Why is it, that with almost every science topic people make redundant jokes and/ or simply make a completely offtopic remark?
(this is not directly aimed to the post I'm replying to, more a thing I've noticed in general)
Scary stuff, 3 extra conservative supreme court judges, this means that we can kiss abortion goodbye and say hello to higher punishments across the boards, I've never been quite so happy to live outside of the US>
I watched an interview with voters on tv, one said that he would vote for Bush because he doesn't want to lose his right to bear arms, and added that losing his freedom of speech and right to vote would probably come after losing the right to bear arms.
I don't quite see how ANYONE could link these things together, but it illustrates that bush's voters are at the same intellectual levels as him........
Countries can jump high and they can jump low, but unless they find a more effective way of stopping the spreading of MP3's that taking individual companies/ people to court it WILL NOT MATTER, not ONE bit, if Napster goes, something else will take its place, it's that simple.
Yes, I agree that the "stronger economy" argument is out of place, most western european contries sport as good or better an economy as the US does, I also don't think the average number of computers per head of the population differs that much.
Over here it's not particularly a worry, ofcourse, the association of record companies is slightly pissed as you'll understand, but media attention is limited to a couple of small comments on page 30+ of papers once every couple of weeks.
The internet as a whole isn't subject to much scrutiny in Holland actually, Holland as most people will know is a very liberal country, and unless you do something absolutely disgusting noone really minds.
I firmly believe that the internet should stay uncensored, the reason the internet has gotten this big and thios popular is because you can access ANY piece of information you want, without having to ask anyone or having to do a lot of work to get it.
Censorship in general keeps people stupid, the more you limit the informationflow and manipulate it, the more you go towards creating unthinking zombies who live, eat, sleep and breathe with the ideas that the ruling bodies want them to have.
I'm getting increasingly worried about the trends in modern day space explortation, 25 years ago we were sending landers to Mars, like we did a couple of months ago, the difference?
Back then, they actually landed AND worked.
The biggest stories the NASA had to tell the past few years? how great all their OLD satelites, probes and other machinery are still operating.
The sharp decrease of government funding all over the planet has led to a complete standstill in space exploration and development, consequently, interest is fading which will lead to MORE cuts in funding.
I'm very worried of what this will lead to, space exploration should be a priority, not an afterthought, we can learn so much about our origins, planet and ourselves from exploring space, but space exploration is going nowhere in a hurry right now.
So basically, what we're saying is that any manned missions to certain planets will be more or less impossible untill man can find a way to shield itself from radiation in a more effective manner than packing ourselves in tons of lead.......
Not that Jupiter would be parcticularly well suited for a manned mission to go, but still.......
C'mon, that's uncalled for, the fact that you see space exploration as something useless doesn't automatically mean that it's "Wasting money"
I probably find 50% of your daily activities useless, does it mean that you shouldn't be allowed to practice them?
Something I've noticed over the years is that most cartoons are either a lot of fun for kids, or a lot of fun for adults, I also loved watching things like the smurfs, but they're just not as good anymore when you're 20+.
Likewise, some cartoons which adults like are just plain boring for kids, it's nearly impossible to make cartoons which are good fun for both children and adults.
That's why cartoons like the Simpsons/ Futurama are so cool, they're fun to watch when you're young, and they're STILL good when you're an adult because there's a large dose of very subtle humor.
The same goes for games, some games were lots of fun when you were fun, others you just find too pathetic to even consider again.
This for me is the true measure of classic cartoons/ games, if they can catch your interest and keep it over the years, no matter how old they get, no matter how old YOU get, they're still great.
I'm not claiming IP is evil, or really that much of a problem either, I'm just suggesting that the idea behind communism (ie, everything is owned by "the people") Could be a viable way of running a society, although I'd imagine that the people with the bigger ego's would suffer greatly from such a regime...
Man, when I got on the internet I was so happy, I could literally get everything at will, I mean, I could get a guide on how to build a bomb, copy/ paste book reports and other interesting stuff to make my school life a bit more bearable, and the most outragious topics with the most outragious people on many, many message boards.
Censorship keeps people stupid, that's the only thing it gets us, shielding people from bad things?? are we kidding ourselves, I take more vocal abuse walking over the street for an hour than watching 2 days TV, and I can see more half-naked people in an hour in a club than I can see on TV in those 2 days I mentioned before.
the great strenght of the internet is that everything, and I mean everything is freely available, once people start touching my right to look up whatever I want I'm gonna get pissed.
interestingly, most larger animals live longer, metabolism also has something to do with it, generally speaking, the faster the heart of a certain animal beats the shorter they live, as an example, a slow operating tortoise will easily outlive a rather active bunny.
Increasing the lives of humans?
In this age of mounting stress and poor physical condition I really doubt it will happen, even with advancing medical technology.
Children used to be afraid of the Dentist's chair, no more, enter the "Weird looking tech thingie" chair, and your children will be running for the door =P
No more IP? that's communism.
ofcourse, comunism in it's purest form *should* work, sharing everything among the comunity is a great idea, it's just a shame that the examples we've seen of this form of government are so bad (China, USSR) that it's tough to get a read on if it could work or not.....
The exploration of a different planet than the earth might teach us so much, just think about how much we learned about our own planet, the exploration of Mars might help us along in our goal to keep going further in space.
It's been brought up somewhat before, but it needs to be stressed more, the impact our current "habbits" have on the enviroment and our resources will totally deplete our planet's resources, sure, it's gonna take quite some time, and yes, we'll probably find solutions to most of the energy problems and such, but actively searching for less wastefull methods of making things, and making things less wastefull themselves should be a top priority.
I'm not a big eco-freak, I realise that certain things are just not financially sound, but organic chips is something that has a future.
People live in the present too much, and not enough in the future, resources WILL deplete, and it is shortsighted to insist on using our planets precious resources when there are viable alternatives.
I personally hope that organic chips start replacing silicon chips in the near future, however, this will be one of the largest revolutions in the computer world so it will take some time, in that light, what better time to start that now?
I don't agree with this, simply because I've found for myself that it's not true, often I've played a game from a company, and based my decision on buying the sequal or a different game from the same company on how good I felt the games I downloaded were.
For instance, I bought Championship manager 99/00 last year, I wouldn't even have looked at it had I not played Championship manager 3, a game which I downloaded.
I don't get exactly why gaming companies feel the need to keep making such a fuss about ROMs, after all, when a console game is 5 years old, noone will buy the game OR the console, and unless you've already translated it to PC there's no use in trying to stop people from spreading a rom of it, seeing as you don't actually sell copies anymore.
Come to think of it, wouldn't it be a grand idea for companies to actually SPREAD the roms of the olds games, as I mentioned before, you're not making any cash off of them, so why not spread them and try to spark that little bit of extra attention you attract to your company, and to the games you're making NOW.
The copyright issue is more complicated, companies don't so much mind their games being spread illegally I'd guess, but more the fact that if they lost their copyright after a relatively short while that people would start ripping off the good parts of their games and use it in their games, however, 15-20 years copyright on a game seems much more reasonable than the current lenght of time.
uhm, what do I see as filthy stinking rich?
that's a good question, however, it's not quite the point.
the point I tried to make basically is that people who don't have a lot of cash just don't make it, I mean, if you'd try and become president with *just* $1M, you'd be lost.
shameless patriotism and socialism bashing, you've lived in a western country and you tell me THIS kind of bull, which country DID you leave I'm wondering.
I live in Holland, we've had some form of socialism since the second world war, when it because NECESSARY for the government to take care of people simply because they needed it at that time.
60% taxes isn't quite true either, on average, we pay about 50% taxes, yes, this seems ridiculously steep, but on the other hand we DO take care of everyone in our country, we do not have poverty, and the development of every social class I feel benefits the country as a whole, so I can't buy that big sports car, big deal, at least I don't have to hear the newsman tell me that again several dozen homeless people died in the streets.
Yes, you have opertunities in America, you have those in western european countries too, the difference is that usually the highs aren't quite as high and the lows aren't quite as low in more socialist countries.
Right now, with several of the Western European countries on a high we couldn't wish for a better system than socialism, it takes care of people, and suggesting that socialism creates high debts and high unemployment is disproven on daily basis.
I don't live in the US, I live in Holland, we have a different political system, and it works for me/ us, ofcourse, I don't pretend to be totally objective, but I'm going to go through some points.
- In Holland, seats in the house are awarded on total votes, not on how many districts a certain party has won, this allows:
A) Even small parties to actively participate in ruling, and more importantly, make sure they're heard.
B) No truly dominating party/ parties, parties are forced to grow and reform or else they will die out.
- The Prime minster isn't voted in by the people per say, but rather is chosen from one of the parties which is picked to rule, this allows for A ruler to truly be chosen on his merits, he's chosen by his peers, people who all know him personally and can judge him better than the average Joe
- No party in Holland is rich, donations are seriously limited, and the prime minsters usually aren't particularly rich either, it's obvious that this leads to less corruption, as money simply isn't that big an issue in elections.
The biggest problem I see with the political system the US and several other countries use?
Basically, there are 2 parties, it's nearly impossible for more to have actual power, the Democrats and Republicans are allpowerfull, and have been for very, very long, too long I'd say.
These 2 parties are oftentimes fighting eachother more than actually looking out for what's important, how many times will you see both parties either agreeing on a proposal, and how often will you see individual members vote against their own party?
The 2 party system is a dinosaur, it's a corrupt system from top to bottom, ridiculous laws are still upheld, if you look at it objectively, you KNOW that guns should be banned, however, because of the amazing amount of cash this industry represents nothing is done against it, and as a result 10 year olds are blowing each others heads off.
I could go on for days about this, it's the one reason I'd never want to live in the US, I'm afraid that such a juggernaut of a country has such appaling leadership, I worry about nuclear hollocaust still, religious violence, civil war, and I thank the light that I live in Holland, and say thanks that our prime minister can't even buy himself a ferrari, and that the dude lacks all charisma, but still rules my country, simply because he is GOOD.
I might be absolutely dumb, but I feel that videa games are a LOT more stimulating than watching TV, in video games at least you have something INTERACTIVE, so ok, not all video games are equally stimulating in a sense, but they still provide you with a lot more stimulation that a non-interactive medium as TV.
Personally, I think I've gained immensely from video games, if I just consider how much vocabulary I've picked up from games it was pretty much worth it, but it doesn't stop there.
Some of the better games around deal with a lot of relevant historical happenings/ artifacts/ cultures, just play a game of civilisation and you'll know what I mean.
Also, my interest in astronomy has been sparked mainly by games, some of them actually make you think, imagine that.........
I don't live in the US, sometimes, I am extremely happy about it.
Presidential elections in the US I find an absolute insult to human intelligence, I think it's obvious that you will NOT be voted in as president unless you:
A) Have support from either the Democrats or Republicans
B) Are filthy, stinking rich
This system does not work, I might be the most capable person on the planet for the job, but I'll lose out on not being rich alone, this is an absolute shame, the US has obviously had some utter idiots as president, and looking at this election I don't see much changing.
People need to be judged more on merits instead of their ads, these elections are an absolutely stunning show of ignorance and flat out idiocy.
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Why is it, that with almost every science topic people make redundant jokes and/ or simply make a completely offtopic remark? (this is not directly aimed to the post I'm replying to, more a thing I've noticed in general)
Scary stuff, 3 extra conservative supreme court judges, this means that we can kiss abortion goodbye and say hello to higher punishments across the boards, I've never been quite so happy to live outside of the US> I watched an interview with voters on tv, one said that he would vote for Bush because he doesn't want to lose his right to bear arms, and added that losing his freedom of speech and right to vote would probably come after losing the right to bear arms. I don't quite see how ANYONE could link these things together, but it illustrates that bush's voters are at the same intellectual levels as him........
Countries can jump high and they can jump low, but unless they find a more effective way of stopping the spreading of MP3's that taking individual companies/ people to court it WILL NOT MATTER, not ONE bit, if Napster goes, something else will take its place, it's that simple.
Yes, I agree that the "stronger economy" argument is out of place, most western european contries sport as good or better an economy as the US does, I also don't think the average number of computers per head of the population differs that much.
Over here it's not particularly a worry, ofcourse, the association of record companies is slightly pissed as you'll understand, but media attention is limited to a couple of small comments on page 30+ of papers once every couple of weeks.
The internet as a whole isn't subject to much scrutiny in Holland actually, Holland as most people will know is a very liberal country, and unless you do something absolutely disgusting noone really minds.
I firmly believe that the internet should stay uncensored, the reason the internet has gotten this big and thios popular is because you can access ANY piece of information you want, without having to ask anyone or having to do a lot of work to get it.
Censorship in general keeps people stupid, the more you limit the informationflow and manipulate it, the more you go towards creating unthinking zombies who live, eat, sleep and breathe with the ideas that the ruling bodies want them to have.
I'm getting increasingly worried about the trends in modern day space explortation, 25 years ago we were sending landers to Mars, like we did a couple of months ago, the difference?
Back then, they actually landed AND worked.
The biggest stories the NASA had to tell the past few years? how great all their OLD satelites, probes and other machinery are still operating.
The sharp decrease of government funding all over the planet has led to a complete standstill in space exploration and development, consequently, interest is fading which will lead to MORE cuts in funding.
I'm very worried of what this will lead to, space exploration should be a priority, not an afterthought, we can learn so much about our origins, planet and ourselves from exploring space, but space exploration is going nowhere in a hurry right now.
I wonder what's next if this succeeds, riding a meteor into outer space?
Penguins? ;)
So basically, what we're saying is that any manned missions to certain planets will be more or less impossible untill man can find a way to shield itself from radiation in a more effective manner than packing ourselves in tons of lead.......
Not that Jupiter would be parcticularly well suited for a manned mission to go, but still.......
C'mon, that's uncalled for, the fact that you see space exploration as something useless doesn't automatically mean that it's "Wasting money"
I probably find 50% of your daily activities useless, does it mean that you shouldn't be allowed to practice them?
Something I've noticed over the years is that most cartoons are either a lot of fun for kids, or a lot of fun for adults, I also loved watching things like the smurfs, but they're just not as good anymore when you're 20+.
Likewise, some cartoons which adults like are just plain boring for kids, it's nearly impossible to make cartoons which are good fun for both children and adults.
That's why cartoons like the Simpsons/ Futurama are so cool, they're fun to watch when you're young, and they're STILL good when you're an adult because there's a large dose of very subtle humor.
The same goes for games, some games were lots of fun when you were fun, others you just find too pathetic to even consider again.
This for me is the true measure of classic cartoons/ games, if they can catch your interest and keep it over the years, no matter how old they get, no matter how old YOU get, they're still great.
I'm not claiming IP is evil, or really that much of a problem either, I'm just suggesting that the idea behind communism (ie, everything is owned by "the people") Could be a viable way of running a society, although I'd imagine that the people with the bigger ego's would suffer greatly from such a regime...
Man, when I got on the internet I was so happy, I could literally get everything at will, I mean, I could get a guide on how to build a bomb, copy/ paste book reports and other interesting stuff to make my school life a bit more bearable, and the most outragious topics with the most outragious people on many, many message boards.
Censorship keeps people stupid, that's the only thing it gets us, shielding people from bad things?? are we kidding ourselves, I take more vocal abuse walking over the street for an hour than watching 2 days TV, and I can see more half-naked people in an hour in a club than I can see on TV in those 2 days I mentioned before.
the great strenght of the internet is that everything, and I mean everything is freely available, once people start touching my right to look up whatever I want I'm gonna get pissed.
interestingly, most larger animals live longer, metabolism also has something to do with it, generally speaking, the faster the heart of a certain animal beats the shorter they live, as an example, a slow operating tortoise will easily outlive a rather active bunny.
Increasing the lives of humans?
In this age of mounting stress and poor physical condition I really doubt it will happen, even with advancing medical technology.
Children used to be afraid of the Dentist's chair, no more, enter the "Weird looking tech thingie" chair, and your children will be running for the door =P
No more IP? that's communism.
ofcourse, comunism in it's purest form *should* work, sharing everything among the comunity is a great idea, it's just a shame that the examples we've seen of this form of government are so bad (China, USSR) that it's tough to get a read on if it could work or not.....
The exploration of a different planet than the earth might teach us so much, just think about how much we learned about our own planet, the exploration of Mars might help us along in our goal to keep going further in space.
It's been brought up somewhat before, but it needs to be stressed more, the impact our current "habbits" have on the enviroment and our resources will totally deplete our planet's resources, sure, it's gonna take quite some time, and yes, we'll probably find solutions to most of the energy problems and such, but actively searching for less wastefull methods of making things, and making things less wastefull themselves should be a top priority.
I'm not a big eco-freak, I realise that certain things are just not financially sound, but organic chips is something that has a future.
People live in the present too much, and not enough in the future, resources WILL deplete, and it is shortsighted to insist on using our planets precious resources when there are viable alternatives.
I personally hope that organic chips start replacing silicon chips in the near future, however, this will be one of the largest revolutions in the computer world so it will take some time, in that light, what better time to start that now?
I don't agree with this, simply because I've found for myself that it's not true, often I've played a game from a company, and based my decision on buying the sequal or a different game from the same company on how good I felt the games I downloaded were.
For instance, I bought Championship manager 99/00 last year, I wouldn't even have looked at it had I not played Championship manager 3, a game which I downloaded.
I don't get exactly why gaming companies feel the need to keep making such a fuss about ROMs, after all, when a console game is 5 years old, noone will buy the game OR the console, and unless you've already translated it to PC there's no use in trying to stop people from spreading a rom of it, seeing as you don't actually sell copies anymore.
Come to think of it, wouldn't it be a grand idea for companies to actually SPREAD the roms of the olds games, as I mentioned before, you're not making any cash off of them, so why not spread them and try to spark that little bit of extra attention you attract to your company, and to the games you're making NOW.
The copyright issue is more complicated, companies don't so much mind their games being spread illegally I'd guess, but more the fact that if they lost their copyright after a relatively short while that people would start ripping off the good parts of their games and use it in their games, however, 15-20 years copyright on a game seems much more reasonable than the current lenght of time.
uhm, what do I see as filthy stinking rich?
that's a good question, however, it's not quite the point.
the point I tried to make basically is that people who don't have a lot of cash just don't make it, I mean, if you'd try and become president with *just* $1M, you'd be lost.
shameless patriotism and socialism bashing, you've lived in a western country and you tell me THIS kind of bull, which country DID you leave I'm wondering.
I live in Holland, we've had some form of socialism since the second world war, when it because NECESSARY for the government to take care of people simply because they needed it at that time.
60% taxes isn't quite true either, on average, we pay about 50% taxes, yes, this seems ridiculously steep, but on the other hand we DO take care of everyone in our country, we do not have poverty, and the development of every social class I feel benefits the country as a whole, so I can't buy that big sports car, big deal, at least I don't have to hear the newsman tell me that again several dozen homeless people died in the streets.
Yes, you have opertunities in America, you have those in western european countries too, the difference is that usually the highs aren't quite as high and the lows aren't quite as low in more socialist countries.
Right now, with several of the Western European countries on a high we couldn't wish for a better system than socialism, it takes care of people, and suggesting that socialism creates high debts and high unemployment is disproven on daily basis.
I don't live in the US, I live in Holland, we have a different political system, and it works for me/ us, ofcourse, I don't pretend to be totally objective, but I'm going to go through some points.
- In Holland, seats in the house are awarded on total votes, not on how many districts a certain party has won, this allows:
A) Even small parties to actively participate in ruling, and more importantly, make sure they're heard.
B) No truly dominating party/ parties, parties are forced to grow and reform or else they will die out.
- The Prime minster isn't voted in by the people per say, but rather is chosen from one of the parties which is picked to rule, this allows for A ruler to truly be chosen on his merits, he's chosen by his peers, people who all know him personally and can judge him better than the average Joe
- No party in Holland is rich, donations are seriously limited, and the prime minsters usually aren't particularly rich either, it's obvious that this leads to less corruption, as money simply isn't that big an issue in elections.
The biggest problem I see with the political system the US and several other countries use?
Basically, there are 2 parties, it's nearly impossible for more to have actual power, the Democrats and Republicans are allpowerfull, and have been for very, very long, too long I'd say.
These 2 parties are oftentimes fighting eachother more than actually looking out for what's important, how many times will you see both parties either agreeing on a proposal, and how often will you see individual members vote against their own party?
The 2 party system is a dinosaur, it's a corrupt system from top to bottom, ridiculous laws are still upheld, if you look at it objectively, you KNOW that guns should be banned, however, because of the amazing amount of cash this industry represents nothing is done against it, and as a result 10 year olds are blowing each others heads off.
I could go on for days about this, it's the one reason I'd never want to live in the US, I'm afraid that such a juggernaut of a country has such appaling leadership, I worry about nuclear hollocaust still, religious violence, civil war, and I thank the light that I live in Holland, and say thanks that our prime minister can't even buy himself a ferrari, and that the dude lacks all charisma, but still rules my country, simply because he is GOOD.
I might be absolutely dumb, but I feel that videa games are a LOT more stimulating than watching TV, in video games at least you have something INTERACTIVE, so ok, not all video games are equally stimulating in a sense, but they still provide you with a lot more stimulation that a non-interactive medium as TV.
Personally, I think I've gained immensely from video games, if I just consider how much vocabulary I've picked up from games it was pretty much worth it, but it doesn't stop there.
Some of the better games around deal with a lot of relevant historical happenings/ artifacts/ cultures, just play a game of civilisation and you'll know what I mean.
Also, my interest in astronomy has been sparked mainly by games, some of them actually make you think, imagine that.........
I don't live in the US, sometimes, I am extremely happy about it.
Presidential elections in the US I find an absolute insult to human intelligence, I think it's obvious that you will NOT be voted in as president unless you:
A) Have support from either the Democrats or Republicans
B) Are filthy, stinking rich
This system does not work, I might be the most capable person on the planet for the job, but I'll lose out on not being rich alone, this is an absolute shame, the US has obviously had some utter idiots as president, and looking at this election I don't see much changing.
People need to be judged more on merits instead of their ads, these elections are an absolutely stunning show of ignorance and flat out idiocy.