as soon as one party has more power than the other you need a law to limit abuses.
I agree that contracts can be a useful tool, but I also agree with your point above.
Actually, I agree with the point that often the power in a contract agreement can be highly imbalanced; I didn't mean to say I agree to create laws to correct abuses. Creating a law for every abuse would create an absurd cobweb of legislation, not unlike the federal income tax code. I wonder if it would have been wise for the founding fathers to put a separation of business and state clause in addition to the separation of church and state clause. It seems that our current government-managed economy is just not healthy (yes, the IRS, the EPA, the FDA, the DEA, etc. are our federal economy management departments just under distracting names).
You can walk in to any Staples or Best Buy and pick up any piece of software or any printer, digital camera, mp3 player etc. bring it home, plug it in, insert the cd-rom and presto! it just works... ... 60% of the time.
DLL Hell and a no-name audio card with a auto-configured IRQ conflict will make bald men even balder, young women turn into Pug-faced hags, and kids turn inside out spilling their Speghetti-o's all over dad's new desk.
Windows actually doens't work very well at all even on OEM computers from Dell, Gateway, etc. The problem is that so many people are in denial about it, which is only encouraged by their OEMs similing and looking happy in spite of the spiked Microshaft mounted squarely in the center of their chair.
The mass denial about Windows, Office, and Internet Explorer is literally an example of cult psychology on a golbal scale.
I'm glad Microsoft will be a niche company in less than ten years. Perhaps five. For people even in denial about this, I have this advice: adapt or fall into the pit with them.
Our politicians don't think any farther ahead than the next election.
In the interest of keeping the USA a free nation, this is the strongest argument against implementing government-managed social programs, such as social security and nationalized health care. The only way for people really to watch out for themselves and their families is to either do it themselves or hire a private firm they can trust isn't in it for a quick buck. The government is always in it for the quick buck (or vote).
In China, the government can plan for the long term, because the people have no individual liberty to do so for themselves, as well as not having the inaliable liberties described in the US Constitution. Hell, even Hillary Clinton's book was censored by the Chinese government without her permission (a good recent example). The Chinese government savors keeping its people ignorant and submissive, and, as a US citizen, I find that totally unacceptible.
as soon as one party has more power than the other you need a law to limit abuses.
I agree that contracts can be a useful tool, but I also agree with your point above. Given that the USA doesn't even teach its kids to read and write, we have hardly prepared them for contracts and negotiation. A knack for contracts is something I picked up after college on my own time, and I will admit I was probably too naive when I was younger to be a good negotiator.
For anyone who thinks the public schools in this country do a good job teaching the "three Rs", I'll tell you this: many of the people I have worked with were a complete joke, and they were adults subject to the full public school treatment (no ability to compose thoughts into a sentence even if it were to save their lives). My parents, my friends, and myself did more to teach me than any school ever did.
Also, we seem to be getting more naive every day. The success of cash loan stores, extended warranties, pre-approved credit cards, six-year car loans, student loans, etc. reinforces this. It seems people have been fooled into believing in free money. There will be another "great depression" eventually; let's see how suprised everyone is when the shit hits the fan.
(btw, this isn't a call for regulation; people need to learn their lessons about life somehow and they should learn them up front rather than behind some cozy smoke and mirror scheme)
Other than that, what sort of differences are you expecting?
Subtle ones. Of course, there are no absolute answers, but I can imagine that being fed counter-intuitive imagery at certain ages can alter how a person matures into an adult. It's basic cause and effect psychoanalysis kinds of stuff.
Agreed. However there is a historical context for these things. Sex has traditionally been private in the USA, while violence is not only public but a part of family life. My primary example is hunting. Dads would take their teenage sons out to get dinner routinely back in the day. However, we should also compare and contrast this to tribe in other countries where public nudity is perfectly normal and acceptible. Bascially, somewhere along the line, people in the US culturally denounced sex and nudity. Odd, yes, suprising, no.
Educating children is important, too. Exposure to porn isn't bad, in itself, but the main consideration is its effect on a developing mind. There is a difference between the effect of porn on a 2-year-old vs a 5-year-old vs a 16-year-old. I'm sure a child psychologist could provide some opinions about this.
The whole entire complete US space programme was based on German technology and ideas from WWII taken from Germany and transplanted into the US along with the German rocket team people under Werner von Braun.
AAARRRRGGHHHHH!!!! My eyes! The knowledge of history is burning out my eyes! (just kidding)
German defections were actually a pretty important part of Germany not winning WWII. German engineering in the late 1930's and early 1940's was scary (they almost had nuclear bombs, first, too, IIRC!).
I would think that there are immediate problems down here on earth that need to be solved and spending lots of money on a really interesting dream may not be the best way to allocate scarce resources...
If people never went out on a limb to test what is and is not possible or practical or worthwhile, then the world would be the most damn boring place imaginable. Humans are animals. Leave them with a big tit to suck off of, and that's all they'll do. Suck off the tit, get fat, and waste away. Just look at the obesity "epidemic" in the USA and other countries. People are getting lazier and lazier because it really doesn't take much work to get by anymore. People with crappy no-brainer jobs today live in apartments and drive reliable cars, watch TV 30 hours a week, and still manage to totally ignore their kids, because it is work.
we never heard a lot about them because of the total control of the press over there.
Exactly. There was a show on the History Channel or Discovery Wings (I forget which) entirely about how the USSR's propoganda and military machines kept early disasters from the West. There was one incident, I believe, where an explosian killed dozens of people on the ground, but it was kept very very quiet. There was another incident where a failed reentry parachute made short work of a cosmonaut when the capsule hit the ground. They also had a cabin fire exactly like Apollo 1, but didn't tell anyone about it leaving the USA wide open to make the exact same mistake. Censorship does kill people.
I could grace you with a well written essay on the true causes of the Revolutionary War, but I'm not going to...
I can't take credit for this...I stole it from some government website somewhere (note "Nature's God" not "God"; these people weren't stupid zealots by any measure):
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
Action of Second Continental Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America
WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.
WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness--That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of Great-Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World. HE has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good. HE has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance, unless suspended in their Operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
HE has refused to passother Laws for the Accommodation of large Districts of People, unless those People would relinquish the Right of Representation in the Legislature, a Right inestimable to them, and formidable to Tyrants only.
HE has called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their public Records, for the sole Purpose of fatiguing them into Compliance with his Measures.
HE has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly Firmness his Invasions on the Rights of the People.
HE has refused for a long Time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, and Convulsions within.
HE has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pas
When I was a kid, I recited the pledge just like everyone else in my school every morning. I memorized it. I had no idea what it meant.
It would be more productive for children to recite the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, etc. These are the foundation of the USA, much more so than some stupid pledge. If people knew the DoI and what it said about the King of England, they'd take on a whole new understanding of the way the federal government has been progressing over the last few decades.
It's an unproven theory that is taught in our public schools as if it's fact.
I've never been taught science as absolute fact. Newton's laws are merely approximations. The relationships among all the stuff in cells are simply our best understanding at this point in time. Those pie-slice pictures of the earth's core are our geologist's best guesses. I have early science books that say Jupitor has only 16 known moons.
It is our responsibility to teach our children the latest scientific understanding we have always providing the disclaimer that this is simply our understanding at the moment. This is the responsible approach to science, and I remember most of my science teachers were forward about disclaiming things as absolute or infallible.
If a child is allowed to be forced to learn evolutionary biology, then he should be forced to recite the pledge of allegiance due to it's patriotic nature.
This doesn't follow. The pledge of allegiance is nothing other than a ritual like the boy scout pledge. It is ceremonial in nature and irrelevant to education outside of a civics curriculum.
The fact of the matter is (and I'm being modest) 90% of the world believes in some type of God.
This is irrelevant. The USA is not a democracy, and its founding principles are designed explicitly to disallow a religious majority from dominating any religious minority.
A study conducted in 2001 showed that 71% of the US claimed to be Christian
Again, this is irrelevant.
To say this is "OUR country" and choose to stand up against such a tradition shows me that you really have a beef against popular religion.
Forcing the status quo to defend itself is the duty of every US citizen. It is the only way to ensure the current state of affairs are in the interests of all Americans and to prevent complacency and corruption from running this country into the ground.
For the past couple of centuries God == America.
This has never been the case. Period. America (the USA) == citizens with inalienable freedoms as protected by the US Constitution. Outside of basic things (don't kill eachother, don't steal or damage other people's property or means) US citizens are essentially free to do as they please. This freedom has allowed the USA to have the fastest growing economy in history, and every law impeding our rights has slowed that progress.
the universe turns out to be in the form of a giant Goatse.cx ascii art picture. Astronomers everywhere are thrilled about their discovery but too embarrassed to publish it.
We could put 32 or so of these in a computer and generate the same ammount of heat as, say a Pentium IV but with almost a Terflop of performance? This strikes me as too good to be true...
Some of the special-purpose GPUs can probably make this claim. "We can do 1TFlop...as long as it consists only of function X." Sun's MAJC was advertised as doing 6GFlops for two cores four years ago, so scaling something similar to 1TFlop today doesn't seem to be totally out of reach (40 CPUs would probably do it).
because federal regulations allowed the deduction of local taxes based upon value of the vehicle, but not local taxes based upon weight of the vehicle.
I hear the final movie in the series has Alien and Predator make up and get married. They move out to the suburbs, have two chilren, and own a riding lawn mower. Here's a spoiler: Predator stays home with the kids and handles the finger painting and birthday parties, while Alien dons a suit at an insurance company and drives an Impala.
And you generally don't have to pay for GPL'd software.
The price of the GPL is giving up rights normally reserved for the public domain. So, it isn't money, but it is real. Selecting a license for open source software is very much like picking a price for selling widgets. If the license cost is too high, then people can seek out alternatives (BSD, Apache, commercial licenses, etc.).
while the Open Source "movement" may be informed by an ideology, the integrity of its product is maintained by an adherence to the strictly capitalist, legal definition of intellectual property.
The Open Source ideology really is neither communistic nor capitalistic or anything else. The only thing that matters is that it is a perfect fit in the software free market as it stands in light of companies like Microsoft. When things swing as far as they have with Windows and Office, Linux and OpenOffice.org are merely the only balancing force at a zero-dollar price available to the competition. As Microsoft declines in light of free competition, the health of the software industry will vastly improve as people have overcome the battle of who controls their data and are able to move onto bigger and more interesting things.
But "Every year, 500 children die gun-related deaths." gets legislation passed.
No, the vast ignorance about why the government shouldn't even be passing gun legislation gets such laws passed. It simply isn't their job, but there is no modesty among public officials, any longer. It's sad that the foresight of the Constitution is squashed under the mass supidity of the people who take it for granted every day.
If they figure out how to make it into something like a Wiki with comment histories to allow corroborating information to build, then false information would probably have a way to be corrected in time. This is the beauty of the Internet, for example, where anyone has the opportunity to provide a different viewpoint, and, eventually, the viewpoints average out into something that is fairly accurate. I'd believe information from several disparate news sites spanning several countries before I'd believe CNN, for example.
Slashdot Mirror
as soon as one party has more power than the other you need a law to limit abuses.
I agree that contracts can be a useful tool, but I also agree with your point above.
Actually, I agree with the point that often the power in a contract agreement can be highly imbalanced; I didn't mean to say I agree to create laws to correct abuses. Creating a law for every abuse would create an absurd cobweb of legislation, not unlike the federal income tax code. I wonder if it would have been wise for the founding fathers to put a separation of business and state clause in addition to the separation of church and state clause. It seems that our current government-managed economy is just not healthy (yes, the IRS, the EPA, the FDA, the DEA, etc. are our federal economy management departments just under distracting names).
You can walk in to any Staples or Best Buy and pick up any piece of software or any printer, digital camera, mp3 player etc. bring it home, plug it in, insert the cd-rom and presto! it just works... ... 60% of the time.
DLL Hell and a no-name audio card with a auto-configured IRQ conflict will make bald men even balder, young women turn into Pug-faced hags, and kids turn inside out spilling their Speghetti-o's all over dad's new desk.
Windows actually doens't work very well at all even on OEM computers from Dell, Gateway, etc. The problem is that so many people are in denial about it, which is only encouraged by their OEMs similing and looking happy in spite of the spiked Microshaft mounted squarely in the center of their chair.
The mass denial about Windows, Office, and Internet Explorer is literally an example of cult psychology on a golbal scale.
I'm glad Microsoft will be a niche company in less than ten years. Perhaps five. For people even in denial about this, I have this advice: adapt or fall into the pit with them.
Our politicians don't think any farther ahead than the next election.
In the interest of keeping the USA a free nation, this is the strongest argument against implementing government-managed social programs, such as social security and nationalized health care. The only way for people really to watch out for themselves and their families is to either do it themselves or hire a private firm they can trust isn't in it for a quick buck. The government is always in it for the quick buck (or vote).
In China, the government can plan for the long term, because the people have no individual liberty to do so for themselves, as well as not having the inaliable liberties described in the US Constitution. Hell, even Hillary Clinton's book was censored by the Chinese government without her permission (a good recent example). The Chinese government savors keeping its people ignorant and submissive, and, as a US citizen, I find that totally unacceptible.
as soon as one party has more power than the other you need a law to limit abuses.
I agree that contracts can be a useful tool, but I also agree with your point above. Given that the USA doesn't even teach its kids to read and write, we have hardly prepared them for contracts and negotiation. A knack for contracts is something I picked up after college on my own time, and I will admit I was probably too naive when I was younger to be a good negotiator.
For anyone who thinks the public schools in this country do a good job teaching the "three Rs", I'll tell you this: many of the people I have worked with were a complete joke, and they were adults subject to the full public school treatment (no ability to compose thoughts into a sentence even if it were to save their lives). My parents, my friends, and myself did more to teach me than any school ever did.
Also, we seem to be getting more naive every day. The success of cash loan stores, extended warranties, pre-approved credit cards, six-year car loans, student loans, etc. reinforces this. It seems people have been fooled into believing in free money. There will be another "great depression" eventually; let's see how suprised everyone is when the shit hits the fan.
(btw, this isn't a call for regulation; people need to learn their lessons about life somehow and they should learn them up front rather than behind some cozy smoke and mirror scheme)
How would a scientist claim that he removed a deity from the control group? How could the scientist prove this?
Other than that, what sort of differences are you expecting?
Subtle ones. Of course, there are no absolute answers, but I can imagine that being fed counter-intuitive imagery at certain ages can alter how a person matures into an adult. It's basic cause and effect psychoanalysis kinds of stuff.
Unbelievable.
Agreed. However there is a historical context for these things. Sex has traditionally been private in the USA, while violence is not only public but a part of family life. My primary example is hunting. Dads would take their teenage sons out to get dinner routinely back in the day. However, we should also compare and contrast this to tribe in other countries where public nudity is perfectly normal and acceptible. Bascially, somewhere along the line, people in the US culturally denounced sex and nudity. Odd, yes, suprising, no.
What if they aren't at home?
Educating children is important, too. Exposure to porn isn't bad, in itself, but the main consideration is its effect on a developing mind. There is a difference between the effect of porn on a 2-year-old vs a 5-year-old vs a 16-year-old. I'm sure a child psychologist could provide some opinions about this.
Still, laws are not the answer.
The whole entire complete US space programme was based on German technology and ideas from WWII taken from Germany and transplanted into the US along with the German rocket team people under Werner von Braun.
AAARRRRGGHHHHH!!!! My eyes! The knowledge of history is burning out my eyes! (just kidding)
German defections were actually a pretty important part of Germany not winning WWII. German engineering in the late 1930's and early 1940's was scary (they almost had nuclear bombs, first, too, IIRC!).
What their real response (measure in actions, not press-relases) remains to be seen, of course.
I predict another race to the moon or to Mars within twenty years.
I would think that there are immediate problems down here on earth that need to be solved and spending lots of money on a really interesting dream may not be the best way to allocate scarce resources...
If people never went out on a limb to test what is and is not possible or practical or worthwhile, then the world would be the most damn boring place imaginable. Humans are animals. Leave them with a big tit to suck off of, and that's all they'll do. Suck off the tit, get fat, and waste away. Just look at the obesity "epidemic" in the USA and other countries. People are getting lazier and lazier because it really doesn't take much work to get by anymore. People with crappy no-brainer jobs today live in apartments and drive reliable cars, watch TV 30 hours a week, and still manage to totally ignore their kids, because it is work.
we never heard a lot about them because of the total control of the press over there.
Exactly. There was a show on the History Channel or Discovery Wings (I forget which) entirely about how the USSR's propoganda and military machines kept early disasters from the West. There was one incident, I believe, where an explosian killed dozens of people on the ground, but it was kept very very quiet. There was another incident where a failed reentry parachute made short work of a cosmonaut when the capsule hit the ground. They also had a cabin fire exactly like Apollo 1, but didn't tell anyone about it leaving the USA wide open to make the exact same mistake. Censorship does kill people.
HE has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of
Officers to harrass our People, and eat out their Substance.
HE has kept among us, in Times of Peace Standing Armies, without the
consent of our Legislatures.
HE has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to
the Civil Power.
I hope history isn't repeating itself.
I could grace you with a well written essay on the true causes of the Revolutionary War, but I'm not going to...
I can't take credit for this...I stole it from some government website somewhere (note "Nature's God" not "God"; these people weren't stupid zealots by any measure):
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
Action of Second Continental Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America
WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one
People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with
another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and
equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle
them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they
should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.
WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of
Happiness--That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among
Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that
whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is
the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new
Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its
Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their
Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments
long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes;
and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed
to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by
abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train
of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces
a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it
is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards
for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these
Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter
their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of
Great-Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all
having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over
these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.
HE has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for
the public Good. HE has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of
immediate and pressing Importance, unless suspended in their Operation
till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has
utterly neglected to attend to them.
HE has refused to passother Laws for the Accommodation of large
Districts of People, unless those People would relinquish the Right of
Representation in the Legislature, a Right inestimable to them, and
formidable to Tyrants only.
HE has called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusual,
uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their public Records,
for the sole Purpose of fatiguing them into Compliance with his
Measures.
HE has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with
manly Firmness his Invasions on the Rights of the People.
HE has refused for a long Time, after such Dissolutions, to cause
others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of
Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise;
the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the Dangers of
Invasion from without, and Convulsions within.
HE has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for
that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners;
refusing to pas
When I was a kid, I recited the pledge just like everyone else in my school every morning. I memorized it. I had no idea what it meant.
It would be more productive for children to recite the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, etc. These are the foundation of the USA, much more so than some stupid pledge. If people knew the DoI and what it said about the King of England, they'd take on a whole new understanding of the way the federal government has been progressing over the last few decades.
The Pledge was most likely in the public domain by the 1950s. It certainly is today.
It's an unproven theory that is taught in our public schools as if it's fact.
I've never been taught science as absolute fact. Newton's laws are merely approximations. The relationships among all the stuff in cells are simply our best understanding at this point in time. Those pie-slice pictures of the earth's core are our geologist's best guesses. I have early science books that say Jupitor has only 16 known moons.
It is our responsibility to teach our children the latest scientific understanding we have always providing the disclaimer that this is simply our understanding at the moment. This is the responsible approach to science, and I remember most of my science teachers were forward about disclaiming things as absolute or infallible.
If a child is allowed to be forced to learn evolutionary biology, then he should be forced to recite the pledge of allegiance due to it's patriotic nature.
This doesn't follow. The pledge of allegiance is nothing other than a ritual like the boy scout pledge. It is ceremonial in nature and irrelevant to education outside of a civics curriculum.
The fact of the matter is (and I'm being modest) 90% of the world believes in some type of God.
This is irrelevant. The USA is not a democracy, and its founding principles are designed explicitly to disallow a religious majority from dominating any religious minority.
A study conducted in 2001 showed that 71% of the US claimed to be Christian
Again, this is irrelevant.
To say this is "OUR country" and choose to stand up against such a tradition shows me that you really have a beef against popular religion.
Forcing the status quo to defend itself is the duty of every US citizen. It is the only way to ensure the current state of affairs are in the interests of all Americans and to prevent complacency and corruption from running this country into the ground.
For the past couple of centuries God == America.
This has never been the case. Period. America (the USA) == citizens with inalienable freedoms as protected by the US Constitution. Outside of basic things (don't kill eachother, don't steal or damage other people's property or means) US citizens are essentially free to do as they please. This freedom has allowed the USA to have the fastest growing economy in history, and every law impeding our rights has slowed that progress.
the universe turns out to be in the form of a giant Goatse.cx ascii art picture. Astronomers everywhere are thrilled about their discovery but too embarrassed to publish it.
We could put 32 or so of these in a computer and generate the same ammount of heat as, say a Pentium IV but with almost a Terflop of performance? This strikes me as too good to be true...
Some of the special-purpose GPUs can probably make this claim. "We can do 1TFlop...as long as it consists only of function X." Sun's MAJC was advertised as doing 6GFlops for two cores four years ago, so scaling something similar to 1TFlop today doesn't seem to be totally out of reach (40 CPUs would probably do it).
because federal regulations allowed the deduction of local taxes based upon value of the vehicle, but not local taxes based upon weight of the vehicle.
The federal income tax screws up, yet again.
I hear the final movie in the series has Alien and Predator make up and get married. They move out to the suburbs, have two chilren, and own a riding lawn mower. Here's a spoiler: Predator stays home with the kids and handles the finger painting and birthday parties, while Alien dons a suit at an insurance company and drives an Impala.
And you generally don't have to pay for GPL'd software.
The price of the GPL is giving up rights normally reserved for the public domain. So, it isn't money, but it is real. Selecting a license for open source software is very much like picking a price for selling widgets. If the license cost is too high, then people can seek out alternatives (BSD, Apache, commercial licenses, etc.).
while the Open Source "movement" may be informed by an ideology, the integrity of its product is maintained by an adherence to the strictly capitalist, legal definition of intellectual property.
The Open Source ideology really is neither communistic nor capitalistic or anything else. The only thing that matters is that it is a perfect fit in the software free market as it stands in light of companies like Microsoft. When things swing as far as they have with Windows and Office, Linux and OpenOffice.org are merely the only balancing force at a zero-dollar price available to the competition. As Microsoft declines in light of free competition, the health of the software industry will vastly improve as people have overcome the battle of who controls their data and are able to move onto bigger and more interesting things.
But "Every year, 500 children die gun-related deaths." gets legislation passed.
No, the vast ignorance about why the government shouldn't even be passing gun legislation gets such laws passed. It simply isn't their job, but there is no modesty among public officials, any longer. It's sad that the foresight of the Constitution is squashed under the mass supidity of the people who take it for granted every day.
If they figure out how to make it into something like a Wiki with comment histories to allow corroborating information to build, then false information would probably have a way to be corrected in time. This is the beauty of the Internet, for example, where anyone has the opportunity to provide a different viewpoint, and, eventually, the viewpoints average out into something that is fairly accurate. I'd believe information from several disparate news sites spanning several countries before I'd believe CNN, for example.