It's the Pareto principle, aka the Eighty-Twenty rule. (Also sometimes called the Ten-Ninety rule). Anecdotally, twenty percent of the population is responsible for eighty percent of the progress in society, and likely the work done as well. I doubt that's likely to change, ever, and it probably has some intrinsic benefits; most obviously that 80% of the population gets to be lazy, which works out well for them, apparently.
FWIW, Jon doesn't write all the jokes. Moreover, since his role is that of an objective commentator on "fake news", his personal life and history have no relevance. A joke is a joke. Also there's a big difference between taking a bit role and producing a film.
(Note: I posted a parody of the same joke below. While I enjoyed most of the Pixar films, I still found the joke amusing, even if it deviated from the facts.)
Before: [[Alex Colvalt]] A smelly member of the senate page program that dates a therapist. Also he is the man.
After: [[Alex Covalt]] A Senate Page. Also a handsome devil from the Nebraska Panahndle. He is a buddy of Charlie Strickland.
Pages, for those who are unaware, are the backbone of our Federal government. From the Wikipedia article:
A United States Senate Page (Senate Page or simply Page) is a non-partisan federal employee serving the United States Senate in Washington, DC. In order to become a US Senate Page, one must first be nominated by a Senator generally from his or her State. A prospective candidate, who must be a high school junior, is required to submit high school transcripts, a list of extracurricular activities, an essay on why he/she wants to serve as a Page, letters of recommendation, and meet a minimum GPA requirement (typically 3.00 unweighted). Individual Senators are free to require a candidate to provide more information in order to help find the best student. After a senator (or likely one of his/her staff) has reviewed all the submissions, one is appointed.
Fortunately you spotted this rift in the very foundation of our government. One can only hope it gets the attention it deserves. I shudder to think where our country will be in five years if high schoolers are allowed to continue this tom foolery.
Hopefully we'll have a War on the Human Condition soon so we can fix that annoying little problem and make the world a little safer for Freedom when it gets here.
Well, one of the other problems is concentration. Coal may do a small amount of damage on a global scale, but a nuclear accident would do a large amount of damage on a local scale. Overall, the effects may be less damaging to the environment, but that doesn't help the people who are affected locally. And people in general will always extrapolate large local damage to be large overall damage. IE (no disrespect to the victims), twin towers disaster = we're all gonna die.
But that view isn't entirely without merit. A small change on a global scale can be less damaging than the equivelant cumulative change in one region. Sort of like a bed of nails.
I'm not opposed to nuclear power, but Murphey's Law is a bitch.
Unfortunately, the "overall timeline" of 1880-200x is so miniscule as to be almost unusable. We might as well try to predict the weather tomorrow based on what it was like yesterday.
More AND less. The temperature average actually dropped between 1940 and 1970, when CO2 emissions were really getting into the swing of things. Add to that the other points which, of course, weren't modded up -- the temperature change is so small that it may be within the margin of error, and we just got done with a 400 year mini-ice age -- and the most you can say is "wow, we don't know very much at all."
I've heard that argument before too, but really, the amount of solar radiation that reaches northern latitudes is relatively minor. Sure, land may reflect less light than ice, which in turn is absorbed and radiated as heat, but if you're talking about a 60% change in an area that receives less than 1% of all sunlight, then... ?
Also you have to consider the angle of such latitudes, which affects the reflection vs. absorption. The angle also affects how much of the atmosphere the sunlight has to pass through in the first place, which decreases the total sunlight received even more.
The problem is that there is very little science to discuss. First of all, our sample size is incredibly small. 125 years of steady recording is less than the blink of an eye in geological terms. It's sort of like looking at the stock market from December and extrapolating future performance based on those numbers.
On average, mean temperatures have increased since 1880, slightly following rising atmospheric CO2, but very loosely. From 1940-1970, average temperatures actually fell as CO2 was rising.
Then there's anomolies and progress in measuring techniques. As technology has progressed, our measurments have become more accurate, and more of the surface of the earth has been measured. This can play a large role, especially when we're talking about changes measured in tenths of a degree. It's sort of like voting districts. If you change the areas you measure (or poll), you can change the results dramatically. What were oceanic temperatures like before we had satellites? No one's sure.
On top of all of this, nobody's really sure what temperature increases mean for the planet. All we can say is "things aren't too bad right now (where we live), so we don't want them to change to an unknown state." But even without human influence, climate and geography are constantly changing. We seem to have the misguided belief that we're affecting some sort of static bubble which has remained unchanged for millenia, and that's simply not the case.
That said, we absolutely should decrease CO2 emissions, if for no other reason than the pollution that accompanies such emissions is directly harmful to our health. And it's likely that anthropogenic increases in CO2 are playing a part in climatic changes, but cause and correlation are difficult to separate; certainly much more difficult than either side would have us believe.
I personally think Global Warming is similar to terrorism, or any other "sky is falling," scenario, i.e. the risks, dangers, and our ability to influence them are greatly overstated. Unfortunately, it sort of has to be that way, because nobody would pay attention otherwise.
It's all due to a typo. Bush got confused because "spirit" and "opportunity" weren't capitalized in his Mars update. One aide reportedly overheard the President say, "We must.. will crush.. spirit and opportunity wherever it.. won't get fooled again!"
You're being naive if you think that disproving one aspect of religion will "destroy" religion on the whole. Religion is not static, nor is it bound to logic. Interpretations have changed over time to suit (or affect) the current geopolitical climate, and the present, despite the grandeurs of glory we may have to the contrary, is no different. Every society believes that the age they live in is immune from the simple-mindedness of its ancestors, that they are more enlightened.
Regardless, if Occam's Razor applied to religion, religion would have ceased to exist long ago.
And you're still falling into the trap of arguing an illogical belief using logic. Trying to argue religion is futile, and possibly a greater folly than believing in it.
Right, but that's ignoring the obvious conclusion that they should replace him with someone who is qualified. Clearly that's not something the poster considered, but perhaps he actually should seek out employment in his particular field of expertise rather than cludging along. He'd look better in his new job, and his current employer would have a knowledgable admin. Problem solved.
But in fact, the law makes no stipulation that circumvention be only to prevent illegal copies.
That's factually incorrect. Specifically, a circumvention device is only illegal when it:
`(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;
`(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or
`(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
DVD Jon, for example, was found guilty not because he made a circumvention device, but because the court decided that his primary intent was to allow unauthorized copies. The court may have been wrong in their decision, but the standard used was not whether or not the device circumvented protections, but whether or not that was the primary intent behind the design of such device.
To my knowledge, no case involving a device with more than "limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure" has yet come before the SC, unless you count decss, so we can't know for sure how the court would interpret the phrase, especially given the new Justices, but from the DVD Jon case, we can deduce that this only bans devices whose primary purpose is to facilitate copyright infringement.
Furthermore, here is the "non-existant" exemption to circumvention specifically for purposes of interoperability:
"`(2) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsections (a)(2) and (b), a person may develop and employ technological means to circumvent a technological measure, or to circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure, in order to enable the identification and analysis under paragraph (1), or for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, if such means are necessary to achieve such interoperability, to the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement under this title.
I think you're being overly defensive and reading too much into his phrasology. In the first place, you're free to maintain your rather blatant anti-Republican stance. But if the net result of holding both parties accountable is that the Republicans receive less responsibility, is that such a travesty? Isn't it better (and more important/productive) to criticize oneself more thoroughly than one's enemy?
Although if, as I suspect, you're just rabble rousing, don't let logic get in the way.
The DMAC was meant to be omnibus, but it isn't, partly due to the fact that it's new, partly due to the fact that the technology is so new. Also we have conflicting laws and judicial president, DMAC vs. Betamax for example.
The biggest problem with the DMCA was that it was really just a law written by the MPAA and passed by Congress. The other problem is that it was written by nontechnical people in an attempt to legislate a technical domain.
Judicial decisions don't take precidence over new laws. The Betamax case determined that, under contemporary law, there was legitimate noninfringing use for a video recorder. That doesn't stop Congress from passing a law to ban the sale of video recorders, nor does it establish an inalienable right to "fair use," whatever that is. The Judiciary system doesn't establish law. The SC could review the Constitutionality of a ban on video recorders, but the fact that they ruled them previously legal has no bearing on future legislation. As such, previous rulings are irrelevant to the DMCA.
My mistake, I thought you were replying to this post.
Even so, your comparison is flawed. A 911 operator is not a high level government official. As far as the service overall, if you think politics plays no role in quality of service over general areas, you've been severely misinformed. There are have been regular complaints about the service in lower class areas, probably since the introduction of 911.
That's what he was saying: Politics should not be involved in government. Take some reading comprehension classes, and then work on your own writing because it's almost beyond comprehension.
For starters, "you do expect politics not to be involved in many governmental jobs" should be "You do not expect politics to be involved..." or even better, "You expect politics to be absent from..."
Also, your first post, "Surely you mean then that government run emergency service should be run by politics..." doesn't even make sense. Are you being sarcastic? Or did you forget the word don't?
I'm not really a grammar Nazi, but if you're going to argue something, at least make sure you understand the other person's post before writing unintelligible babble.
Just to play devil's advocate, that's not necessarily true if a) that deception is in our best interest, b) the process involved in planet creation involves time dilation, c) we're simply incapable of understanding why things appear to be millions of years old, or d) our definitions of infinite good and love are flawed.
Arguing against something which cannot be disproved is just as silly as arguing for it.
That's why I believe there should be voting receipts. Each receipt should be serialized (perhaps randomly), and a list of serial numbers and corresponding votes should be published locally so that each person can verify their vote. If a large percent of people come forward with irregularities, the results are nullified.
Sure they have some interest, in the same way a millionaire poker player has an interest in a $10,000 hand. They can afford to act imprudently, and if it doesn't pan out they'll never notice the difference. Once your bank account has 10 digits, you're pretty much immune to anything short of complete and utter economic collapse. Legitimate worries of such an individual would be that the dollar become less valuable than the material it's printed on, or that the not-so-small island they just bought is precariously close to collapsing into the sea.
Slashdot Mirror
It's the Pareto principle, aka the Eighty-Twenty rule. (Also sometimes called the Ten-Ninety rule). Anecdotally, twenty percent of the population is responsible for eighty percent of the progress in society, and likely the work done as well. I doubt that's likely to change, ever, and it probably has some intrinsic benefits; most obviously that 80% of the population gets to be lazy, which works out well for them, apparently.
Gives new meaning to the phrase "mob rule."
FWIW, Jon doesn't write all the jokes. Moreover, since his role is that of an objective commentator on "fake news", his personal life and history have no relevance. A joke is a joke. Also there's a big difference between taking a bit role and producing a film.
(Note: I posted a parody of the same joke below. While I enjoyed most of the Pixar films, I still found the joke amusing, even if it deviated from the facts.)
I thought they already made Toy Story 3: Monster Edition? Followed by Toy Story 4 Underwater, and Toy Story 5 Supertoys.
(This joke shamelessly stolen from The Daily Show).
Hopefully we'll have a War on the Human Condition soon so we can fix that annoying little problem and make the world a little safer for Freedom when it gets here.
Well, one of the other problems is concentration. Coal may do a small amount of damage on a global scale, but a nuclear accident would do a large amount of damage on a local scale. Overall, the effects may be less damaging to the environment, but that doesn't help the people who are affected locally. And people in general will always extrapolate large local damage to be large overall damage. IE (no disrespect to the victims), twin towers disaster = we're all gonna die.
But that view isn't entirely without merit. A small change on a global scale can be less damaging than the equivelant cumulative change in one region. Sort of like a bed of nails.
I'm not opposed to nuclear power, but Murphey's Law is a bitch.
Unfortunately, the "overall timeline" of 1880-200x is so miniscule as to be almost unusable. We might as well try to predict the weather tomorrow based on what it was like yesterday.
More AND less. The temperature average actually dropped between 1940 and 1970, when CO2 emissions were really getting into the swing of things. Add to that the other points which, of course, weren't modded up -- the temperature change is so small that it may be within the margin of error, and we just got done with a 400 year mini-ice age -- and the most you can say is "wow, we don't know very much at all."
I've heard that argument before too, but really, the amount of solar radiation that reaches northern latitudes is relatively minor. Sure, land may reflect less light than ice, which in turn is absorbed and radiated as heat, but if you're talking about a 60% change in an area that receives less than 1% of all sunlight, then... ?
Also you have to consider the angle of such latitudes, which affects the reflection vs. absorption. The angle also affects how much of the atmosphere the sunlight has to pass through in the first place, which decreases the total sunlight received even more.
Your rational and well thought position has no place here, flies in direct opposition to pop-science, and will be modded flamebait accordingly.
The problem is that there is very little science to discuss. First of all, our sample size is incredibly small. 125 years of steady recording is less than the blink of an eye in geological terms. It's sort of like looking at the stock market from December and extrapolating future performance based on those numbers.
On average, mean temperatures have increased since 1880, slightly following rising atmospheric CO2, but very loosely. From 1940-1970, average temperatures actually fell as CO2 was rising.
Then there's anomolies and progress in measuring techniques. As technology has progressed, our measurments have become more accurate, and more of the surface of the earth has been measured. This can play a large role, especially when we're talking about changes measured in tenths of a degree. It's sort of like voting districts. If you change the areas you measure (or poll), you can change the results dramatically. What were oceanic temperatures like before we had satellites? No one's sure.
On top of all of this, nobody's really sure what temperature increases mean for the planet. All we can say is "things aren't too bad right now (where we live), so we don't want them to change to an unknown state." But even without human influence, climate and geography are constantly changing. We seem to have the misguided belief that we're affecting some sort of static bubble which has remained unchanged for millenia, and that's simply not the case.
That said, we absolutely should decrease CO2 emissions, if for no other reason than the pollution that accompanies such emissions is directly harmful to our health. And it's likely that anthropogenic increases in CO2 are playing a part in climatic changes, but cause and correlation are difficult to separate; certainly much more difficult than either side would have us believe.
I personally think Global Warming is similar to terrorism, or any other "sky is falling," scenario, i.e. the risks, dangers, and our ability to influence them are greatly overstated. Unfortunately, it sort of has to be that way, because nobody would pay attention otherwise.
It's all due to a typo. Bush got confused because "spirit" and "opportunity" weren't capitalized in his Mars update. One aide reportedly overheard the President say, "We must.. will crush.. spirit and opportunity wherever it.. won't get fooled again!"
You're being naive if you think that disproving one aspect of religion will "destroy" religion on the whole. Religion is not static, nor is it bound to logic. Interpretations have changed over time to suit (or affect) the current geopolitical climate, and the present, despite the grandeurs of glory we may have to the contrary, is no different. Every society believes that the age they live in is immune from the simple-mindedness of its ancestors, that they are more enlightened.
Regardless, if Occam's Razor applied to religion, religion would have ceased to exist long ago.
And you're still falling into the trap of arguing an illogical belief using logic. Trying to argue religion is futile, and possibly a greater folly than believing in it.
Right, but that's ignoring the obvious conclusion that they should replace him with someone who is qualified. Clearly that's not something the poster considered, but perhaps he actually should seek out employment in his particular field of expertise rather than cludging along. He'd look better in his new job, and his current employer would have a knowledgable admin. Problem solved.
Well, I agree that both parties are relatively worthless. I'll just agree to disagree about the rest.
That's factually incorrect. Specifically, a circumvention device is only illegal when it:
DVD Jon, for example, was found guilty not because he made a circumvention device, but because the court decided that his primary intent was to allow unauthorized copies. The court may have been wrong in their decision, but the standard used was not whether or not the device circumvented protections, but whether or not that was the primary intent behind the design of such device.
To my knowledge, no case involving a device with more than "limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure" has yet come before the SC, unless you count decss, so we can't know for sure how the court would interpret the phrase, especially given the new Justices, but from the DVD Jon case, we can deduce that this only bans devices whose primary purpose is to facilitate copyright infringement.
Furthermore, here is the "non-existant" exemption to circumvention specifically for purposes of interoperability:
Of course, I could be reading the wrong bill.
I think you're being overly defensive and reading too much into his phrasology. In the first place, you're free to maintain your rather blatant anti-Republican stance. But if the net result of holding both parties accountable is that the Republicans receive less responsibility, is that such a travesty? Isn't it better (and more important/productive) to criticize oneself more thoroughly than one's enemy?
Although if, as I suspect, you're just rabble rousing, don't let logic get in the way.
The DMAC was meant to be omnibus, but it isn't, partly due to the fact that it's new, partly due to the fact that the technology is so new. Also we have conflicting laws and judicial president, DMAC vs. Betamax for example.
The biggest problem with the DMCA was that it was really just a law written by the MPAA and passed by Congress. The other problem is that it was written by nontechnical people in an attempt to legislate a technical domain.
Judicial decisions don't take precidence over new laws. The Betamax case determined that, under contemporary law, there was legitimate noninfringing use for a video recorder. That doesn't stop Congress from passing a law to ban the sale of video recorders, nor does it establish an inalienable right to "fair use," whatever that is. The Judiciary system doesn't establish law. The SC could review the Constitutionality of a ban on video recorders, but the fact that they ruled them previously legal has no bearing on future legislation. As such, previous rulings are irrelevant to the DMCA.
My mistake, I thought you were replying to this post.
Even so, your comparison is flawed. A 911 operator is not a high level government official. As far as the service overall, if you think politics plays no role in quality of service over general areas, you've been severely misinformed. There are have been regular complaints about the service in lower class areas, probably since the introduction of 911.
That's what he was saying: Politics should not be involved in government. Take some reading comprehension classes, and then work on your own writing because it's almost beyond comprehension.
For starters, "you do expect politics not to be involved in many governmental jobs" should be "You do not expect politics to be involved..." or even better, "You expect politics to be absent from..."
Also, your first post, "Surely you mean then that government run emergency service should be run by politics..." doesn't even make sense. Are you being sarcastic? Or did you forget the word don't?
I'm not really a grammar Nazi, but if you're going to argue something, at least make sure you understand the other person's post before writing unintelligible babble.
So you're saying 100% of dollar value is returned to taxpayers? As long as that number is below 100%, there's room to cut spending.
Just to play devil's advocate, that's not necessarily true if a) that deception is in our best interest, b) the process involved in planet creation involves time dilation, c) we're simply incapable of understanding why things appear to be millions of years old, or d) our definitions of infinite good and love are flawed.
Arguing against something which cannot be disproved is just as silly as arguing for it.
That's why I believe there should be voting receipts. Each receipt should be serialized (perhaps randomly), and a list of serial numbers and corresponding votes should be published locally so that each person can verify their vote. If a large percent of people come forward with irregularities, the results are nullified.
Sure they have some interest, in the same way a millionaire poker player has an interest in a $10,000 hand. They can afford to act imprudently, and if it doesn't pan out they'll never notice the difference. Once your bank account has 10 digits, you're pretty much immune to anything short of complete and utter economic collapse. Legitimate worries of such an individual would be that the dollar become less valuable than the material it's printed on, or that the not-so-small island they just bought is precariously close to collapsing into the sea.