But seriously. That would solve a lot of issues. A completely random selection of the public to sit in the Senate and the House would give a much more interesting cross section of the American public. Right now the idea probably wouldn't even be controversial. Even just doing that a few times, say, 20 years, and then letting elections proceed normally again (with sensible campaign finance rules) might fix a lot of things.
Would it create more issues than it solves? I don't think so. Though really only because the system is *so* friggin messed up, that even an idea that radical couldn't really hurt.
Will it happen? Dunno. I sure hope that SOMETHING good happens though, since it's looking more and more like most of us are totally screwed unless something does, or absolutely everyone just starts behaving like actual Human Beings. Don't know which is more likely.
and you'll get a better idea of what's done, though there is more explicit information available if you're interested.
The "Flavor Packs" they use are technically "natural" since they're derived from oranges, but the whole process sounds pretty nasty to me. I'll continue to just eat in-season fresh oranges or squeeze them myself for juice, and eat different fruits when they're not in season.
For reading, in bed, lights out, lying on my side in a comfortable position, I've found nothing better than a 4.3" smartphone (NOT an e-reader) mounted in a dock, sitting on the bed next to my pillow, with the screen orientation forced into portrait: this is the EFFING HOLY GRAIL for me for reading novels in perfect physical comfort.
I used to (sometimes) read ebooks sitting in a comfy chair in front of my desktop computer with a LARGE font (so I could lean back and read) -- but it was somewhat less than ideal for extended reading sessions.
I used to think I'd never give up paper novels... until I found the aforementioned method.
I agree that terra preta is *awesome* -- and I want some in my garden -- but it's probably only about 2500 years old... Definitely should be possible to create it with charcoal and kitchen waste and a few years of experiments.
Yes, I tried GrooveIP too, but for whatever reason it didn't like my internet connection, or perhaps my (fairly old) phone, and had a significant delay (up to 0.5 sec) -- so essentially gave me a half-duplex connection, whereas for whatever reason sipdroid has only a small latency (usually 0.1 sec or less)... sipdroid does "integrate" into the android dialer, but not very well, but hey, it's cost-free!
I use GV as my "primary" cellphone #. Granted, I don't actually use my "phone" as a phone very often. I pay next to nothing for cell service, since my phone is connected to wifi most of the time. Sipdroid + GV, while probably only about 95% reliable works well enough for me -- I have had issues with texts not getting forwarded properly, though I solved that by having all texts sent to gmail. It's slightly inconvenient to have two "cell" numbers, though most people i know can deal with that. The voicemail transcription is pretty neat, works well enough, and is often hilarious. I'd pay a reasonable yearly fee for GV. It's my impression that GV mostly exists because google is interested in optimizing its voice recognition system. I sometimes "donate" accurate translations of my voicemails.
I'd pay a reasonable fee for GV, especially if there was an app that properly integrated it with the android dialer (sipdroid is really a hack).
That's true. And I guess that wold be part of the reason for the restricted access to those camera feeds, and maybe any cameras that aren't in a public fixed location need to be handled differently, or remain secured until subpoenaed or requested under FOIA.
Further: generally, I don't see the objections about people using the camera feeds for nefarious purposes. I guess it might make a criminals job easier, but it doesn't "change the game" in that it doesn't let anyone do anything they can't already do.
And, sure voyeurism is an issue, but I still think that if the cameras exist, and *someone* gets to review their output, then there needs to be a way for others to also review that output, and more importantly verify that when video is used as evidence that the whole story is being represented.
I've said this for years. I have no problem with all the public-facing cameras, so long as the output from all those cameras is available to the public, preferably directly, in realtime. The cameras then become a public asset. Law enforcement can use them, but so can the rest of us. There's already no expectation of privacy in public places, so I don't see any issues with universal access to the data.
I'd guess it might be necessary to restrict access to police dashcams and "uniform-cams" for a time, but eventually it should all be made public, with review processes in place to make sure that none of it gets "accidentally" deleted.
There's already a "smart" gun. Its called a shotgun. Handguns are dangerous, largely because it's relatively easy for the user to shoot themselves, or accidentally shoot someone else with one. When was the last time you heard about an accidental death (or even a homicide) involving a legally-obtained shotgun?
IMHO, most guns (and ammunition) other than shotguns should be stored in locally-managed, locked & guarded arms depots, perhaps adjunct to local police stations, or even better, dedicated organizations (militias), to be used for civil defense, in the event of an invasion or (god forbid) civil war. If there was such a system of militias in place, I might actually be interested in exercising my 2nd amendment rights, since it would serve a useful purpose,in that it would reduce the ability to justify the existence of a standing army (the true reason for the 2nd amendment). As it is, I have no interest in guns, and even less in the politics surrounding them.
Technically, it was applesoft basic on a Bell & Howell Apple ][ in 5th grade science class. The teacher had written a program in applesoft basic to drill simple arithmetic problems, and another to drill spelling words, both including simple animation and sound. I was enthralled (even before I saw the thing actually do anything, since it sat there for weeks for lack of an RF Modulator to connect to a TV, which the teacher eventually built from simple parts, much to my amazement). I looked at his code and immediately began writing simple games (text adventure, tic-tac-toe, pong, etc.) and even "ported" his original program to the C64 and TI/99-4a -- though I think in many ways my learning to program started much earlier, since I was always taking apart (and sometimes putting back together) various machines, appliances, electronics, what have you, from a young age, and developed a basic empirical understanding of mechanics, electricity and electronics, which translates somewhat into basic logic, and perhaps more importantly the willingness to learn from (and copy) "prior art" and to not be afraid of breaking stuff or making mistakes. There's a (potential) drawback though to empirical learning, in that it makes it more difficult to fall into academia and established theory, since unlearning is sometimes more difficult than learning, though personally, I have no regrets in that regard, since it also makes acquiring new skills much quicker. I wish I could pick up new human languages as quickly as I can pick up new programming languages.
Not refuting anything you're saying (Because I agree wholeheartedly), but the quote from 1 Timothy is:
"For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil."
Emphasis added, since I think that's the most important part of the quote. Money is just a tool. It may be a tool that we need to leave in the dustbin of history, and I'd personally like to see that happen, since there are many ways we could live without a monetary system entirely, but as a pragmatist, I don't see it happening anytime soon, at least not without a very strong catalyst.
I've been saying this for years. Sometime shortly after the 1Ghz "barrier" got broken, almost all computers became "good enough" for almost everyone.
I just recently put a built-from parts (and virtually silent) circa 2003 machine with a 1.8 Ghz AMD Barton, back into service with a modern 80+ power supply, 1.5 gigs or ram and a new(ish) drive. It may not be quite as snappy as my current main system (which is 5 years old) or my htpc (which is 7) but it's really a perfectly usable machine with a fresh install of pretty much any modern OS.
The primary reason to run current-gen hardware these days is lower power consumption, and to a certain extent modern graphics hardware (capable of hardware HD x264 decoding). If all you need is a web browser and office suite, anything that uses reasonably fast RAM from 10+ years ago will more than fit the bill.
Lots of people end up replacing perfectly good hardware just because "windows gets slow" which (sadly) few people seem to know that a reinstall will fix. That might take a few hours, and to hire a tech to do that might cost $75 or so... but that's still cheaper than a new machine.
For semi-anonymous international criminal syndicates, or whomever they did that for, what makes you think they wouldn't do the same thing for their actual BUDDIES who run legitimate multibillion dollar businesses? And there is (as others have pointed out) always suitcases filled with $100 bills. It's really not that long of a boat (or private jet) ride from Florida or Texas to the Caymans or Bermuda.
I wish I had mod points for you, but I don't, so I'll comment instead and say that the fact that there are people willing (indeed, even eager) to compare an act as essentially harmless (as admitted by a major corporate head) as sharing some TV episodes, to the heinous and criminal act of rape, simply to try and strengthen their argument, is a good example of one of the issues facing our society: totally inappropriate hyperbole. Certainly this social issue is more important than online filesharing.
My next paragraph may make me a tad hypocritical, though perhaps illustrates my point.
The (thinly veiled) comparison to rape suggests that this person (if he/she/it is not a troll, which I guess is likely) thinks that rape is not much worse than, or even equivalent to copyright infringement. It's a logical hypothesis.
Slightly more seriously: If the poster was not a troll, then I'd guess that they're not consciously aware that they think that way, and the comparison bubbled up out of the unconscious, perhaps in reaction to seeing a somewhat charged and leading assertion, since I don't see that HBO is "inducing" anyone to infringe copyright any more than the US Mint induces people to counterfeit, though if I was going to make that point (I don't personally care to, since I would say it's irrelevant) I think I would let my argument stand on it's own without denigrating womankind or bringing up 9/11 or whatever other horror might be in fashion, since at least for a free-thinking audience, the hyperbole only serves to diminish the point.
That said I do think it's somewhat refreshing to hear a corporate spokesperson admit what most of us have known for years, that casual online (or offline) sharing of copyrighted content, on the whole, is at worst economically neutral, since much of it amounts to free advertising, as some of the people that obtain or and/or provide an infringing copy will also spend money on the same or similar content, or cause others to, since people will spend money on stuff they like.
I feel for the friends and family of the poor guy, and wish them the best, and I'm sure it's an impractical suggestion, and in no way is it likely to happen, but In my opinion modern humans have no business living on what is essentially a giant sand bar that supports a delicate (and slowly dying) ecosystem. Though I'm admittedly biased. I simply don't like the place. The weather is almost unlivable. It's cold in the winter and unbearably hot and humid all summer. Culturally, it's not my cup of tea either.
Draining the everglades (which is/was a beautiful and terrifying place) was one of the worst ideas ever. The CoE does some great things, but that was not one of them.
Granted Cape Cod and the islands in my home state aren't much better (ecologically speaking).
That may be true, but you seem to have missed the point of the rebuttal. It's completely unnecessary to "carpet the entire surface of the earth" with panels.
I've done the math before as well, and it's a very small percentage (around 0.1%) of the earth's surface required to produce all the electricity needs of the planet with PV panels, or a little under 1% to produce ALL the energy needs of the planet.
That would be a decidedly non-trivial undertaking. Though The same effect could be achieved over a long period of time by having lots (and lots) of grid-connected solar systems (with storage) installed all over the place. A distributed solution would not require massive changes to the transmission lines to be rolled out in one project.
It's my understanding that the problem of storage is really the only barrier currently to a 99% PV electrical grid.
We could only generate around 20% with PV without needing serious technology upgrades at substations and additional on-grid storage.
There are also the (probably limitless) number of (vanishingly unlikely) possibilities that could be if our understanding of the universe is flawed or incomplete, i.e. there is stuff going on at *much* "smaller" scales than the planck length, and the universe has much more energy available than we're aware of, or that "time" can actually be "rewritten" in small, or large ways, or that paradoxes actually are somehow "features" of the universe, ways in which the universe can actually to be "logically" inconsistent with itself: "existential dissonance" if you will.
Or how about that even if it were to become *technically* possible to create a paradox (you have a time machine) in actuality, it is discovered to be impossible to create one. You can travel in time, but any action that would create a paradox simply does not occur; no matter how hard one tries to create a paradox, the action always fails. It's hard to rationalize something like that, but our *actual understanding* of the universe is increasingly hard to rationalize as well... so it's not *that* much or a stretch to imagine that the cosmos may have properties even weirder than an infinite number of simultaneous universes, that is: one universe that can be changed at any points in time, but those changes are forced to always have conditions that don't contain outright paradoxes, or if you do create one, the universe spontaneously "heals" itself. Perhaps your time machine ceases to have been made, and therefore you never traveled in time to create the paradox, so the universe just "pops" back into place, with no one the wiser. Only time travelers that know the "rules" of time could ever successfully travel in time, everyone else would only end up back where they started.
Try pageplus. They resell verizon. I have an old off-contract droid x that I keep activated as a cell phone for under $4/month. It's connected to wifi most of the time, so I hardly ever use the tiny amount of voice/data that I get for that price. It works perfectly as an occasional use cell phone, but full time pocket computer.
I used to have a tracfone, but pageplus makes it *cheaper* to have an android phone. I dunno how they do it, but I don't care as long as they stay in business.
It's true though, actual "smartphone" plans from all the major providers are at least $30/month, and more like $75/month if you use a lot of mobile bandwidth.
I'm sure that situation (more or less) has indeed happened. However, what about the (much more common) occurrence of men treating women as just a place to stick their dick? With little regard for what happens afterward to her or her child? Like, for thousands of years? Obviously not all men, even long ago, were like this, however I think my point is clear.
Yes there are laws that have been put in place in the last hundred years that theoretically give women legal standing and power (as opposed to none), however even in our modern society, I'd say that on balance, women still get the short end, in a society still mostly ruled by rich old white men.
Look at fucking *current events* with "women can reject rape sperm" and other dark-ages bullshit like that? There are *many* men that still think that way. And they're pissed that they can't *literally* own their women anymore, as their grandfathers did.
I'm not saying that two wrongs make a right, but one has to look at context, and frequency.
Sure, there are women that abuse the power afforded them by law. Are you saying that men never do that? Of course not, since that'd be absurd. Both men and women have selfish drives, though I think men still win in that department, statistically speaking.
Also I'd be surprised if the *vast* majority of couples (married or otherwise) started out as anything but two people genuinely caring about each other. Things can go sour fast, and they do often, for many reasons.
I just don't think there's the same level and frequency of sociopathy in women as there is in men.
Oh, and btw your Tytler quote (you misspelled his name) probably isn't even from him (not that it would matter) since almost none of his writings survive. It was probably written out of whole cloth by some dickhead in the 1950's for an opinion piece in a conservative newspaper.
Democracy has it's flaws for sure, but to say that it inevitably leads to dictatorship smacks of something a would-be dictator would say, waiting for his chance.
I think you mean the top 50% are getting tired of funding the bottom 50%. Everyone should pay something if they have an income. If you have no skin in the game you have no reason to care if taxes go up on everyone else and you will continue to vote yourself more money.
Poppycock and flapdoodle. There are (roughly) 10,000 individual human beings that control half of the worlds wealth and resources, 40 years ago, that same bracket had a strangle-hold on only one quarter of the wealth and resources. Anyone that can stand up and look the rest of us in the eye and say with a straight face that that is all just fine and dandy is either lying or deluded.
So long as we have an income tax (that's another conversation...) I say with a resounding YES: the ultra-rich (>10 million "net worth") should pay much more (as a percentage) of their income in taxes than do the working poor ($0 "net worth"). It's called progressive taxation, and it's ABSOLUTELY necessary so long as there is such a HUGE chasm between the top 0.1% and the bottom 50%, financially speaking. Granted, the culture of greed that dug that chasm is a social issue, and cannot be solved politically. Progressive taxation is treating the symptom.
The solution? Damned if I know. I do know it's going to get worse. Automation and other gains in productivity-efficiency are going to drive unemployment higher and higher. What are the working poor going to do when there is no longer any work for them? Ahh, Innovate! you say. Come up with new ideas? But guess what, there have been only a handful of "self-made men" in over half a century. All "innovation" is doled out in drips and drabs by the moneyed-interests. It would take a fucking miracle at this point for someone to come forward, out of nowhere (like happened repeatedly in the early 20th century) and make their mark on the world with a new invention or process. The system is stacked against it. Yeah, there's the dotcom thing that happened over a decade ago, but what have we (other than a few neat gadgets) to show for it? What upward mobility did it cause? Very little, and to a limited sector of the population. Who did it ultimately benefit? Mostly venture capitalists and giant financial firms.
I have (some) sympathy for the "middle rich", that "only" earn a quarter million a year. In that many of them probably did work very hard to get where they are. But guess what. They can still feed their families, afford a nice house, a couple of nice cars, and send their kids to good schools, even if their tax rate goes from 35% to 39% or whatever. It's not going to send them spiraling into poverty, or make them quit their jobs and go on welfare, that's patently absurd. If you want to give them tax-relief, let's give them huge tax credits for super-insulating their homes, home-solar energy projects and making better automotive choices, so they're investing in the future of humanity, instead of borrowing against it.
The ultra rich on the other hand are hoarding, plain and simple. In some cultures, in times of crisis, hoarding (food) is a shameful or even criminal act. We're all on this planet together. Some people seem to think that if they have enough money and power they can place themselves above everyone else, and don't have to actually share the planet with the rest of us. It's a *disease* and it's fucking celebrated, by people who should know better. Probably because they hope they can achieve the same station. Riiiiiight. Like that's gonna happen.
Sorry for the diatribe, but this kind of willful-ignorance really burns me.
I was (for better or worse) exposed to an Apple II circa 1980. I was in 5th grade and was already keen on science (I was going to be a botanist), but hadn't previously known computers even existed. but got hooked immediately. There was of course little to no formal (or even informal) computer instruction, however I was lucky and had a great science teacher, who gave me (and a few other kids) time with the machines in (and after) class. Before long I was peeking and poking, and then came the vic20 and the c64 and my 99/4a. I even got to meet a PDP 11/15 that lived at our elementary school (!) for a time. But I digress. For traditional high school there was little or no opportunity to study computers, so I did the only logical thing and went to a technical school, where they had a PDP 11/44. COBOL, RPG, IBM S/36, more RPG. Then the IBM PC. More RPG, but then: Word processing. Desktop Publishing. Databases. Many software titles.
So my experience in High School was untypical for the time. Technical education? Yes it exists, but even today, not really in mainstream schools, at least not on any practical level. I think most people that got into computers, whether it was 1980, 1990 or 2000, or 2012 for that matter, got sucked into them one way or another.
There are some great teachers out there that have guided kids one way or another into technical understanding of computers and related systems but I would imagine many or even most of those kids were already into them after merely being exposed to them, and were able to just figure them out on their own, at least on a "fundamentals" level. Sad that with the test-centric environment the public schools have become, the great teachers that might identify a kid interested in a particular subject that resonates with their own interests, might not have the time, or latitude, to tutor them in that direction.
Computers are also kind of ho-hum in today's world. Whereas for those of us in our 40s and 50s, when we first had access to them, we were getting to actually see and use things that (in a 5th graders mind) only Sci-Fi TV characters and real-life mad scientists got to play with. So there was a sense of awe I think. Today? iDevice? I'll just get an iDevice n+1 next month or whatever. It might as well be a brand of hair product. Techno-bling.
The latest computer system is hardly more than another technical commodity like a threaded screw or a formed concrete block (both world changing technical achievements). It is a thing that can be mostly taken for granted by those who have always known them to exist. Which is, in some ways, tragic, since if anything, there are orders of magnitude more unexplored possibilities open now than there were 30 years ago. Though in other ways, probably exactly as it should be. Computers aren't (yet anyway) the magical creatures we dreamed them to be from exposure to science fiction and our own imaginations. They're tools, much like any other.
I use some "cloud" storage as a *third* (or fourth) copy, for some stuff. Mostly small-ish stuff, though that includes all my email. Managing backups over a long timespan is usually hard, expensive, or both, but worth it. I have as a pretty simple system though. I like to have all my photos and music on two live, spinning disks, with the "cream" also stored offline, and maybe also on a server I control, and maybe also elsewhere on the internet. My system is far from ideal, and not as robust (or automated) as it should be, but the primary "two spinning disk" rule is a pretty good first line of defense against hardware failure and accidental deletion. I don't mirror disks, I just add new stuff to both disks.
This will only ever be a problem (for me) if disks stop getting bigger, since I invariably replace a (still functioning) drive every few years, with one 2-3 times bigger than the previous one, and then just copy the whole old disk to the new one.
Just did a re-install about a month ago: 128GB adata SX900 -- which newegg now has for $15 less than I paid (always happens) -- on a 3+ year old system.
Best. Upgrade. Ever.
12 second boot instead of 45 seconds (not that I reboot much) but the big win: lag is nonexistent. Disk intensive stuff like browsing/picking through my heavy photo catalog just flies. Most of my stuff is, of course, still on spinning drives, but key apps & data, like email and photo libraries I'm working with are on the SSD. Actions that used to take several seconds (per photo) now are nearly instantaneous. Full-text searching through email is a lot faster. Sleep/Hibernate is practically instantaneous. $100 is nothing for not having to wait a few seconds (every few seconds!) when doing photo work. I make backups of critical data onto multiple spinning disks, regardless of what kind of disk I'm using, so reliability isn't a concern. I wish I took the plunge sooner.
Your take is a generalization, and overly simplistic, though so is the idea that simply reducing the death rate will curb population growth. The facts are totally uncontroversial. Girls education:
is the main way that the birth rate declines, that and access to family planning, for those women once they understand what the options are.
We're going to be 10 billion humans by 2050, and most of the population models predict a stable population after that. Provided we can hold it all together that long... Our systems for production, government and education will need to change quite a bit to work in a world with a steady-state population. (read: a steady-state economy)
Here's a fantastic explanation of the current models on population:
Slashdot Mirror
That is a great idea. At least until we have Multivac:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franchise_(short_story)
But seriously. That would solve a lot of issues. A completely random selection of the public to sit in the Senate and the House would give a much more interesting cross section of the American public. Right now the idea probably wouldn't even be controversial. Even just doing that a few times, say, 20 years, and then letting elections proceed normally again (with sensible campaign finance rules) might fix a lot of things.
Would it create more issues than it solves? I don't think so. Though really only because the system is *so* friggin messed up, that even an idea that radical couldn't really hurt.
Will it happen? Dunno. I sure hope that SOMETHING good happens though, since it's looking more and more like most of us are totally screwed unless something does, or absolutely everyone just starts behaving like actual Human Beings. Don't know which is more likely.
It's a bit more than just that. Look at the "Not From concentrate" section of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_juice
and you'll get a better idea of what's done, though there is more explicit information available if you're interested.
The "Flavor Packs" they use are technically "natural" since they're derived from oranges, but the whole process sounds pretty nasty to me. I'll continue to just eat in-season fresh oranges or squeeze them myself for juice, and eat different fruits when they're not in season.
For reading, in bed, lights out, lying on my side in a comfortable position, I've found nothing better than a 4.3" smartphone (NOT an e-reader) mounted in a dock, sitting on the bed next to my pillow, with the screen orientation forced into portrait: this is the EFFING HOLY GRAIL for me for reading novels in perfect physical comfort.
I used to (sometimes) read ebooks sitting in a comfy chair in front of my desktop computer with a LARGE font (so I could lean back and read) -- but it was somewhat less than ideal for extended reading sessions.
I used to think I'd never give up paper novels... until I found the aforementioned method.
I agree that terra preta is *awesome* -- and I want some in my garden -- but it's probably only about 2500 years old... Definitely should be possible to create it with charcoal and kitchen waste and a few years of experiments.
Yes, I tried GrooveIP too, but for whatever reason it didn't like my internet connection, or perhaps my (fairly old) phone, and had a significant delay (up to 0.5 sec) -- so essentially gave me a half-duplex connection, whereas for whatever reason sipdroid has only a small latency (usually 0.1 sec or less)... sipdroid does "integrate" into the android dialer, but not very well, but hey, it's cost-free!
I use GV as my "primary" cellphone #. Granted, I don't actually use my "phone" as a phone very often. I pay next to nothing for cell service, since my phone is connected to wifi most of the time. Sipdroid + GV, while probably only about 95% reliable works well enough for me -- I have had issues with texts not getting forwarded properly, though I solved that by having all texts sent to gmail. It's slightly inconvenient to have two "cell" numbers, though most people i know can deal with that. The voicemail transcription is pretty neat, works well enough, and is often hilarious. I'd pay a reasonable yearly fee for GV. It's my impression that GV mostly exists because google is interested in optimizing its voice recognition system. I sometimes "donate" accurate translations of my voicemails.
I'd pay a reasonable fee for GV, especially if there was an app that properly integrated it with the android dialer (sipdroid is really a hack).
That's true. And I guess that wold be part of the reason for the restricted access to those camera feeds, and maybe any cameras that aren't in a public fixed location need to be handled differently, or remain secured until subpoenaed or requested under FOIA.
Further: generally, I don't see the objections about people using the camera feeds for nefarious purposes. I guess it might make a criminals job easier, but it doesn't "change the game" in that it doesn't let anyone do anything they can't already do.
And, sure voyeurism is an issue, but I still think that if the cameras exist, and *someone* gets to review their output, then there needs to be a way for others to also review that output, and more importantly verify that when video is used as evidence that the whole story is being represented.
I've said this for years. I have no problem with all the public-facing cameras, so long as the output from all those cameras is available to the public, preferably directly, in realtime. The cameras then become a public asset. Law enforcement can use them, but so can the rest of us. There's already no expectation of privacy in public places, so I don't see any issues with universal access to the data.
I'd guess it might be necessary to restrict access to police dashcams and "uniform-cams" for a time, but eventually it should all be made public, with review processes in place to make sure that none of it gets "accidentally" deleted.
There's already a "smart" gun. Its called a shotgun. Handguns are dangerous, largely because it's relatively easy for the user to shoot themselves, or accidentally shoot someone else with one. When was the last time you heard about an accidental death (or even a homicide) involving a legally-obtained shotgun?
IMHO, most guns (and ammunition) other than shotguns should be stored in locally-managed, locked & guarded arms depots, perhaps adjunct to local police stations, or even better, dedicated organizations (militias), to be used for civil defense, in the event of an invasion or (god forbid) civil war. If there was such a system of militias in place, I might actually be interested in exercising my 2nd amendment rights, since it would serve a useful purpose,in that it would reduce the ability to justify the existence of a standing army (the true reason for the 2nd amendment). As it is, I have no interest in guns, and even less in the politics surrounding them.
Technically, it was applesoft basic on a Bell & Howell Apple ][ in 5th grade science class. The teacher had written a program in applesoft basic to drill simple arithmetic problems, and another to drill spelling words, both including simple animation and sound. I was enthralled (even before I saw the thing actually do anything, since it sat there for weeks for lack of an RF Modulator to connect to a TV, which the teacher eventually built from simple parts, much to my amazement). I looked at his code and immediately began writing simple games (text adventure, tic-tac-toe, pong, etc.) and even "ported" his original program to the C64 and TI/99-4a -- though I think in many ways my learning to program started much earlier, since I was always taking apart (and sometimes putting back together) various machines, appliances, electronics, what have you, from a young age, and developed a basic empirical understanding of mechanics, electricity and electronics, which translates somewhat into basic logic, and perhaps more importantly the willingness to learn from (and copy) "prior art" and to not be afraid of breaking stuff or making mistakes. There's a (potential) drawback though to empirical learning, in that it makes it more difficult to fall into academia and established theory, since unlearning is sometimes more difficult than learning, though personally, I have no regrets in that regard, since it also makes acquiring new skills much quicker. I wish I could pick up new human languages as quickly as I can pick up new programming languages.
Not refuting anything you're saying (Because I agree wholeheartedly), but the quote from 1 Timothy is:
"For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil."
Emphasis added, since I think that's the most important part of the quote. Money is just a tool. It may be a tool that we need to leave in the dustbin of history, and I'd personally like to see that happen, since there are many ways we could live without a monetary system entirely, but as a pragmatist, I don't see it happening anytime soon, at least not without a very strong catalyst.
I've been saying this for years. Sometime shortly after the 1Ghz "barrier" got broken, almost all computers became "good enough" for almost everyone.
I just recently put a built-from parts (and virtually silent) circa 2003 machine with a 1.8 Ghz AMD Barton, back into service with a modern 80+ power supply, 1.5 gigs or ram and a new(ish) drive. It may not be quite as snappy as my current main system (which is 5 years old) or my htpc (which is 7) but it's really a perfectly usable machine with a fresh install of pretty much any modern OS.
The primary reason to run current-gen hardware these days is lower power consumption, and to a certain extent modern graphics hardware (capable of hardware HD x264 decoding). If all you need is a web browser and office suite, anything that uses reasonably fast RAM from 10+ years ago will more than fit the bill.
Lots of people end up replacing perfectly good hardware just because "windows gets slow" which (sadly) few people seem to know that a reinstall will fix. That might take a few hours, and to hire a tech to do that might cost $75 or so... but that's still cheaper than a new machine.
Others have brought up good points countering your "non-story" opinion, here's (I think) another:
If banks are willing to do THIS:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/11/us-hsbc-probe-idUSBRE8BA05M20121211
For semi-anonymous international criminal syndicates, or whomever they did that for, what makes you think they wouldn't do the same thing for their actual BUDDIES who run legitimate multibillion dollar businesses? And there is (as others have pointed out) always suitcases filled with $100 bills. It's really not that long of a boat (or private jet) ride from Florida or Texas to the Caymans or Bermuda.
I wish I had mod points for you, but I don't, so I'll comment instead and say that the fact that there are people willing (indeed, even eager) to compare an act as essentially harmless (as admitted by a major corporate head) as sharing some TV episodes, to the heinous and criminal act of rape, simply to try and strengthen their argument, is a good example of one of the issues facing our society: totally inappropriate hyperbole. Certainly this social issue is more important than online filesharing.
My next paragraph may make me a tad hypocritical, though perhaps illustrates my point.
The (thinly veiled) comparison to rape suggests that this person (if he/she/it is not a troll, which I guess is likely) thinks that rape is not much worse than, or even equivalent to copyright infringement. It's a logical hypothesis.
Slightly more seriously: If the poster was not a troll, then I'd guess that they're not consciously aware that they think that way, and the comparison bubbled up out of the unconscious, perhaps in reaction to seeing a somewhat charged and leading assertion, since I don't see that HBO is "inducing" anyone to infringe copyright any more than the US Mint induces people to counterfeit, though if I was going to make that point (I don't personally care to, since I would say it's irrelevant) I think I would let my argument stand on it's own without denigrating womankind or bringing up 9/11 or whatever other horror might be in fashion, since at least for a free-thinking audience, the hyperbole only serves to diminish the point.
That said I do think it's somewhat refreshing to hear a corporate spokesperson admit what most of us have known for years, that casual online (or offline) sharing of copyrighted content, on the whole, is at worst economically neutral, since much of it amounts to free advertising, as some of the people that obtain or and/or provide an infringing copy will also spend money on the same or similar content, or cause others to, since people will spend money on stuff they like.
I feel for the friends and family of the poor guy, and wish them the best, and I'm sure it's an impractical suggestion, and in no way is it likely to happen, but In my opinion modern humans have no business living on what is essentially a giant sand bar that supports a delicate (and slowly dying) ecosystem. Though I'm admittedly biased. I simply don't like the place. The weather is almost unlivable. It's cold in the winter and unbearably hot and humid all summer. Culturally, it's not my cup of tea either.
Draining the everglades (which is/was a beautiful and terrifying place) was one of the worst ideas ever. The CoE does some great things, but that was not one of them.
Granted Cape Cod and the islands in my home state aren't much better (ecologically speaking).
That may be true, but you seem to have missed the point of the rebuttal. It's completely unnecessary to "carpet the entire surface of the earth" with panels.
I've done the math before as well, and it's a very small percentage (around 0.1%) of the earth's surface required to produce all the electricity needs of the planet with PV panels, or a little under 1% to produce ALL the energy needs of the planet.
That would be a decidedly non-trivial undertaking. Though The same effect could be achieved over a long period of time by having lots (and lots) of grid-connected solar systems (with storage) installed all over the place. A distributed solution would not require massive changes to the transmission lines to be rolled out in one project.
It's my understanding that the problem of storage is really the only barrier currently to a 99% PV electrical grid.
We could only generate around 20% with PV without needing serious technology upgrades at substations and additional on-grid storage.
There are also the (probably limitless) number of (vanishingly unlikely) possibilities that could be if our understanding of the universe is flawed or incomplete, i.e. there is stuff going on at *much* "smaller" scales than the planck length, and the universe has much more energy available than we're aware of, or that "time" can actually be "rewritten" in small, or large ways, or that paradoxes actually are somehow "features" of the universe, ways in which the universe can actually to be "logically" inconsistent with itself: "existential dissonance" if you will.
Or how about that even if it were to become *technically* possible to create a paradox (you have a time machine) in actuality, it is discovered to be impossible to create one. You can travel in time, but any action that would create a paradox simply does not occur; no matter how hard one tries to create a paradox, the action always fails. It's hard to rationalize something like that, but our *actual understanding* of the universe is increasingly hard to rationalize as well... so it's not *that* much or a stretch to imagine that the cosmos may have properties even weirder than an infinite number of simultaneous universes, that is: one universe that can be changed at any points in time, but those changes are forced to always have conditions that don't contain outright paradoxes, or if you do create one, the universe spontaneously "heals" itself. Perhaps your time machine ceases to have been made, and therefore you never traveled in time to create the paradox, so the universe just "pops" back into place, with no one the wiser. Only time travelers that know the "rules" of time could ever successfully travel in time, everyone else would only end up back where they started.
Try pageplus. They resell verizon. I have an old off-contract droid x that I keep activated as a cell phone for under $4/month. It's connected to wifi most of the time, so I hardly ever use the tiny amount of voice/data that I get for that price. It works perfectly as an occasional use cell phone, but full time pocket computer.
I used to have a tracfone, but pageplus makes it *cheaper* to have an android phone. I dunno how they do it, but I don't care as long as they stay in business.
It's true though, actual "smartphone" plans from all the major providers are at least $30/month, and more like $75/month if you use a lot of mobile bandwidth.
I'm sure that situation (more or less) has indeed happened. However, what about the (much more common) occurrence of men treating women as just a place to stick their dick? With little regard for what happens afterward to her or her child? Like, for thousands of years? Obviously not all men, even long ago, were like this, however I think my point is clear.
Yes there are laws that have been put in place in the last hundred years that theoretically give women legal standing and power (as opposed to none), however even in our modern society, I'd say that on balance, women still get the short end, in a society still mostly ruled by rich old white men.
Look at fucking *current events* with "women can reject rape sperm" and other dark-ages bullshit like that? There are *many* men that still think that way. And they're pissed that they can't *literally* own their women anymore, as their grandfathers did.
I'm not saying that two wrongs make a right, but one has to look at context, and frequency.
Sure, there are women that abuse the power afforded them by law. Are you saying that men never do that? Of course not, since that'd be absurd. Both men and women have selfish drives, though I think men still win in that department, statistically speaking.
Also I'd be surprised if the *vast* majority of couples (married or otherwise) started out as anything but two people genuinely caring about each other. Things can go sour fast, and they do often, for many reasons.
I just don't think there's the same level and frequency of sociopathy in women as there is in men.
Oh, and btw your Tytler quote (you misspelled his name) probably isn't even from him (not that it would matter) since almost none of his writings survive. It was probably written out of whole cloth by some dickhead in the 1950's for an opinion piece in a conservative newspaper.
Democracy has it's flaws for sure, but to say that it inevitably leads to dictatorship smacks of something a would-be dictator would say, waiting for his chance.
Poppycock and flapdoodle. There are (roughly) 10,000 individual human beings that control half of the worlds wealth and resources, 40 years ago, that same bracket had a strangle-hold on only one quarter of the wealth and resources. Anyone that can stand up and look the rest of us in the eye and say with a straight face that that is all just fine and dandy is either lying or deluded.
So long as we have an income tax (that's another conversation...) I say with a resounding YES: the ultra-rich (>10 million "net worth") should pay much more (as a percentage) of their income in taxes than do the working poor ($0 "net worth"). It's called progressive taxation, and it's ABSOLUTELY necessary so long as there is such a HUGE chasm between the top 0.1% and the bottom 50%, financially speaking. Granted, the culture of greed that dug that chasm is a social issue, and cannot be solved politically. Progressive taxation is treating the symptom.
The solution? Damned if I know. I do know it's going to get worse. Automation and other gains in productivity-efficiency are going to drive unemployment higher and higher. What are the working poor going to do when there is no longer any work for them? Ahh, Innovate! you say. Come up with new ideas? But guess what, there have been only a handful of "self-made men" in over half a century. All "innovation" is doled out in drips and drabs by the moneyed-interests. It would take a fucking miracle at this point for someone to come forward, out of nowhere (like happened repeatedly in the early 20th century) and make their mark on the world with a new invention or process. The system is stacked against it. Yeah, there's the dotcom thing that happened over a decade ago, but what have we (other than a few neat gadgets) to show for it? What upward mobility did it cause? Very little, and to a limited sector of the population. Who did it ultimately benefit? Mostly venture capitalists and giant financial firms.
I have (some) sympathy for the "middle rich", that "only" earn a quarter million a year. In that many of them probably did work very hard to get where they are. But guess what. They can still feed their families, afford a nice house, a couple of nice cars, and send their kids to good schools, even if their tax rate goes from 35% to 39% or whatever. It's not going to send them spiraling into poverty, or make them quit their jobs and go on welfare, that's patently absurd. If you want to give them tax-relief, let's give them huge tax credits for super-insulating their homes, home-solar energy projects and making better automotive choices, so they're investing in the future of humanity, instead of borrowing against it.
The ultra rich on the other hand are hoarding, plain and simple. In some cultures, in times of crisis, hoarding (food) is a shameful or even criminal act. We're all on this planet together. Some people seem to think that if they have enough money and power they can place themselves above everyone else, and don't have to actually share the planet with the rest of us. It's a *disease* and it's fucking celebrated, by people who should know better. Probably because they hope they can achieve the same station. Riiiiiight. Like that's gonna happen.
Sorry for the diatribe, but this kind of willful-ignorance really burns me.
I was (for better or worse) exposed to an Apple II circa 1980. I was in 5th grade and was already keen on science (I was going to be a botanist), but hadn't previously known computers even existed. but got hooked immediately. There was of course little to no formal (or even informal) computer instruction, however I was lucky and had a great science teacher, who gave me (and a few other kids) time with the machines in (and after) class. Before long I was peeking and poking, and then came the vic20 and the c64 and my 99/4a. I even got to meet a PDP 11/15 that lived at our elementary school (!) for a time. But I digress. For traditional high school there was little or no opportunity to study computers, so I did the only logical thing and went to a technical school, where they had a PDP 11/44. COBOL, RPG, IBM S/36, more RPG. Then the IBM PC. More RPG, but then: Word processing. Desktop Publishing. Databases. Many software titles.
So my experience in High School was untypical for the time. Technical education? Yes it exists, but even today, not really in mainstream schools, at least not on any practical level. I think most people that got into computers, whether it was 1980, 1990 or 2000, or 2012 for that matter, got sucked into them one way or another.
There are some great teachers out there that have guided kids one way or another into technical understanding of computers and related systems but I would imagine many or even most of those kids were already into them after merely being exposed to them, and were able to just figure them out on their own, at least on a "fundamentals" level. Sad that with the test-centric environment the public schools have become, the great teachers that might identify a kid interested in a particular subject that resonates with their own interests, might not have the time, or latitude, to tutor them in that direction.
Computers are also kind of ho-hum in today's world. Whereas for those of us in our 40s and 50s, when we first had access to them, we were getting to actually see and use things that (in a 5th graders mind) only Sci-Fi TV characters and real-life mad scientists got to play with. So there was a sense of awe I think. Today? iDevice? I'll just get an iDevice n+1 next month or whatever. It might as well be a brand of hair product. Techno-bling.
The latest computer system is hardly more than another technical commodity like a threaded screw or a formed concrete block (both world changing technical achievements). It is a thing that can be mostly taken for granted by those who have always known them to exist. Which is, in some ways, tragic, since if anything, there are orders of magnitude more unexplored possibilities open now than there were 30 years ago. Though in other ways, probably exactly as it should be. Computers aren't (yet anyway) the magical creatures we dreamed them to be from exposure to science fiction and our own imaginations. They're tools, much like any other.
I guess I digressed again. Sorry about that.
I use some "cloud" storage as a *third* (or fourth) copy, for some stuff. Mostly small-ish stuff, though that includes all my email. Managing backups over a long timespan is usually hard, expensive, or both, but worth it. I have as a pretty simple system though. I like to have all my photos and music on two live, spinning disks, with the "cream" also stored offline, and maybe also on a server I control, and maybe also elsewhere on the internet. My system is far from ideal, and not as robust (or automated) as it should be, but the primary "two spinning disk" rule is a pretty good first line of defense against hardware failure and accidental deletion. I don't mirror disks, I just add new stuff to both disks.
This will only ever be a problem (for me) if disks stop getting bigger, since I invariably replace a (still functioning) drive every few years, with one 2-3 times bigger than the previous one, and then just copy the whole old disk to the new one.
Just did a re-install about a month ago: 128GB adata SX900 -- which newegg now has for $15 less than I paid (always happens) -- on a 3+ year old system.
Best. Upgrade. Ever.
12 second boot instead of 45 seconds (not that I reboot much) but the big win: lag is nonexistent. Disk intensive stuff like browsing/picking through my heavy photo catalog just flies. Most of my stuff is, of course, still on spinning drives, but key apps & data, like email and photo libraries I'm working with are on the SSD. Actions that used to take several seconds (per photo) now are nearly instantaneous. Full-text searching through email is a lot faster. Sleep/Hibernate is practically instantaneous. $100 is nothing for not having to wait a few seconds (every few seconds!) when doing photo work. I make backups of critical data onto multiple spinning disks, regardless of what kind of disk I'm using, so reliability isn't a concern. I wish I took the plunge sooner.
Your take is a generalization, and overly simplistic, though so is the idea that simply reducing the death rate will curb population growth. The facts are totally uncontroversial. Girls education:
http://www.populationmedia.org/issues/womens-empowerment/girls-education/
is the main way that the birth rate declines, that and access to family planning, for those women once they understand what the options are.
We're going to be 10 billion humans by 2050, and most of the population models predict a stable population after that. Provided we can hold it all together that long... Our systems for production, government and education will need to change quite a bit to work in a world with a steady-state population. (read: a steady-state economy)
Here's a fantastic explanation of the current models on population:
http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth.html