You mean that researchers might have to actually find sufficient justification for their work to get commercial or private funding? (Because the ban is on FEDERAL funding, not on research.)
Ye gods, no!
Hm, yeah, it's probably a lot simpler to just write grant proposals to the government and never actually have to PRODUCE anything. Where is the $billions$ in commercial and private research going on since stem cells are such an unadulterated potential boon to medical science? You mean none of the famously greedy megacorps has formed a shell subsidiary and poured money at this? Gee, why not?
We're very sorry to have shut down your public feeding trough on this one. Please find some other government teat to suck, or, get a real job.
Well, aside from the fact that you really can't depend on non-US citizens to vote to better the condition of the US, can you? Oh yeah, we do know who foreigners would vote for, that's indisputable. And even jingoism aside, it's a good reason not to elect Kerry. Do you think the Australians, Germans, Russians, Iraqis, or Chinese have the BEST INTERESTS of the USA in mind....riiight. I also can guess who would be the preferred candidate of Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Wahabi islamists, etc...funny, it's the same guy. Coincidence?
No, frankly, we don't really give a crap what you guys think, except in a negative sense. 40% of Americans vote because despite all the Chicken-littling in the media, America's stable, relatively secure, and economically prospering again. People vote when they are pissed off. And frankly, aside from the frothing Left, most people aren't that pissed off.
Tell you what, you surrender your sovereignty, send us your tax dollars, and then we'll consider givnig you the vote. Right after Puerto Rico, Saipan, and the USVI.
Oh yeah, and your quote "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" sounds great, but just shows how little you've actually CONSIDERED the issue. You are CONSTANTLY trading libery for security. You may not drive as fast as you want (although you may be able to handle it physiologically) in exchange for the security that others may not do so either. You may not cross that street in the middle, only at the crosswalks in exchange for the security that drivers are especially careful around crosswalks (or at least you have legal recourse if you're hit within the lines). You're not able to ravage that hot chick walking down the street, in exchange for society's similar protection of your sister, mother, or daughter. It's called civilization. And the empty-headed who continually parrot that little homily simply illustrate their naivete.
Re:And now, for your delectation and delight...
on
RFID Not Just for Kids
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Is this so bad?
Yeah, I don't WANT those lines shortened to maximise throughput. No, please don't put concession stands where they are convenient to get to, I'd much rather they and the bathrooms be as inaccesible as possible. OMFG, they are gathing data on me!!! AAAGHG it's the ultimate evil - a marketer with data on ME!!! The sky is falling!
And please, your abductor scenario is so stupid it's practically a strawman.
Adult A enters park, children BCD enter park. Tag A is associated with B, C, and D. Even ASSuming that Adult A is prone to leave kids alone (doubtful), if kid without RFID tag, or with RFID tag and without associated adult tries to exit, one might suspect a few questions.
Enough anyway that child predators likely would seek easier targets elsewhere.
Precisely why, although I thought at first "this is pretty amusing", my second thought was "nah, it's probably more a matter of sour grapes from leftist professors objecting to something being named after somone who isn't a communist".
Thanks for validating my deep faith in the unending pettiness of academia. Or the undying devotion of academia to communism. Not sure which.
Man gives money to college. College uses money to build building. Man gets name on building.
It's really not terribly complicated. But hey, bitching is better than having to actually work for a living, right?
The duty of care owned by landowner or person in charge to a trespasser is to refrain from willfully, maliciously or recklessly injuring them. In other words, a landowner or person in charge cannot set traps for trespassers. A trap is a hazard that is known to the landowner or person in charge, but concealed to others. If a trespasser is injured by a trap, the landowner is open to liability for the injury, even though the trespasser violated he law by trespassing. The following have been held unlawful traps for which the landowner can be held responsible: (1) setting a spring gun, (2) creating obstacles on a public roadway, (3) installing a cable gate across a private road known to be used by he public. To reduce he liability risks for #3, the road should be posted as private access. If a cable or chain is used o close a road, it should be flagged with brightly colored flags or other materials.
...bah. It's all based on the giant presumption that someone finds the body. No body, no intruder, no problem. Plus it cuts down on the whole recidivist issue.
Second of all, there's PLENTY of doubt it's a nuke.
1) we've had monitoring systems in place since the mid-60's to detect nuclear weapons tests. I'm thinking 30-40 years later, they might even be a little more sophisticated. If it was nuclear, we'd know. Sure the gov't may try to keep it secret, but tinfoil hattery aside, most people realize that the US Gov't is about as good at keeping secrets as a dozen prepubescent schoolgirls.
2) Sept 9 is a big day in NK, typically used for big events. My guess is that it's either a demonstration blast meant to try to fool gullible people into thinking NK tested a nuke, or a flubbed nuke test.
3) If NK has nukes, China has a far, far bigger problem than the US does. If they have allowed their client state to have nukes (and NK, no matter how insane, is considered to be within China's orbit) then there's no reason for us to tell our Taiwanese clients that they shouldn't have nukes. What does that do to China's "unification" agenda, hmm?
That's ironic, because I believe that when this system got messed up, and started remembering whatever it wanted to, this was actually called "Kerrying"
Do you believe in larger government or smaller government? Good, now realise that it doesn't matter whether you vote Republican or Democrat because, regardless of rhetoric, if you look at the records they do an equally good job of growing government and government spending.
Do you believe conservative or liberal social policy? Good, now realise that it doesn't matter whether you vote Republican or Democrat because, regardless of rhetoric, if you look at the records neither side has actually implemented any significant social policy change in the last 20 years.
Right, so just go ahead and let my guy win since it doesn't matter.
Heck, I lugged a stack of 20-50 floppies around for 4 years of college, and they rarely if ever failed despite getting some pretty serious abuse.
Now, I copy one little 125k document onto a floppy, hand it directly to a person and when they put it in their computer, the floppy's deformatted or unreadable.
Then again, weren't early cars like this too? I.e. constant inspections, tinkering, tweaking, and generally a lot of fooling around required to make/keep them running?
Also, accidents back then were horrifically lethal.
Granted, your point is correct that there is an intrinsically higher danger taking a vehicle up in the air than on the ground. However, I'm not entirely persuaded that much of the current pilot requirements/standards aren't legacy issues that could be engineered out for a lower proficiency user, if the market demanded. Until now, the price points were so high for planes that the only people that were willing to commit that much $$ *must* be devotees to the cult of flying.
For example, the extensive engine checks. Isn't this primarily because the high performance engines of an airplane are generally running at or near 100% power all the time, under a LOT of stress? What if a lightweight power plant were invented that could provide adequate power at only 40-50% power? Wouldn't this mitigate a lot of the necessity of monitoring everything so minutely?
I don't think anyone's talking about common-person flying being 30,000' at 700 mph in thunderstorms. No, it seems to be more a matter of puddlejumps, VFR, at probably 1000' typically. I just don't think that this is an impossibility or even an improbability.
(And, as much as you don't want to hit the silk, BRS are proven safety devices. I don't want my airbag to deply either, but I'm not going to argue with the utility of having it.)
Perhaps we form political affiliations by semiconsciously detecting commonalities with other people, commonalities that ultimately reflect a shared pattern of brain function.
Or, perhaps we form political affiliations by CONSCIOUSLY detecting commonalities with other people?
I mean please, do people really wake up one morning and, somewhere between their 3rd and 4th spoonful of Capt Crunch suddenly feel a powerful attraction toward a certain party? Hardly. I would hope most people would decide on their political affiliations after some contemplation, but maybe this is too much to ask.
Or, I suppose a lot of people choose their political affiliation based on their parents' choices, and then never examine them. Frighteningly this may be a large group.
I agree with the basic premise that there is a fundamentally different outlook between people of the two political camps in the US. I (as a conservative) find dyed-in-the-wool Liberals frighteningly naive. My best friend who IS such a Liberal probably finds me disturbingly heartless.
HOWEVER, I strongly respect him and his intellect, and I trust he does the same for me. We disagree on a number of issues, but we're still friends since 20+ years.
What I don't like is the public climate of real hatred that is growning between the two sides. I see fewer people willing to discuss issues that they disagree about, preferring to shout and stomp their feet. I suppose it's an extension of piss-poor US education, but it seems that between the parties there's a lot of heat but very little light.
As a conservative, I do wonder why it is that people grow generally more conservative as they grow older. I'd be curious to figure out what that means, without the flaming trolls having their say...
I find it interesting that people that want to create "realistic" worlds like this, invariably eliminate the ability to kill other players.
As distasteful as that might be to the sensitivities of some of the programmers and players fleeing the kill-everything gaming world, the fact is that the idea of killing & death - either the fear of it or the causing of it (and no, you can't respawn or get another account) is INTEGRAL to the behavior of people, cultures, religions, everything that makes us human.
Earlier posts above referred to the typical pattern of these games, where there are nerdy types that end up as workerbee crafters, and there are social-types that invariably end up running things. However, the ultimate governor to all this is the fact that in the Real World (tm) if someone is exploited enough, they may just kill their exploiter.
It has laws? Well, the funny thing is that in a game, laws are mandatory while in Real Life (tm) they are simply consensual. Perhaps enforced strictly, but still consensual. If the law is passed that says "houses can't be built within 100 feet of each other", in a game, the game engine simply prevents this from ever happening.
IRL (tm), someone could STILL build their house 50' from yours. The question is: what are you going to do about it? Is it worth fighting about? How about if we pool a little of each of our money, and have a group that their JOB is to make sure they have more force to keep our rules in place than someone could muster to break them.
Of course then your problem is, who watches the watchers?
Read the Story of the Jesse Wall (by Wagner James Au, IIRC) in the Second Life website. Linden Labs created a killable zone, and the example was far closer to a Hobbesian state of nature (and, IMO, more like early societies) than the idyllic crafter communities that some people like to imagine that 'noble savages' lived in.
Ironically, the results were positively medieval. On the one hand, some of each group were thrashing it out with violence which was really only escalating things (and eventually, the WW2OLers *would* have either been wiped out, or reduced to a pathetic rump state which enough of the majority pitied enough to leave extant).
On the other hand, a large number of people appealed to the admins to "FIX SOMETHING!" (ie. religion). Ultimately, it was only resolved in a gamey fashion: the intervention of Linden Labs, the cordoning off of people into certain zones, and game-enforced bans. Too bad, we could have really had an interesting experiement.
Unfortunately, we don't HAVE an admin@universe.net IRL that can set the rules to no-PK in this world, no matter how much we appeal to them, so we're better off studying models that realistically represent behavior than these stilted artificialities.
Rather than blame the "insensitive computer programmers", perhaps we could look the other direction and realize that some people/cultures/religions are incredibly OVERsensitive, and catering to their peculiarities is just enabling them.
I mean please. From the article: A game called Age of Empires 2 offended the Saudi Arabian authorities because it showed victorious Muslim armies turning churches into mosques. The game was withdrawn from sale in the kingdom
The Korean government, objected because Microsoft software showed the national flag in reverse. The software had to be changed.
The Spanish version of Windows used the word Hembra - meaning "woman" in Spain - for choosing gender. But in some Central American republics, notably Nicaragua, the word is an insult meaning "bitch". The programme was changed.
Microsoft employees were questioned by police in China, where it is an offence to refer to Taiwan as country or as the Republic of China. Now Taiwan is not referred to as country and all software worldwide avoids the issue by referring to places as "regions or districts".
Uruguay is a republic and proud if it but in Microsoft's Outlook in Uruguay, the company offended the government by describing Tuesday April 30 as the queen's birthday.
Let's look at these. 1) For Muslims turning churches into Mosques, yeah, that's HORRIBLY unrealistic propaganda. I have two words for you: Hagia Sophia.
2) the Korean flag in reverse: so what?
3) hembra: hardly an 'insensitivity' issue; it sounds like a genuine difference in dialect.
4) China/Taiwan: boo hoo. If the Chinese want to dwell in their eternal house of reality-denial, that's fine. What's next, we should stop recognizing Philippines because Spain wants them back? (I don't see the US forcing MS to delete Cuba from the map...)
5) The Queen of Uruguay: that's just funny. If someone accidentally or on purpose started referring to the US as a monarchy, they'd probably be hired as a spokesperson for the DNC.
Maybe it's just a particularly American viewpoint, but this whole stuff about sacred cows (pun intended) is just silly historio/political dreck. If MS wants to bend over backwards to accomodate the Latvio-Armenian midget lesbian lobby for more sales, that's their call. But nobody should claim that failure to do so is anything but a business decision. The folks who get up in arms about the slightest little thing need to grow thicker skins and get the fsck over it.
And yes, to forestall the/. counterpost wave: I know that the US has some of their own sacred cows, which I think are equally silly. But I'd also argue that the US has a long tradition of arguing but ultimately tolerating such things - crucifixes in urine, routine desecrations of our symbols like the flag, etc. - are practically part of the evening news.
I've seen the increasing drumbeat of anti-GOP protestors everywhere, clearly building towards a childish orgy of vandalism and street violence. It is monumentally naive.
The GOP occupation of NYC is not just designed to exploit 9/11. It is a careful and deliberate attempt to provoke protest. Preferably large, frightening, unruly protest. The more masturbatory rage they can stir up in the city, the louder they'll be laughing on their way back to the white house.
This election will be won with moderates and swing voters. Those are people like your parents. They will not identify with "CrimethInc" and "scruffy, unattractive" street protestors. They will see this event covered from inside the convention looking out.
Every act of violence, provocation, and unruly or disorderly behavior will scare those moderates right into the GOP's arms. Whether it be showing up on 6th Ave. with a mask and a shield, or DDOS'ing a GOP website, this kind of bad conduct is exactly what Republican strategists urgently want. And it will hand them the election on a silver platter.
Precisely.
Thank you.
- The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy Local #2475 (Minneapolis)
Ironically, it didn't occur to me the other day as I set up and patched a WinXP box that the *reason* the install was going so smoothly was that I'd d/l'd the patches to a cd because they have a crappy dialup connection.
No connection + a few minutes prep = a suprisingly painless setup.
This compared to a WinXP home box I was setting up a couple of months ago that I could barely get the bastard running before it was infested again. Finally figured out to unplug from the network but hadn't thought to burn patches to cd first, so it was a fugly day.
Re:basic... very basic.
on
You've Got PC
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· Score: 1
It's hard to believe it now, but there was a period in the 1960s when space was talked about as a great frontier, as important as the ocean. Space stations (Skylab, Mir) were built, and space colonies were discussed. Men went to the MOON and came back. Today, the romance of space is dead. You can work the shuttle or in NASA, but almost nobody dreams of a career as an "astronaut".
Unfortunately, after the edits it's still pretty much true.
AFAIK (IANAAA) our current detection methods are pretty much one of two methods: 1) observing wobble in a sun caused by orbitting planets 2) slight occlusion of the sun if the planet passes in front of it.
Both of these methods are ONLY any good for detecting MASSIVE (!!) bodies close to their primary. Further, both very rapidly become useless if these very particular beasts are not present. Plus, we've examined such a vanishingly small proportion of even the local stellar neighborhood, on any rounded scale we've seen almost precisely 0%. Nice sample size.
Ergo, this would really only be somewhat significant if we found that every star we've analyzed has such a system, this would make it depressingly likely that this is a COMMON configuration. But the fact that a statistically small sample of the measured stars have these giants in close orbits conversely suggests that, as predicted, we are *probably* only looking at a tiny segment of a 'solar system bell curve'.
Conversely, as already pointed out here, the fact that we have a humdrum Sun, humdrum element signature, humdrum stellar neighborhood (a little on the sparse side right now), suggest that our system is more likely to be a humdrum, average system.
Slashdot Mirror
You mean that researchers might have to actually find sufficient justification for their work to get commercial or private funding? (Because the ban is on FEDERAL funding, not on research.)
Ye gods, no!
Hm, yeah, it's probably a lot simpler to just write grant proposals to the government and never actually have to PRODUCE anything. Where is the $billions$ in commercial and private research going on since stem cells are such an unadulterated potential boon to medical science? You mean none of the famously greedy megacorps has formed a shell subsidiary and poured money at this? Gee, why not?
We're very sorry to have shut down your public feeding trough on this one. Please find some other government teat to suck, or, get a real job.
Well, aside from the fact that you really can't depend on non-US citizens to vote to better the condition of the US, can you? Oh yeah, we do know who foreigners would vote for, that's indisputable. And even jingoism aside, it's a good reason not to elect Kerry. Do you think the Australians, Germans, Russians, Iraqis, or Chinese have the BEST INTERESTS of the USA in mind....riiight. I also can guess who would be the preferred candidate of Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Wahabi islamists, etc...funny, it's the same guy. Coincidence?
No, frankly, we don't really give a crap what you guys think, except in a negative sense. 40% of Americans vote because despite all the Chicken-littling in the media, America's stable, relatively secure, and economically prospering again. People vote when they are pissed off. And frankly, aside from the frothing Left, most people aren't that pissed off.
Tell you what, you surrender your sovereignty, send us your tax dollars, and then we'll consider givnig you the vote. Right after Puerto Rico, Saipan, and the USVI.
Oh yeah, and your quote "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" sounds great, but just shows how little you've actually CONSIDERED the issue. You are CONSTANTLY trading libery for security. You may not drive as fast as you want (although you may be able to handle it physiologically) in exchange for the security that others may not do so either. You may not cross that street in the middle, only at the crosswalks in exchange for the security that drivers are especially careful around crosswalks (or at least you have legal recourse if you're hit within the lines). You're not able to ravage that hot chick walking down the street, in exchange for society's similar protection of your sister, mother, or daughter. It's called civilization. And the empty-headed who continually parrot that little homily simply illustrate their naivete.
Is this so bad?
Yeah, I don't WANT those lines shortened to maximise throughput. No, please don't put concession stands where they are convenient to get to, I'd much rather they and the bathrooms be as inaccesible as possible. OMFG, they are gathing data on me!!! AAAGHG it's the ultimate evil - a marketer with data on ME!!! The sky is falling!
And please, your abductor scenario is so stupid it's practically a strawman.
Adult A enters park, children BCD enter park.
Tag A is associated with B, C, and D.
Even ASSuming that Adult A is prone to leave kids alone (doubtful), if kid without RFID tag, or with RFID tag and without associated adult tries to exit, one might suspect a few questions.
Enough anyway that child predators likely would seek easier targets elsewhere.
Precisely why, although I thought at first "this is pretty amusing", my second thought was "nah, it's probably more a matter of sour grapes from leftist professors objecting to something being named after somone who isn't a communist".
Thanks for validating my deep faith in the unending pettiness of academia. Or the undying devotion of academia to communism. Not sure which.
Man gives money to college. College uses money to build building. Man gets name on building.
It's really not terribly complicated. But hey, bitching is better than having to actually work for a living, right?
Even though the rocket didn't get to 2,000 m as planned
I suppose the original poster was strictly correct when he said it was a 'suborbital' flight.
Of course, I just took off my show and tossed it in a similar "suborbital" shot into the corner.
No body, no intruder, no problem.
Plus it cuts down on the whole recidivist issue.
Second of all, there's PLENTY of doubt it's a nuke.
1) we've had monitoring systems in place since the mid-60's to detect nuclear weapons tests. I'm thinking 30-40 years later, they might even be a little more sophisticated. If it was nuclear, we'd know. Sure the gov't may try to keep it secret, but tinfoil hattery aside, most people realize that the US Gov't is about as good at keeping secrets as a dozen prepubescent schoolgirls.
2) Sept 9 is a big day in NK, typically used for big events. My guess is that it's either a demonstration blast meant to try to fool gullible people into thinking NK tested a nuke, or a flubbed nuke test.
3) If NK has nukes, China has a far, far bigger problem than the US does. If they have allowed their client state to have nukes (and NK, no matter how insane, is considered to be within China's orbit) then there's no reason for us to tell our Taiwanese clients that they shouldn't have nukes. What does that do to China's "unification" agenda, hmm?
That's ironic, because I believe that when this system got messed up, and started remembering whatever it wanted to, this was actually called "Kerrying"
Right, so just go ahead and let my guy win since it doesn't matter.
Thanks!
Slamming ST because it's so tired, by REHASHING a previously written critique they copied from someone on the internet?
How do you say 'ironic' in Klingon?
I was thinking precisely the same thing.
Heck, I lugged a stack of 20-50 floppies around for 4 years of college, and they rarely if ever failed despite getting some pretty serious abuse.
Now, I copy one little 125k document onto a floppy, hand it directly to a person and when they put it in their computer, the floppy's deformatted or unreadable.
I wondered too if it was just me.
I knew that your oh-so-sexy winamp skin would be my downfall.
Well duh.
Pretty Girl + Virus = trouble in just about any context.
Throw "wife" into the equation and the result may be expressed both in terms of $$ and an unreal number.
Then again, weren't early cars like this too? I.e. constant inspections, tinkering, tweaking, and generally a lot of fooling around required to make/keep them running?
Also, accidents back then were horrifically lethal.
Granted, your point is correct that there is an intrinsically higher danger taking a vehicle up in the air than on the ground.
However, I'm not entirely persuaded that much of the current pilot requirements/standards aren't legacy issues that could be engineered out for a lower proficiency user, if the market demanded. Until now, the price points were so high for planes that the only people that were willing to commit that much $$ *must* be devotees to the cult of flying.
For example, the extensive engine checks. Isn't this primarily because the high performance engines of an airplane are generally running at or near 100% power all the time, under a LOT of stress? What if a lightweight power plant were invented that could provide adequate power at only 40-50% power? Wouldn't this mitigate a lot of the necessity of monitoring everything so minutely?
I don't think anyone's talking about common-person flying being 30,000' at 700 mph in thunderstorms. No, it seems to be more a matter of puddlejumps, VFR, at probably 1000' typically. I just don't think that this is an impossibility or even an improbability.
(And, as much as you don't want to hit the silk, BRS are proven safety devices. I don't want my airbag to deply either, but I'm not going to argue with the utility of having it.)
It says the can & device is the size of a 500ml can - how much of that is "contents"?
I mean, if it's colling it 16 degrees C but there's only 100ml of payload, well, that's a little less impressive?
Perhaps we form political affiliations by semiconsciously detecting commonalities with other people, commonalities that ultimately reflect a shared pattern of brain function.
Or, perhaps we form political affiliations by CONSCIOUSLY detecting commonalities with other people?
I mean please, do people really wake up one morning and, somewhere between their 3rd and 4th spoonful of Capt Crunch suddenly feel a powerful attraction toward a certain party? Hardly. I would hope most people would decide on their political affiliations after some contemplation, but maybe this is too much to ask.
Or, I suppose a lot of people choose their political affiliation based on their parents' choices, and then never examine them. Frighteningly this may be a large group.
I agree with the basic premise that there is a fundamentally different outlook between people of the two political camps in the US. I (as a conservative) find dyed-in-the-wool Liberals frighteningly naive. My best friend who IS such a Liberal probably finds me disturbingly heartless.
HOWEVER, I strongly respect him and his intellect, and I trust he does the same for me. We disagree on a number of issues, but we're still friends since 20+ years.
What I don't like is the public climate of real hatred that is growning between the two sides. I see fewer people willing to discuss issues that they disagree about, preferring to shout and stomp their feet. I suppose it's an extension of piss-poor US education, but it seems that between the parties there's a lot of heat but very little light.
As a conservative, I do wonder why it is that people grow generally more conservative as they grow older. I'd be curious to figure out what that means, without the flaming trolls having their say...
Can we have a forumcode that says "just go back and read my comments from the last 2 times this story was posted"?
Or, for slashdot editors:
Can we have a forumcode that says "just go back and read my comments from the last 2 times this story was posted"?
Can we have a forumcode that says "just go back and read my comments from the last 2 times this story was posted"?
Can we have a forumcode that says "just go back and read my comments from the last 2 times this story was posted"?
Can we have a forumcode that says "just go back and read my comments from the last 2 times this story was posted"?
I find it interesting that people that want to create "realistic" worlds like this, invariably eliminate the ability to kill other players.
As distasteful as that might be to the sensitivities of some of the programmers and players fleeing the kill-everything gaming world, the fact is that the idea of killing & death - either the fear of it or the causing of it (and no, you can't respawn or get another account) is INTEGRAL to the behavior of people, cultures, religions, everything that makes us human.
Earlier posts above referred to the typical pattern of these games, where there are nerdy types that end up as workerbee crafters, and there are social-types that invariably end up running things. However, the ultimate governor to all this is the fact that in the Real World (tm) if someone is exploited enough, they may just kill their exploiter.
It has laws? Well, the funny thing is that in a game, laws are mandatory while in Real Life (tm) they are simply consensual. Perhaps enforced strictly, but still consensual. If the law is passed that says "houses can't be built within 100 feet of each other", in a game, the game engine simply prevents this from ever happening.
IRL (tm), someone could STILL build their house 50' from yours. The question is: what are you going to do about it? Is it worth fighting about? How about if we pool a little of each of our money, and have a group that their JOB is to make sure they have more force to keep our rules in place than someone could muster to break them.
Of course then your problem is, who watches the watchers?
Read the Story of the Jesse Wall (by Wagner James Au, IIRC) in the Second Life website. Linden Labs created a killable zone, and the example was far closer to a Hobbesian state of nature (and, IMO, more like early societies) than the idyllic crafter communities that some people like to imagine that 'noble savages' lived in.
Ironically, the results were positively medieval. On the one hand, some of each group were thrashing it out with violence which was really only escalating things (and eventually, the WW2OLers *would* have either been wiped out, or reduced to a pathetic rump state which enough of the majority pitied enough to leave extant).
On the other hand, a large number of people appealed to the admins to "FIX SOMETHING!" (ie. religion). Ultimately, it was only resolved in a gamey fashion: the intervention of Linden Labs, the cordoning off of people into certain zones, and game-enforced bans. Too bad, we could have really had an interesting experiement.
Unfortunately, we don't HAVE an admin@universe.net IRL that can set the rules to no-PK in this world, no matter how much we appeal to them, so we're better off studying models that realistically represent behavior than these stilted artificialities.
have we lost our common sense when it comes to passenger screening?
Yes.
Until we dispose of political correctness and start simply searching all Arabic males from 14-54, silly shit like this will continue.
But no, we continue to search handicapped Norwegian grandmothers. How many of THEM have blown up planes?
Rather than blame the "insensitive computer programmers", perhaps we could look the other direction and realize that some people/cultures/religions are incredibly OVERsensitive, and catering to their peculiarities is just enabling them.
/. counterpost wave: I know that the US has some of their own sacred cows, which I think are equally silly. But I'd also argue that the US has a long tradition of arguing but ultimately tolerating such things - crucifixes in urine, routine desecrations of our symbols like the flag, etc. - are practically part of the evening news.
I mean please. From the article:
A game called Age of Empires 2 offended the Saudi Arabian authorities because it showed victorious Muslim armies turning churches into mosques. The game was withdrawn from sale in the kingdom
The Korean government, objected because Microsoft software showed the national flag in reverse. The software had to be changed.
The Spanish version of Windows used the word Hembra - meaning "woman" in Spain - for choosing gender. But in some Central American republics, notably Nicaragua, the word is an insult meaning "bitch". The programme was changed.
Microsoft employees were questioned by police in China, where it is an offence to refer to Taiwan as country or as the Republic of China. Now Taiwan is not referred to as country and all software worldwide avoids the issue by referring to places as "regions or districts".
Uruguay is a republic and proud if it but in Microsoft's Outlook in Uruguay, the company offended the government by describing Tuesday April 30 as the queen's birthday.
Let's look at these.
1) For Muslims turning churches into Mosques, yeah, that's HORRIBLY unrealistic propaganda. I have two words for you: Hagia Sophia.
2) the Korean flag in reverse: so what?
3) hembra: hardly an 'insensitivity' issue; it sounds like a genuine difference in dialect.
4) China/Taiwan: boo hoo. If the Chinese want to dwell in their eternal house of reality-denial, that's fine. What's next, we should stop recognizing Philippines because Spain wants them back? (I don't see the US forcing MS to delete Cuba from the map...)
5) The Queen of Uruguay: that's just funny. If someone accidentally or on purpose started referring to the US as a monarchy, they'd probably be hired as a spokesperson for the DNC.
Maybe it's just a particularly American viewpoint, but this whole stuff about sacred cows (pun intended) is just silly historio/political dreck. If MS wants to bend over backwards to accomodate the Latvio-Armenian midget lesbian lobby for more sales, that's their call. But nobody should claim that failure to do so is anything but a business decision. The folks who get up in arms about the slightest little thing need to grow thicker skins and get the fsck over it.
And yes, to forestall the
I've seen the increasing drumbeat of anti-GOP protestors everywhere, clearly building towards a childish orgy of vandalism and street violence. It is monumentally naive.
The GOP occupation of NYC is not just designed to exploit 9/11. It is a careful and deliberate attempt to provoke protest. Preferably large, frightening, unruly protest. The more masturbatory rage they can stir up in the city, the louder they'll be laughing on their way back to the white house.
This election will be won with moderates and swing voters. Those are people like your parents. They will not identify with "CrimethInc" and "scruffy, unattractive" street protestors. They will see this event covered from inside the convention looking out.
Every act of violence, provocation, and unruly or disorderly behavior will scare those moderates right into the GOP's arms. Whether it be showing up on 6th Ave. with a mask and a shield, or DDOS'ing a GOP website, this kind of bad conduct is exactly what Republican strategists urgently want. And it will hand them the election on a silver platter.
Precisely.
Thank you.
- The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
Local #2475 (Minneapolis)
Ironically, it didn't occur to me the other day as I set up and patched a WinXP box that the *reason* the install was going so smoothly was that I'd d/l'd the patches to a cd because they have a crappy dialup connection.
No connection + a few minutes prep = a suprisingly painless setup.
This compared to a WinXP home box I was setting up a couple of months ago that I could barely get the bastard running before it was infested again. Finally figured out to unplug from the network but hadn't thought to burn patches to cd first, so it was a fugly day.
I don't see what there is to complain about
/. much, do ya?
Don't read
Wow, 4 whole posts before the inevitable "their side is lying, my side isn't" post.
Holy crap people, try disengaging the partisan engine for a MOMENT and maybe we can eventually work our way up to constructive discussions.
It's hard to believe it now, but there was a period in the 1960s when space was talked about as a great frontier, as important as the ocean. Space stations (Skylab, Mir) were built, and space colonies were discussed. Men went to the MOON and came back.
Today, the romance of space is dead. You can work the shuttle or in NASA, but almost nobody dreams of a career as an "astronaut".
Unfortunately, after the edits it's still pretty much true.
Mod +1 tragic.
Statistical sample = infinitesimal
Extrapolation = huge
CNN = slow science news day, apparently.
AFAIK (IANAAA) our current detection methods are pretty much one of two methods:
1) observing wobble in a sun caused by orbitting planets
2) slight occlusion of the sun if the planet passes in front of it.
Both of these methods are ONLY any good for detecting MASSIVE (!!) bodies close to their primary. Further, both very rapidly become useless if these very particular beasts are not present. Plus, we've examined such a vanishingly small proportion of even the local stellar neighborhood, on any rounded scale we've seen almost precisely 0%. Nice sample size.
Ergo, this would really only be somewhat significant if we found that every star we've analyzed has such a system, this would make it depressingly likely that this is a COMMON configuration. But the fact that a statistically small sample of the measured stars have these giants in close orbits conversely suggests that, as predicted, we are *probably* only looking at a tiny segment of a 'solar system bell curve'.
Conversely, as already pointed out here, the fact that we have a humdrum Sun, humdrum element signature, humdrum stellar neighborhood (a little on the sparse side right now), suggest that our system is more likely to be a humdrum, average system.