People simply do not have time to read scientific journals (it's part of my job and I don't have enough time to read all of the ones I should)
Your being generous. People don't have the DESIRE to read them, even if time was abundant. People don't even really have the desire to read pop-science magazines (like Scientific American, and such), even though they are pretty dumbed down (SciAm is increasingly so, sadly). A lot of people either suffer from prideful ignorance, or strange expectations. Many people think that they are too stupid for science, which is sad. Many more people bask in the glow of their ignorance, and have absolutely no desire to delve into the deeper aspects of their world.
These two hurdles are the ones me must cross, and the probable solution has something to do with early education.
What's a "slope"?
I, sadly, encountered this. This exact question made math the last required credits that I got in college. I'm not very good at math (or at least I test as such), so I tested into a lower level college course. It was depressing. Some larger woman in the front of the class got VERY confused by slope and basic Cartesian coordinates, so the whole class became nothing but a course in seventh grade math. I eventually stopped going, so I could focus on my stats, and philosophy of physics classes instead (both of which I aced, showing how strange entrance testing is).
I was left pondering how one could reach college without 7th grade math skills, though. Worse, a lack of basic fundamentals, since "slope" is pretty easily grasped from very easy, earlier, concepts.
Another thing that made the class slow, was in the beginning the same woman, and some others, couldn't understand decimals and fractions. During the first day, the professor wrote a quick problem, with a solution like "2.5", which lead to a huge debate among the... oddly educated... front of the class.
As an aside, why must teachers always teach to the slowest (especially in extreme examples such as this), at the determent of the average or exceptional?
Or move across country with a house full of furniture
Oddly, when we recently moved I discovered MORE obsolete tech. I lost some useful things, but managed to discover even more useless cruft.
Just get married, your wife will make the decision for you.
Not married, but my long term lady-friend/sin-mate is sadly tolerant of my obsolete tech hording, even volunteering more of her own closet space to store mothballed computers. She even thinks its a great idea to make a mosaic on the garage wall out of old mother boards, peripherals and a cache of 5 1/4 floppies that I recently discovered shoved into one of my old tool boxes.
Then again she also let me take up half the bedroom with a retro gaming center, after co-opting my rediscovered C64 for 3 hours to play Qix.
The other option would be to re-use it for people you can help in the low-income bracket.... Still, my experience says that most people -even those in the lower income bracket- don't want the old gear.
How low of an income are we talking? A 802.11g router is pretty much dirt cheap these days. A quick search on Newegg shows that you can even get n and draft-n routers for around $25 (of dubious quality, sure...). You can pretty much equip two computers (including the router) with greater-than-b wifi for around $70, which in the world of computing isn't bad.
If they are poor enough where the cost of a cheap router is beyond their means, a free router won't help much, since half the price of equipping a wireless network is equipping the PCs with wifi cards/dongles.
Also, does a low income family need wifi? Can they afford a laptop? Do they have broadband? Etc... Probably not.
Though, if it is a low income family with children give the hardware to them anyways, let their children rip them apart and have some fun.
... : O.k., we'll be back in a few days. If you are telling the truth, we'll set you free. If you are not, the torture continues.... Repeat until a. V is dead. b. V gives credible information
On problem, torture isn't conducive to rational decision making. You want the torture to stop NOW, and you also probably would find an immediate (if temporary) break to be just as good as a permanent one. Also if the country who has you is of the torturing type, I doubt you trust them to actually set you free, since no country with torture really has much honor.
Think back say 10 years. Do you like the same music? Girlfriend? Tv? Anything? No tastes change. Tattoos are not fun to get removed.
I always feel kind of sad when I see people who have tattoos of obvious ephemera like current bands, TV shows, or internet memes. But this doesn't reflect badly on all tattoos. I have a couple friends who have lived interesting lives (mostly as drifters and musicians), who have tons of tattoos, all of which form a narrative of their life. Because of the nature of their tattoos I doubt they ever will regret them, or at least never regret them more than the circumstance that lead to them.
I currently have two tattoos, with a third in the pipeline (I've been planning it for around 4 years now). The first on is around 10 years old now, and I have no regrets, even if it isn't the best tattoo in the world. It is a sign of that period of my life. My second tattoo was in the works since high school, around 13 years previous of when I finally got it. I don't see myself regretting it (it says "gnothi sauthon", ala Delphi, hardly ephemera).
The three mistakes people commit when getting tattoos is getting something that is current and trendy; getting random tattoos that don't interlink or look good together (the body should be a canvas, and you should use the same rules of composition), and people not meticulously planning their tattoos. Tattoos with typos are especially hilarious and tragic.
No, I didn't I agree that calling people "Hitler" is generally meaningless. But "fascism" has an actually definition, and thus criteria that can be applied to a subject to see if it is, or is not, fascist. If a person has ideology as defined in the definition, than they ARE fascists, or if they consistently act in a way that could be in-line with that definition.
Both Bush and Obama done actions, at some point in their presidency, that could be defined as fascist. If these actions were consistent enough, one could call them "fascists" with a low chance of error. As long as these actions are in line with the actual definition.
I gave a nice list of things that make you "like Hitler", and really that list could be almost infinite. The list of criteria making you "fascist" would be much much shorter, and much more specific.
Basically: is authoritarian, is a nationalist, embraces some flavor of corporatist philosophy. If yes to all three, you are a fascist, congratulations. And if a specific policy meets all three criteria above, it is a fascist policy.
Yes, it often is misused, just like the current slander of "socialism". Often both are used as blanket terms for things that some political ideology find distasteful. This is a misuse, but just because they are misused does not mean that, at times, they are not accurate as well.
Judging from your post, you are probably NOT a civil libertarian.
As a civil libertarian, free speech should be as unencumbered as humanly possible. Yes, where there a possiblilty of actual harm against an individual there should be a bit more vigilance, but for the most part it should completely unfettered. This means accepting people who say nasty and hateful things, which are, and should be, repugnant to the majority of Americans. This includes hate speech.
The only hate speech that we need to be mindful of is the type that is directly inciting violence against individuals or groups. Mind, I said "mindful of", not prohibit. There is a fuzzy line that we should be aware of. This goes with civil libertarian principles: the government exists to keep us from infringing on each others rights and causing harm to one another (i.e. to protect order), when there is no direct harm to another individual the government does NOT have the right to step in.
This is a balancing act. Yes, hate speech is harmful on a very broad level, but stepping on the freedom of speech is much MORE harmful. To reap the benefits of freedom, we often must live with lowest of human nature. Its a trade-off, and a worthy one.
These are not people engaging in legitimate free speech...
What is "legitimate free speech?", is it speech that you agree with? I'm not sure I know the definition of this, and it sure as hell isn't contained in the phrase.
The problem is who defines "legitimate speech"? I don't trust government enough to really be able to say much more than "pretty much everything is covered by free speech". I especially don't trust the government (any government) to be able to dictate speech about the government. Another problem with the idea of "legitimate speech" is that it borders on enforcing thought crime laws. Is it illegal to hate a group of people, even if you never actually act on it (outside of, perhaps, words)?
Also, to stretch this reply a bit overlong, one of the great things about American politics is the spirit raucous debate. You have the right to say outrageous things, and I have the right to mock you. The current nasty trend in politics isn't actually very current, its been with us since the start. It is pretty much an inevitable feature of democracy.
Seriously, if Obama is Hitler and Bush is Hitler, what does that make Hitler?
Wait, calling someone a fascist doesn't equal calling them Hitler. Yes, Hitler WAS a fascist, but he also was human, so does calling someone human equal calling them Hitler?
Both Obama and Bush have/had fascist tendencies, by the actual definition of fascism. Hitler also had fascist tendencies... Obama and Bush are much more innocuous than Hitler, and generally lack most of his other nasty traits, but they still share a differing does of fascism.
If you really want to stretch, every single one of us share some Hitlerian aspects.
You are like Hitler because: you exist; you are human; you are probably male; you string words together to form sentences; you like politics; you probably doodled in your phone book at one point; you might like your country; you have two eyes/legs/hands/etc,,,; you read books; you once saw a bird in your front yard; you like hasty generalizations; you are sure of your opinions; you pay attention to politics; a goat may have eaten one of your testicles; you like beer, and probably met with friends to discuss politics in a bar once; you voice your mind... etc...
Not really. Chrome is pushed down the throats of users at a rate that is only comparable to MS IE. Google has the money to create misleading advertisements, they own the online ad services so can spam all the web pages they want. It is really just a click of an ad link to install Chrome, no more than the average piece of malware.
Awhile back, when Firefox was still sleek and sexy, and the darling of the nerd set, it was about the same. Every nerd who had a site had some "Get Firefox" banner on their site, meaning the internet was full of Firefox banners (more than Chrome, I haven't actually seen a "Get Chrome" banner yet, much less a "Compile Chromium" banner). Your malware comparison would have been pretty accurate with Firefox. Especially since Firefox was actively trying to knock down the big, "trusted" browser of the time. Firefox was a small, scary, upstart.
Chrome is now in roughly the same place, sans the geeky "grassroots" bit*.
I'm not surprised though, since it took some time for everyone to support the scary, new, "malware" that was Firefox. It will take a bit of time to support Chrome. Though it is odd, since they support Safari, and hence Webkit, so the barrier to supporting Chrome is largely artificial (how much of a difference, work-wise, is there in supporting two implementations of the same engine?).
As for Opera, I'm more shocked that they mentioned not supporting it, than I am than they wouldn't. Opera is almost invisible. They should support it, but it doesn't shock me that they don't.
*Though I have been doing to Firefox what I have done to IE a couple years ago, replacing it with Chrome on my parents and friends computers.
I'm not the person you were talking to, I'm just a lone interjector.
As a completely unrelated person, I have no problems with words, words and thoughts are protected, or at least should be, no matter how heinous they are. But this cuts both ways. You can stand on a street corner and yell how much you hate gays/blacks/jews/whathaveyou, but people can also stand on street corners and ridicule you.
To veer dangerously back on topic: I view petitions as an organized way to gauge how many people are standing on street corners and yelling about stuff. Basically, a way of showing a level of support. Thus they should be no more protected than people standing on soapboxes.
Petitions are about support, and thus should be as transparent as funding of issues. IMO. Meaning as transparent as humanly possible.
Out of curosity, lets suppose that SCOTUS ruled the other way, and now mere petitions are anonymous. In this cowardly new world, I go stand with a camera next to a paid petition troll and film every single person who signs the petition, then publish the details. Is this then illegal? What if the local drop out whose getting paid per signature recognizes you, and says your name out loud?
This is a very long way of saying that petitions signed outside, amidst the sunlight and the public. So how can they really be anonymous? Unless we decide that June 3rd is Anonymous Petition Day, and we all go hide in a booth and sign whatever petitions we want to sign, completely in private, then how can you really ever have fully anonymous petitions?
Also petitions are not votes. They are pretty much a formal way of saying "yeah, I'd like that on the ballot", a formal way of showing informal support. Also they work VERY well as they stand, and have worked very well for a long time. I have yet to see any large scale attacks on supporters of x specifically because they signed a petition.
No, though they may well tell me that I'm a despicable person for thinking certain thoughts. That's pretty much the same thing, and is a common response in human societies when dealing with out-group members.
It isn't the thoughts, its the actions. When you attempt to use the government to bar equality to someone else, then yes, they can think you are a despicable person. Actually they can think you're despicable, and you can think likewise about them, to both parties hearts content, and no one cares. Its only when you act on does it really become in issue.
You are wrong also. It is about people fearing attack for their beliefs
Its people fearing attacks for their attacks on the beliefs of others.
To think homosexuality is wrong is not bigoted as much as your would like to tout that.
You have the right to think that anything is wrong. So, no, I don't have a problem with people who think homosexuality is wrong. I do have a problem with people who try to inflict their personal beliefs on others, against their will, though. Most of the anti-gay-marriage/civil union legislation is meant to attack homosexuals, and only homosexuals, and I have a VERY large problem with this. Fine, I get that your religion is against gay people*, I'm fine with that, though I reserve the right to think of your religion as a medieval cult because of this. But all that means is that you should avoid personally catching the gay at all costs, not that you have the right to get the goverment to lash out against them.
That said, I have heard arguments against gay marriage (not gays, just the term "marriage") which I vehemently disagree with, yet respect. Mostly the Libertarian argument that government shouldn't interfere with marriage one bit, either way. They're reasoning is based on more than "gay = teh evil", so its worth listening to, at least.
Personally, anyone who signs a petition limiting rights (for anyone), or trying to enforce arbitrary inequality, should be public, and these people should be publicly ridiculed.
*haven't seen a non-religious reason for this particular bias, so pardon the generalization.
Let me revise my previous post. Dropping apostrophes is not necessarily a sign of stupidity, but completely dropping capital letters most assuredly is.
You seem to take for granted that all language is used formally, and that our usage of it is completely devoid of context. I can think of many situations where "your stupid" is fine in context (albeit not formally correct), and doesn't reflect anything about the user. I'm sure we all have mangled an apostrophe or used a bad homonym at some point in our lives as well.
When I'm at the pub with friends, or throwing off a quick text message, I'm sure an outside observer with a grammar nazi's strict rules would decide I'm a gibbering moron. But when I write a formal paper, or partake in discussions where linguistic unambiguity matter I quickly phase switch and use as proper of grammar and language as I am able. This is normal, pretty much all of humanity does it.
In many cases the use, or lack of use, of proper grammar is a reflection of the relative importance of the discussion. For example, I never use the "preview" function on Slashdot, it isn't worth my time to strive for the extra correctness for a frivolous and amusing waste of time. For things where there are consequences, I obviously use multiple drafts, and spend extra time making sure the paths of communication are very clear.
This doesn't reflect on my intelligence one bit. As a matter of fact "phase switching" could probably be correlated with intelligence, since it shows mental flexibility.
If a person is completely incapable of using proper language when the case requires it, then we might be able to use that to reflect (if only slightly) on their intellect. But using a single case, in a single circumstance, is fallacious.
The whole grammar nazi thing is generally nothing but some silly nerdy version of the internal attribution error.
Senator Lieberman again, find out which lobbyist he is working for now and expose this guy for the corrupt shill he is.
The scary thing about Lieberman is that I don't think he's a shill, or corrupt. He is one of the last True Believers. He's honest and creepy. He combines the "for your own good" thinking of a neo-con, with traditional ol' Republican hawkishness, with a very small smattering of tradition old archaic Democratic philosophy, with a bit of extreme Zionism thrown in for extra flavor. And he holds all of these ideologies simultaneousness, and faithfully. To his credit, he is one of the few honest politicians. Though I think even Dick Cheney is a couple of shades less evil than him.
Amazingly, his ideology comes out to be completely antithetical to both liberals and conservatives, and especially antithetical to the "pure" fringes of both parties (the Libertarians and Socialists/Capital-L-Liberals). He would have done very well for himself 50 years ago.
Bad grammar and English use are pretty low on the stupidity scale. There is a vast number of things stupider than not using proper English. The use of proper grammar is connected more to your social group and educational background than to any internal measure of intelligence.
A case could be made that bad grammar is more linked to laziness than anything else. This might be dubious as well, though.
I really doubt that grammar nazis are the smartest among us. It really isn't a very intellectual simulation pass time, and definitely isn't a very useful one. Actually I would say judging the entire intellect of a person on the basis of a dropped apostrophe is rather stupid in-itself.
But from what I gather from Sunshine, it takes something that wouldn't happen according to physics, which I would be fine with as a story plot, but then it tries to explain the solution to the problem in the form of physics, and then there is a scientific solution. Then every weird thing that happens, has to have some weird scientific explanation behind it.
There is some pretty dumb science in it, I agree. But the big bits (the sun dying, and needing to give it some random stuff) is pretty par for the course in most quasi-scientific fiction. How many science fiction movies and books use pretty much what accounts to magic, but explain it with a bunch of "quantum handwaving". See the particle of the week in every single Star Trek series since the original. See most newer science fiction novels. Etc... Often science fiction amounts to not much more than "futuristic fantasy". The only real science is running with some cutting-edge, and barely understood, theory used to explain something completely outlandish.
If you view it with an emphasis on the "science" in "science fiction" most science fiction boils down to nothing. But if you view it as futuristic fantasy, things hold up pretty well.
I probably could count the number of sci-fi movies I've seen which accurately reflect science on one hand.
That said, there was a few amusing gaffes in Sunshine, like the aforementioned using insulation to stay alive in space for a couple seconds, to keep from freezing. This is a rather common one. And as scientifically inclined layman, I didn't even pick it up the gaffe on the first watching, and when I did it took a couple hours after watching to dawn on me what exactly about that scene bugged me. A pretty small sin. As for the plot premise, I view it the same way I view any Star Wars/Trek movie, as pure magic.
And for the solar zombie guy... I kind of liked it, even if no one else seems to have, but to the film maker's credit, they didn't even try to explain it. I don't question it, or at least I question it as much as I question any supernatural horror movie.
Sorry for the overlong reply. Obviously my opinions on these things are my own, and don't reflect on anyone else. I just always find it amusing that people can't relax enough to enjoy a good yarn. In media, the story is always more important than the real life basis. The science failing is far less important than the story failing.
Maybe. You are half right, for certain versions of IP enforcement.
IP as it stands is corporatism/fascism, since it takes things away from the public and puts them into the hands of a few very rich individuals. IP in the FOSS sense is very socialist since it puts rights into the hands of the community. Enforcing the property rights of the very few against the interests of the masses is not socialism.
IP, as it currently is, does NOT give control over to the collective, unless you mean the collective interests of a handful of giant media conglomerates (which is antithetical to the ideals of socialism).
Or do you mean "socialism" in the meaningless sense the far-right uses it today? As some sort of empty ad-hominem for people who support anything they don't personally like?
I enjoyed the movie. But then again I have the magical ability to understand creative license. Not every movie has to be 100% scientifically accurate. When things get truly glaringly bad, it can hurt the enjoyment, especially if the story is weak (i.e. pretty much every geological disaster movie ever made). But for the most part I can completely ignore it.
Actually a movie with 100% accurate science, that never delves outside of the current body of theory and knowledge, would probably be amazingly boring, and probably wouldn't be science fiction. Even science fiction movies that nerds generally love bend science quite a bit for dramatic effect.
My grandfather loved westerns, but his main pass time was finding zippers and contrails in them. This didn't hurt his enjoyment of a good John Wayne movie one bit, though (ignoring the fact, as well, that the Hollywood "wild west" has as much to do with the actually American west of the period, as Conan has to do with actual Middle Eastern history). An enjoyable movie is an enjoyable movie, even if it isn't 100% accurate.
I'm guessing you enjoy some form of the fantasy genre? Does it's complete lack of historical, and scientific, accuracy keep you from reading/watching/playing it?
what the USSR was, was predominantly extreme socialism with a hint of dictatorship (either an individual or a board of dictators if you will...).
I would say it was an extreme dictatorship, with a hint of socialism. Though the socialism aspect of it pretty much quickly dried up when it realized that the government controlling all the resources was very good for the government and its cronies, where upon it became a kleptocracy.
America has never recovered from Three Mile Island, not because of the physical effects of the disaster, but because of the regulatory effects.
One difference though, most Americans are on a "nukes = evil" kick, and Three Mile Island cemented this and allowed a stronger regulatory atmosphere. This strong regulation was never really questioned since Americans still think that nuclear power is evil. So the regulation regime is in line with public opinion, and is reinforced by public opinion.
Oil, even after Deepwater, doesn't have the public stigma that nuclear power has, thus there is less of a threat for Deepwater being the Three Mile Island of oil. Yes, there are tons of people who think we should ween ourselves off of oil, or think that oil is the least optimal fuel, but these attitudes are very different from the attitudes of the anti-nuclear crowd (oil = dirty, nuclear = instant death for everyone everywhere).
To drag in a bit of realpolitik; oil has another thing going for it, it has much more power than than nuclear (har har) politically. Oil companies own a decent share of our government, and with both parties being largely shills for industry (and both parties being particularly in bed with oil), there is little chance of meaningful regulation, much less heavy handed over-regulation. Unless of course your in the all-regulation-is-evil fringe group, of course.
As things stand right now, with Deepwater, and the moratorium (if it is appealed), drilling will continue almost exactly like it has in the period of a year. Our politicians don't care, and our voters are apathetic rubes that will lead any catchy sound-bite produced by a pundit. All it will take to reverse any regulation is a few choice words by Obama and Limbaugh. Sad but true.
I wouldn't say they are inferior, you just trade different benefits for different costs.
I was in the "dead pulp for life" gang too, awhile ago. But I borrowed my father's Kindle (more like he loaned it to me to figure out how it worked for him) and played with it a bit, and promptly decided to go out and get a Nook. I still love my room of books, and I still love the feeling of getting a new pulp book, and I still go out and buy too many physical books. But, the electronic format thing is also great. I like the ability to get free books (public domain, though piracy is possible for those who do that sort of thing), I like not having to carry bulky books around with me. Right now my Nook has around 70 books on it, I don't think I would be able to carry them around with me if they were physical. Some of them are reference books, which is always nice, and I am generally reading 3-4 books at a time, making lugging them around a bit tough.
I also like the $9 price point, most of the time (it could, and should be lower). Books have gotten ridiculously expensive of late, so every little reduction helps. It saves the crap shoot of trying to find a specific book at the local used book store.
Its a trade off, pure and simple. One is not superior to the other (for reading at least, nothing beats a good bookshelf full of good books).
Also, with the Nook, you lose the proprietary Amazon format, and can loan (some) books, and borrow books from your local library with it.
I've found that I generally demo books on my Nook, and if I like them I pick them up at the used bookstore for permanent storage. So it hasn't really acted as a "book replacement", it just a way to cram more books into a smaller, more convenient area. I don't trust the digital format enough for long term storage, and it lacks the comfort value of being able to admire books that you enjoyed.
That said, the Nook, and ebook readers in general, completely fail at some things. Reading technical books is almost impossible. I read a lot of texts on philosophy, and my Nook is pretty much useless since I can't easily page around, or leave decent marginals on the fly. Its very hard to quickly skip back 200 pages to reference something previously written, which kills it for most academic reading.
Obviously I'm not arguing against your tastes. If you HATE digital books then more power to you, you shouldn't read them. But to claim that they are inferior (objectively) is a bit silly.
I'm as displeased with Obama as the next guy, but how the hell did he shake down BP? They caused on of the largest oil disasters in history, he told them to set aside a small* amount of money to pay for it.
Did the right really decide that holding corporations accountable for their actions are wrong?
Achievement Unlocked: Black President.
You do realize that the second you play the race card, everything single thing you said previous, or in the future is replaced by "" noise. If your stupid enough to actually think that melanin production is linked to anything much other than the absorption of UV radiation, its very hard to think that you could possibly have the mental prowess to link two concepts together into a coherent thought.
Yes, feeding a troll. Can't help it, sometimes it is a fun pass time.
*$2B isn't a huge amount of money for BP, and probably isn't even enough to actually cover the damages from the spill.
Slashdot Mirror
People simply do not have time to read scientific journals (it's part of my job and I don't have enough time to read all of the ones I should)
Your being generous. People don't have the DESIRE to read them, even if time was abundant. People don't even really have the desire to read pop-science magazines (like Scientific American, and such), even though they are pretty dumbed down (SciAm is increasingly so, sadly). A lot of people either suffer from prideful ignorance, or strange expectations. Many people think that they are too stupid for science, which is sad. Many more people bask in the glow of their ignorance, and have absolutely no desire to delve into the deeper aspects of their world.
These two hurdles are the ones me must cross, and the probable solution has something to do with early education.
What's a "slope"?
I, sadly, encountered this. This exact question made math the last required credits that I got in college. I'm not very good at math (or at least I test as such), so I tested into a lower level college course. It was depressing. Some larger woman in the front of the class got VERY confused by slope and basic Cartesian coordinates, so the whole class became nothing but a course in seventh grade math. I eventually stopped going, so I could focus on my stats, and philosophy of physics classes instead (both of which I aced, showing how strange entrance testing is).
I was left pondering how one could reach college without 7th grade math skills, though. Worse, a lack of basic fundamentals, since "slope" is pretty easily grasped from very easy, earlier, concepts.
Another thing that made the class slow, was in the beginning the same woman, and some others, couldn't understand decimals and fractions. During the first day, the professor wrote a quick problem, with a solution like "2.5", which lead to a huge debate among the... oddly educated... front of the class.
As an aside, why must teachers always teach to the slowest (especially in extreme examples such as this), at the determent of the average or exceptional?
Or move across country with a house full of furniture
Oddly, when we recently moved I discovered MORE obsolete tech. I lost some useful things, but managed to discover even more useless cruft.
Just get married, your wife will make the decision for you.
Not married, but my long term lady-friend/sin-mate is sadly tolerant of my obsolete tech hording, even volunteering more of her own closet space to store mothballed computers. She even thinks its a great idea to make a mosaic on the garage wall out of old mother boards, peripherals and a cache of 5 1/4 floppies that I recently discovered shoved into one of my old tool boxes.
Then again she also let me take up half the bedroom with a retro gaming center, after co-opting my rediscovered C64 for 3 hours to play Qix.
Oddly tolerant for a non-geek.
The other option would be to re-use it for people you can help in the low-income bracket.... Still, my experience says that most people -even those in the lower income bracket- don't want the old gear.
How low of an income are we talking? A 802.11g router is pretty much dirt cheap these days. A quick search on Newegg shows that you can even get n and draft-n routers for around $25 (of dubious quality, sure...). You can pretty much equip two computers (including the router) with greater-than-b wifi for around $70, which in the world of computing isn't bad.
If they are poor enough where the cost of a cheap router is beyond their means, a free router won't help much, since half the price of equipping a wireless network is equipping the PCs with wifi cards/dongles.
Also, does a low income family need wifi? Can they afford a laptop? Do they have broadband? Etc... Probably not.
Though, if it is a low income family with children give the hardware to them anyways, let their children rip them apart and have some fun.
... : O.k., we'll be back in a few days. If you are telling the truth, we'll set you free. If you are not, the torture continues. ...
Repeat until
a. V is dead.
b. V gives credible information
On problem, torture isn't conducive to rational decision making. You want the torture to stop NOW, and you also probably would find an immediate (if temporary) break to be just as good as a permanent one. Also if the country who has you is of the torturing type, I doubt you trust them to actually set you free, since no country with torture really has much honor.
Think back say 10 years. Do you like the same music? Girlfriend? Tv? Anything? No tastes change. Tattoos are not fun to get removed.
I always feel kind of sad when I see people who have tattoos of obvious ephemera like current bands, TV shows, or internet memes. But this doesn't reflect badly on all tattoos. I have a couple friends who have lived interesting lives (mostly as drifters and musicians), who have tons of tattoos, all of which form a narrative of their life. Because of the nature of their tattoos I doubt they ever will regret them, or at least never regret them more than the circumstance that lead to them.
I currently have two tattoos, with a third in the pipeline (I've been planning it for around 4 years now). The first on is around 10 years old now, and I have no regrets, even if it isn't the best tattoo in the world. It is a sign of that period of my life. My second tattoo was in the works since high school, around 13 years previous of when I finally got it. I don't see myself regretting it (it says "gnothi sauthon", ala Delphi, hardly ephemera).
The three mistakes people commit when getting tattoos is getting something that is current and trendy; getting random tattoos that don't interlink or look good together (the body should be a canvas, and you should use the same rules of composition), and people not meticulously planning their tattoos. Tattoos with typos are especially hilarious and tragic.
And.... you just illustrated the point I made...
No, I didn't I agree that calling people "Hitler" is generally meaningless. But "fascism" has an actually definition, and thus criteria that can be applied to a subject to see if it is, or is not, fascist. If a person has ideology as defined in the definition, than they ARE fascists, or if they consistently act in a way that could be in-line with that definition.
Both Bush and Obama done actions, at some point in their presidency, that could be defined as fascist. If these actions were consistent enough, one could call them "fascists" with a low chance of error. As long as these actions are in line with the actual definition.
I gave a nice list of things that make you "like Hitler", and really that list could be almost infinite. The list of criteria making you "fascist" would be much much shorter, and much more specific.
Basically: is authoritarian, is a nationalist, embraces some flavor of corporatist philosophy. If yes to all three, you are a fascist, congratulations. And if a specific policy meets all three criteria above, it is a fascist policy.
Yes, it often is misused, just like the current slander of "socialism". Often both are used as blanket terms for things that some political ideology find distasteful. This is a misuse, but just because they are misused does not mean that, at times, they are not accurate as well.
Judging from your post, you are probably NOT a civil libertarian.
As a civil libertarian, free speech should be as unencumbered as humanly possible. Yes, where there a possiblilty of actual harm against an individual there should be a bit more vigilance, but for the most part it should completely unfettered. This means accepting people who say nasty and hateful things, which are, and should be, repugnant to the majority of Americans. This includes hate speech.
The only hate speech that we need to be mindful of is the type that is directly inciting violence against individuals or groups. Mind, I said "mindful of", not prohibit. There is a fuzzy line that we should be aware of. This goes with civil libertarian principles: the government exists to keep us from infringing on each others rights and causing harm to one another (i.e. to protect order), when there is no direct harm to another individual the government does NOT have the right to step in.
This is a balancing act. Yes, hate speech is harmful on a very broad level, but stepping on the freedom of speech is much MORE harmful. To reap the benefits of freedom, we often must live with lowest of human nature. Its a trade-off, and a worthy one.
These are not people engaging in legitimate free speech...
What is "legitimate free speech?", is it speech that you agree with? I'm not sure I know the definition of this, and it sure as hell isn't contained in the phrase.
The problem is who defines "legitimate speech"? I don't trust government enough to really be able to say much more than "pretty much everything is covered by free speech". I especially don't trust the government (any government) to be able to dictate speech about the government. Another problem with the idea of "legitimate speech" is that it borders on enforcing thought crime laws. Is it illegal to hate a group of people, even if you never actually act on it (outside of, perhaps, words)?
Also, to stretch this reply a bit overlong, one of the great things about American politics is the spirit raucous debate. You have the right to say outrageous things, and I have the right to mock you. The current nasty trend in politics isn't actually very current, its been with us since the start. It is pretty much an inevitable feature of democracy.
Seriously, if Obama is Hitler and Bush is Hitler, what does that make Hitler?
Wait, calling someone a fascist doesn't equal calling them Hitler. Yes, Hitler WAS a fascist, but he also was human, so does calling someone human equal calling them Hitler?
Both Obama and Bush have/had fascist tendencies, by the actual definition of fascism. Hitler also had fascist tendencies... Obama and Bush are much more innocuous than Hitler, and generally lack most of his other nasty traits, but they still share a differing does of fascism.
If you really want to stretch, every single one of us share some Hitlerian aspects.
You are like Hitler because: you exist; you are human; you are probably male; you string words together to form sentences; you like politics; you probably doodled in your phone book at one point; you might like your country; you have two eyes/legs/hands/etc,,,; you read books; you once saw a bird in your front yard; you like hasty generalizations; you are sure of your opinions; you pay attention to politics; a goat may have eaten one of your testicles; you like beer, and probably met with friends to discuss politics in a bar once; you voice your mind... etc...
I could draw you a Venn diagram.
Not really. Chrome is pushed down the throats of users at a rate that is only comparable to MS IE. Google has the money to create misleading advertisements, they own the online ad services so can spam all the web pages they want. It is really just a click of an ad link to install Chrome, no more than the average piece of malware.
Awhile back, when Firefox was still sleek and sexy, and the darling of the nerd set, it was about the same. Every nerd who had a site had some "Get Firefox" banner on their site, meaning the internet was full of Firefox banners (more than Chrome, I haven't actually seen a "Get Chrome" banner yet, much less a "Compile Chromium" banner). Your malware comparison would have been pretty accurate with Firefox. Especially since Firefox was actively trying to knock down the big, "trusted" browser of the time. Firefox was a small, scary, upstart.
Chrome is now in roughly the same place, sans the geeky "grassroots" bit*.
I'm not surprised though, since it took some time for everyone to support the scary, new, "malware" that was Firefox. It will take a bit of time to support Chrome. Though it is odd, since they support Safari, and hence Webkit, so the barrier to supporting Chrome is largely artificial (how much of a difference, work-wise, is there in supporting two implementations of the same engine?).
As for Opera, I'm more shocked that they mentioned not supporting it, than I am than they wouldn't. Opera is almost invisible. They should support it, but it doesn't shock me that they don't.
*Though I have been doing to Firefox what I have done to IE a couple years ago, replacing it with Chrome on my parents and friends computers.
Those were hypotheticals, there feasibility is rather tertiary to the issue at hand.
I'm not the person you were talking to, I'm just a lone interjector.
As a completely unrelated person, I have no problems with words, words and thoughts are protected, or at least should be, no matter how heinous they are. But this cuts both ways. You can stand on a street corner and yell how much you hate gays/blacks/jews/whathaveyou, but people can also stand on street corners and ridicule you.
To veer dangerously back on topic: I view petitions as an organized way to gauge how many people are standing on street corners and yelling about stuff. Basically, a way of showing a level of support. Thus they should be no more protected than people standing on soapboxes.
Petitions are about support, and thus should be as transparent as funding of issues. IMO. Meaning as transparent as humanly possible.
Out of curosity, lets suppose that SCOTUS ruled the other way, and now mere petitions are anonymous. In this cowardly new world, I go stand with a camera next to a paid petition troll and film every single person who signs the petition, then publish the details. Is this then illegal? What if the local drop out whose getting paid per signature recognizes you, and says your name out loud?
This is a very long way of saying that petitions signed outside, amidst the sunlight and the public. So how can they really be anonymous? Unless we decide that June 3rd is Anonymous Petition Day, and we all go hide in a booth and sign whatever petitions we want to sign, completely in private, then how can you really ever have fully anonymous petitions?
Also petitions are not votes. They are pretty much a formal way of saying "yeah, I'd like that on the ballot", a formal way of showing informal support. Also they work VERY well as they stand, and have worked very well for a long time. I have yet to see any large scale attacks on supporters of x specifically because they signed a petition.
No, though they may well tell me that I'm a despicable person for thinking certain thoughts. That's pretty much the same thing, and is a common response in human societies when dealing with out-group members.
It isn't the thoughts, its the actions. When you attempt to use the government to bar equality to someone else, then yes, they can think you are a despicable person. Actually they can think you're despicable, and you can think likewise about them, to both parties hearts content, and no one cares. Its only when you act on does it really become in issue.
You are wrong also. It is about people fearing attack for their beliefs
Its people fearing attacks for their attacks on the beliefs of others.
To think homosexuality is wrong is not bigoted as much as your would like to tout that.
You have the right to think that anything is wrong. So, no, I don't have a problem with people who think homosexuality is wrong. I do have a problem with people who try to inflict their personal beliefs on others, against their will, though. Most of the anti-gay-marriage/civil union legislation is meant to attack homosexuals, and only homosexuals, and I have a VERY large problem with this. Fine, I get that your religion is against gay people*, I'm fine with that, though I reserve the right to think of your religion as a medieval cult because of this. But all that means is that you should avoid personally catching the gay at all costs, not that you have the right to get the goverment to lash out against them.
That said, I have heard arguments against gay marriage (not gays, just the term "marriage") which I vehemently disagree with, yet respect. Mostly the Libertarian argument that government shouldn't interfere with marriage one bit, either way. They're reasoning is based on more than "gay = teh evil", so its worth listening to, at least.
Personally, anyone who signs a petition limiting rights (for anyone), or trying to enforce arbitrary inequality, should be public, and these people should be publicly ridiculed.
*haven't seen a non-religious reason for this particular bias, so pardon the generalization.
Let me revise my previous post. Dropping apostrophes is not necessarily a sign of stupidity, but completely dropping capital letters most assuredly is.
You seem to take for granted that all language is used formally, and that our usage of it is completely devoid of context. I can think of many situations where "your stupid" is fine in context (albeit not formally correct), and doesn't reflect anything about the user. I'm sure we all have mangled an apostrophe or used a bad homonym at some point in our lives as well.
When I'm at the pub with friends, or throwing off a quick text message, I'm sure an outside observer with a grammar nazi's strict rules would decide I'm a gibbering moron. But when I write a formal paper, or partake in discussions where linguistic unambiguity matter I quickly phase switch and use as proper of grammar and language as I am able. This is normal, pretty much all of humanity does it.
In many cases the use, or lack of use, of proper grammar is a reflection of the relative importance of the discussion. For example, I never use the "preview" function on Slashdot, it isn't worth my time to strive for the extra correctness for a frivolous and amusing waste of time. For things where there are consequences, I obviously use multiple drafts, and spend extra time making sure the paths of communication are very clear.
This doesn't reflect on my intelligence one bit. As a matter of fact "phase switching" could probably be correlated with intelligence, since it shows mental flexibility.
If a person is completely incapable of using proper language when the case requires it, then we might be able to use that to reflect (if only slightly) on their intellect. But using a single case, in a single circumstance, is fallacious.
The whole grammar nazi thing is generally nothing but some silly nerdy version of the internal attribution error.
Senator Lieberman again, find out which lobbyist he is working for now and expose this guy for the corrupt shill he is.
The scary thing about Lieberman is that I don't think he's a shill, or corrupt. He is one of the last True Believers. He's honest and creepy. He combines the "for your own good" thinking of a neo-con, with traditional ol' Republican hawkishness, with a very small smattering of tradition old archaic Democratic philosophy, with a bit of extreme Zionism thrown in for extra flavor. And he holds all of these ideologies simultaneousness, and faithfully. To his credit, he is one of the few honest politicians. Though I think even Dick Cheney is a couple of shades less evil than him.
Amazingly, his ideology comes out to be completely antithetical to both liberals and conservatives, and especially antithetical to the "pure" fringes of both parties (the Libertarians and Socialists/Capital-L-Liberals). He would have done very well for himself 50 years ago.
Bad grammar and English use are pretty low on the stupidity scale. There is a vast number of things stupider than not using proper English. The use of proper grammar is connected more to your social group and educational background than to any internal measure of intelligence.
A case could be made that bad grammar is more linked to laziness than anything else. This might be dubious as well, though.
I really doubt that grammar nazis are the smartest among us. It really isn't a very intellectual simulation pass time, and definitely isn't a very useful one. Actually I would say judging the entire intellect of a person on the basis of a dropped apostrophe is rather stupid in-itself.
But from what I gather from Sunshine, it takes something that wouldn't happen according to physics, which I would be fine with as a story plot, but then it tries to explain the solution to the problem in the form of physics, and then there is a scientific solution. Then every weird thing that happens, has to have some weird scientific explanation behind it.
There is some pretty dumb science in it, I agree. But the big bits (the sun dying, and needing to give it some random stuff) is pretty par for the course in most quasi-scientific fiction. How many science fiction movies and books use pretty much what accounts to magic, but explain it with a bunch of "quantum handwaving". See the particle of the week in every single Star Trek series since the original. See most newer science fiction novels. Etc... Often science fiction amounts to not much more than "futuristic fantasy". The only real science is running with some cutting-edge, and barely understood, theory used to explain something completely outlandish.
If you view it with an emphasis on the "science" in "science fiction" most science fiction boils down to nothing. But if you view it as futuristic fantasy, things hold up pretty well.
I probably could count the number of sci-fi movies I've seen which accurately reflect science on one hand.
That said, there was a few amusing gaffes in Sunshine, like the aforementioned using insulation to stay alive in space for a couple seconds, to keep from freezing. This is a rather common one. And as scientifically inclined layman, I didn't even pick it up the gaffe on the first watching, and when I did it took a couple hours after watching to dawn on me what exactly about that scene bugged me. A pretty small sin. As for the plot premise, I view it the same way I view any Star Wars/Trek movie, as pure magic.
And for the solar zombie guy... I kind of liked it, even if no one else seems to have, but to the film maker's credit, they didn't even try to explain it. I don't question it, or at least I question it as much as I question any supernatural horror movie.
Sorry for the overlong reply. Obviously my opinions on these things are my own, and don't reflect on anyone else. I just always find it amusing that people can't relax enough to enjoy a good yarn. In media, the story is always more important than the real life basis. The science failing is far less important than the story failing.
Maybe. You are half right, for certain versions of IP enforcement.
IP as it stands is corporatism/fascism, since it takes things away from the public and puts them into the hands of a few very rich individuals. IP in the FOSS sense is very socialist since it puts rights into the hands of the community. Enforcing the property rights of the very few against the interests of the masses is not socialism.
IP, as it currently is, does NOT give control over to the collective, unless you mean the collective interests of a handful of giant media conglomerates (which is antithetical to the ideals of socialism).
Or do you mean "socialism" in the meaningless sense the far-right uses it today? As some sort of empty ad-hominem for people who support anything they don't personally like?
I enjoyed the movie. But then again I have the magical ability to understand creative license. Not every movie has to be 100% scientifically accurate. When things get truly glaringly bad, it can hurt the enjoyment, especially if the story is weak (i.e. pretty much every geological disaster movie ever made). But for the most part I can completely ignore it.
Actually a movie with 100% accurate science, that never delves outside of the current body of theory and knowledge, would probably be amazingly boring, and probably wouldn't be science fiction. Even science fiction movies that nerds generally love bend science quite a bit for dramatic effect.
My grandfather loved westerns, but his main pass time was finding zippers and contrails in them. This didn't hurt his enjoyment of a good John Wayne movie one bit, though (ignoring the fact, as well, that the Hollywood "wild west" has as much to do with the actually American west of the period, as Conan has to do with actual Middle Eastern history). An enjoyable movie is an enjoyable movie, even if it isn't 100% accurate.
I'm guessing you enjoy some form of the fantasy genre? Does it's complete lack of historical, and scientific, accuracy keep you from reading/watching/playing it?
what the USSR was, was predominantly extreme socialism with a hint of dictatorship (either an individual or a board of dictators if you will...).
I would say it was an extreme dictatorship, with a hint of socialism. Though the socialism aspect of it pretty much quickly dried up when it realized that the government controlling all the resources was very good for the government and its cronies, where upon it became a kleptocracy.
Socialism doesn't really define it.
America has never recovered from Three Mile Island, not because of the physical effects of the disaster, but because of the regulatory effects.
One difference though, most Americans are on a "nukes = evil" kick, and Three Mile Island cemented this and allowed a stronger regulatory atmosphere. This strong regulation was never really questioned since Americans still think that nuclear power is evil. So the regulation regime is in line with public opinion, and is reinforced by public opinion.
Oil, even after Deepwater, doesn't have the public stigma that nuclear power has, thus there is less of a threat for Deepwater being the Three Mile Island of oil. Yes, there are tons of people who think we should ween ourselves off of oil, or think that oil is the least optimal fuel, but these attitudes are very different from the attitudes of the anti-nuclear crowd (oil = dirty, nuclear = instant death for everyone everywhere).
To drag in a bit of realpolitik; oil has another thing going for it, it has much more power than than nuclear (har har) politically. Oil companies own a decent share of our government, and with both parties being largely shills for industry (and both parties being particularly in bed with oil), there is little chance of meaningful regulation, much less heavy handed over-regulation. Unless of course your in the all-regulation-is-evil fringe group, of course.
As things stand right now, with Deepwater, and the moratorium (if it is appealed), drilling will continue almost exactly like it has in the period of a year. Our politicians don't care, and our voters are apathetic rubes that will lead any catchy sound-bite produced by a pundit. All it will take to reverse any regulation is a few choice words by Obama and Limbaugh. Sad but true.
Very sad, but probably very true.
I wouldn't say they are inferior, you just trade different benefits for different costs.
I was in the "dead pulp for life" gang too, awhile ago. But I borrowed my father's Kindle (more like he loaned it to me to figure out how it worked for him) and played with it a bit, and promptly decided to go out and get a Nook. I still love my room of books, and I still love the feeling of getting a new pulp book, and I still go out and buy too many physical books. But, the electronic format thing is also great. I like the ability to get free books (public domain, though piracy is possible for those who do that sort of thing), I like not having to carry bulky books around with me. Right now my Nook has around 70 books on it, I don't think I would be able to carry them around with me if they were physical. Some of them are reference books, which is always nice, and I am generally reading 3-4 books at a time, making lugging them around a bit tough.
I also like the $9 price point, most of the time (it could, and should be lower). Books have gotten ridiculously expensive of late, so every little reduction helps. It saves the crap shoot of trying to find a specific book at the local used book store.
Its a trade off, pure and simple. One is not superior to the other (for reading at least, nothing beats a good bookshelf full of good books).
Also, with the Nook, you lose the proprietary Amazon format, and can loan (some) books, and borrow books from your local library with it.
I've found that I generally demo books on my Nook, and if I like them I pick them up at the used bookstore for permanent storage. So it hasn't really acted as a "book replacement", it just a way to cram more books into a smaller, more convenient area. I don't trust the digital format enough for long term storage, and it lacks the comfort value of being able to admire books that you enjoyed.
That said, the Nook, and ebook readers in general, completely fail at some things. Reading technical books is almost impossible. I read a lot of texts on philosophy, and my Nook is pretty much useless since I can't easily page around, or leave decent marginals on the fly. Its very hard to quickly skip back 200 pages to reference something previously written, which kills it for most academic reading.
Obviously I'm not arguing against your tastes. If you HATE digital books then more power to you, you shouldn't read them. But to claim that they are inferior (objectively) is a bit silly.
I'm as displeased with Obama as the next guy, but how the hell did he shake down BP? They caused on of the largest oil disasters in history, he told them to set aside a small* amount of money to pay for it.
Did the right really decide that holding corporations accountable for their actions are wrong?
Achievement Unlocked: Black President.
You do realize that the second you play the race card, everything single thing you said previous, or in the future is replaced by "" noise. If your stupid enough to actually think that melanin production is linked to anything much other than the absorption of UV radiation, its very hard to think that you could possibly have the mental prowess to link two concepts together into a coherent thought.
Yes, feeding a troll. Can't help it, sometimes it is a fun pass time.
*$2B isn't a huge amount of money for BP, and probably isn't even enough to actually cover the damages from the spill.