It says something about the guy asking the question: i.e. he's not someone who first tries to pass himself off as a professional to a company and who then turns around and asks/.ers to do his job for him. Rather, he's likely someone who does not do this for a living, who specializes in something else, but is just the guy who got stuck with the website problem. The margins are often too tight for non-profits to bring in specialists. Plus, hiring a web guy would be likely be a deductible expense for most businesses, but not so for a non-profit. We might conclude, therefore, that he's looking for a solution that is as low maintenance as possible. Perhaps that's the significance of this being a non-profit.
When I was a kid, I was frequently surrounded by cigarette smoke and it never bothered me (though it might explain why I was permanently congested--a problem I do not have as an adult). Having left home and living in circumstances where I almost never encounter smoke, I find it bothers me far more. I've found others who've had similar experiences. I'm sure I could grow more accustomed to it again, but I have neither the reason nor the desire to do so.
I suspect CRT's affect me similarly. Sure, I could always hear the noise they made--especially when they were just turned on--but I was used to it. The few times I encounter CRT's anymore they annoy me to no end.
It's possible he's imagining it. But can you entertain the possibility that he isn't? I can hear fluorescent lights (including CFL's, though many of them make a quieter and higher pitched sound at the top of the range of what I can pick up) and they drive me insane. Same thing with CRT's and cheap LCD's. If you've ever heard a fluorescent light as it nears the end of its life, as I've found many others can, it's a similar experience only sharper.
Naturally, my wife suspected hearing this stuff was all in my head (why wouldn't she?) so we did tests to prove it. The most dramatic example of this is with a CFL dimmer bulb Philips used to make (not sure they do anymore, seem to have switched to LED). They're probably the loudest and most annoying lights I can hear, but the difference is one of degree and not kind. Even in another room of the house, I can tell not only whether the light is on but even the setting it's on by the pitch it makes.
So rather than legally limiting the amount of allowable surveillance you would rather depend on the expense of helicopters to deter law enforcement from overreaching?
You're attributing to me a position I neither supported by my comment nor otherwise hold. I was responding to the aspect of GP's post which dismissed concerns about drones as "armwaving and hysteria" since "they aren't a fundimentally [sic] new technology and are not without copious legal precident [sic]." My response was to indicate that drone technology does bring about significant change, i.e. concerns over drones is understandable because of the new circumstances they create and they are not directly analogous (much less equal) to the use of a helicopter inasmuch as they make it more practical to do what would be both unacceptable and impractical with a helicopter. The use of a helicopter or plane to do general surveillance (of the kind we may soon expect from drones) would be the exact opposite of "particularly describing the place to be searched". So, I would also be against the use of planes and helicopters to accomplish this sort of surveillance--but that simply wasn't the topic I was addressing. I'm all for putting legal limitations on police surveillance with planes, helicopters, drones, or trained spy parrots (should that become an issue). The fact that I chose to focus on one and only one aspect of GP's post cannot rightly be construed to indicate my support for anything I didn't blatantly condemn in my own.
And how is this any different from the FBI using aeroplanes or helicopters [...]
Expense. Airplanes and helicopters have to be heavy and powerful enough to transport people. Therefore, the initial expense, fuel, and maintenance costs will always be higher, placing a greater practical limitation on how much surveillance one can conduct. This causes a law enforcement agency to have to prioritize its surveillance, acting as a natural check against an all-seeing, all-intrusive security-state and requiring that they focus on areas where they might have reasonable suspicion.
[...] or cars?
Again, expense. To have eyes on a suspect you must pay the man whose eyes are employed. (Plus, the people in that car would need a warrant before stepping onto my property.) Again, this forces an agency to focus their use of resources. As the cost of drones decreases, and as their surveillance activities are increasingly automated, the ability to watch and record everything becomes a practical possibility. This is a fundamental change.
You're probably right that a lot of the problem with DNF is that its presumptive audience grew up. That and gaming has changed so much that many of the things that fresh and interesting in DN3D are now blasé. But your comparison of Chewbacca and Jar Jar has me mystified. Ewoks and Gungans, now that would be fair. But to say Chewbacca and Jar Jar are in any way comparable? Anathema sit!
[...] if nothing else but for people to see what the game turned into.
This is the only reason I tried it. Well, that and it was an option to play as a demo on OnLive and (after some of the controversy) I wanted to see for myself whether one could play an FPS on OnLive. Turns out you can and the graphics quality can be beautiful--but only if you're playing casually enough to be apathetic if it lags or fails. After a few moments of the puerile body humor that is the basis for the game (points for using the urinal, really?) you can indeed reach that level of apathy. I think at the time you could "buy" the game, full-access, for $5 and I concluded it was not worth it. This game is a perfect example of why you don't really see downloadable demos like you used to.
"NSA Surveillance May Have Dealt Major Blow To Global Internet Freedom Efforts".
On the contrary, at least in two respects. First, it is foolish to think that other governments needed a blueprint from the US to spy on their people. As soon as a country has the technical expertise to maintain the network infrastructure the internet requires it has technical expertise enough available to spy on the use of that infrastructure.
Second, the NSA has shown us what global internet freedom efforts should be directed towards. In some ways, we've been using the internet like an ignorant Starbucks customer who checks his banking on their unencrypted WiFi hotspot. If we want an internet with any modicum of freedom, everything must be encrypted. And that's only a start. We also need to recognize that a free internet will necessarily be a distributed internet. The practical equivalent of thin clients, whether Chromebooks or smart phones with cloud-heavy apps, will never be a part of a reliably free internet. For real freedom in the political realm, power must be distributed among the people. For real freedom in the internet, computing power must be distributed.
John Connor discovers that the T-800 series was not originally developed as a war machine at all. In fact, early developments in cybernetics were intended to help an increasingly elderly population cope with geriatric diseases. (In fact, the T in T-800 refers to a testosterone pump implanted directly into the body, the first major modification to be attempted.) One such man, an actor with influential connections in government, was able to steadily have body parts replaced as he aged, attempting to prevent the inevitable degradation of his once Mr. Universe quality body. Later iterations of the T-800 would be based upon this man, who developed the models in an attempt to develop eternally vigilant guards to prevent incursions on his lawn by neighborhood children.
Religion has no small part to play in this and I suspect this effect will come into play throughout the developing world, too.
I'm afraid I must disagree. Religion in the West has a relatively small part to play in people's reproductive choices. A slim majority of Americans identify as Protestant and it has been some time since the major traditional Protestant denominations cared at all about contraception. Where one would expect religion to make a difference, among the ~24% of Americans who identify as Catholic, it barely has a noticeable effect. 89% of American Catholics, compared to 90% of non-Catholics, say the use of birth control is morally acceptable. Contrary to the stereotypes, it really isn't a practical issue for most Catholics (and this in contradiction to the teaching of their religion).
Of course I do not mean to indicate that is religion irrelevant in guiding behavior. It certainly can be a powerful motivator. But religion is most effective within a consonant cultural context, where religious expectations are reinforced by societal norms. In the West, religion has become largely a question of private, personal choice and as such it has less power to guide behavior. This, like the dissolution of traditional family structures, is a predictable effect of the present capitalism.
The non-birth control users in the West are typically not of the more affluent subsets of the population. I suspect a similar correlation exists world-wide when comparing developed and developing countries, too.
Here I think you're quite right. But this was largely my point. The most affluent classes in the West tend to have below-replace-level birthrates. The poorer tend to have higher birthrates and to use contraception less. This is analogous to the situation among countries. Wealthier, industrialized nations have lower fertility rates while the poorer countries have higher fertility rates. But unlike the mass of relatively poor classes in the industrialized West, future generations in developing economies (esp. the BRICS) are likely to be at least somewhat better off than their forebears. Likewise, I would argue, we can expect an increasing number in those countries to adopt a Western-style approach to child rearing--where the wealthier have ever fewer children while through childbearing the poorer stave off both demographic collapse and economic collapse by providing a labor pool.
Predictions of Malthusian nightmares rarely seem to take birth control into account. We should keep in mind that effective hormonal birth control has only been widely available in the West since the seventies. In that short (yes, very short) amount of time it had to become both cheap enough and socially acceptable enough to make a demographic dent. We're only beginning to see the effects but even so 48% of the world's population lives in countries with sub-replacement fertility rates. Immigration props up most of the developed world demographically, but even so countries with some of the most advanced economies, like Germany and Japan, are experiencing a contraction of their populations. Indeed the latter, with its aversion to immigration, faces demographic collapse.
There's a lot of reason to be concerned about pressure of resources as the developing world grows and developing economies advance. But much of the increased pressure is caused by people taking on aspects of Western life--consumerism, purchase of electronic conveniences which become apparent necessities (cell phone, computers, etc), and the increasing use of cars. But aside from stable polities, few things make life more comfortable in the West than birth control. If there was a bit of lag time, and indeed a small amount, before widespread adoption of birth control in the West would make a demographic difference, why should we not expect developing countries to follow suit shortly?
I see where you're coming from. Somehow I neglected the "between then and [...]". I don't think I'd average it out like that though. Particularly now that I followed the links they gave in the article. The $38.9M number comes from a Violence Policy Center study entitled "Bloodmoney". Here's the relevant portion, quoted from the fourth page in the pdf:
Contributions to the NRA from the firearms industry since 2005 total between $14.7 million and $38.9 million.
The figure is repeated on the pdf's ninth page (numbered 6):
Contributions to the NRA from the firearms industry since 2005 total between $14.7 million and $38.9 million.
The article takes these numbers and turns it into "as much as $38.9 million". Given a second look, I might even suspect your guess was generous.
It doesn't just seem sneaky; it was an conscious decision on the author's part. An author is perfectly justified in saying "as much as" when the range is relatively restricted. But when they lower end of the range is only worth 38% of the figure given, an author only leaves it out by choice.
I admit that I didn't read closely enough the first time to catch the "between then and [...]". Sloppy reading; summer does that to me. But really this article wasn't written for me anyway. Following the headline, "Whom does the NRA really speak for?", the section names IT SPEAKS FOR JOE SIX-SHOOTER, IT SPEAKS FOR GUN MAKERS, and IT SPEAKS FOR RIGHT-WING IDEOLOGUES, left me disposed to assume that I was not the intended audience. The intended audience here wants to see the role of gun manufacturers inflated as much as possible. Sure, the author concludes: "It would be reductive to call it a mere corporate lobbyist." But what he could mean by, "in any event, it's clear the NRA isn't just representing your average Joe Six-Shooter" is mystifying unless his precise intention to leave the impression that the NRA does not represent your hunting, target shooting, or pro-2nd amendment but otherwise likable neighbor (whom he nonetheless scurrilously labels "Joe Six-Shooter") as some evil interests, in it for the money. The target audience is one that wishes to believe this. I have to say, however, that this is a step up from the report the article cites, which claims:
The mutually dependent nature of the National Rifle Association and the gun industry explains the NRA’s unwillingness to compromise on even the most limited controls over firearms or related products (such as restrictions on high-capacity ammunition magazines) and its support of legislation that clearly favors gunmakers over gun owners (such as legislation limiting the legal rights of gun owners killed or injured by defective firearms). The NRA claims that its positions are driven solely by a concern for the interests of gun owners, never mentioning its own financial stake in protecting the profits of its gun industry patrons.
They say this as though manufacturers aren't just as happy to sell us three 10 round magazines rather than one 30 round magazine. And, further, as though gun owners and sellers might not have some interests in common (I suppose they would think people wouldn't want vegetables if it weren't for the profit-seeking efforts of grocers). I came away from reading their report rather surprised about how little certain companies care about the matter (sub $100k include: Browning, DPMS, Glock, S&W, Cheaper than Dirt (okay, not much of a surprise there), H&R, Hornady, Marlin, Remington, Sig--most of whom are plastered on the front of the report). Thanks for the link, in any case. The report had its opposite intended effect and in spite of their best efforts (and my lazy reading) I may have come away knowing more than than I did before.
Thanks for the link. I'd often heard (and crunching membership numbers and dues figured) that the bulk of their funds come from individual contributions rather than industry efforts. I'm wondering about the 3% number you're giving though.
Those membership rolls are also the NRA's financial backbone. According to its public tax returns, the group raked in $228 million worth of revenue in 2010. That included about $106 million from membership dues and fees alone, along with about $18 million from educational services. It made another $20.9 million by selling advertising in its publications, such as American Rifleman and American Hunter, largely to gun companies looking to market their gear (despite all those ad buys, the titles still appear to run at a loss). [...] Between then and 2011, the Violence Policy Center estimates that the firearms industry donated as much as $38.9 million to the NRA's coffers.
With those numbers (being generous and excluding the ad sales) would leave us with 38.9/228 for a hair over 17%. The only other number I can find that might give what you indicate is here:
Together with other companies that have joined the effort, MidWay has helped collect more than $9 million for NRA. MidWay's owner, Larry Pottfield, also happens to be the the group's largest individual donor.
That would give us 3.947%. But that's only what's provided by one group organized by Midway, a retailer. Your point, that the industry provides a minority of funds relative to individual contributions, stands but I must ask if I'm missing something in your reasoning.
Slashdot Mirror
[Weasel Words][Citation Needed][Reference Makes No Sense]
It says something about the guy asking the question: i.e. he's not someone who first tries to pass himself off as a professional to a company and who then turns around and asks /.ers to do his job for him. Rather, he's likely someone who does not do this for a living, who specializes in something else, but is just the guy who got stuck with the website problem. The margins are often too tight for non-profits to bring in specialists. Plus, hiring a web guy would be likely be a deductible expense for most businesses, but not so for a non-profit. We might conclude, therefore, that he's looking for a solution that is as low maintenance as possible. Perhaps that's the significance of this being a non-profit.
So, guilty until proven innocent?
When I was a kid, I was frequently surrounded by cigarette smoke and it never bothered me (though it might explain why I was permanently congested--a problem I do not have as an adult). Having left home and living in circumstances where I almost never encounter smoke, I find it bothers me far more. I've found others who've had similar experiences. I'm sure I could grow more accustomed to it again, but I have neither the reason nor the desire to do so.
I suspect CRT's affect me similarly. Sure, I could always hear the noise they made--especially when they were just turned on--but I was used to it. The few times I encounter CRT's anymore they annoy me to no end.
Oh, I should add that I've never been able to hear anything from LED's. I wouldn't assume, therefore, that no one can hear anything from them.
It's possible he's imagining it. But can you entertain the possibility that he isn't? I can hear fluorescent lights (including CFL's, though many of them make a quieter and higher pitched sound at the top of the range of what I can pick up) and they drive me insane. Same thing with CRT's and cheap LCD's. If you've ever heard a fluorescent light as it nears the end of its life, as I've found many others can, it's a similar experience only sharper.
Naturally, my wife suspected hearing this stuff was all in my head (why wouldn't she?) so we did tests to prove it. The most dramatic example of this is with a CFL dimmer bulb Philips used to make (not sure they do anymore, seem to have switched to LED). They're probably the loudest and most annoying lights I can hear, but the difference is one of degree and not kind. Even in another room of the house, I can tell not only whether the light is on but even the setting it's on by the pitch it makes.
Spoken like a latter-day employer. Would that there were another way!
You're attributing to me a position I neither supported by my comment nor otherwise hold. I was responding to the aspect of GP's post which dismissed concerns about drones as "armwaving and hysteria" since "they aren't a fundimentally [sic] new technology and are not without copious legal precident [sic]." My response was to indicate that drone technology does bring about significant change, i.e. concerns over drones is understandable because of the new circumstances they create and they are not directly analogous (much less equal) to the use of a helicopter inasmuch as they make it more practical to do what would be both unacceptable and impractical with a helicopter. The use of a helicopter or plane to do general surveillance (of the kind we may soon expect from drones) would be the exact opposite of "particularly describing the place to be searched". So, I would also be against the use of planes and helicopters to accomplish this sort of surveillance--but that simply wasn't the topic I was addressing. I'm all for putting legal limitations on police surveillance with planes, helicopters, drones, or trained spy parrots (should that become an issue). The fact that I chose to focus on one and only one aspect of GP's post cannot rightly be construed to indicate my support for anything I didn't blatantly condemn in my own.
I wonder if the author paid the computer he wrote this on a fair wage.
So, you're unaware of the Endor Holocaust, the ecological disaster caused when the Rebellion blew Death Star II to smithereens?
Why would an AC make such a comment?
Expense. Airplanes and helicopters have to be heavy and powerful enough to transport people. Therefore, the initial expense, fuel, and maintenance costs will always be higher, placing a greater practical limitation on how much surveillance one can conduct. This causes a law enforcement agency to have to prioritize its surveillance, acting as a natural check against an all-seeing, all-intrusive security-state and requiring that they focus on areas where they might have reasonable suspicion.
Again, expense. To have eyes on a suspect you must pay the man whose eyes are employed. (Plus, the people in that car would need a warrant before stepping onto my property.) Again, this forces an agency to focus their use of resources. As the cost of drones decreases, and as their surveillance activities are increasingly automated, the ability to watch and record everything becomes a practical possibility. This is a fundamental change.
And if you lack a penis, then Archie to the rescue! "It's so humiliating being posted to the women's wing just because I'm genitally challenged!"
You're probably right that a lot of the problem with DNF is that its presumptive audience grew up. That and gaming has changed so much that many of the things that fresh and interesting in DN3D are now blasé. But your comparison of Chewbacca and Jar Jar has me mystified. Ewoks and Gungans, now that would be fair. But to say Chewbacca and Jar Jar are in any way comparable? Anathema sit!
Although, if you do play it you should know that taking a crap can get probably result in a boost for your "ego bar".
This is the only reason I tried it. Well, that and it was an option to play as a demo on OnLive and (after some of the controversy) I wanted to see for myself whether one could play an FPS on OnLive. Turns out you can and the graphics quality can be beautiful--but only if you're playing casually enough to be apathetic if it lags or fails. After a few moments of the puerile body humor that is the basis for the game (points for using the urinal, really?) you can indeed reach that level of apathy. I think at the time you could "buy" the game, full-access, for $5 and I concluded it was not worth it. This game is a perfect example of why you don't really see downloadable demos like you used to.
I thought you had to sell copies of a game for that to happen.
On the contrary, at least in two respects. First, it is foolish to think that other governments needed a blueprint from the US to spy on their people. As soon as a country has the technical expertise to maintain the network infrastructure the internet requires it has technical expertise enough available to spy on the use of that infrastructure.
Second, the NSA has shown us what global internet freedom efforts should be directed towards. In some ways, we've been using the internet like an ignorant Starbucks customer who checks his banking on their unencrypted WiFi hotspot. If we want an internet with any modicum of freedom, everything must be encrypted. And that's only a start. We also need to recognize that a free internet will necessarily be a distributed internet. The practical equivalent of thin clients, whether Chromebooks or smart phones with cloud-heavy apps, will never be a part of a reliably free internet. For real freedom in the political realm, power must be distributed among the people. For real freedom in the internet, computing power must be distributed.
Oblig. Too bad they never made any Star Wars sequels.
John Connor discovers that the T-800 series was not originally developed as a war machine at all. In fact, early developments in cybernetics were intended to help an increasingly elderly population cope with geriatric diseases. (In fact, the T in T-800 refers to a testosterone pump implanted directly into the body, the first major modification to be attempted.) One such man, an actor with influential connections in government, was able to steadily have body parts replaced as he aged, attempting to prevent the inevitable degradation of his once Mr. Universe quality body. Later iterations of the T-800 would be based upon this man, who developed the models in an attempt to develop eternally vigilant guards to prevent incursions on his lawn by neighborhood children.
Terminator 5: Geriatric Day
Terminator 5: Rise of the Mobility Aids
Terminator 5: Prescription
I'm afraid I must disagree. Religion in the West has a relatively small part to play in people's reproductive choices. A slim majority of Americans identify as Protestant and it has been some time since the major traditional Protestant denominations cared at all about contraception. Where one would expect religion to make a difference, among the ~24% of Americans who identify as Catholic, it barely has a noticeable effect. 89% of American Catholics, compared to 90% of non-Catholics, say the use of birth control is morally acceptable. Contrary to the stereotypes, it really isn't a practical issue for most Catholics (and this in contradiction to the teaching of their religion).
Of course I do not mean to indicate that is religion irrelevant in guiding behavior. It certainly can be a powerful motivator. But religion is most effective within a consonant cultural context, where religious expectations are reinforced by societal norms. In the West, religion has become largely a question of private, personal choice and as such it has less power to guide behavior. This, like the dissolution of traditional family structures, is a predictable effect of the present capitalism.
Here I think you're quite right. But this was largely my point. The most affluent classes in the West tend to have below-replace-level birthrates. The poorer tend to have higher birthrates and to use contraception less. This is analogous to the situation among countries. Wealthier, industrialized nations have lower fertility rates while the poorer countries have higher fertility rates. But unlike the mass of relatively poor classes in the industrialized West, future generations in developing economies (esp. the BRICS) are likely to be at least somewhat better off than their forebears. Likewise, I would argue, we can expect an increasing number in those countries to adopt a Western-style approach to child rearing--where the wealthier have ever fewer children while through childbearing the poorer stave off both demographic collapse and economic collapse by providing a labor pool.
Predictions of Malthusian nightmares rarely seem to take birth control into account. We should keep in mind that effective hormonal birth control has only been widely available in the West since the seventies. In that short (yes, very short) amount of time it had to become both cheap enough and socially acceptable enough to make a demographic dent. We're only beginning to see the effects but even so 48% of the world's population lives in countries with sub-replacement fertility rates. Immigration props up most of the developed world demographically, but even so countries with some of the most advanced economies, like Germany and Japan, are experiencing a contraction of their populations. Indeed the latter, with its aversion to immigration, faces demographic collapse.
There's a lot of reason to be concerned about pressure of resources as the developing world grows and developing economies advance. But much of the increased pressure is caused by people taking on aspects of Western life--consumerism, purchase of electronic conveniences which become apparent necessities (cell phone, computers, etc), and the increasing use of cars. But aside from stable polities, few things make life more comfortable in the West than birth control. If there was a bit of lag time, and indeed a small amount, before widespread adoption of birth control in the West would make a demographic difference, why should we not expect developing countries to follow suit shortly?
I see where you're coming from. Somehow I neglected the "between then and [...]". I don't think I'd average it out like that though. Particularly now that I followed the links they gave in the article. The $38.9M number comes from a Violence Policy Center study entitled "Bloodmoney". Here's the relevant portion, quoted from the fourth page in the pdf:
The figure is repeated on the pdf's ninth page (numbered 6):
The article takes these numbers and turns it into "as much as $38.9 million". Given a second look, I might even suspect your guess was generous.
It doesn't just seem sneaky; it was an conscious decision on the author's part. An author is perfectly justified in saying "as much as" when the range is relatively restricted. But when they lower end of the range is only worth 38% of the figure given, an author only leaves it out by choice.
I admit that I didn't read closely enough the first time to catch the "between then and [...]". Sloppy reading; summer does that to me. But really this article wasn't written for me anyway. Following the headline, "Whom does the NRA really speak for?", the section names IT SPEAKS FOR JOE SIX-SHOOTER, IT SPEAKS FOR GUN MAKERS, and IT SPEAKS FOR RIGHT-WING IDEOLOGUES, left me disposed to assume that I was not the intended audience. The intended audience here wants to see the role of gun manufacturers inflated as much as possible. Sure, the author concludes: "It would be reductive to call it a mere corporate lobbyist." But what he could mean by, "in any event, it's clear the NRA isn't just representing your average Joe Six-Shooter" is mystifying unless his precise intention to leave the impression that the NRA does not represent your hunting, target shooting, or pro-2nd amendment but otherwise likable neighbor (whom he nonetheless scurrilously labels "Joe Six-Shooter") as some evil interests, in it for the money. The target audience is one that wishes to believe this. I have to say, however, that this is a step up from the report the article cites, which claims:
They say this as though manufacturers aren't just as happy to sell us three 10 round magazines rather than one 30 round magazine. And, further, as though gun owners and sellers might not have some interests in common (I suppose they would think people wouldn't want vegetables if it weren't for the profit-seeking efforts of grocers). I came away from reading their report rather surprised about how little certain companies care about the matter (sub $100k include: Browning, DPMS, Glock, S&W, Cheaper than Dirt (okay, not much of a surprise there), H&R, Hornady, Marlin, Remington, Sig--most of whom are plastered on the front of the report). Thanks for the link, in any case. The report had its opposite intended effect and in spite of their best efforts (and my lazy reading) I may have come away knowing more than than I did before.
With those numbers (being generous and excluding the ad sales) would leave us with 38.9/228 for a hair over 17%. The only other number I can find that might give what you indicate is here:
That would give us 3.947%. But that's only what's provided by one group organized by Midway, a retailer. Your point, that the industry provides a minority of funds relative to individual contributions, stands but I must ask if I'm missing something in your reasoning.