I have an old model of the Logitech TrackMan Marble. Its buttons were spaced wider than on the new models, so I could comfortably rest one finger on each button and a third finger on the scroll wheel. I like the newer model okay, but I wish they still made them with the widely spaced buttons.
I could be wrong, but I see "no law respecting an establishment of religion" as being synonymous with "no law pertaining to the establishment of religion." You're obviously reading "establishment of religion" to be synonymous with "religious institution." It's a reasonable interpretation and I can understand your point of view.
Furthermore, the Constitution does not specify that the church and the state must be separate. It specifies that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Giving tax breaks to religions that fit the official definition thereof neither establishes nor infringes. Therefore, it is constitutional. You might argue that the government's definition of religion is a de facto form of establishment, but I would disagree. Would you prefer that the Constitution mentioned religion and that the government had no definition thereof?
You're absolutely right that it's hard to find soaps that aren't antibiotic anymore. Just yesterday, I bought my mother some hand soaps from Bath and Body Works. Why? Not because they're antibiotic, but because my mother likes Bath and Body Works soaps! Should our protest of unnecessary antibiotics be raised to the level of boycott? There might be some ordinary soaps left out there, but I would speculate that they're probably cheap and use a lower-quality formula. (Anecdotally, the hand soap in the lavatories at work doesn't lather up even as well as the Target brand hand soap that I use at home. Both are probably antibiotic, though.) This is just a matter where it's hard to vote with one's dollars because the public in general is hardly aware of the problem, let alone motivated to act on it, and there are many other factors that affect soap-buying decisions more than the inclusion of Triclosan.
No, in fact, I've seen outright approval of the PATRIOT Act. Too many people have the attitude "It doesn't hurt me in an obvious and immediate way and it just might help catch a terrorist, so it's a good thing!" A trivial application of critical thinking shows how it hurts EVERYBODY in subtle and long-term ways. It is one of many popular laws that exists because we base our decisions more on worst-case-scenarios than on rational cost-benefit analysis.
You are right, of course, that sports are not a waste of time. The problem that I notice is that capitalistic societies have lost the ability to look at a pursuit and see its intrinsic value. This is my problem with the fetish for being "goal oriented." It is sad that so many people can't see the value of pursuits simply because those pursuits don't promote the achievement of their specific goals. In my opinion, that is narrow-minded and antisocial behaviour. That kind of driven competition for "scarce" resources is no longer necessary. Accumulating an irrational glut of resources that should exist in sufficient abundance for everybody to enjoy them doesn't enrich anybody and impoverishes some.
That is partly a function of the post-college environment too. Trade school certificates and 2-year degrees are not respected in the United States. Many jobs for which they should be sufficient demand a 4-year degree anyway. That forces many people who shouldn't need a 4-year degree to get one. The increased demand for 4-year degrees increases the price significantly.
All of this amounts to a situation where one frequently incurs such a staggering debt to obtain one's education that it would be a very poor choice indeed not to consider how one's education and grades affect one's job prospects. I would have been happier if I could have enjoyed college as an academic pursuit whose value was completely intrinsic. There were economic pressures on both me and the college, however, to turn it into a hellbent marathon.
Maybe this is obvious and you've already tried it, but have you tried working WITH your company to do what you want to do?
If there's a group of you willing to leave and start a new company dedicated to pursuing this idea, you might be able to persuade your company to let you pursue it your way without taking all of the risks you'd be taking. Get your group together and put together a polished proposal - the kind of thing that you would have presented to a VC to get operating capital if you were to go through with your plan of leaving the company. See if you can turn some heads right where you are now.
I've commented on this subject before and it's worth noting again. Laziness is a contributing factor, but there are other causes, some of which fall on the other end of the spectrum. Moreso than Europe, I gather, we are an ambitious and competitive lot. If a coworker and I who live in the same apartment complex leave for work at the same time but he drives and I ride my bicycle, he'll get there 20 minutes earlier than I do every day. Which is going to look better to the boss? Always, the extra time that cycling or walking takes will be in competition with other uses for that time. One could legitimately argue that the exercise is a worthwhile use of time too, which is probably true, but exercise, like everything else, is subject to most people's tight time budgets.
This is one of those things where employers can readily apply pressure based on common practice, too. You try to ask, "Just how early do you want me to show up so that I can be here on time?" and they bluster about how the expectation is for you to be prepared to deal with a customer at 8:00. All of the other employees do it without complaint. They lean heavily on the "this makes you look lazy" button to get you to give in.
I'm a step ahead of you. I emailed their "technology" group this afternoon to see if they could make use of an XO. I'm actually hoping that they tell me that they can't use it. The school district in which I live is pretty well off already. If they can't use it, I'll call one of the less privileged school districts in the area.
You make a good point, though, about finding a way to put more than one laptop in their hands. Even if I can't get enough support together to provide one XO for every classroom, supplying 5-10 would make them good tools for team projects and field trips.
I'm considering using the buy one, get one option and then donating the second laptop to a school in my area. I could donate two to third-world countries, but I believe in the "think globally, act locally" mantra. I want kids in my own neighborhood to have access to fun, interesting, educational technology too.
The sad thing is, this might even be a case of one division of the company not knowing what another division is doing. Lets assume the stupidest possible case. Toyota marketing possibly HAS uploaded to that site and now Toyota legal is harassing them for copyright infringement.
Not all behaviours that result in monetary loss to a property owner are "theft." The difference between theft and copyright infringement has to do with the natural scarcity of goods versus the artificial scarcity of media. Intellectual property is a legal fiction -- one that I think is important, mind you, albeit one whose definition has grown outdated. That argument, however, is pedantic.
My real concern with what you've said is your argument in favour of jail time. I agree that recording a film in the theatre should be a crime. You follow with a series of assumptions that may or may not be true and which violate the principle that the accused is innocent until proven guilty. There is no evidence of uploading or downloading of any sort if the perpetrator was caught in the act of recording the film in the first place. You can throw around potential dollar figures all you like, but the fact of the matter is, because he was caught in the theatre, there were no actual damages at all.
Finally, I think that jail time is already overused as a punishment for nonviolent crime. You suggest that it's the only way to drive home the point. Frankly, I think we'd do a greater service to society if we made bolder attempts to address the causes of crime and to educate and rehabilitate criminals instead of just punishing infractions.
I used to be a huge fan of Total Annihilation and I was really looking forward to Supreme Commander. I was pretty disappointed with it though. Allow me to preface this complaint by admitting outright that I am bad at RTS games. The scope of the missions was, for me, very frustrating. On one mission in particular, I could complete the first theatre pretty easily, the second theatre without too many snags, and then got completely trounced every time I got into the third theatre. Presumably I was doing something incorrectly early on, but I had to play 30-45 minutes of the first two theatres over and over again just to get to the third theatre (always to find that I was still inadequately prepared.) Eventually, I just gave up.
In defense of Half Life, even though you faced hordes of identical enemies, I think that there were numerous situations where the terrain in which you faced them made a big difference. Four HECU soldiers in an open field were easy to manage. Four HECU soldiers in a well-fortified position are a lot harder. And Half Life explored a variety of different fortified positions. (It also gave you an opportunity to fight soldiers with lighter cover so that it was easy to see the difference that the terrain made.)
By contrast, Splicers in BioShock did not seem to make much use of the terrain. As the GP suggested, they frequently just run at you or run away from you.
I happen to enjoy both games, but for different reasons. Half Life was a much better game, but BioShock was a somewhat better experience. I ADORE Black Mesa, but the range of environments that could convincingly be found there was limited.
I posted a brief testimonial and a link to the article. Doctorow's use of CULTURE as the fulcrum of this conflict was new to me, but completely fitting. It spoke to an issue that I find gravely concerning. The United States does not behave like a national community. We behave like a bunch of selfish individuals who just happen to live in proximity to one another. Reading Doctorow's article reminded me that CULTURE is the glue that holds communities together.
The way I read it, they only need one response for every 12 million emails that they send. They send many more than that and they might get more than the one response per 12 million necessary to make a profit. It's more a testimony to the low cost of sending those 12 million emails.
I believe that with regard to prosecution of crimes and civil litigation, the mentality that you describe is probably the result of wanting to give aggrieved parties their day in court. Some cases may appear cut-and-dry, but aren't; looking at events in retrospective makes it easy for us to judge unfairly. If judges agree to hear cases that turn out to be absurd, I suspect it is because they believe, as I do, that it is better to err on the side of making the process of law available than to err on the side of making it immune to mockery.
I understand why and how this idea failed, but I think that it had such a great deal of potential. Not for flashy things like electronics, but for mundane things like office supplies. Rather than digging around Corporate Express's web site or typing in a list of part numbers, how much easier would it be just to use the CueCat on a barcode printed in the catalog? I was kind of disappointed that the worthwhile, vaguely interesting applications for this technology never materialized.
Okay. You got me. I don't really ever take pleasure in thinking about anybody going to federal prison. I just found it more particularly distasteful to see other people celebrating it in this instance.
The brutality of the crime is more likely to sway my admission of the necessity of imprisonment. Most of the time, though, I find prison time to be lamentable. I regret that rehabilitation is often not a feasible option and that we must instead settle for incarceration / punishment.
I can take no pleasure in the thought of an 84-year-old man going to federal prison. Were he a younger man guilty of a more heinous crime, I could see the necessity or prudence of it. As it is, I will do no more than shrug and say "Let justice be served."
In fact, the very first "experiment" recommended by the SimLife manual involved using the "smite" button to promote evolution of a trait that wouldn't normally be selected for. You had two genetically compatible variants of a species. One variant turned relatively frequently and the other often walked in a straight line. You were then encouraged to smite any creature that turned too infrequently for your liking. After several generations, most of the creatures would be be turning frequently enough to avoid smiting. Then you could start smiting creatures that turned too often and watch as "latent" straight-walking genes reasserted themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
Light has zero rest mass, but it has an effective momentum and, therefore, an effective mass but only while it's moving (which is always.)
I have an old model of the Logitech TrackMan Marble. Its buttons were spaced wider than on the new models, so I could comfortably rest one finger on each button and a third finger on the scroll wheel. I like the newer model okay, but I wish they still made them with the widely spaced buttons.
I could be wrong, but I see "no law respecting an establishment of religion" as being synonymous with "no law pertaining to the establishment of religion." You're obviously reading "establishment of religion" to be synonymous with "religious institution." It's a reasonable interpretation and I can understand your point of view.
Furthermore, the Constitution does not specify that the church and the state must be separate. It specifies that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Giving tax breaks to religions that fit the official definition thereof neither establishes nor infringes. Therefore, it is constitutional. You might argue that the government's definition of religion is a de facto form of establishment, but I would disagree. Would you prefer that the Constitution mentioned religion and that the government had no definition thereof?
You're absolutely right that it's hard to find soaps that aren't antibiotic anymore. Just yesterday, I bought my mother some hand soaps from Bath and Body Works. Why? Not because they're antibiotic, but because my mother likes Bath and Body Works soaps! Should our protest of unnecessary antibiotics be raised to the level of boycott? There might be some ordinary soaps left out there, but I would speculate that they're probably cheap and use a lower-quality formula. (Anecdotally, the hand soap in the lavatories at work doesn't lather up even as well as the Target brand hand soap that I use at home. Both are probably antibiotic, though.) This is just a matter where it's hard to vote with one's dollars because the public in general is hardly aware of the problem, let alone motivated to act on it, and there are many other factors that affect soap-buying decisions more than the inclusion of Triclosan.
No, in fact, I've seen outright approval of the PATRIOT Act. Too many people have the attitude "It doesn't hurt me in an obvious and immediate way and it just might help catch a terrorist, so it's a good thing!" A trivial application of critical thinking shows how it hurts EVERYBODY in subtle and long-term ways. It is one of many popular laws that exists because we base our decisions more on worst-case-scenarios than on rational cost-benefit analysis.
Dude! That's 10 more virgins than you can get for blowing up a plane full of infidels. Just for taking a survey? Sweet deal!
You are right, of course, that sports are not a waste of time. The problem that I notice is that capitalistic societies have lost the ability to look at a pursuit and see its intrinsic value. This is my problem with the fetish for being "goal oriented." It is sad that so many people can't see the value of pursuits simply because those pursuits don't promote the achievement of their specific goals. In my opinion, that is narrow-minded and antisocial behaviour. That kind of driven competition for "scarce" resources is no longer necessary. Accumulating an irrational glut of resources that should exist in sufficient abundance for everybody to enjoy them doesn't enrich anybody and impoverishes some.
That is partly a function of the post-college environment too. Trade school certificates and 2-year degrees are not respected in the United States. Many jobs for which they should be sufficient demand a 4-year degree anyway. That forces many people who shouldn't need a 4-year degree to get one. The increased demand for 4-year degrees increases the price significantly.
All of this amounts to a situation where one frequently incurs such a staggering debt to obtain one's education that it would be a very poor choice indeed not to consider how one's education and grades affect one's job prospects. I would have been happier if I could have enjoyed college as an academic pursuit whose value was completely intrinsic. There were economic pressures on both me and the college, however, to turn it into a hellbent marathon.
Maybe this is obvious and you've already tried it, but have you tried working WITH your company to do what you want to do?
If there's a group of you willing to leave and start a new company dedicated to pursuing this idea, you might be able to persuade your company to let you pursue it your way without taking all of the risks you'd be taking. Get your group together and put together a polished proposal - the kind of thing that you would have presented to a VC to get operating capital if you were to go through with your plan of leaving the company. See if you can turn some heads right where you are now.
I've commented on this subject before and it's worth noting again. Laziness is a contributing factor, but there are other causes, some of which fall on the other end of the spectrum. Moreso than Europe, I gather, we are an ambitious and competitive lot. If a coworker and I who live in the same apartment complex leave for work at the same time but he drives and I ride my bicycle, he'll get there 20 minutes earlier than I do every day. Which is going to look better to the boss? Always, the extra time that cycling or walking takes will be in competition with other uses for that time. One could legitimately argue that the exercise is a worthwhile use of time too, which is probably true, but exercise, like everything else, is subject to most people's tight time budgets.
This is one of those things where employers can readily apply pressure based on common practice, too. You try to ask, "Just how early do you want me to show up so that I can be here on time?" and they bluster about how the expectation is for you to be prepared to deal with a customer at 8:00. All of the other employees do it without complaint. They lean heavily on the "this makes you look lazy" button to get you to give in.
I'm a step ahead of you. I emailed their "technology" group this afternoon to see if they could make use of an XO. I'm actually hoping that they tell me that they can't use it. The school district in which I live is pretty well off already. If they can't use it, I'll call one of the less privileged school districts in the area.
You make a good point, though, about finding a way to put more than one laptop in their hands. Even if I can't get enough support together to provide one XO for every classroom, supplying 5-10 would make them good tools for team projects and field trips.
I'm considering using the buy one, get one option and then donating the second laptop to a school in my area. I could donate two to third-world countries, but I believe in the "think globally, act locally" mantra. I want kids in my own neighborhood to have access to fun, interesting, educational technology too.
The sad thing is, this might even be a case of one division of the company not knowing what another division is doing. Lets assume the stupidest possible case. Toyota marketing possibly HAS uploaded to that site and now Toyota legal is harassing them for copyright infringement.
Not all behaviours that result in monetary loss to a property owner are "theft." The difference between theft and copyright infringement has to do with the natural scarcity of goods versus the artificial scarcity of media. Intellectual property is a legal fiction -- one that I think is important, mind you, albeit one whose definition has grown outdated. That argument, however, is pedantic.
My real concern with what you've said is your argument in favour of jail time. I agree that recording a film in the theatre should be a crime. You follow with a series of assumptions that may or may not be true and which violate the principle that the accused is innocent until proven guilty. There is no evidence of uploading or downloading of any sort if the perpetrator was caught in the act of recording the film in the first place. You can throw around potential dollar figures all you like, but the fact of the matter is, because he was caught in the theatre, there were no actual damages at all.
Finally, I think that jail time is already overused as a punishment for nonviolent crime. You suggest that it's the only way to drive home the point. Frankly, I think we'd do a greater service to society if we made bolder attempts to address the causes of crime and to educate and rehabilitate criminals instead of just punishing infractions.
I used to be a huge fan of Total Annihilation and I was really looking forward to Supreme Commander. I was pretty disappointed with it though. Allow me to preface this complaint by admitting outright that I am bad at RTS games. The scope of the missions was, for me, very frustrating. On one mission in particular, I could complete the first theatre pretty easily, the second theatre without too many snags, and then got completely trounced every time I got into the third theatre. Presumably I was doing something incorrectly early on, but I had to play 30-45 minutes of the first two theatres over and over again just to get to the third theatre (always to find that I was still inadequately prepared.) Eventually, I just gave up.
In defense of Half Life, even though you faced hordes of identical enemies, I think that there were numerous situations where the terrain in which you faced them made a big difference. Four HECU soldiers in an open field were easy to manage. Four HECU soldiers in a well-fortified position are a lot harder. And Half Life explored a variety of different fortified positions. (It also gave you an opportunity to fight soldiers with lighter cover so that it was easy to see the difference that the terrain made.)
By contrast, Splicers in BioShock did not seem to make much use of the terrain. As the GP suggested, they frequently just run at you or run away from you.
I happen to enjoy both games, but for different reasons. Half Life was a much better game, but BioShock was a somewhat better experience. I ADORE Black Mesa, but the range of environments that could convincingly be found there was limited.
I posted a brief testimonial and a link to the article. Doctorow's use of CULTURE as the fulcrum of this conflict was new to me, but completely fitting. It spoke to an issue that I find gravely concerning. The United States does not behave like a national community. We behave like a bunch of selfish individuals who just happen to live in proximity to one another. Reading Doctorow's article reminded me that CULTURE is the glue that holds communities together.
The way I read it, they only need one response for every 12 million emails that they send. They send many more than that and they might get more than the one response per 12 million necessary to make a profit. It's more a testimony to the low cost of sending those 12 million emails.
I believe that with regard to prosecution of crimes and civil litigation, the mentality that you describe is probably the result of wanting to give aggrieved parties their day in court. Some cases may appear cut-and-dry, but aren't; looking at events in retrospective makes it easy for us to judge unfairly. If judges agree to hear cases that turn out to be absurd, I suspect it is because they believe, as I do, that it is better to err on the side of making the process of law available than to err on the side of making it immune to mockery.
I understand why and how this idea failed, but I think that it had such a great deal of potential. Not for flashy things like electronics, but for mundane things like office supplies. Rather than digging around Corporate Express's web site or typing in a list of part numbers, how much easier would it be just to use the CueCat on a barcode printed in the catalog? I was kind of disappointed that the worthwhile, vaguely interesting applications for this technology never materialized.
Okay. You got me. I don't really ever take pleasure in thinking about anybody going to federal prison. I just found it more particularly distasteful to see other people celebrating it in this instance.
The brutality of the crime is more likely to sway my admission of the necessity of imprisonment. Most of the time, though, I find prison time to be lamentable. I regret that rehabilitation is often not a feasible option and that we must instead settle for incarceration / punishment.
I can take no pleasure in the thought of an 84-year-old man going to federal prison. Were he a younger man guilty of a more heinous crime, I could see the necessity or prudence of it. As it is, I will do no more than shrug and say "Let justice be served."
In fact, the very first "experiment" recommended by the SimLife manual involved using the "smite" button to promote evolution of a trait that wouldn't normally be selected for. You had two genetically compatible variants of a species. One variant turned relatively frequently and the other often walked in a straight line. You were then encouraged to smite any creature that turned too infrequently for your liking. After several generations, most of the creatures would be be turning frequently enough to avoid smiting. Then you could start smiting creatures that turned too often and watch as "latent" straight-walking genes reasserted themselves.