They are in all kinds of trouble if they say that.
That's why they won't say it.
Refusal of a search is NOT grounds for arrest, this has been tested in court.
No, but if you're "suspicious looking" they can call a drug dog, who just might "alarm" and thus give them probable cause to search. And when they find that pound of dried plant flowers and scales under your seat, well... good luck explaining that it wasn't yours in court.
TSA agents are NOT law enforcement, even if they pretend to be. They do not have legal authority to arrest you.
Tell that to one of the VIPR teams when they pull you over for an unreasonable search in which contraband is "found", and you end up going to jail anyway.
... Dress sharply at all times, and keep a business-like posture and demeanour. Playing bully with a peon is safe enough, but harassing an (apparently) wealthy and influent person is a career-destroying move.
I suggest walking or bicycling for shorter distances and some sort of powered personal conveyance for longer ones.
Except "they" can take that away too, by withholding a fucking scrap of paper.
While I'm not a huge fan of his Social Darwinistic ideas, Robert Heinlein got it right when he said: "I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do."
Some of us have a job that may suffer if we are detained, have no resources to fight things in court (for months and months) and do not want to go to jail to make a point.
And that's exactly why you're a fucking coward.
You think WE (the people being actively screwed over today) don't have anything to lose?? You think WE enjoy losing our jobs, being dragged through the court systems, and put in prison, all because you're too much of a goddamn pussy to raise up your pathetic little voice and say "hey! stop. that's WRONG"???
The trick is, they don't restrict your movement. They just prevent you from flying. Or taking a boat, or train. Or driving. Hey, you're free to walk or swim to Uruguay if you want. Oh wait, now you're at the border and you forgot your papers at home. It sounds like you're a terrorist who's trying to subvert the border crossing authority; away to indefinite detention you go.
People are secure, because the search is not mandatory, and they don't need a warrant when they ask and you agree.
Spoken like a truly ignorant person. No offense--most people are. If the TSA VIPR team out on the Interstate Highway wants someone searched or arrested, they will find a way to make it happen, same as any other federal police officer (i.e. DEA) currently does. Did you notice that VIPR teams carry drug dogs? How hard do you think it is to make (or train0 one of them give a false positive signal?
I completely disagree with the entire approach of the TSA, but I'm not sure it's unconstitutional
Our country really, really needs you to pull your head out of your ass right now. It's BLATANTLY unconstitutional. The only reason you are having trouble seeing it is because you've been indoctrinated way too heavily in the modern "AMERIKA FUK YEAH" (aka New World Order or a number of other monikers for the same concept) worldview which simply accepts all these intrusions in our personal life as normal, because it's been going on for literally our entire lives, since our grandparents were born or before.
I'm not biased and not just shooting down the US. That last statement applies to just about any country that claims to be a democracy these days.
Brother, you can't offend a true patriot who sees things as they are. The United States is a police state, and we've already taken control over Canada too, so don't be afraid they might. I am sure our present revolution will spill over your borders as well, so the future is bright...even if the near future isn't.
This isn't about Democrat vs Republican man. These days any time I hear anyone bring up these key words and start arguing back and forth like either party matters, I understand immediately they don't fully understand what's going on in our country. Your own argument explains exactly what the problem is: it's cronyism. There's always going to be a large percentage of the population who are sheep and will buy anything that is told to them....such as, that the problems we face can really be boiled down to Republican vs Democrat. No, it's actually more like Establishment vs Freedom.
At first I thought this article was about the TSA VIPR teams which now serve as the Federal version of local police oppression. In that case can I also choose not to expected, but then am prohibited from riding on the Interstate Highway System?
Your tax dollars are being wasted on way or another. I would rather my tax dollars support saving the life of a moron who didn't wear a seatbelt than my tax dollars being wasted to enforce a law that infringes on people's freedom to take a stupid risk.
Yes. And even as bad as the theoretical improvement outlined above would be (requiring one person to subsidize another's health care), it's nowhere near as bad as the status quo, which is this: those who "infringe" on these laws (whether they actually harmed anyone or not, or cost you a single dime) are targeted for "enforcement", thus having dollars siphoned out of their pockets by the millions daily by corrupt judges to support corrupt police departments, who then turn around and spend that cash to stockpile assault rifles, body armor, and other tools of oppression, while hiring juiced up control freak ex-soldiers, fresh from the hell of Iraq, ready to inflict suffering and exert control on people's lives.
All of which come in handy when storming in someone's house at 3AM on a no-knock raid, shooting the dog (a very aggressive Pomeranian) and humiliating the wife, then systematically destroying their lives by outright seizing their house, car, and all other valuable possessions, just for being accused (not convicted--accused or even acquitted) of a drug-related "crime", such as allegedly planting seeds and sprouting a common plant that has lived in harmony with mankind since the dawn of civilization. This is assuming they don't somehow "find" a bag of weed in your house and some scales while you were pinned down on the floor struggling to breathe, thus sealing the case against you. Hope you got a few tens of thousands for lawyer fees stashed away in buried mayonnaise jars or in an offshore bank account, if you expect to ever see your kids again.
I hope nobody reading this thinks I'm exaggerating. All of the above has happened, tons of times, and only continues to escalate. I could put in a lot more links, to various stories I remember seeing on the news, but I would rather spend my time stocking up on supplies for the upcoming potential World War than educating some slashdot readers who are presumably still clueless (in this day and age?) about the goings-on of our police state. As much as I despise them, seatbelt laws are actually the least of our nation's concerns right now.
Let's be realistic. It is our business as well, since we cover the bill if you get torn up.
No, that's fucking bullshit. There's no reason in a sane country you should be required to foot my bill for a goddamn thing. That's what insurance companies are supposedly for. And using this lame, jacked up excuse of a medical system as a good excuse to pass restrictive nanny state laws that tell ME what you claim I can and can't do in MY OWN FUCKING CAR, is just plain disgusting. Almost as disgusting as seeing ignorant citizens continue to parrot the same nonsense, while their masters in Washingston smile at the blessing of having so many useful idiots of the side of tyranny and oppression.
Problem is if they extend "take risks for themselves" to "take risks with their dependents," i.e. not buckling their kids in because of a fear stemming from a personal but statistically improbable experience.
No, that's none of the state's goddamn business. When you start dreaming up these special cases where it's OK for the state to be in somebody's business, they will stick their foot in the door and take more, more, more, every time.
I don't give a fuck if a person kills themselves and their entire family because they were too stupid to buckle themselves and their dependents up. That's one less carload full of stupidity to pollute the roadways, and our gene pool. Let everyone decide for himself how best to take of himself and his family.
Why is the concept of personal liberty so scary and appalling to some people?
As for allowing people to decide for themselves, I'm all for it... as long as we-the-people don't have to pay for your hospital visit because you didn't wear the seatbelt.
Great! I'll just write your statement down on a note, and you can sign it, then I'll show it to the police officer next time when he pulls me over, with the potential threat of arrest and being sent to jail at gunpoint hanging over my head because of my personal choices. I'm sure he'll then feel justified in just letting me go about my business, rather than looking for bullshit 3-4 other items to ticket (legally stealing money right out of my pocket) while he's there.
Hint: waxing poetic about the safeties and virtues of seat belts is helping the present situation just about as much as waxing poetic about the evil of cigarettes does for solving our smoking "problem." We fucking know it's dangerous not to wear a seat belt; our argument is this is completely irrelevant because it's none of the police's, or anyone else's, goddamn business whether I wear my belt or not. So fucking tired of this police state always jumping in my business.
Then my apologies, I thought you were saying that you had disabled your sensor due to always having to drive without your seat belt.
Whew.
I'll admit that there are bizarre, contrived circumstances under which I've been beeped at for not wearing my seat belt. Still, I like the fact that it nags people to put it on. Those circumstances are so short and few and far between that the positive of having a nagging dinger (people putting on a seat belt to shut it up) easily outweighs the negative (having to tolerate it once in a blue moon).
Or you could, you know, grow a pair of balls and just order your passenger to buckle their seat belts. Then you wouldn't even need a nanny to beep and annoy you into doing it. Imagine that, a personal sense of responsibility, rather than the government and car industries nannies constantly nagging you to do "the right thing", and police officers constantly watching over your shoulder to ensure you're doing what they say.
Well, I am quite sure there are many people who feel that way. For those people, who learn a certain way, it's probably awesome. For me however it would be even worse than the status quo.
When I was in school, the absolute worst way for me to learn was by watching a video, or other directed group exercises. For example one common one I hated was taking turns reading out of the book. I'd be bored as hell following along at the glacial pace of the worst readers and slowest thinkers in the class, so I'd always skip around in the book while I was waiting my turn. I always had to be careful and sly about what I was doing because if I was caught, like if I got too absorbed into my reading and wasn't ready to immediately start reading when my turn came, then I'd actually get in trouble. Like I'M the asshole, when it was them who forced this alien way of instruction onto me.
Video instruction is even worse to me because at least with a "real" teacher, I can at least ask questions, and get responses explained to me in different ways of wording. A video is a static thing that doesn't take into consideration there are 7 billion people on this world and every single one of us is different. To me the little things like the eye strain of watching a damn video, or on a projector with light glaring in the windows, on a crappy sound system, are all details that distract and irritate and really take away the usefulness of videos to me.
So while I should qualify my post to say that yes, video instruction can be useful for SOME people and in SOME circumstances, I still strongly disagree with any push to make this commonplace or a mainstream means of instruction. It's one of those ideas that sounds good on paper until you realize the eventual side-effects are horrible. Such as, people like me deciding to just fuck off and draw things in class, and not give a fuck about the bad grades if I don't have to deal with the headache of watching your video. Or the further dumbing down of our teachers to the level of trained monkey who can press play and pause and ask "well, what do you think?" and that's about it.
As I pointed out in another sub-thread, the problem isn't having enough of it. The problem is today our economy is completely based on Just In Time logistics. In an effort to cut costs, there is very little warehousing and stockpiling going on. Product is shipped on an as-needed basis, across country from producer to market.
Well what happens when the Euro crashes as it's about to, resulting in the collapse of all the world's fiat currencies and busted economies one by one, including the US? Or a sudden huge shock to the oil market (caused by, I don't know, over-aggressiveness against Iran?) which sends prices skyrocketing and people into mass panic?
When the trucks stop running because the truck drivers don't have enough room in the truck to haul all the cash required to pay for a tank of gas (due to runaway inflation, a la Weimar Republic, which is exactly where our current monetary policies are leading us), how are they going to stock those grocery stores? The shelves will be empty in three days.
What are the inner city people going to do? There will be mass rioting, complete chaos, and a lot of violence and death. And yes, leagues of people in New York City will starve to death, while tractors in Kansas stand idle for want of fuel, and millions of bushels of grain rots in the fields.
You are incorrect - there is no internal problem with food production in the US. Additionally, the value of money is relative, and it's worth something to those in the country. If it truly becomes worthless compared to other world currencies, we won't be able buy anything external. However, since money has no intrinsic value, internally a dollar is still worth a dollar, the only difference is what it will buy. So we'll still be able to buy whatever that cob of corn costs.
You obviously don't understand how the economy works. Read up on the Weimar Republic. Fiat currency is based on trust. When the public loses trust in it, it's de facto worthless. Runaway inflation occurs, just like in the Weimar Republic when people were pushing wheelbarrels full of cash into stores to come out with a loaf of bread.
You think everything is going to be just fine and peachy if/when that happens? Right now that's the course we're on.
Sure, we got plenty of food in the midwest. How the fuck is a truck driver going to buy a tank of gas to carry food from Kansas to your home, if you live anywhere out of state? Do you think he's going to be on the road at all, concerned about you eating, instead of going home to take care of HIS family when shit comes crashing down? All that abundant food you see in the supermarket? GONE in 2-3 days, if not resupplied. There are no stockpiles anywhere.
WW3 won't end the world unless it's nuclear. Then all bets are off.
The world didn't end after World War II. So then it's totally cool if we drag this world into World War III and end up getting blown to pieces, and possibly conquered by China and Russia? Yeah, that totally sounds like the bright, sunny future we should continue working towards. And if you think it can't happen, then you are in serious need of a reality check and wake up call.
Just throwing this crazy idea out there: let’s find the best 100 teachers in the country or state, video tape their lectures and lessons, and use this as the basis for 50% (or maybe 75%) of all classroom teaching.
It wouldn't be the US that starves as we have no issues with any food product that can be produced in the country
The problem isn't producing it. The problem is transporting it. And the other looming problem is, how do people buy food if their money is worthless?
Don't be so smug as to think a worldwide interruption in trade (due to, I don't know... World War III perhaps?) wouldn't hurt us. It could hurt us pretty bad.
Indenting sub-blocks is what is proper. This is all that Python requires. ....and that's all it takes to make it a completely worthless language. Because guess what happens when one starts transferring files back and forth between different programmers and text editors, cutting and pasting, with tab indentation vs space indentation, or even code generation tools that add or subtract code. Somehow one space somewhere is off and now the pile of garbage won't compile.
Yes, this is one perfect example of how the brain dead design decisions behind Python killed the language's shot at becoming more popular.
No it isn't. Many facts about how the vast majority of humans process visual information has been studied to no small degree, objectively and scientifically.
All to no avail it seems, because they completely forgot to realize that some people don't like being forced into one specific way of laying out their code. It is [b]important[/b] to many people to be able to make these petty design decisions. This is why there are endless flame wars, or were, over different styles of source code formatting, and why it's such a contentious issue amongst passionate and independent programmers who come together to volunteer on the same project. Python's designers incorrectly concluded they could just "legislate" all this away by making it impossible to do anything other than their one way of doing things. Bzzzt....wrong. This is one of several reasons why Python will never become much more of a niche language than it already is.
That sounds to me more like the attitude of someone who is unemployed and living in their mom's basement.
Wow, you sure told me.
Maybe one day you'll be mature enough to have a real conversation without having to call people names.
Hate to break it to you, but it's not innovation, it's a new iteration of old idea at best. Graphical drag-n-drop IDEs count is in dozens, and they all do and will suck. Just because you didn't see any before doesn't mean it's something revolutionary.
Yeah, that's exactly what they said about the iPod, and the iPad too. Just because nobody has figured out how to do it right, doesn't mean they won't. In fact you're foolish to bet they won't.
Refining a revolutionary concept so that it's usable and powerful, then bringing it to market so that the masses can experience it IS revolutionary, whether one originally "thought" of the idea or not. Ideas are worthless; the implementation is the only thing that really counts, especially when it's in a market full of lame ass companies who keep dredging up the same boring ass shit.
They are going to have to find a day job, because you are certainly not going to pay them right?
Yep. Nobody has a right to make a living at any given profession. Only a free market has any right to decide where resources are allocated, NOT the industry through government coercion at the point of a gun.
If you have another idea on how to protect and foster innovation and creative works, I am all ears. Let me know.
Easy. Don't do a goddamn thing. Legalize everything, abolish the concept of "intellectual property", and let people copy everything as they will. What, do you think people are going to stop making music just because they actually have to work hard to make a living at it? If anything, the quality of music will increase, because all the untalented assholes will be forced into other industries, while the people who truly love to do it and make great music will prosper. They don't do it for the money, they do it for the GLORY. But they'll make a shit ton MORE cash, if they're actually good, because live performances (you know, the origin of the word performer) will always be relatively rare and lucrative. And now they won't have fifty seven goddamn industry middle men holding their fucking hands out wanting a cut.
What, were you under the impression music, books, etc didn't exist before the advent of copyright law?
We all copy information freely in our personal lives. There isn't a single thought in your head that is entirely yours; it's all based on information copied for free from the outside world. This is humanity works, learns, and grows as a species. What if we had to pay every single time we listened to a song, or heard a speech, or watched a television show, or experienced anything other than complete silence? What a hellacious world that would be.
Yet that's exactly what these assholes want, and seek to achieve by pushing copyright law on us. It's a war, and there is either one or two possible outcomes--freedom, or slavery. Every year that passes, we seek deeper and deeper into tyranny, and copyright law is only one of many tools used by tyrants to oppress us. At this point, the only sane position to be held is to be against copyright law. Throughout my life I've made it a point to explicity disobey any law which is wrong or unjust. Therefore, I am certainly not going to pay copyright law any respect, at least until this despicable government is overthrown and more sane limits are put on this horrible law.
People actually watch the counters do the counting and many even video record the counts and ballots
You're mistaken. The counts this year were held in a secret location, in Illinois. Didn't you hear that Anon and Occupy "threatened" to disrupt the caucus, thus obviously requiring the count be moved to a completely different state behind closed doors?
Slashdot Mirror
They are in all kinds of trouble if they say that.
That's why they won't say it.
Refusal of a search is NOT grounds for arrest, this has been tested in court.
No, but if you're "suspicious looking" they can call a drug dog, who just might "alarm" and thus give them probable cause to search. And when they find that pound of dried plant flowers and scales under your seat, well... good luck explaining that it wasn't yours in court.
TSA agents are NOT law enforcement, even if they pretend to be. They do not have legal authority to arrest you.
Tell that to one of the VIPR teams when they pull you over for an unreasonable search in which contraband is "found", and you end up going to jail anyway.
... Dress sharply at all times, and keep a business-like posture and demeanour. Playing bully with a peon is safe enough, but harassing an (apparently) wealthy and influent person is a career-destroying move.
For now.
I suggest walking or bicycling for shorter distances and some sort of powered personal conveyance for longer ones.
Except "they" can take that away too, by withholding a fucking scrap of paper.
While I'm not a huge fan of his Social Darwinistic ideas, Robert Heinlein got it right when he said: "I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do."
Agreed.
Some of us have a job that may suffer if we are detained, have no resources to fight things in court (for months and months) and do not want to go to jail to make a point.
And that's exactly why you're a fucking coward.
You think WE (the people being actively screwed over today) don't have anything to lose?? You think WE enjoy losing our jobs, being dragged through the court systems, and put in prison, all because you're too much of a goddamn pussy to raise up your pathetic little voice and say "hey! stop. that's WRONG"???
The trick is, they don't restrict your movement. They just prevent you from flying. Or taking a boat, or train. Or driving. Hey, you're free to walk or swim to Uruguay if you want. Oh wait, now you're at the border and you forgot your papers at home. It sounds like you're a terrorist who's trying to subvert the border crossing authority; away to indefinite detention you go.
People are secure, because the search is not mandatory, and they don't need a warrant when they ask and you agree.
Spoken like a truly ignorant person. No offense--most people are. If the TSA VIPR team out on the Interstate Highway wants someone searched or arrested, they will find a way to make it happen, same as any other federal police officer (i.e. DEA) currently does. Did you notice that VIPR teams carry drug dogs? How hard do you think it is to make (or train0 one of them give a false positive signal?
I completely disagree with the entire approach of the TSA, but I'm not sure it's unconstitutional
Our country really, really needs you to pull your head out of your ass right now. It's BLATANTLY unconstitutional. The only reason you are having trouble seeing it is because you've been indoctrinated way too heavily in the modern "AMERIKA FUK YEAH" (aka New World Order or a number of other monikers for the same concept) worldview which simply accepts all these intrusions in our personal life as normal, because it's been going on for literally our entire lives, since our grandparents were born or before.
I'm not biased and not just shooting down the US. That last statement applies to just about any country that claims to be a democracy these days.
Brother, you can't offend a true patriot who sees things as they are. The United States is a police state, and we've already taken control over Canada too, so don't be afraid they might. I am sure our present revolution will spill over your borders as well, so the future is bright...even if the near future isn't.
This isn't about Democrat vs Republican man. These days any time I hear anyone bring up these key words and start arguing back and forth like either party matters, I understand immediately they don't fully understand what's going on in our country. Your own argument explains exactly what the problem is: it's cronyism. There's always going to be a large percentage of the population who are sheep and will buy anything that is told to them....such as, that the problems we face can really be boiled down to Republican vs Democrat. No, it's actually more like Establishment vs Freedom.
At first I thought this article was about the TSA VIPR teams which now serve as the Federal version of local police oppression. In that case can I also choose not to expected, but then am prohibited from riding on the Interstate Highway System?
Your tax dollars are being wasted on way or another. I would rather my tax dollars support saving the life of a moron who didn't wear a seatbelt than my tax dollars being wasted to enforce a law that infringes on people's freedom to take a stupid risk.
Yes. And even as bad as the theoretical improvement outlined above would be (requiring one person to subsidize another's health care), it's nowhere near as bad as the status quo, which is this: those who "infringe" on these laws (whether they actually harmed anyone or not, or cost you a single dime) are targeted for "enforcement", thus having dollars siphoned out of their pockets by the millions daily by corrupt judges to support corrupt police departments, who then turn around and spend that cash to stockpile assault rifles, body armor, and other tools of oppression, while hiring juiced up control freak ex-soldiers, fresh from the hell of Iraq, ready to inflict suffering and exert control on people's lives.
All of which come in handy when storming in someone's house at 3AM on a no-knock raid, shooting the dog (a very aggressive Pomeranian) and humiliating the wife, then systematically destroying their lives by outright seizing their house, car, and all other valuable possessions, just for being accused (not convicted--accused or even acquitted) of a drug-related "crime", such as allegedly planting seeds and sprouting a common plant that has lived in harmony with mankind since the dawn of civilization. This is assuming they don't somehow "find" a bag of weed in your house and some scales while you were pinned down on the floor struggling to breathe, thus sealing the case against you. Hope you got a few tens of thousands for lawyer fees stashed away in buried mayonnaise jars or in an offshore bank account, if you expect to ever see your kids again.
I hope nobody reading this thinks I'm exaggerating. All of the above has happened, tons of times, and only continues to escalate. I could put in a lot more links, to various stories I remember seeing on the news, but I would rather spend my time stocking up on supplies for the upcoming potential World War than educating some slashdot readers who are presumably still clueless (in this day and age?) about the goings-on of our police state. As much as I despise them, seatbelt laws are actually the least of our nation's concerns right now.
Let's be realistic. It is our business as well, since we cover the bill if you get torn up.
No, that's fucking bullshit. There's no reason in a sane country you should be required to foot my bill for a goddamn thing. That's what insurance companies are supposedly for. And using this lame, jacked up excuse of a medical system as a good excuse to pass restrictive nanny state laws that tell ME what you claim I can and can't do in MY OWN FUCKING CAR, is just plain disgusting. Almost as disgusting as seeing ignorant citizens continue to parrot the same nonsense, while their masters in Washingston smile at the blessing of having so many useful idiots of the side of tyranny and oppression.
Problem is if they extend "take risks for themselves" to "take risks with their dependents," i.e. not buckling their kids in because of a fear stemming from a personal but statistically improbable experience.
No, that's none of the state's goddamn business. When you start dreaming up these special cases where it's OK for the state to be in somebody's business, they will stick their foot in the door and take more, more, more, every time.
I don't give a fuck if a person kills themselves and their entire family because they were too stupid to buckle themselves and their dependents up. That's one less carload full of stupidity to pollute the roadways, and our gene pool. Let everyone decide for himself how best to take of himself and his family.
Why is the concept of personal liberty so scary and appalling to some people?
As for allowing people to decide for themselves, I'm all for it... as long as we-the-people don't have to pay for your hospital visit because you didn't wear the seatbelt.
Great! I'll just write your statement down on a note, and you can sign it, then I'll show it to the police officer next time when he pulls me over, with the potential threat of arrest and being sent to jail at gunpoint hanging over my head because of my personal choices. I'm sure he'll then feel justified in just letting me go about my business, rather than looking for bullshit 3-4 other items to ticket (legally stealing money right out of my pocket) while he's there.
Hint: waxing poetic about the safeties and virtues of seat belts is helping the present situation just about as much as waxing poetic about the evil of cigarettes does for solving our smoking "problem." We fucking know it's dangerous not to wear a seat belt; our argument is this is completely irrelevant because it's none of the police's, or anyone else's, goddamn business whether I wear my belt or not. So fucking tired of this police state always jumping in my business.
Then my apologies, I thought you were saying that you had disabled your sensor due to always having to drive without your seat belt.
Whew.
I'll admit that there are bizarre, contrived circumstances under which I've been beeped at for not wearing my seat belt. Still, I like the fact that it nags people to put it on. Those circumstances are so short and few and far between that the positive of having a nagging dinger (people putting on a seat belt to shut it up) easily outweighs the negative (having to tolerate it once in a blue moon).
Or you could, you know, grow a pair of balls and just order your passenger to buckle their seat belts. Then you wouldn't even need a nanny to beep and annoy you into doing it. Imagine that, a personal sense of responsibility, rather than the government and car industries nannies constantly nagging you to do "the right thing", and police officers constantly watching over your shoulder to ensure you're doing what they say.
Well, I am quite sure there are many people who feel that way. For those people, who learn a certain way, it's probably awesome. For me however it would be even worse than the status quo.
When I was in school, the absolute worst way for me to learn was by watching a video, or other directed group exercises. For example one common one I hated was taking turns reading out of the book. I'd be bored as hell following along at the glacial pace of the worst readers and slowest thinkers in the class, so I'd always skip around in the book while I was waiting my turn. I always had to be careful and sly about what I was doing because if I was caught, like if I got too absorbed into my reading and wasn't ready to immediately start reading when my turn came, then I'd actually get in trouble. Like I'M the asshole, when it was them who forced this alien way of instruction onto me.
Video instruction is even worse to me because at least with a "real" teacher, I can at least ask questions, and get responses explained to me in different ways of wording. A video is a static thing that doesn't take into consideration there are 7 billion people on this world and every single one of us is different. To me the little things like the eye strain of watching a damn video, or on a projector with light glaring in the windows, on a crappy sound system, are all details that distract and irritate and really take away the usefulness of videos to me.
So while I should qualify my post to say that yes, video instruction can be useful for SOME people and in SOME circumstances, I still strongly disagree with any push to make this commonplace or a mainstream means of instruction. It's one of those ideas that sounds good on paper until you realize the eventual side-effects are horrible. Such as, people like me deciding to just fuck off and draw things in class, and not give a fuck about the bad grades if I don't have to deal with the headache of watching your video. Or the further dumbing down of our teachers to the level of trained monkey who can press play and pause and ask "well, what do you think?" and that's about it.
As I pointed out in another sub-thread, the problem isn't having enough of it. The problem is today our economy is completely based on Just In Time logistics. In an effort to cut costs, there is very little warehousing and stockpiling going on. Product is shipped on an as-needed basis, across country from producer to market.
Well what happens when the Euro crashes as it's about to, resulting in the collapse of all the world's fiat currencies and busted economies one by one, including the US? Or a sudden huge shock to the oil market (caused by, I don't know, over-aggressiveness against Iran?) which sends prices skyrocketing and people into mass panic?
When the trucks stop running because the truck drivers don't have enough room in the truck to haul all the cash required to pay for a tank of gas (due to runaway inflation, a la Weimar Republic, which is exactly where our current monetary policies are leading us), how are they going to stock those grocery stores? The shelves will be empty in three days.
What are the inner city people going to do? There will be mass rioting, complete chaos, and a lot of violence and death. And yes, leagues of people in New York City will starve to death, while tractors in Kansas stand idle for want of fuel, and millions of bushels of grain rots in the fields.
You are incorrect - there is no internal problem with food production in the US. Additionally, the value of money is relative, and it's worth something to those in the country. If it truly becomes worthless compared to other world currencies, we won't be able buy anything external. However, since money has no intrinsic value, internally a dollar is still worth a dollar, the only difference is what it will buy. So we'll still be able to buy whatever that cob of corn costs.
You obviously don't understand how the economy works. Read up on the Weimar Republic. Fiat currency is based on trust. When the public loses trust in it, it's de facto worthless. Runaway inflation occurs, just like in the Weimar Republic when people were pushing wheelbarrels full of cash into stores to come out with a loaf of bread.
You think everything is going to be just fine and peachy if/when that happens? Right now that's the course we're on.
Sure, we got plenty of food in the midwest. How the fuck is a truck driver going to buy a tank of gas to carry food from Kansas to your home, if you live anywhere out of state? Do you think he's going to be on the road at all, concerned about you eating, instead of going home to take care of HIS family when shit comes crashing down? All that abundant food you see in the supermarket? GONE in 2-3 days, if not resupplied. There are no stockpiles anywhere.
WW3 won't end the world unless it's nuclear. Then all bets are off.
The world didn't end after World War II. So then it's totally cool if we drag this world into World War III and end up getting blown to pieces, and possibly conquered by China and Russia? Yeah, that totally sounds like the bright, sunny future we should continue working towards. And if you think it can't happen, then you are in serious need of a reality check and wake up call.
Yes, that's basically it.
And the person who learns to satisfy this user will make billions.
Good luck!
Just throwing this crazy idea out there: let’s find the best 100 teachers in the country or state, video tape their lectures and lessons, and use this as the basis for 50% (or maybe 75%) of all classroom teaching.
Horrible idea.
It wouldn't be the US that starves as we have no issues with any food product that can be produced in the country
The problem isn't producing it. The problem is transporting it. And the other looming problem is, how do people buy food if their money is worthless?
Don't be so smug as to think a worldwide interruption in trade (due to, I don't know... World War III perhaps?) wouldn't hurt us. It could hurt us pretty bad.
Indenting sub-blocks is what is proper. This is all that Python requires. ....and that's all it takes to make it a completely worthless language. Because guess what happens when one starts transferring files back and forth between different programmers and text editors, cutting and pasting, with tab indentation vs space indentation, or even code generation tools that add or subtract code. Somehow one space somewhere is off and now the pile of garbage won't compile.
Yes, this is one perfect example of how the brain dead design decisions behind Python killed the language's shot at becoming more popular.
No it isn't. Many facts about how the vast majority of humans process visual information has been studied to no small degree, objectively and scientifically.
All to no avail it seems, because they completely forgot to realize that some people don't like being forced into one specific way of laying out their code. It is [b]important[/b] to many people to be able to make these petty design decisions. This is why there are endless flame wars, or were, over different styles of source code formatting, and why it's such a contentious issue amongst passionate and independent programmers who come together to volunteer on the same project. Python's designers incorrectly concluded they could just "legislate" all this away by making it impossible to do anything other than their one way of doing things. Bzzzt....wrong. This is one of several reasons why Python will never become much more of a niche language than it already is.
That sounds to me more like the attitude of someone who is unemployed and living in their mom's basement.
Wow, you sure told me.
Maybe one day you'll be mature enough to have a real conversation without having to call people names.
Hate to break it to you, but it's not innovation, it's a new iteration of old idea at best. Graphical drag-n-drop IDEs count is in dozens, and they all do and will suck. Just because you didn't see any before doesn't mean it's something revolutionary.
Yeah, that's exactly what they said about the iPod, and the iPad too. Just because nobody has figured out how to do it right, doesn't mean they won't. In fact you're foolish to bet they won't.
Refining a revolutionary concept so that it's usable and powerful, then bringing it to market so that the masses can experience it IS revolutionary, whether one originally "thought" of the idea or not. Ideas are worthless; the implementation is the only thing that really counts, especially when it's in a market full of lame ass companies who keep dredging up the same boring ass shit.
They are going to have to find a day job, because you are certainly not going to pay them right?
Yep. Nobody has a right to make a living at any given profession. Only a free market has any right to decide where resources are allocated, NOT the industry through government coercion at the point of a gun.
If you have another idea on how to protect and foster innovation and creative works, I am all ears. Let me know.
Easy. Don't do a goddamn thing. Legalize everything, abolish the concept of "intellectual property", and let people copy everything as they will. What, do you think people are going to stop making music just because they actually have to work hard to make a living at it? If anything, the quality of music will increase, because all the untalented assholes will be forced into other industries, while the people who truly love to do it and make great music will prosper. They don't do it for the money, they do it for the GLORY. But they'll make a shit ton MORE cash, if they're actually good, because live performances (you know, the origin of the word performer) will always be relatively rare and lucrative. And now they won't have fifty seven goddamn industry middle men holding their fucking hands out wanting a cut.
What, were you under the impression music, books, etc didn't exist before the advent of copyright law?
We all copy information freely in our personal lives. There isn't a single thought in your head that is entirely yours; it's all based on information copied for free from the outside world. This is humanity works, learns, and grows as a species. What if we had to pay every single time we listened to a song, or heard a speech, or watched a television show, or experienced anything other than complete silence? What a hellacious world that would be.
Yet that's exactly what these assholes want, and seek to achieve by pushing copyright law on us. It's a war, and there is either one or two possible outcomes--freedom, or slavery. Every year that passes, we seek deeper and deeper into tyranny, and copyright law is only one of many tools used by tyrants to oppress us. At this point, the only sane position to be held is to be against copyright law. Throughout my life I've made it a point to explicity disobey any law which is wrong or unjust. Therefore, I am certainly not going to pay copyright law any respect, at least until this despicable government is overthrown and more sane limits are put on this horrible law.
People actually watch the counters do the counting and many even video record the counts and ballots
You're mistaken. The counts this year were held in a secret location, in Illinois. Didn't you hear that Anon and Occupy "threatened" to disrupt the caucus, thus obviously requiring the count be moved to a completely different state behind closed doors?