If looking ordinary is suspicious, sure, I'm making myself a target. However, if the person who suspects looking ordinary is a cover for being important is using that strategy to find important people, I can rest easy knowing that, with that strategy, they'll have to work through about three billion false positives on average before they get to looking at me.
Published estimates were likely wrong on purpose from the start to give them the opportunity for more media coverage and subsequently budget opportunities.
Bzzt. Wrong. First of all, what you're quoting (90 days) never was an estimated lifespan. If the estimated lifespan of a craft was 90 days, that would mean there's a substantial chance you'll only get 60 days out of it, or 120 for that matter. 90 days was never the expected lifespan. 90 days was the promised minimum lifespan. They were very certain it would last at least 90 days. If you think about that a minute, that means they estimated it would probably last much longer than that, or else they couldn't be that certain it would last at least 90 days. In fact, they expected it to last about three times that -- they expected the rover would keep going until the Martian winter. They just weren't terribly confident it would survive the winter...
Why should it apply to taxation? Taxes are not a social program. It's designed to pay for government.
And insurance premiums are designed to pay for insurance. They are, nevertheless, adjusted to the value of what's being insured. It would be silly to suggest every person pay a fixed amount for their home insurance when some people own much more expensive homes.
Why would the same principle not apply to government? We all need to pay for the army, police, and such to continue to have all that we have, not only our insured homes but our lives, our livelihoods, and ultimately are civilization. It be bizarre to suggest that when your assets are worth $10 million and mine are with $10 thousand we should be paying the same fixed amount to protect them. If your livelihood amounts to a $500,000/yr salary and mine is a $50,000/yr salary, should be paying an equal fixed amount for its protection, or should we be paying proportionally?
Your insurance company would laugh you out of the office, but for some reason, you think your government shouldn't?
But you have to remember that a cop has to press the charges to be heard before the judge, and a prosecutor argue the case. So I would think if the case was worth trying or pressing charges, then the crime did happen.
Ever have an on-duty cop come talk to you about a crime? I've had it happen a couple of times. First thing I learned is that you can recognize when an on-duty cop is lying: his lips are moving. Second thing I've figured out is that cops are horribly bad at figuring out who committed a crime, but they're all quite sure they're very good at it. This is, of course, why it's so easy for them to lie, cheat, fake evidence, or do whatever else they choose to do to get a conviction. They're sure they're right, so if a few fabrications here and there help them get the job done, it's all for the greater good, right?
I'm sure there are honest cops out there, but they're probably back at HQ filing reports. You're unlikely to actually meet one on-duty. Most criminals I've met were more honest than most cops. And poorer liars when they weren't -- they probably don't get as much practice.
Bad cops are corrupted by the desire for money. Good cops are corrupted, ironically, by the desire to do what they believe is for the greater good. But either way, they tend to be corrupt. You really shouldn't draw any conclusions about anyone based on what a cop's willing to testify about them. It's meaningless...
I am too. This, in a nutshell, is why people like you and me need to stick it out, pass the bar, and begin practicing; so worthless pricks like this get swiftly and brutally brought to justice.
That can happen no matter who runs the prisons. If you think there's some general method of preventing corruption in human institutions, you're fooling yourself. Badly.
Perfect... enemy... good...
You can't make a system corruption-proof, but that doesn't mean all alternatives are equally bad. All human institutions are corruptible, but some are more susceptible than others.
You know, I agree with all that. The problem is, unless all people have access to these things, you incentivize crime. Right now, if I get sick, my best option might be to go rob a drugstore. Not for the drugs, but to be arrested so that I can actually get health care...
Corruption is inevitable when the incentive exists.
Congratulations! You comprehend human nature! Don't engage in political conversations, all political theories are based on the notion that men are angels. Even the ones that start from the point that they aren't. Those merely say some men aren't angels, then set up corruption-prone systems to deal with the devils, counting on the fact that the men running their governments are angels. The crowning irony of the Bush years was the party of people who believe government is the enemy supporting giving broad power to the government to deal with its enemies... XD
Private firefighting doesn't work because the blazing building threatens the entire city, not just the poor sod who didn't buy a firefighting contract. At the very least, some regulation must be done to prevent fire hazards in the first place, because we all pay the costs if your warehouse isn't safe, so if we all have to be responsible for it, we all have some right to say what you can put in it. Likewise, we all have to pay the firefighters, because we all lose are homes if we don't, even if it wasn't our firetrap that was responsible for the blaze. Some tasks require everyone to pay in to be fair, whether they want to pay in or not, and everyone to obey certain regulations, whether they want to or not. A lack of taxes is fundamentally immoral, and a lack of regulation is fundamentally stupid.
But fires aren't the only threat to people today. Especially in our interconnected global economy. The sad but true fact is, some regulation is required to protect us all, because it's not just the bad investors who lose, and some money is required from us all, because we all have to pay to fix things and we all benefit when they're fixed.
Reasonable libertarians acknowledge this much, just say we should keep it at a minimum. But far too many are the "out there" ones who insist there should be none at all. That just ignores the reality of things.
No no no. You are presenting rational and well-thought out libertarian ideas. Slashdot prefers the dyed-in-the-wool batshit crazy kind since this makes them feel both superior and special.
Ha! Thankfully, intelligent libertarians are extremely rare, so we don't have to worry about it too often...
And if you don't believe in God, but want to see them punished, you must prefer this to "capital punishment". Unless you think someone is going to burn in hell, "capital punishment" isn't punishment. It simply eliminates people. They don't end up suffering punishment in any way. You have to be alive to suffer anything. If they'd be miserable for the rest of their lives (due to being old with no job skills or pensions), you'd actually be doing them a favor...
It would not act as an actual deterrent. Most people who commit crimes do not believe they will be caught, so what the punishment is is utterly irrelevant. The ONLY way to change that is not by changing the punishment but by changing the system in such a way that getting caught is more likely. Increased monitoring, auditing, etc.
... likely to perform similar crimes in the future.
Um, I'm having trouble picturing this. You suspect that after they're disbarred, they'll be hired in some other country or something? With this on their records, and being practically at retirement age already (They will be once they serve 87 months somewhere.)
I think it's pretty damn near impossible for them to perform similar crimes in the future.
I think you mean "Protestant". Those are the people who are always quoting Old Testament like it's the Word of God Himself, rather than a collection of stories written down by old rabbis who happened to be fallible humans. Certain extreme orthodox people aside...
It costs more to execute them than to just feed and house them for life. Unless you also favor eliminating due process. In which case, it'll be cheaper and only cost the lives of innocent people instead of tax dollars...
People schedule entire vacations just to go out to (insert random vacation city here) and piss their money away. Silly people...
SOME people have a problem, but some people just enjoy it and are willing to spend the money. There's nothing stupid about spending your money on an activity you enjoy. You spend the money and you get the enjoyment you want for it. The same simple formula that drives any "silly" expense of money where you don't get anything material back in return. Movies and WoW fall into the same camp. It's not silly in any of these cases if you have the money to spend (and it is silly in all cases if you don't).
According to what you C&P'd, you can't read. It's legal to use it for your own game at your house, so it's legal to own. It's not legal to own it with the intent to use it to actually make money, and it's not legal to use it, either.
Well, if you want to get picky, according to the C&P'd text, you can't read either.;) It's legal to own it with intent to use it to actually make money, it's just not legal to do so "at a licensed gaming establishment". It's perfectly legal to own it, intend to use it, and even actually use it to make money anywhere else.
If your nine year old will, of his own volition, sit still for an hour at a time, you've either heavily medicated him, or have done an extraordinary job of parenting.
Or that's just his nature. I got frequent complaints as a child that I'd startled someone half to death, usually by moving when they didn't realize or had forgotten that I was in the room with them and had simply been quietly sitting there for the last hour or two.
I don't think that's an example of extraordinary parenting, although I'm sure it's at least partially environmental. A usual view inside my house as a kid would show a number of people, across generations, all with their noses in books. Nine is, what, 4th grade? I was already hooked by then. 4th or 5th was when I started chewing through Heinlein's stuff (the juvenile books, of course, the school library didn't stock the pornographic political treatises).
When I was at school I was taught that one the definition of life included 'Was made of cells' which immediately excluded viruses and fire. That has probably changed now though.
It's not a matter of having "changed" as much as never having been accurate to begin with. Nearly everything I was told in jr. high and high school science classes was more misleading than Slashdot headlines and summaries...
I'm reminded of the time I complained that tomorrow is not, in fact, always a day away, in fact it's almost never that, and sometimes less than a second away.
"Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you, tomorrow, you're on average 12 hours away..."
Actually, that's more or less the point. Without a better idea of the number of dark comets in Earth-crossing orbits, any estimate of the risk is highly speculative, and that's a problem. We don't know what the actual risk of an impact is, and ignorance is inherently risky. It may be that if the numbers were known, the risk would be as low as Francis estimates, or it may be ten or a hundred or a thousand times greater. Any guess at this point is speculative. A lot of us would sleep better with more hard data instead.
Sounds like there's not really any reason to worry about it then if there's nothing we can do.
If the utterly false statement that "there's nothing we can do" were true, you'd have a point there.
Isn't that the definition of FUD?
No. In fact, it's almost entirely unrelated to FUD in the usual sense. FUD usually involves getting you to choose one option over another due to spurious reasons, e.g. choose product A because product B is open-source so the bad guys can insert exploits into the code (they accept contributions from anyone, after all -- this was an argument my old boss made). Trying to move people from a situation where they're unprepared to deal with a real threat to a situation where they're better prepared for it is pretty much the opposite.
Slashdot Mirror
A lot of people use disastrously bad comparisons. People who use hyperbole usually take it to astronomical levels.
If looking ordinary is suspicious, sure, I'm making myself a target. However, if the person who suspects looking ordinary is a cover for being important is using that strategy to find important people, I can rest easy knowing that, with that strategy, they'll have to work through about three billion false positives on average before they get to looking at me.
Published estimates were likely wrong on purpose from the start to give them the opportunity for more media coverage and subsequently budget opportunities.
Bzzt. Wrong. First of all, what you're quoting (90 days) never was an estimated lifespan. If the estimated lifespan of a craft was 90 days, that would mean there's a substantial chance you'll only get 60 days out of it, or 120 for that matter. 90 days was never the expected lifespan. 90 days was the promised minimum lifespan. They were very certain it would last at least 90 days. If you think about that a minute, that means they estimated it would probably last much longer than that, or else they couldn't be that certain it would last at least 90 days. In fact, they expected it to last about three times that -- they expected the rover would keep going until the Martian winter. They just weren't terribly confident it would survive the winter...
Why should it apply to taxation? Taxes are not a social program. It's designed to pay for government.
And insurance premiums are designed to pay for insurance. They are, nevertheless, adjusted to the value of what's being insured. It would be silly to suggest every person pay a fixed amount for their home insurance when some people own much more expensive homes.
Why would the same principle not apply to government? We all need to pay for the army, police, and such to continue to have all that we have, not only our insured homes but our lives, our livelihoods, and ultimately are civilization. It be bizarre to suggest that when your assets are worth $10 million and mine are with $10 thousand we should be paying the same fixed amount to protect them. If your livelihood amounts to a $500,000/yr salary and mine is a $50,000/yr salary, should be paying an equal fixed amount for its protection, or should we be paying proportionally?
Your insurance company would laugh you out of the office, but for some reason, you think your government shouldn't?
But you have to remember that a cop has to press the charges to be heard before the judge, and a prosecutor argue the case. So I would think if the case was worth trying or pressing charges, then the crime did happen.
Ever have an on-duty cop come talk to you about a crime? I've had it happen a couple of times. First thing I learned is that you can recognize when an on-duty cop is lying: his lips are moving. Second thing I've figured out is that cops are horribly bad at figuring out who committed a crime, but they're all quite sure they're very good at it. This is, of course, why it's so easy for them to lie, cheat, fake evidence, or do whatever else they choose to do to get a conviction. They're sure they're right, so if a few fabrications here and there help them get the job done, it's all for the greater good, right?
I'm sure there are honest cops out there, but they're probably back at HQ filing reports. You're unlikely to actually meet one on-duty. Most criminals I've met were more honest than most cops. And poorer liars when they weren't -- they probably don't get as much practice.
Bad cops are corrupted by the desire for money. Good cops are corrupted, ironically, by the desire to do what they believe is for the greater good. But either way, they tend to be corrupt. You really shouldn't draw any conclusions about anyone based on what a cop's willing to testify about them. It's meaningless...
I am too. This, in a nutshell, is why people like you and me need to stick it out, pass the bar, and begin practicing; so worthless pricks like this get swiftly and brutally brought to justice.
Rock on! \o/ Best of luck, both of you...
Same reason you'd outsource anything else - constrain costs and not be stuck with inventory.
I thought the usual reason was to shift away responsibility, benefit your friends and/or receive kickbacks.
That can happen no matter who runs the prisons. If you think there's some general method of preventing corruption in human institutions, you're fooling yourself. Badly.
Perfect... enemy... good...
You can't make a system corruption-proof, but that doesn't mean all alternatives are equally bad. All human institutions are corruptible, but some are more susceptible than others.
You know, I agree with all that. The problem is, unless all people have access to these things, you incentivize crime. Right now, if I get sick, my best option might be to go rob a drugstore. Not for the drugs, but to be arrested so that I can actually get health care...
Corruption is inevitable when the incentive exists.
Congratulations! You comprehend human nature! Don't engage in political conversations, all political theories are based on the notion that men are angels. Even the ones that start from the point that they aren't. Those merely say some men aren't angels, then set up corruption-prone systems to deal with the devils, counting on the fact that the men running their governments are angels. The crowning irony of the Bush years was the party of people who believe government is the enemy supporting giving broad power to the government to deal with its enemies... XD
Public education, anyone?
It only works if you're paying attention. IIRC, 90% of my classmates weren't...
*nods*
Private firefighting doesn't work because the blazing building threatens the entire city, not just the poor sod who didn't buy a firefighting contract. At the very least, some regulation must be done to prevent fire hazards in the first place, because we all pay the costs if your warehouse isn't safe, so if we all have to be responsible for it, we all have some right to say what you can put in it. Likewise, we all have to pay the firefighters, because we all lose are homes if we don't, even if it wasn't our firetrap that was responsible for the blaze. Some tasks require everyone to pay in to be fair, whether they want to pay in or not, and everyone to obey certain regulations, whether they want to or not. A lack of taxes is fundamentally immoral, and a lack of regulation is fundamentally stupid.
But fires aren't the only threat to people today. Especially in our interconnected global economy. The sad but true fact is, some regulation is required to protect us all, because it's not just the bad investors who lose, and some money is required from us all, because we all have to pay to fix things and we all benefit when they're fixed.
Reasonable libertarians acknowledge this much, just say we should keep it at a minimum. But far too many are the "out there" ones who insist there should be none at all. That just ignores the reality of things.
No no no. You are presenting rational and well-thought out libertarian ideas. Slashdot prefers the dyed-in-the-wool batshit crazy kind since this makes them feel both superior and special.
Ha! Thankfully, intelligent libertarians are extremely rare, so we don't have to worry about it too often...
And if you don't believe in God, but want to see them punished, you must prefer this to "capital punishment". Unless you think someone is going to burn in hell, "capital punishment" isn't punishment. It simply eliminates people. They don't end up suffering punishment in any way. You have to be alive to suffer anything. If they'd be miserable for the rest of their lives (due to being old with no job skills or pensions), you'd actually be doing them a favor...
It would not act as an actual deterrent. Most people who commit crimes do not believe they will be caught, so what the punishment is is utterly irrelevant. The ONLY way to change that is not by changing the punishment but by changing the system in such a way that getting caught is more likely. Increased monitoring, auditing, etc.
... likely to perform similar crimes in the future.
Um, I'm having trouble picturing this. You suspect that after they're disbarred, they'll be hired in some other country or something? With this on their records, and being practically at retirement age already (They will be once they serve 87 months somewhere.)
I think it's pretty damn near impossible for them to perform similar crimes in the future.
Are you Jewish or something? Eye for an eye?
I think you mean "Protestant". Those are the people who are always quoting Old Testament like it's the Word of God Himself, rather than a collection of stories written down by old rabbis who happened to be fallible humans. Certain extreme orthodox people aside...
It costs more to execute them than to just feed and house them for life. Unless you also favor eliminating due process. In which case, it'll be cheaper and only cost the lives of innocent people instead of tax dollars...
People schedule entire vacations just to go out to (insert random vacation city here) and piss their money away. Silly people...
SOME people have a problem, but some people just enjoy it and are willing to spend the money. There's nothing stupid about spending your money on an activity you enjoy. You spend the money and you get the enjoyment you want for it. The same simple formula that drives any "silly" expense of money where you don't get anything material back in return. Movies and WoW fall into the same camp. It's not silly in any of these cases if you have the money to spend (and it is silly in all cases if you don't).
According to what you C&P'd, you can't read. It's legal to use it for your own game at your house, so it's legal to own. It's not legal to own it with the intent to use it to actually make money, and it's not legal to use it, either.
Well, if you want to get picky, according to the C&P'd text, you can't read either. ;) It's legal to own it with intent to use it to actually make money, it's just not legal to do so "at a licensed gaming establishment". It's perfectly legal to own it, intend to use it, and even actually use it to make money anywhere else.
If your nine year old will, of his own volition, sit still for an hour at a time, you've either heavily medicated him, or have done an extraordinary job of parenting.
Or that's just his nature. I got frequent complaints as a child that I'd startled someone half to death, usually by moving when they didn't realize or had forgotten that I was in the room with them and had simply been quietly sitting there for the last hour or two.
I don't think that's an example of extraordinary parenting, although I'm sure it's at least partially environmental. A usual view inside my house as a kid would show a number of people, across generations, all with their noses in books. Nine is, what, 4th grade? I was already hooked by then. 4th or 5th was when I started chewing through Heinlein's stuff (the juvenile books, of course, the school library didn't stock the pornographic political treatises).
When I was at school I was taught that one the definition of life included 'Was made of cells' which immediately excluded viruses and fire. That has probably changed now though.
It's not a matter of having "changed" as much as never having been accurate to begin with. Nearly everything I was told in jr. high and high school science classes was more misleading than Slashdot headlines and summaries...
I'll bet you're a lot of fun at parties.
I'm reminded of the time I complained that tomorrow is not, in fact, always a day away, in fact it's almost never that, and sometimes less than a second away.
"Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you, tomorrow, you're on average 12 hours away..."
Actually, that's more or less the point. Without a better idea of the number of dark comets in Earth-crossing orbits, any estimate of the risk is highly speculative, and that's a problem. We don't know what the actual risk of an impact is, and ignorance is inherently risky. It may be that if the numbers were known, the risk would be as low as Francis estimates, or it may be ten or a hundred or a thousand times greater. Any guess at this point is speculative. A lot of us would sleep better with more hard data instead.
Sounds like there's not really any reason to worry about it then if there's nothing we can do.
If the utterly false statement that "there's nothing we can do" were true, you'd have a point there.
Isn't that the definition of FUD?
No. In fact, it's almost entirely unrelated to FUD in the usual sense. FUD usually involves getting you to choose one option over another due to spurious reasons, e.g. choose product A because product B is open-source so the bad guys can insert exploits into the code (they accept contributions from anyone, after all -- this was an argument my old boss made). Trying to move people from a situation where they're unprepared to deal with a real threat to a situation where they're better prepared for it is pretty much the opposite.