So on what basis will this life-extending drug be given out? Will it only be issued in cases where it will help a person reach a natural age with a decent quality of life? Or will anyone able to pay for it be able to obtain it?
Do you even have to ask that question? This drug would be no different from any others used to extend lifespan today. If you can afford it, you'll get it. If not, then not.
If you're going to argue from hindsight that a certain behavior is/was a predictor for psychopathy, you need to pick a target who's been formally identified as a psychopath. Bush may have been an ass, but so far as I know he's not been diagnosed as a psychopath (neither has Gore, again as far as I know). So using either of them in your argument is just political grandstanding and detracts from your argument, IMO.
I have never been convinced that these tax cuts ever actually generated the claimed outcomes. In fact, from what I've seen, it generates the exact opposite outcomes.
Then you've never looked at the income of the Federal government before and after tax breaks. It almost invariably goes up.
Next time some union thug says that teachers teach "because they love children" or "love teaching", show them this article. They don't care about the kids or their education, they only care about their job security.
These are the same selfish luddites who would've smashed printing presses hundreds of years ago to save the jobs of scribes. It's pathetic.
...Congress ups the amount they'll underwrite for college loans automatically every year, and colleges and universities automatically increase their tuition and textbook costs to keep pace with that increase. That's it, that's the whole reason education is as expensive as it is. The market for education is distorted by government interference, and yet when people get hurt by it their solution is more government interference. It's absurd.
If you want experimental, fun languages, your choices are actually very good, what with ruby, python, and a ton of functional languages. In terms of safe and good for scalable, risk-averse environments, there's pretty much just Java and C#.
Do you have any idea how much financial code is written in Python? I take that back, because it's obvious you do not.
He could have explained his views in a more polite manner, but he chose not to.
To be fair, I'm not sure if he could've. I hate to say it, but Stallman is either an Asperger's sufferer or a sociopath; the guy just doesn't seem to care about human emotions. So expecting him to state something in a way that can be expected not to draw offense is, well, impractical at best.
Imo, lectures are the absolute worst way to learn, but that's what most schools subject kids to most of the time. And it gets increasingly worse in the higher grades.
This is starting to change. My daughter's 7th grade English teacher has the kids post on an online forum for their weekly book readings, and encourages them to critique each others' postings. He's using it as a tool to encourage peer feedback, and get the kids teaching each other, with his role being more of a guide and resource. It's working wonderfully, all of the kids are full engaged in ways they weren't before and my daughter is learning more about how to express her ideas to others.
I know that this is just one datum, but I think it's important to encourage these kinds of new models. We'll all be the better for it.
Note the huge uptick in average temperature starting roughly 11.5k years BP. I'm pretty sure the foot-powered cars the Flintstones drove didn't warm the earth, so this must've been a natural event. Saying that it's impossible for current temperature trends to be unnatural flies in the face of something that has already happened once, almost within recorded history; not to mention all the times when it happened outside of recorded history.
This is why some people, like myself, do not take climate alarmists seriously. They make these grandiose pronouncements that have little, if anything, to do with the facts.
Online videos might keep Flash around for clients, but it doesn't help the market for developer tools. Once the software to show videos is written, how many times does it have to be redone?
My point was that instead of sitting around waiting on the next government, people should actively pursue job opportunities like freelancing. So it's not so much that freelancing creates a job, but that the need for freelancers exists in the first place. Unemployed individuals should pursue freelancing as much as possible, and by doing so create their own job, as it were.
You can disagree with my choices all you want, but you still haven't explained how, exactly, I'm contributing to the unemployment rate by working as much as I do. Maybe because you realized it's a bullshit argument?
So the people like him (and myself) who are willing to work our asses off to better our lives by working more than one job and/or freelancing a lot, we're the problem? Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and say "fuck you" on that one, buddy.
If more people were willing to take risks and work hard, we wouldn't have the unemployment we do because people would be out there creating jobs instead of sitting on their asses waiting for a check to be handed to them. And just because you're happy with a mediocre existence, doesn't mean you get to foist that lazy attitude on everyone else.
Next, the best way to eliminate "creative accounting" in regard to taxes is to make the system simple.
Absolutely correct. Make things simpler, with fewer (if any) loopholes and dodges, and you'll get more income.
A national sales tax, for example, would eliminate any benefit from basing your companies off shore.
Absolutely incorrect. Every single example of a national sales tax is loaded with idiotic plans for "prebates" and other such nonsense that would require a huge bureaucracy to maintain. Not to mention, without repealing the 16th amendment, this is an invitation to double taxation.
Just go to a simple flat tax of 20% with $40,000 deductible per earner regardless of source, nothing else. That would bump the revenue to the federal government from $866B to $1.01T, and reduce the tax paid by median earners to only $2000 (it's currently over $3000) and reduce people making under the median to $0 (it's currently between $100 and $2000 per earner). This simplifies the tax code, reduces the burden on middle-class families, and makes it impossible (and pointless) for the wealthy to create trusts, offshore companies, and other tax dodges.
This is all just for personal income. We could do the exact same scheme with corporate income and realize even greater benefits.
But of course, this doesn't allow politicians to monkey with people's lives by getting them to go for tax breaks. So it'll never happen.
Slashdot Mirror
So on what basis will this life-extending drug be given out? Will it only be issued in cases where it will help a person reach a natural age with a decent quality of life? Or will anyone able to pay for it be able to obtain it?
Do you even have to ask that question? This drug would be no different from any others used to extend lifespan today. If you can afford it, you'll get it. If not, then not.
If you're going to argue from hindsight that a certain behavior is/was a predictor for psychopathy, you need to pick a target who's been formally identified as a psychopath. Bush may have been an ass, but so far as I know he's not been diagnosed as a psychopath (neither has Gore, again as far as I know). So using either of them in your argument is just political grandstanding and detracts from your argument, IMO.
I have never been convinced that these tax cuts ever actually generated the claimed outcomes. In fact, from what I've seen, it generates the exact opposite outcomes.
Then you've never looked at the income of the Federal government before and after tax breaks. It almost invariably goes up.
Next time some union thug says that teachers teach "because they love children" or "love teaching", show them this article. They don't care about the kids or their education, they only care about their job security.
These are the same selfish luddites who would've smashed printing presses hundreds of years ago to save the jobs of scribes. It's pathetic.
Even something as minute as the URLs on websites are structured much like file systems on UNIX.
There just isn't a part of modern technology that isn't touched by what this man created.
I'll grant you that. You original post left me with the impression you though version control was a waste of time. Thanks for clarifying.
A "robot" is an automated system, it doesn't have to be autonomous or even ambulatory.
I'd say it depends on what they are actually doing.
Then you don't know what you're talking about and should not be allowed in a position of responsibility.
Not using version control is simply inexcusable. The guy needs to run fast (maybe his old job will take him back) before the place crashes and burns.
If I had to guess, it would be their ass.
It's becoming more expensive because...
...Congress ups the amount they'll underwrite for college loans automatically every year, and colleges and universities automatically increase their tuition and textbook costs to keep pace with that increase. That's it, that's the whole reason education is as expensive as it is. The market for education is distorted by government interference, and yet when people get hurt by it their solution is more government interference. It's absurd.
If you want experimental, fun languages, your choices are actually very good, what with ruby, python, and a ton of functional languages. In terms of safe and good for scalable, risk-averse environments, there's pretty much just Java and C#.
Do you have any idea how much financial code is written in Python? I take that back, because it's obvious you do not.
He could have explained his views in a more polite manner, but he chose not to.
To be fair, I'm not sure if he could've. I hate to say it, but Stallman is either an Asperger's sufferer or a sociopath; the guy just doesn't seem to care about human emotions. So expecting him to state something in a way that can be expected not to draw offense is, well, impractical at best.
Imo, lectures are the absolute worst way to learn, but that's what most schools subject kids to most of the time. And it gets increasingly worse in the higher grades.
This is starting to change. My daughter's 7th grade English teacher has the kids post on an online forum for their weekly book readings, and encourages them to critique each others' postings. He's using it as a tool to encourage peer feedback, and get the kids teaching each other, with his role being more of a guide and resource. It's working wonderfully, all of the kids are full engaged in ways they weren't before and my daughter is learning more about how to express her ideas to others.
I know that this is just one datum, but I think it's important to encourage these kinds of new models. We'll all be the better for it.
depiraatbaai? What kind of spelling is that. Stupid Flanders.
Clinton was impeached, he just wasn't convicted. Same with Andrew Johnson.
"These observations should dispel in one fell swoop any notion that recent global warming could be natural."
Really? Because climate has never, ever, not even once, shifted quickly?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png
Note the huge uptick in average temperature starting roughly 11.5k years BP. I'm pretty sure the foot-powered cars the Flintstones drove didn't warm the earth, so this must've been a natural event. Saying that it's impossible for current temperature trends to be unnatural flies in the face of something that has already happened once, almost within recorded history; not to mention all the times when it happened outside of recorded history.
This is why some people, like myself, do not take climate alarmists seriously. They make these grandiose pronouncements that have little, if anything, to do with the facts.
Online videos might keep Flash around for clients, but it doesn't help the market for developer tools. Once the software to show videos is written, how many times does it have to be redone?
Damn you! You stole my joke. And I thought it was so original. /me shakes tiny fist in impotent fury
Not that it'll help, all we'll see will be asterisks. Like my password on iTunes is ********, and my Slashdot password is ********.
My point was that instead of sitting around waiting on the next government, people should actively pursue job opportunities like freelancing. So it's not so much that freelancing creates a job, but that the need for freelancers exists in the first place. Unemployed individuals should pursue freelancing as much as possible, and by doing so create their own job, as it were.
You can disagree with my choices all you want, but you still haven't explained how, exactly, I'm contributing to the unemployment rate by working as much as I do. Maybe because you realized it's a bullshit argument?
So the people like him (and myself) who are willing to work our asses off to better our lives by working more than one job and/or freelancing a lot, we're the problem? Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and say "fuck you" on that one, buddy.
If more people were willing to take risks and work hard, we wouldn't have the unemployment we do because people would be out there creating jobs instead of sitting on their asses waiting for a check to be handed to them. And just because you're happy with a mediocre existence, doesn't mean you get to foist that lazy attitude on everyone else.
These iPads will get more use in playing "fart apps" in the house of commons bar and viewing porn in hotels than they ever do in the debating chamber.
Give the MPs and their staff some credit. I'm sure they'll play with fart apps and porn while in the debating chamber, too.
Was it just pure number crunching, or did they actually do physical tests?
My understanding is that they outsourced the testing to the Taiwanese Parliament, so I'm sure it was very thorough.
Next, the best way to eliminate "creative accounting" in regard to taxes is to make the system simple.
Absolutely correct. Make things simpler, with fewer (if any) loopholes and dodges, and you'll get more income.
A national sales tax, for example, would eliminate any benefit from basing your companies off shore.
Absolutely incorrect. Every single example of a national sales tax is loaded with idiotic plans for "prebates" and other such nonsense that would require a huge bureaucracy to maintain. Not to mention, without repealing the 16th amendment, this is an invitation to double taxation.
Just go to a simple flat tax of 20% with $40,000 deductible per earner regardless of source, nothing else. That would bump the revenue to the federal government from $866B to $1.01T, and reduce the tax paid by median earners to only $2000 (it's currently over $3000) and reduce people making under the median to $0 (it's currently between $100 and $2000 per earner). This simplifies the tax code, reduces the burden on middle-class families, and makes it impossible (and pointless) for the wealthy to create trusts, offshore companies, and other tax dodges.
This is all just for personal income. We could do the exact same scheme with corporate income and realize even greater benefits.
But of course, this doesn't allow politicians to monkey with people's lives by getting them to go for tax breaks. So it'll never happen.