You're only the second person I've seen admit that he was fooled by Obama. That takes a bit of bravery, a willingness to swallow some pride when called for, and probably some intelligence. Good job!
To pick candidates, we put the smartest 0.1% of the population in a secret lottery. We choose a dozen or so. We then have federal marshalls abduct them for a few days, keeping them secluded until after the election. Each candidate gets 4 hours to write an essay to say what he intends to do if elected. We make the essays anonymous by using numbers to identify the candidates. Essays that identify the author are prohibited. Essays are only revealed to voters in the privacy of the voting booth.
Voters then get to vote, knowing only the numbers and the essays. We use something like approval voting, but requiring that the voter choose between 1/3 and 2/3 of the candidates. Each voter sees the essays in a random order and with a different set of random ID numbers, preventing any candidate from getting an advantage from ballot position. Votes are weighted by the voter's IQ.
Promises made in the essay are binding. Violations result in impeachment. Particularly grave violations are additionally punishable by death.
There. That does a fine job of keeping the power-hungry bastards out of office, gets the bright people elected, and greatly reduces the opportunity for corrupt deals. When nobody can even contact the candidate until he takes office, it's rather hard to buy him off.
The mountains of Venus would be interesting. Radar reflection suggests that it might rain bismuth or lead.
Landing on Pluto would be a nice challenge. First there is the problem of slowing down enough. Then there is the problem of landing without melting a deep hole.
they aren't bad places to work, compared to say building weapons
Huh? Building weapons is fun, pays well, ensures that overtime is paid, and satisfies patriotic feelings. Often you get to work with really cool stuff: big lasers, robotic landmines that hop, uranium, explosives, sneaky spy gadgets, rockets, etc.
Then, did you vote for the people who wanted to continue the war in Iraq or against? Since they're usually pro-"life", I'm assuming you must've.
I see where you're going. There is a difference of scale (many more killed by abortion), timeframe (ongoing for decades or a matter of a few years), and innocence (mostly not vs. 100%).
if your opinion's based on religion
Again, "not your fundie". I dislike religion greatly.
And, I don't believe they're an innocent. It's a lump of cells until the brain kicks in.
OK. I can agree with it being a lump of cells until the brain kicks in. The brain kicks in at 8 weeks. Abortion in the US is legal at infinite weeks, though practically limited to about 42 weeks because one can't keep a baby inside forever.
In the US, 41% of abortions are after 8 weeks. This is after "the brain kicks in". I hope you will agree that these are innocent humans getting killed.
I'm not going to keep funds from people who need it for medical treatment.
This is almost never the case with abortion. Abortion is nearly always done with a perfectly normal pregnancy. The reasons for this violence against innocents are purely selfish. (boyfriend left, didn't want to stop going to parties, didn't want the body changes, etc.)
Sugar just couldn't deliver. Anybody with a clue about software development could have predicted it.
Just look at the mess:
We write an ENTIRELY NEW and FULLY INCOMPATIBLE toy interface in a REALLY SLOW language that is only mildly popular with free software programmers. Meanwhile, we discourage free software developers by helping Microsoft and by using proprietary wireless/EC/keyboard firmware.
Prior to about 1 year ago, incompatibility was even somewhat considered a virtue!
Now the OLPC leadership wants to go with XP. Is there any surprise? In their eyes Linux has been confused with the mess that is Sugar. Sugar-free Linux doesn't get considered.
We could have tweaked a regular Linux desktop for the XO. With far less effort, we'd have far better results. But no, we implement a joke designed by people who've obviously never read The Mythical Man Month and obviously never worked on resource-constrained hardware before.
That's way more than groups being "acknowledged". That's real financial support for something that many people believe to be the murder of an innocent human being.
(and yes it is happening: when you give money into the general fund of a group that funds and promotes abortion, you're paying for abortion)
If you have 256 levels (16 million colors), then brighten the image, you end up with less than 256 levels. This is undesirable.
If you work with the 65536 levels that many digital cameras provide and do likewise, you get far more than 256 levels. (less than 65536 of course) When you then save your image for a web page, you get the full 256 levels.
The humans at your Beijing office will be patriotic or will have friends who are. You may innocently expect your foreign office to be working just for you, but they see you as the foolish foreigners and definitely not in the "one of us" category.
Never mind the software. You have a huge security hole. Basically, you need to treat this office as a spy ring. Don't even consider putting them on the main corporate network.
You're up against intense family and country loyalty. Ignore this, and you will soon find your technology in use at some Chinese firm.
The "CMYK" you use on your computer isn't likely to be the same as your printer uses. This is 100% certain if you use more than one type of printer or ink, because CMYK isn't standardized.
Even if you solve that, you still lose. Remember that your screen isn't CMYK. You thus can't know exactly what you'll be printing until you print it.
You'd be better off in RGB. That way, at least you can see what the program is using internally and you can benefit from the sanity of a 3-axis color space.
Editing in CMYK is for when you want to **feel** like a pro, even if it makes things hard. I guess that matters to some people!
You know, I could add a "CMYK mode" to The Gimp that was totally fake. It says CMYK, with UI controls translated to CMYK, but really does RGB internally. Aspiring artists would love it as long as they didn't know the truth.
Start with people who can barely support themselves off the land. Add food. The population grows like crazy, ensuring that it is impossible for the people to support themselves off the land.
Since the resulting population depends on food handouts for survival, it is obviously more in poverty than the prior population.
Plus the economy was even destroyed by the handouts. (called "dumping")
You obviously can't afford the basics in life. Adding children won't help at all. It will mean somebody has to stay home instead of earning an income, or that you pay money for a lousy mother substitute.
Obviously your children will live in poverty. Obviously they will take after their parents to some degree, creating more poverty in the next generation.
Please stop. You're hurting my economy, and humanity in general.
I suppose I could count the opportunity cost of a wife who stays at home, but that was a given.
There is some trivial increase in food for a pregnant woman. It costs $0 to birth a child, or $2000 if you insist on a midwife. You don't need a breat pump, bottles, infant formula, a crib, a walker, a play pen, a changing table, jars of icky baby food, or a stroller. Many of those things are definitely harmful. A knotted sheet makes a fine baby sling. You might need some cloth diapers or a car seat. Laundry costs go up a bit. (note: even without a baby, you're already burning money if you don't have your own washing equipment) You can get hand-me-down clothes from nearly everybody it seems, without even asking.
Even getting up into the school age years, it's still dirt cheap.
Teenagers may be another matter. Fortunately, they can earn their own keep.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
While I'm optimistic that this will happen someday, I'm sad that I won't see it in my lifetime.
Do you have some sort of terminal illness? Are you thinking of killing yourself? Did you publish something negative about Putin?
Maybe you'll make it.
We can rebuild you. We have the technology. Better than you were before. Better, stronger, faster.
What do you think of that treaty that is being negotiated in secret? (the one that has popped up in 2 or 3 slashdot stories over the past half year)
Obama isn't being open about that one.
You're only the second person I've seen admit that he was fooled by Obama. That takes a bit of bravery, a willingness to swallow some pride when called for, and probably some intelligence. Good job!
BTW, tag these stories "messiah" please. :-)
Here's what we do:
To pick candidates, we put the smartest 0.1% of the population in a secret lottery. We choose a dozen or so. We then have federal marshalls abduct them for a few days, keeping them secluded until after the election. Each candidate gets 4 hours to write an essay to say what he intends to do if elected. We make the essays anonymous by using numbers to identify the candidates. Essays that identify the author are prohibited. Essays are only revealed to voters in the privacy of the voting booth.
Voters then get to vote, knowing only the numbers and the essays. We use something like approval voting, but requiring that the voter choose between 1/3 and 2/3 of the candidates. Each voter sees the essays in a random order and with a different set of random ID numbers, preventing any candidate from getting an advantage from ballot position. Votes are weighted by the voter's IQ.
Promises made in the essay are binding. Violations result in impeachment. Particularly grave violations are additionally punishable by death.
There. That does a fine job of keeping the power-hungry bastards out of office, gets the bright people elected, and greatly reduces the opportunity for corrupt deals. When nobody can even contact the candidate until he takes office, it's rather hard to buy him off.
The mountains of Venus would be interesting. Radar reflection suggests that it might rain bismuth or lead.
Landing on Pluto would be a nice challenge. First there is the problem of slowing down enough. Then there is the problem of landing without melting a deep hole.
The intent is to change the sound. IIRC, it emphasises the low pitches. Check "close mic" on wikipedia if you care.
The mic is purposely held close so that the sound will be different. Check wikipedia if you care, but IIRC it emphasises the low pitches.
they aren't bad places to work, compared to say building weapons
Huh? Building weapons is fun, pays well, ensures that overtime is paid, and satisfies patriotic feelings. Often you get to work with really cool stuff: big lasers, robotic landmines that hop, uranium, explosives, sneaky spy gadgets, rockets, etc.
Then, did you vote for the people who wanted to continue the war in Iraq or against? Since they're usually pro-"life", I'm assuming you must've.
I see where you're going. There is a difference of scale (many more killed by abortion), timeframe (ongoing for decades or a matter of a few years), and innocence (mostly not vs. 100%).
if your opinion's based on religion
Again, "not your fundie". I dislike religion greatly.
And, I don't believe they're an innocent. It's a lump of cells until the brain kicks in.
OK. I can agree with it being a lump of cells until the brain kicks in. The brain kicks in at 8 weeks. Abortion in the US is legal at infinite weeks, though practically limited to about 42 weeks because one can't keep a baby inside forever.
In the US, 41% of abortions are after 8 weeks. This is after "the brain kicks in". I hope you will agree that these are innocent humans getting killed.
I'm not going to keep funds from people who need it for medical treatment.
This is almost never the case with abortion. Abortion is nearly always done with a perfectly normal pregnancy. The reasons for this violence against innocents are purely selfish. (boyfriend left, didn't want to stop going to parties, didn't want the body changes, etc.)
Pardon me, but I have a secular dislike of killing innocent human beings.
I'm not sure if that changes anything though. Why should my taxes pay to kill the innocent?
It's one thing to allow this killing. Actually paying for it is simply outrageous.
Sugar just couldn't deliver. Anybody with a clue about software development could have predicted it.
Just look at the mess:
We write an ENTIRELY NEW and FULLY INCOMPATIBLE toy interface in a REALLY SLOW language that is only mildly popular with free software programmers. Meanwhile, we discourage free software developers by helping Microsoft and by using proprietary wireless/EC/keyboard firmware.
Prior to about 1 year ago, incompatibility was even somewhat considered a virtue!
Now the OLPC leadership wants to go with XP. Is there any surprise? In their eyes Linux has been confused with the mess that is Sugar. Sugar-free Linux doesn't get considered.
We could have tweaked a regular Linux desktop for the XO. With far less effort, we'd have far better results. But no, we implement a joke designed by people who've obviously never read The Mythical Man Month and obviously never worked on resource-constrained hardware before.
At a shooting range or gun-related event, people are really nice to each other. They don't get in fights.
At the international level, notice how there has never been war between a pair of countries with nuclear weapons.
I don't want to pay for abortions. Why should I?
That's way more than groups being "acknowledged". That's real financial support for something that many people believe to be the murder of an innocent human being.
(and yes it is happening: when you give money into the general fund of a group that funds and promotes abortion, you're paying for abortion)
It's perfect.
Prior to him getting into office, Slashdot was full of Obama worshippers. They really thought he was going to be a president for nerds. Suckers!
BTW, since this post surely hits too close to home for many, please keep an eye on the moderation.
It matters for web pages.
If you have 256 levels (16 million colors), then brighten the image, you end up with less than 256 levels. This is undesirable.
If you work with the 65536 levels that many digital cameras provide and do likewise, you get far more than 256 levels. (less than 65536 of course) When you then save your image for a web page, you get the full 256 levels.
The humans at your Beijing office will be patriotic or will have friends who are. You may innocently expect your foreign office to be working just for you, but they see you as the foolish foreigners and definitely not in the "one of us" category.
Never mind the software. You have a huge security hole. Basically, you need to treat this office as a spy ring. Don't even consider putting them on the main corporate network.
You're up against intense family and country loyalty. Ignore this, and you will soon find your technology in use at some Chinese firm.
Failure to handle 16+ bits is actually a problem.
The CMYK nonsense is just people trying to follow the crowd and be cool.
Poor gamma handling is also a problem, but AFAIK everything (except panotools?) gets this wrong.
The "CMYK" you use on your computer isn't likely to be the same as your printer uses. This is 100% certain if you use more than one type of printer or ink, because CMYK isn't standardized.
Even if you solve that, you still lose. Remember that your screen isn't CMYK. You thus can't know exactly what you'll be printing until you print it.
You'd be better off in RGB. That way, at least you can see what the program is using internally and you can benefit from the sanity of a 3-axis color space.
Editing in CMYK is for when you want to **feel** like a pro, even if it makes things hard. I guess that matters to some people!
You know, I could add a "CMYK mode" to The Gimp that was totally fake. It says CMYK, with UI controls translated to CMYK, but really does RGB internally. Aspiring artists would love it as long as they didn't know the truth.
Start with people who can barely support themselves off the land. Add food. The population grows like crazy, ensuring that it is impossible for the people to support themselves off the land.
Since the resulting population depends on food handouts for survival, it is obviously more in poverty than the prior population.
Plus the economy was even destroyed by the handouts. (called "dumping")
Your parents had at least one kid.
Those tax exemptions helped you. Now you don't
want to be fair to the next generation.
Yes, and they drop $5k on a 60" hdtv.
Poor people are, generally speaking, irresponsible. They really do buy the giant TV. They may even pay more, via a payment plan with crazy overhead.
They also get premium cable TV, and they spend a lot of time watching it. Perhaps this has something to do with making them poor.
Wouldn't you rather help heal people than kill them?
Depends on the person...
you don't DESERVE children
You obviously can't afford the basics in life. Adding children won't help at all. It will mean somebody has to stay home instead of earning an income, or that you pay money for a lousy mother substitute.
Obviously your children will live in poverty. Obviously they will take after their parents to some degree, creating more poverty in the next generation.
Please stop. You're hurting my economy, and humanity in general.
Those germs didn't come from nowhere. It sounds like you might have been much better off somewhere other than that hospital.
If you want the most exotic infection, there is one place where you can certainly find the germs: your local hospital.
I suppose I could count the opportunity cost of a wife who stays at home, but that was a given.
There is some trivial increase in food for a pregnant woman. It costs $0 to birth a child, or $2000 if you insist on a midwife. You don't need a breat pump, bottles, infant formula, a crib, a walker, a play pen, a changing table, jars of icky baby food, or a stroller. Many of those things are definitely harmful. A knotted sheet makes a fine baby sling. You might need some cloth diapers or a car seat. Laundry costs go up a bit. (note: even without a baby, you're already burning money if you don't have your own washing equipment) You can get hand-me-down clothes from nearly everybody it seems, without even asking.
Even getting up into the school age years, it's still dirt cheap.
Teenagers may be another matter. Fortunately, they can earn their own keep. :-)