provide tax benefits to mothers bear a single child or no children
They tried that in China and it caused a significant gender imbalance. It's certainly a step in the right direction, but some cultures are going to have to tweak things a bit.
This is pretty dated now, but there's an old game called Mindrover: The Europa Project that was absolutely perfect for this. Kid-friendly but challenging, used a sort of graphical programming that was easy to understand. The only problem is that it's such an old game now that the kid is likely to be turned off by the graphics.
I do this every night when I go to bed, using a Nexus One with a micro USB connector. Never had any problems with it though. Not even the suggestion of a problem really, I don't know what the GP is talking about.
Why was this modded down? Seriously, I'd like to know. Is he wrong? Was that threshold not added at that time? It seems like an insightful comment to me.
I have to wonder who at Wikileaks thought that this would be a good idea.
I don't see why this would confuse you, most newspapers are doing this nowadays. It's great when the news is free, and it would be wonderful if Wikileaks could fund itself through donations like they used to, but with the blockade set up by the payment processors they're in terrible need of money and, given that this is the approach that every other news organization is taking, this seems like the obvious route for them.
Your statement about fear of persecution is also valid, for sure, but without the banks doing what they did Wikileaks would be rolling in donations from all the publicity they had over the diplomatic cables. I don't know if they've resolved that blockade fully, but by merely delaying their ability to accept donations the banks have accomplished a great deal in suppressing Wikileaks.
Did you type it out: ten dollars? It will definitely accept a $10 payment as long as you use numbers like a normal person. Perhaps you're complaining that they don't accept the payment option of your preference? It would be nice, I admit, if they could set up a system to accept credit cards directly instead of going through payment processors, but they do give you a choice of processors. They're really pretty flexible.
I could see Apple purchasing just the patents from Nokia, with an agreement to license them back. That would give Nokia a ton of money so they could stay afloat a little longer while at the same time giving Apple the opportunity to get the patents for certain rather than bidding for them against other companies at a bankruptcy auction.
The maps thing is trivial next to the other issues. Just a little bad PR.
Nokia's patents may be purchasable, but buying the entire company would be a huge investment for Apple, one which would provide hardly any value outside of the patent portfolio - Nokia's products, philosophy, almost everything are completely orthogonal to Apple's. This is a terrible idea.
If you self-identify as having any specific concern for animal welfare, you first have to jump the PETA hurdle.
I wasn't suggesting that PETA deserved this abuse, though I suppose it could be interpreted that way...::sigh:: That's why I was modded up, wasn't it?
All right, there's always tons of links to supposed crimes and hypocrisies committed by PETA in threads like this, so it's easy to think that they're a bunch of loons based on the evidence presented. A neutral observer might see the evidence and see the hate and grow puzzled, however - hypocritical organizations are a dime a dozen, what makes this one special? My suggestion: the hate does not come from the evidence or anything that PETA actually does.
Animal cruelty is a sensitive subject. There are few people who are truly devoid of empathy so at some point in their lives virtually everyone has at least considered where their meat is coming from. Of those, a portion find an absolute justification for it - something which gives them a religious level of certainty in the righteousness of their actions. This portion has no reason to hate PETA, to them PETA really is just a bunch of kooks complaining about how wet the water is. The rest of the people (the majority) lack this absolute conviction, however. They may have found a reason in their minds to waive away the ethical questions, but that isn't the same as resolving them. And this shouldn't be surprising, that's how ethics generally works, it is always ambiguous. Shades of grey, etc.
But guilt and anger are closely linked, so lingering doubts mean that when people are confronted with what it implies when they say mmm-bacon, they tend to lash out. As the most visible target, PETA feels the brunt of this. I'm not suggesting that PETA is generating the hate, I think they act as the breakwater.
As far as the evidence against PETA? Some of it is probably real and some of it is probably fake or misinterpreted or blown out of proportion. Hate generates evidence for more hate. Whether PETA is upstanding or a bunch of loons doesn't really matter at this point, people would look at them the same either way.
Yes, this does seem to be PETA's primary function these days. Anytime a story comes up about PETA people work themselves into a lather. Even when it's about something as obvious as the fact that cramming animals into tiny balls and then making them fight in gladiatorial style combat may be ethically questionable.
But being a target for hate is a valid role, albeit a rather painful one. People expend their vitriol on PETA and other animals rights groups wind up looking better by comparison. "Hey," they say, "we're not PETA. You can talk to us and consider our suggestions rather than just dismissing them out of hand." Ultimately, partly thanks to PETA acting as lightning rod, the goal is furthered.
The second "solution" isn't much better; the convenience of personal transportation should be cheap & universal, not taken away from everyone for the sake of environmentalism.
Sustainability isn't about stupid ideals, it's about long term survival. There is nothing that shouldn't be done for the sake of environmentalism, the only question is a matter of cost vs. benefit. The cost here is urban sprawl and that which goes with it - larger houses and more space. The benefit is cleaner air locally and a reduction in greenhouse gasses globally, along with some monetary savings from reduced need for infrastructure and oil (i.e.: smaller government and cheaper gas).
You can choose to go the urban sprawl route, that's a valid option but you're going to pay for it in other places and in other ways. Stricter rules on carbon emissions from industrial sources, for example, leading to a reduction in economic growth and fewer jobs.
So... you're saying that someone else made up a rule which lets them declare Obama to be a Muslim? What's your point?
If I make up a religion, we'll call it Guisianity, and a rule that says if you eat breakfast you're a Guisian... Let's say I make this rule just before Obama eats his breakfast and I start telling people that Obama was my first follower. Does that make my opinion matter in any way? Even a little tiny bit? Is there any reason why anyone at all should listen to the stupid things I say?
I realize that you said this was unreasonable, but even mentioning it in a random online forum gives this more credit than it deserves.
There are several other islands far more suitable to that purpose, Staten Island is too large to be useful as a prison. North Brother Island for example, currently an uninhabited bird sanctuary, was where Typhoid Mary was held during her quarantine. There used to be a certain type of heron that nested there but they've moved on fairly recently, so it's value as a bird sanctuary may be limited. That's beside the point however: the US most certainly does not need more prisons, we already imprison a larger portion of our population than any other country.
Why must every part of New York become a tourist / terrorist trap?
It doesn't have to be a tourist trap, but it needs to be something. Staten Island is a virtual wasteland compared to the rest of the city, it's the perfect place for something large and mostly useless. The view should be nice from there as well.
As the AC pointed out, this isn't true. But more: most of the time, even with current patent incentives, a company isn't willing to invest that anyway. Most funding for drugs that treat illnesses comes from the government anyway, some from nonprofits. The drugs that are funded entirely by the drug companies are things like Viagra and Rogain. Not that there isn't a place for those as well, I like hair and erections, the point is that the free market isn't a functional motivator for drug development.
Yes I do, that's why I tried to make a point of calling out activation rather than DRM as a whole. Obviously DRM is never a good thing, but something like a disc check, while annoying, does allow you to retain real ownership over your media. I can resell it if I like, lend it to a friend if I like, install it whenever I like without an internet connection and without asking permission.
You are correct that the delivery method for a game which requires activation isn't really important. I'm not trying to be down on Steam exclusively, it's activation that I avoid. It's just that anything which you get through Steam requires activation.
PS: I challenge you to find retail games that don't have similar requirements. You'd be surprised how hard this is.
I would not be surprised, I am very familiar with how difficult that is. I get virtually everything from Good Old Games and the Humble Indie Bundle these days, but for the record here are a few good retail games that are DRM free (and somewhat recent):
Prince of Persia (the newer reboot)
Trine
Defense Grid
Rayman Origins
I'm baffled by this part " even when iTunes was DRMing their media". You do realize that most content on iTunes is still DRM'd. Just because iTunes plus and iTunes Match fixed most of the music, doesn't mean that video, apps and books are DRM free.
My mistake. I think of iTunes as a music store, I guess that's not really true any more.
That's fine. If you feel that the service from Steam is worth what you're giving up then that's your choice (although I get the same service from Good Old Games). It's when people push the idea that you're not giving up something when you go with Steam that I get annoyed.
More than that, it's a tired argument to make in the first place, yet it keeps popping up. Is the GP really claiming that he can't tell the difference between a Steam game that he can only install through Steam, only while online, and only if he has permission vs. a DRM free game that he buys online, for which he has the installation files and can install and play whenever and however he sees fit? Of course not. There's some kind of willful ignorance going on here.
There are certainly people who see value in Steam's added services, but it is most certainly not "DRM done right." Every game purchased through Steam requires online activation, every single one. A stark contrast to the iTunes comparison - even when iTunes was DRMing their media, an internet connection was never required.
I'm not sure what "DRM done right" would be, DRM is after all a limitation on what you can do with your purchased media. For me however, any form of DRM that requires me to ask permission before I can read or watch or play with my stuff, that will never fall into the "acceptable DRM" category.
Free speech is not something that we "give," no. Came here to say that. I don't follow what you're agreeing about though. That Julian Assange is an enemy of the United States? That might be true now, but only because we forced him into that position. At one time he was just a journalist, hating secrets but not America.
Because the number of people they need to draw on is decreasing they are doing far less favors.
You are hoping that this is true, you have no evidence to support it. No evidence exists yet in either direction - this is the first election under the Citizen's United decision and it will be years before we have enough data to say whether corruption has gone up or down.
Your claim, however, that corruption will decrease because politicians are more beholden to larger donors, who are now allowed to make their donations secretly, anonymous to the public, is... crazy. Let's make this simple: if a politician is beholden to a thousand people, and they want a thousand different things, then the politician must make decisions on what specific things will best benefit the group. This is how representative democracy is supposed to work. If a politician is beholden to one company, then the company gets whatever it wants and fuck everyone else.
Slashdot Mirror
provide tax benefits to mothers bear a single child or no children
They tried that in China and it caused a significant gender imbalance. It's certainly a step in the right direction, but some cultures are going to have to tweak things a bit.
Amerindian certainly is worse then African American. The word you're looking for is Afromerican.
This is pretty dated now, but there's an old game called Mindrover: The Europa Project that was absolutely perfect for this. Kid-friendly but challenging, used a sort of graphical programming that was easy to understand. The only problem is that it's such an old game now that the kid is likely to be turned off by the graphics.
I do this every night when I go to bed, using a Nexus One with a micro USB connector. Never had any problems with it though. Not even the suggestion of a problem really, I don't know what the GP is talking about.
Why was this modded down? Seriously, I'd like to know. Is he wrong? Was that threshold not added at that time? It seems like an insightful comment to me.
I have to wonder who at Wikileaks thought that this would be a good idea.
I don't see why this would confuse you, most newspapers are doing this nowadays. It's great when the news is free, and it would be wonderful if Wikileaks could fund itself through donations like they used to, but with the blockade set up by the payment processors they're in terrible need of money and, given that this is the approach that every other news organization is taking, this seems like the obvious route for them.
Your statement about fear of persecution is also valid, for sure, but without the banks doing what they did Wikileaks would be rolling in donations from all the publicity they had over the diplomatic cables. I don't know if they've resolved that blockade fully, but by merely delaying their ability to accept donations the banks have accomplished a great deal in suppressing Wikileaks.
Did you type it out: ten dollars? It will definitely accept a $10 payment as long as you use numbers like a normal person. Perhaps you're complaining that they don't accept the payment option of your preference? It would be nice, I admit, if they could set up a system to accept credit cards directly instead of going through payment processors, but they do give you a choice of processors. They're really pretty flexible.
I could see Apple purchasing just the patents from Nokia, with an agreement to license them back. That would give Nokia a ton of money so they could stay afloat a little longer while at the same time giving Apple the opportunity to get the patents for certain rather than bidding for them against other companies at a bankruptcy auction.
The maps thing is trivial next to the other issues. Just a little bad PR.
Nokia's patents may be purchasable, but buying the entire company would be a huge investment for Apple, one which would provide hardly any value outside of the patent portfolio - Nokia's products, philosophy, almost everything are completely orthogonal to Apple's. This is a terrible idea.
If you self-identify as having any specific concern for animal welfare, you first have to jump the PETA hurdle.
I wasn't suggesting that PETA deserved this abuse, though I suppose it could be interpreted that way... ::sigh:: That's why I was modded up, wasn't it?
All right, there's always tons of links to supposed crimes and hypocrisies committed by PETA in threads like this, so it's easy to think that they're a bunch of loons based on the evidence presented. A neutral observer might see the evidence and see the hate and grow puzzled, however - hypocritical organizations are a dime a dozen, what makes this one special? My suggestion: the hate does not come from the evidence or anything that PETA actually does.
Animal cruelty is a sensitive subject. There are few people who are truly devoid of empathy so at some point in their lives virtually everyone has at least considered where their meat is coming from. Of those, a portion find an absolute justification for it - something which gives them a religious level of certainty in the righteousness of their actions. This portion has no reason to hate PETA, to them PETA really is just a bunch of kooks complaining about how wet the water is. The rest of the people (the majority) lack this absolute conviction, however. They may have found a reason in their minds to waive away the ethical questions, but that isn't the same as resolving them. And this shouldn't be surprising, that's how ethics generally works, it is always ambiguous. Shades of grey, etc.
But guilt and anger are closely linked, so lingering doubts mean that when people are confronted with what it implies when they say mmm-bacon, they tend to lash out. As the most visible target, PETA feels the brunt of this. I'm not suggesting that PETA is generating the hate, I think they act as the breakwater.
As far as the evidence against PETA? Some of it is probably real and some of it is probably fake or misinterpreted or blown out of proportion. Hate generates evidence for more hate. Whether PETA is upstanding or a bunch of loons doesn't really matter at this point, people would look at them the same either way.
Yes, this does seem to be PETA's primary function these days. Anytime a story comes up about PETA people work themselves into a lather. Even when it's about something as obvious as the fact that cramming animals into tiny balls and then making them fight in gladiatorial style combat may be ethically questionable.
But being a target for hate is a valid role, albeit a rather painful one. People expend their vitriol on PETA and other animals rights groups wind up looking better by comparison. "Hey," they say, "we're not PETA. You can talk to us and consider our suggestions rather than just dismissing them out of hand." Ultimately, partly thanks to PETA acting as lightning rod, the goal is furthered.
The second "solution" isn't much better; the convenience of personal transportation should be cheap & universal, not taken away from everyone for the sake of environmentalism.
Sustainability isn't about stupid ideals, it's about long term survival. There is nothing that shouldn't be done for the sake of environmentalism, the only question is a matter of cost vs. benefit. The cost here is urban sprawl and that which goes with it - larger houses and more space. The benefit is cleaner air locally and a reduction in greenhouse gasses globally, along with some monetary savings from reduced need for infrastructure and oil (i.e.: smaller government and cheaper gas).
You can choose to go the urban sprawl route, that's a valid option but you're going to pay for it in other places and in other ways. Stricter rules on carbon emissions from industrial sources, for example, leading to a reduction in economic growth and fewer jobs.
Yes, smokers are cheaper to care for in the long run:
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199710093371506
There's more than one study which has shown this. Discouragement of smoking is based on politics rather than sound policy.
So... you're saying that someone else made up a rule which lets them declare Obama to be a Muslim? What's your point?
If I make up a religion, we'll call it Guisianity, and a rule that says if you eat breakfast you're a Guisian... Let's say I make this rule just before Obama eats his breakfast and I start telling people that Obama was my first follower. Does that make my opinion matter in any way? Even a little tiny bit? Is there any reason why anyone at all should listen to the stupid things I say?
I realize that you said this was unreasonable, but even mentioning it in a random online forum gives this more credit than it deserves.
There are several other islands far more suitable to that purpose, Staten Island is too large to be useful as a prison. North Brother Island for example, currently an uninhabited bird sanctuary, was where Typhoid Mary was held during her quarantine. There used to be a certain type of heron that nested there but they've moved on fairly recently, so it's value as a bird sanctuary may be limited. That's beside the point however: the US most certainly does not need more prisons, we already imprison a larger portion of our population than any other country.
Why must every part of New York become a tourist / terrorist trap?
It doesn't have to be a tourist trap, but it needs to be something. Staten Island is a virtual wasteland compared to the rest of the city, it's the perfect place for something large and mostly useless. The view should be nice from there as well.
As the AC pointed out, this isn't true. But more: most of the time, even with current patent incentives, a company isn't willing to invest that anyway. Most funding for drugs that treat illnesses comes from the government anyway, some from nonprofits. The drugs that are funded entirely by the drug companies are things like Viagra and Rogain. Not that there isn't a place for those as well, I like hair and erections, the point is that the free market isn't a functional motivator for drug development.
Do you even remember pre-steam DRM schemes?
Yes I do, that's why I tried to make a point of calling out activation rather than DRM as a whole. Obviously DRM is never a good thing, but something like a disc check, while annoying, does allow you to retain real ownership over your media. I can resell it if I like, lend it to a friend if I like, install it whenever I like without an internet connection and without asking permission.
You are correct that the delivery method for a game which requires activation isn't really important. I'm not trying to be down on Steam exclusively, it's activation that I avoid. It's just that anything which you get through Steam requires activation.
PS: I challenge you to find retail games that don't have similar requirements. You'd be surprised how hard this is.
I would not be surprised, I am very familiar with how difficult that is. I get virtually everything from Good Old Games and the Humble Indie Bundle these days, but for the record here are a few good retail games that are DRM free (and somewhat recent):
Prince of Persia (the newer reboot)
Trine
Defense Grid
Rayman Origins
I'm baffled by this part " even when iTunes was DRMing their media". You do realize that most content on iTunes is still DRM'd. Just because iTunes plus and iTunes Match fixed most of the music, doesn't mean that video, apps and books are DRM free.
My mistake. I think of iTunes as a music store, I guess that's not really true any more.
That's fine. If you feel that the service from Steam is worth what you're giving up then that's your choice (although I get the same service from Good Old Games). It's when people push the idea that you're not giving up something when you go with Steam that I get annoyed.
More than that, it's a tired argument to make in the first place, yet it keeps popping up. Is the GP really claiming that he can't tell the difference between a Steam game that he can only install through Steam, only while online, and only if he has permission vs. a DRM free game that he buys online, for which he has the installation files and can install and play whenever and however he sees fit? Of course not. There's some kind of willful ignorance going on here.
There are certainly people who see value in Steam's added services, but it is most certainly not "DRM done right." Every game purchased through Steam requires online activation, every single one. A stark contrast to the iTunes comparison - even when iTunes was DRMing their media, an internet connection was never required.
I'm not sure what "DRM done right" would be, DRM is after all a limitation on what you can do with your purchased media. For me however, any form of DRM that requires me to ask permission before I can read or watch or play with my stuff, that will never fall into the "acceptable DRM" category.
Free speech is not something that we "give," no. Came here to say that. I don't follow what you're agreeing about though. That Julian Assange is an enemy of the United States? That might be true now, but only because we forced him into that position. At one time he was just a journalist, hating secrets but not America.
Because the number of people they need to draw on is decreasing they are doing far less favors.
You are hoping that this is true, you have no evidence to support it. No evidence exists yet in either direction - this is the first election under the Citizen's United decision and it will be years before we have enough data to say whether corruption has gone up or down.
Your claim, however, that corruption will decrease because politicians are more beholden to larger donors, who are now allowed to make their donations secretly, anonymous to the public, is... crazy. Let's make this simple: if a politician is beholden to a thousand people, and they want a thousand different things, then the politician must make decisions on what specific things will best benefit the group. This is how representative democracy is supposed to work. If a politician is beholden to one company, then the company gets whatever it wants and fuck everyone else.