It's not as if our nations military consists of strategic bombers and a couple guys who guard them with wooden swords
Military grade weapons are successfully kept out of the hands of all but a few individuals. A full scale revolt might succeed in the United States, but never without the complacency of the military.
What, you think a couple of guys with hunting rifles are going to do any serious damage against an armored tank division? Did you see what the military bases looked like on Sept 12, 2001? The naval acadamy was guarding its doors with anti-tank rockets and claymore mines, and that was just the back gate.
Perhaps the senario you're talking about is possible with the co-operation of the military, but then... what do you need the guns for in that case? The military has pleanty of those.
Vietnam: A well armed populace backed by the might of the Chinese army and supplied by the military industrial complex built by the Chinese and the Soviets before 1962
Afghanistan: A well armed populace consisting of, among other, Osama Bin Laden. Armed by the United States of America and trained by the CIA.
Any examples where there's not a superpowe involved?
One example is the one that the framers were thinking of when put in the ammendment, which is to overthrow the government by force. One of the many excellent checks and balances in the US constitution
I get really pissed off when I read this rational. This goes beyond idiotic. Perhaps -=perhaps=- in the late 1700s you could overthrow the government by keeping a few muskets around the house. Today this is meaningless.
If things ever come to the point where you need to overthrow the government and all you've got are the guns in your house you aren't going to get very far. If you do get very far, rest assured someone will simply drop a few tons of high explosives on your house from 50,000 feet.
Claiming you need to have guns to overthrow a tyranical government is a lot like claiming you have to have rutabegas to overthrow the same.
Problem with that is that people bond with the music of their youth. Once the music is 10 years old or so, the people who are most interested in it are suddenly productive members of society instead of slack ass teenagers.
The RIAA wouldn't agree to a scale like that unless it aligned with that point in time where people start listening to classical music. So teen + 30-50 years or so?
I'm not ready to throw in the towell, but it's fundamentaly a trade off. There is an inherent value in allowing anyone to contribute. There is another inherent value in allowing only those with specific credentials to contribute.
Ultimately you can't have your cake and eat it too. There is something to be said for the model of democratic information. Then again, there's something to be said for only one right answer.
There can be compromises, of course. But there is no way to preserve the ideal state of one without sacrificing some or all of the other.
There's really no good way to solve this problem with Wikipedia. Part and parcel of the entire point of the site is that anyone can put the information up there. The standing theory is that, given the choice, people won't change it unless they're sure. I might think Washington's Birthday is on April the 22, but given that Wikipedia says otherwise and I don't have anything to back up my groundless assertion, I'm not going to change it.
The problem, is not willfull ignorance, as the Intelligent Design bit would suggest (to read my take on Intelegent Design click here and here) but simple ignorance. There is no hair brained cult that belives that Washington was born on some other day and doesn't like to be told otherwise. However, I've not the slightest idea when he was born, and as a consequence won't change the date if it's wrong.
Of course, the more obscure the article the more likely it is to be so undermined. Some 8th grader doing a report on Washington is likely to notice a birthday discrepancy. This is less likely for an article on an obscure branch of materials science.
So the question then becomes, what will the MPAA do? Netflix is probably right, as long as they run a open ended service w/out late fees, they're set. Blockbuster is still tied to a brick and morter establishment that prevents them from really running Netflix into the ground, Amazon and Walmart while in possession of huge amounts of $$$ aren't first to market on this.
Fundamentaly, when someone thinks of mail delivered DVDs they think netflix.
They're right, download on demand movies are the only real threat they face, and that decision remains up to the MPAA. A legal download option stands to one-up netflix simply because it removes the need for postage.
Of course, there is still the bandwidth/time/storage problem to contend with, but time should solve those for any theoretical on demand download site.
You need to run for congress. That said, I'm fairly sure that voting for this law would, in and of itself, constitute a violation of the bill in question.
You're talking about passing a law which gives the judicial brance the ability to impeach (allbeit once a charge has been brought) AND convict. As is the court's only role is to provide a presiding officer in the event of an impeachment trial.
But every discussion also gets posts by fucktards who prattle on about "teh First Post! W00t!" and give us links to men who can fit a 1967 Chevy Impalla in their rectum.
Now, if Slashdot could craft a moderation system that didn't simply enforce groupthink and instead actuly did something about these problems, then yes, perhaps they could charge for access to knowledge.
I was about to comment that it's also not desireable (from the point of view of a law enforcement agency) to have cops on their hands a knees sniffing people's shoes.
Then I realized that you're probably British of some varity.
Because, while you have no expectation of privacy for the contents of your vehicle's cab, you do have that expectation for the trunk.
Without probable cause, the police officer can't search your car's trunk. (Interesting, refusing his request to search your trunk suffices for probable cause).
This is neatly circumvented by having a dog trained to smell drugs indicate that there are drugs in the trunk. Now the cop has his probable cause and doesn't need to risk his career to search your trunk.
I can't think of 825 movies I'd bother loading on to the thing.
Hell, I'll take it one step further. If I could flat out HAVE any movie I wanted I don't think I'd have 825 movies on the list.
99% of what's out there is poorly thought out, poorly implemented, poorly written tripe.
The 1% that's left over, that's what I'd buy and load up on my hypothetical jukebox. Even then, I doubt I could sell Casablanca on Ebay for much of anything.
Also common in AML treatments if I'm not mistaken. You're right on this, but I pointed to brain tumors because the brain is, today, one of the most difficult portions of the human body to do anything to without permenently screwing it up.
Your point is well taken though, stem cell transplants are saving lives today.
It's very on topic. There's a lot of fear about using a virus as frightning as HIV to fight cancer. I'm simply pointing out that I've known people who've chosen to be infected with live, real, deadly HIV rather than submit to a death from cancer. Effectively staving off death for 10+ years.
Would people use a modified, assumed harmless type of HIV to fight cancer? If they'll willingly give themselves a full blown and deadly strain of the virus to buy 10 more years you can be damn sure they'll try a supposedly neutered version.
It was someone she knew personaly.... an older sister I think (imagine being her parrents... I don't know how they dealt with it).
As a cancer survivor myself, I know where you're coming from. Though... I can see why they wouldn't want a leukemia patient giving blood/marrow!
I'm trying to think of a cancer that isn't in the marrow by default but can show up there easily short of matastization and I'm coming up blank. What did you have?
Generaly the virus used is the Herpes Simplex A virus due to the ease of genetic packaging.
That said, no virus can be engineered to just attack cancer cells. Cancer cells are identical to non-cancerous cells in nearly all respects. The difference isn't in what they "look like" but what they do. Cancer cells do not (generaly) preform the task that their non-cancerous counterparts preform and instead divide rapidly.
So the way you target cancer is targeting dividing cells. Since cancer cells divide more rapidly than non-cancerous cells they die off in higher numbers. Lather, rise, repeat. Eventualy you're out of cancer cells.
The problem is that radiation and chemo make the patient very sick, and the dehydration effects tend to leave them weakened and unable to continue treatment. Chemo and Radiation thus become a balance between killing the cancer and killing the patient.
A virus could be different because unlike the injestion of poison (Chemo) or exposure to Radiation, the body does not generaly react to viral infection with vomiting and other nasty side affects.
The result is that you can get more cancer killing power per unit of patient killing power. This in turn translates to a higher cure rate for cancers.
This is why stem cells are so interesting for curing cancers. Got a brain tumor? Great.... we'll zap the shit out of it and toss in some stem cells... in a few days you'll have regenerated the brain tissue and you'll be good as new. That's science fiction today, but it's well within the realm of possibility in a few years.
A high dose of AZT following a possible HIV infection has been shown to dramaticly decrease the risk of infection. I work with children with cancer and/or HIV on a volunteer basis and we keep a fair bit of the stuff around for just that reason.
That said, HIV isn't terribly dangerous to work with. Admittedly it's hella scary, but given that the bug isn't airborn and that we can ameliorate any infection with a huge dose of AZT those working with patients have little to fear.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not as if our nations military consists of strategic bombers and a couple guys who guard them with wooden swords
Military grade weapons are successfully kept out of the hands of all but a few individuals. A full scale revolt might succeed in the United States, but never without the complacency of the military.
What, you think a couple of guys with hunting rifles are going to do any serious damage against an armored tank division? Did you see what the military bases looked like on Sept 12, 2001? The naval acadamy was guarding its doors with anti-tank rockets and claymore mines, and that was just the back gate.
Perhaps the senario you're talking about is possible with the co-operation of the military, but then... what do you need the guns for in that case? The military has pleanty of those.
Vietnam: A well armed populace backed by the might of the Chinese army and supplied by the military industrial complex built by the Chinese and the Soviets before 1962
Afghanistan: A well armed populace consisting of, among other, Osama Bin Laden. Armed by the United States of America and trained by the CIA.
Any examples where there's not a superpowe involved?
One example is the one that the framers were thinking of when put in the ammendment, which is to overthrow the government by force. One of the many excellent checks and balances in the US constitution
I get really pissed off when I read this rational. This goes beyond idiotic. Perhaps -=perhaps=- in the late 1700s you could overthrow the government by keeping a few muskets around the house. Today this is meaningless.
If things ever come to the point where you need to overthrow the government and all you've got are the guns in your house you aren't going to get very far. If you do get very far, rest assured someone will simply drop a few tons of high explosives on your house from 50,000 feet.
Claiming you need to have guns to overthrow a tyranical government is a lot like claiming you have to have rutabegas to overthrow the same.
People doesn't only refer to citizens, however, and the courts have been pretty clear on that.
We don't lock of tourists wihtout trial or the right to confront their accuser... or at least we didn't a few years ago.
People == Human beings.
That said, citizens are then human beings who meet other requirements.
Anyone who doesn't use telnet is an *ssh*l*...
Either that or I'm back in a college environment getting a second degree and surrounded by people quite a bit younger than I am.
Problem with that is that people bond with the music of their youth. Once the music is 10 years old or so, the people who are most interested in it are suddenly productive members of society instead of slack ass teenagers.
The RIAA wouldn't agree to a scale like that unless it aligned with that point in time where people start listening to classical music. So teen + 30-50 years or so?
I'm not ready to throw in the towell, but it's fundamentaly a trade off. There is an inherent value in allowing anyone to contribute. There is another inherent value in allowing only those with specific credentials to contribute.
Ultimately you can't have your cake and eat it too. There is something to be said for the model of democratic information. Then again, there's something to be said for only one right answer.
There can be compromises, of course. But there is no way to preserve the ideal state of one without sacrificing some or all of the other.
There's really no good way to solve this problem with Wikipedia. Part and parcel of the entire point of the site is that anyone can put the information up there. The standing theory is that, given the choice, people won't change it unless they're sure. I might think Washington's Birthday is on April the 22, but given that Wikipedia says otherwise and I don't have anything to back up my groundless assertion, I'm not going to change it.
The problem, is not willfull ignorance, as the Intelligent Design bit would suggest (to read my take on Intelegent Design click here and here) but simple ignorance. There is no hair brained cult that belives that Washington was born on some other day and doesn't like to be told otherwise. However, I've not the slightest idea when he was born, and as a consequence won't change the date if it's wrong.
Of course, the more obscure the article the more likely it is to be so undermined. Some 8th grader doing a report on Washington is likely to notice a birthday discrepancy. This is less likely for an article on an obscure branch of materials science.
Alternitively, rather than exposing Janet Jackson's nipple, they could have downloaded four of her songs and bought a BMW.
Shouldn't I have to punch a monkey or something first?
So the question then becomes, what will the MPAA do? Netflix is probably right, as long as they run a open ended service w/out late fees, they're set. Blockbuster is still tied to a brick and morter establishment that prevents them from really running Netflix into the ground, Amazon and Walmart while in possession of huge amounts of $$$ aren't first to market on this.
Fundamentaly, when someone thinks of mail delivered DVDs they think netflix.
They're right, download on demand movies are the only real threat they face, and that decision remains up to the MPAA. A legal download option stands to one-up netflix simply because it removes the need for postage.
Of course, there is still the bandwidth/time/storage problem to contend with, but time should solve those for any theoretical on demand download site.
You need to run for congress. That said, I'm fairly sure that voting for this law would, in and of itself, constitute a violation of the bill in question.
You're talking about passing a law which gives the judicial brance the ability to impeach (allbeit once a charge has been brought) AND convict. As is the court's only role is to provide a presiding officer in the event of an impeachment trial.
But every discussion also gets posts by fucktards who prattle on about "teh First Post! W00t!" and give us links to men who can fit a 1967 Chevy Impalla in their rectum.
Now, if Slashdot could craft a moderation system that didn't simply enforce groupthink and instead actuly did something about these problems, then yes, perhaps they could charge for access to knowledge.
As is, they can sell ad space.
I was about to comment that it's also not desireable (from the point of view of a law enforcement agency) to have cops on their hands a knees sniffing people's shoes.
Then I realized that you're probably British of some varity.
Mmmmm.... need coffee......
Haven't you noticed that every reply is fed with a banner ad?
--Turns off Adblock in Firefox--
Oh.... yea... I guess it is.
Because, while you have no expectation of privacy for the contents of your vehicle's cab, you do have that expectation for the trunk.
Without probable cause, the police officer can't search your car's trunk. (Interesting, refusing his request to search your trunk suffices for probable cause).
This is neatly circumvented by having a dog trained to smell drugs indicate that there are drugs in the trunk. Now the cop has his probable cause and doesn't need to risk his career to search your trunk.
But, good luck with your "we don't know everything, therefore we know nothing" attitude towards science. I'm sure that will get you far in life.
That's going in my quote book. Nicely said.
I can't think of 825 movies I'd bother loading on to the thing.
Hell, I'll take it one step further. If I could flat out HAVE any movie I wanted I don't think I'd have 825 movies on the list.
99% of what's out there is poorly thought out, poorly implemented, poorly written tripe.
The 1% that's left over, that's what I'd buy and load up on my hypothetical jukebox. Even then, I doubt I could sell Casablanca on Ebay for much of anything.
Also common in AML treatments if I'm not mistaken. You're right on this, but I pointed to brain tumors because the brain is, today, one of the most difficult portions of the human body to do anything to without permenently screwing it up.
Your point is well taken though, stem cell transplants are saving lives today.
It's very on topic. There's a lot of fear about using a virus as frightning as HIV to fight cancer. I'm simply pointing out that I've known people who've chosen to be infected with live, real, deadly HIV rather than submit to a death from cancer. Effectively staving off death for 10+ years.
Would people use a modified, assumed harmless type of HIV to fight cancer? If they'll willingly give themselves a full blown and deadly strain of the virus to buy 10 more years you can be damn sure they'll try a supposedly neutered version.
It was someone she knew personaly.... an older sister I think (imagine being her parrents... I don't know how they dealt with it).
As a cancer survivor myself, I know where you're coming from. Though... I can see why they wouldn't want a leukemia patient giving blood/marrow!
I'm trying to think of a cancer that isn't in the marrow by default but can show up there easily short of matastization and I'm coming up blank. What did you have?
How will they bury them?
Does anyone else have an image of Balmer pounding his shoe on a podium at the UN?
Now that I think about it.... Balmer and Khrushchev look a hell of a lot alike.
Has anyone considered the possibility that MS is building a missile base in Redmond?
Check your own....
Generaly the virus used is the Herpes Simplex A virus due to the ease of genetic packaging.
That said, no virus can be engineered to just attack cancer cells. Cancer cells are identical to non-cancerous cells in nearly all respects. The difference isn't in what they "look like" but what they do. Cancer cells do not (generaly) preform the task that their non-cancerous counterparts preform and instead divide rapidly.
So the way you target cancer is targeting dividing cells. Since cancer cells divide more rapidly than non-cancerous cells they die off in higher numbers. Lather, rise, repeat. Eventualy you're out of cancer cells.
The problem is that radiation and chemo make the patient very sick, and the dehydration effects tend to leave them weakened and unable to continue treatment. Chemo and Radiation thus become a balance between killing the cancer and killing the patient.
A virus could be different because unlike the injestion of poison (Chemo) or exposure to Radiation, the body does not generaly react to viral infection with vomiting and other nasty side affects.
The result is that you can get more cancer killing power per unit of patient killing power. This in turn translates to a higher cure rate for cancers.
This is why stem cells are so interesting for curing cancers. Got a brain tumor? Great.... we'll zap the shit out of it and toss in some stem cells... in a few days you'll have regenerated the brain tissue and you'll be good as new. That's science fiction today, but it's well within the realm of possibility in a few years.
A high dose of AZT following a possible HIV infection has been shown to dramaticly decrease the risk of infection. I work with children with cancer and/or HIV on a volunteer basis and we keep a fair bit of the stuff around for just that reason.
That said, HIV isn't terribly dangerous to work with. Admittedly it's hella scary, but given that the bug isn't airborn and that we can ameliorate any infection with a huge dose of AZT those working with patients have little to fear.