Can you send missionaries our way? Teach our children to read, help us build roads and libraries, hell, you can even start a hockey league. We'll humor you if you just help us become a part of this "industrialized world" we've been hearing about.
It's just as easy to destroy a written document as an electronic one. The only way this information will be lost is if the powers-that-be intentionally destroy it, or if something so catastrophic occurs that the internet becomes a historic fad. In the internet age, information is a virus. The media may come and go, but the data will live on, so long as there is another remote system somewhere to copy it to.
Since this helps Lockheed Martin, I'm pretty sure the GOP will let it slide. They may make casual references to "Obama increasing scrutiny of US citizens", trying to portray it as an attempt to implement Orwellian Telescreens, but that will die out pretty quickly.
Does the LoC have adequate security? I may be wrong here, but I believe part of the NARA's job is to keep classified records (espionage and wikileaks fodder) so they can be released at a later date. I'm not sure if the LoC does anything with classified material.
I'm not so worried about SQL server, as it is a database format. Now, I am concerned about JPEGs of written papers scanned at 36dpi. Considering the dirty tricks politicians use to be less transparent (giving out printed copies of emails to meet FOIA requirements), I would consider SQL to be an improvement*.
* Unless it is a SQL database accessible only via a web front end. I'm sure any enemy of transparency could make this unusable.
Funny. Remember the talking heads saying that the science is settled? Yet here comes along yet another study saying that the science is indeed not settled.
The only thing this study throws into question is the extent of the warming. This is a complicated issue that is oversimplified by both sides, but you wouldn't know that some aspects are settled, if you only watched some media outlets.
Global warming as it is, is akin to bridge building. You know the science about why something will or won't collapse, you don't take a guess on a wood bridge and watch as the first car going across plummets 150m into the canyon. With global warming, you don't even know if the bridge is made of straw.
I was trying to figure out where you were going there. It seems that the "Drill Baby Drill" energy policy is based on the idea that we can't be sure if the bridge will stand or collapse, so there's no point in wasting money trying to find a safer bridge. We can save so much money if we just assume the bridge will support any weight.
But, I guess the argument sometimes really is about whether you would rather put the economy at risk, or the environment.
And there's enough loose money floating on the pro-side from kickbacks, and unclaimed gifts along with monetary favors that anyone with an ounce of common sense should be saying well wait a fucking minute.
Are you serious about that? No. Really. Do you honestly believe that no money is being spent to convince people that AGW is a lie? Think of all the money that oil companies donate to political campaigns, the Koch brothers study that backfired just recently, all the airtime pundits waste trying to convince people to just ignore the science and believe what the GOP tells you. If 99% of the world's scientists are on one side, and there are billionaires desperately wanting a scientist of their own, why wouldn't an unscrupulous scientist switch sides and get paid to tell the truth? Why are they lying for a pittance when they could blow the lid off the greatest conspiracy of our time and get rich doing it?
How can there be a debate about scientific results? This always confuses me. One can have a debate about moral or ethical issues, but not about scientific results.
There's always the question about how much evidence is enough. Even the word "consensus" is debateable. How much is a consensus? 99%? 95%? What about 99.999%?
Now, I'm definitely sided with those who say global warming is happening and that greenhouse gasses are a significant part of it, but nothing is ever truly "proven" in science. Instead, all they can do is accumulate evidence and argue about which idea is better supported by it.
Right - good Liberal talking points. It's the Republicans' fault and the Democrats are to be shielded. As many would say, "how has Obama's presidency worked for you?" Most of your "rich" people are Democrats, and try to get out of paying taxes just as feverishly as Republicans.
[citation needed], but even if you can find statistics, how is this Obama's fault or congress' fault?
When the Obama administration didn't have enough Republican opposition at the beginning of Obama's "regime" to put the brakes on his wacky plans,
They always had enough opposition. It's called the filibuster. The democrats needed a super majority to get anything passed, and they couldn't get it, because they are not all in lockstep on policy. Funny how that works. The GOP can get things passed, because you never see a pro-life republican, or someone who is socially conservative, but fiscally liberal. The closest you ever come to seeing dissent in the ranks is Ron Paul, or when one GOPer makes a throw-away comment about there being too much money in the system or too much corporate influence (but suggests we do nothing about it).
the USA got saddled with Obamacare
Which was a Republican idea. It's being blamed on Mitt Romney, but it was also the proposed GOP alternative to "HillaryCare" in the 90s.
and trillions of dollars flushed down the rat hole
Which has been credited for the economic improvement we have had since 2008.
(Solyndra anyone?
We backed their loan and they defaulted. If that wasn't a possibility, the loan wouldn't need to be backed. Solyndra is one small business in a rather large program, and although they were promoted as the posterboy, they are not typical of what has come from that program.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? - although already corrupt before Obama took office).
So you admit that this is in no way relevant to your rant? Ok. You should probably have edited it out.
Obama wasn't looking for bipartisanship or compromise when he took office - he just stated "we won" (the Democrats) and shoved his socialist agenda down the USA's throat
His biggest accomplishment was that he took a GOP idea and got it passed. For a year, people were calling him a socialist, comparing him to Hitler, and doing everything short of death threats, all so that he could get a GOP idea passed, when a more liberal proposal would have worked much better.
to the delight of the Democrats.
The democrats did not delight to how he immediately removed the public option from the table. We did not delight at how he began the negotiation with a compromise and then had to compromise further to sweeten the deal. If you think this was a big socialist takeover then you need to become better informed.
Now that the Republilcans are in the majority in the Congress and have to be the adults in the room
When have they ever shown responsibility of any kind? These are the people whose answer to every problem was once "tax cuts and damn the deficit". Now that there's a liberal in office, they have to pretend to care, so it's "cut taxes and broaden the base". They honestly try to slip tax cuts into deficit reduction bills. That's like eating cake at a weight watchers meeting.
, they have to deal with the mess caused by the previously Democratic Congress
That's right. Since Bush took office, we have seen deregulation, and scandal after scandal of Enron-style corruption, but it was all caused by something the Democrats did in 2007.
(who were the majority since the last two years of Bush - who was no Conservative). "Just keep throwing money at it" indeed.
So, why is "cut spending and increase revenue" a liberal solution without compr
But strangely enough, they can talk about "broadening the base". That is what angers me. Sure, there is the stubborn insistence that we can burn the country to the ground before we raise taxes, if we're talking about taxes on the top 1%, but these same people can use this cute little euphemism for raising taxes on people whose income is already below the poverty line, and somehow they are not breaking the agreement.
Monday, July 18: Sen. Coburn returns to "Gang of Six" with a $3.7 trillion reduction plan.
Tuesday, July 19: House passes "Cut, Cap and Balance" bill, Pres. Obama insists on additional $400 billion in revenue by allowing certain Bush-era tax cuts to expire
Thursday, July 21: Speaker Boehner leaves talks with Pres. Obama over demand for additional $400 billion in revenue
Friday, July 22: The Senate kills "Cut, Cap and Balance" bill. Pres. Obama holds a news conference on status of debt ceiling negotiations.
So, the Dems were asking a little over $1 in tax hikes proposed, for every $10 in cuts. That doesn't sound like "cut spending a little and raise taxes a lot". It sounds like the Dems started out with a compromise, but were rebuked by a party too stubborn to even step up to the table.
The Americans claim to have the best democracy of the world, but you have only two political parties. Then you claim do be the most advanced civilization, but your poverty rate and child-death-rate is one of the highest in the western countries.
The key to having the best bullshit in the world is not admitting that you have the best bullshit in the world.
Or are you one of the people who insists on using the term "magazine" nonstop instead? Because in normal speak (unless you're in the presence of gun nuts who have a chip on their shoulder), the term "clip" is common parlance for "detachable magazine."
Of course, computer nerds often get upset when someone who doesn't know any better (and really, if you've never taken one apart, why would you know the difference?) refers to their PC's tower case as "the hard drive", so maybe you're just like one of the two types - gun nerds or computer nerds - being overly precise.
I also had a teacher who got onto me about referring to a windows folder as a "directory". He said "you don't go to Mexico and ask for water. Yes, it's the same thing, but they call it something different".
So, is the Tardis the only one of its' kind? It seems that Hugh Laurie could be a future incarnation of the Doctor, or perhaps a regeneration of the doctor's daughter (or leave it a mystery, as if someone had decided to fill his shoes after he failed to regenerate). Of course, I'm not up to date, so I'm sure I just committed some non-canonical heresy with this post.
I see no reason you couldn't have Hugh Laurie show up in a beaten-up Tardis, allude to the terrible thing that will happen to Matt Smith*, and have both Doctors exist at the same time.
* Which, of course he doesn't want to talk about. He might also struggle with the desire to prevent it.
Keep it up ICANN! You are doing a fine job! You jerks should be killed.
Is this subtle humor or a serious response? I mean, if every organization, product, and idea were given a government-assigned GUId, then we would never hear about branding ever again. So does that mean that we blame the entire free market system for this minor story?
If the demand for solving the problem was high enough then it would surely be solved by someone interested in making money.
Only if an individual has the money, authority, and insight to solve the problem.
You do not have a choice between gov and market because the government already took you money to "solve problems".
You never did have a choice. That's the whole point. The problem was created under a mostly free market (although I will grant that regulations cause some problems). The problem persisted long enough for people to realize that it was there, and citizens demanded a solution enough to vote for one. The free market had first crack at the problem and did nothing about it. So, yes, your free market solution that never existed before will have to compete with a government solution. Even in this worst case scenario, we have gone from "no solution" to "two competing solutions: one of them already paid for".
Markets are based on voluntary cooperation, government is not.
In a democracy, the government is based on voluntary cooperation, just as much as market forces. The government is held accountable via voting, while businesses are held accountable by profit margins. The primary differences are that the government is more transparent, and that their primary stated goal is to work for the tax payers, while the free market's goal is to aquire money by any means possible.
I dare you to not pay the tax needed for the alert system because you chose a market alternative.
And I dare you to not pay your cable bill because you don't want certain channels.
Which problem is this? Whenever anything happens, I hear about it on the news, radio, internet, email, phone, word of mouth, local (private) alert systems...
So you keep all those things going at all times? Wow. You have problems that the government cannot solve.
We should leave emergency notifications to the free markets! You want to know about disasters and what to do? Well, just subscribe to a disaster notification service. I'm AT&T or your cable companies will provide that service as part of a package of some sort. And we all know what superior service cable companies have over pathetic government!
We already do! There is no law preventing any organization from creating such a service. Our options are "free market and government" or "free market only"...Sorry for posting a serious reply to satirical comment, but one of my pet peeves is when the government steps in to solve a problem and conservatives reply "the free market would have done it faster/better/cheaper".
No, they wouldn't have, and they didn't. That's why the problem existed.
They need to call it "light" because politicians are stupid enough to ban if they call it "radiation" - although a powerful enough laser won't be visible light, but UV radiation...
I can see how that conversation would go down:
Scientist: We're going to rip a hole in the space-time continuum using radiation Politician: Wold on! Scientist: Wait, did I say radiation? I meant "light". And oil! A mixture of light, oil, and freedom! Politician: Now that's what I like to hear!
Slashdot Mirror
Can you send missionaries our way? Teach our children to read, help us build roads and libraries, hell, you can even start a hockey league. We'll humor you if you just help us become a part of this "industrialized world" we've been hearing about.
And this article is much ado about nothing. Patent is expiring, company ups advertising and lowers price.
BFD
That's what I'm trying to figure out. TFS honestly reads as:
The drug is generic. Pfizer doesn't want to lose its monopoly. So they're lowering their prices extensively. The bastards!
My point was that as long as that information is freely available and someone, somewhere finds it worth keeping, it will be copied.
So Google is saying slashdot has a systemic problem with idiotic groupthink and it's skewed moderation?
I'm with Google on this.
And they think the answer is to let handpicked individuals handpick like-minded individuals to help moderate.
It's just as easy to destroy a written document as an electronic one. The only way this information will be lost is if the powers-that-be intentionally destroy it, or if something so catastrophic occurs that the internet becomes a historic fad. In the internet age, information is a virus. The media may come and go, but the data will live on, so long as there is another remote system somewhere to copy it to.
Since this helps Lockheed Martin, I'm pretty sure the GOP will let it slide. They may make casual references to "Obama increasing scrutiny of US citizens", trying to portray it as an attempt to implement Orwellian Telescreens, but that will die out pretty quickly.
Does the LoC have adequate security? I may be wrong here, but I believe part of the NARA's job is to keep classified records (espionage and wikileaks fodder) so they can be released at a later date. I'm not sure if the LoC does anything with classified material.
I'm not so worried about SQL server, as it is a database format. Now, I am concerned about JPEGs of written papers scanned at 36dpi. Considering the dirty tricks politicians use to be less transparent (giving out printed copies of emails to meet FOIA requirements), I would consider SQL to be an improvement*.
* Unless it is a SQL database accessible only via a web front end. I'm sure any enemy of transparency could make this unusable.
Funny. Remember the talking heads saying that the science is settled? Yet here comes along yet another study saying that the science is indeed not settled.
The only thing this study throws into question is the extent of the warming. This is a complicated issue that is oversimplified by both sides, but you wouldn't know that some aspects are settled, if you only watched some media outlets.
Global warming as it is, is akin to bridge building. You know the science about why something will or won't collapse, you don't take a guess on a wood bridge and watch as the first car going across plummets 150m into the canyon. With global warming, you don't even know if the bridge is made of straw.
I was trying to figure out where you were going there. It seems that the "Drill Baby Drill" energy policy is based on the idea that we can't be sure if the bridge will stand or collapse, so there's no point in wasting money trying to find a safer bridge. We can save so much money if we just assume the bridge will support any weight.
But, I guess the argument sometimes really is about whether you would rather put the economy at risk, or the environment.
And there's enough loose money floating on the pro-side from kickbacks, and unclaimed gifts along with monetary favors that anyone with an ounce of common sense should be saying well wait a fucking minute.
Are you serious about that? No. Really. Do you honestly believe that no money is being spent to convince people that AGW is a lie? Think of all the money that oil companies donate to political campaigns, the Koch brothers study that backfired just recently, all the airtime pundits waste trying to convince people to just ignore the science and believe what the GOP tells you. If 99% of the world's scientists are on one side, and there are billionaires desperately wanting a scientist of their own, why wouldn't an unscrupulous scientist switch sides and get paid to tell the truth? Why are they lying for a pittance when they could blow the lid off the greatest conspiracy of our time and get rich doing it?
How can there be a debate about scientific results? This always confuses me. One can have a debate about moral or ethical issues, but not about scientific results.
There's always the question about how much evidence is enough. Even the word "consensus" is debateable. How much is a consensus? 99%? 95%? What about 99.999%?
Now, I'm definitely sided with those who say global warming is happening and that greenhouse gasses are a significant part of it, but nothing is ever truly "proven" in science. Instead, all they can do is accumulate evidence and argue about which idea is better supported by it.
Right - good Liberal talking points. It's the Republicans' fault and the Democrats are to be shielded. As many would say, "how has Obama's presidency worked for you?" Most of your "rich" people are Democrats, and try to get out of paying taxes just as feverishly as Republicans.
[citation needed], but even if you can find statistics, how is this Obama's fault or congress' fault?
When the Obama administration didn't have enough Republican opposition at the beginning of Obama's "regime" to put the brakes on his wacky plans,
They always had enough opposition. It's called the filibuster. The democrats needed a super majority to get anything passed, and they couldn't get it, because they are not all in lockstep on policy. Funny how that works. The GOP can get things passed, because you never see a pro-life republican, or someone who is socially conservative, but fiscally liberal. The closest you ever come to seeing dissent in the ranks is Ron Paul, or when one GOPer makes a throw-away comment about there being too much money in the system or too much corporate influence (but suggests we do nothing about it).
the USA got saddled with Obamacare
Which was a Republican idea. It's being blamed on Mitt Romney, but it was also the proposed GOP alternative to "HillaryCare" in the 90s.
and trillions of dollars flushed down the rat hole
Which has been credited for the economic improvement we have had since 2008.
(Solyndra anyone?
We backed their loan and they defaulted. If that wasn't a possibility, the loan wouldn't need to be backed. Solyndra is one small business in a rather large program, and although they were promoted as the posterboy, they are not typical of what has come from that program.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? - although already corrupt before Obama took office).
So you admit that this is in no way relevant to your rant? Ok. You should probably have edited it out.
Obama wasn't looking for bipartisanship or compromise when he took office - he just stated "we won" (the Democrats) and shoved his socialist agenda down the USA's throat
His biggest accomplishment was that he took a GOP idea and got it passed. For a year, people were calling him a socialist, comparing him to Hitler, and doing everything short of death threats, all so that he could get a GOP idea passed, when a more liberal proposal would have worked much better.
to the delight of the Democrats.
The democrats did not delight to how he immediately removed the public option from the table. We did not delight at how he began the negotiation with a compromise and then had to compromise further to sweeten the deal. If you think this was a big socialist takeover then you need to become better informed.
Now that the Republilcans are in the majority in the Congress and have to be the adults in the room
When have they ever shown responsibility of any kind? These are the people whose answer to every problem was once "tax cuts and damn the deficit". Now that there's a liberal in office, they have to pretend to care, so it's "cut taxes and broaden the base". They honestly try to slip tax cuts into deficit reduction bills. That's like eating cake at a weight watchers meeting.
, they have to deal with the mess caused by the previously Democratic Congress
That's right. Since Bush took office, we have seen deregulation, and scandal after scandal of Enron-style corruption, but it was all caused by something the Democrats did in 2007.
(who were the majority since the last two years of Bush - who was no Conservative). "Just keep throwing money at it" indeed.
So, why is "cut spending and increase revenue" a liberal solution without compr
But strangely enough, they can talk about "broadening the base". That is what angers me. Sure, there is the stubborn insistence that we can burn the country to the ground before we raise taxes, if we're talking about taxes on the top 1%, but these same people can use this cute little euphemism for raising taxes on people whose income is already below the poverty line, and somehow they are not breaking the agreement.
The Democrats were willing to cut spending a little and raise taxes a lot.
I wouldn't be so sure
From the article:
Monday, July 18: Sen. Coburn returns to "Gang of Six" with a $3.7 trillion reduction plan.
Tuesday, July 19: House passes "Cut, Cap and Balance" bill, Pres. Obama insists on additional $400 billion in revenue by allowing certain Bush-era tax cuts to expire
Thursday, July 21: Speaker Boehner leaves talks with Pres. Obama over demand for additional $400 billion in revenue
Friday, July 22: The Senate kills "Cut, Cap and Balance" bill. Pres. Obama holds a news conference on status of debt ceiling negotiations.
So, the Dems were asking a little over $1 in tax hikes proposed, for every $10 in cuts. That doesn't sound like "cut spending a little and raise taxes a lot". It sounds like the Dems started out with a compromise, but were rebuked by a party too stubborn to even step up to the table.
A patent on a device that tells you how to dress, how to talk, and how to carry yourself in public? I already have one.
I'm married.
The Americans claim to have the best democracy of the world, but you have only two political parties. Then you claim do be the most advanced civilization, but your poverty rate and child-death-rate is one of the highest in the western countries.
The key to having the best bullshit in the world is not admitting that you have the best bullshit in the world.
Really? It seems to be pretty standard.
Or are you one of the people who insists on using the term "magazine" nonstop instead? Because in normal speak (unless you're in the presence of gun nuts who have a chip on their shoulder), the term "clip" is common parlance for "detachable magazine."
Of course, computer nerds often get upset when someone who doesn't know any better (and really, if you've never taken one apart, why would you know the difference?) refers to their PC's tower case as "the hard drive", so maybe you're just like one of the two types - gun nerds or computer nerds - being overly precise.
I also had a teacher who got onto me about referring to a windows folder as a "directory". He said "you don't go to Mexico and ask for water. Yes, it's the same thing, but they call it something different".
So, is the Tardis the only one of its' kind? It seems that Hugh Laurie could be a future incarnation of the Doctor, or perhaps a regeneration of the doctor's daughter (or leave it a mystery, as if someone had decided to fill his shoes after he failed to regenerate). Of course, I'm not up to date, so I'm sure I just committed some non-canonical heresy with this post.
I see no reason you couldn't have Hugh Laurie show up in a beaten-up Tardis, allude to the terrible thing that will happen to Matt Smith*, and have both Doctors exist at the same time.
* Which, of course he doesn't want to talk about. He might also struggle with the desire to prevent it.
If you get 181 mosquito bites in the same 1-square inch of skin, what do you think will happen?
jobs?
Keep it up ICANN! You are doing a fine job! You jerks should be killed.
Is this subtle humor or a serious response? I mean, if every organization, product, and idea were given a government-assigned GUId, then we would never hear about branding ever again. So does that mean that we blame the entire free market system for this minor story?
If the demand for solving the problem was high enough then it would surely be solved by someone interested in making money.
Only if an individual has the money, authority, and insight to solve the problem.
You do not have a choice between gov and market because the government already took you money to "solve problems".
You never did have a choice. That's the whole point. The problem was created under a mostly free market (although I will grant that regulations cause some problems). The problem persisted long enough for people to realize that it was there, and citizens demanded a solution enough to vote for one. The free market had first crack at the problem and did nothing about it. So, yes, your free market solution that never existed before will have to compete with a government solution. Even in this worst case scenario, we have gone from "no solution" to "two competing solutions: one of them already paid for".
Markets are based on voluntary cooperation, government is not.
In a democracy, the government is based on voluntary cooperation, just as much as market forces. The government is held accountable via voting, while businesses are held accountable by profit margins. The primary differences are that the government is more transparent, and that their primary stated goal is to work for the tax payers, while the free market's goal is to aquire money by any means possible.
I dare you to not pay the tax needed for the alert system because you chose a market alternative.
And I dare you to not pay your cable bill because you don't want certain channels.
Which problem is this? Whenever anything happens, I hear about it on the news, radio, internet, email, phone, word of mouth, local (private) alert systems...
So you keep all those things going at all times? Wow. You have problems that the government cannot solve.
We should leave emergency notifications to the free markets! You want to know about disasters and what to do? Well, just subscribe to a disaster notification service. I'm AT&T or your cable companies will provide that service as part of a package of some sort. And we all know what superior service cable companies have over pathetic government!
We already do! There is no law preventing any organization from creating such a service. Our options are "free market and government" or "free market only"...Sorry for posting a serious reply to satirical comment, but one of my pet peeves is when the government steps in to solve a problem and conservatives reply "the free market would have done it faster/better/cheaper".
No, they wouldn't have, and they didn't. That's why the problem existed.
$1.6 billion is a bargain to have space and time ripped up. The money won't be missed anyway.
"Blowing shit up" always has bipartisan support!
They need to call it "light" because politicians are stupid enough to ban if they call it "radiation" - although a powerful enough laser won't be visible light, but UV radiation...
I can see how that conversation would go down:
Scientist: We're going to rip a hole in the space-time continuum using radiation
Politician: Wold on!
Scientist: Wait, did I say radiation? I meant "light". And oil! A mixture of light, oil, and freedom!
Politician: Now that's what I like to hear!
Google may say Don't Be Evil, but how do such unrepentant Liberals define Evil to start with?
Let me guess: creationist?