That's right...and we should have ten bills of right in the constitution as well.
Seriously, though, an argument for multiple laws per bill is that, if you make a significant introduction to the body of law, it could have tiny repurcussions that will have to be addressed as well. Suppose you had a bill to legalize cocaine use, but you want the sale regulated. Now you've got to come up with a scheme to license vendors, determine penalties for misuse, tax it to fund the rehab clinics that the public will clamor for (or forbid state funds for that purpose, if you go that way), yaddah yaddah yaddah...now, you could draft bills that address each of these issues (and countless others) individually, but legislators will want to hold back the vote on one bill until they know the status of another. Altogether, it would make passing laws even more expensive and complicated a task than it already is.
This could also be an argument for having fewer laws, sure. But I wanted to come up with a likely scenario:)
The best treatment for sleepiness is SLEEPING!!! If you are engaging in an activity that is depriving you of sleep, STOP!!! There is a reason you get sleepy.
Thank you, doctor, but if you will take the time to read the article, it said it is indicated for "diagnosed medical conditions." Feeling sleepy because you have missed sleep is not a medical condition. Feeling perpetually sleepy regardless of diet, exercise, or number of hours slept is. I do not know if this is being tested as a treatment for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or not, but people who suffer from that can sleep up to 20 hours and still feel wiped out. (And, in anticipation of the geniuses who will respond by saying "oversleep makes you tired, too," people who suffer from CFS also feel exhausted after eight, ten, twelve, or three hours of sleep as well.)
As to your point about nobody knowing how a drug works, well...too many other people have already rebutted that.
I have a friend who owns two telescopes and two pairs of high-powered binoculars. We've gone out and scoped out the rings of Saturn, comet Ikeya-Zhang, and solar activity (with really strong filters). The availability of cheap telescopes does not mean the end of amateur astronomy, it means the end of amateur telescope-building.
I forget who said it, but it bears repeating: "Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." It's the same thing. If my friend's interests were with tinkering with lenses and long metal tubes, he'd be doing that.
If there were some special need he had that no manufacturer met, some special lens he needed, maybe this would be an issue. But companies stay in business by providing what their customers want. Especially when their customers are chiefly hobbyists.
That's a classic mistake about sample size and statistics. The relevant sample size has nothing to do with the size of the population in general, and everything to do with a) the degree of certainty you're searching for, and b) the degree of precision with which you measure a phenomenon. I forget what the exact numbers are (as it's been ten years since Stats 220 for me), but that part of the lesson stuck with me: assuming a sufficiently randomized sample, absolute population size simply doesn't make a difference. That's why, if you're not testing a new drug or something, you can get away with much lower sample sizes (and much less expensive test costs).
It is painful for me to hear people say that "a point of view is dangerous."
First, we already have a lot of readily-available "dangerous" information, such as how to make napalm, pipe bombs, or homemade poisons. We have since before the advent of the internet. And I mean before 1969, not 1993. The information about how to kill one or several people is not hard to find, and never has been.
Second, cracking and counter-cracking technologies are running an arms race, where exploits run a smaller chance of causing damage as time goes by. Some of the counter-cracking measures may advance because of altruism, but they are significantly hastened when a proof-of-concept demonstration is released to "arbitrary" parties (i.e., security-minded software consumers--the general public). They cannot afford the perception of sitting still while their security measures are overtaken.
This is why your time-travel argument makes no sense, because you are deliberately speculating about an impossible scenario, one that does not exist in the world today or in a foreseeable future, and using it as a basis to restrict basic freedoms. Who's being dangerous now?
It seems the companies didn't like having a middleman between them and the consumers.
Yay, rah and all that. But why doesn't something like this happen more often because consumers don't want a middleman between them and their companies?
The Flash Gordon serials were originally released in the late thirties...the movie "Flash Gordon" was a (sort of) remake.
Not all the characters had parallels in Star Wars, either. Dr. Zarkoff was an older and wiser man than Flash, but he was pretty dopey and ineffective most of the time, unlike Obi-wan. Ming might equal the Emperor, but there was really no Darth Vader equivalent. Flash had two love interests, the faithful but simpering Dale Arden and the scheming Princess Aura. There was no concept like "the Force." So there were a lot of differences.
Beyond a certain point, familiarity with the game supercedes numerical calculation. The odds of various hands appearing have been computed long ago, and any good card-player has them memorized, even considering wild cards and the like.
After that, it becomes a game of bluffing and applied psychology. Physicists, as a class, do not have the upper hand in a game like that. (Not saying they're handicapped, just that they're not better players simply because they can do math.)
The "Episode IV" wasn't on until it was re-released.
Nope. I remember being a little weirded out in '77 by seeing the "part IV" fly up the screen, but I was soon distracted. When Empire came out, some of my friends were surprised by the words "Episode V," but I wasn't, having seen "Episode IV" three times already.
...that he took inspiration from multiple sources? He's acknowledged Flash Gordon, Campbell, Kurosawa, and Star Trek as inspirations already. Why is this a revelation? Does anyone think he tried to cover this up?
Games which are "realistic" vs. those which are more abstract offer two different kinds of escape, a necessary component (IMHO) of games. Abstract games allow people to escape the world into a realm of elegant, pristine rules. Games with complex simulation components allow people to escape the world into, effectively, another world.
Of course, that world is simplified in a lot of the same ways that an "abstract" game is. I don't know how realistic we'd want any game, even a FPS, to get. I mean, realism would entail all the economic and social, biological and physical burdens that we use games to take a break from. Who would want to work at a desk job and save up enough to be able to afford a BFG or tactical nuke, after all?
How was that hammer made? Specifically, what metal is the head, what kind of wood/metal/whatever is the handle made of, how were these things gathered and assembled and mass-produced?
You see, you know part of how a hammer works. But not the whole story. Certainly (well, probably) not enough to make one yourself. And building a hammer factory and mining the ore have pronounced effects on the economy and environment, in ways that nobody fully understands. That's what I'm getting at.
We play God when we decide to meddle with the construction of our genes, or of the atom, or of the environment.
We are also playing God when we see the pain and suffering already present in our fellow humans' bodies or in the world at large but decide it's not worth it to take any risks or try something new.
Fear the use of technology we don't understand, but realize it's all a matter of degree. Nobody knows how computers work, for example. Of course, we all know a little bit about parts of it--some of us can program, others can design circuits on silicon chips--but nobody knows all the parts, or how many ways they can interact. And there's little way for us to explore the world (in the scientific sense) that doesn't involve the use of technology of ever-increasing complexity.
Also, curing a fatal disorder is not taking something lightly. Although the "it might spawn some other disease" argument is compelling for emotional reasons, it's really an out-of-left-field consideration. You can say with equal certainty (i.e., little to none) that this achievement might also serendipitously lead to a plethora of other cures and treatments that might have otherwise eluded us. Then we'd be guilty of standing still when we could have done something.
Here is the link to write them and let them know what you think. I myself haven't decided between the "YOU ALL SUCK, FUCK ALL Y'ALL" and the "Dear Gentlemen, I am disappointed to hear..." approaches. But do as you see fit.
In the forests of the UK, two trees are planted for every one that is felled
I followed those links, and I'm skeptical. Do they think that two skinny saplings are really going to replace, for example, a six-foot (~1.8M) diameter, fifty-foot high oak? And I'm suspicious of that 252 million cubic metre figure--did they estimate what the actual fluid displacement per tree was, or did they just include all the airy space encompassed by the limb spans?
Lastly, although I don't doubt that younger, growing trees cycle CO2 more, it's important for an ecosystem to have representation for all cycles in a tree's lifespan--many species of birds and other animals only nest at certain heights, and to assume that they'll all find homes in lower canopies strikes me as a little naive.
All in all, it seems like those links were for some disingenuous corporate apologists. I'd take what they have to say with a grain or two of salt if I were you.
I know this may sound evil but when a company is as small as yours...
Not evil, but stupid. If you can't be bothered to do things right the first time, you will lose money eventually, when Product 2.0 fails to ship because nobody can comprehend or find the specs. With the size of even modest software projects these days, you might not even get past Product 0.9. If a company really cannot afford the time and effort to set up some kind of infrastructure, then they're really too poor to be in business in the first place.
Your advice is like going to the bank and asking them to finance a business, then telling them you didn't have the time to write a business proposal because you were too worried about making money.
The "right way" people are always the ones who blow schedules and bring down companies.
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Seriously, though, an argument for multiple laws per bill is that, if you make a significant introduction to the body of law, it could have tiny repurcussions that will have to be addressed as well. Suppose you had a bill to legalize cocaine use, but you want the sale regulated. Now you've got to come up with a scheme to license vendors, determine penalties for misuse, tax it to fund the rehab clinics that the public will clamor for (or forbid state funds for that purpose, if you go that way), yaddah yaddah yaddah...now, you could draft bills that address each of these issues (and countless others) individually, but legislators will want to hold back the vote on one bill until they know the status of another. Altogether, it would make passing laws even more expensive and complicated a task than it already is.
This could also be an argument for having fewer laws, sure. But I wanted to come up with a likely scenario :)
As to your point about nobody knowing how a drug works, well...too many other people have already rebutted that.
I forget who said it, but it bears repeating: "Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." It's the same thing. If my friend's interests were with tinkering with lenses and long metal tubes, he'd be doing that.
If there were some special need he had that no manufacturer met, some special lens he needed, maybe this would be an issue. But companies stay in business by providing what their customers want. Especially when their customers are chiefly hobbyists.
That's a classic mistake about sample size and statistics. The relevant sample size has nothing to do with the size of the population in general, and everything to do with a) the degree of certainty you're searching for, and b) the degree of precision with which you measure a phenomenon. I forget what the exact numbers are (as it's been ten years since Stats 220 for me), but that part of the lesson stuck with me: assuming a sufficiently randomized sample, absolute population size simply doesn't make a difference. That's why, if you're not testing a new drug or something, you can get away with much lower sample sizes (and much less expensive test costs).
You're thinking of the original Lost World. The Land that Time Forgot is an ERB title.
First, we already have a lot of readily-available "dangerous" information, such as how to make napalm, pipe bombs, or homemade poisons. We have since before the advent of the internet. And I mean before 1969, not 1993. The information about how to kill one or several people is not hard to find, and never has been.
Second, cracking and counter-cracking technologies are running an arms race, where exploits run a smaller chance of causing damage as time goes by. Some of the counter-cracking measures may advance because of altruism, but they are significantly hastened when a proof-of-concept demonstration is released to "arbitrary" parties (i.e., security-minded software consumers--the general public). They cannot afford the perception of sitting still while their security measures are overtaken.
This is why your time-travel argument makes no sense, because you are deliberately speculating about an impossible scenario, one that does not exist in the world today or in a foreseeable future, and using it as a basis to restrict basic freedoms. Who's being dangerous now?
Not all the characters had parallels in Star Wars, either. Dr. Zarkoff was an older and wiser man than Flash, but he was pretty dopey and ineffective most of the time, unlike Obi-wan. Ming might equal the Emperor, but there was really no Darth Vader equivalent. Flash had two love interests, the faithful but simpering Dale Arden and the scheming Princess Aura. There was no concept like "the Force." So there were a lot of differences.
...he's not the original.
After that, it becomes a game of bluffing and applied psychology. Physicists, as a class, do not have the upper hand in a game like that. (Not saying they're handicapped, just that they're not better players simply because they can do math.)
...that he took inspiration from multiple sources? He's acknowledged Flash Gordon, Campbell, Kurosawa, and Star Trek as inspirations already. Why is this a revelation? Does anyone think he tried to cover this up?
Of course, that world is simplified in a lot of the same ways that an "abstract" game is. I don't know how realistic we'd want any game, even a FPS, to get. I mean, realism would entail all the economic and social, biological and physical burdens that we use games to take a break from. Who would want to work at a desk job and save up enough to be able to afford a BFG or tactical nuke, after all?
You see, you know part of how a hammer works. But not the whole story. Certainly (well, probably) not enough to make one yourself. And building a hammer factory and mining the ore have pronounced effects on the economy and environment, in ways that nobody fully understands. That's what I'm getting at.
We are also playing God when we see the pain and suffering already present in our fellow humans' bodies or in the world at large but decide it's not worth it to take any risks or try something new.
Also, curing a fatal disorder is not taking something lightly. Although the "it might spawn some other disease" argument is compelling for emotional reasons, it's really an out-of-left-field consideration. You can say with equal certainty (i.e., little to none) that this achievement might also serendipitously lead to a plethora of other cures and treatments that might have otherwise eluded us. Then we'd be guilty of standing still when we could have done something.
No, that was the David Lynch version you're thinking of.
Here is the link to write them and let them know what you think. I myself haven't decided between the "YOU ALL SUCK, FUCK ALL Y'ALL" and the "Dear Gentlemen, I am disappointed to hear..." approaches. But do as you see fit.
I agree with you. I was mostly responding to the links provided by the previous poster, and, consequently, going off on a tangent.
I followed those links, and I'm skeptical. Do they think that two skinny saplings are really going to replace, for example, a six-foot (~1.8M) diameter, fifty-foot high oak? And I'm suspicious of that 252 million cubic metre figure--did they estimate what the actual fluid displacement per tree was, or did they just include all the airy space encompassed by the limb spans?
Lastly, although I don't doubt that younger, growing trees cycle CO2 more, it's important for an ecosystem to have representation for all cycles in a tree's lifespan--many species of birds and other animals only nest at certain heights, and to assume that they'll all find homes in lower canopies strikes me as a little naive.
All in all, it seems like those links were for some disingenuous corporate apologists. I'd take what they have to say with a grain or two of salt if I were you.
And these have no internal documentation, no coding standards, they were just whipped up from the get-go?
Your advice is like going to the bank and asking them to finance a business, then telling them you didn't have the time to write a business proposal because you were too worried about making money.
And your evidence of this is...?