Muscle mass does this to some extent, since larger muscles burn more calories at rest. I had a friend in college with a genetic abnormality (it may well have been related to this gene or hormone) who stayed tone and muscular with a sedentary lifestyle. As someone above posted, it could well be that we (and mice) would benefit from such a "condition," but it was perhaps selected against for its high caloric requirements. It could also be that it leads to an enlarged heart and untimely death.
I think you'll find that your definition of "everyone" is lacking. The same line thinking ("everyone" knows about this, there's nothing I can do) got us the DMCA, the PATRIOT Act, and other misguided legislation that received little or no widespread attention until after it passed.
Hell, as I write this, none of this is even on the front page of CNN.com, washingtonpost.com, newyorktimes.com, foxnews.com, or any other major major news site. (And for what it's worth, it's not appearing on the front page of Google News either, but they're just a reflection of major media). I don't have access to a television right now, but I'd be willing to wager nobody's talking about it there either.
The Internet is an echo chamber on this issue, including and especially Slashdot, but we need to make other people aware of the ramifications of this bill.
Or, you know, it could be something in the middle. People are really good at acclimating to their circumstances, and no matter how great things get there will always be malcontents. If scarcity of resources and materials wasn't an issue, then it'd be scarcity of mates. If it wasn't scarcity of mates, it'd be popularity. If it wasn't popularity, it would be real estate, or mental/physical capacity, or lifetime, or whatever. Some people will always find something to be unhappy about, and then they'll convince other people to be unhappy about those things too.
Just because the governments of democratic countries have authority doesn't make them authoritarian. Authoritarianism differs from democracy in general in that the leader maintains (and usually achieves) power by claiming it for himself, and in the US in particular in that there is usually little or no separation of powers.
While you're free to argue about the effective differences in practice, or the lack thereof, or even to claim they are the same, the fact remains that they are not. Pretending that they are a) only makes it easier for people to dismiss you as a lunatic, and thus any subsequent claims as the ravings thereof, and b) doesn't create a useful starting point for a discussion of how to improve, because a government without any authority would rather defeat the point -- we might as well revert to allowing the strongest chimp to run the show.
Fine, by humane, I mean don't take steps to deliberately or negligently lower the quality of life of the animals outside of what's required by the experiment. Don't make them sleep in their own shit unless the experiment necessarily requires it (which is unlikely). So yes, humane probably isn't the right word for that, but we don't seem to have an appropriate alternative that I'm aware of.
It may be a dichotomy, but it's not a false dichotomy, if that's what you're implying. The only way to find out the effect of a given treatment is to test it on humans, and the only way to do that ethically is if you are reasonably sure it won't cause more harm than benefit, and you find that out by testing on animals.
Saying we should put our energy into developing animal-free testing is like saying "if we put enough effort into coming up with faster processors, we wouldn't need these slow ones." You can't develop animal-free testing methods unless you know everything about organic chemistry in the first place, and if you know that then there's no point in testing because *you'd already have the answers*. Animal testing isn't used because it's lazy, it's used because it's necessary. And the fact that it's imperfect in the ways you describe does not mean that better alternatives magically exist. If they existed, we'd be using them, because they'd be better.
You mean like this? And what isn't included in that kit you can mostly find at your hardware store (acids) or here or here, etc.
The problem isn't that we "got rid" of chemistry sets -- we didn't -- it's that nerds these days are more interested in playing WoW (full time job) and setting up websites to track their WoW status in their free time. Ok, that's hyperbole, but the information tech industries and their associated pastimes are definitely getting the majority of attention these days, not to mention money.
They couldn't have been foreseen, probably won't happen again, and suggest no particular preventive action.
Wrong. Maybe you're thinking of the spring-loaded Red Ryder guns they had whenever people with 4-digit UIDs were growing up. Those things had muzzle velocities in the range of 350ft/s, while many BB guns today have velocities nearly three times that, and some models going higher still. They should be treated no differently than any other gun capable of launching a projectile with enough kinetic energy to penetrate flesh. That is, they should be treated like they're loaded at all times, kept pointed away from people you don't intend to kill, and kept away from unsupervised kids. The fact that you can impart less energy with a single-pump doesn't change that fact. Just because you or some of your idiot friends decided to shoot at each other with BB guns as a kid, and lived to tell the tale, doesn't make it in any way a good idea.
Who cares? Yes, we should be as humane as reasonably possible -- there's no point in cruelty for its own sake -- but any experiment with even a marginal benefit that requires a living test subject is more important than an animal. Obviously there's no need to discover the terminal velocity of live chimps, assuming somebody hasn't already done that, but when the choice is between the well being of an animal versus a person? People win, animals lose.
I read ebooks all the time, and that's why I hate "e-ink." With a backlit device, I can read in bed or a dimly lit room without disturbing my spouse. Additionally, I can check my mail, check the weather, search the web for something, and perform other tasks that catch my fancy while reading all without having to find/use a separate device.
And while I own both an iPad and an iPhone, I can't stand reading ebooks on the iPad -- the resolution is too low and the screen is too bright for a darkened room, even fully dimmed. Not to mention, it's too large and awkward to hold comfortably. In fact, if I wasn't using it for development, I wouldn't own an iPad or any tablet at all, and that includes a Kindle.
1) Stability. This is key for me. 2) Application availability. Windows isn't my ideal OS either, but it became the dominant OS and my everyday OS for much the same reason. You either go where the software goes, or you deal with a lack of options. 3) Resale value, especially jailbroken and unlocked. A lower TCO means more money for more important things.
How could they sue each other out of existence? If I have to pay you everything I have, and you have to pay me everything you have, and we're both movie studios.......?
It's actually 80%, and that's meaningless by itself since it doesn't tell us whether the sample was representative, what the baseline for "average" is, or what the extremes are. Hypothetically, if 90 percent of drivers could navigate 100% of situations and accidents, then I wouldn't care that 30% are wrong when they say they're above average. Without knowing what constitutes an average driver, or at what point below (or above) average they constitute a high risk, or how well skill correlates with actual accidents. All we can take away from that with any certainty is exactly what it says: "80% of drivers surveyed said they were above average," which is no better than saying "80% of people surveyed answered our question."
But anyway, I actually agree that all talking and texting should be prohibited. The person on the phone doesn't have the same situational awareness as a passenger or the same disincentives against being a distraction. He doesn't provide an extra set of eyes, can't tell when it's appropriate to STFU, and can only decrease the amount of attention the driver can devote to his primary task. The requirement for "hands free" talking is ridiculous, as the distraction has almost nothing to do with whether or not one hand is occupied. After all, you can still get a drivers license with one arm.
There are several modern fields that are dominated by women, that used to be dominated by males. Has there been a shift in biology?
No biological shift is required, just the removal of boundaries. You can force similar poles of a magnet together, but that doesn't mean they'll maintain that arrangement when you let go. Similarly, with decreased social stigma against women in the workplace, women may likewise be going where they want to go. I'm not saying this is definitely true, just that it's a possibility. There's no question that there are measurable differences in both the brains and the brain-regulating chemicals of each gender, and while it may not affect aptitude, it may affect how that aptitude is applied. Or it may not. That's all I'm saying.
As for equality of pay, that's improving, especially when measured by age, which is quite possibly an indication that misogynists are a dying breed.
People tend to be condescending toward anyone asking what they perceive to be a "stupid question," regardless of gender. And it could be that women avoid condescension whereas men take it as a challenge to improve. I'm not saying that's necessarily true, just a possibility.
*One* disincentive is competition, but competition isn't always possible, or practical, or successful. What do we do in those cases? "Suck it up," seems to be the refrain from the people who benefit from such arrangements, and from people too short-sighted to care about the consequences. Unfortunately those two groups combined seem to form a majority.
Slashdot Mirror
Muscle mass does this to some extent, since larger muscles burn more calories at rest. I had a friend in college with a genetic abnormality (it may well have been related to this gene or hormone) who stayed tone and muscular with a sedentary lifestyle. As someone above posted, it could well be that we (and mice) would benefit from such a "condition," but it was perhaps selected against for its high caloric requirements. It could also be that it leads to an enlarged heart and untimely death.
I think you'll find that your definition of "everyone" is lacking. The same line thinking ("everyone" knows about this, there's nothing I can do) got us the DMCA, the PATRIOT Act, and other misguided legislation that received little or no widespread attention until after it passed.
Hell, as I write this, none of this is even on the front page of CNN.com, washingtonpost.com, newyorktimes.com, foxnews.com, or any other major major news site. (And for what it's worth, it's not appearing on the front page of Google News either, but they're just a reflection of major media). I don't have access to a television right now, but I'd be willing to wager nobody's talking about it there either.
The Internet is an echo chamber on this issue, including and especially Slashdot, but we need to make other people aware of the ramifications of this bill.
Be nice if there were an existing group for this, especially since it's so late in the game now. Colbert should be all over this with his Super Pac.
Does the EFF run ads? Is there an alternative?
Or, you know, it could be something in the middle. People are really good at acclimating to their circumstances, and no matter how great things get there will always be malcontents. If scarcity of resources and materials wasn't an issue, then it'd be scarcity of mates. If it wasn't scarcity of mates, it'd be popularity. If it wasn't popularity, it would be real estate, or mental/physical capacity, or lifetime, or whatever. Some people will always find something to be unhappy about, and then they'll convince other people to be unhappy about those things too.
Just because the governments of democratic countries have authority doesn't make them authoritarian. Authoritarianism differs from democracy in general in that the leader maintains (and usually achieves) power by claiming it for himself, and in the US in particular in that there is usually little or no separation of powers.
While you're free to argue about the effective differences in practice, or the lack thereof, or even to claim they are the same, the fact remains that they are not. Pretending that they are a) only makes it easier for people to dismiss you as a lunatic, and thus any subsequent claims as the ravings thereof, and b) doesn't create a useful starting point for a discussion of how to improve, because a government without any authority would rather defeat the point -- we might as well revert to allowing the strongest chimp to run the show.
Fine, by humane, I mean don't take steps to deliberately or negligently lower the quality of life of the animals outside of what's required by the experiment. Don't make them sleep in their own shit unless the experiment necessarily requires it (which is unlikely). So yes, humane probably isn't the right word for that, but we don't seem to have an appropriate alternative that I'm aware of.
It may be a dichotomy, but it's not a false dichotomy, if that's what you're implying. The only way to find out the effect of a given treatment is to test it on humans, and the only way to do that ethically is if you are reasonably sure it won't cause more harm than benefit, and you find that out by testing on animals.
Saying we should put our energy into developing animal-free testing is like saying "if we put enough effort into coming up with faster processors, we wouldn't need these slow ones." You can't develop animal-free testing methods unless you know everything about organic chemistry in the first place, and if you know that then there's no point in testing because *you'd already have the answers*. Animal testing isn't used because it's lazy, it's used because it's necessary. And the fact that it's imperfect in the ways you describe does not mean that better alternatives magically exist. If they existed, we'd be using them, because they'd be better.
For whatever revenue they made off your video, as calculated by average income per view * number of views.
You mean like this? And what isn't included in that kit you can mostly find at your hardware store (acids) or here or here, etc.
The problem isn't that we "got rid" of chemistry sets -- we didn't -- it's that nerds these days are more interested in playing WoW (full time job) and setting up websites to track their WoW status in their free time. Ok, that's hyperbole, but the information tech industries and their associated pastimes are definitely getting the majority of attention these days, not to mention money.
They couldn't have been foreseen, probably won't happen again, and suggest no particular preventive action.
Wrong. Maybe you're thinking of the spring-loaded Red Ryder guns they had whenever people with 4-digit UIDs were growing up. Those things had muzzle velocities in the range of 350ft/s, while many BB guns today have velocities nearly three times that, and some models going higher still. They should be treated no differently than any other gun capable of launching a projectile with enough kinetic energy to penetrate flesh. That is, they should be treated like they're loaded at all times, kept pointed away from people you don't intend to kill, and kept away from unsupervised kids. The fact that you can impart less energy with a single-pump doesn't change that fact. Just because you or some of your idiot friends decided to shoot at each other with BB guns as a kid, and lived to tell the tale, doesn't make it in any way a good idea.
Yeah, thank God, otherwise where would you find a Jarts in this day and age?!? (Jarts are to lawn darts what Nerf guns are to real guns).
Who cares? Yes, we should be as humane as reasonably possible -- there's no point in cruelty for its own sake -- but any experiment with even a marginal benefit that requires a living test subject is more important than an animal. Obviously there's no need to discover the terminal velocity of live chimps, assuming somebody hasn't already done that, but when the choice is between the well being of an animal versus a person? People win, animals lose.
According to the US National Transit Database (record of every public transit system in the US), the average light rail system costs $5.66 per passenger mile. This compares with $1.41 per mile for driving a car. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTran#Cost_comparison_with_other_public_transit_systems
I read ebooks all the time, and that's why I hate "e-ink." With a backlit device, I can read in bed or a dimly lit room without disturbing my spouse. Additionally, I can check my mail, check the weather, search the web for something, and perform other tasks that catch my fancy while reading all without having to find/use a separate device.
And while I own both an iPad and an iPhone, I can't stand reading ebooks on the iPad -- the resolution is too low and the screen is too bright for a darkened room, even fully dimmed. Not to mention, it's too large and awkward to hold comfortably. In fact, if I wasn't using it for development, I wouldn't own an iPad or any tablet at all, and that includes a Kindle.
That's why I torrented that shit.
I was explaining why I own an iPhone to someone who didn't see why people were interested in iPhones.
In order of importance...
1) Stability. This is key for me.
2) Application availability. Windows isn't my ideal OS either, but it became the dominant OS and my everyday OS for much the same reason. You either go where the software goes, or you deal with a lack of options.
3) Resale value, especially jailbroken and unlocked. A lower TCO means more money for more important things.
Lost at Monopoly.
They also don't tend to have much sympathy if you violate the letter of the law without violating the spirit. So basically you're damned if you do...
That's a somewhat larger value of two than I'm used to seeing.
How could they sue each other out of existence? If I have to pay you everything I have, and you have to pay me everything you have, and we're both movie studios.......?
Oh right, the lawyers.
Stikypad [sic] has "given away" all of his "money" to a "qualified individual."
95% of drivers think they are above average.
It's actually 80%, and that's meaningless by itself since it doesn't tell us whether the sample was representative, what the baseline for "average" is, or what the extremes are. Hypothetically, if 90 percent of drivers could navigate 100% of situations and accidents, then I wouldn't care that 30% are wrong when they say they're above average. Without knowing what constitutes an average driver, or at what point below (or above) average they constitute a high risk, or how well skill correlates with actual accidents. All we can take away from that with any certainty is exactly what it says: "80% of drivers surveyed said they were above average," which is no better than saying "80% of people surveyed answered our question."
But anyway, I actually agree that all talking and texting should be prohibited. The person on the phone doesn't have the same situational awareness as a passenger or the same disincentives against being a distraction. He doesn't provide an extra set of eyes, can't tell when it's appropriate to STFU, and can only decrease the amount of attention the driver can devote to his primary task. The requirement for "hands free" talking is ridiculous, as the distraction has almost nothing to do with whether or not one hand is occupied. After all, you can still get a drivers license with one arm.
There are several modern fields that are dominated by women, that used to be dominated by males. Has there been a shift in biology?
No biological shift is required, just the removal of boundaries. You can force similar poles of a magnet together, but that doesn't mean they'll maintain that arrangement when you let go. Similarly, with decreased social stigma against women in the workplace, women may likewise be going where they want to go. I'm not saying this is definitely true, just that it's a possibility. There's no question that there are measurable differences in both the brains and the brain-regulating chemicals of each gender, and while it may not affect aptitude, it may affect how that aptitude is applied. Or it may not. That's all I'm saying.
As for equality of pay, that's improving, especially when measured by age, which is quite possibly an indication that misogynists are a dying breed.
People tend to be condescending toward anyone asking what they perceive to be a "stupid question," regardless of gender. And it could be that women avoid condescension whereas men take it as a challenge to improve. I'm not saying that's necessarily true, just a possibility.
*One* disincentive is competition, but competition isn't always possible, or practical, or successful. What do we do in those cases? "Suck it up," seems to be the refrain from the people who benefit from such arrangements, and from people too short-sighted to care about the consequences. Unfortunately those two groups combined seem to form a majority.