...at one time it WAS because the movies were lame.
But now, despite their unending denial it's: - ridiculous prices for tickets - ridiculous prices for snacks - picture quality that hasn't improved much since about the mid 70's (sound quality *has* improved) - filthy theaters
If the movie makers want to claim they made bad movies this year, I'm not going to disagree - they did. But that's only part of it. Do the analyis:
One trip to the non-matinee movies for my family, plus a large pop, large popcorn and some candy for each, plus parking: ($8.50 ticket + $3 pop + $2.50 popcorn + $2 candy + $1 share of parking) x 6 = $102.
36" widescreen Toshiba hi def tube = $1600 Toshiba progressive scan DVD player = $200 (hooking it to the stereo I own) = $1800.
So for the price of 18 trips to the movies, PLUS Deducting the intangibles: - the convenience of watching in my own home - the ability to pause/rewind/stop and chat about whatever I want whenever I want - the ability to have whatever snack I want, in any quantity - the ability to have as many friends over as I can stuff into the room - to watch in my underwear and bathrobe if I want - to watch at whatever TIME I want, and interrupt to go do something if I want - to sit in my comfy chair, and exercise whatever odious personal habits I choose - the ability to (via Netflix) see pretty much whatever movie I want, not juse what the studio suits think I should be watching.
I don't think there's any doubt - film industry pricing DROVE the development of home theater, now they have to live in the world they created. Nice job guys, you eat your young, too?
You do understand that this success was with multipotent UMBILICAL stem cells, which are not banned from US Gov't federal research funds, right?
Knowing that, what's your point except to say that 'right-leaning' officials are preventing an advancement in research into embryonic stem cells which nevertheless, although I've been hearing about nothing but their limitless potential to give you whiter teeth, fresher breath, and a cheerful outlook, have yet to be used for any significant medical advance?
1. We could throw money at 41,000 unwed, unemployed ghetto moms, allowing them to eat just enough to procreate another 410,000 fatherless children! 2. We could pointlessly incarcerate another 1000 man/years of heinous murderers instead of giving them the capital punishment they richly deserve! 3. We could start another 100 useless rehabilitation programs to 'cure' pedophiles before releasing them back into the community. 4. We could fund another 10 minutes of research into Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, because it's a modern-day plague (that is not actually much of a threat to the general populace due to its spreading almost entirely by poor personal choices), but hey, it's affected the friends of a lot of famous people so it must be Really Bad (tm).
Mod me down if you want (it's/. after all), but let's be honest and recognize that pork-barrel wasted spending goes to BOTH sides of the political spectrum.
Let's see if we can explain this. The US is concerned about terrorists or rogue states using bioweapons. How do you work on any defenses against bioweapons? You need to develop systems, vaccines, and procedures. Would you develop these entirely by theorizing? To some degree, that's inevitable. But whatever you CAN test, say against a NON LETHAL VARIANT OF THE BIOWEAPON YOU FEAR for example, you probably would.
Nah, that's too reasonable and doesn't engender enough irrational hatred of the US. Mod this +1 troll.
Right or wrong, there is no doubt that "random selection" has become a euphemism for racial profiling.
When a significant fraction of the homocidal terrorists in the world are caucasian Canadians, I'll care. Until then, search people of semitic (ie middle-eastern) appearance, and concentrate on males ages 16-66.
You call people doubting the shrill hyperbole of the ever-infallible Green movement "FUD"? The Cato Institute? Next you're going to say it's Karl Rove's Secret Newsletter(tm). How is denying the ChickenLittling spreading "fear, uncertainty, and doubt"?
No, I believe that's the currency of the environmental movement:
- Global Warming is happening! (OK, we're extrapolating from a teeny segment of history, and 20 years ago we were just as stridently CERTAIN that another Ice Age was coming but really, believe us: this time the sky really IS falling! Really!)
- It's happening and it's our fault! (Really, we have nothing to back this up but some hunches, since most of the data tables show that the warming was long before the industrial revolution hit, so we're going to blame CroMagnon cooking fires and just wave our hands a bit. Don't look too carefully at the data. Believe us: this time the sky really IS falling!)
- It's happening and it's a bad thing! (Well, we really are going out a limb on this one, because nobody has any data of the effects of global warming. You need to disregard that they used to grow oranges in England and Vikings plowed fields in Greenland, and that there's ample evidence of flora in Antarctica, and simply believe that 'warming' is bad. Also, you need to only look at the glass-is-half-empty evidence that we present, showing that (for example) coral are dying off in certain regions, while ignoring that logically, other regions where the water was formerly too cold are now AVAILABLE to coral growth...but no matter what, that sky is most CERTAINLY falling now!)
Eco-freaks: the most species-centric creatures on the planet, who apparently believe that the environment must be maintained in a static state at the current norms PURELY for the benefit of HUMANS.
Which then brings us back to the question: terrorism, in terms of the threat to the average individual, IS pretty tiny.
So really, what drives the erosion of personal rights is the manipulation of the public by the mass media. I'd wager that if all the news organizations in the country started focusing 50% of their print space/media time on reporting stories on a SINGLE CAR ACCIDENT, that you would immediately see a reduction in congestion on the road within the week, due to people being afraid to get in their cars. For heaven's sake, people were afraid to swim in SWIMMING POOLS after Jaws came out.
So I'm not sure what the solution is. On the one hand, we have a media culture that permeates every facet of our lives, and which thrives by obsessing over the 'crisis du jour', consequently blowing it all out of proportion in terms of perceived risk. On the other hand, we have a deeply ignorant general public who live lives like dimwitted sheep, running obediently away from whatever they are told to. In some ways we almost deserve the governments that we've given ourselves.
I don't think the erosion of personal liberties is the cause here, it's a symptom. When those liberties (using the US Constitution and BoR as an example) were conceived, there were a concomitant burden of moral and ethical RESPONSIBILITIES by wich everyone was tied together. Now we have a society which is almost entirely duty-free, responsibility free, and morality free. So you have a nasty conflict between the ever burgeoning list of 'rights' to which everyone's entitled (ever read the laughable EU constitution? Listed as 'human rights' include: education, a free placement service, paid maternity leave, social security benefits and social services, housing assistance, preventive health care, services of general economic interest, and high levels of environmental and consumer protection).
So in that vein, I guess the Europeans are ok: they've assumed such a ridiculous number of 'rights' to which their citizens are entitled, they can spare a few.
Sure, but at least we can be sure of a few things in a manless society: the sales of flannel shirts, light duty pickups, and softball equipment would explode!
Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't know that many people are concerned about comets per se; I gather that the concerns regarding Earth-impact events are more in regards near-earth asteroids and other more "solid" bodies, particularly their ability to get very close to Earth before anyone even NOTICES they are there.
Comets, whether they were the hypothesized 'dirty snowballs' of yesterday or the 'powder-puff' of today, might be a mile or more across at the nucleus. But it seems to me that the corona around a comet as it reaches the inner planets would make it relatively easy to notice.
Further, I personally just never thought that comet impacts were that much of a threat, they're just too insubstantial. IANAA, however.
As usual, there is probably a LOT more to the story.
As a manager, such a tepid 'flamewar' hardly rates my attention, much less the actual FIRING of two full time employees. Please. People have personalities, and they won't always be a wonderful happy always-loving bonded group of soulmates. Sometimes they'll fight, sometimes they'll fight over really, really STUPID things.
But to fire them?
I'd have them both in my office, show them the now-public email, and discuss with them the appropriate use of email and work time. Maybe I'd make a little issue over the embarrassment to the company of the public email. It probably wouldn't hurt to remind them that company emails are monitored, and theirs in particular would be up for scrutiny.
I'd also make a departmental or, (if I was high enough in the management) companywide point about the forwarding of obviously personal emails of others. I agree with the posters here that the schmuck that forwarded it 'out' is also a bit culpable.
But FIRING them? That's overreacting entirely, IMO.
OK a light hearted comment, but I just read in the NYT a great column on the contrast: NYC was hit with fire, NO hit with water.
NYC could deal with fire, because we've learned to fight fires locally. We build to prevent it, and we all pay a premium on goods and services through the system due to the costs of sprinkler systems etc in the supply chain. We spend city $$ on fire services, and emergency response capabilities.
NO couldn't deal with water, because since the 60's the Federal gov't has taken over response to floods. Local officials are reduced to writing plans that ultimately read "wait for the Feds to arrive with help".
Moreover, with an agency like FEMA, and federal subsidies for flood insurance, he makes a persuasive argument that US gov't policies have, in effect ENCOURAGED the building of homes and businesses in flood prone and coastal regions.
If those homeowners and businesses had to pay a MARKET cost for insurance, how many would have built there? And if there wasn't a FEMA (which has historically compensated flood/hurricane victims even or especially if uninsured) would people be so lasseiz-faire about their families, dwellings, and belongings in the path of destruction?
Does this survey take into consideration that I spent 4 hours last Sunday doing a budget while sitting in my living room? How about the 1+ hours I spend checking emails/messages when I'm not at work?
Yeah, I spend time on the web 'during work hours'. I spend time working 'during non-work hours'...I still think my company is getting the better end of the deal.
Only on/. (and Democraticunderground) could this be labelled 'insightful'.
Look, perhaps this article supports all of your personal biases. Goody for you. But doesn't anyone smell "contrived statistics" when an article writer uses such elaborate yardsticks for measurement without SOME sort of causal connection? And the ones that ARE straightfoward are sketchy and presented so partially (ie. missing vital comparison data) they are worthless at letting the reader draw their own conclusions.
"cost of classification was $148 per $1 spent declassifying docs" In a theoretically perfect system, a government would have terrifically extensive tests before a document would be classified, and very, very simple rules about when that classification expired. Wouldn't that produce PRECISELY that sort of lopsided ratio? Isn't that what we want? The same holds true of course for the purported increase in costs. This might be a good thing, if you looked at it differently. I mean clearly, if the government just gave every middle manager a 'secret' stamp and told them to stamp every sheet of paper with it, that would be pretty cheap, wouldn't it?
"more documents classified than before" well duh. Utterly meaningless unless compared to the number of documents created.
Furthermore, with the RIAA running rampant and personal privacies assailed at every turn, how many of these are DIRECTLY beneficial to private citizens, making certain information held by the gov't no longer purchaseable by business? Wouldn't this be good?
A cheap, biased summary of a biased report with a clear political agenda. Perfect grist for slashdot.:(
The difference is when Clinton got his 2, the senate was run by republicans. Now, both houses and the executive branch are run by the same (centerally controlled) party. Once the USSC is weighted towards the same party with Roberts and the replacement for Reinquist, we will see the US with all three branches of government ran by the same party (the same small group of people, if you will).
Well, one might point out that in a democracy, the government isn't formulated to make you 'comfortable', it's generated by the will of the people in Darwinian evolution of ideologies competing with each other to best match the general social consensus.
Face it, the Democrats and Left-Wing ideologies have been losing ground since 1980 with the landslide elections of Reagan eventually translating into the election of a Republican-controlled congress. Like it or not, this is the way politics are going in this country. To offer a more generally popular message, Democrats are going to have learn that their particularly strident brands of political correctness (among other things) just doesn't make sense to 'the commoners' - ie: - anyone not living on a coast - anyone not making more than $100k or from a multigenerational welfare family - anyone with either a postgrad degree or without a high school degree.....the 'remainder' vote Republican.
Hey, GWB is possibly one of the least impressive presidents on record, but he beat a war veteran (haha) intellectual Boston scion, an ICON of the Democratic Party Machine. Doesn't that tell you something?
So back to the point: IF the public, over 25 years, continually is voting rightward, perhaps the previous makeup of the government and court was too liberal (yes, I'm whispering about Roe v. Wade which, by federalizing an issue that was slowly evolving state by state, radicalized opposition and made it the HUGE undiscussable problem it is today). Congratulations - what you have is democracy in action.
The essential point is that many leftists (incl, I'm afraid, a majority of/. readers) simply can't deal with the fact that while they may be thoughtful, nice, good people, their ideas are less and less broadly acceptable. Their bitterness and stridency is turning off more people than ever.
Let me put it this way: if you are in a crowd of people looking at a painting, and 99% of everyone else thinks the painting you're looking at is crap, while you think it's great - "they" must all be stupid, right? If you agree, you're a staunch member of the Democratic party in 2005.
I'm not saying that one should let a majority decide matters of esthetic or fact. But a society is run on consensus, and calling those that disagree with you 'stupid' - especially when they are the majority - runs the risk of self-incrimination.
I mean, I spend a fair amount of time in Germany (for example) and am routinely disgusted by the price-fixed bookstores. The prices of books in dead-tree format are ridiculous...so now what are those publishers going to do as material starts going online? Even though we're slightly talking apples and oranges, it seems like this would hurt them in the long run.
Sure, they can voraciously defend their turf by aggressively protecting copywritten works, but what's the German timeframe on text going to public domain? Is it better than the US's life+50 gajillion years?
Your snide tone aside, one could argue rather effectively that since survival is pretty much the only measure of success that MATTERS, we can call them "primitive", "stupid", or whatever we want: they didn't make it for some reason. Barring some theory of catastrophe, since pretty much the only thing humans have going for them in a primitive setting is their intelligence, it's also reasonable to infer that we had more of it than they did.
Or, using your post as an example, maybe they were smarter but were so annoyingly patronizing our ancestors did us a favor and killed them all. Must've missed a line, apparently.
That's a great example, but what I don't understand is the expectation that there is some "shortcut" to learning language.
1) it's arguably the sole thing really separates Humans from animals (behavior of ostensibly language-capable New Orleans looters notwithstanding)
2) it takes YEARS for a nominally capable human infant to learn language (granted, they are learning a lot of OTHER stuff at the same time).
The example's pair of sentences are syntactically and contextually complex, despite being few words. Would even a (relatively) sophisticated kindergartner or 1st grader be able to parse them meaningfully and explain the real differences? Probably, but not without some thought.
I just see so many people laying down these language algorithms and expecting that they are "right" - that seems like a foolish expectation from the start. The human wetware (particularly as regards language) is massively parallel and probably by adulthood has redacted itself to a host of rules that are neither discrete nor efficient, but they work despite the redundancies and gaps. I don't see a simplistic formula ever accomplishing this.
In fact, I personally think that language parsing will only be successful when we're able to write some very simple baby-language rules, and 'hothouse' the development of a system with processing power equivalent to an infant brain long enough to equate with a similar time of the human development of language cognition.
The people who use Linux are those who have sought it out (frustration), been exposed to it for practical means, or think of and use a computer as a tool. The key words there are think, use, and tool: the basis of human civilization.
Puhleeze.
Maybe Linux users think of their system as a tool. OK sure, whatever. Personally, my computer is an entertainment device, and I'd rather play a wide variety of modern, cutting edge games instead of "700 variations of Nethack" or linux versions of: breakout, marble madness, tank battle, or any other 80's game that has been ported to linux.
I don't play games with my hammer, either. I'll adopt linux when the games companies write for it. As long as linux is ONLY useful as a hammer, it will remain marginalized.
Slashdot Mirror
...at one time it WAS because the movies were lame.
But now, despite their unending denial it's:
- ridiculous prices for tickets
- ridiculous prices for snacks
- picture quality that hasn't improved much since about the mid 70's (sound quality *has* improved)
- filthy theaters
If the movie makers want to claim they made bad movies this year, I'm not going to disagree - they did. But that's only part of it. Do the analyis:
One trip to the non-matinee movies for my family, plus a large pop, large popcorn and some candy for each, plus parking: ($8.50 ticket + $3 pop + $2.50 popcorn + $2 candy + $1 share of parking) x 6 = $102.
36" widescreen Toshiba hi def tube = $1600
Toshiba progressive scan DVD player = $200
(hooking it to the stereo I own)
= $1800.
So for the price of 18 trips to the movies, PLUS Deducting the intangibles:
- the convenience of watching in my own home
- the ability to pause/rewind/stop and chat about whatever I want whenever I want
- the ability to have whatever snack I want, in any quantity
- the ability to have as many friends over as I can stuff into the room
- to watch in my underwear and bathrobe if I want
- to watch at whatever TIME I want, and interrupt to go do something if I want
- to sit in my comfy chair, and exercise whatever odious personal habits I choose
- the ability to (via Netflix) see pretty much whatever movie I want, not juse what the studio suits think I should be watching.
I don't think there's any doubt - film industry pricing DROVE the development of home theater, now they have to live in the world they created. Nice job guys, you eat your young, too?
In fact, the symptoms of hypoxia are nearly impossible for even trained personnel to distinguish from extended watching of Steve Gutenberg movies.
Cabin staff should be aware that only real difference is that the movies ALSO cause a reflexive attempt to tear out one's eyes.
You do understand that this success was with multipotent UMBILICAL stem cells, which are not banned from US Gov't federal research funds, right?
Knowing that, what's your point except to say that 'right-leaning' officials are preventing an advancement in research into embryonic stem cells which nevertheless, although I've been hearing about nothing but their limitless potential to give you whiter teeth, fresher breath, and a cheerful outlook, have yet to be used for any significant medical advance?
1. We could throw money at 41,000 unwed, unemployed ghetto moms, allowing them to eat just enough to procreate another 410,000 fatherless children!
/. after all), but let's be honest and recognize that pork-barrel wasted spending goes to BOTH sides of the political spectrum.
2. We could pointlessly incarcerate another 1000 man/years of heinous murderers instead of giving them the capital punishment they richly deserve!
3. We could start another 100 useless rehabilitation programs to 'cure' pedophiles before releasing them back into the community.
4. We could fund another 10 minutes of research into Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, because it's a modern-day plague (that is not actually much of a threat to the general populace due to its spreading almost entirely by poor personal choices), but hey, it's affected the friends of a lot of famous people so it must be Really Bad (tm).
Mod me down if you want (it's
FUD
FUD
FUD
FUD
anthrax!
FUD
FUD
USA sucks
FUD
Let's see if we can explain this.
The US is concerned about terrorists or rogue states using bioweapons.
How do you work on any defenses against bioweapons? You need to develop systems, vaccines, and procedures. Would you develop these entirely by theorizing? To some degree, that's inevitable. But whatever you CAN test, say against a NON LETHAL VARIANT OF THE BIOWEAPON YOU FEAR for example, you probably would.
Nah, that's too reasonable and doesn't engender enough irrational hatred of the US. Mod this +1 troll.
Right or wrong, there is no doubt that "random selection" has become a euphemism for racial profiling.
When a significant fraction of the homocidal terrorists in the world are caucasian Canadians, I'll care.
Until then, search people of semitic (ie middle-eastern) appearance, and concentrate on males ages 16-66.
OMFG profiling!
So they go by race? So what?
can't they just start over at "A"?
I mean, is it THAT confusing for weather scientists?
(I didn't RTFA, so if they address this, great.)
You call people doubting the shrill hyperbole of the ever-infallible Green movement "FUD"? The Cato Institute? Next you're going to say it's Karl Rove's Secret Newsletter(tm). How is denying the ChickenLittling spreading "fear, uncertainty, and doubt"?
No, I believe that's the currency of the environmental movement:
- Global Warming is happening! (OK, we're extrapolating from a teeny segment of history, and 20 years ago we were just as stridently CERTAIN that another Ice Age was coming but really, believe us: this time the sky really IS falling! Really!)
- It's happening and it's our fault! (Really, we have nothing to back this up but some hunches, since most of the data tables show that the warming was long before the industrial revolution hit, so we're going to blame CroMagnon cooking fires and just wave our hands a bit. Don't look too carefully at the data. Believe us: this time the sky really IS falling!)
- It's happening and it's a bad thing! (Well, we really are going out a limb on this one, because nobody has any data of the effects of global warming. You need to disregard that they used to grow oranges in England and Vikings plowed fields in Greenland, and that there's ample evidence of flora in Antarctica, and simply believe that 'warming' is bad. Also, you need to only look at the glass-is-half-empty evidence that we present, showing that (for example) coral are dying off in certain regions, while ignoring that logically, other regions where the water was formerly too cold are now AVAILABLE to coral growth...but no matter what, that sky is most CERTAINLY falling now!)
Eco-freaks: the most species-centric creatures on the planet, who apparently believe that the environment must be maintained in a static state at the current norms PURELY for the benefit of HUMANS.
Sorry, I'm not that selfish.
you mean, more like a virus?
hmm.
Which then brings us back to the question: terrorism, in terms of the threat to the average individual, IS pretty tiny.
So really, what drives the erosion of personal rights is the manipulation of the public by the mass media. I'd wager that if all the news organizations in the country started focusing 50% of their print space/media time on reporting stories on a SINGLE CAR ACCIDENT, that you would immediately see a reduction in congestion on the road within the week, due to people being afraid to get in their cars. For heaven's sake, people were afraid to swim in SWIMMING POOLS after Jaws came out.
So I'm not sure what the solution is. On the one hand, we have a media culture that permeates every facet of our lives, and which thrives by obsessing over the 'crisis du jour', consequently blowing it all out of proportion in terms of perceived risk. On the other hand, we have a deeply ignorant general public who live lives like dimwitted sheep, running obediently away from whatever they are told to. In some ways we almost deserve the governments that we've given ourselves.
I don't think the erosion of personal liberties is the cause here, it's a symptom. When those liberties (using the US Constitution and BoR as an example) were conceived, there were a concomitant burden of moral and ethical RESPONSIBILITIES by wich everyone was tied together. Now we have a society which is almost entirely duty-free, responsibility free, and morality free. So you have a nasty conflict between the ever burgeoning list of 'rights' to which everyone's entitled (ever read the laughable EU constitution? Listed as 'human rights' include: education, a free placement service, paid maternity leave, social security benefits and social services, housing assistance, preventive health care, services of general economic interest, and high levels of environmental and consumer protection).
So in that vein, I guess the Europeans are ok: they've assumed such a ridiculous number of 'rights' to which their citizens are entitled, they can spare a few.
Sure, but at least we can be sure of a few things in a manless society: the sales of flannel shirts, light duty pickups, and softball equipment would explode!
Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't know that many people are concerned about comets per se; I gather that the concerns regarding Earth-impact events are more in regards near-earth asteroids and other more "solid" bodies, particularly their ability to get very close to Earth before anyone even NOTICES they are there.
Comets, whether they were the hypothesized 'dirty snowballs' of yesterday or the 'powder-puff' of today, might be a mile or more across at the nucleus. But it seems to me that the corona around a comet as it reaches the inner planets would make it relatively easy to notice.
Further, I personally just never thought that comet impacts were that much of a threat, they're just too insubstantial. IANAA, however.
As usual, there is probably a LOT more to the story.
As a manager, such a tepid 'flamewar' hardly rates my attention, much less the actual FIRING of two full time employees. Please. People have personalities, and they won't always be a wonderful happy always-loving bonded group of soulmates. Sometimes they'll fight, sometimes they'll fight over really, really STUPID things.
But to fire them?
I'd have them both in my office, show them the now-public email, and discuss with them the appropriate use of email and work time. Maybe I'd make a little issue over the embarrassment to the company of the public email. It probably wouldn't hurt to remind them that company emails are monitored, and theirs in particular would be up for scrutiny.
I'd also make a departmental or, (if I was high enough in the management) companywide point about the forwarding of obviously personal emails of others. I agree with the posters here that the schmuck that forwarded it 'out' is also a bit culpable.
But FIRING them? That's overreacting entirely, IMO.
OK a light hearted comment, but I just read in the NYT a great column on the contrast: NYC was hit with fire, NO hit with water.
NYC could deal with fire, because we've learned to fight fires locally. We build to prevent it, and we all pay a premium on goods and services through the system due to the costs of sprinkler systems etc in the supply chain. We spend city $$ on fire services, and emergency response capabilities.
NO couldn't deal with water, because since the 60's the Federal gov't has taken over response to floods. Local officials are reduced to writing plans that ultimately read "wait for the Feds to arrive with help".
Moreover, with an agency like FEMA, and federal subsidies for flood insurance, he makes a persuasive argument that US gov't policies have, in effect ENCOURAGED the building of homes and businesses in flood prone and coastal regions.
If those homeowners and businesses had to pay a MARKET cost for insurance, how many would have built there? And if there wasn't a FEMA (which has historically compensated flood/hurricane victims even or especially if uninsured) would people be so lasseiz-faire about their families, dwellings, and belongings in the path of destruction?
Persuasive reading.
Build it 40 miles upriver.
OK, let's say I 'waste' 2 hours a day on the web.
Does this survey take into consideration that I spent 4 hours last Sunday doing a budget while sitting in my living room? How about the 1+ hours I spend checking emails/messages when I'm not at work?
Yeah, I spend time on the web 'during work hours'. I spend time working 'during non-work hours'...I still think my company is getting the better end of the deal.
Nobody's dismissing the technologies. What people are laughing at is planning the facilities for such technologies before they're built.
Yes, people were stupid to laugh at the Wright Brothers before their first flight.
But don't you agree that people would have been REALLY stupid to plan out international 'aero-port' facilities based on experiments by Bleriot?
If it's combined with webcamera technology, it's not a joke, it sounds like a new internet industry.
Only on /. (and Democraticunderground) could this be labelled 'insightful'.
:(
Look, perhaps this article supports all of your personal biases. Goody for you. But doesn't anyone smell "contrived statistics" when an article writer uses such elaborate yardsticks for measurement without SOME sort of causal connection? And the ones that ARE straightfoward are sketchy and presented so partially (ie. missing vital comparison data) they are worthless at letting the reader draw their own conclusions.
"cost of classification was $148 per $1 spent declassifying docs" In a theoretically perfect system, a government would have terrifically extensive tests before a document would be classified, and very, very simple rules about when that classification expired. Wouldn't that produce PRECISELY that sort of lopsided ratio? Isn't that what we want? The same holds true of course for the purported increase in costs. This might be a good thing, if you looked at it differently. I mean clearly, if the government just gave every middle manager a 'secret' stamp and told them to stamp every sheet of paper with it, that would be pretty cheap, wouldn't it?
"more documents classified than before" well duh. Utterly meaningless unless compared to the number of documents created.
Furthermore, with the RIAA running rampant and personal privacies assailed at every turn, how many of these are DIRECTLY beneficial to private citizens, making certain information held by the gov't no longer purchaseable by business? Wouldn't this be good?
A cheap, biased summary of a biased report with a clear political agenda. Perfect grist for slashdot.
The difference is when Clinton got his 2, the senate was run by republicans. Now, both houses and the executive branch are run by the same (centerally controlled) party. Once the USSC is weighted towards the same party with Roberts and the replacement for Reinquist, we will see the US with all three branches of government ran by the same party (the same small group of people, if you will).
....the 'remainder' vote Republican.
/. readers) simply can't deal with the fact that while they may be thoughtful, nice, good people, their ideas are less and less broadly acceptable. Their bitterness and stridency is turning off more people than ever.
Well, one might point out that in a democracy, the government isn't formulated to make you 'comfortable', it's generated by the will of the people in Darwinian evolution of ideologies competing with each other to best match the general social consensus.
Face it, the Democrats and Left-Wing ideologies have been losing ground since 1980 with the landslide elections of Reagan eventually translating into the election of a Republican-controlled congress. Like it or not, this is the way politics are going in this country. To offer a more generally popular message, Democrats are going to have learn that their particularly strident brands of political correctness (among other things) just doesn't make sense to 'the commoners' - ie:
- anyone not living on a coast
- anyone not making more than $100k or from a multigenerational welfare family
- anyone with either a postgrad degree or without a high school degree.
Hey, GWB is possibly one of the least impressive presidents on record, but he beat a war veteran (haha) intellectual Boston scion, an ICON of the Democratic Party Machine. Doesn't that tell you something?
So back to the point: IF the public, over 25 years, continually is voting rightward, perhaps the previous makeup of the government and court was too liberal (yes, I'm whispering about Roe v. Wade which, by federalizing an issue that was slowly evolving state by state, radicalized opposition and made it the HUGE undiscussable problem it is today). Congratulations - what you have is democracy in action.
The essential point is that many leftists (incl, I'm afraid, a majority of
Let me put it this way: if you are in a crowd of people looking at a painting, and 99% of everyone else thinks the painting you're looking at is crap, while you think it's great - "they" must all be stupid, right?
If you agree, you're a staunch member of the Democratic party in 2005.
I'm not saying that one should let a majority decide matters of esthetic or fact. But a society is run on consensus, and calling those that disagree with you 'stupid' - especially when they are the majority - runs the risk of self-incrimination.
I mean, I spend a fair amount of time in Germany (for example) and am routinely disgusted by the price-fixed bookstores. The prices of books in dead-tree format are ridiculous...so now what are those publishers going to do as material starts going online? Even though we're slightly talking apples and oranges, it seems like this would hurt them in the long run.
Sure, they can voraciously defend their turf by aggressively protecting copywritten works, but what's the German timeframe on text going to public domain? Is it better than the US's life+50 gajillion years?
Your snide tone aside, one could argue rather effectively that since survival is pretty much the only measure of success that MATTERS, we can call them "primitive", "stupid", or whatever we want: they didn't make it for some reason. Barring some theory of catastrophe, since pretty much the only thing humans have going for them in a primitive setting is their intelligence, it's also reasonable to infer that we had more of it than they did.
Or, using your post as an example, maybe they were smarter but were so annoyingly patronizing our ancestors did us a favor and killed them all. Must've missed a line, apparently.
Ultimately we're here, they're not = we win.
Homo Sapiens Sapiens for the win!
That's a great example, but what I don't understand is the expectation that there is some "shortcut" to learning language.
1) it's arguably the sole thing really separates Humans from animals (behavior of ostensibly language-capable New Orleans looters notwithstanding)
2) it takes YEARS for a nominally capable human infant to learn language (granted, they are learning a lot of OTHER stuff at the same time).
The example's pair of sentences are syntactically and contextually complex, despite being few words. Would even a (relatively) sophisticated kindergartner or 1st grader be able to parse them meaningfully and explain the real differences? Probably, but not without some thought.
I just see so many people laying down these language algorithms and expecting that they are "right" - that seems like a foolish expectation from the start. The human wetware (particularly as regards language) is massively parallel and probably by adulthood has redacted itself to a host of rules that are neither discrete nor efficient, but they work despite the redundancies and gaps. I don't see a simplistic formula ever accomplishing this.
In fact, I personally think that language parsing will only be successful when we're able to write some very simple baby-language rules, and 'hothouse' the development of a system with processing power equivalent to an infant brain long enough to equate with a similar time of the human development of language cognition.
The people who use Linux are those who have sought it out (frustration), been exposed to it for practical means, or think of and use a computer as a tool. The key words there are think, use, and tool: the basis of human civilization.
Puhleeze.
Maybe Linux users think of their system as a tool. OK sure, whatever. Personally, my computer is an entertainment device, and I'd rather play a wide variety of modern, cutting edge games instead of "700 variations of Nethack" or linux versions of: breakout, marble madness, tank battle, or any other 80's game that has been ported to linux.
I don't play games with my hammer, either. I'll adopt linux when the games companies write for it. As long as linux is ONLY useful as a hammer, it will remain marginalized.
Also, many Chinese can read English, so I also feel it's unfair to block Chinese users from some websites.
Particularly ones that they might need to access, like *.gov or (state).us.