That's not quite the same sport, let alone in the same ballpark.
You'll probably not be surprised that I disagree.
Group A (racist whites) decides that there is a group B (blacks) whom they would rather not be allowed to participate in the voting process, even though they are citizens and will have to be governed by the winner of the election. Group A creates a litmus (literacy test) to filter group B from the polls.
Group A (elitist ranting Slashdotters) decides that there is a group B (people who they arrogantly assume to be of lower intelligence) whom they would rather not be allowed to participate in the voting process, even though they are citizens and will have to be governed by the winner of the election. Group A creates a litmus (intelligence test) to filter group B from the polls.
What makes you guys think that you're qualified to tell people that they won't be allowed to select their representatives in a democratic government? I can see your intelligence test now:
1) How did Bill Gates acquire DOS? God, you're stupid! Give me that damn registration card!
I would imaging that if Eskimos created an intelligence test that you would fail it quite dramatically. It's not your, nor anyone else's right to be able to tell another citizen of the USA whether they are qualified to vote or not. Do you not realize how that makes you sound like a fascist?
That's why we should amend the Constitution to allow only people of, at least, basic intelligence to vote.
This has already been tried Since you apparently didn't know about this, then, by your own definition, maybe you wouldn't be qualified to cast your vote. Those who do not remember the past shall be condemned to repeat it.
Require that all folks involved in its growth/manufacture/transport/assembly/management meet US requirements for wage, working conditions, etc. Of course, this requirement would violate nearly every World Trade Agreement and is therefore infeasible under current legislation, but interesting nonetheless.
...Which is exactly why these free trade agreements are so desired by the corporations who run the country. These agreements tie the hands of the US citizens and their potential representatives in congress from drafting laws that require such logical conditions for trade.
The caveat is that if the US&Canada and Europe continue to push for higher international standards on wage, workplace conditions, etc, than the minimum international cost of employment will continue to rise, thereby reducing the savings of moving jobs overseas.
...Which is exactly why it won't happen. Corporations will make damn sure it can't and won't happen. They would even drive the US to war before allowing it to happen... Oh, wait...
Nothing near to what the drag from the tides do. The tidal drag will slow Earth's rotation down until it's locked with Luna's orbit. One day, Luna will only be visible from one of Earth's hemispheres -- just as Earth is only visible from one of Luna's hemispheres.
I would suggest incentives to start up companies based here as well.
Incentives from whom? The taxpaying citizens??? That's just blackmail (which we're already doing, anyway.) "Give us your money or we'll create these jobs in India." Too many of my tax dollars are already winding up in the pockets of democracy-distorting CEOs. Incentive are just another word for corporate welfare. I would way rather my tax dollars be spent on poor people or health care than given to people who are already richer than me.
This is part of the global fascism movement that is turning the whole world into a corporate slave state. The liberal/progressive way to approach the problem of world poverty and wealth creation is to lift up weaker states with workers' rights and environmental protections so that we can all grow on an equal playing field.
The fascist approach is to destroy or prevent any kind of human rights or environmental protections from being applied in poverty-stricken areas and then use those areas and their nearly slave labor to force down rights, wages, and protections in the US and other free nations so that we go on a race to the bottom.
Don't believe me? Look at the example we just set in Central America:
Keep fighting for corporate power and watch yourself and fellow citizens become slaves. Your stock market gains won't protect you. Corporate profits are through the roof right now. Is your life any better for it?
Would it be possible to use the sun for a gravitational assist to "slingshot" something at realativistic speeds, and out of the solar system...?
Did you just read Rendezvous with Rama?:) The answer is probably "no" because anything launched from Earth will be in orbit around Sol. If you're in orbit around a body, you're stuck in its gravity well. You'll always need to expend (or capture) some kind of energy to escape that well and that amount of energy is a fixed quantity. For example, the Voyager probes used a combination of rocket fuel and planetary gravity-assists to escape Sol's gravity well. Note that they were never captured in the gravity wells of the planets they received the assists from. Another interesting case is the Galileo probe which, although it was at one time captured in Earth's gravity well, took a couple of loops around Sol and then came back by Earth for a boost (twice, IRRC.) I've always wondered how much energy has been transferred from planetary motion to man-made spacecraft because of gravity-assist maneuvers. How much have their orbits changed? In a hundred thousand years, may Earth be in a position to be struck by an asteroid when it wouldn't have before? Or might it not be in that position when it would have before? Things to ponder when you start tinkering with the heavens.
The fingerprinting on American airports is an overreaction and a sign of paranoia...
By acting as an independent state instead of a US client state, and by electing a president (Lula) who doesn't bow to the wishes of the World Bank and the IMF, Brazil has cued itself up for a "regime change" or a "liberation."
The US usually does this in open countries by funding and instigating unrest and anti-government violence (as they did in Chile and are now doing in Venezuela). The spooks who work these kinds of projects come into the country disguised as businessmen and really don't like to have their fingerprints and photos on file there. When the unrest and violence start in Brazil (and it will), at least your country will be able to look through its records where it may just be able to identify the perpetrators.
as for fuddles, have you knot herd? the daze of phonIE corepirate nazi softwar gangsters is WANing into coolapps/the abyss/fuderoll prisms? probully knot?
Yes, I have heard.
I've heard about you. -Senor Droolcup Twin Peaks
I agree with you that the whole "phonIE ?pr? ?firm? hypenosys stock markup FraUD" (see, I told you I've heard) is "WANing into coolapps." It's just going to take a few more years before the lights come up, I think. It's hard to believe that the "georgewellian fuddites" are losing their grip on things when the "creator's innocents" are being(pdf) harmed all around me.
I'm one of the J.'s who is trying to reach other J.'s I'd like to know more about:
the newclear power/planet/population rescue initiative
the stuff that's unbreakable, & works on several (more than 3) dimensions
errr, so is this a new way of saying that you, for one, will be welcoming our new overlords--SCO????
SCO is just a pair of rubber gloves Bill is wearing to keep from getting his hands dirty. As soon as their stink gets bad enough he'll toss them in the trash.
Companies that have a business that Microsoft approves of will succeed. Companies that have a business that Microsoft disapproves of will fail.
Commodore failed because Microsoft wanted it dead. Dell succeeded (suck-seeded?) because Mikey Dell wore out the knees of his pants for Billy-boy. Monopolies get to pick the winners and losers. That's the way it works in the laissez-faire world.
There are a whole lot of bacteria that wouldn't consider the Martian environment hostile. Engineers expend a lot of effort sterilizing Mars landers so as not to contaminate the Martian environment with terrestrial life forms. It would be a scientific mistake to send a vat of earthly bugs up to Mars when one of the biggest questions to be answered is whether life has evolved there and what form(s) it takes. Even if, in the future, we discover life there, we would still want to avoid contamination for a long time until the environment was thoroughly researched and studied and we understood the effects and Martian viability of terrestrial bacteria. We might even want to select or engineer the bacteria specifically to ensure that it could not survive outside of containment on Mars.
My HP Media Center PC even came with software to convert video files captured by MS'S PVR codec into free-and-clear MPEG's.
But...suppose the EFI ROM code installed option ROMs that locked those MPEG files onto that particular PC by preventing the NIC from transmitting it and the CD/DVD+-RW from burning it -- or perhaps even preventing the video card from displaying it and the sound card from playing the audio. Now do you see the issue? You could wind up with hardware that you are not free to use as you wish.
Then along comes a company that sells a board that's compatible with the newer processors but lacks the DRM and guess what all the computer manufacturers will chose.
Then along comes Microsoft decertifying that hardware for Windows and an army of lobbyists greasing congress to make that hardware illegal and -- guess which company is driven out of business? You greatly underestimate the power of an extremely wealthy monopoly.
I'm all for the tobacco corporations' freedom to sell a product that addicts people and kills 1200 of them each and every day. I'm all against me having to pay for it in the form of medical expenses for cancer patients who have been life-long smokers, even though they KNEW it would cause cancer.
Thanks for demonstrating the cold, hard, calloused heart of the modern laissez-faire capitalist.
It's fine for a corporation to murderously addict an ignorant segment of the population to their product as long as they're making a profit on human suffering. But screw the victim of their criminal behavior who's only transgression against society was ignorance. Nice philosophy you got there.
Human-induced atmospheric change is a scientific topic. People want to keep debating the effects of the changes we're making to the atmosphere. Why are the changes themselves not debated? Wouldn't it be prudent to avoid changing something that our lives depend on -- especially if the effects are uncertain?
Did you ever stop to think that maybe we shouldn't play god everytime. We screwed it up and you think we can fix it just as easily.
So we should just play God when it suits you? When is that? When someone is making a profit? Then it's OK to play God by adding trillions of tons of Carbon Dioxide to the atmosphere? It seems like the logical thing to do would be to stop altering the composition of the atmosphere if we don't know exactly what the effects are.
Maybe a good flood would do everyone a favor.
I think you might be on to something there. We've proven we're not fit to take the next evolutionary step. We've achieved a kind of dominance over the planet and the life and death of every living creature on it. At that point, our evolution needs to take a turn. A turn away from our animal instincts of domination and consumption and toward a new paradigm of self-restraint and caretaking of our own well-being. We're proving that we're not worthy and are incapable of taking that evolutionary step. That means we're consigned to the ash heap of evolution. May our heads remain in the sand while we continue fouling our own nest. Let nature take its course and wipe us from her soiled face.
I'm all for your freedom to smoke whatever you want. I'm all against the tobacco corporations' freedom to sell a product that addicts people and kills 1200 of them each and every day. What kind of civilized society allows corporations to kill 1200 people a day? Even the 9/11 hijackers weren't that bloodthirsty.
Slashdot Mirror
That's not quite the same sport, let alone in the same ballpark.
You'll probably not be surprised that I disagree.
- Group A (racist whites) decides that there is a group B (blacks) whom they would rather not be allowed to participate in the voting process, even though they are citizens and will have to be governed by the winner of the election. Group A creates a litmus (literacy test) to filter group B from the polls.
- Group A (elitist ranting Slashdotters) decides that there is a group B (people who they arrogantly assume to be of lower intelligence) whom they would rather not be allowed to participate in the voting process, even though they are citizens and will have to be governed by the winner of the election. Group A creates a litmus (intelligence test) to filter group B from the polls.
What makes you guys think that you're qualified to tell people that they won't be allowed to select their representatives in a democratic government? I can see your intelligence test now:1) How did Bill Gates acquire DOS?
God, you're stupid! Give me that damn registration card!
I would imaging that if Eskimos created an intelligence test that you would fail it quite dramatically. It's not your, nor anyone else's right to be able to tell another citizen of the USA whether they are qualified to vote or not. Do you not realize how that makes you sound like a fascist?
That's why we should amend the Constitution to allow only people of, at least, basic intelligence to vote.
This has already been tried
Since you apparently didn't know about this, then, by your own definition, maybe you wouldn't be qualified to cast your vote.
Those who do not remember the past shall be condemned to repeat it.
No, I don't know where to look. See me where?
I read at "my nuts won."
Did you see my earlier reply to you?
Require that all folks involved in its growth/manufacture/transport/assembly/management meet US requirements for wage, working conditions, etc. Of course, this requirement would violate nearly every World Trade Agreement and is therefore infeasible under current legislation, but interesting nonetheless.
...Which is exactly why these free trade agreements are so desired by the corporations who run the country. These agreements tie the hands of the US citizens and their potential representatives in congress from drafting laws that require such logical conditions for trade.
The caveat is that if the US&Canada and Europe continue to push for higher international standards on wage, workplace conditions, etc, than the minimum international cost of employment will continue to rise, thereby reducing the savings of moving jobs overseas.
...Which is exactly why it won't happen. Corporations will make damn sure it can't and won't happen. They would even drive the US to war before allowing it to happen
Don't we also affect spin...
Nothing near to what the drag from the tides do. The tidal drag will slow Earth's rotation down until it's locked with Luna's orbit. One day, Luna will only be visible from one of Earth's hemispheres -- just as Earth is only visible from one of Luna's hemispheres.
I would suggest incentives to start up companies based here as well.
Incentives from whom? The taxpaying citizens??? That's just blackmail (which we're already doing, anyway.) "Give us your money or we'll create these jobs in India."
Too many of my tax dollars are already winding up in the pockets of democracy-distorting CEOs. Incentive are just another word for corporate welfare. I would way rather my tax dollars be spent on poor people or health care than given to people who are already richer than me.
This is part of the global fascism movement that is turning the whole world into a corporate slave state. The liberal/progressive way to approach the problem of world poverty and wealth creation is to lift up weaker states with workers' rights and environmental protections so that we can all grow on an equal playing field.
The fascist approach is to destroy or prevent any kind of human rights or environmental protections from being applied in poverty-stricken areas and then use those areas and their nearly slave labor to force down rights, wages, and protections in the US and other free nations so that we go on a race to the bottom.
Don't believe me? Look at the example we just set in Central America:
- Kill a million peasants who try to establish justice
- Sign free trade agreement
- PROFIT! Big time - by sending your jobs south.
Keep fighting for corporate power and watch yourself and fellow citizens become slaves. Your stock market gains won't protect you. Corporate profits are through the roof right now. Is your life any better for it?Better catch this before someone else jumps on it -- IRRC should be IIRC.
I apologize for any computer crashes, wars, or deaths this may have caused.
Would it be possible to use the sun for a gravitational assist to "slingshot" something at realativistic speeds, and out of the solar system...?
Did you just read Rendezvous with Rama?
The answer is probably "no" because anything launched from Earth will be in orbit around Sol. If you're in orbit around a body, you're stuck in its gravity well. You'll always need to expend (or capture) some kind of energy to escape that well and that amount of energy is a fixed quantity. For example, the Voyager probes used a combination of rocket fuel and planetary gravity-assists to escape Sol's gravity well. Note that they were never captured in the gravity wells of the planets they received the assists from. Another interesting case is the Galileo probe which, although it was at one time captured in Earth's gravity well, took a couple of loops around Sol and then came back by Earth for a boost (twice, IRRC.)
I've always wondered how much energy has been transferred from planetary motion to man-made spacecraft because of gravity-assist maneuvers. How much have their orbits changed? In a hundred thousand years, may Earth be in a position to be struck by an asteroid when it wouldn't have before? Or might it not be in that position when it would have before? Things to ponder when you start tinkering with the heavens.
Binary geeks can count to 1,023 on their fingers
Lots of people do this. Just the other day, a guy in traffic showed me the how he could convert the decimal number 4 into binary.
The fingerprinting on American airports is an overreaction and a sign of paranoia...
By acting as an independent state instead of a US client state, and by electing a president (Lula) who doesn't bow to the wishes of the World Bank and the IMF, Brazil has cued itself up for a "regime change" or a "liberation."
The US usually does this in open countries by funding and instigating unrest and anti-government violence (as they did in Chile and are now doing in Venezuela). The spooks who work these kinds of projects come into the country disguised as businessmen and really don't like to have their fingerprints and photos on file there. When the unrest and violence start in Brazil (and it will), at least your country will be able to look through its records where it may just be able to identify the perpetrators.
as for fuddles, have you knot herd? the daze of phonIE corepirate nazi softwar gangsters is WANing into coolapps/the abyss/fuderoll prisms? probully knot?
Yes, I have heard.
I've heard about you.
-Senor Droolcup
Twin Peaks
I agree with you that the whole "phonIE ?pr? ?firm? hypenosys stock markup FraUD" (see, I told you I've heard) is "WANing into coolapps." It's just going to take a few more years before the lights come up, I think. It's hard to believe that the "georgewellian fuddites" are losing their grip on things when the "creator's innocents" are being(pdf) harmed all around me.
I'm one of the J.'s who is trying to reach other J.'s
I'd like to know more about:
- the newclear power/planet/population rescue initiative
- the stuff that's unbreakable, & works on several (more than 3) dimensions
- the pateNTdead eyecon0meter
- the vessel that floats on almost any suBStance
We really need to talk, dude. Seriously.errr, so is this a new way of saying that you, for one, will be welcoming our new overlords--SCO????
SCO is just a pair of rubber gloves Bill is wearing to keep from getting his hands dirty. As soon as their stink gets bad enough he'll toss them in the trash.
Companies that have a business that Microsoft approves of will succeed. Companies that have a business that Microsoft disapproves of will fail.
Commodore failed because Microsoft wanted it dead. Dell succeeded (suck-seeded?) because Mikey Dell wore out the knees of his pants for Billy-boy. Monopolies get to pick the winners and losers. That's the way it works in the laissez-faire world.
There are a whole lot of bacteria that wouldn't consider the Martian environment hostile. Engineers expend a lot of effort sterilizing Mars landers so as not to contaminate the Martian environment with terrestrial life forms. It would be a scientific mistake to send a vat of earthly bugs up to Mars when one of the biggest questions to be answered is whether life has evolved there and what form(s) it takes. Even if, in the future, we discover life there, we would still want to avoid contamination for a long time until the environment was thoroughly researched and studied and we understood the effects and Martian viability of terrestrial bacteria. We might even want to select or engineer the bacteria specifically to ensure that it could not survive outside of containment on Mars.
My HP Media Center PC even came with software to convert video files captured by MS'S PVR codec into free-and-clear MPEG's.
But...suppose the EFI ROM code installed option ROMs that locked those MPEG files onto that particular PC by preventing the NIC from transmitting it and the CD/DVD+-RW from burning it -- or perhaps even preventing the video card from displaying it and the sound card from playing the audio. Now do you see the issue? You could wind up with hardware that you are not free to use as you wish.
Then along comes a company that sells a board that's compatible with the newer processors but lacks the DRM and guess what all the computer manufacturers will chose.
Then along comes Microsoft decertifying that hardware for Windows and an army of lobbyists greasing congress to make that hardware illegal and -- guess which company is driven out of business? You greatly underestimate the power of an extremely wealthy monopoly.
You know, I'd be a lot more bothered by all this information collecting stuff, if I didn't know how screwed up the information industry was.
Obviously, you've never seen the movie Brazil Mr. Buttle...er...Tuttle...whichever, come with us please!
I'm all for the tobacco corporations' freedom to sell a product that addicts people and kills 1200 of them each and every day.
I'm all against me having to pay for it in the form of medical expenses for cancer patients who have been life-long smokers, even though they KNEW it would cause cancer.
Thanks for demonstrating the cold, hard, calloused heart of the modern laissez-faire capitalist.
It's fine for a corporation to murderously addict an ignorant segment of the population to their product as long as they're making a profit on human suffering. But screw the victim of their criminal behavior who's only transgression against society was ignorance. Nice philosophy you got there.
Bupropion. Manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline. Also sold under the name Zyban.
Human-induced atmospheric change is a scientific topic. People want to keep debating the effects of the changes we're making to the atmosphere. Why are the changes themselves not debated? Wouldn't it be prudent to avoid changing something that our lives depend on -- especially if the effects are uncertain?
Did you ever stop to think that maybe we shouldn't play god everytime. We screwed it up and you think we can fix it just as easily.
So we should just play God when it suits you? When is that? When someone is making a profit? Then it's OK to play God by adding trillions of tons of Carbon Dioxide to the atmosphere? It seems like the logical thing to do would be to stop altering the composition of the atmosphere if we don't know exactly what the effects are.
Maybe a good flood would do everyone a favor.
I think you might be on to something there. We've proven we're not fit to take the next evolutionary step. We've achieved a kind of dominance over the planet and the life and death of every living creature on it. At that point, our evolution needs to take a turn. A turn away from our animal instincts of domination and consumption and toward a new paradigm of self-restraint and caretaking of our own well-being. We're proving that we're not worthy and are incapable of taking that evolutionary step. That means we're consigned to the ash heap of evolution. May our heads remain in the sand while we continue fouling our own nest. Let nature take its course and wipe us from her soiled face.
Sure beats playing Chicken Little.
Here's another fellow who refused to be a "Chicken Little." You guys rock!
Whatever happened to freedom?
I'm all for your freedom to smoke whatever you want. I'm all against the tobacco corporations' freedom to sell a product that addicts people and kills 1200 of them each and every day. What kind of civilized society allows corporations to kill 1200 people a day? Even the 9/11 hijackers weren't that bloodthirsty.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
Exactly. Like smoking.