The only solution is to have a national teacher's minimum wage, subsidized by the Fed. Gov't if necessary (some red states would rather pardon child murderers than raise teacher salaries).
Anyone who disagrees needs to think hard about what teachers are asked to do in today's america. They are expected to do so much but paid like unionized factory workers.
Um, I'm of the opposite opinion. I live and grew up in Arkansas. I think teachers here actually make too much money compared with half the families that send their kids to school. Why should a teacher get a magic 50K when 30 families don't even average 30K?
I'm mixed on alot of things... you could say that teachers need to be paid based on the average income of their student's families. Those that teach to low income student families would hate that.
I'm at odds with the idea of fairness in life or school or that money for teachers/education fixes anything. For my entire educational life from K-college and even as a parent the entire educational complex has constantly been begging for more and more money. They are worse than the military/defense complex.
Given the fact that one makes a successful career in America by gaming the sociopolitical system at work, I see nothing wrong with teaching kids how to game the system. Successfully manipulating through your environment to your own advantage is one of the most important skills a kid can learn to do good in life.
To do well in life. To do good in life, you need the opposite set of skills.
Um, you are slightly wrong. To make the most income and social status you generally do the first. Now you go to church to feel guilty about actually being ahead so you give up large chucks of your family's income to others. There are political parties that are basically like that as well.
So if you succeed in making those that have earned their own wealth feel guilty about it, then you've got your own niche. I'm going to bite my tongue on commenting about that niche though.
In my high school, there was a kid in the class that graduated the year before my class came in as freshman who only showed up to classes for quizes and tests all four years. He graduated with a B or B- average.
After he graduated and it was brought to the attention of parents and school administrators, a new rule was put in place that any student absent from a class more than a certain number of days during the year (I think it was 20 or so) for any reason could (at the discretion of the teacher) be failed.
Um, what if the kid had an A or A+ and was bored stiff for everything except taking tests & quizes? I find it funny that people think that they magically make it fair by mandating everyone be "in class" at all times. Those folks obviously haven't been to college in awhile. Most classes only had 4 tests. If you were really good, you could show up for just those tests and skip the rest of the class. I knew plenty of people that passed with an A in college level classes by just taking the tests.
I'd never known about this before. I checked it out just to see what subject areas were being deleted. I was really shocked that several warhammer entries were deleted. Damn, that's like deleting the entry on WOW or Starcraft. I'm more of the opinion that sort of crap needs to stay there, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
I'm really into webcomics. Wikipedia has already waged one war on webcomics. If you aren't sluggy or megatokyo then you aren't likely to stay there for long. If you want decent webcomic info you have to go else where.
It sounds like a good idea... Why do I feel that this is a user problem though that won't be fixed by a techy fix?
When I read the headline, I thought that they were going to make sure everyone that uses the.gov domain was an actual government agency and not scam artists... That's some thing I'd hope that they are doing now, but I wouldn't hold my breath on it.
The thing is this won't stop a stupid person from following irs-im-a-stupid-user-.com,.tv,.org, or.net.
My local law enforcement agency has picked up some teens that were playing fight club and up loading the videos to youtube. They didn't search youtube, one of the teens told them it was happening and gave a link.
There about 5 1-2 minute videos of high school kids beating the crap out of each other with a cheering section. I was very mixed on it myself. Actually where the big problem was that they were doing this in folks yards that were involved or that the losers were telling momma that they were jumped and beat up so momma called the cops to stop the not so innocent one from getting beat up.
Now, I would think that the UK would be encouraging the posting of all those minor crimes so that they'll have a easy spot to download all of it from and use as evidence when locking the little ones away. But that's a really foreign concept to some people.
The obvious next step is to make your profile a promotional tool. The "high achiever profile" may be the next big thing. You addressing the Junior Chamber of Commerce. You working on a political campaign. You being interviewed on TV.
Soon, this will be a routine part of getting into college, and there will be services to do this for you.
I find this entire thread funny. Why? I actually tend to side with the folks doing the searching trying to weed people out. I discriminate with those I hang out with. Who is it that I hang out with? My immediate family and on holidays/birthdays extended family. I'm absolutely boring.
If I was a school, employer, church, or apartment complex owner, why shouldn't I be allowed to use any of my own personal preferences to filter those I let in? Each of those could be described as having their own private culture and face that they present to the world. Why shouldn't they be allowed to select people that at least appear to match their standards?
Oh, yeah, because it ain't fair or that entire equal opportunity stuff. If it takes less than 5 minutes for some one to search you on through google and hit your non flattering social networking site (by their standards), then its best that you both don't hook up. That works if you are talking about dating, employers, churches, or living arrangements.
Sounds like a good idea but personally I am against it. It is a disease of the modern society that everything you do has to be fun. If you make everything "fun", people will be more likely to refuse doing something because it lacks fun. People need do things because they need to do things.... Note, I didn't post this because it is fun, I posted it because I felt like I needed to respond to you.
I'm of mixed nature. I don't mind them putting the http://www.military.com/ASVAB into a game. Honestly, I'd say a large percentage of school already greatly rewards those that can put up with needless boredom. Having a little fun in life isn't a sin. Actually, I find it funny those that think almost any form of "fun" or others having fun should be declared a moral sin or declared illegal.
Life's a bitch as it is. If I can't find some/any fun in it now and then, what would be the point? O.k. we are living in a golden age utopia there isn't anything wrong with that per se. You know what the next really big thing is? WOW or any of its like tricking it's users into obtaining at least a high school education.
Almost nobody actively TRIES to annoy anybody (becase it isn't, as you say, socially acceptable). The world would be in a constant state of civil war because everybody would be beating the crap out of people that didn't fit into their view of the world.
Nah, it's just too much effort to actively annoy others.;) Let's face it. Everyone annoys vast political parties just by existing and living on this earth. The world is in a constant civil war with everyone trying to beat the crap out people that don't agree with each other or fit into their world view.
I'm a realist. I'd have to beat the crap out of every other human on the planet... that isn't practical I might as well not put up the effort. Laziness saves the day yet again.
I hope that they didn't try this test with weapon owners... There is a strong part of me that thinks that everyone needs to be trained in either martial arts or using some type of small arms weapon... (be it a knife, sword, gun, mace, tazer, or nerf bat.) just in case anyone decides to pick on you or just slightly annoys you, that it'd be socially acceptable to instantly beat them within an inch of their lives... The lesson to be learned is don't startle/annoy people that have weapons unless you want to win a darwin award.
I learned from my brother that if you want to stop annoying behavior a quick punch in the face is the quickest safest course of action. Of course, the best long term solution to stop being bothered by my brothers annoying behavior was to go off to college and never ever move back in with the parents where said brothers lived.
What political party was that other than the don't annoy me or pick on me party? (note: I'd love to take a nerf bat or lighting bolts to any group that wants me to pay higher taxes for just about any reason. That I've got a good imagination and can envision all those groups getting violently removed from my life has kept me somewhat sane and out of jail. )
More like... "Sorry, folks, its in fucking Yucca Mountain underneath layers of concrete, where no seismic activity occurs, deep underground , nowhere near civilization. Whereas, people push against storing underground are currently forcing them to store nuclear waste on site at the power plants which are near civilization.
I vote that we move/store all those people that hate nuclear waste and underground storage of anything at the existing Yucca Moutain place for the next 5-10 years... sooner or latter they will all die. Then we can safely and quietly store our nuclear waste there.
The only potential problem that I foresee is anti-nuclear storage protesting zombies.
While in school I wrote a few essays in my field (Elizabethan literature) which I always wanted to do something with. Because I didn't pursue a career in academics, I could never trouble myself to try to get them published in academic journals.
I recently published them on Knol which, unlike Wikipedia, accepts original research. The process was quite easy -- little more than cut-and-paste with footnotes being properly hyperlinked.
I think overtime, something like Knol will win out over wikipedia. Why? School assigned papers & reports from K-post grad that folks will want to make use off/preserve just incase they ever need them again for anything. Previously, this stuff would never be "published in any form. Only us pack rats would have "everything" from K-12 in a couple of boxes that we never really go through. Well, if knol or something like it becomes the places student packrats decide to keep their digtal assignments, well they could in theory build off each other and do their own original research that previously only 1 teacher and 1 class may have seen it now any teacher or class could see it. O.k. like most things internet 98% of it will be utter crap, but 2% will become goggle gold.;)
The idea that one can seize a domain that has been owned longer than a given trademark has existed seems downright dangerous, however.
Here is a question. If I actually had a site and it was use with a name, wouldn't I own the trademark on that? If some other entity years later says that they own it wouldn't they be wrong and I could sue them or something for trying to use my potentially worldwide known trademark. Where they are just getting started in a small area trying to use a given trademark.
I'd think that they would charge $30 dollars more for the one without RFID in it. That you have an excuse to raise the standard fee this thing costs to generate more income...
Supposing someone has a ship which is NOT registered anywhere, then it is essentially 'fair game'. If say the US didn't like what you're doing they can just sail on up and do whatever they want with you. They could certainly board and seize any such vessel, after all who's going to object? In theory there might be some construction of maritime law that provides some protections, but without a government capable of objecting you're basically SOL.
Well, that's why individuals doing it wouldn't work. On the other hand, if you had a fleet of ships, they could be their own "nation" and if you messed with one, they all go out after you. O.k. a fleet of data center barges couldn't make that work no military power to back it up. Now, if you had a few of those freedom ships as your civilian cities, a few data center barges, a few hundred transports, and last but not least your own navy and marine force, then you could consider being your own floating nation.
Ideally, you'd also want farm ships so you wouldn't have to depend on the land powers for food and your own massive ship building ships.;)
If psychics are so real, how come none have come forward to debunk James Randi (the way that he has debunked dozens of them)? It would seem a fairly simple task. He has even agreed to meet psychics on "neutral ground," but still no takers.
Two reasons... They are too busy making more real money than Jame Randi could bribe them with and any of this tests my make their current client base doubt them. So why even risk it?
The other is that sure they can read minds and have determined most of the organizations behind the testers really just want to profit off their abilities and bring them unwanted wide spread fame or a quiet life of unwanted service. They've also got an innate sense that fame is generally bad so avoid anything that could bring them unwanted attention.;)
The conclusion is that those with PSI powers are too smart to let people know about their abilities and give up their advantages.
Well, they weren't all masterpieces back then, now were they? I don't know about anyone else, but I can certainly remember some stinkers from that era. Pitting the average game of today against stuff that has obviously stood the test of time seems a bit disingenuous.
Um, compare it to any other art form. You know the artwork isn't worth anything until the artist has been dead for 50 years or so. Only what some rich folk like get preserved that long. Every run of the mill game of today still has to compete against classics like tetris, solitaire, free cell, and mine sweeper every day. You could just say that it's applying evolution to video games/artwork and those that stay in the public memory are generally "greats" while everything else could be good to crap.;)
Name one piece of artwork other than the Mona Lisa or Scream that the average person could name of the top of their head. All modern artists are still competing against those as well. Why didn't anyone make a painting of Marilyn Monroe or let's even use Britney Spears and it compete successfully against the Mona Lisa?
So now if someone breaks your office's physical security, they have access to your backups as well.
O.k. I'd rather be a business that is somewhat paranoid about online storage so keeps everything of concern on 3-4 TB external HDs. There are fire proof safes for things that mother nature throws at you, just stick one of those hard drives in there. O.k. ideally this company would encrypt everything that they put on anyone's computer, what are the odds that they don't and that some one figures out how to crack what they do? Then all the sudden the files aren't encrypted/hidden anymore. For a company this would almost be a very stupid move unless you really trust the company that is doing it for you. The company is responsible for all the third parties that it hires to manage its data, if any of them have a security breach, how would it damage the company's public image?
Sure in ideal land it could work, but in the real world of massive lists of supposed to be secure data being breached, I just wouldn't trust this just due to human error somewhere along the way. O.k. you could always have your backup external hard drive stolen by an evil system admin or that min. wage person that you hired to process the hard drive, but you've got physical ID of who those people are and can tell the police if they turn evil. If unknown evil hackers violate the online storage business, could they easily point to who did it? I doubt it.
After all, that's exactly why movies use shady-looking guys as villains, because we all know what that guy looks like. If we met this person in real life, we would - at least subconsciously - perceive him as a less-than-good person because of what he or she looks like.
It also make's me think of this manga... (the running joke in that one is that main character look's more evil than Snape, but is one the the kindest/purest/most selfless characters that you'd likely encounter in any manga, and everyone's first and continued impression of this poor guy is as a punk druggie kid although he is actually an honor student that's never done anything wrong except with the way he looks.) http://www.onemanga.com/Angel_Densetsu/
Just as one is programed to help their family first, before helping people outside their family, everyone is programmed to help their own race first, before helping others.
You know that's an interesting thought that I agree with. I believe everyone's rank is to help their immediate family first. It doesn't matter if you hate your brother or sister or parents or kids if they need something like money or food that you have to give then you'll likely to give it to them. Now then there is the aunt/uncle/cousin family and then friends. That's where it gets trickier. Most folks would still be helping that level of family before helping their friends. You get to pick your friends. You'll likely only seriously help out "best" friends. Other levels of friendship, you'd denote a given level of labor/resources to, but you'd have your little line drawn.
Here is the best example who would you help move? And then the other even better test is which groups would you let move in and live free with you for say 1-6 months?
You also can add religion or at least church groups in there. I bet most religions help believers before non-believers and then are programmed to try to spread the faith to non-believers that need aid/resources. There is nothing wrong with that.
Spread it out to secular government at the city, state, national level, and it works the same way with your tax dollars. Honestly, I'm ticked that we give as much foreign charity as we do from government tax dollars. If I chose to give, that's one thing. Don't tax me and give my money/resources to poor citizens of other countries.
There are plenty of examples of flawed superstitious beliefs leading to an equally large disadvantage or equally great damage. For examples see what happens to people who join cults. For a really good extreme example much more elloquently stated than I possibly could take a look at Carl Sagan's "The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark" and look for a persuasive argument why Nancy and Ronald Reagan consulting fortune tellers and horoscopes might not be a good thing when Ron's got his finger on the nuclear button. Wiping out most species on the planet has to qualify as an evolutionary step backwards.
Um, we are still here so we should make fortune tellers and horoscopes a cabinet post!
I generally think that most cults even CoS are "good" for the survival of their members against non-members. The exceptions to that are "cults" that trigger a "we need to wipe them out" response in most of the surrounding non-member population.
Consider the difference here (practically, it's the same - philosophically, it's not): - Evolution happens so that life can continue to exist. - Life continues to exist because of evolution (genetic mutations + natural selection).
Shouldn't be this? Evolution as we know it only exists due to life processes.
Life doesn't need evolution, but evolution needs "sentient life" to discover/invent/say that it is there. You could just as easily change evolution to god and it works just as well.
Science doesn't help, that's for sure, but you can't shake a true believer with science. The only thing likely to turn them is the belief that God has let them down somehow.
Hey, don't forget what's his name Job? God didn't let you down... He is just "testing" you for awhile before "moderately" rewarding you at the end.
Equate that with the bitch that is "mother nature." I hate that neo-environmental religion that actually thinks that mother nature is a force of good and all. The bitch has always tried to kill us every couple of years all the way back before recorded history to the present. She utterly hates us; we've survived despite "mother nature" not because of her.;) But they can still use that Job excuse and say that she's just been "testing" civilizations until they meet her magic unwritten changing female standards.;)
I have a great aunt who is currently living alone, but can only manage to do so because she has regular support from family members, and won't be able to manage for much longer. She isn't eating as much as she probably needs because of a lack of appetite. It's becoming more and more difficult for her to get up and walk to the refrigerator to get more food or a relatively calorie rich Slimfast shake.
A robot capable of bringing her food and diet shakes from the refrigerator would make it much easier for her to ingest the calories she needs. That would help her maintain her health and her independence for substantially longer than she would be able to otherwise. So, yes. The important thing isn't the beer, but the fact that the robot can retrieve items from the refrigerator. This task is very critical for a number of people suffering from disabilities, age-related or not.
There is a part of me that wonders what the robots will think of keeping blobs of human fat as pets in the near future. There is no way that we'd rebel since that would involve getting off the couch, and we'd shortly depend on those robots to bring us all our food/drinks/entertainment products. Why would we rebel?
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The only solution is to have a national teacher's minimum wage, subsidized by the Fed. Gov't if necessary (some red states would rather pardon child murderers than raise teacher salaries).
Anyone who disagrees needs to think hard about what teachers are asked to do in today's america. They are expected to do so much but paid like unionized factory
workers.
Um, I'm of the opposite opinion. I live and grew up in Arkansas. I think teachers here actually make too much money compared with half the families that send their kids to school. Why should a teacher get a magic 50K when 30 families don't even average 30K?
I'm mixed on alot of things... you could say that teachers need to be paid based on the average income of their student's families. Those that teach to low income student families would hate that.
I'm at odds with the idea of fairness in life or school or that money for teachers/education fixes anything. For my entire educational life from K-college and even as a parent the entire educational complex has constantly been begging for more and more money. They are worse than the military/defense complex.
Given the fact that one makes a successful career in America by gaming the sociopolitical system at work, I see nothing wrong with teaching kids how to game the system. Successfully manipulating through your environment to your own advantage is one of the most important skills a kid can learn to do good in life.
To do well in life. To do good in life, you need the opposite set of skills.
Um, you are slightly wrong. To make the most income and social status you generally do the first. Now you go to church to feel guilty about actually being ahead so you give up large chucks of your family's income to others. There are political parties that are basically like that as well.
So if you succeed in making those that have earned their own wealth feel guilty about it, then you've got your own niche. I'm going to bite my tongue on commenting about that niche though.
In my high school, there was a kid in the class that graduated the year before my class came in as freshman who only showed up to classes for quizes and tests all four years. He graduated with a B or B- average.
After he graduated and it was brought to the attention of parents and school administrators, a new rule was put in place that any student absent from a class more than a certain number of days during the year (I think it was 20 or so) for any reason could (at the discretion of the teacher) be failed.
Um, what if the kid had an A or A+ and was bored stiff for everything except taking tests & quizes? I find it funny that people think that they magically make it fair by mandating everyone be "in class" at all times. Those folks obviously haven't been to college in awhile. Most classes only had 4 tests. If you were really good, you could show up for just those tests and skip the rest of the class. I knew plenty of people that passed with an A in college level classes by just taking the tests.
http://deletionpedia.dbatley.com/w/index.php?title=Category:Deletionpedia:Pages_with_100_or_more_editors
I'd never known about this before. I checked it out just to see what subject areas were being deleted. I was really shocked that several warhammer entries were deleted. Damn, that's like deleting the entry on WOW or Starcraft. I'm more of the opinion that sort of crap needs to stay there, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
I'm really into webcomics. Wikipedia has already waged one war on webcomics. If you aren't sluggy or megatokyo then you aren't likely to stay there for long. If you want decent webcomic info you have to go else where.
It sounds like a good idea... Why do I feel that this is a user problem though that won't be fixed by a techy fix?
When I read the headline, I thought that they were going to make sure everyone that uses the .gov domain was an actual government agency and not scam artists... That's some thing I'd hope that they are doing now, but I wouldn't hold my breath on it.
The thing is this won't stop a stupid person from following irs-im-a-stupid-user-.com, .tv, .org, or .net.
My local law enforcement agency has picked up some teens that were playing fight club and up loading the videos to youtube. They didn't search youtube, one of the teens told them it was happening and gave a link.
There about 5 1-2 minute videos of high school kids beating the crap out of each other with a cheering section. I was very mixed on it myself. Actually where the big problem was that they were doing this in folks yards that were involved or that the losers were telling momma that they were jumped and beat up so momma called the cops to stop the not so innocent one from getting beat up.
Now, I would think that the UK would be encouraging the posting of all those minor crimes so that they'll have a easy spot to download all of it from and use as evidence when locking the little ones away. But that's a really foreign concept to some people.
The obvious next step is to make your profile a promotional tool. The "high achiever profile" may be the next big thing. You addressing the Junior Chamber of Commerce. You working on a political campaign. You being interviewed on TV.
Soon, this will be a routine part of getting into college, and there will be services to do this for you.
I find this entire thread funny. Why? I actually tend to side with the folks doing the searching trying to weed people out. I discriminate with those I hang out with. Who is it that I hang out with? My immediate family and on holidays/birthdays extended family. I'm absolutely boring.
If I was a school, employer, church, or apartment complex owner, why shouldn't I be allowed to use any of my own personal preferences to filter those I let in? Each of those could be described as having their own private culture and face that they present to the world. Why shouldn't they be allowed to select people that at least appear to match their standards?
Oh, yeah, because it ain't fair or that entire equal opportunity stuff. If it takes less than 5 minutes for some one to search you on through google and hit your non flattering social networking site (by their standards), then its best that you both don't hook up. That works if you are talking about dating, employers, churches, or living arrangements.
Actually think about it.
Sounds like a good idea but personally I am against it. It is a disease of the modern society that everything you do has to be fun. If you make everything "fun", people will be more likely to refuse doing something because it lacks fun. People need do things because they need to do things. ...
Note, I didn't post this because it is fun, I posted it because I felt like I needed to respond to you.
I'm of mixed nature. I don't mind them putting the http://www.military.com/ASVAB into a game. Honestly, I'd say a large percentage of school already greatly rewards those that can put up with needless boredom. Having a little fun in life isn't a sin. Actually, I find it funny those that think almost any form of "fun" or others having fun should be declared a moral sin or declared illegal.
Life's a bitch as it is. If I can't find some/any fun in it now and then, what would be the point? O.k. we are living in a golden age utopia there isn't anything wrong with that per se. You know what the next really big thing is? WOW or any of its like tricking it's users into obtaining at least a high school education.
Almost nobody actively TRIES to annoy anybody (becase it isn't, as you say, socially acceptable). The world would be in a constant state of civil war because everybody would be beating the crap out of people that didn't fit into their view of the world.
Nah, it's just too much effort to actively annoy others. ;) Let's face it. Everyone annoys vast political parties just by existing and living on this earth.
The world is in a constant civil war with everyone trying to beat the crap out people that don't agree with each other or fit into their world view.
I'm a realist. I'd have to beat the crap out of every other human on the planet... that isn't practical I might as well not put up the effort. Laziness saves the day yet again.
Oh come now. Surely you are exaggerating a tad. You're barely sane at all from the looks of it! Cheers!
Oh come on, I slashdot that means that I'm not living in reality anyway. ;)
I hope that they didn't try this test with weapon owners... There is a strong part of me that thinks that everyone needs to be trained in either martial arts or using some type of small arms weapon... (be it a knife, sword, gun, mace, tazer, or nerf bat.) just in case anyone decides to pick on you or just slightly annoys you, that it'd be socially acceptable to instantly beat them within an inch of their lives... The lesson to be learned is don't startle/annoy people that have weapons unless you want to win a darwin award.
I learned from my brother that if you want to stop annoying behavior a quick punch in the face is the quickest safest course of action. Of course, the best long term solution to stop being bothered by my brothers annoying behavior was to go off to college and never ever move back in with the parents where said brothers lived.
What political party was that other than the don't annoy me or pick on me party? (note: I'd love to take a nerf bat or lighting bolts to any group that wants me to pay higher taxes for just about any reason. That I've got a good imagination and can envision all those groups getting violently removed from my life has kept me somewhat sane and out of jail. )
More like... "Sorry, folks, its in fucking Yucca Mountain underneath layers of concrete, where no seismic activity occurs, deep underground , nowhere near civilization.
Whereas, people push against storing underground are currently forcing them to store nuclear waste on site at the power plants which are near civilization.
I vote that we move/store all those people that hate nuclear waste and underground storage of anything at the existing Yucca Moutain place for the next 5-10 years... sooner or latter they will all die. Then we can safely and quietly store our nuclear waste there.
The only potential problem that I foresee is anti-nuclear storage protesting zombies.
While in school I wrote a few essays in my field (Elizabethan literature) which I always wanted to do something with. Because I didn't pursue a career in academics, I could never trouble myself to try to get them published in academic journals.
I recently published them on Knol which, unlike Wikipedia, accepts original research. The process was quite easy -- little more than cut-and-paste with footnotes being properly hyperlinked.
I think overtime, something like Knol will win out over wikipedia. Why? School assigned papers & reports from K-post grad that folks will want to make use off/preserve just incase they ever need them again for anything. Previously, this stuff would never be "published in any form. Only us pack rats would have "everything" from K-12 in a couple of boxes that we never really go through. Well, if knol or something like it becomes the places student packrats decide to keep their digtal assignments, well they could in theory build off each other and do their own original research that previously only 1 teacher and 1 class may have seen it now any teacher or class could see it. O.k. like most things internet 98% of it will be utter crap, but 2% will become goggle gold. ;)
The idea that one can seize a domain that has been owned longer than a given trademark has existed seems downright dangerous, however.
Here is a question. If I actually had a site and it was use with a name, wouldn't I own the trademark on that? If some other entity years later says that they own it wouldn't they be wrong and I could sue them or something for trying to use my potentially worldwide known trademark. Where they are just getting started in a small area trying to use a given trademark.
I'd think that they would charge $30 dollars more for the one without RFID in it. That you have an excuse to raise the standard fee this thing costs to generate more income...
Supposing someone has a ship which is NOT registered anywhere, then it is essentially 'fair game'. If say the US didn't like what you're doing they can just sail on up and do whatever they want with you. They could certainly board and seize any such vessel, after all who's going to object? In theory there might be some construction of maritime law that provides some protections, but without a government capable of objecting you're basically SOL.
Well, that's why individuals doing it wouldn't work. On the other hand, if you had a fleet of ships, they could be their own "nation" and if you messed with one, they all go out after you. O.k. a fleet of data center barges couldn't make that work no military power to back it up. Now, if you had a few of those freedom ships as your civilian cities, a few data center barges, a few hundred transports, and last but not least your own navy and marine force, then you could consider being your own floating nation.
Ideally, you'd also want farm ships so you wouldn't have to depend on the land powers for food and your own massive ship building ships. ;)
If psychics are so real, how come none have come forward to debunk James Randi (the way that he has debunked dozens of them)? It would seem a fairly simple task. He has even agreed to meet psychics on "neutral ground," but still no takers.
Two reasons... They are too busy making more real money than Jame Randi could bribe them with and any of this tests my make their current client base doubt them. So why even risk it?
The other is that sure they can read minds and have determined most of the organizations behind the testers really just want to profit off their abilities and bring them unwanted wide spread fame or a quiet life of unwanted service. They've also got an innate sense that fame is generally bad so avoid anything that could bring them unwanted attention. ;)
The conclusion is that those with PSI powers are too smart to let people know about their abilities and give up their advantages.
Well, they weren't all masterpieces back then, now were they? I don't know about anyone else, but I can certainly remember some stinkers from that era. Pitting the average game of today against stuff that has obviously stood the test of time seems a bit disingenuous.
Um, compare it to any other art form. You know the artwork isn't worth anything until the artist has been dead for 50 years or so. Only what some rich folk like get preserved that long. Every run of the mill game of today still has to compete against classics like tetris, solitaire, free cell, and mine sweeper every day. You could just say that it's applying evolution to video games/artwork and those that stay in the public memory are generally "greats" while everything else could be good to crap. ;)
Name one piece of artwork other than the Mona Lisa or Scream that the average person could name of the top of their head. All modern artists are still competing against those as well. Why didn't anyone make a painting of Marilyn Monroe or let's even use Britney Spears and it compete successfully against the Mona Lisa?
So now if someone breaks your office's physical security, they have access to your backups as well.
O.k. I'd rather be a business that is somewhat paranoid about online storage so keeps everything of concern on 3-4 TB external HDs. There are fire proof safes for things that mother nature throws at you, just stick one of those hard drives in there. O.k. ideally this company would encrypt everything that they put on anyone's computer, what are the odds that they don't and that some one figures out how to crack what they do? Then all the sudden the files aren't encrypted/hidden anymore. For a company this would almost be a very stupid move unless you really trust the company that is doing it for you. The company is responsible for all the third parties that it hires to manage its data, if any of them have a security breach, how would it damage the company's public image?
Sure in ideal land it could work, but in the real world of massive lists of supposed to be secure data being breached, I just wouldn't trust this just due to human error somewhere along the way. O.k. you could always have your backup external hard drive stolen by an evil system admin or that min. wage person that you hired to process the hard drive, but you've got physical ID of who those people are and can tell the police if they turn evil. If unknown evil hackers violate the online storage business, could they easily point to who did it? I doubt it.
After all, that's exactly why movies use shady-looking guys as villains, because we all know what that guy looks like. If we met this person in real life, we would - at least subconsciously - perceive him as a less-than-good person because of what he or she looks like.
Makes me think of how the guy that played this character just looks like a villain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severus_Snape
And this guy just looks like a hero or president. It'd be scary the ease that he'd get into the white house.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Ford
It also make's me think of this manga... (the running joke in that one is that main character look's more evil than Snape, but is one the the kindest/purest/most selfless characters that you'd likely encounter in any manga, and everyone's first and continued impression of this poor guy is as a punk druggie kid although he is actually an honor student that's never done anything wrong except with the way he looks.)
http://www.onemanga.com/Angel_Densetsu/
Just as one is programed to help their family first, before helping people outside their family, everyone is programmed to help their own race first, before helping others.
You know that's an interesting thought that I agree with. I believe everyone's rank is to help their immediate family first. It doesn't matter if you hate your brother or sister or parents or kids if they need something like money or food that you have to give then you'll likely to give it to them. Now then there is the aunt/uncle/cousin family and then friends. That's where it gets trickier. Most folks would still be helping that level of family before helping their friends. You get to pick your friends. You'll likely only seriously help out "best" friends. Other levels of friendship, you'd denote a given level of labor/resources to, but you'd have your little line drawn.
Here is the best example who would you help move? And then the other even better test is which groups would you let move in and live free with you for say 1-6 months?
You also can add religion or at least church groups in there. I bet most religions help believers before non-believers and then are programmed to try to spread the faith to non-believers that need aid/resources. There is nothing wrong with that.
Spread it out to secular government at the city, state, national level, and it works the same way with your tax dollars. Honestly, I'm ticked that we give as much foreign charity as we do from government tax dollars. If I chose to give, that's one thing. Don't tax me and give my money/resources to poor citizens of other countries.
There are plenty of examples of flawed superstitious beliefs leading to an equally large disadvantage or equally great damage. For examples see what happens to people who join cults. For a really good extreme example much more elloquently stated than I possibly could take a look at Carl Sagan's "The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark" and look for a persuasive argument why Nancy and Ronald Reagan consulting fortune tellers and horoscopes might not be a good thing when Ron's got his finger on the nuclear button. Wiping out most species on the planet has to qualify as an evolutionary step backwards.
Um, we are still here so we should make fortune tellers and horoscopes a cabinet post!
I generally think that most cults even CoS are "good" for the survival of their members against non-members. The exceptions to that are "cults" that trigger a "we need to wipe them out" response in most of the surrounding non-member population.
Consider the difference here (practically, it's the same - philosophically, it's not):
- Evolution happens so that life can continue to exist.
- Life continues to exist because of evolution (genetic mutations + natural selection).
Shouldn't be this?
Evolution as we know it only exists due to life processes.
Life doesn't need evolution, but evolution needs "sentient life" to discover/invent/say that it is there. You could just as easily change evolution to god and it works just as well.
Science doesn't help, that's for sure, but you can't shake a true believer with science. The only thing likely to turn them is the belief that God has let them down somehow.
Hey, don't forget what's his name Job? God didn't let you down... He is just "testing" you for awhile before "moderately" rewarding you at the end.
Equate that with the bitch that is "mother nature." I hate that neo-environmental religion that actually thinks that mother nature is a force of good and all. The bitch has always tried to kill us every couple of years all the way back before recorded history to the present. She utterly hates us; we've survived despite "mother nature" not because of her. ;) But they can still use that Job excuse and say that she's just been "testing" civilizations until they meet her magic unwritten changing female standards. ;)
I have a great aunt who is currently living alone, but can only manage to do so because she has regular support from family members, and won't be able to manage for much longer. She isn't eating as much as she probably needs because of a lack of appetite. It's becoming more and more difficult for her to get up and walk to the refrigerator to get more food or a relatively calorie rich Slimfast shake.
A robot capable of bringing her food and diet shakes from the refrigerator would make it much easier for her to ingest the calories she needs. That would help her maintain her health and her independence for substantially longer than she would be able to otherwise. So, yes. The important thing isn't the beer, but the fact that the robot can retrieve items from the refrigerator. This task is very critical for a number of people suffering from disabilities, age-related or not.
There is a part of me that wonders what the robots will think of keeping blobs of human fat as pets in the near future. There is no way that we'd rebel since that would involve getting off the couch, and we'd shortly depend on those robots to bring us all our food/drinks/entertainment products. Why would we rebel?