No. Even if you gain speed on your keyboard, the ability not to suck on other people's laptops is totally worth the 20 WPM decrement or whatever.
Never ever switch to Dvorak because you think it'll make you faster. If it does, it's only because you have poor technique; as another reader comments, your typing speed is more determined by the time it takes you to create the content, than how long it takes you to output it.
Switch to Dvorak to get a much more comfortable typing experience. Trust me on this: Switching from Qwerty to Dvorak probably isn't something you notice as being particularly more comfortable (it always feels "like typing"), but once you're fluent in Dvorak and using it 90% of the time, you really do notice borrowing a Qwerty keyboard.
Notice that I do use Qwerty (and now, Qwertz) keyboards often. I can't properly touchtype with them—I need to keep half an eye on the keys—but I have the same style of technique as when typing, meaning my hands are mostly covering most of the keyboard/kezboard. After I've convinced myself I'm using qwerty/qwertz, which usually takes about two words, a sentence at most, I'm fine. This took some time to develop, my hint is not to be too phased about using the crutch of half an eye. Just don't try reading the keys you can't see, you'll just make something bad even worse.
You will find that this particular piece of research is part of a larger body of research, which does address precisely your concern. The fact that it isn't explicitly mentioned (I haven't RTFMed) is because it gets boring (not to mention space-consuming) to say/read exactly the same points in every piece of research.
I'll sign such a contract, but the project will take twice as long and my hourly rate will go up 300%.
Sounds like win-win. You get more money, they get more safety. I would also throw in official licensing requirements. And in North American style, a professional doctorate would be the minimum qualification.
Of course, people could hire just anyone to write their software. But they don't hire just anyone to design their bridges...
Australia has a very different form of rights protection, which is positively archaic. It isn't a great stretch to say that we have no rights protection at all, beyond a general assumption of democracy. There's one or two rights explicitly protected in the constitution (e.g. freedom of religion, right to vote), related documents, or High Court judgements (some limited form of freedom of speech is "implied" in the constitution). But the High Court tends to make its judgements so as to extend the Commonwealth (i.e. federal or national) Parliament's power as far as can conceivably be done e.g. R v Pearson; Ex parte Sipka. In other words, that democracy that is our only real rights protection is not even constitutionally protected in any meaningful way.
In essence, we still have the system whereby people are expected to vote only for people who will protect the rights they find worth protecting. So if a state or the Commonwealth Parliament decides to pass a law that abrogates the right against self-incrimination, they can. We are also under a far higher degree of surveillance than most democracies would appreciate; anecdotally, the very common speed and red light cameras throughout the state of Victoria take photos of vehicles as they pass through (even if they aren't speeding or running a red) and compares the car registration to a database of cars owned by people with suspended licences. They then quickly send a police car round to let them know their licence is suspended even more.
Notice that the state of Victoria is the only in Australia with an explicit protection of human rights. (The ACT, a territory, also does; however, laws---including charters of rights---passed by a territory can be arbitrarily overturned by the Commonwealth Parliament.) But the last word is still in the hands of the state parliament, and the court's powers and human rights can (have!) thereby be limited compared to what is seen in other states; what I know of the charter of human rights in Victoria makes me more scared, rather than feel more secure.
We also have (or have had) indefinite detention: Both of stateless people illegally in Australia (they can't leave even if they want to!), as well as of criminals to prevent the commission of purely hypothetical crimes in the future.
Censorship of pornography is something that always been done in Australia; it remains officially illegal to purchase X-rated material in shops in every state (although I think this law isn't actively enforced). I think it would be very hard to convince a court that it was inappropriate in light of our democracy or popular standards. But if you think this is bad (and many Australians do), you ain't seen nothing yet.
In Australia, even your thoughts are subject to government regulation. You are required to have and express an opinion on who you want to govern you. Not just who you want to govern you most, but who you to govern you the second, third, nth most, for everyone who stands in the election. Now, ordinarily, unless you fail to vote you won't be charged with any crime, because votes are (meaningfully) anonymous. However, the High Court found it constitutional for the Parliament to create a law which prohibited discussing all the possible ways you could cast a valid vote, ultimately leading to the jailing of Albert Langer for contempt of court.
Compared to other nations, it also seems we have far more government advertising, inculding was is essentially propaganda. Not just "community service" style advertising like health campaigns or information about new laws, but reminders of the government's progress and political advertisements defending laws (spent using government money).
Australia is a representational democracy, and there's no way to deny that. But we are in no sense the liberal democracy we believe ourselves to be.
Using this as precedence all interstate goods can be regulated in this manor
So long as it doesn't involve troops, or the government owns the manor. Otherwise, it might be considered billeting, which I believe is against the constitution anyway.
Since when is a photo of a naked woman a "sentiment" of any sort? In seems an impossible stretch to view the state constitutions as preventing pornography censorship.
(My personal view is that the desireable limitations on democracy, in a democracy, should not be to enforce my opinion, or your opinion, or a mythologized founding father's opinion, but to prevent the free trade of opinions. Anything that goes beyond that, like pornography, should be subject to democracy. Otherwise, why have an elected legislature at all? Just set the laws once and for all.)
None of those involve "intelligence" as a person would understand it. They're essentially a way we can create a pretty cool algorithm to solve a few problems we've identified. These "algorithms" are even cool enough that they can find solutions we hadn't thought of yet. But really, what people do special, what's ages away, is identifying the problem. Once you've identified the problem, finding the solution is pretty simple: Just find enough information, and analyse the results long enough. The internet probably knows who came up with this general problem solving algorithm:
1. Write down the problem.
2. Think very hard.
3. Write down the solution.
Most (all?) work in AI is in trying to simplify the second step. I'll think AI is getting close when it's working on the zeroth step.
(NB: This doesn't mean simplifying the second step isn't a desirable goal, or that artificial intelligence is illegitimate in comparison to human intelligence. But it does mean that the Nobel Prize winners list is going to be exclusively the domain of people for some time to come, and that AI hasn't "surpassed" and poses no threat to human intelligence--something which I can't conceive of happening until we know what conciousness is. Or even have a falsifiable theory.)
Yeah I eventually read later on and got that. Thanks for the clarification. (Although I'm still displeased about the lack of formal ethics here. I start experimenting on people in an hour, so I must get back to work. These torture devices won't set themselves up!)
(1) Wakefield performed at least some parts of his study in an unethical manner.
As best as I can tell, psychological research in Germany is performed in an unethical manner. Should it be disregarded on that basis? (I would try to change it --- and I've mentioned my displeasure to my supervisors --- but there's no way one person on their own can. At best I could get statements of informed consent from my participants. But that's not the same as ethics.)
Sure one can exercise, but even so, it's always forced and "unnatural" in the sense that it's not required effort for what i do all day long.
You need to get from home to your place of work somehow. If you have two cars, sell one of them (nb. If walking/riding sounds tough, don't say "I'll get used to it first, then sell". Old habits die hard). Walk or ride. If it takes more than an hour to get to your place of work by bike, you might consider using public transport for a portion. Don't say "it's raining/snowing today, so I won't ride". Don't say "it's 40 deg C/100 deg F so I won't ride". Just make sure you've thought about the extreme weather conditions you'll have and you're adequately prepared before you'll face them. And make sure bike riding is your preferred option over any alternative. Bike riding is fun, once you know how to do it.
Obviously, to get to the point where you're able to ride an hour to and from work, you'll need to have exercise "tacked on". If you can, you might consider leaving a bike at work and riding to buy lunch from a location maybe fifteen minutes ride away. And make sure you have a lot of walking in your life as well. Buy a dog, and walk it with your kids (they'll love you for this). My only exercise is walking to and from uni every day (about 30 minutes each way at a decent pace), as well as to the shops (about 10-15 minutes each way) every now and again. I think I get the recommended minimum daily exercise out of that and not much more (I don't own a bike; I'm writing this post today instead of buying one...). But when I've borrowed someone else's bike, I'm able to do reasonably long rides (four hours) at a decent pace (nb. I'm generally a bike rider, and like in every field I think practice as well as fitness is important. So I wouldn't suggest you should do this unless right away unless you know you can cope if you find yourself exhausted, two hours from home by bike, and facing a strong headwind).
People who are younger (you say you've got kids, so this probably won't work for you) should try living in a multi-storey building, somewhere near the top, and avoiding the elevator. I only use elevators if I'm talking to someone who I can't convince to walk up. It's easier to do this if you've been stuck for an hour after the shop closed in a lift with a skip full of smelly rubbish, but it's probably a bit difficult to arrange for this to occur.
You're absolutely right that exercise needs to be something you integrate into your daily life and you don't notice you get it. I focus here on riding to work, because in American cities you're unlikely to be able to walk effectively. And because I hate buses, and that's all they've got in the city I presently live in. But if you could take public transport, but only by walking half an hour uphill at a decent pace, that's definitely a viable option.
Walking to the expensive local shops is also a way to save money, depending on your lifestyle: you're less likely to make impulse purchases because you have to carry everything home, and because you know that the very tasty looking icecream here costs twice as much as the equally tastey icecream at the shops you do your weekly shopping at.
If you do buy a bike, buy a good one. It's harder to ignore your $2000 bike sitting in the garage, than a $200 bike, because it sits in your wallet for ten times as long. Make sure it's suitable for its purpose by buying it from a bike shop, not a department store. And most important, pedal fast, not hard. Go for the lowest gear you can maintain your desired speed at, and don't look at the top gears until you're doing 30+ km/h (20+ mph).
You haven't tried to convince me that the lack of an "auxiliary unifying belief" prevents them from being united. I still don't see that there's a fundamental diversity in kinds of atheism compared to in Christianity. There might be a squillion reasons not to believe in God, and and you might have a squillion people who each pick just one, but as long as none of them let their disbelief in God get in the way of them living their life because they think it's stupid, they're all unified or at least unifiable. (Different churches don't imply different Christianities, btw; and nor does the same Church imply the same Christianity.)
The Lutheran conception of God is different from the Catholic conception of God. They'll say they worship the same God, but it's more like... Three people are bidding for a car they can't see. One person believes the car is red, the second believes it's blue. The third believes it's a duck.
You might think that the distinctions beween Catholicism and Lutheranism are petty. But the distinctions that do exist have fairly significant theological ramifications. There's a lot of distinct things you can say to argue that God doesn't exist, but once you're there, there's only a small number of distinction philosophical traditions that eminate from it. This stems from the fact that there's more things you can (interestingly) describe, then ways you can (interestingly) describe the non-existence of a certain class.
Those are precise reasons, not distinct philosophical ideas. For instance, your reason "I don't believe in God because I don't have the impression that people who do have better lives than people who don't" (I picked it at random because I get bored very quickly) is not actually a legitimate reason, unless you already don't believe in God. If you believed in God, you wouldn't think it's legitimate to disbelieve in him because it improves your life. As an example, try disbelieving in chairs: very quickly, you'll find yourself acting as if you do believe in chairs, because otherwise you'll keep bumping into them. So whether or not people who don't believe in chairs have better lives than people who do (or vice versa, or whatever), I'm still going to believe in chairs.
The variety in Christianity seems to be considerably more than the variety in atheism. There's three versions of atheism I'm aware of: I don't believe in God because no-one's (tried to) convince me of it; I don't believe in God because there's adequate non-theological explanations for why we're here and/or the explanations that rely in God introduce as many problems as they solve; I don't believe in God, but I don't disbelieve in him either (also classifiable as a subvariety of agnosticism).
All forms of Christianity take the view that there is much to learn about God in the Bible, which is his (possibly corrupted) Word to us. But aside from God exists and Jesus came to save us, I don't think you'll find any statement all Christians will agree with.
I also think it's a bad analogy, because the atheists who killed the Jews and Christians in the Soviet Union were expressly trying to put down a religion that represented a threat to their political power, a subvariety of evilness; whereas Christians have tended to be well-intentioned people making really bad errors, a subvariety of stupidity and holding different values to ours. There were also perfectly conventional political actions back in those days like taking back what had once been theirs. Almost any political grouping would've done that.
In any case, it's hugely unfair to paint religion (or even Christianity or subtypes of Christianity) with one brush simply because people in the past had different values from ours and used religion to express them. To take a well-known saying and abuse it, religions don't kill people, people kill people.
(Note that I don't think holding different values to ours, justifies evil behavior, it merely explains it. It is somewhat akin to the Catholic teaching that ignorance can lessen a mortal sin to a venial sin if you don't have full knowledge in the matter. The Soviet Union either deliberately ignored the ethical challenges facing them, or deliberately did not investigate them. The Crusading Christians simply lacked the ethical/philosophical context to investigate their actions in.)
In the case of the EU, it's because national governments keep giving them power to take more. If this is a problem, then why do you keep voting for parties that do it? (I gather in the case of the Lisbon Treaty that's recently come into force, some national governments have made comments that suggest they only read the bits that gave them concessions, and now they're shocked they're losing power. How can the leaders of large, internationally significant nations do that?)
[Not an EU citizen, but living in Germany for the time being.]
The entire censorship debacle, and this (only tangentially related) website takedown, are grossly misrepresented in the media, and especially at Slashdot. The censorship regime is exactly the same as the one that applies to any media: In other words, it must be rated and enforced, or it's unavailable. The assumed rules are a little different from domestic and foreign websites, but if the foreign website respects the Australian rules they get treated differently. The censorship is also perfect because it's so simple: it's not meant to be a proper censorship system, but something similar to what we already have for other kinds of media in Australia.
This thing here isn't censorship at all, it's stopping fraud. It's not much different from if you tried to register a domain in my name. If it was censorship, you wouldn't be able to access stephen-conroy.com from Australia any more, but you clearly can.
Thanks for your coherent response; it was way better than "Fuck you, you little internet pissant. You don't know shit." and probably better than I deserved. I will try
Benjamin Franklin, one of the more influential thinkers in the American Revolution, was the one who said that. He was eccentric, but I don't think he was crazy. He certainly was aware of his situation.
Well, that leaves hyperbole Not a suprise; people often do. But something people often forget when they refer to him. I think too many people just read the quote, and regurgitate it in their words and thought, without actually understanding it. Another possibility is that it was intended somewhat narrowly as a call to arms, but not as a call to arms to risk death to copy a DVD. Also, a lot of people fail to realise that just because one of the founders of America said it, another viewpoint isn't legitimate. I personally rank living and happiness as far more important than freedom; (limited) freedom is simply one (very) important ingredient in happiness, but it can't be seen as an ends in itself. (I truly would rather be a happy slave than a dead freeman---although the acceptability of being an unhappy slave would depend on my hope for happiness in the future.)
Personally, I have no understanding of how the "freedom to copy a DVD you own" is essential. The fact that you do so suggests to me that you really haven't thought about it. Don't get me wrong---I've copied many a DVD and downloaded TV episodes and done all sorts of things. I also think the penalties for this are usually far above and beyond what's legitimate, and certainly worth concern, worry and even holding up traffic by blocking the busiest intersection in town. I also think it ought to be illegal that the DVD player in my computer can only play the DVDs I bought in Australia, or the ones I've bought here in Europe, but not both (well, it can only be switched five times between the two). How does it disadvantage you not to be able to copy the DVD? When was such an activity possible and legal in the past? You bought the DVD knowing the system that prevailed. The DVD shouldn't be crucial to your enjoyment of life; if it is, seek a counsellor. Your "freedom to copy a DVD you own", just like a schoolchild's "right" to wear a t-shirt with offensive words or images, bears no parallel to essential freedoms---like our right to discuss politics, the government's actions, and the political system, openly and fairly, without risk of (government) retribution. Obviously social retribution is another matter entirely; if you want to scorn me for expressing my dissenting opinion that's something I just have to live with/weigh in my decision to talk.
There hasn't been the opportunity to since they made it obvious they would stick to their idiotic promises and drop their useful ones (i.e. since they got into power). You realise we can't just get new elections every news cycle. (Although the Prime Minister can call elections for the House of Representatives almost as often as he likes, it's terribly inconvenient and if they do go early (or, as early as you're suggesting they should've gone), people are inclined to vote them out just for dragging them out to the polls one more time than is necessary.)
In any case, even if we could, the other lot aren't any better... Most people would rank this (known) temporary inconvenience as a lot less bad than the (unknown) evils a government ran by Tony Abbott, Leader of the Liberal Party, would bring.
In the last case, we have a Senate and the Australian people are generally not idiotic enough to give the Government unmitigated power there. I expect the Liberal party will oppose it on the basis that they're the opposition, the Greens will oppose it on the basis that it's neither left nor liberal, and the independents will probably vote quite randomly on the basis of stellar alignment and what their advisors tell them people think.
So... don't say stupid things like that. The least you could do before commenting on our political system is inform yourself of the absolute basics of how it works. And in this particular case, almost every political system in the (developed) world works comparably.
(If you really *were* telling us to use pitchforks, then either you're completely unrealistic, or completely crazy. In any case, whoever said "those who would give up an essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety" was obviously crazy and/or making use of hyperbole and/or hadn't thought about his own position, and if you're an American you've probably been brainwashed into both believing that and not acting on it. Our society is so great, and so free, precisely because we complain and wait until its time to vote instead of getting out the guns and pitchforks and executing anyone in Parliament)
Put your laptop in a backpack. It's safer from idiots and thiefs both. If it's a good one, it's healthier than a laptop bag slung over your shoulder. And it gets in the way far less often. (Just be sure not to put small valuables in it like your wallet, if they might easily be stolen without noticing the weight loss/fiddling, especially in noisy or busy environments.)
"Googling" is a standard term, and complaining about it is like complaining about people who fail to inflect adjectives according to gender.[*] Most phones with internet access are a bugger to use. At least, I've never been able to work out how to do it on any of mine (usually they hang). The iPhone isn't the first one to make it easy, but it's the most well-known, and they're all from about the same time.
[*]: Once upon a time---we're talking about a millenium ago, almost---you would through unsilent e's to the ends of most adjectives if they were refering to a noun in the feminine case. This is one reason why Middle English texts appear to have a lot of random silent e's thrown in for goode measure.
The moment however when the "law" becomes so complicated and ambiguous that it requires someone to "interpret it" (i.e. twist it to whatever whim of the moment is fanciful) the whole concept breaks.
What law is so simple and unambiguous it doesn't require anyone to interpret it? Even "don't kill" or---worse---"don't murder" are unbelievably ambiguous, yet they're perhaps the simplest laws we have. Don't steal, don't trespass, don't hurt someone else, don't bribe... none of these are unambiguous.
Slashdot Mirror
No. Even if you gain speed on your keyboard, the ability not to suck on other people's laptops is totally worth the 20 WPM decrement or whatever.
Never ever switch to Dvorak because you think it'll make you faster. If it does, it's only because you have poor technique; as another reader comments, your typing speed is more determined by the time it takes you to create the content, than how long it takes you to output it.
Switch to Dvorak to get a much more comfortable typing experience. Trust me on this: Switching from Qwerty to Dvorak probably isn't something you notice as being particularly more comfortable (it always feels "like typing"), but once you're fluent in Dvorak and using it 90% of the time, you really do notice borrowing a Qwerty keyboard.
Notice that I do use Qwerty (and now, Qwertz) keyboards often. I can't properly touchtype with them—I need to keep half an eye on the keys—but I have the same style of technique as when typing, meaning my hands are mostly covering most of the keyboard/kezboard. After I've convinced myself I'm using qwerty/qwertz, which usually takes about two words, a sentence at most, I'm fine. This took some time to develop, my hint is not to be too phased about using the crutch of half an eye. Just don't try reading the keys you can't see, you'll just make something bad even worse.
I don't read those stupid things, I just look at the number counting down and press "OK". The Firefox method seems incredibly stupid to me.
"I think visually, I want to see what you can see, otherwise I will forget something important."
You will find that this particular piece of research is part of a larger body of research, which does address precisely your concern. The fact that it isn't explicitly mentioned (I haven't RTFMed) is because it gets boring (not to mention space-consuming) to say/read exactly the same points in every piece of research.
I'll sign such a contract, but the project will take twice as long and my hourly rate will go up 300%.
Sounds like win-win. You get more money, they get more safety. I would also throw in official licensing requirements. And in North American style, a professional doctorate would be the minimum qualification.
Of course, people could hire just anyone to write their software. But they don't hire just anyone to design their bridges...
Australia has a very different form of rights protection, which is positively archaic. It isn't a great stretch to say that we have no rights protection at all, beyond a general assumption of democracy. There's one or two rights explicitly protected in the constitution (e.g. freedom of religion, right to vote), related documents, or High Court judgements (some limited form of freedom of speech is "implied" in the constitution). But the High Court tends to make its judgements so as to extend the Commonwealth (i.e. federal or national) Parliament's power as far as can conceivably be done e.g. R v Pearson; Ex parte Sipka. In other words, that democracy that is our only real rights protection is not even constitutionally protected in any meaningful way.
In essence, we still have the system whereby people are expected to vote only for people who will protect the rights they find worth protecting. So if a state or the Commonwealth Parliament decides to pass a law that abrogates the right against self-incrimination, they can. We are also under a far higher degree of surveillance than most democracies would appreciate; anecdotally, the very common speed and red light cameras throughout the state of Victoria take photos of vehicles as they pass through (even if they aren't speeding or running a red) and compares the car registration to a database of cars owned by people with suspended licences. They then quickly send a police car round to let them know their licence is suspended even more.
Notice that the state of Victoria is the only in Australia with an explicit protection of human rights. (The ACT, a territory, also does; however, laws---including charters of rights---passed by a territory can be arbitrarily overturned by the Commonwealth Parliament.) But the last word is still in the hands of the state parliament, and the court's powers and human rights can (have!) thereby be limited compared to what is seen in other states; what I know of the charter of human rights in Victoria makes me more scared, rather than feel more secure.
We also have (or have had) indefinite detention: Both of stateless people illegally in Australia (they can't leave even if they want to!), as well as of criminals to prevent the commission of purely hypothetical crimes in the future.
Censorship of pornography is something that always been done in Australia; it remains officially illegal to purchase X-rated material in shops in every state (although I think this law isn't actively enforced). I think it would be very hard to convince a court that it was inappropriate in light of our democracy or popular standards. But if you think this is bad (and many Australians do), you ain't seen nothing yet.
In Australia, even your thoughts are subject to government regulation. You are required to have and express an opinion on who you want to govern you. Not just who you want to govern you most, but who you to govern you the second, third, nth most, for everyone who stands in the election. Now, ordinarily, unless you fail to vote you won't be charged with any crime, because votes are (meaningfully) anonymous. However, the High Court found it constitutional for the Parliament to create a law which prohibited discussing all the possible ways you could cast a valid vote, ultimately leading to the jailing of Albert Langer for contempt of court.
Compared to other nations, it also seems we have far more government advertising, inculding was is essentially propaganda. Not just "community service" style advertising like health campaigns or information about new laws, but reminders of the government's progress and political advertisements defending laws (spent using government money).
Australia is a representational democracy, and there's no way to deny that. But we are in no sense the liberal democracy we believe ourselves to be.
Using this as precedence all interstate goods can be regulated in this manor
So long as it doesn't involve troops, or the government owns the manor. Otherwise, it might be considered billeting, which I believe is against the constitution anyway.
Since when is a photo of a naked woman a "sentiment" of any sort? In seems an impossible stretch to view the state constitutions as preventing pornography censorship.
(My personal view is that the desireable limitations on democracy, in a democracy, should not be to enforce my opinion, or your opinion, or a mythologized founding father's opinion, but to prevent the free trade of opinions. Anything that goes beyond that, like pornography, should be subject to democracy. Otherwise, why have an elected legislature at all? Just set the laws once and for all.)
None of those involve "intelligence" as a person would understand it. They're essentially a way we can create a pretty cool algorithm to solve a few problems we've identified. These "algorithms" are even cool enough that they can find solutions we hadn't thought of yet. But really, what people do special, what's ages away, is identifying the problem. Once you've identified the problem, finding the solution is pretty simple: Just find enough information, and analyse the results long enough. The internet probably knows who came up with this general problem solving algorithm:
1. Write down the problem.
2. Think very hard.
3. Write down the solution.
Most (all?) work in AI is in trying to simplify the second step. I'll think AI is getting close when it's working on the zeroth step.
(NB: This doesn't mean simplifying the second step isn't a desirable goal, or that artificial intelligence is illegitimate in comparison to human intelligence. But it does mean that the Nobel Prize winners list is going to be exclusively the domain of people for some time to come, and that AI hasn't "surpassed" and poses no threat to human intelligence--something which I can't conceive of happening until we know what conciousness is. Or even have a falsifiable theory.)
Yeah I eventually read later on and got that. Thanks for the clarification. (Although I'm still displeased about the lack of formal ethics here. I start experimenting on people in an hour, so I must get back to work. These torture devices won't set themselves up!)
(1) Wakefield performed at least some parts of his study in an unethical manner.
As best as I can tell, psychological research in Germany is performed in an unethical manner. Should it be disregarded on that basis? (I would try to change it --- and I've mentioned my displeasure to my supervisors --- but there's no way one person on their own can. At best I could get statements of informed consent from my participants. But that's not the same as ethics.)
Sure one can exercise, but even so, it's always forced and "unnatural" in the sense that it's not required effort for what i do all day long.
You need to get from home to your place of work somehow. If you have two cars, sell one of them (nb. If walking/riding sounds tough, don't say "I'll get used to it first, then sell". Old habits die hard). Walk or ride. If it takes more than an hour to get to your place of work by bike, you might consider using public transport for a portion. Don't say "it's raining/snowing today, so I won't ride". Don't say "it's 40 deg C/100 deg F so I won't ride". Just make sure you've thought about the extreme weather conditions you'll have and you're adequately prepared before you'll face them. And make sure bike riding is your preferred option over any alternative. Bike riding is fun, once you know how to do it.
Obviously, to get to the point where you're able to ride an hour to and from work, you'll need to have exercise "tacked on". If you can, you might consider leaving a bike at work and riding to buy lunch from a location maybe fifteen minutes ride away. And make sure you have a lot of walking in your life as well. Buy a dog, and walk it with your kids (they'll love you for this). My only exercise is walking to and from uni every day (about 30 minutes each way at a decent pace), as well as to the shops (about 10-15 minutes each way) every now and again. I think I get the recommended minimum daily exercise out of that and not much more (I don't own a bike; I'm writing this post today instead of buying one...). But when I've borrowed someone else's bike, I'm able to do reasonably long rides (four hours) at a decent pace (nb. I'm generally a bike rider, and like in every field I think practice as well as fitness is important. So I wouldn't suggest you should do this unless right away unless you know you can cope if you find yourself exhausted, two hours from home by bike, and facing a strong headwind).
People who are younger (you say you've got kids, so this probably won't work for you) should try living in a multi-storey building, somewhere near the top, and avoiding the elevator. I only use elevators if I'm talking to someone who I can't convince to walk up. It's easier to do this if you've been stuck for an hour after the shop closed in a lift with a skip full of smelly rubbish, but it's probably a bit difficult to arrange for this to occur.
You're absolutely right that exercise needs to be something you integrate into your daily life and you don't notice you get it. I focus here on riding to work, because in American cities you're unlikely to be able to walk effectively. And because I hate buses, and that's all they've got in the city I presently live in. But if you could take public transport, but only by walking half an hour uphill at a decent pace, that's definitely a viable option.
Walking to the expensive local shops is also a way to save money, depending on your lifestyle: you're less likely to make impulse purchases because you have to carry everything home, and because you know that the very tasty looking icecream here costs twice as much as the equally tastey icecream at the shops you do your weekly shopping at.
If you do buy a bike, buy a good one. It's harder to ignore your $2000 bike sitting in the garage, than a $200 bike, because it sits in your wallet for ten times as long. Make sure it's suitable for its purpose by buying it from a bike shop, not a department store. And most important, pedal fast, not hard. Go for the lowest gear you can maintain your desired speed at, and don't look at the top gears until you're doing 30+ km/h (20+ mph).
You haven't tried to convince me that the lack of an "auxiliary unifying belief" prevents them from being united. I still don't see that there's a fundamental diversity in kinds of atheism compared to in Christianity. There might be a squillion reasons not to believe in God, and and you might have a squillion people who each pick just one, but as long as none of them let their disbelief in God get in the way of them living their life because they think it's stupid, they're all unified or at least unifiable. (Different churches don't imply different Christianities, btw; and nor does the same Church imply the same Christianity.)
The Lutheran conception of God is different from the Catholic conception of God. They'll say they worship the same God, but it's more like... Three people are bidding for a car they can't see. One person believes the car is red, the second believes it's blue. The third believes it's a duck.
You might think that the distinctions beween Catholicism and Lutheranism are petty. But the distinctions that do exist have fairly significant theological ramifications. There's a lot of distinct things you can say to argue that God doesn't exist, but once you're there, there's only a small number of distinction philosophical traditions that eminate from it. This stems from the fact that there's more things you can (interestingly) describe, then ways you can (interestingly) describe the non-existence of a certain class.
Those are precise reasons, not distinct philosophical ideas. For instance, your reason "I don't believe in God because I don't have the impression that people who do have better lives than people who don't" (I picked it at random because I get bored very quickly) is not actually a legitimate reason, unless you already don't believe in God. If you believed in God, you wouldn't think it's legitimate to disbelieve in him because it improves your life. As an example, try disbelieving in chairs: very quickly, you'll find yourself acting as if you do believe in chairs, because otherwise you'll keep bumping into them. So whether or not people who don't believe in chairs have better lives than people who do (or vice versa, or whatever), I'm still going to believe in chairs.
The variety in Christianity seems to be considerably more than the variety in atheism. There's three versions of atheism I'm aware of: I don't believe in God because no-one's (tried to) convince me of it; I don't believe in God because there's adequate non-theological explanations for why we're here and/or the explanations that rely in God introduce as many problems as they solve; I don't believe in God, but I don't disbelieve in him either (also classifiable as a subvariety of agnosticism).
All forms of Christianity take the view that there is much to learn about God in the Bible, which is his (possibly corrupted) Word to us. But aside from God exists and Jesus came to save us, I don't think you'll find any statement all Christians will agree with.
I also think it's a bad analogy, because the atheists who killed the Jews and Christians in the Soviet Union were expressly trying to put down a religion that represented a threat to their political power, a subvariety of evilness; whereas Christians have tended to be well-intentioned people making really bad errors, a subvariety of stupidity and holding different values to ours. There were also perfectly conventional political actions back in those days like taking back what had once been theirs. Almost any political grouping would've done that.
In any case, it's hugely unfair to paint religion (or even Christianity or subtypes of Christianity) with one brush simply because people in the past had different values from ours and used religion to express them. To take a well-known saying and abuse it, religions don't kill people, people kill people.
(Note that I don't think holding different values to ours, justifies evil behavior, it merely explains it. It is somewhat akin to the Catholic teaching that ignorance can lessen a mortal sin to a venial sin if you don't have full knowledge in the matter. The Soviet Union either deliberately ignored the ethical challenges facing them, or deliberately did not investigate them. The Crusading Christians simply lacked the ethical/philosophical context to investigate their actions in.)
We always gave Santa brandy... I always wondered how many houses he'd have to visit before he'd get done in for drink-flying.
In the case of the EU, it's because national governments keep giving them power to take more. If this is a problem, then why do you keep voting for parties that do it? (I gather in the case of the Lisbon Treaty that's recently come into force, some national governments have made comments that suggest they only read the bits that gave them concessions, and now they're shocked they're losing power. How can the leaders of large, internationally significant nations do that?)
[Not an EU citizen, but living in Germany for the time being.]
The entire censorship debacle, and this (only tangentially related) website takedown, are grossly misrepresented in the media, and especially at Slashdot. The censorship regime is exactly the same as the one that applies to any media: In other words, it must be rated and enforced, or it's unavailable. The assumed rules are a little different from domestic and foreign websites, but if the foreign website respects the Australian rules they get treated differently. The censorship is also perfect because it's so simple: it's not meant to be a proper censorship system, but something similar to what we already have for other kinds of media in Australia.
This thing here isn't censorship at all, it's stopping fraud. It's not much different from if you tried to register a domain in my name. If it was censorship, you wouldn't be able to access stephen-conroy.com from Australia any more, but you clearly can.
Thanks for your coherent response; it was way better than "Fuck you, you little internet pissant. You don't know shit." and probably better than I deserved. I will try
Benjamin Franklin, one of the more influential thinkers in the American Revolution, was the one who said that. He was eccentric, but I don't think he was crazy. He certainly was aware of his situation.
Well, that leaves hyperbole Not a suprise; people often do. But something people often forget when they refer to him. I think too many people just read the quote, and regurgitate it in their words and thought, without actually understanding it. Another possibility is that it was intended somewhat narrowly as a call to arms, but not as a call to arms to risk death to copy a DVD. Also, a lot of people fail to realise that just because one of the founders of America said it, another viewpoint isn't legitimate. I personally rank living and happiness as far more important than freedom; (limited) freedom is simply one (very) important ingredient in happiness, but it can't be seen as an ends in itself. (I truly would rather be a happy slave than a dead freeman---although the acceptability of being an unhappy slave would depend on my hope for happiness in the future.)
Personally, I have no understanding of how the "freedom to copy a DVD you own" is essential. The fact that you do so suggests to me that you really haven't thought about it. Don't get me wrong---I've copied many a DVD and downloaded TV episodes and done all sorts of things. I also think the penalties for this are usually far above and beyond what's legitimate, and certainly worth concern, worry and even holding up traffic by blocking the busiest intersection in town. I also think it ought to be illegal that the DVD player in my computer can only play the DVDs I bought in Australia, or the ones I've bought here in Europe, but not both (well, it can only be switched five times between the two). How does it disadvantage you not to be able to copy the DVD? When was such an activity possible and legal in the past? You bought the DVD knowing the system that prevailed. The DVD shouldn't be crucial to your enjoyment of life; if it is, seek a counsellor. Your "freedom to copy a DVD you own", just like a schoolchild's "right" to wear a t-shirt with offensive words or images, bears no parallel to essential freedoms---like our right to discuss politics, the government's actions, and the political system, openly and fairly, without risk of (government) retribution. Obviously social retribution is another matter entirely; if you want to scorn me for expressing my dissenting opinion that's something I just have to live with/weigh in my decision to talk.
Yeah, hence "generally". We got scared by the thought of Latham in power. It's one of the disadvantages of a two-party (for government) system.
There hasn't been the opportunity to since they made it obvious they would stick to their idiotic promises and drop their useful ones (i.e. since they got into power). You realise we can't just get new elections every news cycle. (Although the Prime Minister can call elections for the House of Representatives almost as often as he likes, it's terribly inconvenient and if they do go early (or, as early as you're suggesting they should've gone), people are inclined to vote them out just for dragging them out to the polls one more time than is necessary.)
In any case, even if we could, the other lot aren't any better... Most people would rank this (known) temporary inconvenience as a lot less bad than the (unknown) evils a government ran by Tony Abbott, Leader of the Liberal Party, would bring.
In the last case, we have a Senate and the Australian people are generally not idiotic enough to give the Government unmitigated power there. I expect the Liberal party will oppose it on the basis that they're the opposition, the Greens will oppose it on the basis that it's neither left nor liberal, and the independents will probably vote quite randomly on the basis of stellar alignment and what their advisors tell them people think.
So ... don't say stupid things like that. The least you could do before commenting on our political system is inform yourself of the absolute basics of how it works. And in this particular case, almost every political system in the (developed) world works comparably.
(If you really *were* telling us to use pitchforks, then either you're completely unrealistic, or completely crazy. In any case, whoever said "those who would give up an essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety" was obviously crazy and/or making use of hyperbole and/or hadn't thought about his own position, and if you're an American you've probably been brainwashed into both believing that and not acting on it. Our society is so great, and so free, precisely because we complain and wait until its time to vote instead of getting out the guns and pitchforks and executing anyone in Parliament)
Put your laptop in a backpack. It's safer from idiots and thiefs both. If it's a good one, it's healthier than a laptop bag slung over your shoulder. And it gets in the way far less often. (Just be sure not to put small valuables in it like your wallet, if they might easily be stolen without noticing the weight loss/fiddling, especially in noisy or busy environments.)
"Googling" is a standard term, and complaining about it is like complaining about people who fail to inflect adjectives according to gender.[*] Most phones with internet access are a bugger to use. At least, I've never been able to work out how to do it on any of mine (usually they hang). The iPhone isn't the first one to make it easy, but it's the most well-known, and they're all from about the same time.
[*]: Once upon a time---we're talking about a millenium ago, almost---you would through unsilent e's to the ends of most adjectives if they were refering to a noun in the feminine case. This is one reason why Middle English texts appear to have a lot of random silent e's thrown in for goode measure.
The moment however when the "law" becomes so complicated and ambiguous that it requires someone to "interpret it" (i.e. twist it to whatever whim of the moment is fanciful) the whole concept breaks.
What law is so simple and unambiguous it doesn't require anyone to interpret it? Even "don't kill" or---worse---"don't murder" are unbelievably ambiguous, yet they're perhaps the simplest laws we have. Don't steal, don't trespass, don't hurt someone else, don't bribe ... none of these are unambiguous.