Amen. I had an experience last week where someone, (who wasn't my boss, but is over me, and happens to be married to the sister of the CEO of the small corporation I work for), complained that on a web page I had worked on, that half the hyperlinks were purple and the other half were blue, chastising me for the inconsistency. (It wasn't just that one comment; he had four emails full of requirements, but that was the straw that broke the camels back).
I set a reminder to deal with it the next business day, when I could respond in a more professional manner.
Off-topic, I know, but I wanted to post an example of what OP may be getting into.
And the worst part about this is that what people usually think of when you say "middleman" is someone who provides something of value. It is someone who brings the product from a factory in Malaysia to your home town, who provides a show-room, where you can evaluate the item, and gives you the opportunity to have it now, as opposed to tomorrow or two weeks from now.
These guys are similar to ticket scalpers, but still worse. (Some may consider a ticket scalper to be a middleman, but it isn't the first thing they think of). Even ticket scalpers provide a service, even if it isn't enough of one to justify a status of "legitimate businessman". Were there no one who considered it worth paying extra, to get the ticket without having to camp out in front of the box office, or go online two weeks before the show, then ticket scalpers would not exist.
These guys are parasites. They leech off every transfer while providing nothing of value.
No, I'm asserting that there isn't the relationship between global climate and natural disasters that you suppose. In your hypothesis, where global temperature drives natural disasters, you should have some lower limit at which a cold world has no natural disasters.
You seem to be assuming a spectrum where on one end of the scale, the temperature is absolute zero and there are no disasters, and on the other end, the temperature is very high and natural disasters are common. You say "driving", but I never said temperature was the only factor. I assumed it was one factor.
Now that you have clarified, your argument is analogous to the claim "if the dirtiness of electricity drives the price down, then there should be a point at which electricity is free"
However, we know that natural disasters don't disappear in a colder world, and we know that they don't increase in a warmer world.
You're right about the "not increasing in a warmer world" part. I started looking for information to back up my statement and found that the most recent studies do not support more frequent natural disasters, but they do support stronger disasters with a longer duration. I was wrong about that, and I apologize.
Given such inherent uncertainty in a stochastic system, the only effective course of action is to prepare for the inevitable disaster - and the trick to that is to use the cheapest energy we possibly can to raise the standard of living for the people most at risk.
I'm not so sure about that part. For one thing, I do not know that coal will be the cheapest energy, forever. During that time, if we ramp up production of renewable energy sources, then renewable energy will become cheaper as we find more efficient ways to manufacture them. Then there is the evidence for global warming. Even if it does not result in an increase in the number of natural disasters, we are still gambling with the world's economy. If the models turn out to be more legitimate than the wishful thinking of some skeptics, then this will cause an incredible amount of suffering, and it will be disproportionately tilted toward those same people you talk about.
So we can never reduce the number of natural disasters to zero, so we should ignore them. Isn't that like saying "energy will never be free, so price doesn't matter"?
Is this the same high frequency trading that involves beginning a series of transactions with a seller, and exploiting the "cancel" option, to determine the minimum price, then undertaking a similar process with a seller, to determine the maximum price, while paying the exchange to give them access to buyers and sellers before the general public?
If so, then this is really a story about how people who perform no service that has any value, are hiring software developers. the software developers are realizing that they are getting underpaid for the intrinsically dishonest scheme, and so they are leaving their original employers, and demanding more equitable deals from future employers, in exchange for the same dishonest practice.
It's sickening that the practice exists, and I don't care if the people who do the work are going to get a larger share of the unearned pie. they should be working for an industry that creates something of value. And if that industry doesn't exist; if the only jobs available are jobs leaching off the rest of society, then McDonald's is always hiring.
But in any case, the ultimate arbiters are the states themselves. An entity created by an agreement cannot have the final word on what the agreement says. That just doesn't make any sense.
Why not? If the people who made the original agreement no longer exist, then why can't an educated group of people who spent their entire lives studying an agreement be treated on the authority of the agreement, regardless of how or why the group was created? Granted, if most of the fifty states threatened to succeed, then the agreement could be nullified, or re-negotiated, but why would a group of politicians from various states be treated as a more reliable source than people whose occupation is to interpret the constitution?
I understand the difficulty you must have. Life must be very stressful for you, these days. Having to groom the perfect goatee, spend all your time at Starbucks, and shop for black turtlenecks can take it's toll on a person.
But please understand, what I did is known colloquially as a joke. Please look it up, while you still have a connection to the internet. And if you are doing this from a home computer, please let me advise you to use the scroll bars. Swiping your finger across the monitor just makes you look silly.
The funny thing is that your argument would make just as much sense if it were in favor of throwing hand grenades in public places.
1). It's not unnatural. It happens all the time!
2). This can be fixed. Look at Hiroshima! There are people living there, right now.
3). How is this damage? In order for it to be damage, it has to be "something out of norms". Considering that bombs have blown up in public before, I say that no damage has occurred.
I hate the argument that AGW policies are all too drastic. We've known about this for half a century, and have responded by dragging our feet. If you want a more subtle solution, blame the AGW deniers who came before you. If you want to see drastic, then oppose cap and trade as much as possible, and see where it leaves us in ten years.
And if these drastic changes take place, do you not think they would harm "the poorest of the poor" more than a simple increase in their electric bill?
Which Earth was used to conduct these experiments that provided the evidence?
Right...We must assume that any random effect is beneficial until we have created hundreds of identical mirror universes, seeded those universes with planets and people, randomly applied either those changes or rumors of those changes (placebos), and watched to see what happens...
The next time a doctor prescribes me a medication, I'm going to object on the grounds that the medication was not tested on a series of planets specifically created for the purpose of testing that on medication.
There is also the issue of self-selection. Right now, Linux users tend to be more savvy than Windows users. If Linux were the big thing, then that bar would drop in a hurry, and we'd be hearing outcry about why there's no Linux version of weatherbug, or why it's so hard to run an application from an email attachment.
As for the enforcement argument, you should read Leviticus. The book is pretty much just as series of statement of the form "if someone does X, kill him in this fashion". I'd call that law enforcement. So the question is, if law enforcement is prescribed in the OT, then why should we assume that religion was ever effective at keeping people in line?
It may have been effective at propelling a few people into positions of authority and giving them the resources needed to enforce their own laws, but I see no reason to believe it ever made people so intrinsically good that they didn't need cops.
I would agree. I think not keeping creationism out of schools is a compromise that we shouldn't be making. If you were a math teacher and children were being taught that two plus two sometimes equals five, then you would have a responsibility to correct them. If a science teacher knows they're being told that the Bible is a scientific journal full of theories that modern "scientists" are too closed-minded to consider, then he would have a responsibility to correct them on that as well.
Please tell me what you did on your 93rd day of school, and provide written evidence. I want an eyewitness testimony that you were there, signed by your kindergarten teacher. If you cannot provide that, then we will be forced to assume that you dropped out of kindergarten to join the circus, where you eventually met a man who could heal people, but only by draining the life force of nearby entities.
Creationism should not be taught in a SCIENCE class because it is not science. There is no way to falsify any of its claims.
Intelligent Design makes no falsifiable claims. Creationism makes claims that have already been falsified, and the next step, if the CREOs are still doing this, is "strengths and weaknesses" angle, in which they make no claims at all, but instead try to convince people that evolution never happened and then let the god of the gaps take over from there.
Of course, it's the same people, just taking a new strategy each time.
The first thought that popped into my head was "Simplicity? This is the same country that has heated toilet/bidets with automatic air freshers built in."
RTFA -- Paul Simon was right. Colors especially come alive when you shoot on a rainy day, but are vivid and vibrant any time. Personally, I miss Kodachrome; digital photos don't have the spectrum (ar at least seem not to have the spectrum) of colors Kodachrome gave.
Unfortunately, you'll never get the chance to shoot with Kodachrome. Sometimes it's nice being a geezer; I wonder what my grandfather was able to experience that I'll never get the chance to?
Slashdot Mirror
and work under a clueless asshole boss.
Amen. I had an experience last week where someone, (who wasn't my boss, but is over me, and happens to be married to the sister of the CEO of the small corporation I work for), complained that on a web page I had worked on, that half the hyperlinks were purple and the other half were blue, chastising me for the inconsistency. (It wasn't just that one comment; he had four emails full of requirements, but that was the straw that broke the camels back).
I set a reminder to deal with it the next business day, when I could respond in a more professional manner.
Off-topic, I know, but I wanted to post an example of what OP may be getting into.
And the worst part about this is that what people usually think of when you say "middleman" is someone who provides something of value. It is someone who brings the product from a factory in Malaysia to your home town, who provides a show-room, where you can evaluate the item, and gives you the opportunity to have it now, as opposed to tomorrow or two weeks from now.
These guys are similar to ticket scalpers, but still worse. (Some may consider a ticket scalper to be a middleman, but it isn't the first thing they think of). Even ticket scalpers provide a service, even if it isn't enough of one to justify a status of "legitimate businessman". Were there no one who considered it worth paying extra, to get the ticket without having to camp out in front of the box office, or go online two weeks before the show, then ticket scalpers would not exist.
These guys are parasites. They leech off every transfer while providing nothing of value.
No, I'm asserting that there isn't the relationship between global climate and natural disasters that you suppose. In your hypothesis, where global temperature drives natural disasters, you should have some lower limit at which a cold world has no natural disasters.
You seem to be assuming a spectrum where on one end of the scale, the temperature is absolute zero and there are no disasters, and on the other end, the temperature is very high and natural disasters are common. You say "driving", but I never said temperature was the only factor. I assumed it was one factor.
Now that you have clarified, your argument is analogous to the claim "if the dirtiness of electricity drives the price down, then there should be a point at which electricity is free"
However, we know that natural disasters don't disappear in a colder world, and we know that they don't increase in a warmer world.
You're right about the "not increasing in a warmer world" part. I started looking for information to back up my statement and found that the most recent studies do not support more frequent natural disasters, but they do support stronger disasters with a longer duration. I was wrong about that, and I apologize.
Given such inherent uncertainty in a stochastic system, the only effective course of action is to prepare for the inevitable disaster - and the trick to that is to use the cheapest energy we possibly can to raise the standard of living for the people most at risk.
I'm not so sure about that part. For one thing, I do not know that coal will be the cheapest energy, forever. During that time, if we ramp up production of renewable energy sources, then renewable energy will become cheaper as we find more efficient ways to manufacture them. Then there is the evidence for global warming. Even if it does not result in an increase in the number of natural disasters, we are still gambling with the world's economy. If the models turn out to be more legitimate than the wishful thinking of some skeptics, then this will cause an incredible amount of suffering, and it will be disproportionately tilted toward those same people you talk about.
So we can never reduce the number of natural disasters to zero, so we should ignore them. Isn't that like saying "energy will never be free, so price doesn't matter"?
Is this the same high frequency trading that involves beginning a series of transactions with a seller, and exploiting the "cancel" option, to determine the minimum price, then undertaking a similar process with a seller, to determine the maximum price, while paying the exchange to give them access to buyers and sellers before the general public?
If so, then this is really a story about how people who perform no service that has any value, are hiring software developers. the software developers are realizing that they are getting underpaid for the intrinsically dishonest scheme, and so they are leaving their original employers, and demanding more equitable deals from future employers, in exchange for the same dishonest practice.
It's sickening that the practice exists, and I don't care if the people who do the work are going to get a larger share of the unearned pie. they should be working for an industry that creates something of value. And if that industry doesn't exist; if the only jobs available are jobs leaching off the rest of society, then McDonald's is always hiring.
Sure, we would have. But it would still be under copyright, and nobody would be allowed to read it.
But in any case, the ultimate arbiters are the states themselves. An entity created by an agreement cannot have the final word on what the agreement says. That just doesn't make any sense.
Why not? If the people who made the original agreement no longer exist, then why can't an educated group of people who spent their entire lives studying an agreement be treated on the authority of the agreement, regardless of how or why the group was created? Granted, if most of the fifty states threatened to succeed, then the agreement could be nullified, or re-negotiated, but why would a group of politicians from various states be treated as a more reliable source than people whose occupation is to interpret the constitution?
To the person who modded me down,
I understand the difficulty you must have. Life must be very stressful for you, these days. Having to groom the perfect goatee, spend all your time at Starbucks, and shop for black turtlenecks can take it's toll on a person.
But please understand, what I did is known colloquially as a joke. Please look it up, while you still have a connection to the internet. And if you are doing this from a home computer, please let me advise you to use the scroll bars. Swiping your finger across the monitor just makes you look silly.
And if the number of hurricanes and natural disasters increases, that will harm the poorest of the poor more than it will anybody else.
The funny thing is that your argument would make just as much sense if it were in favor of throwing hand grenades in public places.
1). It's not unnatural. It happens all the time!
2). This can be fixed. Look at Hiroshima! There are people living there, right now.
3). How is this damage? In order for it to be damage, it has to be "something out of norms". Considering that bombs have blown up in public before, I say that no damage has occurred.
adapt or die, kiddies! I'm helping you evolve...
I hate the argument that AGW policies are all too drastic. We've known about this for half a century, and have responded by dragging our feet. If you want a more subtle solution, blame the AGW deniers who came before you. If you want to see drastic, then oppose cap and trade as much as possible, and see where it leaves us in ten years.
And if these drastic changes take place, do you not think they would harm "the poorest of the poor" more than a simple increase in their electric bill?
Which Earth was used to conduct these experiments that provided the evidence?
Right...We must assume that any random effect is beneficial until we have created hundreds of identical mirror universes, seeded those universes with planets and people, randomly applied either those changes or rumors of those changes (placebos), and watched to see what happens...
The next time a doctor prescribes me a medication, I'm going to object on the grounds that the medication was not tested on a series of planets specifically created for the purpose of testing that on medication.
That's why I don't dress warm for the winter.
If the weather man can't predict tomorrow's weather, how's he gonna know if December will be colder than July?
...Compiled by more than 300 scientists from 48 countries, including Canada...
Are we supposed to be impressed by the Canada part? Ooh, they brought in Canadian scientists, this must be serious!
How does an AT&T customer know he is connecting to a fake tower?
He gets a signal.
There is also the issue of self-selection. Right now, Linux users tend to be more savvy than Windows users. If Linux were the big thing, then that bar would drop in a hurry, and we'd be hearing outcry about why there's no Linux version of weatherbug, or why it's so hard to run an application from an email attachment.
when unfettered access is outlawed, only outlaws will have unfettered access.
No, this will not make your torrents download faster.
As for the enforcement argument, you should read Leviticus. The book is pretty much just as series of statement of the form "if someone does X, kill him in this fashion". I'd call that law enforcement. So the question is, if law enforcement is prescribed in the OT, then why should we assume that religion was ever effective at keeping people in line?
It may have been effective at propelling a few people into positions of authority and giving them the resources needed to enforce their own laws, but I see no reason to believe it ever made people so intrinsically good that they didn't need cops.
I would agree. I think not keeping creationism out of schools is a compromise that we shouldn't be making. If you were a math teacher and children were being taught that two plus two sometimes equals five, then you would have a responsibility to correct them. If a science teacher knows they're being told that the Bible is a scientific journal full of theories that modern "scientists" are too closed-minded to consider, then he would have a responsibility to correct them on that as well.
Please tell me what you did on your 93rd day of school, and provide written evidence. I want an eyewitness testimony that you were there, signed by your kindergarten teacher. If you cannot provide that, then we will be forced to assume that you dropped out of kindergarten to join the circus, where you eventually met a man who could heal people, but only by draining the life force of nearby entities.
Creationism should not be taught in a SCIENCE class because it is not science. There is no way to falsify any of its claims.
Intelligent Design makes no falsifiable claims. Creationism makes claims that have already been falsified, and the next step, if the CREOs are still doing this, is "strengths and weaknesses" angle, in which they make no claims at all, but instead try to convince people that evolution never happened and then let the god of the gaps take over from there.
Of course, it's the same people, just taking a new strategy each time.
We already paid good money to relocate a good chunk of their population to Houston. Now we're paying to scrub their damned pelicans.
What more do you want?
Can we pay the school board to scrub pelicans? Career-wise, it may be a better fit for them.
The first thought that popped into my head was "Simplicity? This is the same country that has heated toilet/bidets with automatic air freshers built in."
RTFA -- Paul Simon was right. Colors especially come alive when you shoot on a rainy day, but are vivid and vibrant any time. Personally, I miss Kodachrome; digital photos don't have the spectrum (ar at least seem not to have the spectrum) of colors Kodachrome gave.
Unfortunately, you'll never get the chance to shoot with Kodachrome. Sometimes it's nice being a geezer; I wonder what my grandfather was able to experience that I'll never get the chance to?
Puberty, now get off my lawn!