Lol, yes. I laugh a little when I read the word "centrist." It's like trying to find an edge on a sphere. Politics can be multi-dimensional.
What they should really be saying is that they believe in the common fallacy that the truth always exists in middle or the best position is a compromise between two extremes. Reality dictates that a compromise / midway between the truth and a lie is a half-truth, which is arguably more damaging than a straight out lie.
Seriously. There are days when I can watch a youtube video, and can't tell from which party an official is representing. I just shake my head and facepalm as I listen to their remarks or 'plans' to 'fix' things.
I'm going with Pete's Overlord list here, and I have to say that if I can spot the flaws in their plans, they should not be implemented. What more, if I have a question, they cannot continue until they answer it to my satisfaction.
There is a simple way of dealing with this problem: just record the person's name with the vote. Make it public. A number of elections, at different levels, in the past, have been handled this way.
Sure, there is the possibility of voter intimidation, but everyone knows the vote.
Agreed. When the party of purple is dealing with an insurrection or secession of various internal groups, they get a focus group and modify their sales tactics. They don't actually ever change.
Imagine they are, I don't know, an oil company. Instead of changing so that blowouts in the Gulf of Mexico are less likely (training, better equipment, a little less drinking, hiring an operations manager who attended some engineering courses in college), they instead dial up a marketing firm, and put out a message about how losing a few hundred thousand gallons of oil is good for stockholders / the environment.
Why? Because the appearance of change is cheaper than actual change. I mean, let's be honest, if you're spending your time apologizing for your favorite elected government official, talking about how he / she is awesome, but their changes are held up because of {various adversaries}, you've been suckered.
Then perhaps it's time to stop running candidates who campaign on being good while performing evil, and start running candidates who campaign on being evil while performing evil. If we get enough super-villains interested in the White House or a seat in the Senate, perhaps there will be an incentive for them to reform.
There's a recent WonderMark cartoon that appeals to me in this sense: http://wondermark.com/782/
There's a fair chance it will backfire, and to be honest, there isn't much incentive for a super-villain to run for president or a seat in the Senate. Too much work, too little benefit, and the dress code for the Senate doesn't allow for tailored spandex suits.
Depends. If you exercise, and vary which places you visit for a dining experience, it can be quite healthy.
If you eat the exact same thing every day from McDonalds, for a month, do not move from the couch, except to use the bathroom, then yes, it can be quite unhealthy.
I think everyone is aware that fast-foods tend to be somewhat lacking in micro-nutrients.
Indeed. While I am not a history major, I have a passing understanding of how a number of the "Great" Civilizations fell, the policies they employed before they fell, and a general idea of where they stood when they were at their best and at their worst. It is by no means a complete understanding, but a careful search for a handful of patterns that always seem to appear in groups, and tend to correlate with that civilization's destruction.
A quick review of Rome implies two different stages of their civilization -> when they received their primary income through trade, and when they received their primary income through conquest. The United States has soured the usage of the dollar as a worldwide reserve currency, which is impacting its value and income through trade. Additionally, we've got quite a bill from the use of military overseas (warranted or otherwise), never-mind some of the things at home. As such, we may be reaching a point where the US cannot be supported primarily through trade, and will result to conquest for its income (if it gets that far, if this derived pattern holds). There is a somewhat popular belief among a small number of people that we are already there.
Me thinks that my earlier comment, with a mere mention of Reagan and a dim view of our printing of currency, has offended someone, as elections are coming up, and they believe they know my ideology / political affiliation. You'll notice the prevalence of ad hominem attacks in the other commentor's reply, which implies they lack any real evidence to counter my points, and are instead attempting to shift focus to my person. ^_^
"The first problem with your scenario is that you are so disconnected from reality that you fail to understand that most Americans just don't give a flying fuck about space - and that includes Congress." -> Ad Hominem attack which fails to address my point. Anything flying under the guise of national security these days gets allocated a nice fat budget. Any regular/.er wouldn't have noticed the TSA article not a few posts earlier that despite massive amounts of negative press and a huge infringement on civil liberties, the TSA got everything they wanted from Congress, and more.
"The second problem is that you fail to comprehend that the amount of money required isn't a drop in the bucket, it's the evaporation off a drop in the bucket." -> *Shrugs* I have seen different estimates, when compared to the GDP of the economy at the time, that suggest a second attempt to land on the moon today would bankrupt us. Wikipedia is quoting somewhere around the $40 billion dollar mark, while other places imply that the total cost was much higher. By the way, this is coming from someone who wants to visit other planets. I just don't want to kill what's left of the economy in the process.
"Your scenario isn't so much 'contrived' as it is 'a drug addled hallucination'." -> An another Ad Hominem attack.
You know, it does occur to me that part of the reason they are releasing this information is as a ruse. They know the American economy is in a bad spot, and they are also aware that Americans are disastrously bad at math. So, we demand improvements / money allocated to a space program to chase after a phantom or exaggerated threat, and we blow up our economy in the process. It would be something like what happened to Russia with Reagan and the SDI program, with the US playing the part of Russia in this contrived scenario (why not, we've been implementing sooooo many of the USSR's failed policies lately, one more can't sink this ship!). .
And our Congressmen appear stupid enough to totally go for it. It's a jobs program, right? And we own our currency printing press, right? If it's a disaster, we can just inflate away the damage, like Russia did with the Ruble.
That is what I thought. However, recent evidence points to the obvious problem -> people become used to the current level of fear. Which means you are either in a race to continuously pop out a larger and stronger crisis, or you have to pull back for a bit. Right now, people are losing their life savings -> in the end, the people upstairs have ensured that the people downstairs have *nothing* to lose.
And people enjoy comfort only so long as it doesn't chafe their freedoms. So, you get a few years out of the trade before people want to switch back. Why? Because after the trade, the comfort slowly gets cut back. Happens every time. The thinking of the people here seems to be one of "I'll have them trade their freedom for comfort, then I'll bolt the door, and take back the comfort. Win! Win! Win!" when reality dictates that removing their comfort, at the point, tends to sober them up. Then you're stuck in the room with someone who is pissed at you, and again, has nothing to lose.
What I see now, going on with the global economy / politics, is something out of a video game -> FF7, to be exact. The {new} people {currently} in charge have decided to control through 'fear,' instead of money, because they think it's cheaper and just as effective. They are obviously too lazy / stupid to have read a history book, to realize how many other people throughout history have attempted the same, succeeded, then were found murdered in their beds. Yes, people will try to kill you whether you are a good or evil person, no, you do not need to provide them with additional reasons to come after you.
Having worked in a morgue, and spent some time with doctors, I find myself constantly surprised how little they can accomplish against a great multitude of diseases, how they can only treat (and not cure) some diseases, and how many of those treatments suck (seriously, many of them are borderline barbaric). On one hand, there are an almost infinite numbers of ways that a human being can die, on the other hand, I'm left scratching my head that some of these doctors don't have a more aggressive approach towards one or two of these diseases. You know what I mean, the "I want to get into the (non-psychiatric) medical textbooks because I made this disease my willing bitch" kind of approach; the "I have some free time Friday, and while I'm drinking or watching a movie, I'm going to check up on how my 'project' is coming along -> googling around to check out the latest research on how the one disease you have it in for is going that week". In the words of Dr. Frank N' Furter -> " I could show you my favorite obsession."
Perhaps more money is being made in the treatment than the cure? Perhaps it's a job program? Perhaps doctors are too overworked to focus on pursing the cure for a disease? Perhaps they've grown complacent? Perhaps the medical schools screen out people with that kind of character flaw?
Not quite. If I remember correctly, God dropped by to check out the tower (various unnamed parties were worried it would actually reach heaven), and found a woman performing manual labor while her baby was unattended. Something like that. Which pissed him off.
Something of a hidden message which states humanity has to deal with its social / welfare issues before trying to reach the stars. Or technology is evil; hard to tell after that garden story. Possibly, anyways. I've found trying to gather understanding from this book to be on par with examining the liver of some poor animal for 'signs' or trying to read tea leaves. If I ever open a practice of psychiatry for the biblically-minded, I'm going to use that book instead of an ink-blot -> "So, what do you think the Bible was trying to tell you this week? Uh huh, that's nice. And how did that make you feel?" However, I never will. Having seen what religion of any sort has done to the minds of mankind, I cannot believe that my tinkering with it would help.
The problem is one of people have just enough understanding of economics to get themselves into a financial black-hole. What more, they also appear to be subscribers to the NASA space program's "Can Do" approach, without anywhere near the scientists / engineers necessary to make it happen.
The people involved seem to understand that "competition can be good" and "economies of scale" without the prerequisite understanding that these are market conditions, not something you can just mandate by law (stone tablets say that man who tries to use law to own market, gets punished by gods). As for the technology they are using, which ties into this whole revenue problem, it is orders of magnitudes away from being cost-effective. You don't just randomly start a solar power company, cross your fingers, and hope your scientists / engineers can find a breakthrough (before the money runs out) in manufacturing that enables you to suddenly become competitive with the players already existing. You need to already have an idea how you are going to pull this off before the business plan leaves the printer. And have a paranoid approach towards your first 5 years of profits, and the likelihood that your competitors will strike back / the market will change. And yet, this appears to be the case.
Really? Your great contribution is a few tweaks on the existing solar cell design? You're shooting for $1 / watt to be competitive with coal? Aren't you forgetting something? Coal is 24 / 7, and on demand. Solar is ~12ish hours / 5 days a week, and demand cannot be readily fulfilled (in a pinch). And the methods you would use to store energy, for on demand applications, drive that cost right back up. How much do you think a reversible turbine, to move water into and out of a reservoir costs? Coal's method of storing energy for later use is a giant coal bin out back.
I'm sorry, I'm just having trouble understanding why we are suddenly attacking our economy, and doing everything in our power to destroy our way of life. I really must be missing why we're wasting hideous amounts of taxpayer money to replace a working, somewhat reliable system, with another one which might be on the blink if the sun chooses not to shine for a week. Like trading in a Rolls-Royce for a Robin Reliant.
Just for the record, I despise coal power. I'm in the pro-nuclear lobby. But every-time I run the numbers, and check for fail-safes, I come up in the red.
Alternative power will be competitive when the costs for the total system are on par with $.75 / watt. Not before.
What was their original model / projection? Has anyone else verified it? And if so, what measures will they be taking to supplement their water supply?
Just don't. The current economic climate is filled with people who are a disgrace to the market. If you hand over the source, expect no compensation and to be fired within 3 months (redundancy).
Perhaps you've noticed the situation -> as a programmer, I'm sure you've come across various articles referring to programmers as worker bees, and the importance of keeping a bee hive going. While these are all management metaphors, and are intended to keep a technological company healthy, it cannot be dismissed that various people employed at your organization will view you as a worker, as a bee, with something of value to be carried off. Anyone who has worked with bees is aware that bee-keepers siphon off a fair amount of honey, leaving enough for the bees to survive the winter. So to do these people see you not as another person, who enjoys earning money as much as themselves, but as some animal to be yoked, and at times milked for everything that he's worth. It took me over a decade to grasp that while you are taught that good acts will be rewarded, and that business's reward / promote people based off of merit, reality has taught me otherwise.
You see a program which makes the company more efficient, and allows your people a less stressful job / frees them up for other tasks. They will see a program that makes half your team redundant, as they will need 2 people now to handle the same workload as 4 people. They will not compensate you (maybe a 2 for one dinner at Dennys, if you're lucky), and someone will fire the others, making themselves look good in the process and getting a bonus for eliminating overhead.
File for a LLC, sell the software to the company. If they don't want it, take it to their nearest competitors. Get a lawyer.
Indeed. A general rule employed by the more intelligent people in IT is to assume that your email can and will be forwarded, so it pays to take an extra 5 minutes composing it. Mistakes may be made, and they will be at some point in your career, but they can be mitigated. Why this particular man is fielding customer relations is beyond me; a basic interview, let alone the first week of work, should have had him banned from speaking directly to the customers. Though there is information to suggest he owns the company, so we have a company owner fielding customer relations e-mails as a first-line (rarely a good idea); typically, an owner should not be involved unless there has been a major screw-up, and well after others have attempted to handle the problem and failed.
Slashdot Mirror
Lol, yes. I laugh a little when I read the word "centrist." It's like trying to find an edge on a sphere. Politics can be multi-dimensional.
What they should really be saying is that they believe in the common fallacy that the truth always exists in middle or the best position is a compromise between two extremes. Reality dictates that a compromise / midway between the truth and a lie is a half-truth, which is arguably more damaging than a straight out lie.
Seriously. There are days when I can watch a youtube video, and can't tell from which party an official is representing. I just shake my head and facepalm as I listen to their remarks or 'plans' to 'fix' things.
I'm going with Pete's Overlord list here, and I have to say that if I can spot the flaws in their plans, they should not be implemented. What more, if I have a question, they cannot continue until they answer it to my satisfaction.
There is a simple way of dealing with this problem: just record the person's name with the vote. Make it public. A number of elections, at different levels, in the past, have been handled this way.
Sure, there is the possibility of voter intimidation, but everyone knows the vote.
Agreed. When the party of purple is dealing with an insurrection or secession of various internal groups, they get a focus group and modify their sales tactics. They don't actually ever change.
Imagine they are, I don't know, an oil company. Instead of changing so that blowouts in the Gulf of Mexico are less likely (training, better equipment, a little less drinking, hiring an operations manager who attended some engineering courses in college), they instead dial up a marketing firm, and put out a message about how losing a few hundred thousand gallons of oil is good for stockholders / the environment.
Why? Because the appearance of change is cheaper than actual change. I mean, let's be honest, if you're spending your time apologizing for your favorite elected government official, talking about how he / she is awesome, but their changes are held up because of {various adversaries}, you've been suckered.
Then perhaps it's time to stop running candidates who campaign on being good while performing evil, and start running candidates who campaign on being evil while performing evil. If we get enough super-villains interested in the White House or a seat in the Senate, perhaps there will be an incentive for them to reform.
There's a recent WonderMark cartoon that appeals to me in this sense: http://wondermark.com/782/
There's a fair chance it will backfire, and to be honest, there isn't much incentive for a super-villain to run for president or a seat in the Senate. Too much work, too little benefit, and the dress code for the Senate doesn't allow for tailored spandex suits.
All I ask for is some proof that a healthy lifestyle will let me outrun Death, and I will prescribe to it. To date, no one has met my challenge.
I'd give up smoking (and the chance at cancer), only to drop dead from a heart attack after running for several miles.
Depends. If you exercise, and vary which places you visit for a dining experience, it can be quite healthy.
If you eat the exact same thing every day from McDonalds, for a month, do not move from the couch, except to use the bathroom, then yes, it can be quite unhealthy.
I think everyone is aware that fast-foods tend to be somewhat lacking in micro-nutrients.
Indeed. While I am not a history major, I have a passing understanding of how a number of the "Great" Civilizations fell, the policies they employed before they fell, and a general idea of where they stood when they were at their best and at their worst. It is by no means a complete understanding, but a careful search for a handful of patterns that always seem to appear in groups, and tend to correlate with that civilization's destruction.
A quick review of Rome implies two different stages of their civilization -> when they received their primary income through trade, and when they received their primary income through conquest. The United States has soured the usage of the dollar as a worldwide reserve currency, which is impacting its value and income through trade. Additionally, we've got quite a bill from the use of military overseas (warranted or otherwise), never-mind some of the things at home. As such, we may be reaching a point where the US cannot be supported primarily through trade, and will result to conquest for its income (if it gets that far, if this derived pattern holds). There is a somewhat popular belief among a small number of people that we are already there.
Me thinks that my earlier comment, with a mere mention of Reagan and a dim view of our printing of currency, has offended someone, as elections are coming up, and they believe they know my ideology / political affiliation. You'll notice the prevalence of ad hominem attacks in the other commentor's reply, which implies they lack any real evidence to counter my points, and are instead attempting to shift focus to my person. ^_^
"The first problem with your scenario is that you are so disconnected from reality that you fail to understand that most Americans just don't give a flying fuck about space - and that includes Congress." -> Ad Hominem attack which fails to address my point. Anything flying under the guise of national security these days gets allocated a nice fat budget. Any regular /.er wouldn't have noticed the TSA article not a few posts earlier that despite massive amounts of negative press and a huge infringement on civil liberties, the TSA got everything they wanted from Congress, and more.
"The second problem is that you fail to comprehend that the amount of money required isn't a drop in the bucket, it's the evaporation off a drop in the bucket." -> *Shrugs* I have seen different estimates, when compared to the GDP of the economy at the time, that suggest a second attempt to land on the moon today would bankrupt us. Wikipedia is quoting somewhere around the $40 billion dollar mark, while other places imply that the total cost was much higher. By the way, this is coming from someone who wants to visit other planets. I just don't want to kill what's left of the economy in the process.
"Your scenario isn't so much 'contrived' as it is 'a drug addled hallucination'." -> An another Ad Hominem attack.
Seriously, mods, Score: 0 Troll?
You know, it does occur to me that part of the reason they are releasing this information is as a ruse. They know the American economy is in a bad spot, and they are also aware that Americans are disastrously bad at math. So, we demand improvements / money allocated to a space program to chase after a phantom or exaggerated threat, and we blow up our economy in the process. It would be something like what happened to Russia with Reagan and the SDI program, with the US playing the part of Russia in this contrived scenario (why not, we've been implementing sooooo many of the USSR's failed policies lately, one more can't sink this ship!). .
And our Congressmen appear stupid enough to totally go for it. It's a jobs program, right? And we own our currency printing press, right? If it's a disaster, we can just inflate away the damage, like Russia did with the Ruble.
Lol. Sadly, the progress of NASA is charted against which planet / moon they landed a human on recently.
Because acres of solar cells are more defendable than a small generator / reactor.
Indeed. I can't think of a movie I have watched in recent times that I would be willing to sit through again.
That is what I thought. However, recent evidence points to the obvious problem -> people become used to the current level of fear. Which means you are either in a race to continuously pop out a larger and stronger crisis, or you have to pull back for a bit. Right now, people are losing their life savings -> in the end, the people upstairs have ensured that the people downstairs have *nothing* to lose.
And people enjoy comfort only so long as it doesn't chafe their freedoms. So, you get a few years out of the trade before people want to switch back. Why? Because after the trade, the comfort slowly gets cut back. Happens every time. The thinking of the people here seems to be one of "I'll have them trade their freedom for comfort, then I'll bolt the door, and take back the comfort. Win! Win! Win!" when reality dictates that removing their comfort, at the point, tends to sober them up. Then you're stuck in the room with someone who is pissed at you, and again, has nothing to lose.
What I see now, going on with the global economy / politics, is something out of a video game -> FF7, to be exact. The {new} people {currently} in charge have decided to control through 'fear,' instead of money, because they think it's cheaper and just as effective. They are obviously too lazy / stupid to have read a history book, to realize how many other people throughout history have attempted the same, succeeded, then were found murdered in their beds. Yes, people will try to kill you whether you are a good or evil person, no, you do not need to provide them with additional reasons to come after you.
Seriously, during an economic recession (great depression), the aforementioned Bear Patrol gets an increase in funding? Why?!?
Having worked in a morgue, and spent some time with doctors, I find myself constantly surprised how little they can accomplish against a great multitude of diseases, how they can only treat (and not cure) some diseases, and how many of those treatments suck (seriously, many of them are borderline barbaric). On one hand, there are an almost infinite numbers of ways that a human being can die, on the other hand, I'm left scratching my head that some of these doctors don't have a more aggressive approach towards one or two of these diseases. You know what I mean, the "I want to get into the (non-psychiatric) medical textbooks because I made this disease my willing bitch" kind of approach; the "I have some free time Friday, and while I'm drinking or watching a movie, I'm going to check up on how my 'project' is coming along -> googling around to check out the latest research on how the one disease you have it in for is going that week". In the words of Dr. Frank N' Furter -> " I could show you my favorite obsession."
Perhaps more money is being made in the treatment than the cure? Perhaps it's a job program? Perhaps doctors are too overworked to focus on pursing the cure for a disease? Perhaps they've grown complacent? Perhaps the medical schools screen out people with that kind of character flaw?
Another sign that Google is losing control -> loosing the morality police on average users.
And what about Steam?
And I'm vaguely interested in those disappearing toilets the British have.
Not quite. If I remember correctly, God dropped by to check out the tower (various unnamed parties were worried it would actually reach heaven), and found a woman performing manual labor while her baby was unattended. Something like that. Which pissed him off.
Something of a hidden message which states humanity has to deal with its social / welfare issues before trying to reach the stars. Or technology is evil; hard to tell after that garden story. Possibly, anyways. I've found trying to gather understanding from this book to be on par with examining the liver of some poor animal for 'signs' or trying to read tea leaves. If I ever open a practice of psychiatry for the biblically-minded, I'm going to use that book instead of an ink-blot -> "So, what do you think the Bible was trying to tell you this week? Uh huh, that's nice. And how did that make you feel?" However, I never will. Having seen what religion of any sort has done to the minds of mankind, I cannot believe that my tinkering with it would help.
The problem is one of people have just enough understanding of economics to get themselves into a financial black-hole. What more, they also appear to be subscribers to the NASA space program's "Can Do" approach, without anywhere near the scientists / engineers necessary to make it happen.
The people involved seem to understand that "competition can be good" and "economies of scale" without the prerequisite understanding that these are market conditions, not something you can just mandate by law (stone tablets say that man who tries to use law to own market, gets punished by gods). As for the technology they are using, which ties into this whole revenue problem, it is orders of magnitudes away from being cost-effective. You don't just randomly start a solar power company, cross your fingers, and hope your scientists / engineers can find a breakthrough (before the money runs out) in manufacturing that enables you to suddenly become competitive with the players already existing. You need to already have an idea how you are going to pull this off before the business plan leaves the printer. And have a paranoid approach towards your first 5 years of profits, and the likelihood that your competitors will strike back / the market will change. And yet, this appears to be the case.
Really? Your great contribution is a few tweaks on the existing solar cell design? You're shooting for $1 / watt to be competitive with coal? Aren't you forgetting something? Coal is 24 / 7, and on demand. Solar is ~12ish hours / 5 days a week, and demand cannot be readily fulfilled (in a pinch). And the methods you would use to store energy, for on demand applications, drive that cost right back up. How much do you think a reversible turbine, to move water into and out of a reservoir costs? Coal's method of storing energy for later use is a giant coal bin out back.
I'm sorry, I'm just having trouble understanding why we are suddenly attacking our economy, and doing everything in our power to destroy our way of life. I really must be missing why we're wasting hideous amounts of taxpayer money to replace a working, somewhat reliable system, with another one which might be on the blink if the sun chooses not to shine for a week. Like trading in a Rolls-Royce for a Robin Reliant.
Just for the record, I despise coal power. I'm in the pro-nuclear lobby. But every-time I run the numbers, and check for fail-safes, I come up in the red.
Alternative power will be competitive when the costs for the total system are on par with $.75 / watt. Not before.
What was their original model / projection? Has anyone else verified it? And if so, what measures will they be taking to supplement their water supply?
Just don't. The current economic climate is filled with people who are a disgrace to the market. If you hand over the source, expect no compensation and to be fired within 3 months (redundancy).
Perhaps you've noticed the situation -> as a programmer, I'm sure you've come across various articles referring to programmers as worker bees, and the importance of keeping a bee hive going. While these are all management metaphors, and are intended to keep a technological company healthy, it cannot be dismissed that various people employed at your organization will view you as a worker, as a bee, with something of value to be carried off. Anyone who has worked with bees is aware that bee-keepers siphon off a fair amount of honey, leaving enough for the bees to survive the winter. So to do these people see you not as another person, who enjoys earning money as much as themselves, but as some animal to be yoked, and at times milked for everything that he's worth. It took me over a decade to grasp that while you are taught that good acts will be rewarded, and that business's reward / promote people based off of merit, reality has taught me otherwise.
You see a program which makes the company more efficient, and allows your people a less stressful job / frees them up for other tasks. They will see a program that makes half your team redundant, as they will need 2 people now to handle the same workload as 4 people. They will not compensate you (maybe a 2 for one dinner at Dennys, if you're lucky), and someone will fire the others, making themselves look good in the process and getting a bonus for eliminating overhead.
File for a LLC, sell the software to the company. If they don't want it, take it to their nearest competitors. Get a lawyer.
Indeed. A general rule employed by the more intelligent people in IT is to assume that your email can and will be forwarded, so it pays to take an extra 5 minutes composing it. Mistakes may be made, and they will be at some point in your career, but they can be mitigated. Why this particular man is fielding customer relations is beyond me; a basic interview, let alone the first week of work, should have had him banned from speaking directly to the customers. Though there is information to suggest he owns the company, so we have a company owner fielding customer relations e-mails as a first-line (rarely a good idea); typically, an owner should not be involved unless there has been a major screw-up, and well after others have attempted to handle the problem and failed.
Then he can switch companies. It's not a happy solution, but it can be done in time for next year's Christmas.