Sorry to take the negative corner here, but perhaps at least part of the problem is that there simply are too many programmers in the world. Or perhaps I should say, too many people who only know how to code - all the real problems that could be solved relatively easily with a naive approach, have already been solved. We are now into design patterns, frameworks, artificial intelligence and so on, and they all require university level education to really understand. And another problem with this technology is that it evolves so fast - if you are at the start of an education and are interested in one of the current big things, by the time you're ready to get a job, it may already be dated.
Time for third parties to gain influence, as a step away from party politics.
Reach out to your compatriots across superficial opinions that divide you and join up. The people does have real power, then; just look at how much happened as a result of the youth rebellion and hippie movement in the 60es and 70es - and they were stoned out of this world much of the time. It is no wonder those in power keep piling on the most outrageous controversies they can produce - as long as people think they are fighting over important issues, the elite can hold on to power. The truth is that most people have the same joys and worries in their lives, they believe in the same values, fundamentally, whether they are 'pro-gun', 'anti-abortion', 'libertarian' or whatever; those are nothing more than symbol issues, they have no significance, compared to whether you have a job, a home, education for your children, a future and so on. So join up and work it out together; and ignore the loud-mouths.
The question I thought immediately, when I saw the subject was: "Who will own the technology?" - the answer, of course, is some huge corporation, whose main aim in life if to make as much money as possible in any way they can get away with. The history of modern civilisation has been about the long, arduous journey away from power being concentrated in the hands of a small, exclusive elite, far removed from the daily life and concerns of ordinary people; do we really want to get back to what was before? Technology should be used to take away power and wealth from this self-styled upper-class and spread it out over all of society - it should be used to make it easier for all members of society to take part in government. That is after all what democracy is trying to achieve.
Well, the picture is more complex than that, but gut flora is a very important factor, it seems. However, we are not talking about figuring out which single strain of bacteria is "beneficial"; it is probably a matter of finding out which combination(s) of strains produce what effect(s), and this will probably depend on the genetic and epi-genetic profile of the individual. And there are other factors as well, like life-style and habits - like, what do you eat, and do you eat until you're not hungry or until you are full? Do you start to eat when you are bored?
Another interesting fact: recent research in Denmark has demonstrated that you can change your set-point: if you lose weight through dieting and, crucially, keep the weight off for about 1 year, then your will accept this as the set-point. And, of course, you push it upwards by over-eating, without doubt, which is why mindfulness is a very good suggestion.
...HP scanner, there haven't been Windows drivers for it since (!!!) Windows 2000.
Yeah, there are loads of examples like that - I have a small Lexmark USB laser printer that stopped working under windows for that very reason. I set it up under Linux on my RaspberryPi (took me about 5 min to set up in CUPS), then shared it on the network. Now I have a networked laser printer, and I can even use it from Windows. In fact, you can take just about any old printer, and turn it into a networked Postscript printer via Gutenprint or similar.
I did the same with a scanner - which I can now use over the network as well. Not sure if that is even an option from Windows.
All of that money is money earned overseas. So it's not "funneled" anywhere, it's just not brought back
I think, at the bottom of this debate is the discrepancy between "legal" and "right" - people have a natural, and in my view very legitimate, feeling that the law should not just be clear and well-defined, but also morally right: it should be fair, reasonable and practical, it should be so that when you read it, you think "Yeah, that feels right". A lot of the outrage against not just Apple but all the other trans-national companies has to do with the fact that to them, "right" has been substituted with "legal" - and in fact, "barely legal, by a gnat's whisker". Just like we, the ordinary people, are beginning to be very tired of the way our world seems to be run only for the rich and powerful, we are also beginning to demand that companies do better than covering behind "We didn't do anything illegal" - we want them to be morally and ethically sound, right to the very core. It is a good thing, in my view.
That in itself should tell you how poor a candidate she is to be leader of our nation. We don't need more of the same, which is leading us down the toilet.
No and yes - she is probably going to be a fairly reasonable president, exactly because she is very much an average person: not prone to come with outrageous outbursts, fairly balanced and a bit grey in a way. The leader of a country should be in control - an administrator, not a prophet. Elect a guy like Trump, and he will disappoint you profoundly; as they say - the higher you fly, the deeper you fall.
But yes, more of the same will lead you down the drain; but it is not up the the president to fix it. If only it was that easy. The reasons why America is in a decline are probably not dissimilar to why the British Empire fell apart - they grew immensely fat on over-exploiting their own, lower classes and their colonies, and then coasted along thinking it would last forever; and then it fell apart through mismanagement (I'm sure somebody with more insight and a more sympathetic view on the Empire will correct me here, but I think I'm not far off the mark). America's big, big problem is over-consumption and an attitude that seems to say that you think you are entitled to it, even if it hurts the legitimate interests of the rest of the world. That was one of the main reasons why America has been so un-popular many times in the past - perhaps to an American it is difficult to quite understand how it incensed people to feel that America did whatever they wanted and didn't give a shit because of "American Interests". Learn to be humble in the world and learn to be more modest in your consumption, and a lot of problems go away.
The solution to America's problems have to start with a change of attitude in the hearts of the American people. I know it sounds trite, but that's the way it is. You can't keep pushing the responsibility over on your leaders and then expect them to make everything better while stabbing them in the back on a daily basis; how is that supposed to work?
One may argue that we are outside the norm for life on Earth; although i'd argue that there are enough other species that show some degree of sentience; members of genus Corvus, the other great apes, cetaceans, and even elephants, that I'd argue that we are more the most extreme example of a phenomenon found in several lineages, in particular in mammals (though genus Corvus are birds). The differences are more degree. Obviously that matters, because there are no chimps building skyscrapers or writing posts on Slashdot, but it also means that our cognitive abilities are firmly entrenched in evolutionary processes.
I could hardly agree more - but I don't think one CAN argue that humans are outside the norm for life on Earth. As far as I can see, we are now able to produce several, very convincing explanations of how life could have arisen, and how it has evolved from there to what we see now; and my feeling is that there is almost an inevitability about it - what one could call 'statistically inevitable': what you have, when each individual event is not very likely to happen, but there are so many events, that the likelihood of it happening in many places is very high, maybe close to 100%. The one sticking point, according to professor Nick Lane, is the arisal of the first eukaryote: the first cell that acquired an endosymbiont (which became the mitochondria); personally, I think it is because he focuses too narrowly on a path of evolution that is unllikely, namely that a bacterium was suddenly able to enter an archaea (or was it the other way round?) and live in some sort of power balance. It seems that it is more likely that members in a biofilm (which are still very common) gradually evolved the ability to cooperate closely enough to allow endosymbiosis; there may have been more than one kind of eukaryotes around for a short while, but one relatively soon got the upper hand and outcompeted every other kind. On other planets there may perhaps be many lineages of eukaryotes, or perhaps all higher life evolved from incresingly well-organised biofilms; now there's a thought.
Any way - this is all speculation, but the point is - I think there are elements of life and evolution that are statistically inevitable, and that the evolution of intelligence and sentience are amongst them. The reason I think so is that all of these traits are highly advantageous, and the advantage is proportional with "how much" you have of the given trait. Size seems to be one such trait: once it turns out that being bigger is an advantage, it keeps getting better as you get bigger, at least for a while - hence the enormous dinosaurs. Same thing with intelligence and civilisation. An interesting question is, when does the increase in civilisation no longer translate into an improvement in survival of the species?
Well, faeces is just a later stage in the natural development of food; any meal is, in a sense, pre-shit, a term that sometimes seems strangely appropriate.
Many of the bacteria commonly found in yogurt are also found in mammalian guts
Which makes sense - milk is secreted from what are probably glorified sweat glands (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammary_gland#Evolution), and many of the bacteria that thrive in milk are also found on skin. And of course, as a slightly light hearted aside, a human is basically a torus, as any topologist will confirm, so the gut is really just part of the same surface as the skin.
Hillary is above the law, it doesn't matter what regulations she may or may not have deliberately subverted. This is just a distraction to try to help the Trump/Hitler ticket win. And sure, we don't know who Trump will choose as running mate, but anyone who does join him will be just as bad.
I'm not a huge fan of Ms Clinton, but so far I haven't seen or heard anything that would indicate that she is any worse than the average politician, or the average citizen of any Western nation one would care to mention. To me it is suggestive of a feeble mind to expect a politician to be any better than the average of the population they represent, or be wildly outraged to discover that they have done what most people, regrettably, would have done, and taken an unfair advantage of their privileged position. Who on/. can honestly claim to never knowingly have done anything that was even slightly dishonest, unethical or illegal?
Being a politician, and especially one with a lot of power, requires somebody who is realistic and pragmatic, who has a steady hand in a crisis and is able to think before they talk. It would be nice if they are also good and honest, but I don't know how realistic it is to expect a person like that to be able to rise to the top and get real results in the political system in America. Just look at a guy like Obama who, to the dispassionate observer, seemed to be a fairly honest, well-intentioned person, if somewhat naive in his idealism; and how much has he actually achieved, that wasn't simply dictated by circumstances? Perhaps the fact that Ms Clinton doesn't seem to be squeaky clean is an advantage - and considering the amount of relentless scrutiny, it is impressive that a poorly managed email server is all that has turned up. Compare that to Mr Trump, who hasn't been exposed to quite the same amount of hostile snooping, but still seems to be surrounded by an odious pong - violent supporters that he appears to passively approve of, dodgy tax affairs, and if we dig deeper, probably a lot more.
I understand the anger that drives Trump's supporters - I think we all feel deeply frustrated with the way society is going, but I think it would be stupid to follow whoever seems to be shouting the loudest about it without considering carefully whether they would be able to do anything - or even be willing to seriously try. Does anybody really believe that Trump can "build a wall and force Mexico to pay"? Or that it is possible to round up all illegal immigrants and deport them, just like that? And so on? And what does it mean, "I will make America great again"? Isn't America great now? Everybody outside thinks so. Or "I will be so presidential,...."? It sounds like what the contestants in a low level wrestling match would shout out. However, I don't think it is true that he is like Hitler - he's just an average crook, a narcissist with a hugely inflated view of his own importance.
In the end, neither he nor Clinton, Sanders or any of the others will be able to change what is wrong in America; for that to happen, people - ordinary, everyday people - will have to overcome their differences and unite against the culture that glorifies greed. The revolution must start in your heart, if you want to wax lyrical about it.
No, I really don't have to trust them, and I don't.
The point is this: If people make up their minds to extend a minimum of trust to each other - even to people they disagree with - then democracy can work. If not, then the result is much more in doubt. It is like any other civilised contest - a game of football, for example: on the pitch you may be all out to beat the other side, but off the pitch, you can still work together like human being. The other team may win this time, but next time you have the chance again. If you continue the fight outside the pitch, then you end up ruining the game for yourself and everybody else. At the end of the day, it is up to each individual to make the choice - you can decide that you are human being, in control of yourself and capable of coexisting peacefully with your opponents - iow trusting them to be peacful in return at some level - or not. It isn't somebody else's responsibility - it is yours alone.
So, if you want your society to cooperate to overcome the challenges it faces, you have to choose to do your part; if you don't care, don't.
Is euthanasia legal for someone previously declared dead or are they now forced to keep this half alive person alive?
I suspect the expectation is that they will not get as close as that, and that they will cross that bridge when they come to it. The thinking probably goes along lines like "these people are already dead, so we can try this out and dispose of them afterwards".
What if they regain their brain but not their memory (see the book Worthing Saga). Is this a desirable outcome where you have an adult with the brain of an infant that now has to relearn everything? Even if it's 100% and they can eventually return to normal intelligence, you now have 10+ years of learning to walk, read, write, and all the other things we learn in childhood. I'm not even sure that is a desirable outcome.
This is probably not what they are trying to achieve - it would certainly be meaningless. There is very little reason to expect the person thus revived to be the person that had died - it would most likely be a new person in a mature or old body; it would be wrong on all levels. But if they can get the technology to work, it may mean that it becomes possible to repair brain damage - like after a stroke. That would be valuable.
Teach all those Ivy League/Government Intelligence/Google interpersonal networking connections that one is typically born into?
Aka "the old boy's network". Yeah, good point. Apart from that, we don't actually need more huge internet services - that train has already arrived - and left again. What we really need is people who understand bio-technology, bio-medicine, advanced genetics and genomics, advanced materials (like graphene, phosphene, meta-materials etc), and a long list of other, advanced technologies; plus the fundamental research that goes before all of this, which must be independent of industry ties. We have enough, bloody useless entertainment services already.
I suspect to most this sounds very simple: Do I want to pay more for things? But If you have any sales tax, it should cover all sales without exception, only graded so that is does not place an unreasonable burden on the poorest - in practical and legal terms, makes it very complicated. If you pay sales tax in your own country on things bought abroad, it amounts to an import tarif, which may not be allowed under whichever international agreements are in power. And it may lead to double taxation - so it would be fairer to tax only those imports that have not already been adequately taxed in their country of origin, but how do you even begin to manage that? And so on. Not to mention tax on sales within a nation or free-trade area; a sales tax should not wipe out competition in the market, for one thing.
This is where I become tedious and irritating by pointing out something totally outside the scope of the article, which I have honoured by not reading it. To me there is no doubt that the humble knife is the most influential gadget of all time. Invented something like 2 million years ago, it is still one of the most universally useful tools around - cutting edge, as it were. It probably originated by accident from when the hammerstones that our ancestors would have used to crack nuts (like our cousins, the chimpanzees and others still do) broke and formed a sharp edge, and although we use different materials now, it is remarkable how little it has fundamentally changed over the eons. How many smartphones will be around in two million years?
Anyway, as bad as Trump is, Cruz would have been worse. The Donald's primary identity is "con man" or "salesman" and he doesn't believe most of the crazy stuff he says.
This is undoubtedly true; I was going to say that the choice between the two was like choosing between plague and cholera, but now-a-days both are survivable (that was a joke, BTW). In practice I don't actually think it matters enormously - the problems you are faced with, running a nation, are the same, whoever you are, and in most cases the solutions are going to be dictated by the problems; the only differences will be in symbol policies: things that don't really matter, but which look "conservative/liberal/..." or whatever colour you want to show.
A president, being the leader of the whole nation, must at least be able to care about the interests of everybody in the country, and be able to attract the respect of the international community. I feel pretty sure Cruz is too narrow minded to recognise that his policies would be beneficial to only to those who share his mindset and harmful to most of the rest, and I can't tell whether Trump actually gives a shit about the subject - he seems to change with the prevailing wind. As for international respect - I doubt anybody would trust a religious extremist, and Trump's erratic outbursts won't be easily forgotten. As far as I can see, he has cast himself in a rather bad light - he has already alienated Mexico and China, and if he holds that stance, then he won't be met with a lot of goodwill from those two or their allies in South America and Africa, among others. And of course, if he changes tack just like that, they will think that he is untrustworthy and slippery, which may be just as bad.
As sinister as it may sound, the success of Trump, Sanders, the Tea Party movement and even suicidal maniacs like Daesh, are all symptoms of the growing resentment against the unfairness of what looks like a progressively smaller upper class, who have access to all the advantages and are determined to keep it that way, and who are unwilling to listen to even the most reasonable demands of the majority. I think the only way to really change things is for people on the ground to reach out across their differences and unite to change the way these things work. People would probably find that the things they are unhappy with are the same thing the Tea Party don't like, as well as those on the left etc. I have often been surprised to find that I agree with people who claim to dead against Socialism because, as they say, they believe in freedom, self-determination, etc; to me those things are very much part of socialism. Of course, one can discuss whether is should be called socialism or not, but the point is - we are not really that different, and we could easily work together. And change things.
You're assuming that we'll still have a country after the Democrats are finished with it...
Ever the optimist, eh? Of course you will still have a country, even if you feel the Democrats are idiots. They may not have the right ideas in your view, but they still want to govern for the benefit of the whole of the nation - as will the Republicans, if they win. At the end of the day, both sides (or all sides, if you have more than two parties) have to trust their opponents to at least want to do what they think is right for the entire nation - otherwise, you end up like Syria or Libya. Nations fail at democracy, when the winners in an election only govern to benefit their own supporters and the all distrust each others. The point I'm trying to get across is: it is up to everybody - you and I included - to decide to trust our opponents, even if we disagree with them; that is what really determines the future of the nation.
... fully supported in xSane and SimpleScan with *no* driver download
And not only that - the SANE daemon makes it easy to build a networked scanner (see http://www.linux-mag.com/id/16...); one that you can access from any system on your network. I use that at home - bought an HP scanner/printer in a car boot sale for £5, set it up on a RaspberryPi, and now we have a neetworked scanner and colour printer. And it is very good scanner too. I only use it from Linux; there is a way to do it from Windows, which I tried, but I don't use Windows for anything, so I don't know how well that works.
But what is more likely? If it were state secrets, then something would surely be arranged, discreetly, behind the scenes. An accident, perhaps. An officer of the law standing on principle? I suppose stranger things happen at sea. No, I think the situation is that while they don't have enough evidence to prove beyond any reasonable doubt in front of a jury, they do have enough evidence to suggest strongly that this gentleman is indeed a pedophile.
So forgetting a password may keep you in jail. Forever.
Who knows? I get the impression that this guys refuses to reveal his password, which suggests that he hasn't forgotten it. I can fully understand why the police and the judge feel that it is highly suspicious, but I think they could handle this more intelligently. The guy already aware that he is going to face major changes in his life now - unless he is already jobless and an outcast - and they ought to able to work on that to persuade him to cooperate. No matter what the outcome, he will no longer be able to hide away behind a facade of decency - and if he is actually innocent of possession of child porn, he can get full exoneration by cooperating. Why not do that?
Yeah - it would be more relevant for Hillary Clinton to pick a running mate. I suggest Bernie Sanders - he could attract the voters that are sceptical about Ms Clinton's credentials.
Blaming the parties may be missing the root cause -- that our archaic plurality voting system eventually fosters a two-party system.
There may be something in that - perhaps a system more like some of the Europeans would be better? Apart from UK, most European democracies have a much more proportinal voting system. The American and British systems are a relic from a time when it was genuinely hard to count votes and get the results to the capital in a timely manner, but that isn't a concern now, so proportional voting is certainly practical. It also makes the parliament more politically diverse, which means that politicians will have to learn to compromise - a valuable skill, which may help get past deadlocks; they would be more agile, and importantly, things would happens a bit slower: things would move more smoothly, but not as fast. An important function of democracy is the slow down power.
As for the president - do you actually need one? Many European countries don't have a president with real power - France is the exception, as far as I recall. You could get yourselves a king - why not? We have had a brilliant time in UK with her Majesty, and I say that as a rabid socialist myself. Largely because she is not politically powerful and therefore works as a strong symbol of national unity. People can love and admire the Queen, while at the same time ranting against the politicians.
Ah, now I realise that this is a Buttfeed article. I can't really imagine there would be any serious conflict about whether to include emojis or not; the Unicode Consortium are a bit more seriousminded than that. What I can imangine is that those who care about standardising emojis want to bring it up in the committee meetings, and the rest go "Groan... Whatever", because it isn't really something of huge importance. Whether there is a standard character for dogshit probably seems of less scientific importance to many than how to encode Sumerian cuneiform or how many places to leave for CJK characters.
I think you should probably try to loosen up a bit. This forum is not going to be "Overrun By The Commies", whatever they may be. English of a sort is well established as the international language of trade; when I go to China, I can hardly get to practise my Chinese, because they all want to practise their English. And when you attend a forum, you want to make yourself understood, otherwise, what is the point of commenting?
There are many good reasons for using unicode in an international forum, I don't think I need to rehash the arguments. But I think it would be a good idea to be more open to intellectual challenges and willing to learn something unexpected from time to time.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry to take the negative corner here, but perhaps at least part of the problem is that there simply are too many programmers in the world. Or perhaps I should say, too many people who only know how to code - all the real problems that could be solved relatively easily with a naive approach, have already been solved. We are now into design patterns, frameworks, artificial intelligence and so on, and they all require university level education to really understand. And another problem with this technology is that it evolves so fast - if you are at the start of an education and are interested in one of the current big things, by the time you're ready to get a job, it may already be dated.
Time for third parties to gain influence, as a step away from party politics.
Reach out to your compatriots across superficial opinions that divide you and join up. The people does have real power, then; just look at how much happened as a result of the youth rebellion and hippie movement in the 60es and 70es - and they were stoned out of this world much of the time. It is no wonder those in power keep piling on the most outrageous controversies they can produce - as long as people think they are fighting over important issues, the elite can hold on to power. The truth is that most people have the same joys and worries in their lives, they believe in the same values, fundamentally, whether they are 'pro-gun', 'anti-abortion', 'libertarian' or whatever; those are nothing more than symbol issues, they have no significance, compared to whether you have a job, a home, education for your children, a future and so on. So join up and work it out together; and ignore the loud-mouths.
The question I thought immediately, when I saw the subject was: "Who will own the technology?" - the answer, of course, is some huge corporation, whose main aim in life if to make as much money as possible in any way they can get away with. The history of modern civilisation has been about the long, arduous journey away from power being concentrated in the hands of a small, exclusive elite, far removed from the daily life and concerns of ordinary people; do we really want to get back to what was before? Technology should be used to take away power and wealth from this self-styled upper-class and spread it out over all of society - it should be used to make it easier for all members of society to take part in government. That is after all what democracy is trying to achieve.
Well, the picture is more complex than that, but gut flora is a very important factor, it seems. However, we are not talking about figuring out which single strain of bacteria is "beneficial"; it is probably a matter of finding out which combination(s) of strains produce what effect(s), and this will probably depend on the genetic and epi-genetic profile of the individual. And there are other factors as well, like life-style and habits - like, what do you eat, and do you eat until you're not hungry or until you are full? Do you start to eat when you are bored?
Another interesting fact: recent research in Denmark has demonstrated that you can change your set-point: if you lose weight through dieting and, crucially, keep the weight off for about 1 year, then your will accept this as the set-point. And, of course, you push it upwards by over-eating, without doubt, which is why mindfulness is a very good suggestion.
...HP scanner, there haven't been Windows drivers for it since (!!!) Windows 2000.
Yeah, there are loads of examples like that - I have a small Lexmark USB laser printer that stopped working under windows for that very reason. I set it up under Linux on my RaspberryPi (took me about 5 min to set up in CUPS), then shared it on the network. Now I have a networked laser printer, and I can even use it from Windows. In fact, you can take just about any old printer, and turn it into a networked Postscript printer via Gutenprint or similar.
I did the same with a scanner - which I can now use over the network as well. Not sure if that is even an option from Windows.
All of that money is money earned overseas. So it's not "funneled" anywhere, it's just not brought back
I think, at the bottom of this debate is the discrepancy between "legal" and "right" - people have a natural, and in my view very legitimate, feeling that the law should not just be clear and well-defined, but also morally right: it should be fair, reasonable and practical, it should be so that when you read it, you think "Yeah, that feels right". A lot of the outrage against not just Apple but all the other trans-national companies has to do with the fact that to them, "right" has been substituted with "legal" - and in fact, "barely legal, by a gnat's whisker". Just like we, the ordinary people, are beginning to be very tired of the way our world seems to be run only for the rich and powerful, we are also beginning to demand that companies do better than covering behind "We didn't do anything illegal" - we want them to be morally and ethically sound, right to the very core. It is a good thing, in my view.
That in itself should tell you how poor a candidate she is to be leader of our nation. We don't need more of the same, which is leading us down the toilet.
No and yes - she is probably going to be a fairly reasonable president, exactly because she is very much an average person: not prone to come with outrageous outbursts, fairly balanced and a bit grey in a way. The leader of a country should be in control - an administrator, not a prophet. Elect a guy like Trump, and he will disappoint you profoundly; as they say - the higher you fly, the deeper you fall.
But yes, more of the same will lead you down the drain; but it is not up the the president to fix it. If only it was that easy. The reasons why America is in a decline are probably not dissimilar to why the British Empire fell apart - they grew immensely fat on over-exploiting their own, lower classes and their colonies, and then coasted along thinking it would last forever; and then it fell apart through mismanagement (I'm sure somebody with more insight and a more sympathetic view on the Empire will correct me here, but I think I'm not far off the mark). America's big, big problem is over-consumption and an attitude that seems to say that you think you are entitled to it, even if it hurts the legitimate interests of the rest of the world. That was one of the main reasons why America has been so un-popular many times in the past - perhaps to an American it is difficult to quite understand how it incensed people to feel that America did whatever they wanted and didn't give a shit because of "American Interests". Learn to be humble in the world and learn to be more modest in your consumption, and a lot of problems go away.
The solution to America's problems have to start with a change of attitude in the hearts of the American people. I know it sounds trite, but that's the way it is. You can't keep pushing the responsibility over on your leaders and then expect them to make everything better while stabbing them in the back on a daily basis; how is that supposed to work?
One may argue that we are outside the norm for life on Earth; although i'd argue that there are enough other species that show some degree of sentience; members of genus Corvus, the other great apes, cetaceans, and even elephants, that I'd argue that we are more the most extreme example of a phenomenon found in several lineages, in particular in mammals (though genus Corvus are birds). The differences are more degree. Obviously that matters, because there are no chimps building skyscrapers or writing posts on Slashdot, but it also means that our cognitive abilities are firmly entrenched in evolutionary processes.
I could hardly agree more - but I don't think one CAN argue that humans are outside the norm for life on Earth. As far as I can see, we are now able to produce several, very convincing explanations of how life could have arisen, and how it has evolved from there to what we see now; and my feeling is that there is almost an inevitability about it - what one could call 'statistically inevitable': what you have, when each individual event is not very likely to happen, but there are so many events, that the likelihood of it happening in many places is very high, maybe close to 100%. The one sticking point, according to professor Nick Lane, is the arisal of the first eukaryote: the first cell that acquired an endosymbiont (which became the mitochondria); personally, I think it is because he focuses too narrowly on a path of evolution that is unllikely, namely that a bacterium was suddenly able to enter an archaea (or was it the other way round?) and live in some sort of power balance. It seems that it is more likely that members in a biofilm (which are still very common) gradually evolved the ability to cooperate closely enough to allow endosymbiosis; there may have been more than one kind of eukaryotes around for a short while, but one relatively soon got the upper hand and outcompeted every other kind. On other planets there may perhaps be many lineages of eukaryotes, or perhaps all higher life evolved from incresingly well-organised biofilms; now there's a thought.
Any way - this is all speculation, but the point is - I think there are elements of life and evolution that are statistically inevitable, and that the evolution of intelligence and sentience are amongst them. The reason I think so is that all of these traits are highly advantageous, and the advantage is proportional with "how much" you have of the given trait. Size seems to be one such trait: once it turns out that being bigger is an advantage, it keeps getting better as you get bigger, at least for a while - hence the enormous dinosaurs. Same thing with intelligence and civilisation. An interesting question is, when does the increase in civilisation no longer translate into an improvement in survival of the species?
NASA or not, you are a shiteater for life /enjoy
Well, faeces is just a later stage in the natural development of food; any meal is, in a sense, pre-shit, a term that sometimes seems strangely appropriate.
Many of the bacteria commonly found in yogurt are also found in mammalian guts
Which makes sense - milk is secreted from what are probably glorified sweat glands (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammary_gland#Evolution), and many of the bacteria that thrive in milk are also found on skin. And of course, as a slightly light hearted aside, a human is basically a torus, as any topologist will confirm, so the gut is really just part of the same surface as the skin.
Hillary is above the law, it doesn't matter what regulations she may or may not have deliberately subverted. This is just a distraction to try to help the Trump/Hitler ticket win. And sure, we don't know who Trump will choose as running mate, but anyone who does join him will be just as bad.
I'm not a huge fan of Ms Clinton, but so far I haven't seen or heard anything that would indicate that she is any worse than the average politician, or the average citizen of any Western nation one would care to mention. To me it is suggestive of a feeble mind to expect a politician to be any better than the average of the population they represent, or be wildly outraged to discover that they have done what most people, regrettably, would have done, and taken an unfair advantage of their privileged position. Who on /. can honestly claim to never knowingly have done anything that was even slightly dishonest, unethical or illegal?
Being a politician, and especially one with a lot of power, requires somebody who is realistic and pragmatic, who has a steady hand in a crisis and is able to think before they talk. It would be nice if they are also good and honest, but I don't know how realistic it is to expect a person like that to be able to rise to the top and get real results in the political system in America. Just look at a guy like Obama who, to the dispassionate observer, seemed to be a fairly honest, well-intentioned person, if somewhat naive in his idealism; and how much has he actually achieved, that wasn't simply dictated by circumstances? Perhaps the fact that Ms Clinton doesn't seem to be squeaky clean is an advantage - and considering the amount of relentless scrutiny, it is impressive that a poorly managed email server is all that has turned up. Compare that to Mr Trump, who hasn't been exposed to quite the same amount of hostile snooping, but still seems to be surrounded by an odious pong - violent supporters that he appears to passively approve of, dodgy tax affairs, and if we dig deeper, probably a lot more.
I understand the anger that drives Trump's supporters - I think we all feel deeply frustrated with the way society is going, but I think it would be stupid to follow whoever seems to be shouting the loudest about it without considering carefully whether they would be able to do anything - or even be willing to seriously try. Does anybody really believe that Trump can "build a wall and force Mexico to pay"? Or that it is possible to round up all illegal immigrants and deport them, just like that? And so on? And what does it mean, "I will make America great again"? Isn't America great now? Everybody outside thinks so. Or "I will be so presidential, ...."? It sounds like what the contestants in a low level wrestling match would shout out. However, I don't think it is true that he is like Hitler - he's just an average crook, a narcissist with a hugely inflated view of his own importance.
In the end, neither he nor Clinton, Sanders or any of the others will be able to change what is wrong in America; for that to happen, people - ordinary, everyday people - will have to overcome their differences and unite against the culture that glorifies greed. The revolution must start in your heart, if you want to wax lyrical about it.
No, I really don't have to trust them, and I don't.
The point is this: If people make up their minds to extend a minimum of trust to each other - even to people they disagree with - then democracy can work. If not, then the result is much more in doubt. It is like any other civilised contest - a game of football, for example: on the pitch you may be all out to beat the other side, but off the pitch, you can still work together like human being. The other team may win this time, but next time you have the chance again. If you continue the fight outside the pitch, then you end up ruining the game for yourself and everybody else. At the end of the day, it is up to each individual to make the choice - you can decide that you are human being, in control of yourself and capable of coexisting peacefully with your opponents - iow trusting them to be peacful in return at some level - or not. It isn't somebody else's responsibility - it is yours alone.
So, if you want your society to cooperate to overcome the challenges it faces, you have to choose to do your part; if you don't care, don't.
Is euthanasia legal for someone previously declared dead or are they now forced to keep this half alive person alive?
I suspect the expectation is that they will not get as close as that, and that they will cross that bridge when they come to it. The thinking probably goes along lines like "these people are already dead, so we can try this out and dispose of them afterwards".
What if they regain their brain but not their memory (see the book Worthing Saga). Is this a desirable outcome where you have an adult with the brain of an infant that now has to relearn everything? Even if it's 100% and they can eventually return to normal intelligence, you now have 10+ years of learning to walk, read, write, and all the other things we learn in childhood. I'm not even sure that is a desirable outcome.
This is probably not what they are trying to achieve - it would certainly be meaningless. There is very little reason to expect the person thus revived to be the person that had died - it would most likely be a new person in a mature or old body; it would be wrong on all levels. But if they can get the technology to work, it may mean that it becomes possible to repair brain damage - like after a stroke. That would be valuable.
Teach all those Ivy League/Government Intelligence/Google interpersonal networking connections that one is typically born into?
Aka "the old boy's network". Yeah, good point. Apart from that, we don't actually need more huge internet services - that train has already arrived - and left again. What we really need is people who understand bio-technology, bio-medicine, advanced genetics and genomics, advanced materials (like graphene, phosphene, meta-materials etc), and a long list of other, advanced technologies; plus the fundamental research that goes before all of this, which must be independent of industry ties. We have enough, bloody useless entertainment services already.
I suspect to most this sounds very simple: Do I want to pay more for things? But If you have any sales tax, it should cover all sales without exception, only graded so that is does not place an unreasonable burden on the poorest - in practical and legal terms, makes it very complicated. If you pay sales tax in your own country on things bought abroad, it amounts to an import tarif, which may not be allowed under whichever international agreements are in power. And it may lead to double taxation - so it would be fairer to tax only those imports that have not already been adequately taxed in their country of origin, but how do you even begin to manage that? And so on. Not to mention tax on sales within a nation or free-trade area; a sales tax should not wipe out competition in the market, for one thing.
This is where I become tedious and irritating by pointing out something totally outside the scope of the article, which I have honoured by not reading it. To me there is no doubt that the humble knife is the most influential gadget of all time. Invented something like 2 million years ago, it is still one of the most universally useful tools around - cutting edge, as it were. It probably originated by accident from when the hammerstones that our ancestors would have used to crack nuts (like our cousins, the chimpanzees and others still do) broke and formed a sharp edge, and although we use different materials now, it is remarkable how little it has fundamentally changed over the eons. How many smartphones will be around in two million years?
Anyway, as bad as Trump is, Cruz would have been worse. The Donald's primary identity is "con man" or "salesman" and he doesn't believe most of the crazy stuff he says.
This is undoubtedly true; I was going to say that the choice between the two was like choosing between plague and cholera, but now-a-days both are survivable (that was a joke, BTW). In practice I don't actually think it matters enormously - the problems you are faced with, running a nation, are the same, whoever you are, and in most cases the solutions are going to be dictated by the problems; the only differences will be in symbol policies: things that don't really matter, but which look "conservative/liberal/..." or whatever colour you want to show.
A president, being the leader of the whole nation, must at least be able to care about the interests of everybody in the country, and be able to attract the respect of the international community. I feel pretty sure Cruz is too narrow minded to recognise that his policies would be beneficial to only to those who share his mindset and harmful to most of the rest, and I can't tell whether Trump actually gives a shit about the subject - he seems to change with the prevailing wind. As for international respect - I doubt anybody would trust a religious extremist, and Trump's erratic outbursts won't be easily forgotten. As far as I can see, he has cast himself in a rather bad light - he has already alienated Mexico and China, and if he holds that stance, then he won't be met with a lot of goodwill from those two or their allies in South America and Africa, among others. And of course, if he changes tack just like that, they will think that he is untrustworthy and slippery, which may be just as bad.
As sinister as it may sound, the success of Trump, Sanders, the Tea Party movement and even suicidal maniacs like Daesh, are all symptoms of the growing resentment against the unfairness of what looks like a progressively smaller upper class, who have access to all the advantages and are determined to keep it that way, and who are unwilling to listen to even the most reasonable demands of the majority. I think the only way to really change things is for people on the ground to reach out across their differences and unite to change the way these things work. People would probably find that the things they are unhappy with are the same thing the Tea Party don't like, as well as those on the left etc. I have often been surprised to find that I agree with people who claim to dead against Socialism because, as they say, they believe in freedom, self-determination, etc; to me those things are very much part of socialism. Of course, one can discuss whether is should be called socialism or not, but the point is - we are not really that different, and we could easily work together. And change things.
You're assuming that we'll still have a country after the Democrats are finished with it...
Ever the optimist, eh? Of course you will still have a country, even if you feel the Democrats are idiots. They may not have the right ideas in your view, but they still want to govern for the benefit of the whole of the nation - as will the Republicans, if they win. At the end of the day, both sides (or all sides, if you have more than two parties) have to trust their opponents to at least want to do what they think is right for the entire nation - otherwise, you end up like Syria or Libya. Nations fail at democracy, when the winners in an election only govern to benefit their own supporters and the all distrust each others. The point I'm trying to get across is: it is up to everybody - you and I included - to decide to trust our opponents, even if we disagree with them; that is what really determines the future of the nation.
... fully supported in xSane and SimpleScan with *no* driver download
And not only that - the SANE daemon makes it easy to build a networked scanner (see http://www.linux-mag.com/id/16...); one that you can access from any system on your network. I use that at home - bought an HP scanner/printer in a car boot sale for £5, set it up on a RaspberryPi, and now we have a neetworked scanner and colour printer. And it is very good scanner too. I only use it from Linux; there is a way to do it from Windows, which I tried, but I don't use Windows for anything, so I don't know how well that works.
Frankly we don't know.
But what is more likely? If it were state secrets, then something would surely be arranged, discreetly, behind the scenes. An accident, perhaps. An officer of the law standing on principle? I suppose stranger things happen at sea. No, I think the situation is that while they don't have enough evidence to prove beyond any reasonable doubt in front of a jury, they do have enough evidence to suggest strongly that this gentleman is indeed a pedophile.
So forgetting a password may keep you in jail. Forever.
Who knows? I get the impression that this guys refuses to reveal his password, which suggests that he hasn't forgotten it. I can fully understand why the police and the judge feel that it is highly suspicious, but I think they could handle this more intelligently. The guy already aware that he is going to face major changes in his life now - unless he is already jobless and an outcast - and they ought to able to work on that to persuade him to cooperate. No matter what the outcome, he will no longer be able to hide away behind a facade of decency - and if he is actually innocent of possession of child porn, he can get full exoneration by cooperating. Why not do that?
Yeah - it would be more relevant for Hillary Clinton to pick a running mate. I suggest Bernie Sanders - he could attract the voters that are sceptical about Ms Clinton's credentials.
Blaming the parties may be missing the root cause -- that our archaic plurality voting system eventually fosters a two-party system.
There may be something in that - perhaps a system more like some of the Europeans would be better? Apart from UK, most European democracies have a much more proportinal voting system. The American and British systems are a relic from a time when it was genuinely hard to count votes and get the results to the capital in a timely manner, but that isn't a concern now, so proportional voting is certainly practical. It also makes the parliament more politically diverse, which means that politicians will have to learn to compromise - a valuable skill, which may help get past deadlocks; they would be more agile, and importantly, things would happens a bit slower: things would move more smoothly, but not as fast. An important function of democracy is the slow down power.
As for the president - do you actually need one? Many European countries don't have a president with real power - France is the exception, as far as I recall. You could get yourselves a king - why not? We have had a brilliant time in UK with her Majesty, and I say that as a rabid socialist myself. Largely because she is not politically powerful and therefore works as a strong symbol of national unity. People can love and admire the Queen, while at the same time ranting against the politicians.
Ah, now I realise that this is a Buttfeed article. I can't really imagine there would be any serious conflict about whether to include emojis or not; the Unicode Consortium are a bit more seriousminded than that. What I can imangine is that those who care about standardising emojis want to bring it up in the committee meetings, and the rest go "Groan... Whatever", because it isn't really something of huge importance. Whether there is a standard character for dogshit probably seems of less scientific importance to many than how to encode Sumerian cuneiform or how many places to leave for CJK characters.
I think you should probably try to loosen up a bit. This forum is not going to be "Overrun By The Commies", whatever they may be. English of a sort is well established as the international language of trade; when I go to China, I can hardly get to practise my Chinese, because they all want to practise their English. And when you attend a forum, you want to make yourself understood, otherwise, what is the point of commenting?
There are many good reasons for using unicode in an international forum, I don't think I need to rehash the arguments. But I think it would be a good idea to be more open to intellectual challenges and willing to learn something unexpected from time to time.