Teaching ignorance would be a tricky balancing act. Too far on one side and you're right back into the "here's the set science - nothing new to discover and no arguments exist" camp. Too far on the other side and you're in the "Evolution clearly isn't 'set science' because we don't know all of these things*" camp. The key is to teach kids "this is our best understanding given the evidence we have today but science is constantly learning more every day." This way you give kids a foundation in established science (avoiding the "scientists don't know nothing" group) while not having them think that everything is set in stone.
* We actually do know 90% of the things that the creationists bring up and have a pretty good idea about the remaining 10%.
2. relocation. Place the device in more suitable areas. What if every time your neighbour sat down on the couch they inadvertantly ordered a 12 pack of bleach? how about whenever the dog bolts through the doggie door your inlaws end up ordering a 24 pack of disposable diapers? The potential is endless and the power is great. you control who gets two crates of macaroni and cheese, how often, and even when.
My first thought, when I saw the dash button, was "How long until a parent is charged hundreds of dollars and shipped a ton of laundry detergent because his/her toddler got hold of the button and pressed it five dozen times?" As the parent of two boys, I can attest the irresistible draw that buttons have to little kids. Also, no matter how much you think you've put something out of reach, your kids' arms will somehow stretch to reach it.
Not only that, but the researcher (Wakefield) was trying to market his own replacement to the MMR. He didn't want to eliminate vaccines, he just wanted his own to be used so he would get the money and not someone else. The irony being that the anti-vaccine groups hail him as a saint when he was trying to market a vaccine of his own.
A college professor of mine once told the class that everything he taught us would be obsolete by the time we graduated. This didn't make the classes useless, though, because the core concepts he taught could be applied for the rest of our careers.
Nobody's saying that kids learning BASIC will go out and get jobs programming BASIC, but BASIC could lead to PASCAL which could lead to C which could lead to pretty much any other language and any of a hundred different jobs.
Next up: E-Ink Clothing! Display your latest reminders on your left sleeve, your stocks on your right sleeve, your tweets on the front of your shirt, etc.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to stare. I was trying to read your latest tweet."
I was hoping my statement would be outrageous enough that people would know I was joking. Sadly, I guess too many people actually hold that viewpoint so it can be hard to tell when one is joking and one is serious.
"If you create encryption, it makes it harder for the American government to do its job — while protecting civil liberties — to make sure that evildoers aren't in our midst."
I see the same appeal to laziness from the RIAA/MPAA when it comes to anti-piracy programs and law enforcement when it comes to actual anti-terrorism procedures.
RIAA/MPAA: "Playing by the rules is too HARD! First you need to gather evidence. Then you need to file a John Doe lawsuit. Then you need to convince a judge that your evidence is good enough to get the person's name. Then you need to file a lawsuit against that person. Then you need to fight that lawsuit. Why can't we just say 'X did this wrong so destroy his computer'?!!!"
Law Enforcement: "Playing by the rules is too HARD! First you need to gather evidence. Then you need to convince a judge that your evidence is good enough to get a warrant. Then you need to use that warrant to get more information. Then you need to arrest that person. Then you need to present that evidence in a court of law. Why can't we just say 'X did this wrong so we're tossing him in jail'?!!!"
No, civil liberties are like mint in box collectibles. Only when the federal government puts your civil liberties securely away in a place where you can't use them can it truly protect them!
There was a science fiction story I read once (I've since forgotten the title) where the main character was being pursued because he seemed to have found a way to reverse aging. He didn't know what the secret was, though, and had to figure it out while evading his pursuers. The secret wound up being a "teleporter" that just removed all the "built up junk" in his cells. Once said junk was teleported out, the body began to act as though it were younger.
"This is a public street. You're not expecting privacy on a public street."
This is true to a degree. If you are walking down a public street, you can't object that my taking a photograph of you is an invasion of your privacy. So long as said photograph is of something that you can normally see - e.g. upskirts wouldn't count as a "photograph in a public place." Along the same lines, while I might see you in public and be able to take a photo of you, I wouldn't normally be following you around everywhere you go. So I might happen to take a photo of you entering $POTENTIALLY_EMBARRASSING_LOCATION but I wouldn't normally see you entering said location every Wednesday at 2pm. That would be approaching stalking territory.
Now, I will grant that the government does get some powers that your average citizen doesn't have, but "tracking your every move on public streets" shouldn't be one of them.
And obviously chefs need to have their food creations copyrighted for 95 years otherwise they'll have no incentive to cook more food!
Next up: Does moving the food around (such as when you eat the food) create a derivative work? If so, eating the food is a violation of the chef's copyright and you should just stare at the food until the waiter brings it back to the kitchen.
I was in a position a few years back where I got very comfortable. I was able to do some amazing work, but it was with the same technologies. Even though that tech was aging, we held back replacing it and I kept from learning new stuff.
One day, I realized how far behind the curve I was and that - were I to find myself needing a new job - how unmarketable my skills were. So I put in some time and effort to catch up. I wouldn't say I'm 100% caught up now (partly because it can be tricky telling what is a fad and what is something I should learn when it comes to front end Web development). Still, I'm determined not to get comfortable again and to keep moving forward and adding to my skills.
This is ridiculous. If the content is still out there, then Google, and all other search engines should index it. I can see asking them to not cache it, but to use stro,g-arm tactics to FORCE them to actively filter it out of results is, to my mind, a violation of their freedom of speech. Which SHOULD trump the freedom to F up and then hide it from the public.
Exactly. Let's say that you actually had a right to be forgotten which superseded my freedom of speech to talk about events you'd rather everyone forget about. Only saying "Google can't link to this" isn't taking the content down. Shouldn't the law have some sort of cease and desist order built into it so that you could send me a letter saying "Take that blog post down now or else" and then be able to sue me if I didn't? Then, once the page was down, Google (and other search engines) would naturally remove the links from their databases.
Whenever a company says that some ridiculous policy is to "serve you better", I have a flashback to the Dinosaurs episode where Fran introduces a store to the concept of accepting returns. The store manager exclaims: "This might be just what we need to crush our competition, become a monopoly, and serve you better!"
"If the Government were required to provide full notice of its reasons for placing an individual on the No Fly List and to turn over all evidence (both incriminating and exculpatory) supporting the No Fly determination, the No Fly redress process would place highly sensitive national security information directly in the hands of terrorist organizations and other adversaries"
So are US citizens regarded as a terrorist organization or just "Other Adversaries" now? Silly me, I thought we were the bosses of the government. Been reading that Constitution too much. It'll warp your brain.
1) What if Big Company A dumps the pollution on their land, but it seeps into the groundwater and poisons wells off their land. They didn't put the pollution off their land. Do they need to contain the pollution in some manner? What if that containment fails? What if it is properly contained but an exceptional event occurs and it leaks? Exactly what constitutes proper containment? Before long, you have environmental laws passed and enforced again.
2) What if Big Company A pollutes and the victims are Poor People B who don't have the financial resources for a legal battle? Can big companies do whatever they want provided that they do it to people who can't afford to fight back?
I find myself nodding along with Trump when he's talking about how bad other politicians are, but just because a stopped clock is right twice a day doesn't mean you rely on it for all of your timekeeping needs.
During his announcement speech, he knocked the HealthCare.gov website by saying that he has websites built for $3. Now, you can claim that HealthCare.gov cost too much or that it was too buggy and you'd have fair points. You can claim that the government shouldn't be running a "HealthCare.gov" and you'd have a fair political point. (One that many would disagree with, but still a fair opinion.) However, claiming that HealthCare.gov could be built for $3 is totally false. As a web developer, I know how much I charge for website work and something of that scale would cost nowhere near $3. About the only way I can POSSIBLY see Trump building a HealthCare.gov sized website for $3 is if he exported the work to people in India/China/etc that don't care about being paid $0.01 for 8 hours of work.
So either Trump had no clue about web development costs and was just running off his mouth (admittedly very likely) or he knows how much he pays for web development and has some seriously flawed hiring practices.
That would definitely be an improvement over our current system of "Vote for Major Party Candidate X instead of Third Party Candidate Y because otherwise Major Party Candidate Z might win!" Even "vote for all the candidates you want" voting would be better than the current system. (Meaning, could cast votes for X and Y, but not Z.) However, we're more likely to get highly secure and accurate voting machines before we get preferential voting.
I think the perfect electronic voting machine would operate like so:
1) A well-designed touch screen interface would let you select your candidates based on your available ballot choices. 3) The device would print out a "voting receipt" for the person to verify. 4) Once verified:
4a) The device would store the results electronically (locally, not via a network connection which could be rendered insecure).
4b) The person would put the receipt into a slot that leads to a locked box. 5) When the results are ready to be counted, they can be electronically tallied, but there would also be a paper trail to make sure the electronic votes weren't tampered with.
Slashdot Mirror
Teaching ignorance would be a tricky balancing act. Too far on one side and you're right back into the "here's the set science - nothing new to discover and no arguments exist" camp. Too far on the other side and you're in the "Evolution clearly isn't 'set science' because we don't know all of these things*" camp. The key is to teach kids "this is our best understanding given the evidence we have today but science is constantly learning more every day." This way you give kids a foundation in established science (avoiding the "scientists don't know nothing" group) while not having them think that everything is set in stone.
* We actually do know 90% of the things that the creationists bring up and have a pretty good idea about the remaining 10%.
A dash button to order laundry detergent? No thank you.
However, a dash button that would actually do the laundry? That I'd pay good money for!
My first thought, when I saw the dash button, was "How long until a parent is charged hundreds of dollars and shipped a ton of laundry detergent because his/her toddler got hold of the button and pressed it five dozen times?" As the parent of two boys, I can attest the irresistible draw that buttons have to little kids. Also, no matter how much you think you've put something out of reach, your kids' arms will somehow stretch to reach it.
Not only that, but the researcher (Wakefield) was trying to market his own replacement to the MMR. He didn't want to eliminate vaccines, he just wanted his own to be used so he would get the money and not someone else. The irony being that the anti-vaccine groups hail him as a saint when he was trying to market a vaccine of his own.
They do. Guaranteed to survive any Bad Day! Bad Day! Bad Day!
I'm glad I wasn't the only one who thought of Uncle.
So, Swatch, [Uncle Voice]do you want a piece of Uncllllle?[/Uncle Voice]
A college professor of mine once told the class that everything he taught us would be obsolete by the time we graduated. This didn't make the classes useless, though, because the core concepts he taught could be applied for the rest of our careers.
Nobody's saying that kids learning BASIC will go out and get jobs programming BASIC, but BASIC could lead to PASCAL which could lead to C which could lead to pretty much any other language and any of a hundred different jobs.
Next up: E-Ink Clothing! Display your latest reminders on your left sleeve, your stocks on your right sleeve, your tweets on the front of your shirt, etc.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to stare. I was trying to read your latest tweet."
I was hoping my statement would be outrageous enough that people would know I was joking. Sadly, I guess too many people actually hold that viewpoint so it can be hard to tell when one is joking and one is serious.
I see the same appeal to laziness from the RIAA/MPAA when it comes to anti-piracy programs and law enforcement when it comes to actual anti-terrorism procedures.
RIAA/MPAA: "Playing by the rules is too HARD! First you need to gather evidence. Then you need to file a John Doe lawsuit. Then you need to convince a judge that your evidence is good enough to get the person's name. Then you need to file a lawsuit against that person. Then you need to fight that lawsuit. Why can't we just say 'X did this wrong so destroy his computer'?!!!"
Law Enforcement: "Playing by the rules is too HARD! First you need to gather evidence. Then you need to convince a judge that your evidence is good enough to get a warrant. Then you need to use that warrant to get more information. Then you need to arrest that person. Then you need to present that evidence in a court of law. Why can't we just say 'X did this wrong so we're tossing him in jail'?!!!"
No, civil liberties are like mint in box collectibles. Only when the federal government puts your civil liberties securely away in a place where you can't use them can it truly protect them!
There was a science fiction story I read once (I've since forgotten the title) where the main character was being pursued because he seemed to have found a way to reverse aging. He didn't know what the secret was, though, and had to figure it out while evading his pursuers. The secret wound up being a "teleporter" that just removed all the "built up junk" in his cells. Once said junk was teleported out, the body began to act as though it were younger.
This is true to a degree. If you are walking down a public street, you can't object that my taking a photograph of you is an invasion of your privacy. So long as said photograph is of something that you can normally see - e.g. upskirts wouldn't count as a "photograph in a public place." Along the same lines, while I might see you in public and be able to take a photo of you, I wouldn't normally be following you around everywhere you go. So I might happen to take a photo of you entering $POTENTIALLY_EMBARRASSING_LOCATION but I wouldn't normally see you entering said location every Wednesday at 2pm. That would be approaching stalking territory.
Now, I will grant that the government does get some powers that your average citizen doesn't have, but "tracking your every move on public streets" shouldn't be one of them.
Would you download pics using BiteTorrent?
And obviously chefs need to have their food creations copyrighted for 95 years otherwise they'll have no incentive to cook more food!
Next up: Does moving the food around (such as when you eat the food) create a derivative work? If so, eating the food is a violation of the chef's copyright and you should just stare at the food until the waiter brings it back to the kitchen.
I was in a position a few years back where I got very comfortable. I was able to do some amazing work, but it was with the same technologies. Even though that tech was aging, we held back replacing it and I kept from learning new stuff.
One day, I realized how far behind the curve I was and that - were I to find myself needing a new job - how unmarketable my skills were. So I put in some time and effort to catch up. I wouldn't say I'm 100% caught up now (partly because it can be tricky telling what is a fad and what is something I should learn when it comes to front end Web development). Still, I'm determined not to get comfortable again and to keep moving forward and adding to my skills.
Exactly. Let's say that you actually had a right to be forgotten which superseded my freedom of speech to talk about events you'd rather everyone forget about. Only saying "Google can't link to this" isn't taking the content down. Shouldn't the law have some sort of cease and desist order built into it so that you could send me a letter saying "Take that blog post down now or else" and then be able to sue me if I didn't? Then, once the page was down, Google (and other search engines) would naturally remove the links from their databases.
Whenever a company says that some ridiculous policy is to "serve you better", I have a flashback to the Dinosaurs episode where Fran introduces a store to the concept of accepting returns. The store manager exclaims: "This might be just what we need to crush our competition, become a monopoly, and serve you better!"
So are US citizens regarded as a terrorist organization or just "Other Adversaries" now? Silly me, I thought we were the bosses of the government. Been reading that Constitution too much. It'll warp your brain.
The problem with this view is:
1) What if Big Company A dumps the pollution on their land, but it seeps into the groundwater and poisons wells off their land. They didn't put the pollution off their land. Do they need to contain the pollution in some manner? What if that containment fails? What if it is properly contained but an exceptional event occurs and it leaks? Exactly what constitutes proper containment? Before long, you have environmental laws passed and enforced again.
2) What if Big Company A pollutes and the victims are Poor People B who don't have the financial resources for a legal battle? Can big companies do whatever they want provided that they do it to people who can't afford to fight back?
Thank goodness Bloom County is back!
https://www.facebook.com/berkeleybreathed/photos/a.114529165244512.10815.108793262484769/1022932631070823/?type=1&theater
(NOTE: In fairness, Berke is not above directing the humor at himself.)
Agreed.
I find myself nodding along with Trump when he's talking about how bad other politicians are, but just because a stopped clock is right twice a day doesn't mean you rely on it for all of your timekeeping needs.
During his announcement speech, he knocked the HealthCare.gov website by saying that he has websites built for $3. Now, you can claim that HealthCare.gov cost too much or that it was too buggy and you'd have fair points. You can claim that the government shouldn't be running a "HealthCare.gov" and you'd have a fair political point. (One that many would disagree with, but still a fair opinion.) However, claiming that HealthCare.gov could be built for $3 is totally false. As a web developer, I know how much I charge for website work and something of that scale would cost nowhere near $3. About the only way I can POSSIBLY see Trump building a HealthCare.gov sized website for $3 is if he exported the work to people in India/China/etc that don't care about being paid $0.01 for 8 hours of work.
So either Trump had no clue about web development costs and was just running off his mouth (admittedly very likely) or he knows how much he pays for web development and has some seriously flawed hiring practices.
That would definitely be an improvement over our current system of "Vote for Major Party Candidate X instead of Third Party Candidate Y because otherwise Major Party Candidate Z might win!" Even "vote for all the candidates you want" voting would be better than the current system. (Meaning, could cast votes for X and Y, but not Z.) However, we're more likely to get highly secure and accurate voting machines before we get preferential voting.
I think the perfect electronic voting machine would operate like so:
1) A well-designed touch screen interface would let you select your candidates based on your available ballot choices.
3) The device would print out a "voting receipt" for the person to verify.
4) Once verified:
4a) The device would store the results electronically (locally, not via a network connection which could be rendered insecure).
4b) The person would put the receipt into a slot that leads to a locked box.
5) When the results are ready to be counted, they can be electronically tallied, but there would also be a paper trail to make sure the electronic votes weren't tampered with.