1. Half of all people are of below average intelligence. (By definition)
Hmm that's an interesting thought. Let's suppose, for the matter of argument, than really smart people live longer than really dumb people (because really dumb people get themselves killed in all kinds of stupid, funny accidents). So you have two dudes with an IQ of 150, 7 people with an IQ of 100, and one dumb guy with an IQ of 50.
Add up the IQ points, average it, and we have... an average IQ of 105. Is half of the population below this average IQ? Not quite.
I know i'm simplifying things, and maybe i'm full of shit with this reasoning, but as far as I can tell, you can get a population with more than half of them under the average IQ. Or are we talking about the median? (Is that the proper term? Median? Or is it mean? I can't recall the proper term in English)
Re:Good idea for nuclear waste?
on
Going Up?
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· Score: 2
The subducting seafloor idea sounds much better to me. Drop in into a hole in the ocean floor, and it is pushed into the mantle. No loss of mass for the earth, no huge expenditure of energy, and the waste is taken care of.
Yes! Finally, a voice of reason among all these futuristic ideas about flinging nuclear waste out into space.
How 'bout we all learn to live with reality, work hard and honestly, teach our children the same and to respect and honor their ancestor's culture (whatever it may be). And save the whales and dolphins.
Do you live in Milwaukee? Have you ever been to Milwaukee? Do you realize that for the past two months (or however long she's been missing) it's been on the news almost every day in Milwaukee? There are flyers in most local businesses with her picture. There are tons of things in the paper.
I live in Mexico. I have never heard before about the Alexis Patterson kidnapping. Yet when I watch CNN, there's a lot of stories about the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping. And I have to (somewhat painfully) agree with Jon Katz about this one.
The Big Media tends to take one story and latch on to it, and squeeze it for all the money it can get. It's either that, or the Smarts have been paying afwully huge amounts of money to buy airtime in several media channels and newspapers and such.
It's not like the O.J. murder trial or the Blake murder trial. They're famous people, so more people know them and want to know what's going on with those cases. In the Smart case, they're taking someone unknown and making her famous. And it's not "the people" deciding it. It's the studio execs. It's Ted Turner. It's people with a desire to earn more money through selling advertisement to more viewers.
I agree. American football, where only one player's feet ever gets in contact with the ball, is a misnomer.
I say you should call it... Tossball, or passball, or simply Pickupandcarryball. "Yeah, the Chicago Bears are the gretest team in the history of american pickupandcarryball."
Besides, american football is a wussy game compared to Australian rugby. There you play the game and take the hurting like a MAN, not run around lugging 30 pounds of armor.
They should drink Negra Modelo instead. Yeah. Just the reason they've been looking for to declare war on our species. If you're gonna serve them beer, give them some XX Lager or Sol.
The Bible says that God is omniscient, which therefore negates any possibility of free will for humans, and for that matter, for God as well. Uh, Omniscient means that God would know everything everywhere anytime, which doesn't rule out the possibility of free will. Just because God would know what you're gonna do, doesn't mean that you don't have free will.
I think what you meant is that God is Omnipotent or something like that.
unless they are also planning on removing all the chemistry books from all the university libraries, this is largely going to solve nothing. That would be phase two of their plan. But let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet. They're just doing it to take care of the proles.. er, the People, I mean.
They're tasty! They're good for you! they will help you defend your socialisty people from being conquered by the evil capitalist governments who want to destroy the last bastion of freedom and crush the socialist dream which will live on forever and ever and ever and... (snipped 4 hours of speech)
Plus, each Cloned Cuban Cow(tm) comes with it's own Fidel-like beard! Get them while they're new!
(Gloria Estefan and Celia Cruz do not speak for The Cloned Cuban Cow Company)
Most asteroids are small and are much more likely to fall relatively harmlessly into an ocean than hit a populated area.
I'm not entirely sure about the "harmlessness" of an asteroid impact into an ocean. I mean, you get one of those babies hitting the Pacific Ocean, let's say somewhere south of Hawaii, and maybe wiping out a few islands.
Several minutes later, a humongous tsunami rises out of the ocean and swallows up Honolulu. Surf's up!
A few hours later, another tsunami appears and completely wipes out San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and most importantly Mazatlan, Mexico (hey, my grandparents live there). Not to mention all the destruction caused in the Far East, from Shanghai to Tokyo-Yokohama.
Im not entirely sure about the physics involved, and i'm pulling this timeline out of thin air, but i'm pretty sure that an ocean-based impact is far, far worse than a land-based impact.
Heck, if the Indians and Pakistani want to blow each other up using nuclear bombs, then let them knock themselves out. As long as the rest of the world doesn't decide to join in, I guess the damage done to the rest of the world would be minimal. Better yet, let's drop the incoming asteroid right smack in the middle of the Kashmir and bingo, no more conflict.
Anyone who hides patents and patent applications in order to deceive their fellow members, "working" with them to create a new memory standard, just to throw their weight several years down the line claiming everybody is infringing on those patents, deserves such a huge fine that the only memory they will be able to afford will be Post-it notes stuck to their PCs.
The beauty of it is, that you can vote for Al Gore in a couple more years, and if he gets enough votes, he'll be president, and then you can feel comfortable jacking off while you have a president who can pronounce technologically savvy. Even if he sounds like a wind-up toy swallowing a codfish when he's saying it. Funny. I thought Al Gore DID get enough votes to be a president. But then I remembered that you don't live in a democracy, you live in a Republic of sorts.
And considering that I'm not even an american citizen, I hardly think they'll let me vote for Al Gore. I'd probably vote for Nader, anyway.
First of all, why in the 14th Level of Hell (the one with the infinite screeching monkeys) would the rest of the world be happy with the US Government governing the Internet?
See, this is the kind of thing that pisses off the rest of the world. Next thing you know, ICANN's predecessor will be censoring domain names all over the world, in order to "stop the terror" and "protect the children" and "protect American interests". So you'll not only be unable to register Microsoftsucks.com, but Microsoftsucks.uk or Microsoftsucks.tv.
And before someone comes out and says, "Just because the US Government can do it doesn't mean it will", let me give you a little hint: We dont trust the US Goverment. Personally, Al Gore would've made a better job at it than Bush. At least he was technologically savvy. At least he could pronounce "technologically savvy".
Mark my words... the US keeps this up, and sooner or later you're gonna start receiving virtual terrorist attacks or something. Screwing up the Internet for the rest of the world, by the way.
I say let the UN create some sort of Internet Agency with representation from several countries, not just from "american citizens, businesses and special interests".
Sorry about the rant, but it really strikes me as a very, very Bad Idea.
...Aw heck, that's too much trouble. Why not just bulldoze Hollywood into the Pacific, fake tits and all? Because the EPA would be all over your ass for dumping hazardous waste.:)
Not to mention that all of those fake tits would probably float in the ocean. Heck, you'd have former Baywatch actresses (heh) washing up on the beaches of Thailand for decades.
Hello? It's their alpha COUNTRY CODE. Yes, they are entitled to it. It's a computer-age born national symbol. They can do what they want with it, just like they can do what they want with their numeric telephone Country Code.
Well, now, I always thought that ICANN was the organization in charge of creating TLDs and delegating responsability and management. The South African government may whine all they want and police every Internet conection inside their country if they wish, but the point is that sooner or later they have to connect to the outside world. They don't have any "unalienable rights" to have a connection to the rest of the world, as far as I can remember.
And it's that kind of connections which is supposed to be regulated by ICANN, in some kind of consensus, through the use of TLDs. So I don't see why the government should get in the way of someone who is working for his country, doing a heck of a good job (from what I can tell) for free, just so they can charge their own citizens for something they (the gov'ment) did not create or implement.
Maybe I haven't got the ICANN thing quite right yet, but I'm sure as hell against any government messing with something just because they can.
It's not ICANN or the readers of/. job to tell another country what formal process to use in administering their TLD... Who cares, give it to the Gov't. It's theirs anyhow.
Is it theirs because they somehow own such TLD? Are they entitled to it? Just because they can make money out of it means they have to regulate it?
You had me going there for the first point... but lost me completely on the second one. "Terminate any regime that supports Islamic radicals"??? How would you define an Islamic radical? Not all of them are dancing in the streets, shooting their guns in the air, and shouting "Kill the american pig-dogs".
Let's face it, any person who wants to execute Vengeance upon the americans he sees as "the enemy" will do it. How hard would it be for one of them to sneak up into America carrying a few pounds of explosive and blowing himself up in some HEB or mall? The only way for the US to stop such an individual would be to close their borders with laser-shields, or just shoot the whole country into space. Or to keep a permanent watch and record on EACH AND EVERY person that wishes to enter the United States.
It's better to think about WHY they're doing that, and how to make them stop thinking that the U.S. is the enemy. I don't see people crashing planes into, say, Japan or New Zealand. But then, I don't see Japanese governments training foreign military forces in some remote country, to overthrow someone who isn't friendly towards Americans... only to complain a few years down the line that those S.O.B.s have started thinking for themselves and are now the enemy.
We hate Iran? Let's train Iraqui forces. Oh, now we hate Iraq? Let's support Iranian forces. We don't like the Russians in Afghanistan? Let's give those friendly Talibans a hand (plus some equipment and training). Whoops, the Russians are gone and the Afghani are starving? Well, sucks to be them. They're no longer needed. They're no longer useful to American interests.
And, in my opinion, if you get rid of a Regime and don't deal with the other issues, you'll end up with a country divided with fighting and civil war. Guess who will win control? Yep, the biggest, baddest mofo's of that country. Which will need an enemy, preferrably a foreign one, to keep control of their citizens. Guess whose name will pop up at the top of their minds?
Personally, I'm more worried about my kids finding some of my posts:P
That's a good idea: give them X moderator points along with their given weekly allowance. Then, whenever you take a fatherly-dictatorial decision, they can pool their mod points and try to change your mind.
Move over, Mr. Spock. The next generation will be the Slashdot generation.
Re:It's a new world, folks, adjust your arguments
on
Surveillance Update
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· Score: 2
Is this the same UK with 200,000 public surveillance cameras? Nope, no mass surveillance here! No siree! Close call, but as an independent referee I'd declare your argument not quite on the mark.
It's one thing to have public mass surveillance. It's another thing to have private mass surveillance.
Putting cameras in public places is just as invasive as, say, having a witness in every corner, every night, to prevent crimes. Having that same witness in your OWN house every night, well, that's another thing completely.
For the record, I live in Mexico, so many of our so-called rights are pretty much laughable, but we still expect a degree of privacy in our own homes.
You see, we (along with millions of non-american citizens) have grown up believing that the USofA is a great place to live, because there you can say what you think, and think whatever you like, without feeling oppressed or persecuted or spied upon by people who don't think the way you think. Sadly enough, this is no longer the case.
And I'm pretty sure this slashdot post will be archived and editted to take out all of the non-incriminating stuff so they can use it against me some day!
Somewhere in a dark basement, under an obscure FBI building, there's an investigating agent reading what you've just typed, and evaluating your comment using the latest FBI scale...
Moderation: +1 Funny, +1 Terrorist
Citizen #3618112's Karma Total: 27.
Recommend with-holding the arrest until he reaches the Karma Cap.
1. Half of all people are of below average intelligence. (By definition)
Hmm that's an interesting thought. Let's suppose, for the matter of argument, than really smart people live longer than really dumb people (because really dumb people get themselves killed in all kinds of stupid, funny accidents). So you have two dudes with an IQ of 150, 7 people with an IQ of 100, and one dumb guy with an IQ of 50.
Add up the IQ points, average it, and we have... an average IQ of 105. Is half of the population below this average IQ? Not quite.
I know i'm simplifying things, and maybe i'm full of shit with this reasoning, but as far as I can tell, you can get a population with more than half of them under the average IQ. Or are we talking about the median? (Is that the proper term? Median? Or is it mean? I can't recall the proper term in English)
The subducting seafloor idea sounds much better to me. Drop in into a hole in the ocean floor, and it is pushed into the mantle. No loss of mass for the earth, no huge expenditure of energy, and the waste is taken care of.
Yes! Finally, a voice of reason among all these futuristic ideas about flinging nuclear waste out into space.
You, sir, deserve a karma raise. Keep it up!
Please! Wont someone think of the Aunt Ginnies???
Who needs com-pyu-ter-guided mirrors? Trust in the Force you must!
All it takes is one good Jedi, and all your lasers will be obsolete.
What on earth was I taught schools. Apparently, not grammar.
How 'bout we all learn to live with reality, work hard and honestly, teach our children the same and to respect and honor their ancestor's culture (whatever it may be). And save the whales and dolphins.
Do you live in Milwaukee? Have you ever been to Milwaukee? Do you realize that for the past two months (or however long she's been missing) it's been on the news almost every day in Milwaukee? There are flyers in most local businesses with her picture. There are tons of things in the paper.
I live in Mexico. I have never heard before about the Alexis Patterson kidnapping. Yet when I watch CNN, there's a lot of stories about the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping. And I have to (somewhat painfully) agree with Jon Katz about this one.
The Big Media tends to take one story and latch on to it, and squeeze it for all the money it can get. It's either that, or the Smarts have been paying afwully huge amounts of money to buy airtime in several media channels and newspapers and such.
It's not like the O.J. murder trial or the Blake murder trial. They're famous people, so more people know them and want to know what's going on with those cases. In the Smart case, they're taking someone unknown and making her famous. And it's not "the people" deciding it. It's the studio execs. It's Ted Turner. It's people with a desire to earn more money through selling advertisement to more viewers.
I agree. American football, where only one player's feet ever gets in contact with the ball, is a misnomer.
I say you should call it... Tossball, or passball, or simply Pickupandcarryball. "Yeah, the Chicago Bears are the gretest team in the history of american pickupandcarryball."
Besides, american football is a wussy game compared to Australian rugby. There you play the game and take the hurting like a MAN, not run around lugging 30 pounds of armor.
They should drink Negra Modelo instead. Yeah. Just the reason they've been looking for to declare war on our species. If you're gonna serve them beer, give them some XX Lager or Sol.
The Bible says that God is omniscient, which therefore negates any possibility of free will for humans, and for that matter, for God as well.
Uh, Omniscient means that God would know everything everywhere anytime, which doesn't rule out the possibility of free will. Just because God would know what you're gonna do, doesn't mean that you don't have free will.
I think what you meant is that God is Omnipotent or something like that.
unless they are also planning on removing all the chemistry books from all the university libraries, this is largely going to solve nothing.
That would be phase two of their plan. But let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet. They're just doing it to take care of the proles.. er, the People, I mean.
They're tasty! They're good for you! they will help you defend your socialisty people from being conquered by the evil capitalist governments who want to destroy the last bastion of freedom and crush the socialist dream which will live on forever and ever and ever and... (snipped 4 hours of speech)
Plus, each Cloned Cuban Cow(tm) comes with it's own Fidel-like beard! Get them while they're new!
(Gloria Estefan and Celia Cruz do not speak for The Cloned Cuban Cow Company)
Most asteroids are small and are much more likely to fall relatively harmlessly into an ocean than hit a populated area.
I'm not entirely sure about the "harmlessness" of an asteroid impact into an ocean. I mean, you get one of those babies hitting the Pacific Ocean, let's say somewhere south of Hawaii, and maybe wiping out a few islands.
Several minutes later, a humongous tsunami rises out of the ocean and swallows up Honolulu. Surf's up!
A few hours later, another tsunami appears and completely wipes out San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and most importantly Mazatlan, Mexico (hey, my grandparents live there). Not to mention all the destruction caused in the Far East, from Shanghai to Tokyo-Yokohama.
Im not entirely sure about the physics involved, and i'm pulling this timeline out of thin air, but i'm pretty sure that an ocean-based impact is far, far worse than a land-based impact.
Heck, if the Indians and Pakistani want to blow each other up using nuclear bombs, then let them knock themselves out. As long as the rest of the world doesn't decide to join in, I guess the damage done to the rest of the world would be minimal. Better yet, let's drop the incoming asteroid right smack in the middle of the Kashmir and bingo, no more conflict.
Anyone who hides patents and patent applications in order to deceive their fellow members, "working" with them to create a new memory standard, just to throw their weight several years down the line claiming everybody is infringing on those patents, deserves such a huge fine that the only memory they will be able to afford will be Post-it notes stuck to their PCs.
The beauty of it is, that you can vote for Al Gore in a couple more years, and if he gets enough votes, he'll be president, and then you can feel comfortable jacking off while you have a president who can pronounce technologically savvy. Even if he sounds like a wind-up toy swallowing a codfish when he's saying it.
Funny. I thought Al Gore DID get enough votes to be a president. But then I remembered that you don't live in a democracy, you live in a Republic of sorts.
And considering that I'm not even an american citizen, I hardly think they'll let me vote for Al Gore. I'd probably vote for Nader, anyway.
(Offtopic. I know. Got enough Karma to spare)
The reason the US is so powerful is because they are so highly regarded. Yeah. Like Russia in the 80s and China right now, right?
Might makes right. The US is so powerful because they have money. And the tanks and bombs to back up any political issue they take.
First of all, why in the 14th Level of Hell (the one with the infinite screeching monkeys) would the rest of the world be happy with the US Government governing the Internet?
See, this is the kind of thing that pisses off the rest of the world. Next thing you know, ICANN's predecessor will be censoring domain names all over the world, in order to "stop the terror" and "protect the children" and "protect American interests". So you'll not only be unable to register Microsoftsucks.com, but Microsoftsucks.uk or Microsoftsucks.tv.
And before someone comes out and says, "Just because the US Government can do it doesn't mean it will", let me give you a little hint: We dont trust the US Goverment. Personally, Al Gore would've made a better job at it than Bush. At least he was technologically savvy. At least he could pronounce "technologically savvy".
Mark my words... the US keeps this up, and sooner or later you're gonna start receiving virtual terrorist attacks or something. Screwing up the Internet for the rest of the world, by the way.
I say let the UN create some sort of Internet Agency with representation from several countries, not just from "american citizens, businesses and special interests".
Sorry about the rant, but it really strikes me as a very, very Bad Idea.
"Do not take if you are pregnant, or could become pregnant".
Just like alcohol, but it would say "Do not take or you MAY get pregnant"
...Aw heck, that's too much trouble. Why not just bulldoze Hollywood into the Pacific, fake tits and all? :)
Because the EPA would be all over your ass for dumping hazardous waste.
Not to mention that all of those fake tits would probably float in the ocean. Heck, you'd have former Baywatch actresses (heh) washing up on the beaches of Thailand for decades.
Hello? It's their alpha COUNTRY CODE. Yes, they are entitled to it. It's a computer-age born national symbol. They can do what they want with it, just like they can do what they want with their numeric telephone Country Code.
Well, now, I always thought that ICANN was the organization in charge of creating TLDs and delegating responsability and management. The South African government may whine all they want and police every Internet conection inside their country if they wish, but the point is that sooner or later they have to connect to the outside world. They don't have any "unalienable rights" to have a connection to the rest of the world, as far as I can remember.
And it's that kind of connections which is supposed to be regulated by ICANN, in some kind of consensus, through the use of TLDs. So I don't see why the government should get in the way of someone who is working for his country, doing a heck of a good job (from what I can tell) for free, just so they can charge their own citizens for something they (the gov'ment) did not create or implement.
Maybe I haven't got the ICANN thing quite right yet, but I'm sure as hell against any government messing with something just because they can.
It's not ICANN or the readers of /. job to tell another country what formal process to use in administering their TLD... Who cares, give it to the Gov't. It's theirs anyhow.
Is it theirs because they somehow own such TLD? Are they entitled to it? Just because they can make money out of it means they have to regulate it?
You had me going there for the first point... but lost me completely on the second one. "Terminate any regime that supports Islamic radicals"??? How would you define an Islamic radical? Not all of them are dancing in the streets, shooting their guns in the air, and shouting "Kill the american pig-dogs".
Let's face it, any person who wants to execute Vengeance upon the americans he sees as "the enemy" will do it. How hard would it be for one of them to sneak up into America carrying a few pounds of explosive and blowing himself up in some HEB or mall? The only way for the US to stop such an individual would be to close their borders with laser-shields, or just shoot the whole country into space. Or to keep a permanent watch and record on EACH AND EVERY person that wishes to enter the United States.
It's better to think about WHY they're doing that, and how to make them stop thinking that the U.S. is the enemy. I don't see people crashing planes into, say, Japan or New Zealand. But then, I don't see Japanese governments training foreign military forces in some remote country, to overthrow someone who isn't friendly towards Americans... only to complain a few years down the line that those S.O.B.s have started thinking for themselves and are now the enemy.
We hate Iran? Let's train Iraqui forces. Oh, now we hate Iraq? Let's support Iranian forces. We don't like the Russians in Afghanistan? Let's give those friendly Talibans a hand (plus some equipment and training). Whoops, the Russians are gone and the Afghani are starving? Well, sucks to be them. They're no longer needed. They're no longer useful to American interests.
And, in my opinion, if you get rid of a Regime and don't deal with the other issues, you'll end up with a country divided with fighting and civil war. Guess who will win control? Yep, the biggest, baddest mofo's of that country. Which will need an enemy, preferrably a foreign one, to keep control of their citizens. Guess whose name will pop up at the top of their minds?
Personally, I'm more worried about my kids finding some of my posts :P
That's a good idea: give them X moderator points along with their given weekly allowance. Then, whenever you take a fatherly-dictatorial decision, they can pool their mod points and try to change your mind.
Move over, Mr. Spock. The next generation will be the Slashdot generation.
Is this the same UK with 200,000 public surveillance cameras? Nope, no mass surveillance here! No siree!
Close call, but as an independent referee I'd declare your argument not quite on the mark.
It's one thing to have public mass surveillance. It's another thing to have private mass surveillance.
Putting cameras in public places is just as invasive as, say, having a witness in every corner, every night, to prevent crimes. Having that same witness in your OWN house every night, well, that's another thing completely.
For the record, I live in Mexico, so many of our so-called rights are pretty much laughable, but we still expect a degree of privacy in our own homes.
You see, we (along with millions of non-american citizens) have grown up believing that the USofA is a great place to live, because there you can say what you think, and think whatever you like, without feeling oppressed or persecuted or spied upon by people who don't think the way you think. Sadly enough, this is no longer the case.
And I'm pretty sure this slashdot post will be archived and editted to take out all of the non-incriminating stuff so they can use it against me some day!
Somewhere in a dark basement, under an obscure FBI building, there's an investigating agent reading what you've just typed, and evaluating your comment using the latest FBI scale...
Moderation: +1 Funny, +1 Terrorist
Citizen #3618112's Karma Total: 27.
Recommend with-holding the arrest until he reaches the Karma Cap.