Not to mention that those two disasters (3-mile and Chernobyl) are irrelevant in in many other ways.
Chernobyl was because they ignored repeated safety mechanisms while doing an experiment with intentionally making the reactor in a Bad State - even repeatedly turning the failsafes off (I don't recall the exact number, less than 10 more than 5). This was mainly due to failure of the different experts to communicate (not really thier fault - it was illegal for them to do so). The engineers who "caused" the disaster had no idea what was going to happen, had the nuclear engineers been there things would have most likely been different. In the free world I imagine those nuclear engineer would have done something fairly drastic to stop it. Nor would that type of expirement ever have been allowed, and that is especially true now (no nuclear engineer would allow it to happen).
Three-mile was a true accident of a nuclear reaactor. The reason it is irrelevant is that the danger was exxagerated. A great example of this was the fear about a possible explosion because of the reactor filling with hydrogen. Reporters reported what would happen if that amount of hydrogen were to ignite, pointed out that a simple spark can cause it too. However, there was no oxygen present - it was designed to work in that manner. No engineer was worried about it. Problems with cameras was also a big story, but yet again was greatly exagerated (most of the ones that were out were tertiary systems - the engineers and disaster crews was never in the dark about what went on in the reactor). But I suppose "We are gonna dieeeeeee!!!!" made better news than "It's being contained, working like it is supposed to, don't worry". Not that everything was perfect, but there was little real danger to surrounding people and the environment. Hell, I'd be more worried about some of the high energy physics experiments out there - at least they are pushing the envelope, nuclear reactors are a pretty mature technology.
It's not even so much that reactors are much safer now (true none the less), but that reactors were *never* as dangerous as public opnion has them. Only if multiple layers of failsafes along with intentional criticality (such as Chernobyl) is there any real danger from an accident. Plus we can recylce much of the waste produced now into other isotopes so that is slowly going away, even then it has less impact overall and easier to contain than coal.
Freedom is speech is easy when all you want to do is protect your own right to bitch and say anything, quite another when it is against you or something you really real hate or are extremely offended by. Of course, these are some of the most important types of speech to protect. For one thing it sets the precedent that "not liking" is good enough to ban and someday attitudes will most likely shift and then you get screwed - by then it's too late.
It also tends to show if that person is *really* wanting freedom in general or something else. More often than not what people get all worked up over isn't really that much to them. I've generally got the impression the editors and many posters have another agenda that "abridging my freedom" is used because "I hate , everything they do is wrong and I want it banned" doesn't sound as good (nor quite as freedom loving).
Another way to express it is a quote (that I'm going to mangle somewhat - though the meaning will be the same) "You getting beheaded is a comedy, me getting a paper cut is a tragedy".
One of the great and unusual things about the US founding fatehrs was that they really and truly let it all go. Athiest, Deist, Christian, and a few others all didn't care if each was quoted in the govt. They didn't care if you criticised them very harshly. They won the power to be dictators and then let it all go. That doesn't happen very often (though it does in other places).
"he question was rhetorical. You had said that you thought that "random chance" would be more likely than intelligent design to put dangerous (to humans) viruses on a comet."
That wasn't really what I intended. I intended that it may not - it depends on what the creator wants. I don't know so I can't say. To me, it seems a draw. My point was that by your logic it could be either way.
"The Discovery Institute essentially runs the Intelligent design movement. They more or less started it, and they are the ones constantly championing it in the media and to school boards."
Maybe and maybe not, like it or not the wikipedia isn't a great resource on it. The wiki is pretty bad on social things (though great on purely scientific ideas). The scientist you can't fathom more than likely take a stance similar to mine towards intelligent design. I doubt the discovery institute speaks for very many people. My mother, who is as close to a fundamentalist as you know, is even abhored by what they wrote. I highly suspect that they are chosen as the easiest to rebute and make the most visible as a "group think" type of thing - would you rather argue against me or them? And i'm not that good at it (to be fair, the "religious" groups do the same - I'm sure you see it also in thier arguments).
"What you seem to be arguing is entirely different. Perhaps you should not call it "Intelligent Design", since most people (like myself) associate that term with the specific theory and movement championed by the Discovery Institute. Contrary to your accusation, I did not choose their version because it was easy to argue. I chose their version because it is the de facto standard definition of the term. (Note in particular that "Intelligent Design" is much more specific than "Creationism".)"
You may not have conciously - but have you changed any of your thinking? I know of far far more people who think like I do that not (though, from a purely scientific point of view I just don't see it either way - not something science can answer). I am willing to bet that the majority of the "not real biologist" have something very similar to what I believe. What I think is close enough to the general thought that it might as well be average. There are many diferent versions of "intelligent design" - either intentionally or because you know no better you have chosen to argue against the weakest adherent of it. Better to look at what the majority (not just those chosen by the media you watch) adherents of it quote instead of the detractors - it will give a better view of it. Don't do the knee jerk reaction - that should *never* be part of someone who is trying understant, only those that already know the answer.
That being said - I still think that this has no place in a science class. It's not science - it's meta-science and philosophy. It's interesting and worth arguing, but unless it is testable it has no place todays world "works" or "doesn't work". We spent centuries trying to get the church out of science only to go the other extreme - to take God (not necessarily a Christian God either) out of it. The problem is still the same - untestable. We need to learn to seperate those beliefes. Both intentional and unintentional inclusion of that.
I don't buy intelligent design, nor do I buy the opposition. I simply do not know. There is some truth to both sides, I know which I have faith in (what I have argued, though I have argued against my personal belifes from time to time), but that is a far cry from what I believe in from an evidence point of view. Just think for a moment - "can I prove what I belive?" - I don't mind if the answer is "no" and you still hold to it - we all do so. As long as you understand where that begins and ends I admire that attitude.
"You have a right to try, but not to sue people for getting in your way."
Actually you have a right to sue for anything stupid thing you can think of. I have, and should have, the right to sue you for the comment above. This is pretty much 1'st amendment stuff, speech through the courts.
However, that is a far cry from winning and having no consequences for my actions. Fines for stupid lawsuits, counter suits for harrasment, and other things are also allowed to be sued for. And in instances like the one in the original article probably winnable.
The RIAA is gaming the system, because of the difficulty in getting reimbursed for defending yourself they prey on smaller people trying to sway public opinion (and build a case log). The problem with "looser pays" is that if you have a legitimate claim against, say microsoft or any other large crorp, and loose (this is entirely possible) you may get a bill for a few million. There are many legal cases that simply need a judge to rule and there is no reason to believe malice on either side, regardless of the outcome of the lawsuit. Between individuals looser pays isn't too bad for the vast majority of cases, but even if you thought you had an 80% chance of winning (and you feel you are right) would you sue someone that thier legal fees will reach in the millions if it is loser pays? Probably not and those lawsuits need to happen.
We need to realise that judges and jury's are human and are able to make non-robotic decisions. Looser pays sucks, having people who bring frivolous lawsuits pay a punitive damage is good. Yes, there will still be a few cases where something Bad happens, but it will be much less Bad than what we have now. Let judges and juries do what they are supposed too. We have half of it, this lawyer will probably get the smackdown if the testimony is good, but there needs to more.
I don't know, I don't know why other intelligent people do somethings - doesn't make them not exist. I can't fathom the mind of a rapist or murderer in my wildest imagination, yet they are still out there.
"They are a very small minority. It is hard to understand how these people could be effective, given that evolution serves as a bedrock principle for much of biology."
Well, by your tests so far this would mean they do not exist because you wouldn't make the same choice, or that they have no intelligence. Though most of the Biologist I knew in college and at the lab didn't have an opinion on this matter one way or the other - most, like me, thought the argument was silly as it couldn't be proven either way.
"What does this have to do with anything? Evolution is not random chance. Mutations are random, but natural selection chooses the most beneficial mutation for the given environment. This is in no way analogous to the monkeys-and-typewriters cliche."
Yes it is. You were saying that because some biologist proved that random chance could account for a trait coming about that meant that intelligent design was incorrect. My point was that random chance can account for anything but that still doesn't preclude intelligence behind the decisions. I used an example that is obvious that an intelligence did it and showed that random chance (and, like evolution, picking the stuff that works) could account for the works being written also. The main difference being that we have enough information to know that a person wrote the story, not a bunch of random presses of a keyboard. Thus they are not mutually exclusive and neither disproves the other. Heck, with computational biology we find that we (being intelligent beings) can use evolution to produce a specific goal (even things like improved air craft engines) - exactly the "Intelligent Design" that the scientist you do not udnerstand think of. Personally I would consider that proof that it is possible, though it still has nothing to do with probable.
"The theory of Intelligent Design, with a capital I and D, as championed by the Discovery Institute, explicitly contradicts natural selection. The whole point of the theory is to contend that some biological systems could not possibly have come about via natural selection. It very much intends to explain "how" life came about: it explaints that life was designed by an intelligent creator. It does not attempt to explain why this creator did this."
The Discovery Institute doesn't speak for everyone, should I go find some nutty biologist that says idiotic things to prove that evolution is wrong? Of course not - it's an attempt to stack the argument in your favor by picking nuts to quote, not the normal thinking people. You know this very well and do it intentionally. Why not argue with the ones that are sane, the scientist, instead of setting up straw men to knock down?
Nor do I think you understand the "why" being answered. It's not saying why the creator did anything. Evolution says that random combinations of genetic material will produce a variety of features, those that work are kept, those that do not are thrown away which over time creates diversity in life. Intelligent design says that genetic codes are combined producing variety and the ones the creator wanted to keep stay, those that are not are thrown away moving towards an unltimate design willed by the creator.
They disagree on why the changes happen - that is Evolution isn't moving towards creating humans, civilizations, domesticated animals, predators and prey, anything. Whatever happens just happened through random chance. From Evolutions point of view we could be a barren wasteland and it wouldn't matter.
From an Intelligent Design point of view a creator somewhere had something in mind and made the universe to be what they wanted. They wanted humans, a diverse earth, everything we see. Through certain means the creator did this (namely evolution).
"Intelligent Design would be far more likely to produce bacteria/viruses harmful to us originating from a comet. An intelligent designer can design such things however they like, and could thus think "I'm going do design a life form which could live on a comet but which could also be dangerous to humans!".
Why? You presuppose that the intelligence wants this to happen, I submit it to be less likely as the likelyhood of an intelligent being wanting to destroy sentient creatures it has made is very unlikely. Random chance doesn't care.
"I have read arguments for it as presented by the Discovery Institute and others. Invariably, their supposed examples of biological systems which are too complex and "irreducible" are really not. They use obscure cases which the average person knows nothing about (microbiology and such) so that the average person is unable to understand the details of their argument. Real biologists routinely counter their examples by demonstrating how these systems might be evolved."
There are "real" biologist who disagree wether you like it or not. Random chance can take care of anything - infinite monkeys givin infinite time banging on infinite typewriters will eventuall create the complete works of shakespear. That is totally possible, it still doesn't invalidate that Shakespear used "intelligent design" instead of random chance to write.
"Evolution is extremely testable and has been tested in many different ways. This article presents 29+ extremely strong tests which evolution passes. I find prediction 1.3 to be particularly amazing."
Agreed - evolution is highly testable and anyone who says it doesn't happen is an idiot that refuses to see the world around them. It doesn't take years of study to see this. However, that point is immaterial as Intelligenent design focuses on why it happened, not how.
"IMO, Intelligent Design is also testable. If we were intelligently designed, we would expect not to see aspects of our design which are utterly bad or easily fixed. In reality, our bodies are full of horrible design. For instance, our pelvises are slanted forward, and the base of our spines must slant back to compensate. This leads to all manner of back pain as we get older. This design flaw makes a lot of sense in evolutionary terms -- we evolved from knuckle-dragging apes -- but no self-respecting engineer would come up with such a design."
Until you create a living ecosystem I'll take your "this would be sooo much better" with something of a grain of salt. How do you know?
"Speaking of our spine: it is composed of a whole bunch of vertebrae, which would be great if we were walking around on four legs and didn't need to support our full weight on it vertically. The flexibility would be perfect for galloping like a horse. But, again, it mostly causes problems for us."
Ahh, we are back to arguing something that Intelligent Design people agree with. The argument is in *why* it happens, not that it does or how.
"Oh, and we have too many teeth to fit in our mouth. What's up with that?"
Mine seem to fit my mouth pretty well, so does my parents. Now, why they don't grow and replace like many herbivores instead of rotting away is a better question.
"These are just a few small examples. Honestly, I would give God more credit than to think that he designed such poorly-engineered creatures as us."
Neither of us are a creator (and I'm specifically not being Christian-centric). Intelligent Design doesn't mean that the creator has the same goals you would, nor that your ideas would necessarily be better. You complain that the Intelligent Design people say some things can't happen and are wrong (and I agree), but you give examples that can easly and simply also be rational choice yet say they can not be. Pot, meet kettle.
"A life form which evolved to survive on the surface of a comet has zero chance of being successful inside the human body. In order for a life form to evolve to be effective in an environment, it must have exposure to that environment. The viruses which already plague us here on Earth have spent billions of years evolving specifically to attack the other life forms already present on Earth."
This is pretty much totally correct regardless of your religious or scientific leanings. "random chance" is just as likely to produce an organism that will do well in both environments as "Intelligent guidance" is.
"Of course, this argument is strongly rooted in evolution. As some other posters have pointed out, if you believe in intelligent design, you might disagree. But then, real-life observations and evidence are overwhelmingly consistent with evolution, not intelligent design, so I think we're safe."
Eh, you are supposed to be a non-biased observer taking facts into account and you say this? You don't know anything about intelligent design beyond reading those that hate/strongly dislike it.
I'm no fan of intelligent design, I see no reason for it (science and religion are asking two very different questions - nothing in "evolution" as we know it precludes an intelligent God and this is a useless mix that only serves to muddy scientific study), but what you say is complete and total ignorance or a complete falsehood (either of which I would rather not be attached too).
Intelligent design focuses on that a supreme all knowing intelligence guides creation whereas evolution is random chance. There isn't much difference between the two otherwise and both are pretty weak in the old "evidence" department on that portion of the theory.
There are people that corrupt both into All-Knowing Absolute Correct Ideas (intelligent design people who say it invalidates evolution, evolutionist who say it invalidates a god), but both are basing thier idea not on evidence (there is none either way, though from a pure scientific point Occam's razor rules and the "random chance" side wins - though that is FAR from proof) but on faith. At best the only testable and verifiable (what is needed for it to be science) is that things change based on environmental pressure due to genetics and recombination - that does not mention anything about *why* this occurs. There is no way to test random chance vs all powerful controller, thus it is not science to declare one anything other than a hypothesis (one can not make it to theory without testing).
If you think evolution precludes a bacteria growing on a comet that is also dangerous to us (but Intelligent design does not) then you are VERY mistaken, nothing in evolution precludes this. It's why NASA (and other space agencies) has such strict guidlines for bringing foreign material into our atmosphere in a protected storage space (vs a large hunk of rock - the heat is considered to kill anything, and if it doesn't I guess it deserves a little human to eat and there is nothing we can do about it anyway).
That two sides of the debate never seem to grasp this is disheartening about the level of education we recieve about scientific theories, it also shows how difficult it is to seperate "belief" from testable and verifiable science.
"Now if I'd said I was from a Reservation, I might have been White living there and by that a Racist. Now if I'd said Reservations and Tribal Governments were corrupt, since the vast majority of Americans aren't Indian, people would assume I wasn't Indian and I'd by a Racist."
So, in other words not being labeled a racist was, at least, part of your motivation. My point is that your accusation of corruption did not appear in any way to be based on thier race but rather on thier actions. Thus, even if you were wrong, it was not racism - let alone if you opinion was based on research and experience. It just so happened that the group you were criticising is grouped based on race.
It shouldn't matter *what* race you are for the accusation you gave - if I point out that black/dark skinned people have more melanin that those of lighter skin it doesn't make me a racist. If a non-white person pointing out a white person is corrupt based on thier actions then it isn't racist for a non-indian to point out an indian is corrupt based on thier actions (and, you will note if I typed this correctly, both were accusing an individual with no basis on thier race).
This has nothing to do with the actual article in the original post, just a rant on my end (hey, this is slashdot - sowhat:) ). It's something that greatly irritates me. Even many, if not most, anti-PC people fall for this one.
"I'm Indian and from a Reservation and have known a fair share of Tribal Council and Chairpeople over the years that I can say they are corrupt for the most part without being a Troll or a Flamer."
You know, the fact of you being an Indian should be irrelevant - they are either corrupt or not. It doesn't matter if I am the average male of an exactly average (even to having.6 or whatever kids - maybe I share them with someone else?) of the major religion and, finally, of the largest groups of any class you can think of (hair color, eye color, whatever). That is - I am the most majority person you have ever seen in your whole life or can imagine for the population in question. If I notice that a dog shit in my yard it doesn't make it not so, same thing if I note that some member of All Minority (the opposite of me, minority in ever classification you can think of - that being they are the only one of all instances alive) is a prick drug dealing asshole leader that is doing everything in thier power to use thier minority status to gain absolute power it doesn't change a thing. Either they are, or they are not. It's not racist for someone to think so - it depends on thier reasons.
Racism/prejudice comes in that you attribute it to thier status or confer those bad qualities because of thier group (and notice that it has nothing to do with if they are either majority or minority). That is, you attribute thier status (good or not or some varying degree of those two states) based not on what they have done, but what group they belong too.
Being a member of that group doesn't give you the absolute right to criticise misbehaviour anymore than my not being a member of that group prohibits me from noticing that they are, to use a vulgar term explicitly and intentionally, fucktards. I don't care if you are Indian (or the Pc term Native American), Black, White, So Damn Mixed Up You Don't Have A Fucking Clue it doesn't mean you can't look at a person and conclude that they are taking money for political favors and that is wrong.
Until we become truly blind as far as your "group" you belong too we will never be free of it. I never once thought about you being racist - you provided enough info if I cared I could look it up. I didn't care if you were of thier group or not - it didn't matter. For anyone who it *does* matter your appeasing of them only hurts your general acceptance in the long run (you acknowledge that race matters). Better to just report what you see and respond to the trolls as they come. As done you accept thier premise that race matters, if you later show that you also meet thier pre-requisites for saying bad things about someone (that are, of course, justified) then you make them look stupid instead of reinforcing thier inherrent racism.
Many years ago in my first software engineering course we went over similar type stuff. One of the problems inherrent in our systems is the assumption of two hands - say, for example, ctrl-alt-del to reboot. Nowadays we are much more sensitive to this, but in the early days of DOS and such there was no real alternative, it was pointed out by the teacher (who had worked at a VA hospital for a few years) that many veterans had some issues - they could type well enough one handed but many key combinations were difficult, if not impossible, to do. One of those being ctrl-alt-del. In the 8086 days that was hard on a computer user. Even something small like "press the green button" can be impossible for someone red-green color blind (and that's really bad considering that in many MMO's green usually means "easy to kill" and red means "nearly impossible").
Of course, me being an insensitive I ass pointed out (by demonstrating - not above a little self deprecation) that they could press ctrl-alt with one hand and smash thier face into the "del" key and do it. About half the students thought I was funny, the other half hated me:) Personally I thought it was very funny, kinda a type of slapstick humor.
Personally, I'm a moderate dyslexic and there is a lot of things out there that are very difficult for me to do. I can memorise each side of a list but can't link them or put them in the correct order - nothing I do will solve this. Nor can I spell worth a flip - in a written media it can really hamper me (to get the grammar and spelling correct for this post would take me several hours of work going from a browser to a word processor). People give all sorts of great advice "Write it down over and over", "Here is a mnemonic", etc. I'm in my thirties, been using computers since my teens, I've been a physics and math junkie since long before them. I still can not do my multiplication tables - I know a few of them and work out from there (for example, I do not know 9x7 but I dod know 7x7 so I add enough 7's to 49 to get the answer). It's like telling an armless person if the *just try hard enough* that they will catch the ball with thier hands - except mine isn't obvious visually. I think I had maybe 4 or 5 teachers that knew what I meant and all had a dyslexic kid or sibling, the rest thought I was trying to cheat.
That being said - I find most dyslexic jokes funny even though some are kinda not accurate (much as my "smash your face into the keyboard"). I don't really mind jokes as long as they are jokes, and I will make many myself.
Personally I always try and think of disabled people when I deseign something, I can't say I always succede, or my bosses approve of my deseign, but I try. I know something of what they go through. Though once I got into the real world no one really cared if I could quote the ISO OSI hierarchy in order from memeory as long as I knew what I was doing and other were talking about. My other talents were good enough no one cared about the dyslexia. If I was armless, blind, or a parapeligic that wouldn't be so true.
Anyway, in the end one must balance what you hurt the majority of your base for the minority. It sucks to be in the minority (and I understand that, I'm also nearly deathly allergic to fish even to the point of not being able to be around them cooking it - something most resturaunts really push on fridays - I just severely limit where I go on fridays and bring my own food the large get-togethers where they have a fish fry). It doesn't do any good to go bankrupt because.5% of your population can't play your game, nor is there any reason to screw that.5% for no reason other than you don't care. It's a really hard balancing act, and not playing this game I can't say one way or another as to this change. The post and article are too biased, I need more information to fully know what to think.
I've seen this argued many times, and yet in every example I have it works the opposite. Private sites are signifigantly faster and the torrent stays up longer. I know my experiance isn't atypical either. I generally hate to have to go off to public sites except for a few types of things (such as a Linux iso). For mp3's or video public sites suck.
I'm curious how many private sites you've used or if this is just theory from reading the BT algorithm? Sometimes theory doesn't actually reflect reality. I have not seen any actual study done on it, just people who know the algorithm saying "it doesn't work that way" (or others quoting them). While everyone that has used both private and public sites says the opposite.
Generally I end up going with what actually happens instead of what someone thinks will happen (that's why you have the "collect data" step on scientific studies - even on algorithm performance, though I offer nothing more than anectdotal evidence). So far everything I have seen and everyone I know that uses both say that the private are faster and keep torrents longer.
"Seriously, this is the Sony I once knew and loved, when it did things like this all the time. Maybe those of us boycotting the entire company because of last month's debacle should adjust things a bit?"
Maybe, maybe not. Sony is a large corporation. It has many divisions that are most likely competing (both internally for funding and externally for market). Many times even the Brain (management) doesn't really know what is going on. While the right hand is taking away, the left hand and right foot are doing good - is this enough to boycott? Dunno - if it is enough that the brain realises this then yes, if not then you are hurting.
Look no further than the Sony music part fighting mp3's and the tech division selling portable players - the two division are only connected by some remote link through corporate. Thier business models are pretty much in opposition.
Really large multi-national corps are hard to define by thier very nature. They run anywhere from good to totally crap. You must decide if thier good parts outnumber thier bad, or if thier bad is enough that you don't care. Though there is no reason to give to their crap segments (no way I'm supporting the Music division) you have to decide if those segments are worth boycotting the rest (IMO no, but that is only an opinion and yours may very well be different).
Of course, there are corps that are pretty much mostly bad, but ones like Sony are harder to define.
It allows you to depreciate that money (write off on your taxes) a specific percentage per year - to total no more than a specific percentage of the total cost of the vehicle. That isn't anywhere close to getting the vehicle half price. Plus the vehicle must be a business vehicle, if you are audited it is not so then you are fined a VERY large amount (and they do actually check - my parents were audited recently). You do not get to deduct the percentage you drive on personal time.
You still have to get the full loan value, you still have to pay the full amount of the vehicle, but over the next three years, not pay taxes on you gross income equalling 50% of that vehicles cost (probably a few thousand of three years, even with a 150k vehicle). The govt doesn't give you anything, doesn't subsidise anything, you just don't pay taxes on part of your gross income.
Further, for many businesses deductions such as that are *required*. My parents gross over 300k a year, thier purchasing power was similar to mine when I made around 35k a year - that's not unusual. If you cut those deductions (and many, like my parents, require large 4wd trucks), while it may make you feel better, you will drive many many many businesses out of work. That may be acceptable to you right now, but I would be willing to bet that once that reality hit you wouldn't like it so much.
So, if said manual told you that you needed to touch a wire every thirty minutes to relieve excess static electricity that would be fine too? If it said to turn the console off for five minutes every thirty minutes played that would hunky dory? Or how about the manual forcing you to install a rootkit on your PC to play it - also good? My fault for not reading the manual when it catches on fire and burns the house down.
If the manual says so - then it's ok? Of course not - this is a design flaw. That the manual states this shows they even *knew* it was going to happen. Devices should be designed around thier use - a skillett that can not withstand heat over 150 degrees is a huge flaw regardless of if it says so in it's instructions. So is a *home* console that can't be used in your entertainment cabinet, on carpet, or most places in *your home*.
What most likely happened is microsoft rushed to get them out the door to beat the PSIII by a decent margin. They obviously knew about it if it is in the manual and let it go. I don't hate microsoft or anything (I'm writing from an XP box right now) but screw ups are screw ups and microsoft made one here. This will not endear them to many console users.
I don't really have a dog in this fight - for all toilets except the one in my own house I deposit my waste in them and let someone else worry about it. Though if it is a "flush" model I do so (well, I've never seen a non-flush model. I would most like spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out how to flush them - see below).
I most cases the "need to touch" for the flush has been eleminated. Generally, on things like this, I figure I'm in the minority. I live in east Tennessee (Knoxville) - Podunct Tennessee. If we have then I generally assume other do. I know I saw this year ago first while on travel, but many/most places have switched to the autoflush things. I think they are great - no need to worry, just use and go. The no touch faucets with warm water all the time are great also - I always wonder why someone didn't come up with it MUCH sooner, it's just such a great idea.
Though, I must admit, the first time I saw them I was confused. Being brought up in the typical rural society - one where you do your civic duty always - you flush, make sure you don't waste others water, and always wash (amongst other things - basically treat everything as if it was yours). So, use the urinal and then look over the whole thing, press any nubs that seem anywhere close to sanitary for a good ten minutes. Eventually the thing flushes and the light bulb goes off. I saw the auto-wash sinks after that and figured that one out immediatly after noticing that there was no water controll, though I still had the "Great idea" thought when I did.
When they remodeled the local mall it was VERY funny to just watch the bathroom areas - people who were not anything close to technically inclined and had it VERY tightly ingrainged in them to do certain things were just confused. I saw one older gentleman (at least in 70's) try and figure the faucets out for quite a number of minutes - I told him how to use them when I made it near him.
Rural people aren't stupid by any means - at least no more than anyone else (people are people - intelligence isn't based on where you live). Just never seen that type of thing - city people were just as confused at first, just it happened a few years earlier (about 5-10 years if my experience meant anything). I find myself confused when I go visit some of my relatives - they think my lack of knowledge about farm stuff as funny as I think of thiers (and many of the people around me) about technology. Just different worlds and it's funny when the collide.
You know, I live in Knoxville Tn - not the tech capital of the world. In fact, an area that you would think would be full of luddites that lap this type of study up.
However, the vast majority of people I know (most of which are technology ignorant and are about as "country" as you can get) think the same thing. Video games, whatever said, are better than TV. At least you have to think or need hand eye co-ordination. Yes, there are groups that don't think so - while they get a lot of press they are a pretty small minority. It's been surprising to me no matter how often it happens (Gun Club, Archery Club, my parents workers and clients in construction, etc) - the common perception is that they are luddites (though to some extent they are, but more a fear for thier jobs than anything else). In fact, we were discussing this a few days ago due to a local issue, of the 20 or so at the gun club *none* felt that games were bad - definatly better than vegging out on the TV and better than many of the activities kids have available to them.
I can't speak for other parts of the country, but if east Tennessee thinks this I have hard time thinking that it's fairly but common. If it's not, then it's up to the reader to either not believe me or rethink thier views on where they live. Personally I think this article is sensationalism journalism: "Your kids are gonna die!!!!!" and few buy it very far.
"I just visited Iceland a couple months back, and I have to say that it made me wonder why geothemal isn't more popular."
There are several reasons (the wiki article cited implies much of this). First, like hydroelectric, you can't just build them anywhere. The earth has to be a specific states for them (those states depend on the type being used). This is probably the main reason.
For the type you saw - probably some of the cleanest power production in the world - you need the hot springs and external steam sources. It's being pumped up to the surface anyway and we are just harnessing it there. This is mostly similar to hydroelectric in that it is not very invasive (much less than hydroelectric) and can actually create habitat and such. They are just rare. Only a few places on the planet you can do this and much of it is parks due to the natural beauty that they cause (say building large power plants over Yosemite National Park).
For others, especially the volcanic type, it is expensive and polluting. No, not greenhouse gasses but wonderful things like Radon and Hydrogen Sulfide gas (personally I go for the greenhouse gas). So not only more expensive, but worse for the environemnt. They are generally used in cases where the pollutive fallout isn't going to hurt anything (if the area surrounding it is already dead from volcanic activity, nothing to loose) and/or there is no other choice.
Other types aren't any better or worse, just different from coal and such. Dead from one thing is just as dead from another.
The one listed in the parent article seems to be pretty clean. It seems that taking the heat out of the ground in these cases doesn't hurt anything and there isn't any emissions, though I'll wait a while to decide on that one for sure. Remember, carbon emissions were thought to be clean at one time too - it wasn't until large scale long term effects were studied. This type has neither been around long term or large scale - not that I mean don't try, just don't do like we have in the past and assume because of models and smaller tests.
The saying "There is no such thing as a free lunch" has been pretty much true. You either have the power source rare, pollutive in production, pollutive in disposal, or pollutive while running. The company that solves this (if it is even solveable) will be one of the richest companies in the world.
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"Because what you really want to do to the speeding 3-ton SUV is blind the driver... yup, definitely makes things safer for everyone."
Well, I would have to say that if the 3-ton SUV loaded with explosives was heading towards a school (or other populous area) that is protected by an extensive roadblock where one has to navigate through a small opening that isn't so dumb (or even far enough away that it simply runs off the road).
Blow up some concrete bariers or 50 people? Well, if you can't see the difference then I guess so. But me, I'll choose blowing up concrete barriers and some soldiers who volunteered to protect us instead of blowing through a checkpoint and blowing up civilians in a dangerous zone. Of course, those enlightened like you can see that this is useless, never mind that many out there doing the actual fighting would like to be able to stop people from running through checkpoints with explosives.
This isn't designed for stopping people driving down an open road in a peaceful place. Better that you evaluate what it is meant to stop instead of what it isn't. It's known as a "straw man" argument for a reason. There are MANY tactical reason why this would be useful in places like Iraq and it doesn't take much thought to see. Just because it's not so useful in Lincoln, Nebraska doesn't mean it isn't useful.
At the university I went to we did year end reviews of the professor and class. It was then taken to some of the student slaves, err workers, to type in and then the papers were destroyed. This is so that the prof can not indetify who the person was by thier handwriting.
They were pretty candid. I know I generally told the truth of what I though. Which meant that most profs got something mixed (for one thing, it explicitly asked what you thought was done wrong and everyone always can do something "better" no matter how much you liked the class). Later on as I was a quasi grad student/undergrad/researcher (was very lucky to get an internship and then full time employment at a govt lab in research while an undergrad. I had federal funding and refereed journal publications as an undergrad and I also took some grad courses my last two semesters there) I was pretty good friends with a few of the profs. I read some of thier reviews a few times - and for the most part they seemed honest. Some harsh, some good. Heh, some teachers even took it and changed, other didn't give a damn or considered thier students ungrateful or stupid (you can guess which teachers were good ones and which were not - and it didn't correlate at all with how hard they were either).
I don't know if that is typical in universities, always thought it was a good idea. Not to mention students pretty much all talk about "So and so is an ass - don't take thier class" anyway. Never understood the backlash he got for that website - our school spent a considerable sum of money for the same thing and it was required. Every tutorial I have given also does the same thing.
I would disagree, I think this is vital to being a good manager. But it takes two main things. Though this can change as you move up the ladder - the CEO doesn't really need to be daily friends with the Janators at IBM (though it would be good for thier managers to be), though it would probably do well for him to know some about them. Generally this applies to the level that you have to itneract with daily or even weekly.
First - don't forget you are a manager. As you said, you have to let the hammer drop from time to time. Being a friend shouldn't mean that can't happen, being a friend means you are not an ass about it. It means you will still have to force long hours for a project sometimes, promote someone over another, tell someone they need to work harder, and do other manager type stuff. And sometimes you have to fire or lay off someone, but again being friends just makes the lay off hard and emotional (typically if you have to fire someone then I would imagine being thier friend violates rule number two).
Second, it has to be real. Faking a friend doesn't work, if the person just doesn't like you, you don't try and force anything. If you can't really be a friend don't try. Being a friend also means that you are pretty much yourself, don't pretend to be chummy when your not.
This is good for several reasons. First, it's just the right thing to do. That's a subjective thing, but I think very important. Then there are sorta the crass reasons. Things like you know dissent between people, when you are pushing too hard/too easy, people take "We're gonna have to work long hours to get this out the door" from someone they know/like better than an aloof person. Essentially liking them and them liking you works a lot better than anything else.
The implicit thing above with rule number two is that an employee that is trying to take advantage of you isn't a friend, don't try and be.
I do agree that managers faking friendship because of the crass reasons or ones that forget they are managers suck though. But done correctly it makes a very happy and effecient work force, it even improves the managers effeciency and ahppiness quotient.
That's a personal problem, the last job I had I made plenty through doing software support, training and publishing in the software I wrote. I knew it better than anyone else so mine tended to be the more in-depth stuff. I suspect that my next job will do so also.
It's pretty common, look how many tutorials and papers at places like Ottowa Linux Symposium, Supercomputing, and other large conferences are written by the programmers. Even in some semi-canned software (Autocad for one) I've been put in touch with the programmers for support.
It's not code monkey work if that's all you want, it takes more discipline and knowledge, but it can be very rewarding. But then if all you want to be is a code monkey you shouldn't be complaining about this in the first place - you are limiting yourself in both your position and salary.
At least in the senate - it passed without a single dissenting vote. I didn't look up the exact house vote, but by a HUGE margin also. Can't pick blame for either side, though I think the parent to you was making that point to a group of people who mostly blame the DMCA on republicans.
You know, it's interesting to look where both parties "agreed" - at least as far as voting goes. It's almost universally bad when they vote for it, though there have been a few decent things.
You will note that depsite the complaints of democrats about the patriot act it passed about just like the DMCA - 1 nay in the senate and 66 nays in the house. While it was a republican sponsered bill, the democrats voted en mass for the thing also. Again, no real winner if you actually payed attention to the actual vote (what really matters) instead of rhetoric.
It is sorta amusing to see what people think that thier political party stands for after watching the actual votes.
"In general, large tracts of land densely planted with a single species of tree with all trees of a similar age do not provide good habitat for wildlife. The crowded trees block out the light that would allow understory plants to grow, the plants that provide most of the food and cover for animals. Almost all animals require many different kinds of plants. Usually, the boundary between forest and fields provides the best habitat for animals."
I've read that in many places also, however when I try and hunt bowaters it never seems to be that way. It's usually so dense with plants, vines, honeysuckle, etc that I don't really see how the deer go through it (I can't and have lost deer because of it). Usually one hunts the roads because you can't see anywhere else.
Several of the local wildlife management areas are done in the same format as bowaters. Though, by far, the best deer come from grain farms but those are hard to grow in East Tennessee (ever hear the Rocky Top theme?), but that doesn't count squirrils, rabbits, birds, etc.
As for the best regions for wildlife, I think it would more depend on the type of wildlife - I doubt desert animals would thrive there. I am also sure that bowaters remove the best habitat for some, and is better for others. Forrests and fields would also be the same - good for some bad for others. Not to mention that field/woods boundary (at least around here) is mostly manmade. Go to areas that have almost never seen man and it's all big woods that have killed off nearly all the underbrush.
"The fact that a lot of deer are shot there does not prove that it is good habitat. Most of the east coast is overcrowded with deer, so they are pushed into marginal habitats. An open forest with no understory plants is also an easy place to see animals from a large distance, making them particularly vulnerable there."
Ok, I'll amend what I said - many are killed (and on average larger) than all other areas nearby. In fact, much larger and many more - and that includes places like our lease that are somewhat older growth (I suppose as old as you can find in this region - some VERY large oaks that we tend for thier acorns - what we refer to as "Big Woods"). The deer are pushed into us, which can easily be seen in years where they are not so overcrowded - almost none killed outside of bowaters. Though that has changed somewhat with a few of the larger tracts of land changing management styles. For instance, we run several medium sized food plots year round and several of our neighbors do also.
"I cannot say that any of this applies specifically to paper mill lands in TE, because I have never been there. But my general knowledge makes me skeptical of your claims."
*shrug* you can either believe me or not. I do not know other areas, I only know the ones I go in (and I know them from my ability to take game animals and thier relative health). I don't know what the textbooks say is good/bad for the animals or if what I see is universal (I would assume it's not universal - I would guess regions differ quite a bit) - but I can very well look at where ours are dense and am perfectly capable of noticing that ours are much smaller than the others. And I can also notice that the wildlife management service creates an environment very similar to the ones I see at bowaters.
I live in an area (I live near Clahoun, Tennessee) that creates a large amount of pulpwood for newspapers and is farmed. In fact, I believe the company is the largest producer of newspaper pulp in the US (at least it was a few years back - I don't really neep up with it or anything).
The company is called bowaters and owns several million acres of property. It is some of the best hunting lands in the state for pretty much all our local wildlife (and feral wildlife also). While yes, they clear cut if they aquire new property, and always clear cut when they harvest, the replanting of the trees is about as dense as can be sustained and is GREAT for wildlife - again one of the top hunting areas in the state with both large mature animals taken and a large yearly bag limit (and it's quite expensive to hunt as well).
They allow independant and govt forresters to view thier managment and make suggestions - they even usually follow them also.
I don't know what company you are near, but it is insane to purchase old growth forrest for wood pulp. It takes specific types of trees to make and old growth forrests are not very dense. Pulp manufacturers only purchase them if they need more land, and in many cases what they do with the land is beneficial for the local wildlife in the long term. Basically old growth is horrid for paper pulp - though it is generally good for expensive lumber because of the size of boards that can be harvested.
About the worst that can be said is that the place stinks real bad when you are not used to it and the gasses released, while not damaging, make a fog so thick that you can not see past the end of the hood on your car (literally). When conditions are right it can creep out over the interstate and has caused some of the largest wrecks in US history.
"I ask one question. What have you done to protect your rights, that the FBI are trampling? Posting sarcastic comments isn't doing anything to protect your rights."
I agree with this statement. Talking is worthless from a strict point of view. Sarcastic, while amusing to Believers, isn't productive in the long term.
"Did you vote? For the fraction of you that did, what else have you done? Because you can't just protect your rights by once every 4 years (it is 4 in America, right?) ticking a box and not doing anything else until the next 4 years."
First, I assume that since you asked it is more than 4 years. At the very least the congress critters are every two (and are arguably more important than the president). Local is based on local laws, which around here are every 6-12 months. I would argue that local is more important - they affect your life more - but that is another discussion.
As to what else to do? Do you think that protests do any good? Calling your congress critters? No, it doesn't - all they care about is votes. If they are protested all the time and 98% of thier calls are negative but are voted in by 75% nothing other than that "75%" counts to them. Everything else is just to sway potential voters, and IMO talking about it in real life or on message baords is amongst the best ways to get to a lot of people. Protests tend to be ignored (see the last few decades vs voting patterns) and I am assuming you are not violent.
"But what have you done to protect them? I'm betting the majority of you haven't done a damn thing (except vote)."
Like above, I suppose what do you mean by that? First off I figure I'm probably the other end of the political spectrum from you (though my advice so far - and never really in this post - is left or right) so some things may be different. Convincing the greatest number of people you are right is what you need to do, voting is just the culmination of that. Some protesting does this, but I highly suspect getting a decent rank on google with your *reasonable* ideas, speaking truth in message boards and blogs (not spin), and other things where you impact non-belivers (that the convinced agree is worthless - you already have them) is the best.
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Not to mention that those two disasters (3-mile and Chernobyl) are irrelevant in in many other ways.
Chernobyl was because they ignored repeated safety mechanisms while doing an experiment with intentionally making the reactor in a Bad State - even repeatedly turning the failsafes off (I don't recall the exact number, less than 10 more than 5). This was mainly due to failure of the different experts to communicate (not really thier fault - it was illegal for them to do so). The engineers who "caused" the disaster had no idea what was going to happen, had the nuclear engineers been there things would have most likely been different. In the free world I imagine those nuclear engineer would have done something fairly drastic to stop it. Nor would that type of expirement ever have been allowed, and that is especially true now (no nuclear engineer would allow it to happen).
Three-mile was a true accident of a nuclear reaactor. The reason it is irrelevant is that the danger was exxagerated. A great example of this was the fear about a possible explosion because of the reactor filling with hydrogen. Reporters reported what would happen if that amount of hydrogen were to ignite, pointed out that a simple spark can cause it too. However, there was no oxygen present - it was designed to work in that manner. No engineer was worried about it. Problems with cameras was also a big story, but yet again was greatly exagerated (most of the ones that were out were tertiary systems - the engineers and disaster crews was never in the dark about what went on in the reactor). But I suppose "We are gonna dieeeeeee!!!!" made better news than "It's being contained, working like it is supposed to, don't worry". Not that everything was perfect, but there was little real danger to surrounding people and the environment. Hell, I'd be more worried about some of the high energy physics experiments out there - at least they are pushing the envelope, nuclear reactors are a pretty mature technology.
It's not even so much that reactors are much safer now (true none the less), but that reactors were *never* as dangerous as public opnion has them. Only if multiple layers of failsafes along with intentional criticality (such as Chernobyl) is there any real danger from an accident. Plus we can recylce much of the waste produced now into other isotopes so that is slowly going away, even then it has less impact overall and easier to contain than coal.
Freedom is speech is easy when all you want to do is protect your own right to bitch and say anything, quite another when it is against you or something you really real hate or are extremely offended by. Of course, these are some of the most important types of speech to protect. For one thing it sets the precedent that "not liking" is good enough to ban and someday attitudes will most likely shift and then you get screwed - by then it's too late.
It also tends to show if that person is *really* wanting freedom in general or something else. More often than not what people get all worked up over isn't really that much to them. I've generally got the impression the editors and many posters have another agenda that "abridging my freedom" is used because "I hate , everything they do is wrong and I want it banned" doesn't sound as good (nor quite as freedom loving).
Another way to express it is a quote (that I'm going to mangle somewhat - though the meaning will be the same) "You getting beheaded is a comedy, me getting a paper cut is a tragedy".
One of the great and unusual things about the US founding fatehrs was that they really and truly let it all go. Athiest, Deist, Christian, and a few others all didn't care if each was quoted in the govt. They didn't care if you criticised them very harshly. They won the power to be dictators and then let it all go. That doesn't happen very often (though it does in other places).
"he question was rhetorical. You had said that you thought that "random chance" would be more likely than intelligent design to put dangerous (to humans) viruses on a comet."
That wasn't really what I intended. I intended that it may not - it depends on what the creator wants. I don't know so I can't say. To me, it seems a draw. My point was that by your logic it could be either way.
"The Discovery Institute essentially runs the Intelligent design movement. They more or less started it, and they are the ones constantly championing it in the media and to school boards."
Maybe and maybe not, like it or not the wikipedia isn't a great resource on it. The wiki is pretty bad on social things (though great on purely scientific ideas). The scientist you can't fathom more than likely take a stance similar to mine towards intelligent design. I doubt the discovery institute speaks for very many people. My mother, who is as close to a fundamentalist as you know, is even abhored by what they wrote. I highly suspect that they are chosen as the easiest to rebute and make the most visible as a "group think" type of thing - would you rather argue against me or them? And i'm not that good at it (to be fair, the "religious" groups do the same - I'm sure you see it also in thier arguments).
"What you seem to be arguing is entirely different. Perhaps you should not call it "Intelligent Design", since most people (like myself) associate that term with the specific theory and movement championed by the Discovery Institute. Contrary to your accusation, I did not choose their version because it was easy to argue. I chose their version because it is the de facto standard definition of the term. (Note in particular that "Intelligent Design" is much more specific than "Creationism".)"
You may not have conciously - but have you changed any of your thinking? I know of far far more people who think like I do that not (though, from a purely scientific point of view I just don't see it either way - not something science can answer). I am willing to bet that the majority of the "not real biologist" have something very similar to what I believe. What I think is close enough to the general thought that it might as well be average. There are many diferent versions of "intelligent design" - either intentionally or because you know no better you have chosen to argue against the weakest adherent of it. Better to look at what the majority (not just those chosen by the media you watch) adherents of it quote instead of the detractors - it will give a better view of it. Don't do the knee jerk reaction - that should *never* be part of someone who is trying understant, only those that already know the answer.
That being said - I still think that this has no place in a science class. It's not science - it's meta-science and philosophy. It's interesting and worth arguing, but unless it is testable it has no place todays world "works" or "doesn't work". We spent centuries trying to get the church out of science only to go the other extreme - to take God (not necessarily a Christian God either) out of it. The problem is still the same - untestable. We need to learn to seperate those beliefes. Both intentional and unintentional inclusion of that.
I don't buy intelligent design, nor do I buy the opposition. I simply do not know. There is some truth to both sides, I know which I have faith in (what I have argued, though I have argued against my personal belifes from time to time), but that is a far cry from what I believe in from an evidence point of view. Just think for a moment - "can I prove what I belive?" - I don't mind if the answer is "no" and you still hold to it - we all do so. As long as you understand where that begins and ends I admire that attitude.
"You have a right to try, but not to sue people for getting in your way."
Actually you have a right to sue for anything stupid thing you can think of. I have, and should have, the right to sue you for the comment above. This is pretty much 1'st amendment stuff, speech through the courts.
However, that is a far cry from winning and having no consequences for my actions. Fines for stupid lawsuits, counter suits for harrasment, and other things are also allowed to be sued for. And in instances like the one in the original article probably winnable.
The RIAA is gaming the system, because of the difficulty in getting reimbursed for defending yourself they prey on smaller people trying to sway public opinion (and build a case log). The problem with "looser pays" is that if you have a legitimate claim against, say microsoft or any other large crorp, and loose (this is entirely possible) you may get a bill for a few million. There are many legal cases that simply need a judge to rule and there is no reason to believe malice on either side, regardless of the outcome of the lawsuit. Between individuals looser pays isn't too bad for the vast majority of cases, but even if you thought you had an 80% chance of winning (and you feel you are right) would you sue someone that thier legal fees will reach in the millions if it is loser pays? Probably not and those lawsuits need to happen.
We need to realise that judges and jury's are human and are able to make non-robotic decisions. Looser pays sucks, having people who bring frivolous lawsuits pay a punitive damage is good. Yes, there will still be a few cases where something Bad happens, but it will be much less Bad than what we have now. Let judges and juries do what they are supposed too. We have half of it, this lawyer will probably get the smackdown if the testimony is good, but there needs to more.
"Then why did God create viruses on Earth?"
I don't know, I don't know why other intelligent people do somethings - doesn't make them not exist. I can't fathom the mind of a rapist or murderer in my wildest imagination, yet they are still out there.
"They are a very small minority. It is hard to understand how these people could be effective, given that evolution serves as a bedrock principle for much of biology."
Well, by your tests so far this would mean they do not exist because you wouldn't make the same choice, or that they have no intelligence. Though most of the Biologist I knew in college and at the lab didn't have an opinion on this matter one way or the other - most, like me, thought the argument was silly as it couldn't be proven either way.
"What does this have to do with anything? Evolution is not random chance. Mutations are random, but natural selection chooses the most beneficial mutation for the given environment. This is in no way analogous to the monkeys-and-typewriters cliche."
Yes it is. You were saying that because some biologist proved that random chance could account for a trait coming about that meant that intelligent design was incorrect. My point was that random chance can account for anything but that still doesn't preclude intelligence behind the decisions. I used an example that is obvious that an intelligence did it and showed that random chance (and, like evolution, picking the stuff that works) could account for the works being written also. The main difference being that we have enough information to know that a person wrote the story, not a bunch of random presses of a keyboard. Thus they are not mutually exclusive and neither disproves the other. Heck, with computational biology we find that we (being intelligent beings) can use evolution to produce a specific goal (even things like improved air craft engines) - exactly the "Intelligent Design" that the scientist you do not udnerstand think of. Personally I would consider that proof that it is possible, though it still has nothing to do with probable.
"The theory of Intelligent Design, with a capital I and D, as championed by the Discovery Institute, explicitly contradicts natural selection. The whole point of the theory is to contend that some biological systems could not possibly have come about via natural selection. It very much intends to explain "how" life came about: it explaints that life was designed by an intelligent creator. It does not attempt to explain why this creator did this."
The Discovery Institute doesn't speak for everyone, should I go find some nutty biologist that says idiotic things to prove that evolution is wrong? Of course not - it's an attempt to stack the argument in your favor by picking nuts to quote, not the normal thinking people. You know this very well and do it intentionally. Why not argue with the ones that are sane, the scientist, instead of setting up straw men to knock down?
Nor do I think you understand the "why" being answered. It's not saying why the creator did anything. Evolution says that random combinations of genetic material will produce a variety of features, those that work are kept, those that do not are thrown away which over time creates diversity in life. Intelligent design says that genetic codes are combined producing variety and the ones the creator wanted to keep stay, those that are not are thrown away moving towards an unltimate design willed by the creator.
They disagree on why the changes happen - that is Evolution isn't moving towards creating humans, civilizations, domesticated animals, predators and prey, anything. Whatever happens just happened through random chance. From Evolutions point of view we could be a barren wasteland and it wouldn't matter.
From an Intelligent Design point of view a creator somewhere had something in mind and made the universe to be what they wanted. They wanted humans, a diverse earth, everything we see. Through certain means the creator did this (namely evolution).
"Intelligent Design would be far more likely to produce bacteria/viruses harmful to us originating from a comet. An intelligent designer can design such things however they like, and could thus think "I'm going do design a life form which could live on a comet but which could also be dangerous to humans!".
Why? You presuppose that the intelligence wants this to happen, I submit it to be less likely as the likelyhood of an intelligent being wanting to destroy sentient creatures it has made is very unlikely. Random chance doesn't care.
"I have read arguments for it as presented by the Discovery Institute and others. Invariably, their supposed examples of biological systems which are too complex and "irreducible" are really not. They use obscure cases which the average person knows nothing about (microbiology and such) so that the average person is unable to understand the details of their argument. Real biologists routinely counter their examples by demonstrating how these systems might be evolved."
There are "real" biologist who disagree wether you like it or not. Random chance can take care of anything - infinite monkeys givin infinite time banging on infinite typewriters will eventuall create the complete works of shakespear. That is totally possible, it still doesn't invalidate that Shakespear used "intelligent design" instead of random chance to write.
"Evolution is extremely testable and has been tested in many different ways. This article presents 29+ extremely strong tests which evolution passes. I find prediction 1.3 to be particularly amazing."
Agreed - evolution is highly testable and anyone who says it doesn't happen is an idiot that refuses to see the world around them. It doesn't take years of study to see this. However, that point is immaterial as Intelligenent design focuses on why it happened, not how.
"IMO, Intelligent Design is also testable. If we were intelligently designed, we would expect not to see aspects of our design which are utterly bad or easily fixed. In reality, our bodies are full of horrible design. For instance, our pelvises are slanted forward, and the base of our spines must slant back to compensate. This leads to all manner of back pain as we get older. This design flaw makes a lot of sense in evolutionary terms -- we evolved from knuckle-dragging apes -- but no self-respecting engineer would come up with such a design."
Until you create a living ecosystem I'll take your "this would be sooo much better" with something of a grain of salt. How do you know?
"Speaking of our spine: it is composed of a whole bunch of vertebrae, which would be great if we were walking around on four legs and didn't need to support our full weight on it vertically. The flexibility would be perfect for galloping like a horse. But, again, it mostly causes problems for us."
Ahh, we are back to arguing something that Intelligent Design people agree with. The argument is in *why* it happens, not that it does or how.
"Oh, and we have too many teeth to fit in our mouth. What's up with that?"
Mine seem to fit my mouth pretty well, so does my parents. Now, why they don't grow and replace like many herbivores instead of rotting away is a better question.
"These are just a few small examples. Honestly, I would give God more credit than to think that he designed such poorly-engineered creatures as us."
Neither of us are a creator (and I'm specifically not being Christian-centric). Intelligent Design doesn't mean that the creator has the same goals you would, nor that your ideas would necessarily be better. You complain that the Intelligent Design people say some things can't happen and are wrong (and I agree), but you give examples that can easly and simply also be rational choice yet say they can not be. Pot, meet kettle.
"A life form which evolved to survive on the surface of a comet has zero chance of being successful inside the human body. In order for a life form to evolve to be effective in an environment, it must have exposure to that environment. The viruses which already plague us here on Earth have spent billions of years evolving specifically to attack the other life forms already present on Earth."
This is pretty much totally correct regardless of your religious or scientific leanings. "random chance" is just as likely to produce an organism that will do well in both environments as "Intelligent guidance" is.
"Of course, this argument is strongly rooted in evolution. As some other posters have pointed out, if you believe in intelligent design, you might disagree. But then, real-life observations and evidence are overwhelmingly consistent with evolution, not intelligent design, so I think we're safe."
Eh, you are supposed to be a non-biased observer taking facts into account and you say this? You don't know anything about intelligent design beyond reading those that hate/strongly dislike it.
I'm no fan of intelligent design, I see no reason for it (science and religion are asking two very different questions - nothing in "evolution" as we know it precludes an intelligent God and this is a useless mix that only serves to muddy scientific study), but what you say is complete and total ignorance or a complete falsehood (either of which I would rather not be attached too).
Intelligent design focuses on that a supreme all knowing intelligence guides creation whereas evolution is random chance. There isn't much difference between the two otherwise and both are pretty weak in the old "evidence" department on that portion of the theory.
There are people that corrupt both into All-Knowing Absolute Correct Ideas (intelligent design people who say it invalidates evolution, evolutionist who say it invalidates a god), but both are basing thier idea not on evidence (there is none either way, though from a pure scientific point Occam's razor rules and the "random chance" side wins - though that is FAR from proof) but on faith. At best the only testable and verifiable (what is needed for it to be science) is that things change based on environmental pressure due to genetics and recombination - that does not mention anything about *why* this occurs. There is no way to test random chance vs all powerful controller, thus it is not science to declare one anything other than a hypothesis (one can not make it to theory without testing).
If you think evolution precludes a bacteria growing on a comet that is also dangerous to us (but Intelligent design does not) then you are VERY mistaken, nothing in evolution precludes this. It's why NASA (and other space agencies) has such strict guidlines for bringing foreign material into our atmosphere in a protected storage space (vs a large hunk of rock - the heat is considered to kill anything, and if it doesn't I guess it deserves a little human to eat and there is nothing we can do about it anyway).
That two sides of the debate never seem to grasp this is disheartening about the level of education we recieve about scientific theories, it also shows how difficult it is to seperate "belief" from testable and verifiable science.
"Now if I'd said I was from a Reservation, I might have been White living there and by that a Racist. Now if I'd said Reservations and Tribal Governments were corrupt, since the vast majority of Americans aren't Indian, people would assume I wasn't Indian and I'd by a Racist."
So, in other words not being labeled a racist was, at least, part of your motivation. My point is that your accusation of corruption did not appear in any way to be based on thier race but rather on thier actions. Thus, even if you were wrong, it was not racism - let alone if you opinion was based on research and experience. It just so happened that the group you were criticising is grouped based on race.
It shouldn't matter *what* race you are for the accusation you gave - if I point out that black/dark skinned people have more melanin that those of lighter skin it doesn't make me a racist. If a non-white person pointing out a white person is corrupt based on thier actions then it isn't racist for a non-indian to point out an indian is corrupt based on thier actions (and, you will note if I typed this correctly, both were accusing an individual with no basis on thier race).
This has nothing to do with the actual article in the original post, just a rant on my end (hey, this is slashdot - sowhat :) ). It's something that greatly irritates me. Even many, if not most, anti-PC people fall for this one.
.6 or whatever kids - maybe I share them with someone else?) of the major religion and, finally, of the largest groups of any class you can think of (hair color, eye color, whatever). That is - I am the most majority person you have ever seen in your whole life or can imagine for the population in question. If I notice that a dog shit in my yard it doesn't make it not so, same thing if I note that some member of All Minority (the opposite of me, minority in ever classification you can think of - that being they are the only one of all instances alive) is a prick drug dealing asshole leader that is doing everything in thier power to use thier minority status to gain absolute power it doesn't change a thing. Either they are, or they are not. It's not racist for someone to think so - it depends on thier reasons.
"I'm Indian and from a Reservation and have known a fair share of Tribal Council and Chairpeople over the years that I can say they are corrupt for the most part without being a Troll or a Flamer."
You know, the fact of you being an Indian should be irrelevant - they are either corrupt or not. It doesn't matter if I am the average male of an exactly average (even to having
Racism/prejudice comes in that you attribute it to thier status or confer those bad qualities because of thier group (and notice that it has nothing to do with if they are either majority or minority). That is, you attribute thier status (good or not or some varying degree of those two states) based not on what they have done, but what group they belong too.
Being a member of that group doesn't give you the absolute right to criticise misbehaviour anymore than my not being a member of that group prohibits me from noticing that they are, to use a vulgar term explicitly and intentionally, fucktards. I don't care if you are Indian (or the Pc term Native American), Black, White, So Damn Mixed Up You Don't Have A Fucking Clue it doesn't mean you can't look at a person and conclude that they are taking money for political favors and that is wrong.
Until we become truly blind as far as your "group" you belong too we will never be free of it. I never once thought about you being racist - you provided enough info if I cared I could look it up. I didn't care if you were of thier group or not - it didn't matter. For anyone who it *does* matter your appeasing of them only hurts your general acceptance in the long run (you acknowledge that race matters). Better to just report what you see and respond to the trolls as they come. As done you accept thier premise that race matters, if you later show that you also meet thier pre-requisites for saying bad things about someone (that are, of course, justified) then you make them look stupid instead of reinforcing thier inherrent racism.
Many years ago in my first software engineering course we went over similar type stuff. One of the problems inherrent in our systems is the assumption of two hands - say, for example, ctrl-alt-del to reboot. Nowadays we are much more sensitive to this, but in the early days of DOS and such there was no real alternative, it was pointed out by the teacher (who had worked at a VA hospital for a few years) that many veterans had some issues - they could type well enough one handed but many key combinations were difficult, if not impossible, to do. One of those being ctrl-alt-del. In the 8086 days that was hard on a computer user. Even something small like "press the green button" can be impossible for someone red-green color blind (and that's really bad considering that in many MMO's green usually means "easy to kill" and red means "nearly impossible").
:) Personally I thought it was very funny, kinda a type of slapstick humor.
.5% of your population can't play your game, nor is there any reason to screw that .5% for no reason other than you don't care. It's a really hard balancing act, and not playing this game I can't say one way or another as to this change. The post and article are too biased, I need more information to fully know what to think.
Of course, me being an insensitive I ass pointed out (by demonstrating - not above a little self deprecation) that they could press ctrl-alt with one hand and smash thier face into the "del" key and do it. About half the students thought I was funny, the other half hated me
Personally, I'm a moderate dyslexic and there is a lot of things out there that are very difficult for me to do. I can memorise each side of a list but can't link them or put them in the correct order - nothing I do will solve this. Nor can I spell worth a flip - in a written media it can really hamper me (to get the grammar and spelling correct for this post would take me several hours of work going from a browser to a word processor). People give all sorts of great advice "Write it down over and over", "Here is a mnemonic", etc. I'm in my thirties, been using computers since my teens, I've been a physics and math junkie since long before them. I still can not do my multiplication tables - I know a few of them and work out from there (for example, I do not know 9x7 but I dod know 7x7 so I add enough 7's to 49 to get the answer). It's like telling an armless person if the *just try hard enough* that they will catch the ball with thier hands - except mine isn't obvious visually. I think I had maybe 4 or 5 teachers that knew what I meant and all had a dyslexic kid or sibling, the rest thought I was trying to cheat.
That being said - I find most dyslexic jokes funny even though some are kinda not accurate (much as my "smash your face into the keyboard"). I don't really mind jokes as long as they are jokes, and I will make many myself.
Personally I always try and think of disabled people when I deseign something, I can't say I always succede, or my bosses approve of my deseign, but I try. I know something of what they go through. Though once I got into the real world no one really cared if I could quote the ISO OSI hierarchy in order from memeory as long as I knew what I was doing and other were talking about. My other talents were good enough no one cared about the dyslexia. If I was armless, blind, or a parapeligic that wouldn't be so true.
Anyway, in the end one must balance what you hurt the majority of your base for the minority. It sucks to be in the minority (and I understand that, I'm also nearly deathly allergic to fish even to the point of not being able to be around them cooking it - something most resturaunts really push on fridays - I just severely limit where I go on fridays and bring my own food the large get-togethers where they have a fish fry). It doesn't do any good to go bankrupt because
I've seen this argued many times, and yet in every example I have it works the opposite. Private sites are signifigantly faster and the torrent stays up longer. I know my experiance isn't atypical either. I generally hate to have to go off to public sites except for a few types of things (such as a Linux iso). For mp3's or video public sites suck.
I'm curious how many private sites you've used or if this is just theory from reading the BT algorithm? Sometimes theory doesn't actually reflect reality. I have not seen any actual study done on it, just people who know the algorithm saying "it doesn't work that way" (or others quoting them). While everyone that has used both private and public sites says the opposite.
Generally I end up going with what actually happens instead of what someone thinks will happen (that's why you have the "collect data" step on scientific studies - even on algorithm performance, though I offer nothing more than anectdotal evidence). So far everything I have seen and everyone I know that uses both say that the private are faster and keep torrents longer.
"Seriously, this is the Sony I once knew and loved, when it did things like this all the time. Maybe those of us boycotting the entire company because of last month's debacle should adjust things a bit?"
Maybe, maybe not. Sony is a large corporation. It has many divisions that are most likely competing (both internally for funding and externally for market). Many times even the Brain (management) doesn't really know what is going on. While the right hand is taking away, the left hand and right foot are doing good - is this enough to boycott? Dunno - if it is enough that the brain realises this then yes, if not then you are hurting.
Look no further than the Sony music part fighting mp3's and the tech division selling portable players - the two division are only connected by some remote link through corporate. Thier business models are pretty much in opposition.
Really large multi-national corps are hard to define by thier very nature. They run anywhere from good to totally crap. You must decide if thier good parts outnumber thier bad, or if thier bad is enough that you don't care. Though there is no reason to give to their crap segments (no way I'm supporting the Music division) you have to decide if those segments are worth boycotting the rest (IMO no, but that is only an opinion and yours may very well be different).
Of course, there are corps that are pretty much mostly bad, but ones like Sony are harder to define.
It allows you to depreciate that money (write off on your taxes) a specific percentage per year - to total no more than a specific percentage of the total cost of the vehicle. That isn't anywhere close to getting the vehicle half price. Plus the vehicle must be a business vehicle, if you are audited it is not so then you are fined a VERY large amount (and they do actually check - my parents were audited recently). You do not get to deduct the percentage you drive on personal time.
You still have to get the full loan value, you still have to pay the full amount of the vehicle, but over the next three years, not pay taxes on you gross income equalling 50% of that vehicles cost (probably a few thousand of three years, even with a 150k vehicle). The govt doesn't give you anything, doesn't subsidise anything, you just don't pay taxes on part of your gross income.
Further, for many businesses deductions such as that are *required*. My parents gross over 300k a year, thier purchasing power was similar to mine when I made around 35k a year - that's not unusual. If you cut those deductions (and many, like my parents, require large 4wd trucks), while it may make you feel better, you will drive many many many businesses out of work. That may be acceptable to you right now, but I would be willing to bet that once that reality hit you wouldn't like it so much.
So, if said manual told you that you needed to touch a wire every thirty minutes to relieve excess static electricity that would be fine too? If it said to turn the console off for five minutes every thirty minutes played that would hunky dory? Or how about the manual forcing you to install a rootkit on your PC to play it - also good? My fault for not reading the manual when it catches on fire and burns the house down.
If the manual says so - then it's ok? Of course not - this is a design flaw. That the manual states this shows they even *knew* it was going to happen. Devices should be designed around thier use - a skillett that can not withstand heat over 150 degrees is a huge flaw regardless of if it says so in it's instructions. So is a *home* console that can't be used in your entertainment cabinet, on carpet, or most places in *your home*.
What most likely happened is microsoft rushed to get them out the door to beat the PSIII by a decent margin. They obviously knew about it if it is in the manual and let it go. I don't hate microsoft or anything (I'm writing from an XP box right now) but screw ups are screw ups and microsoft made one here. This will not endear them to many console users.
I don't really have a dog in this fight - for all toilets except the one in my own house I deposit my waste in them and let someone else worry about it. Though if it is a "flush" model I do so (well, I've never seen a non-flush model. I would most like spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out how to flush them - see below).
I most cases the "need to touch" for the flush has been eleminated. Generally, on things like this, I figure I'm in the minority. I live in east Tennessee (Knoxville) - Podunct Tennessee. If we have then I generally assume other do. I know I saw this year ago first while on travel, but many/most places have switched to the autoflush things. I think they are great - no need to worry, just use and go. The no touch faucets with warm water all the time are great also - I always wonder why someone didn't come up with it MUCH sooner, it's just such a great idea.
Though, I must admit, the first time I saw them I was confused. Being brought up in the typical rural society - one where you do your civic duty always - you flush, make sure you don't waste others water, and always wash (amongst other things - basically treat everything as if it was yours). So, use the urinal and then look over the whole thing, press any nubs that seem anywhere close to sanitary for a good ten minutes. Eventually the thing flushes and the light bulb goes off. I saw the auto-wash sinks after that and figured that one out immediatly after noticing that there was no water controll, though I still had the "Great idea" thought when I did.
When they remodeled the local mall it was VERY funny to just watch the bathroom areas - people who were not anything close to technically inclined and had it VERY tightly ingrainged in them to do certain things were just confused. I saw one older gentleman (at least in 70's) try and figure the faucets out for quite a number of minutes - I told him how to use them when I made it near him.
Rural people aren't stupid by any means - at least no more than anyone else (people are people - intelligence isn't based on where you live). Just never seen that type of thing - city people were just as confused at first, just it happened a few years earlier (about 5-10 years if my experience meant anything). I find myself confused when I go visit some of my relatives - they think my lack of knowledge about farm stuff as funny as I think of thiers (and many of the people around me) about technology. Just different worlds and it's funny when the collide.
You know, I live in Knoxville Tn - not the tech capital of the world. In fact, an area that you would think would be full of luddites that lap this type of study up.
However, the vast majority of people I know (most of which are technology ignorant and are about as "country" as you can get) think the same thing. Video games, whatever said, are better than TV. At least you have to think or need hand eye co-ordination. Yes, there are groups that don't think so - while they get a lot of press they are a pretty small minority. It's been surprising to me no matter how often it happens (Gun Club, Archery Club, my parents workers and clients in construction, etc) - the common perception is that they are luddites (though to some extent they are, but more a fear for thier jobs than anything else). In fact, we were discussing this a few days ago due to a local issue, of the 20 or so at the gun club *none* felt that games were bad - definatly better than vegging out on the TV and better than many of the activities kids have available to them.
I can't speak for other parts of the country, but if east Tennessee thinks this I have hard time thinking that it's fairly but common. If it's not, then it's up to the reader to either not believe me or rethink thier views on where they live. Personally I think this article is sensationalism journalism: "Your kids are gonna die!!!!!" and few buy it very far.
"I just visited Iceland a couple months back, and I have to say that it made me wonder why geothemal isn't more popular."
There are several reasons (the wiki article cited implies much of this). First, like hydroelectric, you can't just build them anywhere. The earth has to be a specific states for them (those states depend on the type being used). This is probably the main reason.
For the type you saw - probably some of the cleanest power production in the world - you need the hot springs and external steam sources. It's being pumped up to the surface anyway and we are just harnessing it there. This is mostly similar to hydroelectric in that it is not very invasive (much less than hydroelectric) and can actually create habitat and such. They are just rare. Only a few places on the planet you can do this and much of it is parks due to the natural beauty that they cause (say building large power plants over Yosemite National Park).
For others, especially the volcanic type, it is expensive and polluting. No, not greenhouse gasses but wonderful things like Radon and Hydrogen Sulfide gas (personally I go for the greenhouse gas). So not only more expensive, but worse for the environemnt. They are generally used in cases where the pollutive fallout isn't going to hurt anything (if the area surrounding it is already dead from volcanic activity, nothing to loose) and/or there is no other choice.
Other types aren't any better or worse, just different from coal and such. Dead from one thing is just as dead from another.
The one listed in the parent article seems to be pretty clean. It seems that taking the heat out of the ground in these cases doesn't hurt anything and there isn't any emissions, though I'll wait a while to decide on that one for sure. Remember, carbon emissions were thought to be clean at one time too - it wasn't until large scale long term effects were studied. This type has neither been around long term or large scale - not that I mean don't try, just don't do like we have in the past and assume because of models and smaller tests.
The saying "There is no such thing as a free lunch" has been pretty much true. You either have the power source rare, pollutive in production, pollutive in disposal, or pollutive while running. The company that solves this (if it is even solveable) will be one of the richest companies in the world.
"Because what you really want to do to the speeding 3-ton SUV is blind the driver... yup, definitely makes things safer for everyone."
Well, I would have to say that if the 3-ton SUV loaded with explosives was heading towards a school (or other populous area) that is protected by an extensive roadblock where one has to navigate through a small opening that isn't so dumb (or even far enough away that it simply runs off the road).
Blow up some concrete bariers or 50 people? Well, if you can't see the difference then I guess so. But me, I'll choose blowing up concrete barriers and some soldiers who volunteered to protect us instead of blowing through a checkpoint and blowing up civilians in a dangerous zone. Of course, those enlightened like you can see that this is useless, never mind that many out there doing the actual fighting would like to be able to stop people from running through checkpoints with explosives.
This isn't designed for stopping people driving down an open road in a peaceful place. Better that you evaluate what it is meant to stop instead of what it isn't. It's known as a "straw man" argument for a reason. There are MANY tactical reason why this would be useful in places like Iraq and it doesn't take much thought to see. Just because it's not so useful in Lincoln, Nebraska doesn't mean it isn't useful.
At the university I went to we did year end reviews of the professor and class. It was then taken to some of the student slaves, err workers, to type in and then the papers were destroyed. This is so that the prof can not indetify who the person was by thier handwriting.
They were pretty candid. I know I generally told the truth of what I though. Which meant that most profs got something mixed (for one thing, it explicitly asked what you thought was done wrong and everyone always can do something "better" no matter how much you liked the class). Later on as I was a quasi grad student/undergrad/researcher (was very lucky to get an internship and then full time employment at a govt lab in research while an undergrad. I had federal funding and refereed journal publications as an undergrad and I also took some grad courses my last two semesters there) I was pretty good friends with a few of the profs. I read some of thier reviews a few times - and for the most part they seemed honest. Some harsh, some good. Heh, some teachers even took it and changed, other didn't give a damn or considered thier students ungrateful or stupid (you can guess which teachers were good ones and which were not - and it didn't correlate at all with how hard they were either).
I don't know if that is typical in universities, always thought it was a good idea. Not to mention students pretty much all talk about "So and so is an ass - don't take thier class" anyway. Never understood the backlash he got for that website - our school spent a considerable sum of money for the same thing and it was required. Every tutorial I have given also does the same thing.
"Trying to be a friend, "
I would disagree, I think this is vital to being a good manager. But it takes two main things. Though this can change as you move up the ladder - the CEO doesn't really need to be daily friends with the Janators at IBM (though it would be good for thier managers to be), though it would probably do well for him to know some about them. Generally this applies to the level that you have to itneract with daily or even weekly.
First - don't forget you are a manager. As you said, you have to let the hammer drop from time to time. Being a friend shouldn't mean that can't happen, being a friend means you are not an ass about it. It means you will still have to force long hours for a project sometimes, promote someone over another, tell someone they need to work harder, and do other manager type stuff. And sometimes you have to fire or lay off someone, but again being friends just makes the lay off hard and emotional (typically if you have to fire someone then I would imagine being thier friend violates rule number two).
Second, it has to be real. Faking a friend doesn't work, if the person just doesn't like you, you don't try and force anything. If you can't really be a friend don't try. Being a friend also means that you are pretty much yourself, don't pretend to be chummy when your not.
This is good for several reasons. First, it's just the right thing to do. That's a subjective thing, but I think very important. Then there are sorta the crass reasons. Things like you know dissent between people, when you are pushing too hard/too easy, people take "We're gonna have to work long hours to get this out the door" from someone they know/like better than an aloof person. Essentially liking them and them liking you works a lot better than anything else.
The implicit thing above with rule number two is that an employee that is trying to take advantage of you isn't a friend, don't try and be.
I do agree that managers faking friendship because of the crass reasons or ones that forget they are managers suck though. But done correctly it makes a very happy and effecient work force, it even improves the managers effeciency and ahppiness quotient.
That's a personal problem, the last job I had I made plenty through doing software support, training and publishing in the software I wrote. I knew it better than anyone else so mine tended to be the more in-depth stuff. I suspect that my next job will do so also.
It's pretty common, look how many tutorials and papers at places like Ottowa Linux Symposium, Supercomputing, and other large conferences are written by the programmers. Even in some semi-canned software (Autocad for one) I've been put in touch with the programmers for support.
It's not code monkey work if that's all you want, it takes more discipline and knowledge, but it can be very rewarding. But then if all you want to be is a code monkey you shouldn't be complaining about this in the first place - you are limiting yourself in both your position and salary.
"And passed by a Republican majority congress."
At least in the senate - it passed without a single dissenting vote. I didn't look up the exact house vote, but by a HUGE margin also. Can't pick blame for either side, though I think the parent to you was making that point to a group of people who mostly blame the DMCA on republicans.
You know, it's interesting to look where both parties "agreed" - at least as far as voting goes. It's almost universally bad when they vote for it, though there have been a few decent things.
You will note that depsite the complaints of democrats about the patriot act it passed about just like the DMCA - 1 nay in the senate and 66 nays in the house. While it was a republican sponsered bill, the democrats voted en mass for the thing also. Again, no real winner if you actually payed attention to the actual vote (what really matters) instead of rhetoric.
It is sorta amusing to see what people think that thier political party stands for after watching the actual votes.
"In general, large tracts of land densely planted with a single species of tree with all trees of a similar age do not provide good habitat for wildlife. The crowded trees block out the light that would allow understory plants to grow, the plants that provide most of the food and cover for animals. Almost all animals require many different kinds of plants. Usually, the boundary between forest and fields provides the best habitat for animals."
I've read that in many places also, however when I try and hunt bowaters it never seems to be that way. It's usually so dense with plants, vines, honeysuckle, etc that I don't really see how the deer go through it (I can't and have lost deer because of it). Usually one hunts the roads because you can't see anywhere else.
Several of the local wildlife management areas are done in the same format as bowaters. Though, by far, the best deer come from grain farms but those are hard to grow in East Tennessee (ever hear the Rocky Top theme?), but that doesn't count squirrils, rabbits, birds, etc.
As for the best regions for wildlife, I think it would more depend on the type of wildlife - I doubt desert animals would thrive there. I am also sure that bowaters remove the best habitat for some, and is better for others. Forrests and fields would also be the same - good for some bad for others. Not to mention that field/woods boundary (at least around here) is mostly manmade. Go to areas that have almost never seen man and it's all big woods that have killed off nearly all the underbrush.
"The fact that a lot of deer are shot there does not prove that it is good habitat. Most of the east coast is overcrowded with deer, so they are pushed into marginal habitats. An open forest with no understory plants is also an easy place to see animals from a large distance, making them particularly vulnerable there."
Ok, I'll amend what I said - many are killed (and on average larger) than all other areas nearby. In fact, much larger and many more - and that includes places like our lease that are somewhat older growth (I suppose as old as you can find in this region - some VERY large oaks that we tend for thier acorns - what we refer to as "Big Woods"). The deer are pushed into us, which can easily be seen in years where they are not so overcrowded - almost none killed outside of bowaters. Though that has changed somewhat with a few of the larger tracts of land changing management styles. For instance, we run several medium sized food plots year round and several of our neighbors do also.
"I cannot say that any of this applies specifically to paper mill lands in TE, because I have never been there. But my general knowledge makes me skeptical of your claims."
*shrug* you can either believe me or not. I do not know other areas, I only know the ones I go in (and I know them from my ability to take game animals and thier relative health). I don't know what the textbooks say is good/bad for the animals or if what I see is universal (I would assume it's not universal - I would guess regions differ quite a bit) - but I can very well look at where ours are dense and am perfectly capable of noticing that ours are much smaller than the others. And I can also notice that the wildlife management service creates an environment very similar to the ones I see at bowaters.
I live in an area (I live near Clahoun, Tennessee) that creates a large amount of pulpwood for newspapers and is farmed. In fact, I believe the company is the largest producer of newspaper pulp in the US (at least it was a few years back - I don't really neep up with it or anything).
The company is called bowaters and owns several million acres of property. It is some of the best hunting lands in the state for pretty much all our local wildlife (and feral wildlife also). While yes, they clear cut if they aquire new property, and always clear cut when they harvest, the replanting of the trees is about as dense as can be sustained and is GREAT for wildlife - again one of the top hunting areas in the state with both large mature animals taken and a large yearly bag limit (and it's quite expensive to hunt as well).
They allow independant and govt forresters to view thier managment and make suggestions - they even usually follow them also.
I don't know what company you are near, but it is insane to purchase old growth forrest for wood pulp. It takes specific types of trees to make and old growth forrests are not very dense. Pulp manufacturers only purchase them if they need more land, and in many cases what they do with the land is beneficial for the local wildlife in the long term. Basically old growth is horrid for paper pulp - though it is generally good for expensive lumber because of the size of boards that can be harvested.
About the worst that can be said is that the place stinks real bad when you are not used to it and the gasses released, while not damaging, make a fog so thick that you can not see past the end of the hood on your car (literally). When conditions are right it can creep out over the interstate and has caused some of the largest wrecks in US history.
"I ask one question. What have you done to protect your rights, that the FBI are trampling? Posting sarcastic comments isn't doing anything to protect your rights."
I agree with this statement. Talking is worthless from a strict point of view. Sarcastic, while amusing to Believers, isn't productive in the long term.
"Did you vote? For the fraction of you that did, what else have you done? Because you can't just protect your rights by once every 4 years (it is 4 in America, right?) ticking a box and not doing anything else until the next 4 years."
First, I assume that since you asked it is more than 4 years. At the very least the congress critters are every two (and are arguably more important than the president). Local is based on local laws, which around here are every 6-12 months. I would argue that local is more important - they affect your life more - but that is another discussion.
As to what else to do? Do you think that protests do any good? Calling your congress critters? No, it doesn't - all they care about is votes. If they are protested all the time and 98% of thier calls are negative but are voted in by 75% nothing other than that "75%" counts to them. Everything else is just to sway potential voters, and IMO talking about it in real life or on message baords is amongst the best ways to get to a lot of people. Protests tend to be ignored (see the last few decades vs voting patterns) and I am assuming you are not violent.
"But what have you done to protect them? I'm betting the majority of you haven't done a damn thing (except vote)."
Like above, I suppose what do you mean by that? First off I figure I'm probably the other end of the political spectrum from you (though my advice so far - and never really in this post - is left or right) so some things may be different. Convincing the greatest number of people you are right is what you need to do, voting is just the culmination of that. Some protesting does this, but I highly suspect getting a decent rank on google with your *reasonable* ideas, speaking truth in message boards and blogs (not spin), and other things where you impact non-belivers (that the convinced agree is worthless - you already have them) is the best.