Government inspectors ensure that gas pumps are properly calibrated. A gallon is a gallon.
The grocer's scale has to meet government standards. A pound is a pound.
A byte should be a byte.
AT&T saying their standard is proprietary is like the butcher arguing that he should be able to put his thumb on the scale when he is weighing your hamburger.
Yeah, but the difference is that AT&T paid good money to make sure that government "regulators" protected their right to fuck with the scale. Happens all the time. It's the "free market" at work. Get over it.
No mod points, or you'd get +1 Funny. You were joking, right? Playing on the irony in the fact that, for most of us, there is no real competitive marketplace from which to shop Internet service. Right? If not, -1 Flamebait for you, douchebag.
. The oil goes into a central market and could be shipped anywhere if the costs are right.
That's a myth.
Refineries are generally built to process oil from a particular field, or a particular class of fields. You can't ship tar sands off to a light sweet crude refinery and expect to actually be able to refine them.
It's particularly bad for the heavier ones, like the sands and shales, since each deposit has a different set of impurities, which mean that different catalyst properties are required to avoid poisioning.
Wasting five mod points to call bullshit...
And yet we have the petroleum industry and their government lackeys falling all over themselves to get that pipeline built, so they can, what? That's right, carry all that oil down to the gulf coast where it can be refined and/or exported. Nice try
While you and are, by most measures, far apart on our views, may I say, sir, that your post is refreshing in it's honest analysis of what a disaster Romney was for the Republicans and would have been for the nation. "Fiscal conservative" does NOT simply mean "lower taxes". Reagan and Bush tax cuts, along with neither party's willingness to control spending, have threatened to bankrupt this country. And may I add that your view of the "personhood" issue is also refreshingly out of line with Republican dogma. Now, kindly STFU. We don't actually want clear thinking, fairness and reason to gain a foothold in the GOP.
This is in part, part of the West's battle with Islam, and is not the first time this has been done.
The government introduced a law some time ago against inciting religious hatred and so forth to prevent people burning Korans and starting a riot amongst muslims in the UK as a result.
The problem is then that some of the Islamic extremists in the UK started burning things like poppies on remembrance day, and burning the British flag and so forth. Obviously a lot of people were pissed off at the hypocrisy of this, so the Police then started enforcing the law against this sort of burning too.
Which should server to more than amply illustrate the folly of the notion of protecting people from being offended by harmless expressions (verbal, visual, etc.).
Don't like my little stick figure of The Prophet here... 0-(--...too damn bad. Don't look at it. Don't like pictures of burning poppies? Too damn bad. Get over it. Making, and enforcing, laws that attempt to protect/prevent people from "offensive" things must, of necessity, involve an arbitrary judgement of "offensiveness". Laws like that are invariably bad, as they are invariably applied inconsistently. Everyone, EVERYONE, needs to grow up and stop whining about shit like this. I'm deeply offended by the fact that the church down the road spent a lot of money throwing up this ugly 170' tall crucifix in their parking lot. It's an eyesore, and worse, it screams out the hypocrisy of the so-called Christians who saw fit to spend that money on an incredibly vain "public statement" rather than on the things their Messiah told them to value. But I'm not asking for laws against it, even though a lot of those so-called Christians would undoubtedly love to have laws against similarly ostentatious symbols of other religions. Again. Everybody, get over it.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Perhaps you meant "shill"? That's still not quite the right term for what you've described, but it's a lot closer than adjective describing a certain auditory characteristic. No?
This... all over.
While in the US Army, many many years ago, my department regularly had SF medics-in-training rotate through every few weeks. The couple of them that I got to know were consummate "quiet professionals". When pressed for "war stories" they politely but consistently demurred. While they were open enough to make it quite clear that they were the real deal, it was just as clear that each was possessed of a shared cultural conditioning that kept them from even wanting to appear that way. Maybe the game maker offered enough incentive to overcome that conditioning, but I fear that it's more a case of the institution failing to "keep to the code".
Yeah, I know that's an over-used term, but there is an obvious path to that happy ending here. Given that warm bodies on the board are valued, and that Bob has demonstrated more value than just his body heat, it's worth keeping him around. His file storage system, maybe not so much. So, fine. Confide in Bob that there are issues, and that he should be the one to fix them. After all, he's "the keeper of the files". Feed that ego as much as possible. Seriously. It will help get him invested in the idea of bringing value to the organization. Offer your assistance in finding and implementing a solution When it's done, Bob will be happy because his status is elevated, the board will be happy because they can find their files, and you will be happy because now you have a board member who owes you big time.
You are right. Why the Republican party backed this loser is the mystery. Look at the votes, broken down by demographics. The only group that voted for Romney in large numbers was old white men. Let's hope that the old white men continue to "lead" the GOP for many years to come.
From: AT&T lobbying weasels
To: Federal telecom regulators (whores)
Sorry about that, guys. We know this was a little embarrassing for everyone, and it certainly resulted in some extra work for you. Still, the penalties are chump change, so let us make it up to you by buying lunch. Say, for a week or so, in Monte Carlo?
Oh to have mod points for this sage observation. I know, I know. My office is about 22 miles from data center where our stuff lives, and it's a PITA when we have to do hands on, so I can sympathize with the desire to have the hardware close by, but at some point, you have to look at the reality. A dense urban environment is tough to serve; with electricity, fuel, food, whatever, after a disaster like this. Placing critical resources in the middle of that is tempting fate. Sure, they got away with if for 50 years or so. For some, it was worth the risk. After all, if your stuff really is that critical, you have it geographically dispersed, right? Right?
None of the keyboard markings have worn off. Heh. Yes, you can still find them around.
You're welcome.:) I used to work in an injection molding facility that made key tops, the a's, b's, 1's, 2's, space bars and whatnot. Back in the day, this was a two-part process, the guts of the key (the part that attached to the underlying switch as well as the character itself) were molded in one "shot", then the key itself was molded around that, in a contrasting color, of course. Since the characters were molded into the key, there was nothing to "wear off". The keyboard I'm using at the moment appears to be made that way, but most I own are just screen printed, including a pricier Microsoft piece. That one has blank home keys now.
That a big chunk of the "cool" (which was a very big chunk of Apple's allure) went away with Jobs. While he was still a part of the company, it still had (deserved or not) at least some street cred as an innovator competing against "the man". Those days are long gone, Apple has lost what little vision it still had, and now it's rearranging the deck chairs. Oh, and suing competitors who come up with better stuff.
Forgive me for being dismissive, but this is typical libertarian silliness.
My points of disagreement:
1. Governments are not the only organizations capable of coercion. One only need read about organized campaigns of threats and harassment against those observed entering abortion clinics to know how religious organizations can present threats entirely outside the law. Or for a more serious case from other religions, the so-called "honor killings" of Islam.
2. Knowledge, and the lack thereof has a perpetual feedback into the overall effectiveness of a democracy. Attempting to limit inhibiting factors like religion can have an underlying justification, even without any overt components represented in politics(we should be so lucky).
3. Not everything is about protecting yourself from harm. Dawkins, in particular, is a humanist, and his goals are oriented towards improving the overall quality of life for humanity. His position is that a lack of religion can be good in this regard.
Excellent points, all, but we should add that it was the U.S. Constitution that first laid down a system of law and government that deliberately and pointedly excluded religious authority from that system. The idea that a government should be the entity that prevented the religious coercion we speak of was entirely new. The framers understood, quite keenly, the conflict that inevitably arises when one claims this or that collection of myths as the authority to govern others. Yes, the words of "separation of church and state" do not appear in the text of the Constitution, but even the most cursory review of the history surrounding it's creation makes it inescapably plain that that is exactly what they had in mind. To be sure, the tea bag retards are quite fond of their revisionist notions about where their "god" fits into our government, but that does not make it true. More importantly it does not make the idea, that government should be the enforcer of fairness in the "whose god is real" disagreements, a bad one. It is only through a society's collective agreement that only the members of that society have the authority to govern that society that we can move on from the long and sorry history of all manner of horrible things being done to "the other" in the name of this or that deity.
Remember when the Palm Pilot and Apple Newton heralded the "end of the PC era"?
I do. It was a stupid statement then, and it's just as stupid to suggest that tablets will be "the end of the PC" now. To be sure, tablets are going to replace PC's in a lot of places, but anyone whose computing tasks involve any serious amount of input knows that a table is very poor substitute for a keyboard. The same can be said for those tasks that need multiple displays, etc. Those users will absolutely not be replacing their PC's with tablets.
... I am pretty sure that a public education is a constitutional right in Texas.
That depends on how you define "education". Here in Texas, the guv-a-mint has seen fit to require the teaching of some pretty weird stuff to our children.
Agreed. We had the same experience - discovered that the software and documentation appeared to be deliberately rigged so that it was effectively useless, virtually requiring a payment for someone to show up with the keys and make it work. Were it not for the perfectly valid choice of "Fuck this. I'll use something else", we'd call that extortion. Yes, with enough time and expertise, one could discover where the broken bits are and fix them, but then (with enough time and expertise) one could write something from scratch too.
Sure you can. You don't make laws based on your religious beliefs. Period. Either prove, via a rational process, the need for this or that law or STFU about it. Let your superstitions govern _your_ behavior and I will defend to the death your right to do so. Attempt to apply your superstitious beliefs to my behavior (or that of my fellow citizens) and expect a fight.
The world has never had so little proportion of religious people... Do you think it is getting better aside from technollogy? Even more, do you think it will be better in let's say 100 years? a thousand?
I do not. I think it is getting worse... because of the "religious people".
Absolutely. But if you praise an organization for its stand in a conflict, perhaps you should not be so quick to call for its complete obliteration. Einstein, to my knowledge, never called for the complete elimination of religion. But I'd wager that someone will do just that before this thread falls off the first page.
No, but here's a call for the complete elimination of religion from any role in law or government. Huge difference of course, but sadly, that difference will be lost on a great many "true believers".
...and would appreciate a well-turned web app, by all means dedicate that to her. Otherwise, may I suggest that you look for something that your Gran might appreciate a bit more, as a meaningful tribute to her memory.
This is a false dichotomy. The question is whether religion leads to oppressive politics and low technology, not whether oppressive politics are more correlated with oppression and low technology than religion.
I don't know that that's the question at all. It is folly to believe that any national body politic is driven by religion. To be sure, there's lots of posturing, but that's all about keeping the voters (Republican base) in line, or the various tribal factions (pick a Middle East country) for uniting in open revolt. Beyond that, the leaders don't give a shit about what god things when they're making policy. For all the stuff he got wrong, Karl Marx was dead on about religion being "the opiate of the people". Indeed, the much less seen quote is, "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions." Clearly, Marx understood the cynicism with which powerful political people view religion. Would that more of the world's "oppressed creatures" woke the hell up and realized how much they've been manipulated through the use of religion. Without that tool, the world would be a very, very different place.
But for some reason, nowadays it's Islam that seems to inspire the most heinous acts of religiously-motivated violence and that's why I'm concentrating on Islam. You need to put out the most dangerous fire first before going after the lesser fires.
Not quite, but you're getting closer. Islam is used to inspire "...the most heinous acts of religiously-motivated violence..." No argument there, but to ignore the fact that such use is almost inextricably tied to purely secular anti-west (anti-US) sentiment, is to make a huge mistake if one is trying to understand what's really going on out there. To even suggest that the religion itself is the source for all that hatred is naive in the extreme.
Slashdot Mirror
Government inspectors ensure that gas pumps are properly calibrated. A gallon is a gallon.
The grocer's scale has to meet government standards. A pound is a pound.
A byte should be a byte.
AT&T saying their standard is proprietary is like the butcher arguing that he should be able to put his thumb on the scale when he is weighing your hamburger.
Yeah, but the difference is that AT&T paid good money to make sure that government "regulators" protected their right to fuck with the scale. Happens all the time. It's the "free market" at work. Get over it.
No mod points, or you'd get +1 Funny. You were joking, right? Playing on the irony in the fact that, for most of us, there is no real competitive marketplace from which to shop Internet service. Right? If not, -1 Flamebait for you, douchebag.
. The oil goes into a central market and could be shipped anywhere if the costs are right.
That's a myth.
Refineries are generally built to process oil from a particular field, or a particular class of fields. You can't ship tar sands off to a light sweet crude refinery and expect to actually be able to refine them.
It's particularly bad for the heavier ones, like the sands and shales, since each deposit has a different set of impurities, which mean that different catalyst properties are required to avoid poisioning.
Wasting five mod points to call bullshit...
And yet we have the petroleum industry and their government lackeys falling all over themselves to get that pipeline built, so they can, what? That's right, carry all that oil down to the gulf coast where it can be refined and/or exported. Nice try
While you and are, by most measures, far apart on our views, may I say, sir, that your post is refreshing in it's honest analysis of what a disaster Romney was for the Republicans and would have been for the nation. "Fiscal conservative" does NOT simply mean "lower taxes". Reagan and Bush tax cuts, along with neither party's willingness to control spending, have threatened to bankrupt this country. And may I add that your view of the "personhood" issue is also refreshingly out of line with Republican dogma. Now, kindly STFU. We don't actually want clear thinking, fairness and reason to gain a foothold in the GOP.
This is in part, part of the West's battle with Islam, and is not the first time this has been done.
The government introduced a law some time ago against inciting religious hatred and so forth to prevent people burning Korans and starting a riot amongst muslims in the UK as a result.
The problem is then that some of the Islamic extremists in the UK started burning things like poppies on remembrance day, and burning the British flag and so forth. Obviously a lot of people were pissed off at the hypocrisy of this, so the Police then started enforcing the law against this sort of burning too.
Which should server to more than amply illustrate the folly of the notion of protecting people from being offended by harmless expressions (verbal, visual, etc.). Don't like my little stick figure of The Prophet here... 0-(-- ...too damn bad. Don't look at it. Don't like pictures of burning poppies? Too damn bad. Get over it. Making, and enforcing, laws that attempt to protect/prevent people from "offensive" things must, of necessity, involve an arbitrary judgement of "offensiveness". Laws like that are invariably bad, as they are invariably applied inconsistently. Everyone, EVERYONE, needs to grow up and stop whining about shit like this. I'm deeply offended by the fact that the church down the road spent a lot of money throwing up this ugly 170' tall crucifix in their parking lot. It's an eyesore, and worse, it screams out the hypocrisy of the so-called Christians who saw fit to spend that money on an incredibly vain "public statement" rather than on the things their Messiah told them to value. But I'm not asking for laws against it, even though a lot of those so-called Christians would undoubtedly love to have laws against similarly ostentatious symbols of other religions. Again. Everybody, get over it.
I know it's cliche to call 'shrill' around here,
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Perhaps you meant "shill"? That's still not quite the right term for what you've described, but it's a lot closer than adjective describing a certain auditory characteristic. No?
This... all over.
While in the US Army, many many years ago, my department regularly had SF medics-in-training rotate through every few weeks. The couple of them that I got to know were consummate "quiet professionals". When pressed for "war stories" they politely but consistently demurred. While they were open enough to make it quite clear that they were the real deal, it was just as clear that each was possessed of a shared cultural conditioning that kept them from even wanting to appear that way. Maybe the game maker offered enough incentive to overcome that conditioning, but I fear that it's more a case of the institution failing to "keep to the code".
Yeah, I know that's an over-used term, but there is an obvious path to that happy ending here. Given that warm bodies on the board are valued, and that Bob has demonstrated more value than just his body heat, it's worth keeping him around. His file storage system, maybe not so much. So, fine. Confide in Bob that there are issues, and that he should be the one to fix them. After all, he's "the keeper of the files". Feed that ego as much as possible. Seriously. It will help get him invested in the idea of bringing value to the organization. Offer your assistance in finding and implementing a solution When it's done, Bob will be happy because his status is elevated, the board will be happy because they can find their files, and you will be happy because now you have a board member who owes you big time.
You are right. Why the Republican party backed this loser is the mystery. Look at the votes, broken down by demographics. The only group that voted for Romney in large numbers was old white men. Let's hope that the old white men continue to "lead" the GOP for many years to come.
From: AT&T lobbying weasels
To: Federal telecom regulators (whores)
Sorry about that, guys. We know this was a little embarrassing for everyone, and it certainly resulted in some extra work for you. Still, the penalties are chump change, so let us make it up to you by buying lunch. Say, for a week or so, in Monte Carlo?
As long as you don't buy leer jets....
Are those the ones with the bigger windows? Are they more expensive than Citations or Gulfstreams or... Learjets?
Oh to have mod points for this sage observation. I know, I know. My office is about 22 miles from data center where our stuff lives, and it's a PITA when we have to do hands on, so I can sympathize with the desire to have the hardware close by, but at some point, you have to look at the reality. A dense urban environment is tough to serve; with electricity, fuel, food, whatever, after a disaster like this. Placing critical resources in the middle of that is tempting fate. Sure, they got away with if for 50 years or so. For some, it was worth the risk. After all, if your stuff really is that critical, you have it geographically dispersed, right? Right?
None of the keyboard markings have worn off. Heh. Yes, you can still find them around.
You're welcome. :) I used to work in an injection molding facility that made key tops, the a's, b's, 1's, 2's, space bars and whatnot. Back in the day, this was a two-part process, the guts of the key (the part that attached to the underlying switch as well as the character itself) were molded in one "shot", then the key itself was molded around that, in a contrasting color, of course. Since the characters were molded into the key, there was nothing to "wear off". The keyboard I'm using at the moment appears to be made that way, but most I own are just screen printed, including a pricier Microsoft piece. That one has blank home keys now.
That a big chunk of the "cool" (which was a very big chunk of Apple's allure) went away with Jobs. While he was still a part of the company, it still had (deserved or not) at least some street cred as an innovator competing against "the man". Those days are long gone, Apple has lost what little vision it still had, and now it's rearranging the deck chairs. Oh, and suing competitors who come up with better stuff.
Forgive me for being dismissive, but this is typical libertarian silliness.
My points of disagreement: 1. Governments are not the only organizations capable of coercion. One only need read about organized campaigns of threats and harassment against those observed entering abortion clinics to know how religious organizations can present threats entirely outside the law. Or for a more serious case from other religions, the so-called "honor killings" of Islam. 2. Knowledge, and the lack thereof has a perpetual feedback into the overall effectiveness of a democracy. Attempting to limit inhibiting factors like religion can have an underlying justification, even without any overt components represented in politics(we should be so lucky). 3. Not everything is about protecting yourself from harm. Dawkins, in particular, is a humanist, and his goals are oriented towards improving the overall quality of life for humanity. His position is that a lack of religion can be good in this regard.
Excellent points, all, but we should add that it was the U.S. Constitution that first laid down a system of law and government that deliberately and pointedly excluded religious authority from that system. The idea that a government should be the entity that prevented the religious coercion we speak of was entirely new. The framers understood, quite keenly, the conflict that inevitably arises when one claims this or that collection of myths as the authority to govern others. Yes, the words of "separation of church and state" do not appear in the text of the Constitution, but even the most cursory review of the history surrounding it's creation makes it inescapably plain that that is exactly what they had in mind. To be sure, the tea bag retards are quite fond of their revisionist notions about where their "god" fits into our government, but that does not make it true. More importantly it does not make the idea, that government should be the enforcer of fairness in the "whose god is real" disagreements, a bad one. It is only through a society's collective agreement that only the members of that society have the authority to govern that society that we can move on from the long and sorry history of all manner of horrible things being done to "the other" in the name of this or that deity.
...and start mandatory chip insertion programs now!
Remember when the Palm Pilot and Apple Newton heralded the "end of the PC era"?
I do. It was a stupid statement then, and it's just as stupid to suggest that tablets will be "the end of the PC" now. To be sure, tablets are going to replace PC's in a lot of places, but anyone whose computing tasks involve any serious amount of input knows that a table is very poor substitute for a keyboard. The same can be said for those tasks that need multiple displays, etc. Those users will absolutely not be replacing their PC's with tablets.
... I am pretty sure that a public education is a constitutional right in Texas.
That depends on how you define "education". Here in Texas, the guv-a-mint has seen fit to require the teaching of some pretty weird stuff to our children.
Agreed. We had the same experience - discovered that the software and documentation appeared to be deliberately rigged so that it was effectively useless, virtually requiring a payment for someone to show up with the keys and make it work. Were it not for the perfectly valid choice of "Fuck this. I'll use something else", we'd call that extortion. Yes, with enough time and expertise, one could discover where the broken bits are and fix them, but then (with enough time and expertise) one could write something from scratch too.
Sure you can. You don't make laws based on your religious beliefs. Period. Either prove, via a rational process, the need for this or that law or STFU about it. Let your superstitions govern _your_ behavior and I will defend to the death your right to do so. Attempt to apply your superstitious beliefs to my behavior (or that of my fellow citizens) and expect a fight.
The world has never had so little proportion of religious people... Do you think it is getting better aside from technollogy? Even more, do you think it will be better in let's say 100 years? a thousand?
I do not. I think it is getting worse... because of the "religious people".
Absolutely. But if you praise an organization for its stand in a conflict, perhaps you should not be so quick to call for its complete obliteration. Einstein, to my knowledge, never called for the complete elimination of religion. But I'd wager that someone will do just that before this thread falls off the first page.
No, but here's a call for the complete elimination of religion from any role in law or government. Huge difference of course, but sadly, that difference will be lost on a great many "true believers".
...and would appreciate a well-turned web app, by all means dedicate that to her. Otherwise, may I suggest that you look for something that your Gran might appreciate a bit more, as a meaningful tribute to her memory.
This is a false dichotomy. The question is whether religion leads to oppressive politics and low technology, not whether oppressive politics are more correlated with oppression and low technology than religion.
I don't know that that's the question at all. It is folly to believe that any national body politic is driven by religion. To be sure, there's lots of posturing, but that's all about keeping the voters (Republican base) in line, or the various tribal factions (pick a Middle East country) for uniting in open revolt. Beyond that, the leaders don't give a shit about what god things when they're making policy. For all the stuff he got wrong, Karl Marx was dead on about religion being "the opiate of the people". Indeed, the much less seen quote is, "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions." Clearly, Marx understood the cynicism with which powerful political people view religion. Would that more of the world's "oppressed creatures" woke the hell up and realized how much they've been manipulated through the use of religion. Without that tool, the world would be a very, very different place.
OK. Christianity is vile and disgusting too.
But for some reason, nowadays it's Islam that seems to inspire the most heinous acts of religiously-motivated violence and that's why I'm concentrating on Islam. You need to put out the most dangerous fire first before going after the lesser fires.
Not quite, but you're getting closer. Islam is used to inspire "...the most heinous acts of religiously-motivated violence..." No argument there, but to ignore the fact that such use is almost inextricably tied to purely secular anti-west (anti-US) sentiment, is to make a huge mistake if one is trying to understand what's really going on out there. To even suggest that the religion itself is the source for all that hatred is naive in the extreme.