People waiving the flag of false equivalence are intellectually corrupt. Violent rhetoric is not coming from both sides of the political spectrum, it's coming from the Fox News right.
I think a lot of people buy that crap because they're too gutless to take a stand for what's right.
You have missed a great deal if you think the Left isn't full of violent rhetoric. Forget all the stuff leveled at Bush? Heck, a CBS show literally displayed a picture of Bush with "Snipers Wanted" imposed over it. Look at Bill Ayers, who has at least some relationship with the President of the United States, and is unrepentant of the violent actions of the Weather Underground group he helped found. He has event been quoted as wishing he did more. Look at the violence at G20 conventions or the death threats against people like Ann Coulter. I could go on and on. Check out this page for a large number of links to "Left-wing Eliminationist Rhetoric" http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/?s=ELIMINATIONIST
Take some advice from Media Matters after the Discovery Channel incident. Should be applied to all similar incidents.. "Discovery Channel hostage-taker is the perpetrator of a crime-not liberal, conservative or a chance to score points " http://twitter.com/mmfa/status/22739013962
Then the GOP would not have a way to scare people into voting against their own interests.
Remember, patriotism is abandoning our liberties and principles to fight terrorism in order to preserve our... uh... profit margins?
Do you live in some alternate universe where John McCain was voted president? In my time line, we have a Democrat named Barack Obama who has been president for nearly 2 years now. We also have massive Democrat majorities in Congress. Not only are things as bad in this area, they have actually gotten significantly worse.
Please, someone create a TV show based on the Song of Songs of the Bible to fuck with those people.
What to do, what to do. It's the Bible and yet, it's porn!
Why do you assume that all Christians would be offended? I am a member of one of the most "conservative" Southern Baptist mega churches around, and neither my wife nor I have ever attended a Sunday School or sermon which said that Song of Songs wasn't about sex and wasn't an awesome book. If all you know about Christianity are the stereotypes on TV, I feels sorry for your ignorance. For most Protestant denominations, within marriage sex is considered an extremely wonderful and important part of a couple's relationship.
Call me crazy, but is Star Wars even culturally relevant anymore? It feels like Disco at this point.
Ask your average boy who is 4-8 years old how relevant Star Wars is. I teach pre-K Sunday School, and I can tell you that Star Wars is extremely popular, especially the prequel/Clone Wars stuff. It is weird to get kids whose favorite character is "Obi-Wan". For more details on the how relevant Star Wars is there is a great article by Emily Bazelon called Why does Star Wars still take over the minds of small boys? http://www.slate.com/id/2215160
I have PCs and consoles and killed many hours on FPS since Wolf3D, but I have leaned more towards consoles because of the ease of use and multiplayer. However, I still play strategy games on the PC and am very much looking forward to Civ V.
Some thoughts:
1. Keyboard+mouse is definitely easier, but I feel that it makes it *too* easy to aim--especially for a sniper. 2. People talk about the mouse so much they forget about the limitations of the keyboard. Movement is definitely not as fluid on a keyboard. The problem is that it is pure digital. Want to go up? It is either "forward" or "forward quickly". You can't press the s key lightly to go forward slowly. 3. Being able to turn quicker isn't necessarily better. Being able to do a 180 in 100ms just doesn't feel right in a game. 4. Because you are playing against people with the same limitations, you don't really notice the difference once you get used to it. You are just "in the game".
Your inability to engage in a discussion without resorting to words like "fuck, asshole, and fucktard" proves my point. You are not interested in rational discussion, just juvenile namecalling.
I really want the open science movement to be about making science more accessible and more appealing and more part of the culture. This subversion of the open science movement in the name of derailing climate science, which in turn hides the real intent of delaying climate policy until all the fossil reserves are cashed in, is a disaster on more fronts than one. One unfortunate aspect is that it drives important segments of the scientific community to treat the open science movement as a threat to science. Advocates of open science would do well to think twice about the motivations and actions of this gang.
Are you actually arguing that you cannot do open science in climate science because someone may actually question the results? What would have happened if scientists in the 19th century buried the evidence from Mercury's orbit that could not be accounted for from Newtonian physics and heaven forbid someone question their theories? I really cannot believe much of what I am reading on Slashdot attacking scientists (and not just bloggers) who question of the aspects of climate science.
If you look on both sides of this debate, it is the climate scientists who sounds like religious fundamentalists! They have their faith and nothing will convince them otherwise. All naysayers are even satanists/Fox News watchers/teabaggers/Ad Hominem attack. They maybe right, but telling me that hiding the evidence is just how science is done is BS. I would like to see someone show me *ANY* other examples from science where the evidence needed to be hidden from other scientists "for the good of truth".
And don't kid yourselves about the piousness of either side. Al Gore has shown there is a lot of money to be made in the Global Warming trade. There is a great deal of grant money up for grabs and as well as corporations who would love nothing more than make money off of cap-and-trade.
[rant]
Instead of passively witnessing multimillionaire drug addicts chase a ball to sell ad space... do something. Take the people who were going to show up for "da big game" outside to play tag football. Have a foosball championship.
[/rant]
What, wasting your valuable time playing a meaningless trivial thing like foosball instead of doing something productive with your time like reading and discussing Joyce's Ulysses?
Believe or not, I love computer programming AND sports. And you are ignorant if you think sports is just a passive mindless activity. Sports works on multiple levels. First it is a social activity--an excuse for people to get together to enjoy each others company---not really that different from a foosball tournament or a card game or going to a movie. Most of the enjoyment of a card game is not the card game itself--it is socializing with others. Same with sports.
Second, for a true sports fan the sport is more than just a passive activity. Fans analyze and appreciate the nuances of tactics, strategy, and individual skill throughout the game. The reason that sports people are unfamiliar with are "boring" is they don't see and are not aware of the details. Baseball is a very boring sport, unless you understand the pitcher/batter matchup. Then it is very exciting. Knowing what pitches the pitcher throws, how well they throw them, what the batters strengths and weakness are. The situation with who is on base, what the score is, how tired the pitcher is, etc. Same with football (ie soccer) or American football or any sport. The defensive alignment of an American football team, the offensive execution of a basketball team, the trap play of a hockey team. For a fan, much of the fun is trying to predict what will happen and watching it play out.
Then, much like the Olympics, there is the sheer amazing in watching what the human body can do. To perform an athletic feat that is seemingly impossible.
Finally, with things like fantasy football, there is a sort of meta-level game that you are apart of.
The phone part of the iPhone is it's least appealing part. What makes the iPhone amazing is that it is a fully featured small computer with a ton of low-cost apps. I recently went to a trip to Budapest, Hungary. I downloaded apps which included an offline map of the city (so no data use), maps of the metro system, and an audio tourist guide. It was like having my own personal tourist guide. When back at the hotel I used Skype over wifi to call home cheap. Sure beat having a big clunky book + large foldout map that screamed "tourist please rob me".
When the android has the apps the iPhone does, I will consider it.
The problem with Global Warming is that the science has been mixed far too much with anti-capitalist politicians. From Copenhagen:
President Chavez
"socialism, the other ghost that is probably wandering around this room, that’s the way to save the planet, capitalism is the road to hell....let’s fight against capitalism and make it obey us.” He won a standing ovation.
Standardized tests are blatantly anti-education. They measure the ability and motivation of a kid to memorize answers from other days, and fill in those answers on one day out of 180.
1) If standardized tests are so bad, why do educators constantly use them to tell us how bad US students are? We constantly hear that we are ranked low compared to other countries.
2) If standardized tests are so bad, why do our universities use SATs and ACTs?
3) If you don't have some sort of standardized test, how then do you tell whether teachers are doing a good job?
4) I haven't taken a NCLB test, but I took plenty of standardized tests in the 80s growing up. Sure the science was more memorization, but you can't memorize your way out of math and reading comprehension.
5) Most importantly MUCH OF LEARNING IS MEMORIZATION. I've had to memorize a ton of facts just to do my daily job. Bits in a byte, Java keywords, fundamentals of OO programming.
You think it's the FDA that's been holding up stem cell research, and not the religious yahoos?
The only thing "held up" was federal funding for stem cells that resulted in destruction of the embryo/fetus. The research was not banned in any way. It did not affect any stem cell research from cells taken from your own body (which have the added benefit of being much less likely to be rejected). Nor did it affect Amniotic cells.
There are more legal hurdles right now to test on animals (which Neuralstem admits to doing), than stem cells. And if the animal rights crowd gets their way, this research area is toast because no one is going to experiment on humans without animal trials first. But keep blaming "religious yahoos" for all the problems.
The whole "evil religious people are against stem cells" is a typical wedge issue cooked up by politicians to get you away from looking at the arguments and issues and vote in a knee-jerk "Good vs Evil" mentality that makes you so darn easy to control. Animal testing is a complex argument around what does it mean to "feel" pain, etc. Well, guess what, there is a complex moral discussion surrounding whether it is a good idea to chop up embryos/fetuses and use them for spare parts. You know, kinda like what does it really mean to be human, what is morality, etc. In a way, it sounds vampirish -- to consume the cells of another entity with human DNA to improve your own health. Potentially, create a child and abort it so you can live longer. How close do you want to go to people as "spare parts"? You should at least understand and sympathize a little bit that a large number of people in a representative government may not want their tax money to go to something like that.
To reduce it down to calling people "yahoos" is inane.
Huh? Definition from from Merriam-Webster: " intense, turbulent, or furious and often destructive action or force ". So if the Air Force drops a bomb on your house, that isn't violence? And knocking over a tower IS a dangerous activity that could unintentionally hurt people. I'm sure that proper OSHA procedures were not followed, for example.
And the loss of tower IS a big deal, because so much of our modern technology infrastructure depends on towers. Throwing these people in jail isn't going to "recruit new members". It is going to teach a bunch of out of touch left wing radicals that there are consequences to their actions.
Terry Childs played the "battle of wills" game and lost. He's not the innocent child that some are alluding to - he did willfully not give the passwords out.
When I was a corporate IT guy (about 3 years in the middle of about 16 years as a consultant), I took responsibility over a large part of the network in a multi facility health care business....that is what Terry should have done....
Uh, so because he didn't do what YOU did you think it is right to throw him in Jail for a year? Our prisons are swelling with thousands of people who are their on someone's whim. EVERYONE is a federal felon nowadays. I mean everyone. There is some federal law you are violating that can land you in prison indefinitely. Now, if you are a member of Congress or the cabinet you can "forget" to pay some taxes. Otherwise, you better hope you don't tick off someone in power because they can and will destroy you. http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594032556
We are living in some scary times. The political class is treated like royalty and every crime is forgiven (see Kennedy, Chappaquiddick, and the royal state funeral he was given). And the average American, who is thrown into prison just to pump up some prosecutor resume.
People are surprised by this? Our inner cities are rotting. Our economy is in shambles. People are living squallor and poverty on an unprecidented scale in this country. We're a breeding ground now for all manners of disease, both social and medical.
And worst of all, there is a massive wave of over exaggeration plaguing the country! I cannot believe this was marked as 5 insightful. Poverty and squallor on unprecidented scale? Have you heard of the Great Depression? What facts and figures are you quoting? According to the US census at http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/poverty07/pov07fig03.pdf the poverty percentage has been at between 10 and 15 percent since the mid 60s. In 1959 it was 23%, so nearly a quarter of the population was in poverty!
We're a breeding ground now for all manners of disease, both social and medical? Start with the medical. Based on what science? Tens of thousands dying of cholera is a sign of breeding disease. Random cases of strange medical ailments because people in 3rd world countries immigrated to the US is not. What is your solution, stop all immigration? As for social disease, since the founding of the country people have been complaining about various "social diseases" plaguing the US. Heck, the crazy temperance movement managed to get all alcohol banned as a cure for the various social diseases resulting from drinking.
As for the decline of America, I've been hearing it all my life. First is was the Japanese, how they were much smarter and so much harder working than Americans, blah, blah, blah. Now it is the Chinese.
And no, I hate to disappoint you but we aren't going to be the Roman Empire because I don't see any barbarians who are going to come and raze our cities. We do not decline so much as everyone else is catching up to us. And the only reason there is catching up is because almost everyone else was demolished 60 years ago during WWII. There is no fundamental reason that the US should be the sole military, economic, and political power for the rest of human history. If we were a bunch of evil jerks, the US could try and use its power to keep everyone else down. But we don't and good for us for that.
No one seems to want to admit it but the business model that Microsoft employs for console gaming is seriously flawed. Sony's is a little better because at least you get onto the network for free.
Microsoft brags about their success but what they don't mention is that they need to over charge you for accessories (ie wifi adapters and hardrives) and they need to charge you for any little thing you do online.
It is only a flawed business model if noone is using it and it is not making money. I love the integration of XBox and XBox live. The integrated Voice Chat is indispensable once you get to use it. Log in, chat with a friend or group of friends, start a game, etc. All just works. In NHL09, which has 6 person positional team play, it is amazing. 5 friends can be finishing up a game, and I can come into the voice chat group with them in the middle of the game and coordinate on playing the next.
As for wifi adapters, etc, I prefer the way XBox did it. Why make me pay for it if I don't need it? Also, this way kids with less money can get the base system for Christmas and maybe the HD on their birthday. Not everyone can drop $600 bucks at a time.
I find it funny that the same group of people that encourages everyone to donate their time and labor for free has such a hard problem giving a couple extra hours to the company that is actually paying them.
If a man goes to a private website like say, Playboy in private and then discusses it in front of female co-workers, they may be charged with harassment. Guess what, just because its a private website, magazine, or bar doesn't mean you should repeat those thoughts or experiences or stories in front of your co-workers who could most obviously be offended.
From the article:
McQ is also listed as a defendant in the lawsuit. Asked why McQ bears responsibility for the racist remarks of his site's anonymous commenters, Mildenberg said it was because "he started it."
So is it also OK to sue Playboy because some idiots discussed it in front of female co-workers because Playboy "started it"?
You know I noticed your blog Mike's Chaotic Mind allows comments. Does this mean that if someone leaves a racist comment on your blog you can (and should) be sued and fired? How convenient it would be for someone who doesn't like you or who wants to extract some money to post some anonymous comments then sue you and your employer for them.
The Church of Scientology has tax-exempt status. It managed to secure a deal with the IRS that gives it the same rights as religious organizations.
It seems that religions do get special treatment in the US.
To be fair, so does PETA, NOW, NRA, the Sierra Club, and a host of other organizations of people who basically get together because they have some common belief and donate money to it. Treating religions otherwise would actually be discriminating against them.
The same old idiotic and baseless talking point, straight out of the right-wing think-tanks.
I guess in all of of those years of education noone taught you logical fallacies
There's this little thing called INFLATION. Sure, in the 1890s, teachers would be ecstatic to get $1/hour. These days, that's peanuts.
Hmm. Quick search. From 1980 to 2008 the rate of inflation was 161% The government spending on education went up 551%
Did you go to a private college? If so, I bet you paid a hell of a LOT more than $12,000 per year.
I thought we were talking about public education here?
Maybe if you had halfway decent teachers, you'd know that by now.
I had excellent teachers. That is why I know what an Ad hominem attack is. Once again, attacking the positions of the teachers union is not the same as attacking the teachers. One can disagree with dismissal policies and not "hate all teachers".
SCENARIO #1: Take one teacher. Put her in a classroom of Japanese-American kids or Hungarian-American kids. They will do well because they are committed to learning.
SCENARIO #2: Put that same teacher in a classroom of African-American kids from Oakland, California. The kids will do poorly because African-American culture rejects learning -- and rejects Western culture in general.
In scenario #2, the teacher would be fired as a "bad" teacher. In scenario #1, the same teacher would get a bonus for producing such accomplished students.
Is there any reasonable and objective way to determine a teacher's performance that is independent of the students in her classroom?
I once gave a talk on robots to a class of 1st graders in the heart of South Central Los Angeles as a favor for a friend. They were as polite, lively, smart, and curious as any other set of 1st graders I've ever met despite their mixed racial, cultural, and language backgrounds. Very fun and interactive group who were able to ask and answer fairly intelligent questions.
If a teacher is underperforming there is usually a process to get rid of them, even if tenured, only most administrators are too lazy to go through it.
First, if you think Slashdot is some right-wing website you haven't been here too long. Many of us are sensitive to this issue because if you are on a tech website you generally care about your education more. Hence you were much more likely to notice bad teaching and were affected more because you were actually INTERESTED in learning.
Second, you obviously didn't read the article. Did you see the process they had to go through? It was absolutely insane. And you could have a documented case where a teacher basically encouraged a kid to commit suicide and that still couldn't get the person fired.
It isn't about giving the principal absolute power (even though many/most were once teachers). It is about the power being too far shifted to the teachers at the expense of the students. There has to be a less arduous way to get rid of bad teachers.
As to why teachers may too little, I ask where is the money going? Because in places like Atlanta and DC we pay over 12K PER STUDENT. And teachers in Atlanta at least get paid 50-75k.
Its easy. Teachers' Unions have no incentive to do anything but gain as much money and power for the teachers as possible. They are not there for the students. Students don't vote or pay dues to the union.
Unfortunately, boards of education have been fairly powerless. There is this myth of the "Virtuous Teacher" who is perfect in all ways, makes minimum wage, and would solve all the worlds problems if only they had a little more resources. This is reinforced by the media, both in moves and TV as well as reporters. The truth is that teachers are regular people, there are good and bad ones. But if you try to stand up to the union, you are demonized as an "evil teacher hater". Nevermind the fact that test scores haven't gone up despite hundreds of billions of dollars in spending increases. Or the fact that we spend over $12,000 PER STUDENT in Atlanta and D.C., two of the lowest performing school districts in the country!
I have alot of respect for teachers. In fact, I have often thought about going into teaching High School after I retire as a way of giving back. I would not have made it to where I am without the exceptional work of many caring teachers. But I also had to put up with more than a few worthless, incompetent teachers who didn't care one bit about actually teaching. They came in with no preparation, read straight out of the book, and gave completely worthless exams. It was absolute torture having to sit there for 60-90 minutes a day, every day, with someone getting paid to waste my time. Back in High School myself and many others wondered how they could keep their jobs. Now I know.
Hopefully the tide is turning. If a paper like the LA Times is criticizing the union there maybe hope yet. We now need some boards to stand up to the unions.
The fact is, they needed the remnants to get a start on what they'd need to learn to survive. Throwing it away means most won't survive. In essence, it was a stupid and suicidal ending. It's no different than if they found earth and then decided to commit suicide by staying on the ships and flying into the sun.
First, they were carrying some equipment so it isn't like they abandoned everything. Also, I'm sure that 30k people could easily live off of the earth even without farming. Somehow our ancestors managed to figure it out. And I thought it was obvious from Baltar's comment that some of them knew quite a bit about agriculture. There were a number of people in the fleet from Aerilon who I assume were involved heavily into agriculture. They managed to live a year on New Caprica, which was a much less fertile place.
I hated the ending. The unilateral decision to get rid of all technology for everybody was both absurd, short-sighted, and just plain stupid.
The every day lives of most of the people on the fleet was terrible. They were confined in these sparse metal containers where they were chased by robots of their own creation. They had almost died of thirst and starved and often went hungry. From the looks of the food distribution, it appears they lived off of dried algae pellets. Maybe it was short-sighted, but after all that it is understandable they weren't the biggest fans of technology.
Another point is that this isn't some new fangled idea in Sci-Fi. The whole premise of Dune was a similar idea. Remember the Butlerian Jihad?
Sure there is a risk of viruses, infections, etc. But a bunch of AI robots just nuked 12 planets filled with humans, so I might just take my risk with the viruses. And we didn't get a chance to understand their full "limits" of technology. Maybe they were OK with medical technology, but that info was just lost. Everyone was loaded up with equipment, so they didn't seem intent on going into "immediate tribal" mode. Nor did they know it would take 150k+ years to get back to an "electronic age". Could be they just thought it would take 10k years instead of the normal 2-4k. But from previous events it appears that no matter what path they take, it requires thousands of years to get back to the technological level that the colonies were at before the fall.
All in all, you may not agree with their decision but after suffering so much due to technology it is completely understandable that they would want to shun it.
Slashdot Mirror
No, actually, it isn't.
People waiving the flag of false equivalence are intellectually corrupt. Violent rhetoric is not coming from both sides of the political spectrum, it's coming from the Fox News right.
I think a lot of people buy that crap because they're too gutless to take a stand for what's right.
You have missed a great deal if you think the Left isn't full of violent rhetoric. Forget all the stuff leveled at Bush? Heck, a CBS show literally displayed a picture of Bush with "Snipers Wanted" imposed over it. Look at Bill Ayers, who has at least some relationship with the President of the United States, and is unrepentant of the violent actions of the Weather Underground group he helped found. He has event been quoted as wishing he did more. Look at the violence at G20 conventions or the death threats against people like Ann Coulter. I could go on and on. Check out this page for a large number of links to "Left-wing Eliminationist Rhetoric" http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/?s=ELIMINATIONIST
Take some advice from Media Matters after the Discovery Channel incident. Should be applied to all similar incidents.. "Discovery Channel hostage-taker is the perpetrator of a crime-not liberal, conservative or a chance to score points " http://twitter.com/mmfa/status/22739013962
Then the GOP would not have a way to scare people into voting against their own interests.
Remember, patriotism is abandoning our liberties and principles to fight terrorism in order to preserve our... uh... profit margins?
Do you live in some alternate universe where John McCain was voted president? In my time line, we have a Democrat named Barack Obama who has been president for nearly 2 years now. We also have massive Democrat majorities in Congress. Not only are things as bad in this area, they have actually gotten significantly worse.
Please, someone create a TV show based on the Song of Songs of the Bible to fuck with those people.
What to do, what to do. It's the Bible and yet, it's porn!
Why do you assume that all Christians would be offended? I am a member of one of the most "conservative" Southern Baptist mega churches around, and neither my wife nor I have ever attended a Sunday School or sermon which said that Song of Songs wasn't about sex and wasn't an awesome book. If all you know about Christianity are the stereotypes on TV, I feels sorry for your ignorance. For most Protestant denominations, within marriage sex is considered an extremely wonderful and important part of a couple's relationship.
Call me crazy, but is Star Wars even culturally relevant anymore? It feels like Disco at this point.
Ask your average boy who is 4-8 years old how relevant Star Wars is. I teach pre-K Sunday School, and I can tell you that Star Wars is extremely popular, especially the prequel/Clone Wars stuff. It is weird to get kids whose favorite character is "Obi-Wan". For more details on the how relevant Star Wars is there is a great article by Emily Bazelon called Why does Star Wars still take over the minds of small boys? http://www.slate.com/id/2215160
I have PCs and consoles and killed many hours on FPS since Wolf3D, but I have leaned more towards consoles because of the ease of use and multiplayer. However, I still play strategy games on the PC and am very much looking forward to Civ V.
Some thoughts:
1. Keyboard+mouse is definitely easier, but I feel that it makes it *too* easy to aim--especially for a sniper.
2. People talk about the mouse so much they forget about the limitations of the keyboard. Movement is definitely not as fluid on a keyboard. The problem is that it is pure digital. Want to go up? It is either "forward" or "forward quickly". You can't press the s key lightly to go forward slowly.
3. Being able to turn quicker isn't necessarily better. Being able to do a 180 in 100ms just doesn't feel right in a game.
4. Because you are playing against people with the same limitations, you don't really notice the difference once you get used to it. You are just "in the game".
Your inability to engage in a discussion without resorting to words like "fuck, asshole, and fucktard" proves my point. You are not interested in rational discussion, just juvenile namecalling.
I really want the open science movement to be about making science more accessible and more appealing and more part of the culture. This subversion of the open science movement in the name of derailing climate science, which in turn hides the real intent of delaying climate policy until all the fossil reserves are cashed in, is a disaster on more fronts than one. One unfortunate aspect is that it drives important segments of the scientific community to treat the open science movement as a threat to science. Advocates of open science would do well to think twice about the motivations and actions of this gang.
Are you actually arguing that you cannot do open science in climate science because someone may actually question the results? What would have happened if scientists in the 19th century buried the evidence from Mercury's orbit that could not be accounted for from Newtonian physics and heaven forbid someone question their theories? I really cannot believe much of what I am reading on Slashdot attacking scientists (and not just bloggers) who question of the aspects of climate science.
If you look on both sides of this debate, it is the climate scientists who sounds like religious fundamentalists! They have their faith and nothing will convince them otherwise. All naysayers are even satanists/Fox News watchers/teabaggers/Ad Hominem attack. They maybe right, but telling me that hiding the evidence is just how science is done is BS. I would like to see someone show me *ANY* other examples from science where the evidence needed to be hidden from other scientists "for the good of truth".
And don't kid yourselves about the piousness of either side. Al Gore has shown there is a lot of money to be made in the Global Warming trade. There is a great deal of grant money up for grabs and as well as corporations who would love nothing more than make money off of cap-and-trade.
[rant] Instead of passively witnessing multimillionaire drug addicts chase a ball to sell ad space... do something. Take the people who were going to show up for "da big game" outside to play tag football. Have a foosball championship. [/rant]
What, wasting your valuable time playing a meaningless trivial thing like foosball instead of doing something productive with your time like reading and discussing Joyce's Ulysses?
Believe or not, I love computer programming AND sports. And you are ignorant if you think sports is just a passive mindless activity. Sports works on multiple levels. First it is a social activity--an excuse for people to get together to enjoy each others company---not really that different from a foosball tournament or a card game or going to a movie. Most of the enjoyment of a card game is not the card game itself--it is socializing with others. Same with sports.
Second, for a true sports fan the sport is more than just a passive activity. Fans analyze and appreciate the nuances of tactics, strategy, and individual skill throughout the game. The reason that sports people are unfamiliar with are "boring" is they don't see and are not aware of the details. Baseball is a very boring sport, unless you understand the pitcher/batter matchup. Then it is very exciting. Knowing what pitches the pitcher throws, how well they throw them, what the batters strengths and weakness are. The situation with who is on base, what the score is, how tired the pitcher is, etc. Same with football (ie soccer) or American football or any sport. The defensive alignment of an American football team, the offensive execution of a basketball team, the trap play of a hockey team. For a fan, much of the fun is trying to predict what will happen and watching it play out.
Then, much like the Olympics, there is the sheer amazing in watching what the human body can do. To perform an athletic feat that is seemingly impossible.
Finally, with things like fantasy football, there is a sort of meta-level game that you are apart of.
The phone part of the iPhone is it's least appealing part. What makes the iPhone amazing is that it is a fully featured small computer with a ton of low-cost apps. I recently went to a trip to Budapest, Hungary. I downloaded apps which included an offline map of the city (so no data use), maps of the metro system, and an audio tourist guide. It was like having my own personal tourist guide. When back at the hotel I used Skype over wifi to call home cheap. Sure beat having a big clunky book + large foldout map that screamed "tourist please rob me". When the android has the apps the iPhone does, I will consider it.
President Chavez "socialism, the other ghost that is probably wandering around this room, that’s the way to save the planet, capitalism is the road to hell....let’s fight against capitalism and make it obey us.” He won a standing ovation.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/putting_our_economy_in_the_hands_of_chavez_fans What does that have to do with the technical problem of global warming? Absolutely nothing. For a better example of how everyone can cooperate see the battle against CFC emissions. That was a much more scientifically proven problem and thanks to the Montreal Protocol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol is now a problem under control. It didn't devolve into "evil capitalists destroying the environment" and "lets destroy all air conditions and refrigerators". There was a problem, then a technical fix.
Standardized tests are blatantly anti-education. They measure the ability and motivation of a kid to memorize answers from other days, and fill in those answers on one day out of 180.
1) If standardized tests are so bad, why do educators constantly use them to tell us how bad US students are? We constantly hear that we are ranked low compared to other countries. 2) If standardized tests are so bad, why do our universities use SATs and ACTs? 3) If you don't have some sort of standardized test, how then do you tell whether teachers are doing a good job? 4) I haven't taken a NCLB test, but I took plenty of standardized tests in the 80s growing up. Sure the science was more memorization, but you can't memorize your way out of math and reading comprehension. 5) Most importantly MUCH OF LEARNING IS MEMORIZATION. I've had to memorize a ton of facts just to do my daily job. Bits in a byte, Java keywords, fundamentals of OO programming.
You think it's the FDA that's been holding up stem cell research, and not the religious yahoos?
The only thing "held up" was federal funding for stem cells that resulted in destruction of the embryo/fetus. The research was not banned in any way. It did not affect any stem cell research from cells taken from your own body (which have the added benefit of being much less likely to be rejected). Nor did it affect Amniotic cells.
There are more legal hurdles right now to test on animals (which Neuralstem admits to doing), than stem cells. And if the animal rights crowd gets their way, this research area is toast because no one is going to experiment on humans without animal trials first. But keep blaming "religious yahoos" for all the problems.
The whole "evil religious people are against stem cells" is a typical wedge issue cooked up by politicians to get you away from looking at the arguments and issues and vote in a knee-jerk "Good vs Evil" mentality that makes you so darn easy to control. Animal testing is a complex argument around what does it mean to "feel" pain, etc. Well, guess what, there is a complex moral discussion surrounding whether it is a good idea to chop up embryos/fetuses and use them for spare parts. You know, kinda like what does it really mean to be human, what is morality, etc. In a way, it sounds vampirish -- to consume the cells of another entity with human DNA to improve your own health. Potentially, create a child and abort it so you can live longer. How close do you want to go to people as "spare parts"? You should at least understand and sympathize a little bit that a large number of people in a representative government may not want their tax money to go to something like that.
To reduce it down to calling people "yahoos" is inane.
First, damage to property is not violence.
Huh? Definition from from Merriam-Webster: " intense, turbulent, or furious and often destructive action or force ". So if the Air Force drops a bomb on your house, that isn't violence? And knocking over a tower IS a dangerous activity that could unintentionally hurt people. I'm sure that proper OSHA procedures were not followed, for example.
And the loss of tower IS a big deal, because so much of our modern technology infrastructure depends on towers. Throwing these people in jail isn't going to "recruit new members". It is going to teach a bunch of out of touch left wing radicals that there are consequences to their actions.
Terry Childs played the "battle of wills" game and lost. He's not the innocent child that some are alluding to - he did willfully not give the passwords out.
When I was a corporate IT guy (about 3 years in the middle of about 16 years as a consultant), I took responsibility over a large part of the network in a multi facility health care business. ...that is what Terry should have done. ...
Uh, so because he didn't do what YOU did you think it is right to throw him in Jail for a year? Our prisons are swelling with thousands of people who are their on someone's whim. EVERYONE is a federal felon nowadays. I mean everyone. There is some federal law you are violating that can land you in prison indefinitely. Now, if you are a member of Congress or the cabinet you can "forget" to pay some taxes. Otherwise, you better hope you don't tick off someone in power because they can and will destroy you. http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594032556
We are living in some scary times. The political class is treated like royalty and every crime is forgiven (see Kennedy, Chappaquiddick, and the royal state funeral he was given). And the average American, who is thrown into prison just to pump up some prosecutor resume.
People are surprised by this? Our inner cities are rotting. Our economy is in shambles. People are living squallor and poverty on an unprecidented scale in this country. We're a breeding ground now for all manners of disease, both social and medical.
And worst of all, there is a massive wave of over exaggeration plaguing the country! I cannot believe this was marked as 5 insightful. Poverty and squallor on unprecidented scale? Have you heard of the Great Depression? What facts and figures are you quoting? According to the US census at http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/poverty07/pov07fig03.pdf the poverty percentage has been at between 10 and 15 percent since the mid 60s. In 1959 it was 23%, so nearly a quarter of the population was in poverty!
We're a breeding ground now for all manners of disease, both social and medical? Start with the medical. Based on what science? Tens of thousands dying of cholera is a sign of breeding disease. Random cases of strange medical ailments because people in 3rd world countries immigrated to the US is not. What is your solution, stop all immigration? As for social disease, since the founding of the country people have been complaining about various "social diseases" plaguing the US. Heck, the crazy temperance movement managed to get all alcohol banned as a cure for the various social diseases resulting from drinking.
As for the decline of America, I've been hearing it all my life. First is was the Japanese, how they were much smarter and so much harder working than Americans, blah, blah, blah. Now it is the Chinese.
And no, I hate to disappoint you but we aren't going to be the Roman Empire because I don't see any barbarians who are going to come and raze our cities. We do not decline so much as everyone else is catching up to us. And the only reason there is catching up is because almost everyone else was demolished 60 years ago during WWII. There is no fundamental reason that the US should be the sole military, economic, and political power for the rest of human history. If we were a bunch of evil jerks, the US could try and use its power to keep everyone else down. But we don't and good for us for that.
No one seems to want to admit it but the business model that Microsoft employs for console gaming is seriously flawed. Sony's is a little better because at least you get onto the network for free. Microsoft brags about their success but what they don't mention is that they need to over charge you for accessories (ie wifi adapters and hardrives) and they need to charge you for any little thing you do online.
It is only a flawed business model if noone is using it and it is not making money. I love the integration of XBox and XBox live. The integrated Voice Chat is indispensable once you get to use it. Log in, chat with a friend or group of friends, start a game, etc. All just works. In NHL09, which has 6 person positional team play, it is amazing. 5 friends can be finishing up a game, and I can come into the voice chat group with them in the middle of the game and coordinate on playing the next.
As for wifi adapters, etc, I prefer the way XBox did it. Why make me pay for it if I don't need it? Also, this way kids with less money can get the base system for Christmas and maybe the HD on their birthday. Not everyone can drop $600 bucks at a time.
I find it funny that the same group of people that encourages everyone to donate their time and labor for free has such a hard problem giving a couple extra hours to the company that is actually paying them.
If a man goes to a private website like say, Playboy in private and then discusses it in front of female co-workers, they may be charged with harassment. Guess what, just because its a private website, magazine, or bar doesn't mean you should repeat those thoughts or experiences or stories in front of your co-workers who could most obviously be offended.
From the article:
McQ is also listed as a defendant in the lawsuit. Asked why McQ bears responsibility for the racist remarks of his site's anonymous commenters, Mildenberg said it was because "he started it."
So is it also OK to sue Playboy because some idiots discussed it in front of female co-workers because Playboy "started it"?
You know I noticed your blog Mike's Chaotic Mind allows comments. Does this mean that if someone leaves a racist comment on your blog you can (and should) be sued and fired? How convenient it would be for someone who doesn't like you or who wants to extract some money to post some anonymous comments then sue you and your employer for them.
The Church of Scientology has tax-exempt status. It managed to secure a deal with the IRS that gives it the same rights as religious organizations.
It seems that religions do get special treatment in the US.
To be fair, so does PETA, NOW, NRA, the Sierra Club, and a host of other organizations of people who basically get together because they have some common belief and donate money to it. Treating religions otherwise would actually be discriminating against them.
The same old idiotic and baseless talking point, straight out of the right-wing think-tanks.
I guess in all of of those years of education noone taught you logical fallacies
There's this little thing called INFLATION. Sure, in the 1890s, teachers would be ecstatic to get $1/hour. These days, that's peanuts.
Hmm. Quick search. From 1980 to 2008 the rate of inflation was 161% The government spending on education went up 551%
Did you go to a private college? If so, I bet you paid a hell of a LOT more than $12,000 per year.
I thought we were talking about public education here?
Maybe if you had halfway decent teachers, you'd know that by now.
I had excellent teachers. That is why I know what an Ad hominem attack is. Once again, attacking the positions of the teachers union is not the same as attacking the teachers. One can disagree with dismissal policies and not "hate all teachers".
SCENARIO #1: Take one teacher. Put her in a classroom of Japanese-American kids or Hungarian-American kids. They will do well because they are committed to learning.
SCENARIO #2: Put that same teacher in a classroom of African-American kids from Oakland, California. The kids will do poorly because African-American culture rejects learning -- and rejects Western culture in general.
In scenario #2, the teacher would be fired as a "bad" teacher. In scenario #1, the same teacher would get a bonus for producing such accomplished students.
Is there any reasonable and objective way to determine a teacher's performance that is independent of the students in her classroom?
I once gave a talk on robots to a class of 1st graders in the heart of South Central Los Angeles as a favor for a friend. They were as polite, lively, smart, and curious as any other set of 1st graders I've ever met despite their mixed racial, cultural, and language backgrounds. Very fun and interactive group who were able to ask and answer fairly intelligent questions.
If a teacher is underperforming there is usually a process to get rid of them, even if tenured, only most administrators are too lazy to go through it.
First, if you think Slashdot is some right-wing website you haven't been here too long. Many of us are sensitive to this issue because if you are on a tech website you generally care about your education more. Hence you were much more likely to notice bad teaching and were affected more because you were actually INTERESTED in learning.
Second, you obviously didn't read the article. Did you see the process they had to go through? It was absolutely insane. And you could have a documented case where a teacher basically encouraged a kid to commit suicide and that still couldn't get the person fired.
It isn't about giving the principal absolute power (even though many/most were once teachers). It is about the power being too far shifted to the teachers at the expense of the students. There has to be a less arduous way to get rid of bad teachers.
As to why teachers may too little, I ask where is the money going? Because in places like Atlanta and DC we pay over 12K PER STUDENT. And teachers in Atlanta at least get paid 50-75k.
Its easy. Teachers' Unions have no incentive to do anything but gain as much money and power for the teachers as possible. They are not there for the students. Students don't vote or pay dues to the union.
Unfortunately, boards of education have been fairly powerless. There is this myth of the "Virtuous Teacher" who is perfect in all ways, makes minimum wage, and would solve all the worlds problems if only they had a little more resources. This is reinforced by the media, both in moves and TV as well as reporters. The truth is that teachers are regular people, there are good and bad ones. But if you try to stand up to the union, you are demonized as an "evil teacher hater". Nevermind the fact that test scores haven't gone up despite hundreds of billions of dollars in spending increases. Or the fact that we spend over $12,000 PER STUDENT in Atlanta and D.C., two of the lowest performing school districts in the country!
I have alot of respect for teachers. In fact, I have often thought about going into teaching High School after I retire as a way of giving back. I would not have made it to where I am without the exceptional work of many caring teachers. But I also had to put up with more than a few worthless, incompetent teachers who didn't care one bit about actually teaching. They came in with no preparation, read straight out of the book, and gave completely worthless exams. It was absolute torture having to sit there for 60-90 minutes a day, every day, with someone getting paid to waste my time. Back in High School myself and many others wondered how they could keep their jobs. Now I know.
Hopefully the tide is turning. If a paper like the LA Times is criticizing the union there maybe hope yet. We now need some boards to stand up to the unions.
The fact is, they needed the remnants to get a start on what they'd need to learn to survive. Throwing it away means most won't survive. In essence, it was a stupid and suicidal ending. It's no different than if they found earth and then decided to commit suicide by staying on the ships and flying into the sun.
First, they were carrying some equipment so it isn't like they abandoned everything. Also, I'm sure that 30k people could easily live off of the earth even without farming. Somehow our ancestors managed to figure it out. And I thought it was obvious from Baltar's comment that some of them knew quite a bit about agriculture. There were a number of people in the fleet from Aerilon who I assume were involved heavily into agriculture. They managed to live a year on New Caprica, which was a much less fertile place.
I hated the ending. The unilateral decision to get rid of all technology for everybody was both absurd, short-sighted, and just plain stupid.
The every day lives of most of the people on the fleet was terrible. They were confined in these sparse metal containers where they were chased by robots of their own creation. They had almost died of thirst and starved and often went hungry. From the looks of the food distribution, it appears they lived off of dried algae pellets. Maybe it was short-sighted, but after all that it is understandable they weren't the biggest fans of technology.
Another point is that this isn't some new fangled idea in Sci-Fi. The whole premise of Dune was a similar idea. Remember the Butlerian Jihad?
Sure there is a risk of viruses, infections, etc. But a bunch of AI robots just nuked 12 planets filled with humans, so I might just take my risk with the viruses. And we didn't get a chance to understand their full "limits" of technology. Maybe they were OK with medical technology, but that info was just lost. Everyone was loaded up with equipment, so they didn't seem intent on going into "immediate tribal" mode. Nor did they know it would take 150k+ years to get back to an "electronic age". Could be they just thought it would take 10k years instead of the normal 2-4k. But from previous events it appears that no matter what path they take, it requires thousands of years to get back to the technological level that the colonies were at before the fall.
All in all, you may not agree with their decision but after suffering so much due to technology it is completely understandable that they would want to shun it.