Yeah, the first 10 minutes of the first episode of Dollhouse was bad. Really bad. But I gotta say, the second and subsequent episodes have set up a plot arch (if not stellar acting performances) that have kept me interested. Give it a chance. Really. You might hate it, but you might just come around.
So, I assume you also avoid purchasing things with your credit card? Or with any kind of club card? Or interacting with any company that sells any of their business records to third parties (like, for example, car dealerships)? Or generally interacting with the civilized world?
Look, here's the deal: the privacy genie was out of the bottle long before Google was ever conceived of. Companies like Axciom and Experian already know, and have known for decades, what demo you're in, what products you buy, whether or not you have a lease on your car that's about to expire, and probably a million other things I haven't even thought of. In short: they already know you better than you know yourself. So who really cares about Google, honestly?
Oh, and as an aside, with things like social networking out there, even if you try to disengage from the rest of the world, your friends and family probably haven't, and right now, they're posting pictures about you, writing stories about you, and generally divulging things about you that you probably wish they wouldn't. So, if I were you, I'd find yourself a nice cabin in the woods and hide out there, because frankly, I don't see that you have any other option.
they advertise something you might have bought (but might not have bought) and that puts you over the edge and you buy it. Then they push something similar and you buy it for the same reason. After several iterations, you find yourself buying things you would never otherwise have had interest in.
Oooh, I see the problem. You don't actually have an independently functioning brain. Instead, apparently your brain is a slave to the whims of whatever advertisement happens to be presented to you.
So, nevermind. In fact, ignore this post entirely. It probably just confused you.
Oh please. DS9 was decent-to-poor in the early goings, much like TNG, but once the Dominion War plot arch started up, it went from good to truly great. No other Trek has been as dark and gritty as DS9 was, actually showing a real, unsanitized war with it's attendant ugliness, while portraying a federation that was, for a change, flawed and multifaceted. Pity it seems to get such a raw deal from a certain subset of the Trek fanbase.
I wonder if it'd work to revamp the CG on B5 with modern tech and full-battles instead of the 90's era "same 3 scenes" style battles and then re-release it as a new show.
If only that were the only problem with B5. Among others, I would cite silly costumes, and, far worse, horrible acting (nearly rivaling first season TNG). Honestly, I can't watch five minutes of B5 without changing the channel in disgust. Sci-fi is about more than nifty plot lines in a futuristic world. It's also about people. Interesting, plausible people. And when the people are worn out cliches portrayed by second rate actors, the outcome is not pretty (for the record, I give TOS a pass on this as it was really a product of its time... B5 has no such excuse).
I'm so sick of people posting this stupid, stupid, stupid argument over and over! Too bad the term copyleft seems to have dropped off in usage in the free software movement. The whole point of the GPL and copyleft in general is to turn copyright on itself. Saying "the GPL is effective because it is based on the protection of copyright" is like saying that vaccines made with killed or weakened virus wouldn't work if the virus didn't exist. Well duh! Way to miss the point. The GPL is about balancing the scales. We wouldn't need the GPL if there were no copyright.
You wouldn't? Really? Because, as far as I can tell, the entire goal of the GPL, the reason it exists, is to ensure that those who use GPL-covered code release those changes to the public. Without the GPL, Microsoft could, say, take Firefox, modify it as they see fit, and then refuse to contribute those changes back to the project. You're telling me you'd be just fine with that? Because I'm pretty sure a lot of people aren't... otherwise the GPL wouldn't exist in the first place.
Sure, there would be the problem of proprietary software vendors rolling GPLed code into their own products without releasing source, but on the other hand, everyone would be able to use the proprietary vendors code without paying so the scales would be balanced again.
And they would get the proprietary vendor's code how, exactly? Decompiling the binaries or something? Yeah... good luck with that.
In order to get people to pay, they would need to add value with support services, running servers, etc.
Bullshit. They'd do what they do today. Distribute object files only. Use licensing servers, encryption, online registration, or any number of other systems to ensure that an individual or corporation is using a paid-for copy of their software. The only difference is they wouldn't be able to use copyright as a legal club if said technological measures failed.
Right now if something is patented, you need to figure out another way to do the same thing. Sometimes the new method is even better than the original. THAT IS THE [IMPLIED] GOAL.
You're close, but that's not quite right. The goal of the patent system is very simple: in exchange for divulging the method, thus enriching the public, an inventor is afforded temporary (*temporary*) protections. This is preferable to the alternative, that being trade secrets which may remain permanently hidden from the public, disallowing anyone from ever using (or, as you mention, improving) the method.
Of course, overly long patent terms can work to stifle innovation (as we've seen). Fortunately, in the general case, unlike copyright terms, patent terms aren't too excessive (yet). The real problem, at least in the technology space (particularly the software space) is that patent terms should be a lot shorter, as the pace of innovation is much faster in those areas ('course, in the software space I think patents should simply be outlawed... why should software benefit from both copyright *and* patent protections?).
I think you're just blue-skying with a point of view that doesn't match reality.
Blueskying what? And with what opinion? I mean, here's the crux of my argument:
1) Extracting, refining, and transporting oil damages the environment. 2) The cost of said damage isn't factored into the price of oil, and thus isn't reflected at the pump (aka, negative externalities). 3) Sound economic policy says the role of government should be to correct market inefficiencies, including those caused by negative externalities. 4) A tax on fossil fuels will correct said market inefficiency. 5) Once corrected, green technologies (which don't benefit from shadow subsidies) will suddenly become price competitive.
None of this is fantasy. It's all solid fact, as far as I can tell. Well, except for the 5th point, which is admittedly a guess (though, based on the behaviour of the market, last year, as the price of oil skyrocketed, I think it's fair to assume that an increase in the price of oil would result in greater attention paid to green technology).
So you see, I'm agreeing with your goal. But you still haven't said what you'd do with the money.
Again... that's because it doesn't actually matter. *shrug* You could, for example, cut taxes in other areas of the economy to offset the additional burden (a nice middle-class tax cut would work). Or you could use it to fund healthcare, or improve education, or god knows what other things.
When government takes money from people it should be for a purpose, rather than just to teach us a lesson.
Correct. In this case, the purpose is to correct a market inefficiency. Ideally, the money would be spent cleaning up the environmental damage caused by these companies, or to spur development of green technology (aka, a green-shift tax). But in the end, it doesn't actually make a difference. And this goes right to the heart of your objection: you seem to think the idea is bad because government will misuse the funds. And what I'm telling you is: it doesn't actually matter in the end, because the goal (to correct the market inefficiency) will still be achieved, regardless of how the resulting revenue is allocated.
Is that a debating style you kids use on Xbox Live or something? Is it generally effective?;)
Well, the idea is to get you to actually go out and research the topic. If that happens, great. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.
Now then, Mr. Government, now that you've collected money on gas, how will you use that money to undo the environmental damage that you feel it's caused? Or is it simply a punitive measure?
It doesn't matter. Nor is it punitive. Again, the entire purpose of such a tax is to correct the market inefficiencies caused by negative externalities not being accounted for. That's it, that's all. It's to force the cost of said externalities back on the customer so that they will then make choices based on the full, complete cost of the products they purchase. The fact you don't understand this makes me think you don't actually understand these issues. Go do a little research on negative externalities. Maybe then you'll understand.
And, by the way, nice weasel words with the phrase "you feel it's caused", as if there's some question, there. Fortunately there isn't: the extraction, refining, transport, and combustion of fossil fuels unquestionably damages the environment in myriad ways. If you doubt it, come up to northern Alberta some time and see the city-sized tailings ponds that will be with us for generations. Traditionally, the oil companies have never had to factor those costs into the price of their products, and that amounts to nothing more than a shadow subsidy that future generations will have to pay for.
You could not keep them living and hope that in 10 years they will get better.
Says who? Maybe the magic of science will let you put a new brain in that skull, and then voila, the body will be alive again.
But they're not the same person, you say? So did the person die with the brain? If so, then the person *is* the brain, are they not? And therefore, a cluster of cells without a functioning brain isn't yet an individual, and therefore does not have the rights of an individual, any more than that body, without a brain, has any right to potential life.
A child has potential and is alive (not brain dead).
No, it's precisely brain dead. Worse, it doesn't have a brain *at all*. At least not until a few weeks into the pregnancy.
How do you know that you are anything more than just a cluster of cells?
Because I have a brain that can consider the question. Unlike a zygote.
Doesn't it sound arbitrary to wait until a brain is formed to call it human?
Given we use the same metric to determine when to pull the plug on someone (I'm sure you've heard the term "brain dead" thrown about), I'd say, no, it's not arbitrary at all. It's exceedingly logical, in fact, not to mention morally consistent.
Of course, that means we have to define an unborn child as technically alive.
Way to use loaded words. "Unborn child"... you must be a life-begins-at-conception type, right?
Look, if it doesn't have a functioning brain, sorry buddy, it ain't an "unborn child". It's a mass of cells using the woman as a host body. I mean, if I ended up in a car accident and my brain was smashed, I wouldn't expect my wife to keep my body functioning. That'd be lunacy. We don't call it brain *dead* for nothing.
Similarly, defining a cluster of unthinking cells as "alive" speaks to me of nothing more than faith-based reasoning (the only reason to use this definition is if you believe said cluster of cells has a soul, 'cuz it certainly doesn't have a mind or a personality), and that most definitely should *not* be the underpinnings of US law.
Incidentally, if it wasn't clear, I'm perfectly fine limiting abortion to only pregnancies which haven't demonstrated brain activity, or cases where the woman's life is at risk. That is, I think, the only sensible compromise... unfortunately, in a debate like this, no one is interested in either sense or compromise.
OOC, and this isn't a troll, I'm honestly curious: how do you feel about the large numbers of embryos destroyed every year as part of IVF treatments?
The problems are what I outlined above. The tax would not be used to for cleaning things up
Again, that's not the point. It doesn't matter where the money goes. Seriously, they could throw it in the ocean for all I care. The point is simply to force the externalities back on the customer to correct the market inefficiencies inherent in fossil fuels.
Look at the many of the green cars that through their manufacturing (mainly the batteries, some of the light weight materials) leave the environment in worse shape than a standard gas power engine car running for years.
Citation please. I've heard those claims, but every one I've come across has turned out to be bullshit. For example, most high-density batteries are made from fairly common, safe elements (ie, not cadmium, lead, etc). Moreover, most of the materials in your average battery are recycled. So the overall the environmental impact isn't as great as the naysayers would have you believe.
Nevertheless, I support any such externalities being factored into the cost of the product. I'm just willing to bet big dollars that the overall environmental damaged caused by fossil fuel extraction, refining, and transport, is (much) greater than those introduced in the creation of green technologies (such as batteries).
If you consider that 11 million people died in the Holocaust
Ah, I see your confusion, here. See, those were people. You know, people who could think, talk, love, hate, etc. By constrast, your average abortion involves mindless masses of parasitic, self-replicating cells, no more alive than a brain-dead car accident victim on life support.
Then again, maybe you oppose taking said brain-dead car accident victim off life support because, in your mind, that, too, is murder. If so, kudos! At least you're consistent. I somehow doubt it, though...
If the to government said it was only going to tax gas as much as it took to keep the environment and research alternative fuels I think many people would be okay with that.
No, you're missing the point. The government should tax gas by enough to offset the cost of the environmental damaged caused by digging it out of the ground, refining it, and burning it. Yes, that's hard to quantify, but you could probably get within an order of magnitude. Being able to shift the tax to green initiatives is just gravy.
The whole point, here, is to expose the consumer to the full, complete cost of fossil fuels. If you did that, green technologies (which don't get shadow subsidies in the form of negative externalities) would suddenly look highly competitive.
Anyway, I have no interest in footing the bill with my tax money to pay for something that is a net drag on energy. If they can't afford to make it commercially viable on their own, they shouldn't look to do it on the taxpayer dime.
Makes sense. Unfortunately, the fossil fuel providers get to take advantage of negative externalities, shifting much of their costs onto future generations in the form of environmental damage.
So, the answer is simple: just tax fossil fuels in order to push the cost of said externalities back on the customers who are buying the product, so that the price of the product actually reflects it's total costs. Then redirect that tax money to environmental cleanup efforts, and green technology development.
But, of course... that's not basic, sound economic theory. That's evil socialism.
While hard numbers would be useful, it's painfully clear to anyone who's used it on both platforms that Firefox on windows is far faster than Firefox on linux. Try opening a bunch of tabs and see how sluggish it is on linux to switch between them or close one.
Personally, I blame GTK2's obsession with double buffering everything.
Gah! This has been explained over and over. Have you just not been paying attention? Firefox on Windows has been, for some time now, optimized using profile guided optimization. The same isn't true for Firefox on Linux for various reasons (I believe related to the compiler, but I'm not actually sure... someone more knowledgeable in the details can feel free to step in, here). But FF on Linux, compiled with PGO, is every bit as fast as FF on Windows (and FF 3.1 will be compiled for Linux with PGO on by default, AFAIK).
If Pluto isn't a planet, it will cost a bunch of money to replace all the fifty year old science texts.
If Pluto is a planet, they can keep using the fifty year old science texts.
What, you think I'm kidding! You obviously aren't a teacher.
Or, alternatively, the teacher could actually *teach* and use the reclassification of Pluto as an excellent illustration of how science evolves over time. Or are you saying the only place the kids get their facts is from the class text?
Frankly, the more time they spend doing silly crap like this, the less time the spend screwing something important up
Ah, I see. So, in your estimation, the only two things government can do are a) screw things up, or b) pass pointless legislation. So, I take it your plan for this fiscal crisis, for example, is to just curl up in a ball and hope it goes away soon?
Again, Consumer Reports is a great example of an impartial regulatory agency untainted by the problems you mention.
Consumer Reports isn't paid by manufacturers to rate their products, and manufacturers don't shop around to find a magazine that will give them the rating they want.
In short: your example of CR is, at best, specious.
It IS the fault of the government if the politicians unjustly prosecuted various underwriters when they turned-down loans. ("But I did it because he only gets minimum wage!" "No you did it because you're racist; we're dragging you to court.") Other underwriters would observe this, decide it wasn't worth the hassle, and therefore approved risky loans just to stay out of jail.
Yeah... pity that banks beholden to the CRA had a lower average rate of mortgage default than private, non-CRA-regulated banks, thus completely refuting your point.
Yeah. Guess what? That's called a leveraged investment, and it specifically involves "[spending] money you don't have". Or, rather, spending what little money you do have, and then borrowing the rest.
In the context of this article, it sure as hell is. The entire point is that the concept of "NULL" can be dangerous. And pointers and references both support this concept, and are thus dangerous for the exact same reasons.
I don't think I ever had cause to use pointers in Perl or Python. Or C#.
Umm... what? Every single one of those languages has the concept of a pointer/reference that is virtually inescapable, and every one has a concept of undef/nil/null. Or have you never used a class in Perl (which is just a blessed reference), or a non-value-type in C# (which is stored and passed as a reference to the actual object)?
Honestly, do you even know what a pointer is, conceptually??
Slashdot Mirror
Except that the "acting" was done for 4:3
There, fixed that for you. ;)
Yeah, the first 10 minutes of the first episode of Dollhouse was bad. Really bad. But I gotta say, the second and subsequent episodes have set up a plot arch (if not stellar acting performances) that have kept me interested. Give it a chance. Really. You might hate it, but you might just come around.
This is one of the reasons I avoid Google;
So, I assume you also avoid purchasing things with your credit card? Or with any kind of club card? Or interacting with any company that sells any of their business records to third parties (like, for example, car dealerships)? Or generally interacting with the civilized world?
Look, here's the deal: the privacy genie was out of the bottle long before Google was ever conceived of. Companies like Axciom and Experian already know, and have known for decades, what demo you're in, what products you buy, whether or not you have a lease on your car that's about to expire, and probably a million other things I haven't even thought of. In short: they already know you better than you know yourself. So who really cares about Google, honestly?
Oh, and as an aside, with things like social networking out there, even if you try to disengage from the rest of the world, your friends and family probably haven't, and right now, they're posting pictures about you, writing stories about you, and generally divulging things about you that you probably wish they wouldn't. So, if I were you, I'd find yourself a nice cabin in the woods and hide out there, because frankly, I don't see that you have any other option.
they advertise something you might have bought (but might not have bought) and that puts you over the edge and you buy it. Then they push something similar and you buy it for the same reason. After several iterations, you find yourself buying things you would never otherwise have had interest in.
Oooh, I see the problem. You don't actually have an independently functioning brain. Instead, apparently your brain is a slave to the whims of whatever advertisement happens to be presented to you.
So, nevermind. In fact, ignore this post entirely. It probably just confused you.
Deep Suck 9 was just that...
Oh please. DS9 was decent-to-poor in the early goings, much like TNG, but once the Dominion War plot arch started up, it went from good to truly great. No other Trek has been as dark and gritty as DS9 was, actually showing a real, unsanitized war with it's attendant ugliness, while portraying a federation that was, for a change, flawed and multifaceted. Pity it seems to get such a raw deal from a certain subset of the Trek fanbase.
I wonder if it'd work to revamp the CG on B5 with modern tech and full-battles instead of the 90's era "same 3 scenes" style battles and then re-release it as a new show.
If only that were the only problem with B5. Among others, I would cite silly costumes, and, far worse, horrible acting (nearly rivaling first season TNG). Honestly, I can't watch five minutes of B5 without changing the channel in disgust. Sci-fi is about more than nifty plot lines in a futuristic world. It's also about people. Interesting, plausible people. And when the people are worn out cliches portrayed by second rate actors, the outcome is not pretty (for the record, I give TOS a pass on this as it was really a product of its time... B5 has no such excuse).
"The results add asthma to a catalog of undesirable outcomes, including obesity, diabetes, smoking, and promiscuity, tied to TV viewing.""
No, the results add asthma to a catalog of undesirable outcomes, including obesity and diabetes, tied to a sedentary lifestyle.
Honestly, was this article summary written by this guy?
I'm so sick of people posting this stupid, stupid, stupid argument over and over! Too bad the term copyleft seems to have dropped off in usage in the free software movement. The whole point of the GPL and copyleft in general is to turn copyright on itself. Saying "the GPL is effective because it is based on the protection of copyright" is like saying that vaccines made with killed or weakened virus wouldn't work if the virus didn't exist. Well duh! Way to miss the point. The GPL is about balancing the scales. We wouldn't need the GPL if there were no copyright.
You wouldn't? Really? Because, as far as I can tell, the entire goal of the GPL, the reason it exists, is to ensure that those who use GPL-covered code release those changes to the public. Without the GPL, Microsoft could, say, take Firefox, modify it as they see fit, and then refuse to contribute those changes back to the project. You're telling me you'd be just fine with that? Because I'm pretty sure a lot of people aren't... otherwise the GPL wouldn't exist in the first place.
Sure, there would be the problem of proprietary software vendors rolling GPLed code into their own products without releasing source, but on the other hand, everyone would be able to use the proprietary vendors code without paying so the scales would be balanced again.
And they would get the proprietary vendor's code how, exactly? Decompiling the binaries or something? Yeah... good luck with that.
In order to get people to pay, they would need to add value with support services, running servers, etc.
Bullshit. They'd do what they do today. Distribute object files only. Use licensing servers, encryption, online registration, or any number of other systems to ensure that an individual or corporation is using a paid-for copy of their software. The only difference is they wouldn't be able to use copyright as a legal club if said technological measures failed.
Right now if something is patented, you need to figure out another way to do the same thing. Sometimes the new method is even better than the original. THAT IS THE [IMPLIED] GOAL.
You're close, but that's not quite right. The goal of the patent system is very simple: in exchange for divulging the method, thus enriching the public, an inventor is afforded temporary (*temporary*) protections. This is preferable to the alternative, that being trade secrets which may remain permanently hidden from the public, disallowing anyone from ever using (or, as you mention, improving) the method.
Of course, overly long patent terms can work to stifle innovation (as we've seen). Fortunately, in the general case, unlike copyright terms, patent terms aren't too excessive (yet). The real problem, at least in the technology space (particularly the software space) is that patent terms should be a lot shorter, as the pace of innovation is much faster in those areas ('course, in the software space I think patents should simply be outlawed... why should software benefit from both copyright *and* patent protections?).
I think you're just blue-skying with a point of view that doesn't match reality.
Blueskying what? And with what opinion? I mean, here's the crux of my argument:
1) Extracting, refining, and transporting oil damages the environment.
2) The cost of said damage isn't factored into the price of oil, and thus isn't reflected at the pump (aka, negative externalities).
3) Sound economic policy says the role of government should be to correct market inefficiencies, including those caused by negative externalities.
4) A tax on fossil fuels will correct said market inefficiency.
5) Once corrected, green technologies (which don't benefit from shadow subsidies) will suddenly become price competitive.
None of this is fantasy. It's all solid fact, as far as I can tell. Well, except for the 5th point, which is admittedly a guess (though, based on the behaviour of the market, last year, as the price of oil skyrocketed, I think it's fair to assume that an increase in the price of oil would result in greater attention paid to green technology).
So you see, I'm agreeing with your goal. But you still haven't said what you'd do with the money.
Again... that's because it doesn't actually matter. *shrug* You could, for example, cut taxes in other areas of the economy to offset the additional burden (a nice middle-class tax cut would work). Or you could use it to fund healthcare, or improve education, or god knows what other things.
When government takes money from people it should be for a purpose, rather than just to teach us a lesson.
Correct. In this case, the purpose is to correct a market inefficiency. Ideally, the money would be spent cleaning up the environmental damage caused by these companies, or to spur development of green technology (aka, a green-shift tax). But in the end, it doesn't actually make a difference. And this goes right to the heart of your objection: you seem to think the idea is bad because government will misuse the funds. And what I'm telling you is: it doesn't actually matter in the end, because the goal (to correct the market inefficiency) will still be achieved, regardless of how the resulting revenue is allocated.
Is that a debating style you kids use on Xbox Live or something? Is it generally effective? ;)
Well, the idea is to get you to actually go out and research the topic. If that happens, great. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.
Have a good week, my friend.
You too!
Now then, Mr. Government, now that you've collected money on gas, how will you use that money to undo the environmental damage that you feel it's caused? Or is it simply a punitive measure?
It doesn't matter. Nor is it punitive. Again, the entire purpose of such a tax is to correct the market inefficiencies caused by negative externalities not being accounted for. That's it, that's all. It's to force the cost of said externalities back on the customer so that they will then make choices based on the full, complete cost of the products they purchase. The fact you don't understand this makes me think you don't actually understand these issues. Go do a little research on negative externalities. Maybe then you'll understand.
And, by the way, nice weasel words with the phrase "you feel it's caused", as if there's some question, there. Fortunately there isn't: the extraction, refining, transport, and combustion of fossil fuels unquestionably damages the environment in myriad ways. If you doubt it, come up to northern Alberta some time and see the city-sized tailings ponds that will be with us for generations. Traditionally, the oil companies have never had to factor those costs into the price of their products, and that amounts to nothing more than a shadow subsidy that future generations will have to pay for.
You could not keep them living and hope that in 10 years they will get better.
Says who? Maybe the magic of science will let you put a new brain in that skull, and then voila, the body will be alive again.
But they're not the same person, you say? So did the person die with the brain? If so, then the person *is* the brain, are they not? And therefore, a cluster of cells without a functioning brain isn't yet an individual, and therefore does not have the rights of an individual, any more than that body, without a brain, has any right to potential life.
A child has potential and is alive (not brain dead).
No, it's precisely brain dead. Worse, it doesn't have a brain *at all*. At least not until a few weeks into the pregnancy.
How do you know that you are anything more than just a cluster of cells?
Because I have a brain that can consider the question. Unlike a zygote.
Doesn't it sound arbitrary to wait until a brain is formed to call it human?
Given we use the same metric to determine when to pull the plug on someone (I'm sure you've heard the term "brain dead" thrown about), I'd say, no, it's not arbitrary at all. It's exceedingly logical, in fact, not to mention morally consistent.
Of course, that means we have to define an unborn child as technically alive.
Way to use loaded words. "Unborn child"... you must be a life-begins-at-conception type, right?
Look, if it doesn't have a functioning brain, sorry buddy, it ain't an "unborn child". It's a mass of cells using the woman as a host body. I mean, if I ended up in a car accident and my brain was smashed, I wouldn't expect my wife to keep my body functioning. That'd be lunacy. We don't call it brain *dead* for nothing.
Similarly, defining a cluster of unthinking cells as "alive" speaks to me of nothing more than faith-based reasoning (the only reason to use this definition is if you believe said cluster of cells has a soul, 'cuz it certainly doesn't have a mind or a personality), and that most definitely should *not* be the underpinnings of US law.
Incidentally, if it wasn't clear, I'm perfectly fine limiting abortion to only pregnancies which haven't demonstrated brain activity, or cases where the woman's life is at risk. That is, I think, the only sensible compromise... unfortunately, in a debate like this, no one is interested in either sense or compromise.
OOC, and this isn't a troll, I'm honestly curious: how do you feel about the large numbers of embryos destroyed every year as part of IVF treatments?
The problems are what I outlined above. The tax would not be used to for cleaning things up
Again, that's not the point. It doesn't matter where the money goes. Seriously, they could throw it in the ocean for all I care. The point is simply to force the externalities back on the customer to correct the market inefficiencies inherent in fossil fuels.
Look at the many of the green cars that through their manufacturing (mainly the batteries, some of the light weight materials) leave the environment in worse shape than a standard gas power engine car running for years.
Citation please. I've heard those claims, but every one I've come across has turned out to be bullshit. For example, most high-density batteries are made from fairly common, safe elements (ie, not cadmium, lead, etc). Moreover, most of the materials in your average battery are recycled. So the overall the environmental impact isn't as great as the naysayers would have you believe.
Nevertheless, I support any such externalities being factored into the cost of the product. I'm just willing to bet big dollars that the overall environmental damaged caused by fossil fuel extraction, refining, and transport, is (much) greater than those introduced in the creation of green technologies (such as batteries).
If you consider that 11 million people died in the Holocaust
Ah, I see your confusion, here. See, those were people. You know, people who could think, talk, love, hate, etc. By constrast, your average abortion involves mindless masses of parasitic, self-replicating cells, no more alive than a brain-dead car accident victim on life support.
Then again, maybe you oppose taking said brain-dead car accident victim off life support because, in your mind, that, too, is murder. If so, kudos! At least you're consistent. I somehow doubt it, though...
If the to government said it was only going to tax gas as much as it took to keep the environment and research alternative fuels I think many people would be okay with that.
No, you're missing the point. The government should tax gas by enough to offset the cost of the environmental damaged caused by digging it out of the ground, refining it, and burning it. Yes, that's hard to quantify, but you could probably get within an order of magnitude. Being able to shift the tax to green initiatives is just gravy.
The whole point, here, is to expose the consumer to the full, complete cost of fossil fuels. If you did that, green technologies (which don't get shadow subsidies in the form of negative externalities) would suddenly look highly competitive.
Anyway, I have no interest in footing the bill with my tax money to pay for something that is a net drag on energy. If they can't afford to make it commercially viable on their own, they shouldn't look to do it on the taxpayer dime.
Makes sense. Unfortunately, the fossil fuel providers get to take advantage of negative externalities, shifting much of their costs onto future generations in the form of environmental damage.
So, the answer is simple: just tax fossil fuels in order to push the cost of said externalities back on the customers who are buying the product, so that the price of the product actually reflects it's total costs. Then redirect that tax money to environmental cleanup efforts, and green technology development.
But, of course... that's not basic, sound economic theory. That's evil socialism.
While hard numbers would be useful, it's painfully clear to anyone who's used it on both platforms that Firefox on windows is far faster than Firefox on linux. Try opening a bunch of tabs and see how sluggish it is on linux to switch between them or close one.
Personally, I blame GTK2's obsession with double buffering everything.
Gah! This has been explained over and over. Have you just not been paying attention? Firefox on Windows has been, for some time now, optimized using profile guided optimization. The same isn't true for Firefox on Linux for various reasons (I believe related to the compiler, but I'm not actually sure... someone more knowledgeable in the details can feel free to step in, here). But FF on Linux, compiled with PGO, is every bit as fast as FF on Windows (and FF 3.1 will be compiled for Linux with PGO on by default, AFAIK).
If Pluto isn't a planet, it will cost a bunch of money to replace all the fifty year old science texts.
If Pluto is a planet, they can keep using the fifty year old science texts.
What, you think I'm kidding! You obviously aren't a teacher.
Or, alternatively, the teacher could actually *teach* and use the reclassification of Pluto as an excellent illustration of how science evolves over time. Or are you saying the only place the kids get their facts is from the class text?
Frankly, the more time they spend doing silly crap like this, the less time the spend screwing something important up
Ah, I see. So, in your estimation, the only two things government can do are a) screw things up, or b) pass pointless legislation. So, I take it your plan for this fiscal crisis, for example, is to just curl up in a ball and hope it goes away soon?
Again, Consumer Reports is a great example of an impartial regulatory agency untainted by the problems you mention.
Consumer Reports isn't paid by manufacturers to rate their products, and manufacturers don't shop around to find a magazine that will give them the rating they want.
In short: your example of CR is, at best, specious.
It IS the fault of the government if the politicians unjustly prosecuted various underwriters when they turned-down loans. ("But I did it because he only gets minimum wage!" "No you did it because you're racist; we're dragging you to court.") Other underwriters would observe this, decide it wasn't worth the hassle, and therefore approved risky loans just to stay out of jail.
Yeah... pity that banks beholden to the CRA had a lower average rate of mortgage default than private, non-CRA-regulated banks, thus completely refuting your point.
Nice try, though.
get a mortgage and pay it off in 15 years.
Yeah. Guess what? That's called a leveraged investment, and it specifically involves "[spending] money you don't have". Or, rather, spending what little money you do have, and then borrowing the rest.
But a reference is not necessarily a pointer.
In the context of this article, it sure as hell is. The entire point is that the concept of "NULL" can be dangerous. And pointers and references both support this concept, and are thus dangerous for the exact same reasons.
I don't think I ever had cause to use pointers in Perl or Python. Or C#.
Umm... what? Every single one of those languages has the concept of a pointer/reference that is virtually inescapable, and every one has a concept of undef/nil/null. Or have you never used a class in Perl (which is just a blessed reference), or a non-value-type in C# (which is stored and passed as a reference to the actual object)?
Honestly, do you even know what a pointer is, conceptually??