Confronted with secrecy and dishonesty people will assume the worst. That's a perfectly natural reaction. There was never a point at which TEPCO was freely releasing the information they had, so you are confusing cause and effect here.
Besides: they owe information to the Japanese people - it was their plant which caused the problem, it was their plant causing considerable economic damage and health risks for so many people. If you can't handle negative media reports about nuclear power, then you don't have the balls to run a nuclear power plant. Find another business to be in - maybe something with kittens and flowers.
If you have postmen so corrupt they destroy packages in order to get stamps... you have a much bigger problem at your hands. Besides - any postman emptying a postbox has this possibility right now. Even without leaving a trace, unlike in your scenario where the number might be known by the person whose package was destroyed.
If you describe the US simply as a democracy, though, you imply that it is governed directly by the people (rather than indirectly, through representatives).
No I don't - I just indicate that it has some form of democratic election system. To describe the US system "representative democracy" is used, to explain what kind of democracy it is. Of course political systems come in many flavors - the US has some fairly direct democratic participation as well. For example in the US you can elect judges - that amount of direct control is quite extraordinary among democracies.
Of course other countries have direct participation which in the US isn't possible, too: e.g. in Switzerland referendums are frequently used to set limits on government action or to directly implement laws. (I guess California has that option as well.) Then again the UK and Germany have the "crown in parliament" system (sans the actual crown in Germany), so the head of the executive is elected by the parliament, the population at large has no direct say. (Not even via electoral college.) (I'm sorta skipping the official head of state for these two countries - the German president and the British queen are basically ornamental.)
By your argument, then perhaps we should not be referred to as a democracy either, since that would seem to support the notion that we are biased towards "big-d" Democrats.
That would apply, if the term hadn't changed hundreds of years ago, and now the Democrats were pushing for the term "representative Democracy" even though "Republic" was used all over the world and in all American dictionaries. It would be a despicable move, yes. Going back from the hypothetical situation to the actual one... well the blame should go to the Utah Republicans.
Republic is to Democracy what Latin is to Greek. (Not exactly I admit, but it's pretty close.)
Usage of the words democracy and republic has certainly changed over the centuries. The US doesn't (at least officially) give more votes to rich people than to poor (a central feature of the roman republic) and it doesn't elect plebeian tribunes either. They are definitely not a republic in a strictly Roman sense. They are however a country whose founders were classically educated and drew on Roman traditions and terminology when drafting the constitution.
Today - anywhere in the world outside the US - the US would be described as a representative democracy. The same applies to any established dictionaries in use in the US.
What's the point of obscuring modern use and going back to terminology last used hundreds of years ago? I think it's a political motivation, suggesting that the Republican party is the natural ruling party of the country.
Also, I think you can put limits on what you do or won't do. For me personally I'm fine with maintaining Linux boxes, but I won't look after Windows machines anymore, and I'm not willing to look after any Apple-stuff either. I'm not denying that those things can be useful, it's just that my personal interests are elsewhere.
I wonder why religions even have made sex to look like a bad thing.
Well sex is an excellent way to transmit diseases, unfortunately. Also sex frequently leads to offspring, and raising that offspring places considerable burden on the female of the species. Some kind of social framework is needed to help them accomplish that task and ideally to survive childbirth. Sure men usually love their children, but in a promiscuous society the chance that the woman's child is also theirs is low, so they wouldn't feel a big attachment to the child.
Religion is one way to regulate societies, and as societies compete for resources, the less successful societies are eliminated. This means societies (and thus also their ordering instruments - like their political structures and their religions) are shaped through an evolutionary process. Today we are left with those religions which enabled less technologically advanced societies to maintain their organizational structure at some time in the past.
Technological advances have made some of the religious rules redundant - these rules could be compared e.g. to a human appendix. Once they probably served an important function, today they are either useless or even dangerous. (For example: my own appendix almost killed me when I was 16.) Today you might have some people who encourage conflict in the middle east because they believe that to accelerate the second coming, or something equally insane. Dangerous as such faith is today, it allowed to form a fighting force to counter Islamic expansion into Europe, and similar faith once allowed the Arabs to defeat the crusaders. Neither faith would still be around if it hadn't been useful at some point.
Asus is doing that, IMO. The slider and the transformer are nice products, eliminating many of the limitation a tablet has (e.g. proper input, hands-free operation), but also allowing the usage model of a table (e.g. one-hand usage, usage without a stand).
16 hours battery life of the transformer sounds pretty good, too.
Randomly assigning more people doesn't help, I agree. However they could have assigned some engineers to code a new email client, maybe just clone the one for Android. The poor quality and clumsy interface of their email client caused complaints about Nokia smartphones for a long time - both on Symbian and Maemo. Email was a very important functionality for their customers, so they should have fixed that long ago.
A local school (located "in the ghetto" too!) was giving all students iPads, and JUST before iPad 2 came out too! Too funny! If I were the principal I'd be in tears, thats a hundred grand, made obsolete in a matter of days!
Well obsolete seems to be the wrong word. There is nothing the thing can do which is now suddenly stopping to work, is there? The enhancements for iPad 2 strike me as unimpressive anyway. (Nothing wrong with that, it makes sense to simply upgrade, sometimes.) The new features should not matter much for a school. It might even make sense to supply them with older devices now - they should be cheaper to get. Also, didn't Apple offer a rebate for recent purchasers of the iPad?
"TSF's founders realized that, in addition to medical and food aid, there was a critical need for reliable emergency telecommunications services. Conflicts and emergencies often led to massive civilian displacement and separated families. And affected populations are often left with no communications infrastructure in place to find assistance and loved ones."
"Nicholas Negroponte from OLPC accepted his money and is proud of his participation."
So what are you suggesting - nobody can interact with any of Africa's corrupt or dictatorial leadership, instead we just wait until they've all established well-run democracies? What the hell would the benefit of that policy be?
"By your logic, if I am a small business owner I can do whatever I want, but as soon as I incorporate for limited liability purposes, I lose my rights?"
No, you can still donate with your own money, what right do you lose?
You should not be able to wine and dine a senator and treat that as a business expense, yes.
Freedom of association (which is a political right, though not part of the US constitution btw) has nothing to do with incorporating (which is a business construct). Newspapers fall under freedom of press.
There is nothing wrong with you associating in a political organization to elect John Doe III for senate. There is a lot wrong with you becoming the CEO of a health insurance company and using your company's profits to funnel money to his election campaign. If you like the guy so much, then donate your own money, not the money of your customers and the company shareholders who may or may not agree with your political views.
Well attaching something to your car is interfering with your property, tailing you does not do that. I think to cross that line you should need a warrant.
Companies aren't people. That means they shouldn't be able to contribute to election campaigns and things like that. That wouldn't limit the rights of the owners or employees of a company to make contributions: they could still do that with their own private money.
It would however prevent the company from making contributions based on the decisions of the CEO or majority owner - going contrary to the wishes of e.g. minority owners. That would be a good thing. It would restrict nobody's legitimate political rights, and it would help to reduce corruption.
Well I have a young child, so I'd prefer if I could search for children's fares as well. Interface is ok otherwise, but not better or worse than your average flight search site.
"Worse, in modern times, they've been attempting to use it to shape politics"
Arguably, that's exactly what it's for. Just as with the science-oriented Nobel prizes - they enable the receiver to conduct more research, freeing them from some of the financial constraints.
In that sense it wasn't really wrong to give the prize to Obama because he hadn't done anything yet - it was wrong mainly because it was already clear that he wouldn't and also because the money would not help him to accomplish any of his (nominal) goals in the first place. (If you have the resources of the US presidency, then the prize doesn't add much to that.)
Obama mentioned in his speech that he saw the prize as an obligation, and I suppose that may have been what the committee was trying to accomplish. It didn't work, but that's life. Similar motivations may have driving giving the prize to Arafat. It would have been nice if that had helped to bring about peace in the mid-east - too bad it didn't.
So by all means: this is a political prize, and I think that's exactly what it's supposed to be.
Slashdot Mirror
A natural disaster caused the problems in the reactors
The ground they were building on is part of the "pacific ring of fire". Not taking responsibility for what you build there is kind of crazy.
Confronted with secrecy and dishonesty people will assume the worst. That's a perfectly natural reaction. There was never a point at which TEPCO was freely releasing the information they had, so you are confusing cause and effect here.
Besides: they owe information to the Japanese people - it was their plant which caused the problem, it was their plant causing considerable economic damage and health risks for so many people. If you can't handle negative media reports about nuclear power, then you don't have the balls to run a nuclear power plant. Find another business to be in - maybe something with kittens and flowers.
If you can spare some money, donate it to the newly-homeless residents of Miyagi and Iwate.
I would like to - could you provide a donation link?
Truth is, atheists are all douches who have no respect.
Atheists wonder whether you have a sense of irony...
If you have postmen so corrupt they destroy packages in order to get stamps ... you have a much bigger problem at your hands. Besides - any postman emptying a postbox has this possibility right now. Even without leaving a trace, unlike in your scenario where the number might be known by the person whose package was destroyed.
If you describe the US simply as a democracy, though, you imply that it is governed directly by the people (rather than indirectly, through representatives).
No I don't - I just indicate that it has some form of democratic election system. To describe the US system "representative democracy" is used, to explain what kind of democracy it is. Of course political systems come in many flavors - the US has some fairly direct democratic participation as well. For example in the US you can elect judges - that amount of direct control is quite extraordinary among democracies.
Of course other countries have direct participation which in the US isn't possible, too: e.g. in Switzerland referendums are frequently used to set limits on government action or to directly implement laws. (I guess California has that option as well.) Then again the UK and Germany have the "crown in parliament" system (sans the actual crown in Germany), so the head of the executive is elected by the parliament, the population at large has no direct say. (Not even via electoral college.) (I'm sorta skipping the official head of state for these two countries - the German president and the British queen are basically ornamental.)
By your argument, then perhaps we should not be referred to as a democracy either, since that would seem to support the notion that we are biased towards "big-d" Democrats.
That would apply, if the term hadn't changed hundreds of years ago, and now the Democrats were pushing for the term "representative Democracy" even though "Republic" was used all over the world and in all American dictionaries. It would be a despicable move, yes. Going back from the hypothetical situation to the actual one ... well the blame should go to the Utah Republicans.
Republic is to Democracy what Latin is to Greek. (Not exactly I admit, but it's pretty close.)
Usage of the words democracy and republic has certainly changed over the centuries. The US doesn't (at least officially) give more votes to rich people than to poor (a central feature of the roman republic) and it doesn't elect plebeian tribunes either. They are definitely not a republic in a strictly Roman sense. They are however a country whose founders were classically educated and drew on Roman traditions and terminology when drafting the constitution.
Today - anywhere in the world outside the US - the US would be described as a representative democracy. The same applies to any established dictionaries in use in the US.
What's the point of obscuring modern use and going back to terminology last used hundreds of years ago? I think it's a political motivation, suggesting that the Republican party is the natural ruling party of the country.
Also, I think you can put limits on what you do or won't do. For me personally I'm fine with maintaining Linux boxes, but I won't look after Windows machines anymore, and I'm not willing to look after any Apple-stuff either. I'm not denying that those things can be useful, it's just that my personal interests are elsewhere.
Surely they are already doing this? The spam I'm getting is universally atrociously written, probably in an attempt to escape spam filters, I suppose.
I wonder why religions even have made sex to look like a bad thing.
Well sex is an excellent way to transmit diseases, unfortunately. Also sex frequently leads to offspring, and raising that offspring places considerable burden on the female of the species. Some kind of social framework is needed to help them accomplish that task and ideally to survive childbirth. Sure men usually love their children, but in a promiscuous society the chance that the woman's child is also theirs is low, so they wouldn't feel a big attachment to the child.
Religion is one way to regulate societies, and as societies compete for resources, the less successful societies are eliminated. This means societies (and thus also their ordering instruments - like their political structures and their religions) are shaped through an evolutionary process. Today we are left with those religions which enabled less technologically advanced societies to maintain their organizational structure at some time in the past.
Technological advances have made some of the religious rules redundant - these rules could be compared e.g. to a human appendix. Once they probably served an important function, today they are either useless or even dangerous. (For example: my own appendix almost killed me when I was 16.) Today you might have some people who encourage conflict in the middle east because they believe that to accelerate the second coming, or something equally insane. Dangerous as such faith is today, it allowed to form a fighting force to counter Islamic expansion into Europe, and similar faith once allowed the Arabs to defeat the crusaders. Neither faith would still be around if it hadn't been useful at some point.
Asus is doing that, IMO. The slider and the transformer are nice products, eliminating many of the limitation a tablet has (e.g. proper input, hands-free operation), but also allowing the usage model of a table (e.g. one-hand usage, usage without a stand).
16 hours battery life of the transformer sounds pretty good, too.
Randomly assigning more people doesn't help, I agree. However they could have assigned some engineers to code a new email client, maybe just clone the one for Android. The poor quality and clumsy interface of their email client caused complaints about Nokia smartphones for a long time - both on Symbian and Maemo. Email was a very important functionality for their customers, so they should have fixed that long ago.
A local school (located "in the ghetto" too!) was giving all students iPads, and JUST before iPad 2 came out too! Too funny! If I were the principal I'd be in tears, thats a hundred grand, made obsolete in a matter of days!
Well obsolete seems to be the wrong word. There is nothing the thing can do which is now suddenly stopping to work, is there? The enhancements for iPad 2 strike me as unimpressive anyway. (Nothing wrong with that, it makes sense to simply upgrade, sometimes.) The new features should not matter much for a school. It might even make sense to supply them with older devices now - they should be cheaper to get. Also, didn't Apple offer a rebate for recent purchasers of the iPad?
I thought this was quite interesting:
"TSF's founders realized that, in addition to medical and food aid, there was a critical need for reliable emergency telecommunications services. Conflicts and emergencies often led to massive civilian displacement and separated families. And affected populations are often left with no communications infrastructure in place to find assistance and loved ones."
Makes sense to me, I sent them EU50.
"Nicholas Negroponte from OLPC accepted his money and is proud of his participation."
So what are you suggesting - nobody can interact with any of Africa's corrupt or dictatorial leadership, instead we just wait until they've all established well-run democracies? What the hell would the benefit of that policy be?
"By your logic, if I am a small business owner I can do whatever I want, but as soon as I incorporate for limited liability purposes, I lose my rights?"
No, you can still donate with your own money, what right do you lose?
You should not be able to wine and dine a senator and treat that as a business expense, yes.
Freedom of association (which is a political right, though not part of the US constitution btw) has nothing to do with incorporating (which is a business construct). Newspapers fall under freedom of press.
There is nothing wrong with you associating in a political organization to elect John Doe III for senate. There is a lot wrong with you becoming the CEO of a health insurance company and using your company's profits to funnel money to his election campaign. If you like the guy so much, then donate your own money, not the money of your customers and the company shareholders who may or may not agree with your political views.
Well attaching something to your car is interfering with your property, tailing you does not do that. I think to cross that line you should need a warrant.
As Prof. James Duane pointed out: you might be guilty of transporting a fish under Honduran law. Which is a federal crime in the US.
"Cringing" ... That's pushing it a bit, isn't it? Wasn't it Apple's initiative to offer a parental control system in the first place?
"Robbing liqueur stores , and god only knows what comes later...." Either prison or a political career.
Companies aren't people. That means they shouldn't be able to contribute to election campaigns and things like that. That wouldn't limit the rights of the owners or employees of a company to make contributions: they could still do that with their own private money.
It would however prevent the company from making contributions based on the decisions of the CEO or majority owner - going contrary to the wishes of e.g. minority owners. That would be a good thing. It would restrict nobody's legitimate political rights, and it would help to reduce corruption.
"He did what he did as an act of revenge against a policy he disliked."
You can't possibly actually know that.
"I actually use travel.bing.com..."
Well I have a young child, so I'd prefer if I could search for children's fares as well. Interface is ok otherwise, but not better or worse than your average flight search site.
"Worse, in modern times, they've been attempting to use it to shape politics"
Arguably, that's exactly what it's for. Just as with the science-oriented Nobel prizes - they enable the receiver to conduct more research, freeing them from some of the financial constraints.
In that sense it wasn't really wrong to give the prize to Obama because he hadn't done anything yet - it was wrong mainly because it was already clear that he wouldn't and also because the money would not help him to accomplish any of his (nominal) goals in the first place. (If you have the resources of the US presidency, then the prize doesn't add much to that.)
Obama mentioned in his speech that he saw the prize as an obligation, and I suppose that may have been what the committee was trying to accomplish. It didn't work, but that's life. Similar motivations may have driving giving the prize to Arafat. It would have been nice if that had helped to bring about peace in the mid-east - too bad it didn't.
So by all means: this is a political prize, and I think that's exactly what it's supposed to be.