manipulate the levels of nicotine and add in other chemicals to give nic more of a kick to keep people hooked.
This is a lie. Complete shit. But the truth is more sinister...
Okay, people titrate their drug usage, whether it's alcohol, tobacco or heroin. This means they adjust how much they take to achieve a specific, desired level of effect. Nicotine is no different.
Now, recall that, for some years now, a number of groups have been trying to force the tobacco companies to reduce the levels of nicotene in their products. I wonder if they have been financed by the tobacco companies themselves? Why?
Because, by reducing the amount of the drug in each cigarette, you will SMOKE MORE to achieve the same dosage. And the cancer risk comes from total smoke exposure. So, the idea is this: Even though each cig has less drug in it, you end up smoking, and buying, more of them. Which increases your risk of developing cancer. And makes you poorer.
Tobacco is addicting enough, they certainly don't need to add anything to it to make it more so. To be honest, I say that the anti-smoking crowd has collaberated (unwittingly, perhaps) to line the pockets of PM et. al, and to kill us smokers off even faster.
Hence, I roll my own. I've gone from a pack a day of 100's to 10-12 regular sized cigs, per day. It also costs about $7.50 per carton's worth.
So get your facts straight.
Re:... to solve the world's food shortages?
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Rice Genome Mapped
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When they were building the atom bomb, there was a number of physicists who truly thought that the explosion would cause a chain reaction with our atmosphere, burning it off.
Look, your fears seem real, but they are based on precautionary demagougery. To wit, do you imagine we fully understand chemistry? And do you acknowledge the potential for some VERY nasty compounds, yes? But just because the potential exists to cause massive harm, doesn't mean we shouldn't learn. And the ONLY WAY to learn about these matters, is to DO.
What precautions that are reasonable and prudent, are being taken. Nothing more can be done, until we know more. And the only way to know more, is to do. If we KNEW what precautions to take, we wouldn't have to do the work, would we?
But this nonsense of a "chain reaction".. please.. More detail.
1) seems likely. Especially if the colony is doing "better" (in whatever political measure of the time) than the homeworld.
2)Bunk.
3)Don't we own the planet? Ownership can only be claimed by sentient, sapient beings. It is, in fact, a very human concept. So if we don't own our own planet, then who does? If we don't own Mars, then who does? "Later generations"? They aren't here yet.
You assume too much about "aliens". Waaaaay too much. What if the only species that make it out into the big, bad Universe are those with serious drives to expand, procreate and dominate? Eh?
To put it mildly: You arrogantly assume that your leftward philosophical viewpoint is the norm amongst all space faring species (should they exist [which is a guess]).
Not a chance. Unless our society grows up, accepts responsibility for its actions and sets our priorities straight there is little chance we'll 'do this to Mars.'
Our present culture is very capable of making the trip to Mars - but we dont care enough to do it. By the same token, we will never make the attempt to TerraForm Mars unless we've wisened up about the way we treat Terra. One (our growth) will come before any attempt to TerraForm Mars.
I agree that we don't currently care enough as a culture to do it now. I also very much doubt that a majority of American culture will EVER want to do it. However, once the technology drops in cost so that a sufficiently large private group can do it, it'll happen.
Plymouth rock, anyone?
Just like every other colonization wave in history, a small group breaks off and leaves, leaving the majority behind. It seems to be how our species spreads.
I always thought that the original, all-British Junkyard Wars was already pretty dumbed down. I'd have liked more commentary on the specifics of each machine, how certain problems are being solved, techniques, etc.
Finally why do good teeth matter more than good physical condition? You've still failed to answer that.
I don't think they do. Hence, I didn't answer that portion of your message. I personally value a well working body more than I do the appearance of my teeth.
But then, my fellow American's have some strange priorities. That's their business. If they want to injure themselves with liposuction, or blow $5000+ on dental work, it's their own lives. It may be the right choice for them, I cannot judge.
No I'm not Chuck Norris, and a far more likely scenario would be that a scumbag comes up behind, sticks a knife against your kidney and reaches for your wallet. How does a gun prevent that? A quick twist of his wrist and the perp drops his knife, looks shit-scared and runs away. Even Chuck Norris wouldn't take on a heavily armed group in real life, his most likely action would be to punch one and run for it.
Not entirely accurate. My sensei teaches that, yes, your first priority is to avoid a fight at all costs. But the second priority is that, once a fight appears to be inevitable, fight and end it in the most effective manner possible. But close enough.
Except that it, in real life, it doesn't work "most often" the way you describe. Most street gang thuggery is basically a group out for a little fun, not the assassination style murder you detail. Not to say it doesn't happen, it does. But statistically, the majority of cases where a private citizen uses a gun to defend themselves, the gun is never fired. The threat alone is sufficeint deterant. And that's here, where guns are extremely common and we have a long culture of their usage.
Such a magic box could replace all locks, signatures and passwords.
Not in this day and age. All it would do would be to make everything extremely insecure. Or do you really think it would be invulnerable to spoofing? Not to ridicule you, but I doubt that very much. Name me one lock that it is impossible to jimmy, hack, spoof or simply remove.
Consider what would happen were every lock / identification system to move to that single standard: when (not if) the skeleton key is made, the world opens to you.
No, I think that the high diversity of locking and authentication systems improves security, so that no one thief can know them all, or use the same workaround against all.
Yep, Americans tend towards fat. Why is that a crime? Why do you care? But, anyway, onto the real issue..
Anyway why would I want a gun when I can defend myself fine with my fists and feet, although I wouldn't expect a yank to know anything about exercise more strenuous than a walk from the car park to McDonalds.
Heh. Hah. Right. Are you Chuck Norris? Hoyce Gracy? Spiritual heir to Bruce Lee? No? Well, then I'd say your ability to defend yourself against a group of toughs with knives and pipes would be roughly average: A few busted noses, and you spend the next few months in hospital, or end up dead.
Like it or not, the handgun is the most effective technology ever developed for personal protection. Bar none. By a factor of a thousand.
Okay, before I read this artical I did my absolute very best to not make a prejudgement of it based solely on the opening few paragraphs.
But then I read such gems as "The children should be protected".. I've heard this refrain before, it's quite common: It's used whenever some (government agency|news org|official) is trying to garner support for a further erosion of our rights.
Then he goes on to say that the Internet shouldn't be treated like print media, and yet he failed to give substanstial reasoning to support that position.
Numerous specious jumps of logic like this litter the text, it causes me to wonder: Perhaps this deliberately inflammatory writing was done SOLELY in an attempt to bolster his argument that an "agency of veracity" must be implemented? You know what that makes it?
A troll. What do we do with trolls?
Ignore them.
Re:H.L. Menken predicted this
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I'm replying to a troll. But hey, you only live once.
"This is the way it has always been and always will be." No, you apathetic lump of coal, it does NOT ALWAYS HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS.
Progress, scientific social and other, has a purpose: To find that which makes our lives better, and to avoid that which does not. Do you HONESTLY think that the blending of races and cultures that happens here in America could have happend during the Dark Ages?
Things ARE improving, albeit slowly. This is our fault. We can change it if we want it.
Re:drug crime to computer crime analogy
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MORE people in jail? Are you completely insane? A QUARTER of the world's in-mate population is incarcerated in the US. And you want to lock up more folks..
Oh, and encouraging property seizure to fund law enforcement? Fox guarding the hen house, don't you think?
Re:I can't believe these posts.
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"Traffic"
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Propaganda. Pure and simple. Do some fucking research before you spew that bile.
Lets see here... One, no one buys the new brain damaged equipment. Two, everyone and their mother buys cracking equipment to circumvent this crap. Three, in four years time the industry gives up and goes back to business as usual.
Quote: The concept of human rights and universal declarations of such and even the UN were AMERICAN ideas. It was US who thought of this stuff and who pushed it in 1918, long before it was popular to do so. In the 1940s we also pushed the UN and were a major force behind the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. You ought to read "One World", written in 1943 by Wendell Willkie, presidential candidate in 1940. -quote
Yes, American ideas. So? We're not that country anymore. Who thought of the idea is not relevant to the merits of the idea itself.
Quote: Can one set of laws cover Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas? That depends on what you mean. Certainly there are some universal standards that work for all of us. Don't make too much of cultural differences, Americans tend to overestimate these are we are very unfamiliar with them. Cultures really aren't all that different, and I think it's fair to say that humans want similar things out of life. It should not be difficult to craft a set of laws reflecting that. -quote
Reconcile strict Islamic theocratic principles, and the cultures that hold them, with Maoism. I don't personally agree with either of them, but I'm sure the peoples who live under those systems would disagree. And I'm willing to let those countries go their own way.
Quote: Remember, Hitler took power in one of the most modern and most culturally and intellectually advanced countries in the world. If it could happen to Germany, it could happen to anybody -quote
I hadn't forgotten. My point was not that a one-world culture would encourage such a person to come to power, only that it would enable such a person to do far more damage.
Look, I'm all for treating people with respect, and I agree with the concept of inherent rights. However, I also respect the right of nations to conduct their business how they choose, even if that means treating their own people in ways I don't agree with. We can popularize the concept of universal rights all we want, but we have no right to force it on anyone.
Quote: What REALLY does bug me though is the assumption by many Americans that there is only type of 'Free' society and the US of A is the shining example to world. That really sucks -quote.
I agree with you on this point: My country is getting way too interested in promoting it's own view of things to other countries. Nation building isn't something I think we should be doing, and using our military might to force political or economic changes abroad is the number one thing that is probably going to get us into major, catastrophic war.
Quote:
I've met more than one American who thinks that gun-ownership is the ultimate freedom and without it all other freedoms are worthless. As a European who has never owned a gun - and certainly here in the UK doesn't have the Liberty to own a handgun, this argument is so irrelevant it's like a Linux user complaining they can't run Word - it just misses the point so completely it's incomprehensible -quote
There's a fairly simple reason for this thinking: We reserve the right to terminate, with extreme prejudice, our own government when / if it gives just cause to do so. Such explicit language is not used in the Constitution itself, but was spoken of often by the "Founding Fathers."
That's why having adequate means of personal defense is important.
But it sounds like what you are proposing is globalism. Sorry, but that would lead to an even worse situation than what we live in now.
Do you really think that one set of laws can cover Africa, Europe and Asia, to say nothing of the rest of the world?
To assume that we all should hold the same set of values and beliefs is horribly arrogant and paternalistic, and is unfortunately a mistake our recent American government is all too eager to commit.
Lesse.. Pakistan, India and Brazil, all ruled by the same government and by the same laws. Heh.
Oh, and here's another concern: IF we all did have the same culture, same language, same government, how much more damage could a single populist leader (re: Hitler, Stalin, etc) do?
I liken our multiple cultures and values as the social equivilent of cellular lipid structures: no one virus can infect everyone.
Jason, I just read the entirety of your significant other's journals, and your own. I can only say that I haven't ever read anything quite so heartwrenching and yet, hopeful at the same time. You've got a wonderful wife, cherish her.
My only question is that, after all that's happened, do you feel yourself again?
Oh, look honey, it's left me a present..What is this? Wow, a LEGAL TURD! Muy grande!
I used to work for this company. I am ashamed. But, this was hardly a surprise coming from the company that always follows the market... with a two year lag.. Innovation? What's that?
Your reasoning seems lucid to me. I was thinking much along the same lines: a loopback device that emulates all the "right" responses at the right times.
I do not perceive any possible method of implementing this protection scheme successfully: Processing of disk commands occurs on my local machine, and are therefore completely vulnerable.
It all seems like SDMI v2, to me.
a clusterfuck in the making. Ahh, to see the procession of the marching morons. I am truly astonished. At IBM. At anyone who thinks this is a great idea. At humanity.
HELLO. ANYONE AWAKE?
Lesse. On the off chance this thing doesn't go down in flames, I'll predict that the enormity of the proposed system's damage will generate an unprecedented co-operation between Linux and Win developers, to create drivers and software to circumvent, trash, thrash, crash and generally consign to the bit bucket of history, this vile lump of protectionistic garbage.
Watch it fry. Careful, blink and you might miss it.
Yes, I hate Ads that much. Most of my friends do, too. Mostly, because the advertising served is clueless, and it assumes I am too.
I suppose at the worst case of Ad judo, they could convert the text to graphics and mesh it with an advertisement. And the ultimate response is an image-processing filter that strips out any non-textual graphical information.
It does cost money to employ web designers, coders (like myself), and such. But that cost has to be balanced against potential return, and I think the fundamental error that is being made is spending way too much on the latest look'n'feel, and then having to justify it with ill planned advertising schemes.
http://www.antiwar.com/ This is a great news site. It's look is simple yet effective, and the banner ads are unobtrusive. This can be run by two folks, tops. Flash? Screw it. Totally original art? Whatever. Site revamped every quarter? Hah.
But it does the job, and it's supported by advertising and donations. Many other small news sites could do the same. But as for the NYT, I expect they will turn subscription / fee based eventually. And then fold their web presence, since it's doubtful there's enough folks out there who'd be willing to pay to cover costs.
Well, I agree with your logic, up to a point. Soon, advertising on the Web will be seen as effectively impossible, and many sites will have to look for alternative sources of funding.
Many sites will turn pay, and die. Only one form of content is so far a proven money maker, and that's Porn. Glorious, lucious... Porn!
So what will the remainder do? Probably charge successively higher and higher rates until they squeeze out what few customers they have, then expire, selling off their remaining assets in an orgy of corporate buyouts.
Which will leave only those who actually use the 'net for something productive (IE: The connectivity is vital to their survival), and those who can afford to run sites out of pocket.
I would have to say that your comment, that Nintendo better prepared you for Doom, is bunk. I'm a part of the "Atari Generation", Atari 800 with the 64k upgrade, to be exact.
And I can kick the crap out of %80 of those I find online in UT, Q2 and Half-life. At LAN parties I'm even better.
Sorry, but learned skills just don't work that way.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, people titrate their drug usage, whether it's alcohol, tobacco or heroin. This means they adjust how much they take to achieve a specific, desired level of effect. Nicotine is no different.
Now, recall that, for some years now, a number of groups have been trying to force the tobacco companies to reduce the levels of nicotene in their products. I wonder if they have been financed by the tobacco companies themselves? Why?
Because, by reducing the amount of the drug in each cigarette, you will SMOKE MORE to achieve the same dosage. And the cancer risk comes from total smoke exposure. So, the idea is this: Even though each cig has less drug in it, you end up smoking, and buying, more of them. Which increases your risk of developing cancer. And makes you poorer.
Tobacco is addicting enough, they certainly don't need to add anything to it to make it more so. To be honest, I say that the anti-smoking crowd has collaberated (unwittingly, perhaps) to line the pockets of PM et. al, and to kill us smokers off even faster.
Hence, I roll my own. I've gone from a pack a day of 100's to 10-12 regular sized cigs, per day. It also costs about $7.50 per carton's worth.
So get your facts straight.
Look, your fears seem real, but they are based on precautionary demagougery. To wit, do you imagine we fully understand chemistry? And do you acknowledge the potential for some VERY nasty compounds, yes? But just because the potential exists to cause massive harm, doesn't mean we shouldn't learn. And the ONLY WAY to learn about these matters, is to DO.
What precautions that are reasonable and prudent, are being taken. Nothing more can be done, until we know more. And the only way to know more, is to do. If we KNEW what precautions to take, we wouldn't have to do the work, would we?
But this nonsense of a "chain reaction".. please.. More detail.
2)Bunk.
3)Don't we own the planet? Ownership can only be claimed by sentient, sapient beings. It is, in fact, a very human concept. So if we don't own our own planet, then who does? If we don't own Mars, then who does? "Later generations"? They aren't here yet.
To put it mildly: You arrogantly assume that your leftward philosophical viewpoint is the norm amongst all space faring species (should they exist [which is a guess]).
I agree that we don't currently care enough as a culture to do it now. I also very much doubt that a majority of American culture will EVER want to do it. However, once the technology drops in cost so that a sufficiently large private group can do it, it'll happen.
Plymouth rock, anyone?
Just like every other colonization wave in history, a small group breaks off and leaves, leaving the majority behind. It seems to be how our species spreads.
I'd have liked more commentary on the specifics of each machine, how certain problems are being solved, techniques, etc.
But then again, I'm a freak.
But then, my fellow American's have some strange priorities. That's their business. If they want to injure themselves with liposuction, or blow $5000+ on dental work, it's their own lives. It may be the right choice for them, I cannot judge.
Not entirely accurate. My sensei teaches that, yes, your first priority is to avoid a fight at all costs. But the second priority is that, once a fight appears to be inevitable, fight and end it in the most effective manner possible. But close enough.Except that it, in real life, it doesn't work "most often" the way you describe. Most street gang thuggery is basically a group out for a little fun, not the assassination style murder you detail. Not to say it doesn't happen, it does. But statistically, the majority of cases where a private citizen uses a gun to defend themselves, the gun is never fired. The threat alone is sufficeint deterant. And that's here, where guns are extremely common and we have a long culture of their usage.
Consider what would happen were every lock / identification system to move to that single standard: when (not if) the skeleton key is made, the world opens to you.
No, I think that the high diversity of locking and authentication systems improves security, so that no one thief can know them all, or use the same workaround against all.
Like it or not, the handgun is the most effective technology ever developed for personal protection. Bar none. By a factor of a thousand.
But then I read such gems as "The children should be protected".. I've heard this refrain before, it's quite common: It's used whenever some (government agency|news org|official) is trying to garner support for a further erosion of our rights.
Then he goes on to say that the Internet shouldn't be treated like print media, and yet he failed to give substanstial reasoning to support that position.
Numerous specious jumps of logic like this litter the text, it causes me to wonder: Perhaps this deliberately inflammatory writing was done SOLELY in an attempt to bolster his argument that an "agency of veracity" must be implemented? You know what that makes it?
A troll. What do we do with trolls?
Ignore them.
"This is the way it has always been and always will be." No, you apathetic lump of coal, it does NOT ALWAYS HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS.
Progress, scientific social and other, has a purpose: To find that which makes our lives better, and to avoid that which does not. Do you HONESTLY think that the blending of races and cultures that happens here in America could have happend during the Dark Ages?
Things ARE improving, albeit slowly. This is our fault. We can change it if we want it.
Oh, and encouraging property seizure to fund law enforcement? Fox guarding the hen house, don't you think?
MarijuanaNews
DRCNet
Smokedot
Now, please educate yourself, come back, and lets have a nice discussion.
One, no one buys the new brain damaged equipment.
Two, everyone and their mother buys cracking equipment to circumvent this crap.
Three, in four years time the industry gives up and goes back to business as usual.
The concept of human rights and universal declarations of such and even the UN were AMERICAN ideas. It was US who thought of this stuff and who pushed it in 1918, long before it was popular to do so. In the 1940s we also pushed the UN and were a major force behind the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. You ought to read "One World", written in 1943 by Wendell Willkie, presidential candidate in 1940.
-quote
Yes, American ideas. So? We're not that country anymore. Who thought of the idea is not relevant to the merits of the idea itself.
Quote:
Can one set of laws cover Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas? That depends on what you mean. Certainly there are some universal standards that work for all of us. Don't make too much of cultural differences, Americans tend to overestimate these are we are very unfamiliar with them. Cultures really aren't all that different, and I think it's fair to say that humans want similar things out of life. It should not be difficult to craft a set of laws reflecting that.
-quote
Reconcile strict Islamic theocratic principles, and the cultures that hold them, with Maoism. I don't personally agree with either of them, but I'm sure the peoples who live under those systems would disagree. And I'm willing to let those countries go their own way.
Quote:
Remember, Hitler took power in one of the most modern and most culturally and intellectually advanced countries in the world. If it could happen to Germany, it could happen to anybody
-quote
I hadn't forgotten. My point was not that a one-world culture would encourage such a person to come to power, only that it would enable such a person to do far more damage.
Look, I'm all for treating people with respect, and I agree with the concept of inherent rights. However, I also respect the right of nations to conduct their business how they choose, even if that means treating their own people in ways I don't agree with. We can popularize the concept of universal rights all we want, but we have no right to force it on anyone.
What REALLY does bug me though is the assumption by many Americans that there is only type of 'Free' society and the US of A is the shining example to world. That really sucks
-quote.
I agree with you on this point: My country is getting way too interested in promoting it's own view of things to other countries. Nation building isn't something I think we should be doing, and using our military might to force political or economic changes abroad is the number one thing that is probably going to get us into major, catastrophic war.
Quote:
I've met more than one American who thinks that gun-ownership is the ultimate freedom and without it all other freedoms are worthless. As a European who has never owned a gun - and certainly here in the UK doesn't have the Liberty to own a handgun, this argument is so irrelevant it's like a Linux user complaining they can't run Word - it just misses the point so completely it's incomprehensible
-quote
There's a fairly simple reason for this thinking: We reserve the right to terminate, with extreme prejudice, our own government when / if it gives just cause to do so. Such explicit language is not used in the Constitution itself, but was spoken of often by the "Founding Fathers."
That's why having adequate means of personal defense is important.
Do you really think that one set of laws can cover Africa, Europe and Asia, to say nothing of the rest of the world?
To assume that we all should hold the same set of values and beliefs is horribly arrogant and paternalistic, and is unfortunately a mistake our recent American government is all too eager to commit.
Lesse.. Pakistan, India and Brazil, all ruled by the same government and by the same laws. Heh.
Oh, and here's another concern: IF we all did have the same culture, same language, same government, how much more damage could a single populist leader (re: Hitler, Stalin, etc) do?
I liken our multiple cultures and values as the social equivilent of cellular lipid structures: no one virus can infect everyone.
My only question is that, after all that's happened, do you feel yourself again?
Oh, look honey, it's left me a present..What is this? Wow, a LEGAL TURD! Muy grande!
I used to work for this company. I am ashamed. But, this was hardly a surprise coming from the company that always follows the market... with a two year lag..
Innovation? What's that?
Expect a loss this Q.
Not so fast, whippersnapper! This old coot can still frag the best of the under-15 crowd...
I do not perceive any possible method of implementing this protection scheme successfully: Processing of disk commands occurs on my local machine, and are therefore completely vulnerable.
It all seems like SDMI v2, to me.
HELLO. ANYONE AWAKE?
Lesse. On the off chance this thing doesn't go down in flames, I'll predict that the enormity of the proposed system's damage will generate an unprecedented co-operation between Linux and Win developers, to create drivers and software to circumvent, trash, thrash, crash and generally consign to the bit bucket of history, this vile lump of protectionistic garbage.
Watch it fry. Careful, blink and you might miss it.
I suppose at the worst case of Ad judo, they could convert the text to graphics and mesh it with an advertisement. And the ultimate response is an image-processing filter that strips out any non-textual graphical information.
It does cost money to employ web designers, coders (like myself), and such. But that cost has to be balanced against potential return, and I think the fundamental error that is being made is spending way too much on the latest look'n'feel, and then having to justify it with ill planned advertising schemes.
http://www.antiwar.com/ This is a great news site. It's look is simple yet effective, and the banner ads are unobtrusive. This can be run by two folks, tops. Flash? Screw it. Totally original art? Whatever. Site revamped every quarter? Hah.
But it does the job, and it's supported by advertising and donations. Many other small news sites could do the same. But as for the NYT, I expect they will turn subscription / fee based eventually. And then fold their web presence, since it's doubtful there's enough folks out there who'd be willing to pay to cover costs.
Many sites will turn pay, and die. Only one form of content is so far a proven money maker, and that's Porn. Glorious, lucious... Porn!
So what will the remainder do? Probably charge successively higher and higher rates until they squeeze out what few customers they have, then expire, selling off their remaining assets in an orgy of corporate buyouts.
Which will leave only those who actually use the 'net for something productive (IE: The connectivity is vital to their survival), and those who can afford to run sites out of pocket.
I don't have a problem with this.
And I can kick the crap out of %80 of those I find online in UT, Q2 and Half-life. At LAN parties I'm even better.
Sorry, but learned skills just don't work that way.