Exactly...They made fun of Clinton because he got a blow job. They make fun of Bush because he acts folksie and dumb. They make fun of Dick Cheney because he has a Darth Vader Complex. As for Obama, what are they going to do? They can't do racist humor. He isn't dumb or crazy, and he only seems evil to rightwing conspiracy theorists. So what jokes do you make?
I have no idea how many people will show up at a Colbert rally, but I can tell you one very significant difference between the rally that Glen Beck held and one that Colbert holds. After the Glen Beck rally, it looked like the grounds crew had just finished getting the place ready for an event, everything picked up and put away, no trash on the ground. After a Colbert rally, I am quite confident that there will be trash all over the place.
I really hope that Colbert does hold such a rally, it will tell us a lot about what is going on in this country.
So is that a relevant issue? Should we decide the merits of MLK based on how many litterbugs where in his crowd compared to an equivalently sized Klan meeting?
So, wouldn't Buddhism select itself out of existence? Christians spread Christianity and keep coming back as Christians. Once a Buddhist gets the right idea, he has 80 or 90 years at most to spread it, and then he's gone. If Buddhists had the right idea, you'd think that their population would dwindle.
Or maybe it just allowed him more control over his creation. Multiple gods leads to conflict, and it would make it harder to denounce someone else as a heretic when another Israelite tries the same thing. Maybe the other guy met some other god that you don't know about.
Shutting down windows is like a bad breakup. It's a long and drawn-out process, that you wish you could just walk away from, but there's always some unnecessary complication that leaves you wondering why you settled for this in the first place and if you will have the willpower to avoid coming back tomorrow.
Quickly from memory: Left X Blue, Right B Red, Down A Green and Up Y Yellow.
While I like the Xbox controller now, when I first started to use it I hated, how MS seemed to acknowlege the old SNES controller buttons while at the same time juggling everything around just a bit to screw with my head... See, SNES was
Left Y Green, Right A Red, Down B Yellow, Up X Blue
really subtle... Yes, I realize that it is the same configuration as on the original Xbox, but I never had one of those.
I'm sorry, I know this is racist, but when someone from Germany starts demanding conformity, I get a little worried.:)
Customer: Can I install Linux on this and use it as a server?
Sony: Yeah, you can do whatever you want, now sign this fifteen page contract!
Customer: Do I have to?
Sony: Yes, but don't worry. It's just there for decoration.
Customer: Ok.
Six months later...
Customer: You removed Linux from my car...
Sony: Yeah, we just realized it's a car, and you might be using Linux to add features that we should be charging you for.
Customer: That's not fair.
Sony: Remember the contract? It says I can do this...It's right after the part that says that I get to have sex with your mother.
Customer: What?
Sony: Raising someone who would sign such an agreement was taken as consent. It's all legal.
Customer: I'm taking you to court.
Sony: We have fifteen lawyers, do you need a ride up there?
Later
Judge: So, this "car" you speak of...It's like an electric horse, right?
Customer: But it runs Linux...
Judge: And as for your mother...Well, I'm pretty sure that would be illegal, except that this guy sells electronics, and current contract laws don't say anything about "rape by an electronics salesman"....I guess we'll have to wait for the law to catch up with the technology on that one.
Customer: Does this mean "no Linux"?
Judge: Boy, I don't know what the hell you just said, but I like you. Now get outta my court room, you little scamp.
I think the novel part about the Klingon language is that it is an unnecessary language invented by people who intentionally decided to learn a language that it unlikely to ever be useful.
The programming languages exist because compilers cannot speak English, and computer programmers cannot agree on one perfect means of communicating one's wishes to the compiler. A better programming language analogy would be with the non-mainstream languages, such as LOLCode and Brainfuck. Those languages are not meant to serve any practical purpose, and are usually designed in such a way as to make the programmer's job more difficult.
The novel part about the performance is that some group of actors got together and decided to learn to speak Klingon to practice their art on an audience who would mostly not understand it. This could be an interesting exercise, considering that, if you can learn Klingon, playing a doctor, lawyer, or anyone fluent in technobabble should be easy in comparison.
It's crowdsourced knowledge, which is likely correct in many cases but is still subject to errors and abuse from bored teenagers and people with an agenda.
You mean like the lawyer who plans to cite it as evidence the next day?
the researchers found that women who sit more than 6 hours a day were 37 percent more likely to die than those who sit less than 3 hours; for men, long-sitters were 17 percent more likely to die
You know... I'm pretty sure everyone is 100% likely to die...
Speak for yourself. My life insurance agent promised me that I will never see a penny of that money.
That just means that you got your life insurance from the same place I got my health insurance. I'm pretty sure that when I die, they'll either try to pass it off as a preexisting condition, or just say something like "Oh, he died while wearing green. We don't cover that".
Hey, at least they didn't say exorcise-I'd hate to have to do that on a regular basis.
You hate it? How do you think the ghosts feel. You're dead, you got nothing better to do than sit around some old house, looking at pictures of someone else's family, and finally you just say
Screw it! I'm bored as hell, so I'm just going to move that figurine, right there. Haha, that'll mess with 'em.
Oh, they moved it back. Man, I miss my old pony...and being alive. I think the thing I miss most about life is talking to people without them freaking out. They say "oh how I miss uncle Jacob", but all it takes is a little "I miss you too", and suddenly it's all "get a priest this", and "go back to hell that". Why can't I have a cool family that just smokes pot and breaks out the Ouija board. Sure, I can't get a contact buzz, but the pot makes it so much easier to mess with them. I don't even have to move their keys, I just have to wait for them to forget where they left them.
Then some superstitious old perv comes in, starts splashing water everywhere, and suddenly you're flying back to hell. It's not entirely fair.
Agreed. Personal responsibility is just a way for larger entities (the businesses that make the tubes, the FDA, the hospitals, etc) to dismiss it as someone else's problem. Who cares if the problem continues, as long as we now know who to blame!
And as for where I got the idea that you were claiming that teachers produce nothing of value, it was from this quote:
Your argument is absurd. In real world we don't pay people simply because they have talent. People get paid because someone is making money.
You follow it up with several examples of people who have value because they bring in money to their employers. So, if teachers make no money for anybody, and they get paid little, then I assumed that your point is that they must have little value.
As for your other examples, you are backing up my point. Each occupation mentioned (teachers included) is one that does something for society, while bringing in absolutely no money for a boss. Still they provide something of value.
But you are still making the assumption that somehow, because teachers are getting paid x, that that is what they should be paid. My point is that the free market is based on not on the inherent value of a product, but on the perception of value, and that perception is sometimes wrong.
We could get a lot of bang......for very FEW bucks just using power strips, replacing incandescent light bulbs, drinking tap water and shopping with resuable backs.
Those things aren't enough, but if you could get large numbers of people doing them......and these things are cheap enough to get people to do them, it would be a huge impact
Not only that, but every small improvement made now buys a little more time. I hate the environmental timeline. It goes something like this:
1970: lolwut? Global warming? What will they think of next.
1980: Not a problem. Who needs electric cars?
1990: Not a problem. I'm gonna buy me a big old SUV.
2000: Not a problem. I'm gonna buy me a bigger SUV, so that if I hit someone else's big old SUV, I will run over them, bigfoot style, and be declared the winner.
2010: Holy crap! You mean I gotta change my light bulbs, drive a wuss-mobile, and start paying more for electricity? No! We're screwed! Royally screwed and there's nothing any of us can do about it. If only there were a way to fix the problem without inconveniencing me in any way. I don't like to be inconvenienced, and this is inconvenient. Oh the irony!
2020: Sucks how Obama screwed up the environment. You know Bush 43 had a very efficient house, and Bush 41 and Reagan must have been doing something right because everyone says global warming wasn't a problem back then.
Trailers are not as easy to move as you might think. Granted, if you have a couple of hours warning, you might be able to grab your home and leave, but if you're willing to base one of the larger decisions of your life on fear of natural disaster, then why live in an area prone to wildfires and earthquakes?
Secondly, mobile homes do not last the way real houses do. I'm sure you can come up with some examples of substandard homes that collapse faster than a typical mobile home, but, that is the exception, rather than the rule. By buying a mobile home, you are choosing a home that is guaranteed to fall apart in 10 to 20 years, over one that has the possibility of burning down someday.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you trying to be serious?
Exactly...They made fun of Clinton because he got a blow job. They make fun of Bush because he acts folksie and dumb. They make fun of Dick Cheney because he has a Darth Vader Complex. As for Obama, what are they going to do? They can't do racist humor. He isn't dumb or crazy, and he only seems evil to rightwing conspiracy theorists. So what jokes do you make?
I have no idea how many people will show up at a Colbert rally, but I can tell you one very significant difference between the rally that Glen Beck held and one that Colbert holds. After the Glen Beck rally, it looked like the grounds crew had just finished getting the place ready for an event, everything picked up and put away, no trash on the ground. After a Colbert rally, I am quite confident that there will be trash all over the place.
I really hope that Colbert does hold such a rally, it will tell us a lot about what is going on in this country.
So is that a relevant issue? Should we decide the merits of MLK based on how many litterbugs where in his crowd compared to an equivalently sized Klan meeting?
He should do a "tonight's word" segment in which someone stands behind him with a chalkboard writing things by hand.
So, wouldn't Buddhism select itself out of existence? Christians spread Christianity and keep coming back as Christians. Once a Buddhist gets the right idea, he has 80 or 90 years at most to spread it, and then he's gone. If Buddhists had the right idea, you'd think that their population would dwindle.
Or maybe it just allowed him more control over his creation. Multiple gods leads to conflict, and it would make it harder to denounce someone else as a heretic when another Israelite tries the same thing. Maybe the other guy met some other god that you don't know about.
Dark Wizard was excellent. If only I had mod points.
Shutting down windows is like a bad breakup. It's a long and drawn-out process, that you wish you could just walk away from, but there's always some unnecessary complication that leaves you wondering why you settled for this in the first place and if you will have the willpower to avoid coming back tomorrow.
One has to wonder if they are also trying to patent the inadvertent "BSOD" shutdowns. They seem much more complex. ;-)
More complex? I always imagined that some internal process was just broadcasting the equivalent of "last call".
Quickly from memory: Left X Blue, Right B Red, Down A Green and Up Y Yellow.
While I like the Xbox controller now, when I first started to use it I hated, how MS seemed to acknowlege the old SNES controller buttons while at the same time juggling everything around just a bit to screw with my head... See, SNES was
Left Y Green, Right A Red, Down B Yellow, Up X Blue
really subtle... Yes, I realize that it is the same configuration as on the original Xbox, but I never had one of those.
I'm sorry, I know this is racist, but when someone from Germany starts demanding conformity, I get a little worried. :)
Another car analogy:
Customer: I'd like to buy a car.
Sony: Sure!
Customer: Can I install Linux on this and use it as a server?
Sony: Yeah, you can do whatever you want, now sign this fifteen page contract!
Customer: Do I have to?
Sony: Yes, but don't worry. It's just there for decoration.
Customer: Ok.
Six months later...
Customer: You removed Linux from my car...
Sony: Yeah, we just realized it's a car, and you might be using Linux to add features that we should be charging you for.
Customer: That's not fair.
Sony: Remember the contract? It says I can do this...It's right after the part that says that I get to have sex with your mother.
Customer: What?
Sony: Raising someone who would sign such an agreement was taken as consent. It's all legal.
Customer: I'm taking you to court.
Sony: We have fifteen lawyers, do you need a ride up there?
Later
Judge: So, this "car" you speak of...It's like an electric horse, right?
Customer: But it runs Linux...
Judge: And as for your mother...Well, I'm pretty sure that would be illegal, except that this guy sells electronics, and current contract laws don't say anything about "rape by an electronics salesman"....I guess we'll have to wait for the law to catch up with the technology on that one.
Customer: Does this mean "no Linux"?
Judge: Boy, I don't know what the hell you just said, but I like you. Now get outta my court room, you little scamp.
This is only in Utah:
http://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol10/3/
but it found better life expectancy among LDS (mormon) people, so there are definitely studies that show opposite results.
To be fair, if I could live twenty years longer, but had to spend my life in Utah, sober, I would say "pass me a beer. I just passed on longevity."
So you game it by asking lots of questions. :)
I think the novel part about the Klingon language is that it is an unnecessary language invented by people who intentionally decided to learn a language that it unlikely to ever be useful.
The programming languages exist because compilers cannot speak English, and computer programmers cannot agree on one perfect means of communicating one's wishes to the compiler. A better programming language analogy would be with the non-mainstream languages, such as LOLCode and Brainfuck. Those languages are not meant to serve any practical purpose, and are usually designed in such a way as to make the programmer's job more difficult.
The novel part about the performance is that some group of actors got together and decided to learn to speak Klingon to practice their art on an audience who would mostly not understand it. This could be an interesting exercise, considering that, if you can learn Klingon, playing a doctor, lawyer, or anyone fluent in technobabble should be easy in comparison.
but I wouldn't cite it in court! What a moron.
It's crowdsourced knowledge, which is likely correct in many cases but is still subject to errors and abuse from bored teenagers and people with an agenda.
You mean like the lawyer who plans to cite it as evidence the next day?
the researchers found that women who sit more than 6 hours a day were 37 percent more likely to die than those who sit less than 3 hours; for men, long-sitters were 17 percent more likely to die
You know... I'm pretty sure everyone is 100% likely to die...
Speak for yourself. My life insurance agent promised me that I will never see a penny of that money.
That just means that you got your life insurance from the same place I got my health insurance. I'm pretty sure that when I die, they'll either try to pass it off as a preexisting condition, or just say something like "Oh, he died while wearing green. We don't cover that".
It's pretty obvious that:
Not true! Every dead guy I've ever seen has been lying down. I think the odds are much worse for those who lie down.
Hey, at least they didn't say exorcise-I'd hate to have to do that on a regular basis.
You hate it? How do you think the ghosts feel. You're dead, you got nothing better to do than sit around some old house, looking at pictures of someone else's family, and finally you just say
Screw it! I'm bored as hell, so I'm just going to move that figurine, right there. Haha, that'll mess with 'em.
Oh, they moved it back. Man, I miss my old pony...and being alive. I think the thing I miss most about life is talking to people without them freaking out. They say "oh how I miss uncle Jacob", but all it takes is a little "I miss you too", and suddenly it's all "get a priest this", and "go back to hell that". Why can't I have a cool family that just smokes pot and breaks out the Ouija board. Sure, I can't get a contact buzz, but the pot makes it so much easier to mess with them. I don't even have to move their keys, I just have to wait for them to forget where they left them.
Then some superstitious old perv comes in, starts splashing water everywhere, and suddenly you're flying back to hell. It's not entirely fair.
All's the' word's need's apostrophie's though!' Now's give's me's my's airbrushed's video's porn's.
Agreed. Personal responsibility is just a way for larger entities (the businesses that make the tubes, the FDA, the hospitals, etc) to dismiss it as someone else's problem. Who cares if the problem continues, as long as we now know who to blame!
And as for where I got the idea that you were claiming that teachers produce nothing of value, it was from this quote:
Your argument is absurd. In real world we don't pay people simply because they have talent. People get paid because someone is making money.
You follow it up with several examples of people who have value because they bring in money to their employers. So, if teachers make no money for anybody, and they get paid little, then I assumed that your point is that they must have little value.
As for your other examples, you are backing up my point. Each occupation mentioned (teachers included) is one that does something for society, while bringing in absolutely no money for a boss. Still they provide something of value.
But you are still making the assumption that somehow, because teachers are getting paid x, that that is what they should be paid. My point is that the free market is based on not on the inherent value of a product, but on the perception of value, and that perception is sometimes wrong.
You don't need a perfect high tech green house.
We could get a lot of bang......for very FEW bucks just using power strips, replacing incandescent light bulbs, drinking tap water and shopping with resuable backs.
Those things aren't enough, but if you could get large numbers of people doing them......and these things are cheap enough to get people to do them, it would be a huge impact
Not only that, but every small improvement made now buys a little more time. I hate the environmental timeline. It goes something like this:
1970: lolwut? Global warming? What will they think of next.
1980: Not a problem. Who needs electric cars?
1990: Not a problem. I'm gonna buy me a big old SUV.
2000: Not a problem. I'm gonna buy me a bigger SUV, so that if I hit someone else's big old SUV, I will run over them, bigfoot style, and be declared the winner.
2010: Holy crap! You mean I gotta change my light bulbs, drive a wuss-mobile, and start paying more for electricity? No! We're screwed! Royally screwed and there's nothing any of us can do about it. If only there were a way to fix the problem without inconveniencing me in any way. I don't like to be inconvenienced, and this is inconvenient. Oh the irony!
2020: Sucks how Obama screwed up the environment. You know Bush 43 had a very efficient house, and Bush 41 and Reagan must have been doing something right because everyone says global warming wasn't a problem back then.
Trailers are not as easy to move as you might think. Granted, if you have a couple of hours warning, you might be able to grab your home and leave, but if you're willing to base one of the larger decisions of your life on fear of natural disaster, then why live in an area prone to wildfires and earthquakes?
Secondly, mobile homes do not last the way real houses do. I'm sure you can come up with some examples of substandard homes that collapse faster than a typical mobile home, but, that is the exception, rather than the rule. By buying a mobile home, you are choosing a home that is guaranteed to fall apart in 10 to 20 years, over one that has the possibility of burning down someday.
The truth obviously lies somewhere between those two extremes. I'm thinking "nep!"