With 10 characters, it can represent a specific area measuring one square metre. The proposed 10-digit universal address could be used for both homes and businesses
Well, amusingly, I didn't and don't disagree with you. I just think that every country has to deal with the conflict between its desire to be free and its desire to be "secure", not just the US.
In my opinion, the way the US is dealing with that conflict is not good (right now, the US is taking that security thing way too far). So, my question was to find out how other countries deal with that same conflict.
For example, does Israel use the same the level of surveillance of its own citizens that the US seems to be approaching? If so, are the Israeli people comfortable with that (as a necessary sacrifice for security, perhaps)? Or, are the Israeli people willing to accept a certain amount of "successful" terrorist acts in favor of maintaining their privacy and civil liberties?
YoYou in the US have been and always will be circling the same issues about security and rights of freedom etc
Hmmm... doesn't this paradox apply to everyone who wants both security and freedom, not just to the US? How have people in other countries resolved this issue?
I don't mean this as a flame -- if someone else has figured this out, I really want to know.:)
The reason there are tougher legal sanctions on people who assault/kill a law enforcement officer is because those persons are felt to be a greater threat to society.
I always wondered about this. Why is someone who assaults/kills a law enforcement officer a greater threat than someone who kills an innocent bystander? or an unarmed toddler? or a gun-toting good ol' boy? Just curious.
Shouldn't the attorney have just called this poor landscaper up and asked him to stop making calls first?
According to the article, he tried several times:
When I tried calling that number (240-453-XXXX), I got repeated busy signals; eventually, my call went through to what was obviously an autodialer trying to make outgoing calls.
And also,
Doing a forward lookup on the name turned up 4 more lines serving the same address; calls to those numbers resulted in busy signals all day long.
It is unfortunate that the telemarketer in this case was probably some guy who didn't know what he was doing, but the fact is that the telemarketer was breaking the law (whether that was his intent or not).
Some fisheries may be depleted but in most cases they seem to recover if the harvest is reduced or stopped for a period of time.
Well then, perhaps we're arguing the same point, which is unless we are willing to modify our behavior, we are going to run out of natural resources like mountaintops, fossil fuels, tropical forests, fisheries, and even coal. (Even if we have "plenty" of it now, eventually we will run out of it, unless we find change our behaviors or find alternatives).
And the point of the original article is that certain societies did not make these changes. Yes, the good news is that we are not at the point of no return yet. But the point of the article is also to suggest that, perhaps, we should be seeking alternatives now rather than waiting until it's a crisis. By then, it may be too late.
And my suggestion was that, perhaps, in order to find these alternatives, we may have to learn to cooperate (to agree, for example, not to chop down the last tree) rather than continuing in our self-centered ways. Just because we have become self-centered by evolution (which was suggested by the original poster) doesn't mean that this is the best way to be now.
The NSS talks in length about "freedom", but it's freedom as defined in the doctrine, which includes "free enterprise", "open trade" and the "right to own property".
The undertone of this, in my opinion, is that we will not accept any culture who CHOOSES something different. Suppose, for example, every single person in a country decided to be communist, or decided not to support the WTO.
This doctrine suggests that they would be our enemy because they are not promoting our brand of "freedom." And this, I think, is why other countries think of us as "arrogant", because this doctrine suggests that we alone are capable of defining "freedom" and what is right for the rest of the world.
Things like fossil fuels, fisheries, mountaintops, tropical forests, etc. We may not be in a crisis situation yet, but we're definitely using up more natural resources than we replace (at least, for some resources).
Decreasing supply leads to higher prices
Well, that's not entirely true. Even if one accepts the simplified economic model of supply and demand, demand plays just as much a role in the price of things as supply (perhaps more).
Also, consider the (hypothetical) scenario where solar energy becomes cheap, efficient and effective. Suppose it's even cheaper than other sources, like fossil fuels. In this case, manufacturers of other energy sources will need to reduce their prices to compete. But that doesn't mean that there are more fossil fuels. It means that there are more energy sources.
So, ultimately, I'd say that the relationship between supply (of any one given thing) and price is more complicated than that.
yet the cost of most basic materials is going DOWN not up
Hmmm... I'm not sure whether that's true or not. Gas prices certainly are going up.
But, take fossil fuels, for example. Oil drilling in the Alaskan wilderness may create a larger supply of fossil fuel on the market. This may lead to lower prices in the short term. But the total amount of fossil fuel on the planet is definitely decreasing (which is why they want to drill in Alaska in the first place).
There may be enough resources to sustain our current population and rate of consumption, but if we continue to use up our resources and continue to grow in population, at some point that no longer will be true.
We're self-centered, because nature has taught us that no one else is going to look out for #1 quite like ourselves.
Perhaps. But, ultimately, evolution will reveal whether or not that self-centeredness is truly "fit." If, in a thousand years, we drive ourselves to extinction because our self-centeredness caused us to undermine our environment beyond repair, then alien anthropologists might look at us and say "humans weren't fit," the same way we look at the people on Easter Island.
Perhaps, because of our increasing population and decreasing resources, cooperation is now more "fit" than competition.
Ugh. As I understand it, this is similar to the problem with mountaintop removal strip mining. In this case, mining companies remove entire mountaintops to mine the coal deposits under them. Not surprisingly, many environmental (and other) groups are trying to get this practice to stop.
One of the best arguments I've heard against this type of mining is that, eventually, the mining companies are going to have to find alternatives. Eventually, they will run out of mountains they can mine. So, they might as well start looking for those alternatives now and possibly save some mountains in the process. Not surprisingly, this doesn't go over well with the mining companies.
In cases like this (and with the fisheries), the main problem is the short-term self-interest, I think. The delusion is just a way to justify that self-interest.
HTML is art != HTML is used for Art
on
HTML: Is it Art?
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· Score: 1
Well there's a difference in saying "HTML is art" and "HTML is a medium for art". Similarly, paint is not art, but it can be used to create art.
Maybe someday someone might use HTML to come up with something interesting, on the lines of
once <u><p>on <a href="javascript:void(0)"> t<i>me, there w</a>s <a href="javascript:void(0)"> <b>e</a></u>t</i>f<ul& g t; </p>r<i>ncess who <li>ved </i>n <a href="javascript:void(0)"> </b></i>g c</a>stle
or maybe a haiku using just HTML or XML tags. Is that art? I dunno. Je ne suis pas une artiste.:)
I agree with your sentiment but, just to be a grammar nazi, this is what terrorism is intended to do: to instill fear into the hearts and minds of one's enemies. So, I wouldn't say that Ashcroft and MacDonald are committing terrorism as much as they are falling for it hook, line and sinker.
It's funny[1] that the powers-that-be find the right to privacy to be more threatening to national security than the right to bear arms.
In general, I agree with you. One of my big pet peeves is the modern-day misuse of the word "literally". Often people say "literally" when they mean "figuratively" (e.g., "it literally blew my mind"). In this case, I don't think the accepted definition of "literally" should change to conform to people's misuse of it.
But, I also think that generalizing "decimate" is okay since it carries the same (or similar) connotation.
"i used to be with it, then they changed what it was! now what i'm with isn't it, and what's it is strange and scary to me." -- grandpa simpson
For those who are interested, the book Muddling Through : Pursuing Science and Truths in the Twenty-First Century by Herbert J. Bernstein and Mike Fortun has a really good, objective description of MCS (which also goes by other names). They don't try to prove or disprove it, they're just using it as an example of how hard it is to divorce science from other things (politics, social enviroment, etc.), which is the purpose of their book. But, in doing so, they give a lot of good case studies of MCS, information about related legal battles, etc.
[OT: it's a pretty good book, as well.]
Bad communication is the problem, not e-mail
on
The Tyranny of Email
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I agree with the article that one needs an uninterrupted block of time to do the best programming. In my experience, though, it's not e-mail or !e-mail that causes the problems. It's bad communication.
IMHO, e-mail is a great way to communicate information
when no immediate response (if any) is required
when you need to give multiple people the same information
to keep a record/reminder of the information (such as when warning about an impending event, like scheduled downtime, etc.)
Unfortunately, in my experience, people rarely consider which is the best way to communicate. As a result, the wrong medium often is used.
Case in point: people where I work have not developed good communication patterns. A lot of information is passed face-to-face, one person at a time. As a result,
I frequently am interrupted while trying to program to be told something that is not urgent and requires no response or action on my part
different people get told different things, so rarely do people have the same information, and no one knows what the other people know
often, some people never get the information at all
a lot more time is wasted dealing with the consequences when a 1-minute e-mail could have saved a lot of bother
when I do send e-mail to my colleagues, it often is filtered into a folder and ignored/forgotten; often this results in me having to have a F2F conversation with someone to repeat the information anyway
Similarly, in other places I've worked, meetings were wasted passing on information that could have been better served with e-mail, while critical information that should have been discussed in meetings wasn't.
Anyway, I think it just boils down to that old adage: the right tool for the job.
Anyway, I like the idea of a UDP. I don't believe it is censorship since an ISP doesn't *have* to honor a UDP cancel. So, for example, a UDP'd user's posts may still appear on deja-news or google groups, for example, if those archives chose to retain them. In many ways, it's no different than blocking calls on your phone. Plus a UDP'd user often can switch to a non UDP'd ISP (not always true, I realize).
Also, while a person may have the right to free speech, that doesn't mean that everyone is obligated to listen to him/her. That's why it's not okay to go around screaming at the top of your lungs in the middle of the night in most neighborhoods -- frat row is a different case, of course:)
Anyway, I think it'd be worth trying. If it seemed like it wasn't working, it could always be repealed.
Nah, it just means that the telcos are giving 110% like any hard-working pro-athelete. Fighting through adversity, taking it one day at a time and all that.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
With 10 characters, it can represent a specific area measuring one square metre.
The proposed 10-digit universal address could be used for both homes and businesses
And I thought my apartment was small!
Also, difference of opinion is not a flamebait.
:)
Well, amusingly, I didn't and don't disagree with you. I just think that every country has to deal with the conflict between its desire to be free and its desire to be "secure", not just the US.
In my opinion, the way the US is dealing with that conflict is not good (right now, the US is taking that security thing way too far). So, my question was to find out how other countries deal with that same conflict.
For example, does Israel use the same the level of surveillance of its own citizens that the US seems to be approaching? If so, are the Israeli people comfortable with that (as a necessary sacrifice for security, perhaps)? Or, are the Israeli people willing to accept a certain amount of "successful" terrorist acts in favor of maintaining their privacy and civil liberties?
How about other countries?
I'm just curious.
YoYou in the US have been and always will be circling the same issues about security and rights of freedom etc
:)
Hmmm... doesn't this paradox apply to everyone who wants both security and freedom, not just to the US? How have people in other countries resolved this issue?
I don't mean this as a flame -- if someone else has figured this out, I really want to know.
The reason there are tougher legal sanctions on people who assault/kill a law enforcement officer is because those persons are felt to be a greater threat to society.
I always wondered about this. Why is someone who assaults/kills a law enforcement officer a greater threat than someone who kills an innocent bystander? or an unarmed toddler? or a gun-toting good ol' boy? Just curious.
According to the article, he tried several times:
And also,
It is unfortunate that the telemarketer in this case was probably some guy who didn't know what he was doing, but the fact is that the telemarketer was breaking the law (whether that was his intent or not).
Wow. Best post ever. :)
Well said.
Some fisheries may be depleted but in most cases they seem to recover if the harvest is reduced or stopped for a period of time.
Well then, perhaps we're arguing the same point, which is unless we are willing to modify our behavior, we are going to run out of natural resources like mountaintops, fossil fuels, tropical forests, fisheries, and even coal. (Even if we have "plenty" of it now, eventually we will run out of it, unless we find change our behaviors or find alternatives).
And the point of the original article is that certain societies did not make these changes. Yes, the good news is that we are not at the point of no return yet. But the point of the article is also to suggest that, perhaps, we should be seeking alternatives now rather than waiting until it's a crisis. By then, it may be too late.
And my suggestion was that, perhaps, in order to find these alternatives, we may have to learn to cooperate (to agree, for example, not to chop down the last tree) rather than continuing in our self-centered ways. Just because we have become self-centered by evolution (which was suggested by the original poster) doesn't mean that this is the best way to be now.
Does anyone see the double-standard here?
:(
Yes, and it makes me sad. This same double-standard permeates the National Security Strategy of the United States of America, the doctrine adopted by GW Bush.
The NSS talks in length about "freedom", but it's freedom as defined in the doctrine, which includes "free enterprise", "open trade" and the "right to own property".
The undertone of this, in my opinion, is that we will not accept any culture who CHOOSES something different. Suppose, for example, every single person in a country decided to be communist, or decided not to support the WTO.
This doctrine suggests that they would be our enemy because they are not promoting our brand of "freedom." And this, I think, is why other countries think of us as "arrogant", because this doctrine suggests that we alone are capable of defining "freedom" and what is right for the rest of the world.
Arg. This stuff makes my blood boil.
What decreasing resources?
:-)
Things like fossil fuels, fisheries, mountaintops, tropical forests, etc. We may not be in a crisis situation yet, but we're definitely using up more natural resources than we replace (at least, for some resources).
Decreasing supply leads to higher prices
Well, that's not entirely true. Even if one accepts the simplified economic model of supply and demand, demand plays just as much a role in the price of things as supply (perhaps more).
Also, consider the (hypothetical) scenario where solar energy becomes cheap, efficient and effective. Suppose it's even cheaper than other sources, like fossil fuels. In this case, manufacturers of other energy sources will need to reduce their prices to compete. But that doesn't mean that there are more fossil fuels. It means that there are more energy sources.
So, ultimately, I'd say that the relationship between supply (of any one given thing) and price is more complicated than that.
yet the cost of most basic materials is going DOWN not up
Hmmm... I'm not sure whether that's true or not. Gas prices certainly are going up.
But, take fossil fuels, for example. Oil drilling in the Alaskan wilderness may create a larger supply of fossil fuel on the market. This may lead to lower prices in the short term. But the total amount of fossil fuel on the planet is definitely decreasing (which is why they want to drill in Alaska in the first place).
There may be enough resources to sustain our current population and rate of consumption, but if we continue to use up our resources and continue to grow in population, at some point that no longer will be true.
So, I stand by my statement.
We're self-centered, because nature has taught us that no one else is going to look out for #1 quite like ourselves.
Perhaps. But, ultimately, evolution will reveal whether or not that self-centeredness is truly "fit." If, in a thousand years, we drive ourselves to extinction because our self-centeredness caused us to undermine our environment beyond repair, then alien anthropologists might look at us and say "humans weren't fit," the same way we look at the people on Easter Island.
Perhaps, because of our increasing population and decreasing resources, cooperation is now more "fit" than competition.
Just food for thought...
Ugh. As I understand it, this is similar to the problem with mountaintop removal strip mining. In this case, mining companies remove entire mountaintops to mine the coal deposits under them. Not surprisingly, many environmental (and other) groups are trying to get this practice to stop.
One of the best arguments I've heard against this type of mining is that, eventually, the mining companies are going to have to find alternatives. Eventually, they will run out of mountains they can mine. So, they might as well start looking for those alternatives now and possibly save some mountains in the process. Not surprisingly, this doesn't go over well with the mining companies.
In cases like this (and with the fisheries), the main problem is the short-term self-interest, I think. The delusion is just a way to justify that self-interest.
Maybe someday someone might use HTML to come up with something interesting, on the lines ofor maybe a haiku using just HTML or XML tags.
Is that art? I dunno. Je ne suis pas une artiste.
Ha. I always thought it would look more like:
I agree with your sentiment but, just to be a grammar nazi, this is what terrorism is intended to do: to instill fear into the hearts and minds of one's enemies. So, I wouldn't say that Ashcroft and MacDonald are committing terrorism as much as they are falling for it hook, line and sinker.
It's funny[1] that the powers-that-be find the right to privacy to be more threatening to national security than the right to bear arms.
[1] funny strange, not funny ha ha
In general, I agree with you. One of my big pet peeves is the modern-day misuse of the word "literally". Often people say "literally" when they mean "figuratively" (e.g., "it literally blew my mind"). In this case, I don't think the accepted definition of "literally" should change to conform to people's misuse of it.
But, I also think that generalizing "decimate" is okay since it carries the same (or similar) connotation.
"i used to be with it, then they changed what it was! now what i'm with isn't it, and what's it is strange and scary to me." -- grandpa simpson
This sounds like one of those brainteasers or standardized test questions: Match the president to the computer company!
:-)
Reagan +--> Apple
Bush | IBM
Clinton | Microsoft
Gore <--+ Redhat
Dubya Sun
There's a joke in here, somewhere.
(and yes, I know, Gore wasn't actually a president).
I'm sure their shelf-life is around 200 years. :-)
For those who are interested, the book Muddling Through : Pursuing Science and Truths in the Twenty-First Century by Herbert J. Bernstein and Mike Fortun has a really good, objective description of MCS (which also goes by other names). They don't try to prove or disprove it, they're just using it as an example of how hard it is to divorce science from other things (politics, social enviroment, etc.), which is the purpose of their book. But, in doing so, they give a lot of good case studies of MCS, information about related legal battles, etc.
[OT: it's a pretty good book, as well.]
IMHO, e-mail is a great way to communicate information
- when no immediate response (if any) is required
- when you need to give multiple people the same information
- to keep a record/reminder of the information (such as when warning about an impending event, like scheduled downtime, etc.)
Unfortunately, in my experience, people rarely consider which is the best way to communicate. As a result, the wrong medium often is used.Case in point: people where I work have not developed good communication patterns. A lot of information is passed face-to-face, one person at a time. As a result,
- I frequently am interrupted while trying to program to be told something that is not urgent and requires no response or action on my part
- different people get told different things, so rarely do people have the same information, and no one knows what the other people know
- often, some people never get the information at all
- a lot more time is wasted dealing with the consequences when a 1-minute e-mail could have saved a lot of bother
- when I do send e-mail to my colleagues, it often is filtered into a folder and ignored/forgotten; often this results in me having to have a F2F conversation with someone to repeat the information anyway
Similarly, in other places I've worked, meetings were wasted passing on information that could have been better served with e-mail, while critical information that should have been discussed in meetings wasn't.Anyway, I think it just boils down to that old adage: the right tool for the job.
I don't know about "most", but at the first dot.com where I worked, we paid our interns as well.
In fact, it was a running joke that our interns made more $/hour than the salaried staff did (because of the number of hours we worked).
At some point, I think we even gave them some stock options, though not many.
Agreed. As a comic book reader (and one who likes obscure, indy press), I immediately wondered if the site would include that genre as well.
;)
On the other hand, for a hobby project, that might be too ambitious.
On the other other hand, I'd be willing to add entries for the books I have myself.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
:)
Anyway, I like the idea of a UDP. I don't believe it is censorship since an ISP doesn't *have* to honor a UDP cancel. So, for example, a UDP'd user's posts may still appear on deja-news or google groups, for example, if those archives chose to retain them. In many ways, it's no different than blocking calls on your phone. Plus a UDP'd user often can switch to a non UDP'd ISP (not always true, I realize).
Also, while a person may have the right to free speech, that doesn't mean that everyone is obligated to listen to him/her. That's why it's not okay to go around screaming at the top of your lungs in the middle of the night in most neighborhoods -- frat row is a different case, of course
Anyway, I think it'd be worth trying. If it seemed like it wasn't working, it could always be repealed.
then I'd hate to see the vibrator it goes into! ;)
Nah, it just means that the telcos are giving 110% like any hard-working pro-athelete. Fighting through adversity, taking it one day at a time and all that. :-)
and in the graphic novel arena, try
There are good American (et al) comics out there; you just gotta look for them.