you have over time influences your character.
It's one of the great reasons to travel. If you get a chance you should stop by in Sweden, it's a lovely country with great people. My views on economic freedom make me lean more towards living in Hong Kong than in Sweden, but I still keep a membership card to a bar at Lund University in my wallet - it makes me happy. ;-)
The UK requires ISPs to retain information on their customers for several years. It's called "data retention" - I believe it covers emails, URLs requested, and I'm not sure but I thought I heard it covered what IP they had at what time and what IPs you talk to.
Police can get this data without a warrant.
This is relatively recent, and was "anti-terror" legislation.
If it's a condition of his probation to which he agreed in order to stay out of prison, then he has no standing on which to object now. End of discussion.
Generally I agree with the sentiment that contracts should be binding. If you get a loan and don't pay it back, the bank has the right to seize the collateral. If you get paid to do a job and don't, you should have to give the money back (plus damages). I'm a believer in civil suits for breach of contract. I believe that there should be few (if any) restrictions on the agreements that can be made between free persons.
But there is a difference when the agreement is with the government. There is a difference when the government is the only entity with which you can make the agreement. Given the massive power imbalance between one person and the government, given the fact that the government can use force to accomplish its means, there is a special quality to agreements with the government. It is the proper place of the courts to restrict the forms and types of agreements the government can enter.
There is an easy way to get a small glimpse into why this is: the rate of people being parolled did not change with the addition of DNA tracking. In the real world, if you have a contract that millions of people agree to and you add a clause expressly to your benefit and not that of the other party, you will see a drop in the number of people willing to sign that contract. It may be small, depending on the change. It may take a little bit for people to figure out and respond to the change. But the number will change.
Parole isn't an agreement between free men. It's not the moral equivalent of a bank loan. There are things you cannot demand.
There are other "agreements" that are this way: driver's license, military enlistment, passport application, entry to and exit from the country by citizens, raising livestock, interstate commerce, and the list goes on and on. The courts have been lax in enforcing restrictions, but the opportunity is still there.
One of the biggest changes in Factions is the new Tutorial sequence - the "newbie" area.
In old version in Prophecies only gave you a few abilities, and you were put out of it around level 7. In reality, you didn't hit the "main game" (the level 20 areas) for a while after. Also, new abilities were gained as rewards from quests. Your introduction to your class included a few "theme" quests - necromancers had necromancy-looking quests, etc. Some of the quests required you to learn to use a specific ability, but very few.
In Factions, when you get out of the newbie area you're around level 17 (20 if you explore a bit more than normal or if you use the quest rewards to up your experience gain rate) which means that you're pretty much capable of doing anything - and questing with your non-newbie guildmates is reasonable (when you're level 8, having a level 20 around is like enabling god mode - not all that fun when you're trying to learn). You also get a ton of abilities dumped on you at a quick but reasonable pace, and your class quests help explain a bit more of what it means to be your class.
The key, though, is the new Dojo system: after you complete your class quests you can (optionally) do a set of dojo quests, which are heavily-scripted single-player quests that focus around a specific technique. Kiting, dealing with spells, dealing with curses, dealing with conditions, etc. You are given abilities that allow you to deal with these things, and then given the opportunity to test them out. It's brilliant, and it will save a lot of teaching later on (many newbies in Prophecies didn't know these techniques at all - which was okay, they'd never been expected to!).
Also, another big shift: you no longer get abilities as the result of quests. Instead, quests and missions are worth much more gold, and you can use that gold to buy abilities from the skill trainer. Hence you can start mixing and matching much earlier (instead of having a set sequence of skill progression, you can pick and choose). Elite skills are still gained through capture[1].
I wish World of Warcraft had the dojo system, I really do. New players are faced with a very high number of techniques to learn. Getting with a good set of people can take care of this (and plus some!), but it would help raise the waterlevel.
[1] - For non-guild-wars people: some abilities are called "Elite" abilities. You can only have one of these available at a time. These abilities are found on bosses. You "capture" them after defeating the boss if you bring along a special skill called a "signet of capture" - so, the boss is slightly more difficult to kill (you have 7 skills instead of 8), but there is a reward from it.
Neat! Someone who's been there. What sort of stuff was running on the display? What was the purpose? Anything you can tell us would be good - the article was a puff piece with a pretty picture.
The one time she goes to run across the street and stops dead in her tracks when I yell "FREEZE!" just before that truck rolls through at twice the speed limit, it's worth it.
This is, indeed, a good thing. The question is: why will she obey?
Inculcating unthinking obedience is not a virtue. I'm not suggesting always reasoning with a child - anyone who's ever tried to reason with a child who wants something understands that they are not really capable of rational judgement.
There are two major problems with "obedience culture." One large, one small. The small one is that obedience is its own system. Unrealistic demands create "disobedience" when the commanded is incapable of obeying. Failure is punished as willfulness. This goes nowhere good, and I've seen it over and over again.
Secondly, it instills compliance with authority as a virtue. I believe that this can apply later with government. I know many people who think that something is wrong because it is illegal, considering the law a moral code. Unquestioning obedience to government is folly.
If we always set up lines to color within, are we surprised when they only become good at coloring within lines?
I'm not suggesting that obedience is a bad thing. Below a certain age there really can't be any such thing as considered obedience. We need to keep in mind why we are obedient.
You are right about (below a certain age) the best time for considering the rationale behind a yell in an emergency is after complying. A friend of mine in high school got me into some real scrapes a few times by asking "why?" and when I needed him to do something quickly. In case you couldn't tell, his mother was a bit of a psycho and he was raised with constant irrational orders. As a result, any request had to be justified to his standards. I almost knocked his lights out a few times when it became ridiculous.
Lastly, my cousin was in the Marine Corps, and I know how hard they work you guys. Sergeants aren't bred quickly there. Thanks for your service. "First to go, last to know."
The other thing I see is that the game is safe. The player can try things *objectively* without the risk of an *emotional* reaction that a parent might produce. "What the *&#@(% were you THINKING?"
When I was young I screwed up quite a bit. As a result, I got yelled at and given the "I'm very disappointed" speech quite often. I'm 25 now, and to this day if anything rough is going on in my life I will not tell my mother. Even if it's the only real news about what's going on - just thinking about telling her makes me hear the sighs and reprimands.
As parents/minders/authority there is a certain satisfaction in lecturing your charges. The relief in discharge of duty, but also the "I told you so" feeling. I see a lot of people doing it. It also (somewhat) relieves the stress of the situation - the "oh my god how did this ever happen?"
We build the life we later have with our children. As parents and future parents, we need to keep in mind that yelling at our children has an effect. We need to find ways to have them learn from the world and not from "WHAT THE F&*$ DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING?"
PS ask yourself if this sounds familiar: you're about 16, you get into a jam so you ask your (mom|dad) for advice. Said parent yells at you for 5 minutes with "how could this happen?" Then talks about how they feel about the situation ("I'm extremely disappointed"), then moves on to what they're going to do solve the situation ("I'm going to call his parents right now and sort this out."). What have you learned?
Have to keep editors inline. Otherwise they find their inner frustrated writer and play collage with your writing.
(begin serious reply)
While thinking about this idea once, I decided that the closest description of a "proper" parenting style would be "no unnatural way."
For instance, want to teach your kid that a pan on the stove is hot? Heat one up (not as hot as it would be if you were cooking, but hot enough) while he's in the room. As usual, he'll trundle over and try to "help" with what you're doing. Advise him that that's not a good idea, but don't stop him - when he grabs it be ready with the ointment.
It's not cruel - he simultaneously learns that "no" isn't an arbitrary imposition of your will, but "doing this will hurt you" and he learns that pans on the stove are very hot.
As humans, we recognize arbitrary rules quite well. One of the reasons why very intelligent children are difficult to raise is that they will reason for themselves as to why you've said "no."
We say "no" for two reasons: harm and "doing something we don't want you to."
The problem with the former is that often times the harm is random. Sometimes the pan is hot, sometimes it is not. 99% of the time running across the street without looking will not be a problem.
You have to teach the child that the reason you say "no" is that there is harm there, and expect him to check for himself every so often.
As for disobedience (the "doing something we don't want you to") - first examine why you don't want them to. Is it because you like to maintain a nice, ordered house where all is in its place? Well, why did you have a kid, then?
If it's something like tossing all the pots out of the cabinet and onto the floor...yeah, probably best to put a stop to that. Tell them why you don't want to do that - in terms their development age can understand. Outside of fits of beastly pique, most kids want to please you. They want to make you happy.
I get a little upset when people attempt to subvert that into turning their kids into little automatons.
Sigh...I might as well finally admit it: MourningBlade <3 KFG. KFG <3 Mourningblade?
|__| Yes |__| No
...but even if they DO register as human WMDs will the government know where they are?