Hell, forget the draft. Just make people pay for this war with their taxes and see if they'll support it.
Absolutely. Patriotism for most conservatives ends right at the wallet. I remember a quote by (I think) Daniel Berrigan back in the 60s, something to the effect that if Lyndon Johnson had asked us to give up our cars instead of our sons, our involvement in the Vietnam War would never have happened.
The war in Iraq is just a continuation of the war started in NYC and Washington DC on 9/11.
It amazes me that there are still people who believe this. Why? In fact, there was only one significant connection between Iraq and 9/11: Bush badly wanted to invade Iraq, and the lives lost on 9/11 could cynically be used to justify it. In a better educated society, it never would have worked.
I'm not sure where you got the idea that liberals want to be absolved of responsibility. In fact, the liberals that I know take on more responsibility by taking care of themselves AND trying to improve their surroundings.
Quite so, and as I think about it I have to wonder just what a conservative who would say otherwise might be thinking about. Anybody?
I love how many right wing americans have no idea about political theory and think "Liberal"'s an insult.
That's no accident, either; it's been deliberately and diligently cultivated by the Right for many years. For most people, politically charged terms and labels get linked up in our brains with concepts like "good" and "evil" more though repetition than rational thought. Those links then become a proxy for actual thought, and the words quickly lose whatever meaning they might originally have had. "Terrorism", "Patriotism", "Freedom", "Family" -- the list goes on and on. Expect heaps of irony in the ways that people use these words, because they no longer mean anything; they merely trigger (mostly involuntary) associations in our minds.
There was a discussion on/. a week or so ago [sorry - too lazy to provide a link] about fingerprinting everyone entering the Statue of Liberty; it's remarkable that so many people fail to see any irony there.
Bush himself has exponentially increased the power or the executive branch, the discretionary spending powers of said branch and the overall size of the government to an outrageous extent as has never been seen before.
Well, yeah, but at least he's not making us pay for it. He may be no genius, but he's smart enough to put that on people who can't vote yet...
This just in! People relate with people who are similar to themselves! What shocking news
That may not be shocking news, but in fact people do differ considerably in their ability to understand and empathize with others who are unlike themselves (e.g., with regard to culture, religion, nationality, race, social class, circumstance, you-name-it). I've always thought that there are fundamental personality traits that underlie (but do not necessarily determine) the conservative/liberal duality; this just might be the most important.
Liberals play emotions like fear? Are you serious? There are certainly emotions that liberals play to, but conservatives pretty much own the patent on fear. That's what most of the War on Terror is about (particularly the parts that require the surrender of civil liberties) as well as the elevation by the GOP of institutionalized homophobia to a constitutional status. Fear and its political exploitation is the very foundation of GWB's entire administration and campaign.
Maybe really smart high level execs need more really smart high level people to help look over their mistakes privately
Except that those really smart people, if they're really really smart, will be falling over themselves making the case that the execs were right all along...
Since us geeks only get to see pictures of pretty girls but never touch them, why not take the next logical step and look at pictures of pretty girls that don't even exist?
You guys always make the eyes way too big. Please stop doing that.
Heh... Back in the early 80s I had a job writing multispectral image analysis software, but we had no image display device. I used to print out hex dumps of small windows of images in each of the R,G,B channels on a line printer. That was for about a year before we finally got a frame buffer and a nice color monitor. I'm not joking.
Well yes, but if you read the article, it's not claiming to be a new theory, simply *proof* of an existing theory.
Haven't read the full article yet, but... Is it possible that they've confounded cause and effect? Language is a cultural invention. Perhaps words for quantities greater than two were not invented in this population because it wasn't a salient cognitive category, for genetic (although I kind of doubt that myself) or other reasons . E.g., there may be no word for "snow" in a given tropical culture, but that doesn't mean that a member of such a culture wouldn't be capable of experiencing a handful of it.
Incidentally, I thought I heard back in high school American government class that it was massively illegal to interfere with a member of Congress on their way to or from the House/Senate floor?
Absolutely it is; otherwise it would be easy to intimidate reps through the misuse of the security apparatus and the system of "checks and balances" would crumble. What is remarkable about this case, aside from the fact that it happened at all, is that it took so long to resolve. But, as with all of the other crap that's going on in the US these days, the public will quickly become conditioned to accept it as normal and necessary.
...He said environmental studies show the system will cause a temperature increase [each year] equivalent to the heat the lake surface absorbs during seven seconds of sunshine....
Yeah, but around here that seven seconds can be an entire month's supply...
I don't even remotely understand what this post is about.
Not to worry... This is just an old tried & true method of exposition wherein the author deliberately tries to mystify the reader by obfuscating the subject as much as possible. By doing this, (s)he hopes to appear much more knowledgable than is actually the case, and certainly more so than the reader.The library is about 41,000 SLOC with a COCOMO estimated cost to develop of about $1.3 million.
I rest my case. Don't just say it's "41,000 lines of code and cost $1.3 million to develop", because then everyone would know what you're talking about...
Grow up. This is not censorship. It's licensing. Confusing the two makes you look stupid...
Technically you're right, of course, but I think that the bad feelings over it stem from a confusion that the sponsors promote quite deliberately. I.e., that of the Olympics as a kind of "world event," the myth of which transcends the sponsored show that they're really putting on. They pay to sponsor it not only to buy eyeballs for their advertising, but also (and maybe more so) to drape themselves in the myth. Seen this way, it's not so surprising (or stupid) that people object when these sponsors manipulate what we can and can't see. They're saying, "watch it because it's a great mythical world event," but accept our control and manipulation because "it's really a private exhibition that belongs to us."
For example, Ohio Stadium (home of the Buckeyes) has sponsored ads throughout (including on the scoreboard)
Michigan Stadium hasn't done that yet, but I read recently that the new A.D. wants to schlockify things there too just as soon as he can. What's sad is that these are two of the richest (and most profitable) programs anywhere, but neither shows any hesitation at all to cheapen the experience for everybody in pursuit of ever more revenue. Too bad that the fans will just keep lining up for more...
but this (click on "choosing the final Thunderbird design") seems to indicate they did do the calculations and they did expect a human could produce enough power.
This page is more to the point, especially the graph at the bottom. So yes, it does appear that it was a consideration...
Well golly, "-1 Flamebait". Never achieved that distinction before...
Not familiar with the Tacoma Narrows bridge disaster, are we?
Well, yes I am, but I'm not sure I get your point. My comment was not "how could engineering students design something that fails," but rather that it may not have been reasonable to expect it to succeed, based on some basic power/efficiency considerations. Engineering is all about figuring that stuff out beforehand, but there's still nothing like "just doing it" to drive the point home. Sorry if I ruffled anybody's feathers; didn't mean to...
How could they not know that this was going to fail so completely?
Exactly. These were engineering students, and yet no one thought to do the basic physics calculations (like: what is the power required and can a human generate it) before building a prototype. I thought that was what engineering is all about.
If I were standing on a street corner asking people to volunteer to have their fingerprints matched to the FBI database, would that be a privacy violation as well?
It would if you were requiring it as a condition of allowing them to pass on the sidewalk, or implying that they will fall under suspicion by not complying. It's voluntary in the same way that being asked for $5 by a gangbanger in a dark alley is voluntary.
All and all it felt a bit like overkill, but considering that the statue is probably one of the most important symbols of America, it makes sense to so heavily gaurd it.
Please go back and re-read your post over and over again until you begin to sense the irony and absurdity of it. If our liberty were gone tomorrow, how would you even know? Do you think there'll be a press release, or a big formal ceremony?
Actually, I heard that if Kerry won, he wanted to replace it Theresa with a bottle of ketchup under one arm and a sack of cash raised above her head with the other.
And if Theresa accepts a $30,000,000 gift from Heinz just before John takes office, and Heinz subsequently gets billions of dollars in no-bid contracts to furnish ketchup to the troops at ridiculous markups, then maybe she'll deserve it, too. Along with a comfy prison cell, of course...
The trick there is knowing when to stop "incubating" and just start making stuff!
For me, procrastination seems related to anxiety in some way. I know that I should start doing a task now, but I don't feel like it. Why don't I feel like it? Because thinking about starting the task puts me on edge. Maybe I'm afraid that there will be difficulties, or that something will go wrong, or that it will take longer than I think, or that the results will be disappointing (to me or - worse - to someone else). Could the same kind of "edginess" over initiating something be a key stage of motivation in some people, but inhibitory to others?
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Absolutely. Patriotism for most conservatives ends right at the wallet. I remember a quote by (I think) Daniel Berrigan back in the 60s, something to the effect that if Lyndon Johnson had asked us to give up our cars instead of our sons, our involvement in the Vietnam War would never have happened.
It amazes me that there are still people who believe this. Why? In fact, there was only one significant connection between Iraq and 9/11: Bush badly wanted to invade Iraq, and the lives lost on 9/11 could cynically be used to justify it. In a better educated society, it never would have worked.
Quite so, and as I think about it I have to wonder just what a conservative who would say otherwise might be thinking about. Anybody?
That's no accident, either; it's been deliberately and diligently cultivated by the Right for many years. For most people, politically charged terms and labels get linked up in our brains with concepts like "good" and "evil" more though repetition than rational thought. Those links then become a proxy for actual thought, and the words quickly lose whatever meaning they might originally have had. "Terrorism", "Patriotism", "Freedom", "Family" -- the list goes on and on. Expect heaps of irony in the ways that people use these words, because they no longer mean anything; they merely trigger (mostly involuntary) associations in our minds.
There was a discussion on /. a week or so ago [sorry - too lazy to provide a link] about fingerprinting everyone entering the Statue of Liberty; it's remarkable that so many people fail to see any irony there.
Well, yeah, but at least he's not making us pay for it. He may be no genius, but he's smart enough to put that on people who can't vote yet...
That may not be shocking news, but in fact people do differ considerably in their ability to understand and empathize with others who are unlike themselves (e.g., with regard to culture, religion, nationality, race, social class, circumstance, you-name-it). I've always thought that there are fundamental personality traits that underlie (but do not necessarily determine) the conservative/liberal duality; this just might be the most important.
Liberals play emotions like fear? Are you serious? There are certainly emotions that liberals play to, but conservatives pretty much own the patent on fear. That's what most of the War on Terror is about (particularly the parts that require the surrender of civil liberties) as well as the elevation by the GOP of institutionalized homophobia to a constitutional status. Fear and its political exploitation is the very foundation of GWB's entire administration and campaign.
Democrats.
Except that those really smart people, if they're really really smart, will be falling over themselves making the case that the execs were right all along...
Well, if I make a particularly witty comment, of course I'd like to frame it and hang it on the wall behind my desk...
You guys always make the eyes way too big. Please stop doing that.
Heh... Back in the early 80s I had a job writing multispectral image analysis software, but we had no image display device. I used to print out hex dumps of small windows of images in each of the R,G,B channels on a line printer. That was for about a year before we finally got a frame buffer and a nice color monitor. I'm not joking.
Haven't read the full article yet, but... Is it possible that they've confounded cause and effect? Language is a cultural invention. Perhaps words for quantities greater than two were not invented in this population because it wasn't a salient cognitive category, for genetic (although I kind of doubt that myself) or other reasons . E.g., there may be no word for "snow" in a given tropical culture, but that doesn't mean that a member of such a culture wouldn't be capable of experiencing a handful of it.
Absolutely it is; otherwise it would be easy to intimidate reps through the misuse of the security apparatus and the system of "checks and balances" would crumble. What is remarkable about this case, aside from the fact that it happened at all, is that it took so long to resolve. But, as with all of the other crap that's going on in the US these days, the public will quickly become conditioned to accept it as normal and necessary.
Yeah, but around here that seven seconds can be an entire month's supply...
Not to worry... This is just an old tried & true method of exposition wherein the author deliberately tries to mystify the reader by obfuscating the subject as much as possible. By doing this, (s)he hopes to appear much more knowledgable than is actually the case, and certainly more so than the reader.The library is about 41,000 SLOC with a COCOMO estimated cost to develop of about $1.3 million.
I rest my case. Don't just say it's "41,000 lines of code and cost $1.3 million to develop", because then everyone would know what you're talking about...
Technically you're right, of course, but I think that the bad feelings over it stem from a confusion that the sponsors promote quite deliberately. I.e., that of the Olympics as a kind of "world event," the myth of which transcends the sponsored show that they're really putting on. They pay to sponsor it not only to buy eyeballs for their advertising, but also (and maybe more so) to drape themselves in the myth. Seen this way, it's not so surprising (or stupid) that people object when these sponsors manipulate what we can and can't see. They're saying, "watch it because it's a great mythical world event," but accept our control and manipulation because "it's really a private exhibition that belongs to us."
Michigan Stadium hasn't done that yet, but I read recently that the new A.D. wants to schlockify things there too just as soon as he can. What's sad is that these are two of the richest (and most profitable) programs anywhere, but neither shows any hesitation at all to cheapen the experience for everybody in pursuit of ever more revenue. Too bad that the fans will just keep lining up for more...
This page is more to the point, especially the graph at the bottom. So yes, it does appear that it was a consideration...
Not familiar with the Tacoma Narrows bridge disaster, are we?
Well, yes I am, but I'm not sure I get your point. My comment was not "how could engineering students design something that fails," but rather that it may not have been reasonable to expect it to succeed, based on some basic power/efficiency considerations. Engineering is all about figuring that stuff out beforehand, but there's still nothing like "just doing it" to drive the point home. Sorry if I ruffled anybody's feathers; didn't mean to...
Exactly. These were engineering students, and yet no one thought to do the basic physics calculations (like: what is the power required and can a human generate it) before building a prototype. I thought that was what engineering is all about.
It would if you were requiring it as a condition of allowing them to pass on the sidewalk, or implying that they will fall under suspicion by not complying. It's voluntary in the same way that being asked for $5 by a gangbanger in a dark alley is voluntary.
Please go back and re-read your post over and over again until you begin to sense the irony and absurdity of it. If our liberty were gone tomorrow, how would you even know? Do you think there'll be a press release, or a big formal ceremony?
And if Theresa accepts a $30,000,000 gift from Heinz just before John takes office, and Heinz subsequently gets billions of dollars in no-bid contracts to furnish ketchup to the troops at ridiculous markups, then maybe she'll deserve it, too. Along with a comfy prison cell, of course...
For me, procrastination seems related to anxiety in some way. I know that I should start doing a task now, but I don't feel like it. Why don't I feel like it? Because thinking about starting the task puts me on edge. Maybe I'm afraid that there will be difficulties, or that something will go wrong, or that it will take longer than I think, or that the results will be disappointing (to me or - worse - to someone else). Could the same kind of "edginess" over initiating something be a key stage of motivation in some people, but inhibitory to others?