Where do you find actual chemistry sets with actual chemicals in them that can actually make interesting things?
This wasn't the classic chemistry set with a bunch of things in it.
This was a really cool one by a company I don't remember for younger kids. It came with safety glasses, plastic beakers and measuring cups and a few things for mixing and measuring... and a cool little book which gave them some really basic chemistry (like baking soda and vinegar volcanoes) which could be done at home by young kids.
We weren't looking for explosions and the like.:-P
But, nonetheless, it wasn't some "make cookies play set", it was an actual bit of hands on demonstrations of everyday science.
We thought it was pretty awesome, and she seemed to agree.
I know people with young daughters (like, under 5).
Dora tells little girls they can do anything they want to, and grow up to do cool things. Barbie teaches women to be stereotypes, dumb blondes, and how to fake your way through life.
So, for birthday gifts, we give chemistry lab play sets, National Geographic books on space and dinosaurs, and actual educational stuff.
It's fun to see a four year old excited about a book on space.
If Barbie can't be a good role model after 50 years or so, just don't buy it.
There's so many good toys out there for kids that unless the child is asking for Barbie, you can skip it altogether.
a sort of naive technocrats (who are often also libertarians) believing that as soon as some technology is needed, the invisible hand of the market magically creates this technology so one only has to sit and wait for this magic solution to appear out of thin air
And then they assume (again, by magical thinking) that the invisible hand isn't busy lining its own pockets and that it will arrive at optimal outcomes. Optimal for who?
Commerce as it exists today means the invisible hand has been bought off by lobbyists, and it's now more interested in protecting the interests of major players.
To me, the invisible hand and the perfect, magical outcomes attributed to it is the biggest lie of economics.
It's the perfectly spherical cow, and therefore bullshit.
What root console? If it is really END TO END, then WhatsApp can't see the data either.
You assume that they either competently implemented encryption, or didn't maliciously leave themselves a back door for tracking and commercial purposes, or weren't secretly told by some three letter agency that if they didn't leave a backdoor they'd be in trouble.
Given that it's owned by Facebook, I'm not willing to attribute either competence or good intentions to anything they do.
At this point, I assume Zuckerfuck is a greedy asshole who made sure he's got room for data collection and monetizing, and that this isn't nearly as end-to-end as they claim.
And assuming that the government is in there pulling strings behind the scenes? Well, with the US government and large corporations, you pretty much have to assume that these days.
The US has more or less been co-opted to be the enforcers of the copyright cartels, and are willing to bend their (and anybody else's laws) to have a "prosecute at any cost and to hell with the law" mentality.
Since they've been unable to successfully argue in court that he should be extradited, they're going for the strong arm tactic of property theft.
They're basically putting the cart before the horse, and saying "he's guilty because we say so, and since he won't come here and confess, we'll just take all his stuff".
From the sounds of it, they haven't accused him of a crime which actually exists, since there is no statute.
So everything else is just bullshit, lies, and posturing.
I can't wait until some foreign court rules that all of some American official's stuff should be siezed because he's been tried in absentia for war crimes.
Because Americans would scream and go "yarg, we're not under your jurisdiction" despite frequently doing the same thing.
looks like you never had any principles based around individual freedom and non-initiating of violence against people. Without having principles you can move from one position to another based on sophistry, but there is no virtue in this approach.
Oh, horse shit... there you go again with the ad hominem attacks and your own brand of sophistry.
I have very strongly held beliefs against initiating violence... but I choose not to redefine enforcing the rules of civil society as violence upon your person. You apparently can only win an argument by acting like a smug prick.
It's the accepting of violence against other people as their fucking problem which made me realize your horseshit beliefs were just that. The moral vacuousness which says "fuck the world, I've got my money" ignores the reality of how you got where you are and what actually keeps you there.
It's a moral position which is only held by people who have resources, but which is untenable in the face of reality.
Blah blah blah.. help help, I'm being repressed, come see the violence inherent in the system.
My 'beloved' free market created the USA economy of 19th century
No, the thing which created that economy was not your fictional, romanticized version of a free market economy, and it never was.
Yes, it was a form of Capitalism, but you have a completely made up idea of how it really worked.
The reality is that you allowed yourself to be placed into a very tiny box by your government propaganda 'education' system.
No, the reality is you're full of shit and have already devolved into ad hominem attacks.
Do you understand how crazy you sound when you say stuff like this?
I've read Ayn Rand, Adam Smith, Ghandi, Marx, Aristotle, Neitzsche, John Locke, and shit I've forgotten about. I've drank the kool-aid, lived to tell the tale, and moved on.
It is my considered opinion that all of these systems have interesting things to tell us, absolutely none of them carry some Bright Universal Truth, and that many of them carry seeds of some pretty scary ideas when taken to extremes.
I don't believe you can create a just society when you leave people to starve in the streets and die of illness.
I don't believe you can create anything other than new lords and serfs through unfettered capitalism, because power accumulates and corrupts.
I don't believe you can have a utopian society in which everybody has everything they could ever hope for.
I don't believe you can have a functioning society if the only thing your government does is enforce contracts and property rights for people who have the money to benefit from them -- while saying that everything else is a private matter, because then you're just enforcing law to benefit people who own stuff.
And I don't believe you can have a stable society unless you realize you're going to have to pay for its upkeep.
I believe all categorical statements are wrong, or incomplete (including this one).
So, believe me when I say this... my rejection of your position as overly simplistic, naive, and one which you ascribe outcomes I don't believe it can achieve... that's based on a considered investigation of it, and finding it immensely lacking and unable to achieve what you claim.
I'm the heretic to your religion of Capitalism and the Holy Free Market. Because I reject it not as a result of government propaganda, but from actually looking at it.
I think it's bullshit precisely because I used to believe it.
You create a hypothetical out of vacuum while pretending that a situation like that arises in a free market capitalist system, it does not.
Look, your entire reasoning is a hypothetical out of a vacuum based on unsubstantiated claims that your beloved free market achieves the outcomes you claim it does, and doesn't devolve into all of the bad things you claim it won't.
Sooner or later, some entity will decide that your perfectly abstract, morally superior pile of crap fiction is no fun, and they're going to use their own threat of violence.
Or someone is going to decide that, why should I play fairly when I can cheat?
Or several someone's will get together to for a cartel and collectively cheat.
In a free market capitalist economy markets discover prices that allow markets to clear, that means the prices adjust accordingly to the supply and demand for all things, including all types of labour and capital and land and other assets and resources.
See, this is the fundamental flaw in your argument: prove it.
You can't, because you are basing it off an idealized theory in a vacuum. It's a religion, it's not some intrinsic fact of the universe. It's an ideology.
You are claiming that something which has never existed will achieve perfect and desirable outcomes because it is inherently perfect.
I'm saying it's never existed, never can exist, and that your theory completely assumes an impossible level of perfection of human nature, which isn't borne out by what actual humans actually do.
Your vision of free market economics is as deluded, irrational, and utterly false as the deluded, irrational, and utterly false premises of Communism. In their pure, unadulterated (and therefore mythical and impossible), neither Communism nor Capitalism as you describe it will ever have a hope in hell of achieving the outcomes you claim.
They're both crap when you take them to absurd extremes.
It's a really nice fantasy. But, it is purely a fantasy -- if your vision of the most perfectly awesome society imaginable is blind to actual human nature, it's nothing more than the ravings of a deluded fool. Because people will not naturally do anything other than seek to gain advantage for themselves.
Capitalism will devolve into kings and oligarchs, in much the same way Communism did. Because humans are inherently greedy bastards who will never abide by any rules unless someone forces them to.
And claiming your system will have perfect outcomes because it's so inherently perfect it has to? That's complete and utter crap.
And, go ahead, say Austrian School... I'll just laugh in your face and yawn. It's just more of the same drivel.
An independant team of scientists just performed a complete study of the device and they noticed gamma rays consistent with cold fusion.
So, that would mean that it doesn't emit gamma rays then?
I don't think I emit gamma rays, so... I am doing cold fusion right now.
Natalie Portman doesn't emit gamma rays I bet.
Marmalade, also doesn't emit gamma rays,
So, the secret to cold fusion is me, a jar of marmalade, and Natalie Portman.
For scientific completeness, I will need several female volunteers who aren't celebrities (or celibate for that matter). Also, maybe some grape jelly, just in case it's not limited to marmalade.
I will also require a keg of beer, and pizza, because science can be exhausting.
Oh, and two tripods, and a couple of Go-Pro cameras. Have to document everything.
Every coastline I see 99% of all bicyclists riding has stores where they can buy more water. Less than 1% of bicyclists are riding where they are thousands of miles away from water they can drink.
It really is not a real problem that needs a solution.
And, now, use that tiny little brain of yours and take the bicycle out of the equation.
Do you think that a place like, say, Haiti, which has sun, humidity and wind aplenty, but lots of problems getting sanity drinking water couldn't use this technology?
Make it small enough, and cheap enough, and this can be applicable to FAR more than cycling.
Tell you what, when you have your own award for cool projects by engineering students, you can decide on the criteria.
Even easier... attach this and a solar panel to a weather vane, so it's always pointed into the wind.
Put it somewhere which has both humidity and wind, but not necessarily clean drinking water.
The differences between a bike-mounted application and a stationary one aren't insurmountable engineering. Just reusing existing stuff. In a lot of places, solar power and prevailing winds will go a long way.
What awesome thing have you designed which could make the world a better place? What's that? Nothing?
And there are places in the world which have high humidity but not ready access to clean drinking water. Pretty much any coastline along an ocean, for example.
Anything which does small scale extraction like this is pretty cool, which is precisely why he's now a finalist for the Dyson Award.
This piece of technology comes with a massage pipe that the user can adjust to suit his height. Upon setting the desired amplitude, frequency and temperature on the machine, the user is good to go. A small display on the top is featured for those who like some 'visual' assistance.
Well, by some metric, a top fuel dragster is objectively better as a car. Provided you have the money for an expensive hobby, of course. And only need to travel in a straight line.
If you want to define "objectively better" as lower TCO over the life of the product, and good enough for most applications... then I'll say a console is objectively better.
My XBox 360 cost me about $350, has never needed a hardware upgrade, and still works after several years. And I can run it completely offline from the interwebs.
That wouldn't even get you a gamer's video card, let alone the machine to run it on.
Only if you're willing to keep shelling out money hand over fist to keep it that way.
Sorry, I'll stick with console gaming on slightly older titles.
I have far better things to do with my money than try to keep up with the latest gaming rigs. From what I understand, a cocaine habit would be cheaper.
Slashdot Mirror
You know, if they release "My CEO Barbie" and all she does is yammer about getting her nails done, it would be patronizing.
Seriously, why so bitter? Got a tiny penis that's been laughed at and now you blame all your problems on women?
Or just nothing intelligent to add to the conversation?
This wasn't the classic chemistry set with a bunch of things in it.
This was a really cool one by a company I don't remember for younger kids. It came with safety glasses, plastic beakers and measuring cups and a few things for mixing and measuring ... and a cool little book which gave them some really basic chemistry (like baking soda and vinegar volcanoes) which could be done at home by young kids.
We weren't looking for explosions and the like. :-P
But, nonetheless, it wasn't some "make cookies play set", it was an actual bit of hands on demonstrations of everyday science.
We thought it was pretty awesome, and she seemed to agree.
We need a corollary to Godwin's law:
The first person to use the term "SJW" has probably just proven the point of the article.
I know people with young daughters (like, under 5).
Dora tells little girls they can do anything they want to, and grow up to do cool things. Barbie teaches women to be stereotypes, dumb blondes, and how to fake your way through life.
So, for birthday gifts, we give chemistry lab play sets, National Geographic books on space and dinosaurs, and actual educational stuff.
It's fun to see a four year old excited about a book on space.
If Barbie can't be a good role model after 50 years or so, just don't buy it.
There's so many good toys out there for kids that unless the child is asking for Barbie, you can skip it altogether.
Who does Mattel have in charge of Barbie these days?
Because whoever it is, has stepped in it so many times it's not even funny.
Are they being punked from inside? Or are people actually thinking this shit is a good idea?
Absolutely mind boggling.
And then they assume (again, by magical thinking) that the invisible hand isn't busy lining its own pockets and that it will arrive at optimal outcomes. Optimal for who?
Commerce as it exists today means the invisible hand has been bought off by lobbyists, and it's now more interested in protecting the interests of major players.
To me, the invisible hand and the perfect, magical outcomes attributed to it is the biggest lie of economics.
It's the perfectly spherical cow, and therefore bullshit.
You assume that they either competently implemented encryption, or didn't maliciously leave themselves a back door for tracking and commercial purposes, or weren't secretly told by some three letter agency that if they didn't leave a backdoor they'd be in trouble.
Given that it's owned by Facebook, I'm not willing to attribute either competence or good intentions to anything they do.
At this point, I assume Zuckerfuck is a greedy asshole who made sure he's got room for data collection and monetizing, and that this isn't nearly as end-to-end as they claim.
And assuming that the government is in there pulling strings behind the scenes? Well, with the US government and large corporations, you pretty much have to assume that these days.
The US has more or less been co-opted to be the enforcers of the copyright cartels, and are willing to bend their (and anybody else's laws) to have a "prosecute at any cost and to hell with the law" mentality.
Since they've been unable to successfully argue in court that he should be extradited, they're going for the strong arm tactic of property theft.
They're basically putting the cart before the horse, and saying "he's guilty because we say so, and since he won't come here and confess, we'll just take all his stuff".
From the sounds of it, they haven't accused him of a crime which actually exists, since there is no statute.
So everything else is just bullshit, lies, and posturing.
I can't wait until some foreign court rules that all of some American official's stuff should be siezed because he's been tried in absentia for war crimes.
Because Americans would scream and go "yarg, we're not under your jurisdiction" despite frequently doing the same thing.
Oh, horse shit ... there you go again with the ad hominem attacks and your own brand of sophistry.
I have very strongly held beliefs against initiating violence ... but I choose not to redefine enforcing the rules of civil society as violence upon your person. You apparently can only win an argument by acting like a smug prick.
It's the accepting of violence against other people as their fucking problem which made me realize your horseshit beliefs were just that. The moral vacuousness which says "fuck the world, I've got my money" ignores the reality of how you got where you are and what actually keeps you there.
It's a moral position which is only held by people who have resources, but which is untenable in the face of reality.
Blah blah blah .. help help, I'm being repressed, come see the violence inherent in the system.
Whatever.
No, the thing which created that economy was not your fictional, romanticized version of a free market economy, and it never was.
Yes, it was a form of Capitalism, but you have a completely made up idea of how it really worked.
No, the reality is you're full of shit and have already devolved into ad hominem attacks.
Do you understand how crazy you sound when you say stuff like this?
I've read Ayn Rand, Adam Smith, Ghandi, Marx, Aristotle, Neitzsche, John Locke, and shit I've forgotten about. I've drank the kool-aid, lived to tell the tale, and moved on.
It is my considered opinion that all of these systems have interesting things to tell us, absolutely none of them carry some Bright Universal Truth, and that many of them carry seeds of some pretty scary ideas when taken to extremes.
I don't believe you can create a just society when you leave people to starve in the streets and die of illness.
I don't believe you can create anything other than new lords and serfs through unfettered capitalism, because power accumulates and corrupts.
I don't believe you can have a utopian society in which everybody has everything they could ever hope for.
I don't believe you can have a functioning society if the only thing your government does is enforce contracts and property rights for people who have the money to benefit from them -- while saying that everything else is a private matter, because then you're just enforcing law to benefit people who own stuff.
And I don't believe you can have a stable society unless you realize you're going to have to pay for its upkeep.
I believe all categorical statements are wrong, or incomplete (including this one).
So, believe me when I say this ... my rejection of your position as overly simplistic, naive, and one which you ascribe outcomes I don't believe it can achieve ... that's based on a considered investigation of it, and finding it immensely lacking and unable to achieve what you claim.
I'm the heretic to your religion of Capitalism and the Holy Free Market. Because I reject it not as a result of government propaganda, but from actually looking at it.
I think it's bullshit precisely because I used to believe it.
Look, your entire reasoning is a hypothetical out of a vacuum based on unsubstantiated claims that your beloved free market achieves the outcomes you claim it does, and doesn't devolve into all of the bad things you claim it won't.
Sooner or later, some entity will decide that your perfectly abstract, morally superior pile of crap fiction is no fun, and they're going to use their own threat of violence.
Or someone is going to decide that, why should I play fairly when I can cheat?
Or several someone's will get together to for a cartel and collectively cheat.
See, this is the fundamental flaw in your argument: prove it .
You can't, because you are basing it off an idealized theory in a vacuum. It's a religion, it's not some intrinsic fact of the universe. It's an ideology.
You are claiming that something which has never existed will achieve perfect and desirable outcomes because it is inherently perfect.
I'm saying it's never existed, never can exist, and that your theory completely assumes an impossible level of perfection of human nature, which isn't borne out by what actual humans actually do.
Your vision of free market economics is as deluded, irrational, and utterly false as the deluded, irrational, and utterly false premises of Communism. In their pure, unadulterated (and therefore mythical and impossible), neither Communism nor Capitalism as you describe it will ever have a hope in hell of achieving the outcomes you claim.
They're both crap when you take them to absurd extremes.
It's a really nice fantasy. But, it is purely a fantasy -- if your vision of the most perfectly awesome society imaginable is blind to actual human nature, it's nothing more than the ravings of a deluded fool. Because people will not naturally do anything other than seek to gain advantage for themselves.
Capitalism will devolve into kings and oligarchs, in much the same way Communism did. Because humans are inherently greedy bastards who will never abide by any rules unless someone forces them to.
And claiming your system will have perfect outcomes because it's so inherently perfect it has to? That's complete and utter crap.
And, go ahead, say Austrian School ... I'll just laugh in your face and yawn. It's just more of the same drivel.
Too bad nobody has ever taught you the difference between "to" and "too".
Gee, I don't know, maybe ... football fields ?
As in, 39 times the size of Manhattan is equal to 634100 football fields.
Hmmm ... what movie are you talking about? 'Cuz I wasn't referencing one.
So, that would mean that it doesn't emit gamma rays then?
I don't think I emit gamma rays, so ... I am doing cold fusion right now.
Natalie Portman doesn't emit gamma rays I bet.
Marmalade, also doesn't emit gamma rays,
So, the secret to cold fusion is me, a jar of marmalade, and Natalie Portman.
For scientific completeness, I will need several female volunteers who aren't celebrities (or celibate for that matter). Also, maybe some grape jelly, just in case it's not limited to marmalade.
I will also require a keg of beer, and pizza, because science can be exhausting.
Oh, and two tripods, and a couple of Go-Pro cameras. Have to document everything.
Then, I see one of two possibilities ...
1) The people in charge of giving out an engineering design award are morons who also don't know thermodynamics.
2) You're not as right as you think you are.
So, unless the people who have looked at this and made him a finalist have all been hoodwinked ... I'm afraid 2) is the simpler explanation for me.
And, now, use that tiny little brain of yours and take the bicycle out of the equation.
Do you think that a place like, say, Haiti, which has sun, humidity and wind aplenty, but lots of problems getting sanity drinking water couldn't use this technology?
Make it small enough, and cheap enough, and this can be applicable to FAR more than cycling.
Tell you what, when you have your own award for cool projects by engineering students, you can decide on the criteria.
Even easier ... attach this and a solar panel to a weather vane, so it's always pointed into the wind.
Put it somewhere which has both humidity and wind, but not necessarily clean drinking water.
The differences between a bike-mounted application and a stationary one aren't insurmountable engineering. Just reusing existing stuff. In a lot of places, solar power and prevailing winds will go a long way.
What awesome thing have you designed which could make the world a better place? What's that? Nothing?
Not everywhere. Which is kind of the point.
And there are places in the world which have high humidity but not ready access to clean drinking water. Pretty much any coastline along an ocean, for example.
Anything which does small scale extraction like this is pretty cool, which is precisely why he's now a finalist for the Dyson Award.
LOL, to heck with the drinking water ... of far more importance to Slashdotters is this article which shows up on the side of that page ...
The Automatic Sperm Sample Extractor.
So, a small wind turbine (or taking turns on a bike), and any hot humid area where clean drinking water can be scarce is a good fit for this.
I can see this applying to FAR more than cycling.
Interesting.
So, moon-based alpha?
Awesome!!
Of course, all of the Luddites will just spend the next 50 years saying it's a hoax.
'Cuz, Luddites gonna Ludd.
I bought my XBox 360 for a third of that 4 years ago, it runs at 1920x1080.
I haven't had to spend any money on it either.
And?
Well, by some metric, a top fuel dragster is objectively better as a car. Provided you have the money for an expensive hobby, of course. And only need to travel in a straight line.
If you want to define "objectively better" as lower TCO over the life of the product, and good enough for most applications ... then I'll say a console is objectively better.
My XBox 360 cost me about $350, has never needed a hardware upgrade, and still works after several years. And I can run it completely offline from the interwebs.
That wouldn't even get you a gamer's video card, let alone the machine to run it on.
Only if you're willing to keep shelling out money hand over fist to keep it that way.
Sorry, I'll stick with console gaming on slightly older titles.
I have far better things to do with my money than try to keep up with the latest gaming rigs. From what I understand, a cocaine habit would be cheaper.