This doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Either mines are necessary in some cases or they aren't. If they are necessary sometimes, then another situation might occur in the future when you need them. If they are not necessary you can remove them in all cases.
That's what it's for, actually. Any child has a mix of genes. Also there are two copies for each gene, one from the father, one from the mother. Many defective genes are recessive, meaning that if you have just one of the defective ones, it will not become active. However if you happen to inherit it both from your father and from your mother it must become active. That's why it's not a great idea to have offspring with a close relative. There is a great illustration here, if you are interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recessive_genes
...they were selected based on adaptations to the environment of that group of people.
True that. However as you pointed out, we travel a fair bit these days. Being adapted for the climate of Ireland (where it's good to have fair skin) is no longer all that useful when you spend your life in Florida. Of course, many people don't really do that anymore - they move many times in their own lifetimes, so it's not like adapting to just one of these locations would make a lot of sense.
It's not just Nigeria, I received scam mails from various countries including one from the Philippines. That last one I actually played with for a few weeks (writing as former German chancellor Helmut Kohl and his devoted secretary Verona Feldbusch) got a (really horrible) recipe for a Philippine dish involving pig's blood and a few laughs out of it.
Towards the end of the story Shiver Metimbers writes:
...I have been in contact with "John" posing as a fellow scammer looking for work... John told me he was making around $45,000 a month... I was also able to discover the name and contact details of John's artist and managed to contact him to confirm he had indeed been paid for his work...
No proof for any of this, but then again we don't have proof that anything in the story happened.
Well, it wasn't actually evidence the GP was asking for, but a definition. As a Plato-fan you are no doubt aware how much Socrates liked to ask "what do you really mean by that?". In fact, that was his prime method in searching for the truth and in getting people to think about their own opinions.
Senior positions are not in a free market position
Yes they are. There is no requirement in a free market that the participants make decisions based on sensible criteria. The only thing a free market gives you, is that participants are free to make their trading decisions. This gives the company which makes the least stupid decisions a competitive advantage, since they'll lose less money on average and are hence able to provide goods for less money. The result is a certain drive towards less stupid decisions, however that finds it's limits in general human stupidity. Certain markets can only be reached by very large organizations, but the larger the organization, the more stupidity you get. So the market gives you an organization which is less stupid than it might be without it, but certainly not one which will be completely without stupidity.:-)
There is no realistic way to estimate the chances and possible benefits of SETI. Theoretically they could discover a datastream where aliens transmit incredibly valuable scientific information. The cost to return ration in that case would be astronomical. I personally don't believe in that happening at all. However that belief is nothing but a wild guess which I can't base on any data. Since we never found ET, we have no means to estimate the chances of finding them with a specific method.
Getting ridiculously well paid is quite compatible with capitalism. Anyone can sell their skills to the highest bidder. If he is overpaid (sounds likely) his company ought to replace him with someone cheaper and/or better. Shareholders who make the correct decisions now (achieve better performance/cost ratios on high-level managers) have a competitive advantage in the future. Not Phipps' fault though when the shareholders of his company don't make the right decisions. There is nothing he needs to learn in that respect - his economic strategy works fine for his own interests.
I think the last time the people truly rose up against their government was the French Revolution
That's because you don't include e.g. Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Germany, Romania, Bulgaria. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are in a similar category, since they became independent countries as well as democratic countries. Remember what happened to Ceausescu, btw?
There is a huge divide in China between very modern urban areas and very poor and old-fashioned rural areas. So chances are the 10% of the population consists mainly of the educated people, the students, the well-off, the people who are important for business. Some of them will support the current system (that's probably a big part, actually) but very few will think it's without flaws. If everybody was only going to sites the government likes, they wouldn't have to put up a firewall.
Maybe, but it seems accessing sites the government doesn't want them to, is pretty widespread in China. Public internet cafes are very closely monitored, but access at home is not. It's pretty difficult for the government to crack down on "violations", their resources are limited.
Yes, both governments will dislike you. In both cases you don't break a law in your own jurisdiction. Should we respect the other countries legal order, anyway? That's a moral decision. Just like it is a moral decision whether we want to help oppressed people get access to free information. You have to weigh those factors and decide what's more important.
It must be a halfway decent argument, I've never had this much feedback from a comment on Slashdot before.
Don't do that, please. Address the points which were made and advance the discussion.
Don't Buy It. DRM might still exist, but not in the world on the non-buyer.
Which would be fine, if that's what the non-buyer wants. Likely he wants to buy the products but without DRM. If the strategy employed doesn't get you to the result you want, then it's the wrong strategy. Alternatively you can change your goals until the strategy fits.
The seller depends on the market, not on the individual consumer. The purchasing power of an individual buyer is puny compared to the market. The only way small buyers can influence a big seller is if a big group of them act in the same way. If most people are not even aware of DRM issues, it's unlikely that they'd base purchasing decisions on that. Similarly it's not a given that any seller automatically understands what the buyers want - there is a reason why many companies put a lot of money into market research. Which is never perfect, of course.
This can be changed by educating buyers and by informing sellers. Then again that would be activism and can certainly not be achieved by keeping your mouth shut.
The whole gist of this "don't buy it" argument seems to be that the market will regulate it all, and automatically produce whatever you really want. Or - if it fails to do that - that you didn't really want it badly enough. This is a useful point of view for big corporations, but it doesn't really have much to do with the operation of free markets. It's quite common in free markets for participants to form alliances in order to influence the market in their interest. Sellers agree on standards, cooperate on manufacturing etc. Buyers can form alliances, too - e.g. by agreeing to make purchasing decisions based on certain criteria. It's a sensible thing to do.
Ok, you can take your business elsewhere which is fine, but others don't actually want to do that. What's wrong with talking with someone, saying: this is what I want, can you sell that to me? Also there is a lot of lobbying going on, and what the music industry lobbies for impacts you, no matter whether you personally buy from them or not. If a group of people is engaging in politics, it's reasonable to argue with them on a political level.
It's an acedemic exercise. This does not mean it's pointless - it trains engineers by giving them a chance to design something, and it provides a means to measure success. If you wanted them to work on real cars, the size of the project and the costs associated with it would be prohibitive. Nevertheless, the engineers working on that will acquire knowledge in fuel efficiency techniques, learning to manage a project etc.
It has been pointed out that many of the techniques used are well known. That's fine - in engineering to create something new, you often need to learn about the old stuff first, a lot of improvement is incremental.
The internet is not just wires - just as important as the bandwidth is the content. People want to surf to Google because of the information it provides. The telco which sells you your bandwidth is profiting from Google and other content providers, because the reason you decide to purchase bandwidth from the telco is the existence of the content providers. The more desirable content there is for you to access, the more likely you are to pay for more bandwidth and the more money the telco gets paid for that.
Hmmmm - that's not what you said in the post I replied to - you directly linked your spending of money to activists voicing their opinion. Also you claim both that you "know shit" and that common sense would tell you the activists are wrong. I have to say you got me confused there... which one is it now?
SUVs are certainly not the root of all evil. However given that we have very strong indications that there is a climate problem, switching large sections of transportation from normal cars to SUVs is obviously counter productive. I don't think it's wrong to apply common sense there, too.
The industry probably doesn't want a certificate which identifies you throughout your life, because they prefer to sell you the same content on different media and for different players over and over again. Otherwise they'd be better of to save the DRM costs and instead profit from the internet as a distribution channel.
I'm not sure I completely understand your argument that this approach would solve all problems, though. I have the right to buy media and give them to another person as a gift, even if I have already watched it. Would this still be possible with that certificate? I have the right to buy dozens of mp3 players and resell them. What happens if I instead share the certificate with a large group of friends by handing them mp3 players which I bought (witht their money)? What happens if a relative dies who has a large music collection, worth $100k? (Yes that's very hypothetical, but still...)
I'll spend more money protecting the environment when activist realize the sky isn't falling
Where do activist come in on this? If a total asshole tells me "driving at night with the light off is dangerous" - does that cause me not to switch on the light? Why should I care whether someone I don't like is right about something or not? In a "yes/no" situation even morons should be right 50% of the time, so we shouldn't be surprised to encounter morons on each side of a debate.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmmm - I wonder how you'll feel about the upcomming MS patent then. :-)
Ok, but you can also send out files via email or ftp or ... Is Skype adding much there?
Too bad something like this gets modded as "troll". It's an honest opinion, something you can disagree with, but certainly not trolling.
This doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Either mines are necessary in some cases or they aren't. If they are necessary sometimes, then another situation might occur in the future when you need them. If they are not necessary you can remove them in all cases.
That's what it's for, actually. Any child has a mix of genes. Also there are two copies for each gene, one from the father, one from the mother. Many defective genes are recessive, meaning that if you have just one of the defective ones, it will not become active. However if you happen to inherit it both from your father and from your mother it must become active. That's why it's not a great idea to have offspring with a close relative. There is a great illustration here, if you are interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recessive_genes
True that. However as you pointed out, we travel a fair bit these days. Being adapted for the climate of Ireland (where it's good to have fair skin) is no longer all that useful when you spend your life in Florida. Of course, many people don't really do that anymore - they move many times in their own lifetimes, so it's not like adapting to just one of these locations would make a lot of sense.
It's not just Nigeria, I received scam mails from various countries including one from the Philippines. That last one I actually played with for a few weeks (writing as former German chancellor Helmut Kohl and his devoted secretary Verona Feldbusch) got a (really horrible) recipe for a Philippine dish involving pig's blood and a few laughs out of it.
No proof for any of this, but then again we don't have proof that anything in the story happened.
Well, it wasn't actually evidence the GP was asking for, but a definition. As a Plato-fan you are no doubt aware how much Socrates liked to ask "what do you really mean by that?". In fact, that was his prime method in searching for the truth and in getting people to think about their own opinions.
Yes they are. There is no requirement in a free market that the participants make decisions based on sensible criteria. The only thing a free market gives you, is that participants are free to make their trading decisions. This gives the company which makes the least stupid decisions a competitive advantage, since they'll lose less money on average and are hence able to provide goods for less money. The result is a certain drive towards less stupid decisions, however that finds it's limits in general human stupidity. Certain markets can only be reached by very large organizations, but the larger the organization, the more stupidity you get. So the market gives you an organization which is less stupid than it might be without it, but certainly not one which will be completely without stupidity. :-)
There is no realistic way to estimate the chances and possible benefits of SETI. Theoretically they could discover a datastream where aliens transmit incredibly valuable scientific information. The cost to return ration in that case would be astronomical. I personally don't believe in that happening at all. However that belief is nothing but a wild guess which I can't base on any data. Since we never found ET, we have no means to estimate the chances of finding them with a specific method.
Getting ridiculously well paid is quite compatible with capitalism. Anyone can sell their skills to the highest bidder. If he is overpaid (sounds likely) his company ought to replace him with someone cheaper and/or better. Shareholders who make the correct decisions now (achieve better performance/cost ratios on high-level managers) have a competitive advantage in the future. Not Phipps' fault though when the shareholders of his company don't make the right decisions. There is nothing he needs to learn in that respect - his economic strategy works fine for his own interests.
That's because you don't include e.g. Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Germany, Romania, Bulgaria. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are in a similar category, since they became independent countries as well as democratic countries. Remember what happened to Ceausescu, btw?
There is a huge divide in China between very modern urban areas and very poor and old-fashioned rural areas. So chances are the 10% of the population consists mainly of the educated people, the students, the well-off, the people who are important for business. Some of them will support the current system (that's probably a big part, actually) but very few will think it's without flaws. If everybody was only going to sites the government likes, they wouldn't have to put up a firewall.
Maybe, but it seems accessing sites the government doesn't want them to, is pretty widespread in China. Public internet cafes are very closely monitored, but access at home is not. It's pretty difficult for the government to crack down on "violations", their resources are limited.
Yes, both governments will dislike you. In both cases you don't break a law in your own jurisdiction. Should we respect the other countries legal order, anyway? That's a moral decision. Just like it is a moral decision whether we want to help oppressed people get access to free information. You have to weigh those factors and decide what's more important.
You can get money for billboard ads by asking people who care about the issue to donate. Slashdot seems a pretty sensible avenue to pick for that. :-)
Don't do that, please. Address the points which were made and advance the discussion.
Don't Buy It. DRM might still exist, but not in the world on the non-buyer.
Which would be fine, if that's what the non-buyer wants. Likely he wants to buy the products but without DRM. If the strategy employed doesn't get you to the result you want, then it's the wrong strategy. Alternatively you can change your goals until the strategy fits.
This can be changed by educating buyers and by informing sellers. Then again that would be activism and can certainly not be achieved by keeping your mouth shut.
The whole gist of this "don't buy it" argument seems to be that the market will regulate it all, and automatically produce whatever you really want. Or - if it fails to do that - that you didn't really want it badly enough. This is a useful point of view for big corporations, but it doesn't really have much to do with the operation of free markets. It's quite common in free markets for participants to form alliances in order to influence the market in their interest. Sellers agree on standards, cooperate on manufacturing etc. Buyers can form alliances, too - e.g. by agreeing to make purchasing decisions based on certain criteria. It's a sensible thing to do.
Ok, you can take your business elsewhere which is fine, but others don't actually want to do that. What's wrong with talking with someone, saying: this is what I want, can you sell that to me? Also there is a lot of lobbying going on, and what the music industry lobbies for impacts you, no matter whether you personally buy from them or not. If a group of people is engaging in politics, it's reasonable to argue with them on a political level.
It has been pointed out that many of the techniques used are well known. That's fine - in engineering to create something new, you often need to learn about the old stuff first, a lot of improvement is incremental.
The internet is not just wires - just as important as the bandwidth is the content. People want to surf to Google because of the information it provides. The telco which sells you your bandwidth is profiting from Google and other content providers, because the reason you decide to purchase bandwidth from the telco is the existence of the content providers. The more desirable content there is for you to access, the more likely you are to pay for more bandwidth and the more money the telco gets paid for that.
SUVs are certainly not the root of all evil. However given that we have very strong indications that there is a climate problem, switching large sections of transportation from normal cars to SUVs is obviously counter productive. I don't think it's wrong to apply common sense there, too.
I'm not sure I completely understand your argument that this approach would solve all problems, though. I have the right to buy media and give them to another person as a gift, even if I have already watched it. Would this still be possible with that certificate? I have the right to buy dozens of mp3 players and resell them. What happens if I instead share the certificate with a large group of friends by handing them mp3 players which I bought (witht their money)? What happens if a relative dies who has a large music collection, worth $100k? (Yes that's very hypothetical, but still...)
Then again they didn't actually claim that it was the end of the world, hence the world not ending proves nothing about them being right or wrong.
Where do activist come in on this? If a total asshole tells me "driving at night with the light off is dangerous" - does that cause me not to switch on the light? Why should I care whether someone I don't like is right about something or not? In a "yes/no" situation even morons should be right 50% of the time, so we shouldn't be surprised to encounter morons on each side of a debate.