I'm not interested in arguing with fools like you. Or maybe you're just incredibly naive and ignorant and you are optimistic that I'll take the time to educate you on the reality? Whatever. Please mark me as a foe and we shall eagerly ignore each other forever.
The Laffer Curve is a laugh and has been refuted--but rational economic theory is not part of this math game. The zero tax end is exactly what BushCo is pushing for on the theory that the government is best which governs not at all.
New Orleans is an excellent example of how it works in practice. Dubya and his f[r]iends "saved" half a billion that was needed for flood prevention, and now the minimum estimates of the repairs is around a mere 200 billion dollars. How's that for a math puzzle?
Anyway, my larger point is that we're just fiddling while New Orleans sinks. Real scientists might be amused by mathematical puzzles, but America won't have many of those in a few more years.
Soduku drives you nuts? (Whatever "soduku" is?) Anyway, the puzzles of this modern age are things like how we (or BushCo claiming to be acting on our behalf) can cut taxes for the rich while spending billions on wars while ignoring and eliminating infrastructure spending like flood prevention and education without going bankrupt. And don't waste your time looking for the linked post with the answer. There ain't no answer on this side (the outside) of the funny farm.
Welcome to 2005 going on 1984 but with our final destination sometime around 1840...
With regards to your sig, I often feel like I'm being targeted by abusive moderators, too, but I think the larger problem is the moderation system itself is badly designed and SUPPORTS the abuse. To paraphrase a well-known politicitan, "It's the anonymity, stupid." If you can think of any good reason why moderators should be anonymous, I'd like to know of it.
What to do? Well, you could slink into the shadows and avoid expressing opinions that would offend anyone, but my own response is to focus against the moderation system. Whenever I metamoderate, I now curve strongly against the assigned moderations as an expression of dissatisfaction with the entire system of anonymous moderation. Unless the moderation is EXTREMELY "reasonable", I'm very likely to reject it.
The sysops claim the moderations are 90% accurate, but I think that also reflects another form of gaming the system. In my most "generous" days, I've never seen 90% "good" moderations, but I think that people who approve the moderations are more likely to get mod points--which some of them want only for the sake of abuse. Obviously, that suggests an eye-for-an-eye counterstrategy, but that just winds up with everyone blinded.
Re:In a capitalist society... A lottery is better
on
Space Tourism?
·
· Score: 0, Troll
I don't argue with fools. I don't even encourage them to waste their time studying math. I just ask them to mark me as a foe, and we can happily ignore eath other forever.
Re:In a capitalist society... A lottery is better
on
Space Tourism?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Even if you suck them dry, the rich morons can't raise any significant amount of money compared to the potential of a lottery. However, even a very good lottery can't raise any signficant amount of money compared to what it REALLY costs to develop these technologies. They would need to recoup BILLIONS of dollars to make this into a business.
Sadly, the real motivation for the original investment was a combination of chest thumping to beat the commies and crazy paranoia about what the commies could learn or do if they "got there first". The fact that there were massive profits from the technologies that were developed was only an incidental aspect (though not enough profit to defray all of the expenses--or they would already be a successful business and wouldn't need any additional tax money now).
In the current situation, I'm convinced their main rationale is some sort of publicity, though it's tainted by twisted hope. Most of the people working for the space agencies and making the decisions about tourists know their odds of making a lot of money are much higher than their odds of getting a flying role in the program. Therefore it makes more sense to hope they could go as a wealthy tourist some day.
They are all good mathematicians, so they are unlikely to be suckered by the lottery tax. I'm only raising it as a more rational economic model than space tourism. I suspect they would reject it for the same reason I would: I regard it as basically immoral to exploit other people's stupidity. (Shucks and darn, now I can't join BushCo.)
So why have a space program? Because there is still stuff worth learning. However, maybe we (America) can't afford it now.
Re:In a capitalist society... A lottery is better
on
Space Tourism?
·
· Score: 1
There aren't enough rich morons to make this work as a business model, and the cost-benefit ratio is being total distorted by this kind of foolishness. The value of scientific research is NOT directly related to the cost. Try considering it in comparison to the "tourist balloon" business. It barely exists, even though it's much cheaper than space flight--but actual scientific balloons are much more important.
The closest you can come to making a scientific justification is that random Guinea Pigs are needed (except that they are not needed). However, in that case, assigning an arbitrary value and selling it is just stupid marketing. Much better to do it as a lottery with the grand prize an orbital trip for the winner (or assignee, if the winner isn't healthy enough). This is not a rational business model, which is all the more reason to exploit the suckers by selling lottery tickets. After all, lotteries are just a tax on people who are bad at math.
Re:Should be a poll--"Have you ever faced reality?
on
Why Do You Block Ads?
·
· Score: 1
You got something to say? All I heard was some mumbling from an anonymous coward.
Yet another 'fine' abuse of/. anonymity. Still waiting for the day I see an actual need for anonymity here.
By the way, you (the latest coward) should probably mark me as your for, except that it takes more guts than you actually have.
This advertising-related post has already drained my insight resevoir for the day, so for now I'll just note that there is a relationship, though it is from a slightly different angle, where the (usually artificial) credibility is the key. However, I predict that eBay will not be able to buy credibility, though that's the main "product" of VeriSign. You can't "stabilize" a situation that intrinsically has negative dynamic stability. Having given that big hint, I'm not willing to offer a prize for the first person to see the rest of the problem...
Since I'm evidently too tired to focus properly on the topic, I'll go ahead and add another CSS-related comment, since this seems to be a new symptom afflicting the abandoned-by-/. users of Opera. Now most of the left side links are dead, especially at the top. The overwriting problems aren't as bad as before, so it seems like they're tinkering with it.
Should be a poll--as if /. could do a useful one
on
Why Do You Block Ads?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Anyway, I haven't read all of the posts (though I spent more time on "insightful" and only saw more evidence of poorly considered moderation), but I didn't see this position expressed, and certainly not clearly, so...
Actually, I don't actively block the less intrusive ads, but as the advertising techniques used become more aggressive and privacy intrusive, I do respond with increasing vigor. Of course the worst bastards are the jackasses that are trying to infest my computer with browser hijackers and various other forms of spyware, but they are only extremists on the same scale. Therefore I say the fundamental problem is the "free lunch" mentality created by "free" radio broadcasts. Radio broadcasts were not really free, but by having the advertisers sponsor them, the radio stations were able to build a profitable business model. However, the chickens always come home to roost, and the result of this kind of "free" was ultimately very bad, especially as applied to television, and now as it is invading the commercial Internet.
The interests of the advertisers are NOT the same as the interests of the public. The advertisers do not want people to be well educated and well informed, because in that terrible case (from their perspective) the best product value (in each product category) would be known, and that product would capture the bulk of the sales. Except for the sellers of the best product, the companies who are paying for the advertising want people to be as easily manipulated as possible, so that they can twist as many of them as possible into buying not-so-valuable products. Actually, from the perspective of the "purest" advertisers, selling nothing at the highest price possible is the ultimate goal.
In conclusion, take a close look at Dubya to see what they can sell. Your children and grandchildren (and more) will be paying for that "sale" for a long time.
Having the president appoint supreme court judges is wrong anyway. There should be a better process of selecting them. How's it done in other countries?
Even without your America-centric closing, your profound American ignorance is showing. The resident of the big white house does not appoint Supreme Court Justices, but is supposed to nominate qualified candidates for the thoughtful consideration of the Senate. Just because the process has become subverted and perverted into another form of feudal cronyism doesn't mean you should be so ignorant of the actual history and actual legal mechanisms.
When I consider that ignorant fools like you have exactly the same vote as the wisest people, it makes me wonder if democracy is really such a good idea. I continue to believe democracy and freedom really confer "competitive advantage" to the societies that have the most, but the evidence seems weak... Oh well, I just have to hope that old radical Winston Churchill was right.
A system that is so easily fooled? Wow, an entire new category of war crimes!
"Her car stalled as she tried to flee the approaching troops. She thought banging on the carburator might help, but the anti-sniper robot accidentally blew her away. Whoops."
"Apparently he never even noticed the approaching troops, but he was watching a detective movie and smoking a cigarette, and the anti-sniper robot combined them into a sniper and shot up the apartment."
Ain't 'war science' wonderful?
Meanwhile, the actual snipers will figure out better methods.
The actual writing style is quite poor. When there's a simple and direct way to say something, that's the best way to say it. There are times when precise distinctions or special nuances are calling for the use of highly specialized $3 words, but I didn't notice any in the article.
I admit that there are some people who naturally write like pedants. I even confess that I am one of them. However, I know better and make the effort to tone it down in normal circumstances--and especially when I am writing in a "public" forum where I expect many people might read it. The author of that particular article is most likely a pseudo-intellectual who simply doesn't know better, or someone who is excessively fond of playing games with a thesaurus.
Small world, eh? A comment about the acronym, and my first reaction to the article was to remember TRAC, the Texas Reconfigurable Array Computer, which was something they were working on at the same school many years ago. Well, at least they didn't need "Texas" for the acronym this time, but I doubt anyone else remembers TRAC now.
Disclaimer: In spite of having a degree from the school, I have a very low opinion of it. Yeah, it's large enough physically, and they had some oil money, but IMO they optimized towards narrow-minded mind-narrowing efficiency rather than breadth. Real education is about the breadth. Unfortunately, these days I feel as though my real alma mater seems to be following a similar path to mediocrity.
Not exactly on topic, but closely related is the ads on certain DVD movies. I don't know if this is a widespread practice, or perhaps just a new trend in Japan, or just another example of my innocence, but... I only saw it for the first time last yesterday. It was a movie DVD that we rented, but the default play mode was to show a whole bunch of movie trailers before the actual "feature" film. On top of that, after the main movie, they had appended a chunk of another movie that was supposed to encourage you to view that one, too.
None of this advertising had any direct benefit to the artists that the MPAA claims to be protecting. You'd think we should have control over what we'd paid to see, though the MPAA obviously feels differently about it. It's clearly intended to create demand, and if there's any additional benefit to the artists, it's basically accidental. However, the part that really annoyed me was that all but one of the movies they were plugging were stupid ones without any relation to the feature film that we rented. The "featured advertisement" with the long trailer was actually for a totally annoying movie that I'd never heard of--probably one of those direct-to-DVD losers. The trailer totally failed to motivate renting or buying that garbage movie, and we didn't (and never will) watch the "free bonus" part of that garbage movie at the end.
P.S.
Have they done something to improve the CSS layout glitches with Opera? Still not perfect, but seems to be improved now.
P.P.S.
Anonymous moderation is still being abused. Surprise, surprise, surprise. Lousy moderators should be held accountable, don't you think?
I feel like changing the subject to "Bah, humbug!" Or maybe that's from studying a Japanese translation of part of Dicken's book about Scrooge? Anyway, just tossing in another data point for Japan. I'm a grandfathered oldtimer with the 1.5/256 ADSL, but I've never felt like my bandwidth was cramped. I've had it for some years already. Streaming video is slightly limited, but the available servers for that are also limited. Including the phone line, I'm paying about $50/month, but the price differences for the next few speed increments (up to about 12M) are quite nominal.
Three reasons I don't upgrade:
Fast enough and cheap enough, as noted.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I own the modem/router, and newer connections usually rent it.
Say, how'd you like to buy a nice bridge into Brooklyn? Only used by a little old lady going to church on Sundays. If you can still believe in Iraqi WMDs after they spent almost a billion dollars specifically searching for them, you sound like a great candidate.
Face it, sucker. You were had. Are you planning to wise up any time soon? Doesn't sound like it.
Hey, if you don't like the bridge, how about some nice Florida real estate? Let me just check to see when it will be low tide so I can show it to you...
Not sure what you mean by that. Today's notebook computers pack much more power than the largest mainframes of some years ago. What percentage of the cycles are you actually using? My guestimate is that 95%+ of my cycles are going to the World Community Grid for protein-folding research.
Having said that, Microsoft can still find ways to make the machines grind to lengthy halts at irregular and unpredictable intervals.
Well, I've often felt like this boring black box fixation was not the most sensitive design strategy from the customers' perspectives. IBM's engineering has always been solid enough inside the box--but that's not what the customers see first. I think the black-box approach also made customers doubt IBM's attentiveness to the customers' other interests. I'm hoping that means we'll be seeing a range of more interesting ThinkPads now. They've also recently announced a widescreen model.
(Disclaimer: I'm in the IBM food chain, and most of my machines are IBM's, either NetVista or ThinkPad.)
You Busheviks really are insane. According to this line of "reasoning", we should regularly destroy a major American city so it "will bring about a fairly large economic boom." If you weren't so serious about it, I'd be RotFLMAO. As it is, and considering the harm your idiocy is doing to my country, I have to fight back the the tears.
Your brand of Bushevik insanity has a number of flavors. I used to wonder about the distinctions, but such questions scarecely matter at this point. Religious lunacy? Short-term profits? Mercenary masochism? Simple-minded trolling?
Maybe you just approve of destroying cities? If so, I'd strongly encourage you to take a little trip to Iraq. Mix your pleasure with a bit of exposure to ugly truths, and conceivably something interesting would come of it.
Have you considered the virtues of telling the truth once in a while? Yes, I know that's a silly thing to say to a minor league anonymous troll.
(If you're not a simple and feeble-minded troll, then you are completely lacking in creative imagination, which is probably worse.)
Actually, I have run across some major league flamers in my day, but that was far more than 10 years ago. (Well, except for Godwin, who only abandoned the newsgroups in '95.) Though I've seen some feeble attempts hereabouts, I've never actually noticed a big leaguer on/., which is another testament to your naive rudeness.
The only signficance of this branch is to demonstrate yet again why AC is a/. misfeature. I really doubt anyone would post such tripe as the ACs "contribute" if there were any trace of accountability for their resource wastage. The sysops really should increase the strength of the filtering to completely block AC and foes, at least as an option. It's obviously a total waste to be reminded of your existance--but I predict you will do it again, anyway.
You are still without clue or name. The point of the entire discussion is that anonymity is being stripped from people, and you apparently expect me to discuss it with you while you can still play anonymous games?
Just another abuse of anonymity. If you have something to say that's worth saying, put your name on it. Otherwise, STFU. Please notice that I'm not going to waste any time discussing substantive topics with anonymous trolls. I sincerely hope you spent a lot of time writing that post, since I barely glanced at it, thereby wasting any time you invested.
Have I already requested that you designate me as foe? You've convinced me you're quite worth ignoring, and the foe designation might help. Sadly, it probably doesn't apply to anonymous cowards. I have yet to see a single example of a legitimate use of the/. AC misfeature.
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I'm not interested in arguing with fools like you. Or maybe you're just incredibly naive and ignorant and you are optimistic that I'll take the time to educate you on the reality? Whatever. Please mark me as a foe and we shall eagerly ignore each other forever.
New Orleans is an excellent example of how it works in practice. Dubya and his f[r]iends "saved" half a billion that was needed for flood prevention, and now the minimum estimates of the repairs is around a mere 200 billion dollars. How's that for a math puzzle?
Anyway, my larger point is that we're just fiddling while New Orleans sinks. Real scientists might be amused by mathematical puzzles, but America won't have many of those in a few more years.
Welcome to 2005 going on 1984 but with our final destination sometime around 1840...
What to do? Well, you could slink into the shadows and avoid expressing opinions that would offend anyone, but my own response is to focus against the moderation system. Whenever I metamoderate, I now curve strongly against the assigned moderations as an expression of dissatisfaction with the entire system of anonymous moderation. Unless the moderation is EXTREMELY "reasonable", I'm very likely to reject it.
The sysops claim the moderations are 90% accurate, but I think that also reflects another form of gaming the system. In my most "generous" days, I've never seen 90% "good" moderations, but I think that people who approve the moderations are more likely to get mod points--which some of them want only for the sake of abuse. Obviously, that suggests an eye-for-an-eye counterstrategy, but that just winds up with everyone blinded.
I don't argue with fools. I don't even encourage them to waste their time studying math. I just ask them to mark me as a foe, and we can happily ignore eath other forever.
Sadly, the real motivation for the original investment was a combination of chest thumping to beat the commies and crazy paranoia about what the commies could learn or do if they "got there first". The fact that there were massive profits from the technologies that were developed was only an incidental aspect (though not enough profit to defray all of the expenses--or they would already be a successful business and wouldn't need any additional tax money now).
In the current situation, I'm convinced their main rationale is some sort of publicity, though it's tainted by twisted hope. Most of the people working for the space agencies and making the decisions about tourists know their odds of making a lot of money are much higher than their odds of getting a flying role in the program. Therefore it makes more sense to hope they could go as a wealthy tourist some day.
They are all good mathematicians, so they are unlikely to be suckered by the lottery tax. I'm only raising it as a more rational economic model than space tourism. I suspect they would reject it for the same reason I would: I regard it as basically immoral to exploit other people's stupidity. (Shucks and darn, now I can't join BushCo.)
So why have a space program? Because there is still stuff worth learning. However, maybe we (America) can't afford it now.
The closest you can come to making a scientific justification is that random Guinea Pigs are needed (except that they are not needed). However, in that case, assigning an arbitrary value and selling it is just stupid marketing. Much better to do it as a lottery with the grand prize an orbital trip for the winner (or assignee, if the winner isn't healthy enough). This is not a rational business model, which is all the more reason to exploit the suckers by selling lottery tickets. After all, lotteries are just a tax on people who are bad at math.
Yet another 'fine' abuse of /. anonymity. Still waiting for the day I see an actual need for anonymity here.
By the way, you (the latest coward) should probably mark me as your for, except that it takes more guts than you actually have.
Since I'm evidently too tired to focus properly on the topic, I'll go ahead and add another CSS-related comment, since this seems to be a new symptom afflicting the abandoned-by-/. users of Opera. Now most of the left side links are dead, especially at the top. The overwriting problems aren't as bad as before, so it seems like they're tinkering with it.
Actually, I don't actively block the less intrusive ads, but as the advertising techniques used become more aggressive and privacy intrusive, I do respond with increasing vigor. Of course the worst bastards are the jackasses that are trying to infest my computer with browser hijackers and various other forms of spyware, but they are only extremists on the same scale. Therefore I say the fundamental problem is the "free lunch" mentality created by "free" radio broadcasts. Radio broadcasts were not really free, but by having the advertisers sponsor them, the radio stations were able to build a profitable business model. However, the chickens always come home to roost, and the result of this kind of "free" was ultimately very bad, especially as applied to television, and now as it is invading the commercial Internet.
The interests of the advertisers are NOT the same as the interests of the public. The advertisers do not want people to be well educated and well informed, because in that terrible case (from their perspective) the best product value (in each product category) would be known, and that product would capture the bulk of the sales. Except for the sellers of the best product, the companies who are paying for the advertising want people to be as easily manipulated as possible, so that they can twist as many of them as possible into buying not-so-valuable products. Actually, from the perspective of the "purest" advertisers, selling nothing at the highest price possible is the ultimate goal.
In conclusion, take a close look at Dubya to see what they can sell. Your children and grandchildren (and more) will be paying for that "sale" for a long time.
Even better, if you're as large a fool as you seem, please mark me as foe and we can eagerly ignore each other.
Now excuse me while I go back to waiting for the first example of a non-abusive use of /. anonymity.
When I consider that ignorant fools like you have exactly the same vote as the wisest people, it makes me wonder if democracy is really such a good idea. I continue to believe democracy and freedom really confer "competitive advantage" to the societies that have the most, but the evidence seems weak... Oh well, I just have to hope that old radical Winston Churchill was right.
"Her car stalled as she tried to flee the approaching troops. She thought banging on the carburator might help, but the anti-sniper robot accidentally blew her away. Whoops."
"Apparently he never even noticed the approaching troops, but he was watching a detective movie and smoking a cigarette, and the anti-sniper robot combined them into a sniper and shot up the apartment."
Ain't 'war science' wonderful?
Meanwhile, the actual snipers will figure out better methods.
The actual writing style is quite poor. When there's a simple and direct way to say something, that's the best way to say it. There are times when precise distinctions or special nuances are calling for the use of highly specialized $3 words, but I didn't notice any in the article.
I admit that there are some people who naturally write like pedants. I even confess that I am one of them. However, I know better and make the effort to tone it down in normal circumstances--and especially when I am writing in a "public" forum where I expect many people might read it. The author of that particular article is most likely a pseudo-intellectual who simply doesn't know better, or someone who is excessively fond of playing games with a thesaurus.
Disclaimer: In spite of having a degree from the school, I have a very low opinion of it. Yeah, it's large enough physically, and they had some oil money, but IMO they optimized towards narrow-minded mind-narrowing efficiency rather than breadth. Real education is about the breadth. Unfortunately, these days I feel as though my real alma mater seems to be following a similar path to mediocrity.
None of this advertising had any direct benefit to the artists that the MPAA claims to be protecting. You'd think we should have control over what we'd paid to see, though the MPAA obviously feels differently about it. It's clearly intended to create demand, and if there's any additional benefit to the artists, it's basically accidental. However, the part that really annoyed me was that all but one of the movies they were plugging were stupid ones without any relation to the feature film that we rented. The "featured advertisement" with the long trailer was actually for a totally annoying movie that I'd never heard of--probably one of those direct-to-DVD losers. The trailer totally failed to motivate renting or buying that garbage movie, and we didn't (and never will) watch the "free bonus" part of that garbage movie at the end.
P.S. Have they done something to improve the CSS layout glitches with Opera? Still not perfect, but seems to be improved now. P.P.S. Anonymous moderation is still being abused. Surprise, surprise, surprise. Lousy moderators should be held accountable, don't you think?Three reasons I don't upgrade:
Face it, sucker. You were had. Are you planning to wise up any time soon? Doesn't sound like it.
Hey, if you don't like the bridge, how about some nice Florida real estate? Let me just check to see when it will be low tide so I can show it to you...
Having said that, Microsoft can still find ways to make the machines grind to lengthy halts at irregular and unpredictable intervals.
(Disclaimer: I'm in the IBM food chain, and most of my machines are IBM's, either NetVista or ThinkPad.)
Your brand of Bushevik insanity has a number of flavors. I used to wonder about the distinctions, but such questions scarecely matter at this point. Religious lunacy? Short-term profits? Mercenary masochism? Simple-minded trolling?
Maybe you just approve of destroying cities? If so, I'd strongly encourage you to take a little trip to Iraq. Mix your pleasure with a bit of exposure to ugly truths, and conceivably something interesting would come of it.
(If you're not a simple and feeble-minded troll, then you are completely lacking in creative imagination, which is probably worse.)
Actually, I have run across some major league flamers in my day, but that was far more than 10 years ago. (Well, except for Godwin, who only abandoned the newsgroups in '95.) Though I've seen some feeble attempts hereabouts, I've never actually noticed a big leaguer on /., which is another testament to your naive rudeness.
The only signficance of this branch is to demonstrate yet again why AC is a /. misfeature. I really doubt anyone would post such tripe as the ACs "contribute" if there were any trace of accountability for their resource wastage. The sysops really should increase the strength of the filtering to completely block AC and foes, at least as an option. It's obviously a total waste to be reminded of your existance--but I predict you will do it again, anyway.
Thank you for designating me as your foe, nghtchld. For the rest of it, I'm uninterested in wasting time with you.
Just another abuse of anonymity. If you have something to say that's worth saying, put your name on it. Otherwise, STFU. Please notice that I'm not going to waste any time discussing substantive topics with anonymous trolls. I sincerely hope you spent a lot of time writing that post, since I barely glanced at it, thereby wasting any time you invested.
Have I already requested that you designate me as foe? You've convinced me you're quite worth ignoring, and the foe designation might help. Sadly, it probably doesn't apply to anonymous cowards. I have yet to see a single example of a legitimate use of the /. AC misfeature.