Shouting doesn't make you right. Please use your "inside voice".
The American Hertitage Dictionary beats a Wikipeida article (especially one flagged as not citing references) as a source, and it says: "Having sense perception; conscious...Experiencing sensation or feeling."
To have an experience or perception (as opposed to a mechanical/chemical reflex) requires consciousness. You or I or my dogs can have an experience, our nervous systems can organize sense data into perceptions; a mechnical device (even one with sensors), an bacterium (even with sense organelles), or a plant (even with sense organs) cannot.
Indeed, had you read the entire Wikipedia article you link to, you would see a mention of the sense of "sentient" that's exactly relevant here: "In the philosophy of animal rights, sentience is commonly seen as the ability to experience suffering."
(Oh, and looking at Latin or Greek roots is a lousy way to understand English. "Tragedy", for example, does not mean "goat song".)
"It is the position of The American Dietetic Association (ADA) that appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, are nutritionally adequate, and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases."
...
"Studies indicate that vegetarians often have lower morbidity (1) and mortality (2) rates from several chronic degenerative diseases than do nonvegetarians.
Now, if you're a younger fellow (as the/. readership trends), there is mentioned a possible reason why you may observe some unhealthy vegans: "Vegetarian diets are somewhat more common among adolescents with eating disorders than in the general adolescent population; therefore, dietetics professionals should be aware of young clients who greatly limit food choices and who exhibit symptoms of eating disorders. However, recent data suggest that adopting a vegetarian diet does not lead to eating disorders."
I.e., if due to some mental health issue you don't want to eat, "I can't eat that because I'm vegan" makes a good excuse, at least if the people around you don't understand veganism.
I've been vegan since 1990, and am, at the least, healthier than the average American. Made yondan in a fairly tough karate style just this spring (that's me punching through the stack of boards in that photo); do a 5k run about once a week in addition to my karate training; not at all a champion athlete or anything (though vegetarian champion athletes are numerous) but I'll wager my physical condition to be significantly superior to that of the average/. reader.
Come to that, most of the vegetarians I know always seem to have *something* wrong with them, often to do with allergies.
Unfortunately a lot of non-vegan vegetarians, convinced by the animal products that they need a lot of protein in their diet, go heavily for dairy products - which will worsen mucus problems. (And also are very low in iron.) My own allergies (which I've had all my life, since before I went vegetarian) have definitely improved since I went vegan.
We're omnivores, and we require both plants and animals in our diet for optimum health.
There is no nutritional requirement for flesh food, or indeed for animal foods of any sort, in the human diet, as the the existance of legions of healthy vegetarians and vegans proves. (Which is not to say that there are not healthful diets that contain flesh foods, and unhealthful vegan diets.)
Turning all land to growing grain won't help anyone survive (except the livestock).
Moving towards a plant-centered diet doen't just mean more food, it means less resources are consumed to make food. A meat-heavy diet requires farming practices that increase pollution and emissions of greenhouse gas; and reducing that will indeed help people survive.
And avoiding killing sentient beings for our own pleasure is also a good idea.
Aren't those Nalgene bottles made from polycarbonate?
Yes. They're also made by a company that supplies vivisection equipment, so I never bought one, but Nalgene and many other brands of drinking water bottles are made from polycarbonate. I'd suggest a Sigg instead - aluminum with an enamel lining.
apparently nothing will be done to either Northworst, or the TSA for not doing their job.
But the TSA is doing their job: providing the illusion that the government is Doing Something to Protect Us.
If the goal was actually to protect us, best option I've heard is to equip each seat on an airplane with a miniature baseball bat, released under cockpit control. Let the passengers bonk would-be hijackers on the noggin but good.
But that's beside the point. I really think that our society is taking away the things that make men men
If you think that treating others rudely is what makes a man a man, that's a damn shame.
Some feminists are quick to claim the many of the world's problems are due to men being in charge. Really though, the problem is that there are few actual men, and a hell of a lot of boys in adult bodies, running things.
Common plastics used to package convenience foods have estrogenic side-effects.
Indeed, polycarbonate - which is in pretty much everything - is made from a chemical originally used as a synthetic estrogen, bisphenol A. Bisphenol A will leech from polycarbonate food or drink containers, especially ones cleaned with very hot water, or with bleach.
(Some plastics are safer: #1 PETE, #2 HDPE are fairly safe from leaching and are easy to recycle, #4 LDPE and #5 PP are also said to be safe for food storage.)
Many other chemical pollutants are also xenoestrogens. And there's also the widespread use of hormones in animal farming, as well as medical uses which means excess amounts being urinated out and ending up in the water supply.
And especially about 10 days until the election, and most of them being anti-GOP.
It being close to the elections, there's naturally a flurry of activity as people try to either 1) make themselves look good, or 2) do their dirty deeds before they get booted.
Most of the people who oppose Bush are also the same ones for gun control.
Actually gun control attitudes correspond better to urban/rural than lef/right. There are a significant number of leftists with guns out there, and a lot of conservatives who favor gun control.
Remember, it was conservative icon Ronald Reagan who signed the first modern gun control law, California's 1967 Mulford Act, to disarm the leftist Black Panthers.
Last time I looked it took a majority of both the House and Senate to pass a law.
...both of which bodies are currently under Republican control, and both of which have shown for decades a disappointing tendancy toward supporting an imperial presidency.
If congress passed something before they had read it then shame on them
I take it that the parallel programming class didn't mention that a program with a GUI has multiple threads, simply because the GUI needs one for event dispatching?
Ah, you kids today and your multi-threads GUI programs.
It's entirely possible - indeed, was once common - to use an event loop/callback scheme to run a GUI program in a single thread. Obviously non-blocking calls must be used.
Threading only started to become common with the release of Pthreads, in the mid-1990s. (Of course it existed long before then!) I don't do much GUI programming but I would not be surprised if back in the days of X11R4, the X libraries weren't even thread-safe.
My money is that they decide to no longer allow people to print their own boarding passes.
Put barcode readers at security checkpoints. Verify that the barcoded info (presumably digitally signed) matches the printed text, and that the ID presented matches.
we would have a better record for retaining our liberties. viz. the 19th century, for example.
Ah yes, let us return to those thrilling days of the 1800s, when liberty was safe - provided of course that you were a land-owning male of pure ancestry from the right sort of European stock, not some vagrant or octaroon or woman or Native American/American Indian or immigrant from Ireland or Germany or something. And that you weren't some kind of dirty unionist. And that the vigilantee mobs didn't come after you.
you would perhaps also think it would be contrary to common sense to call for restrictions on who can possess (or publish on the Web directions for building) a nuclear bomb?
My neighbor possesssing a nuclear bomb - or a stockpile of anthrax or TNT - is a direct threat to my safety. It's reasonable to regulate hazardous materials and devices.
My neighbor possessing directions for building a nuclear bomb does not pose a direct threat to my safety.
It's sad that our nuclear proliferation policy for the past few decades has been to pretend that we can efecctively restrict information about how to make nukes. We can see that crumbling almost day-by-day now, betweem Iraq and North Korea.
I think it helps somewhat if you drag [the vibrating handle] across a bit slower, giving the blade a kind of sawing effect.
See, that's what I don't understand. Drawing a blade length-wise along a surface is how it cuts - in fact, the only times I cut myself with a shaving razor (twin-blade style) is if I've slipped and pulled the blade length-wise (i.e., perpendicular to the handle).
So how is it that a "sawing" effect doesn't rip up your face?
So, funding an industry (by buying heroin) which agressively markets brain damaging substances to minors doesn't appear to you to be integral to shooting up your eyeballs? (I freely admit that the tobacco and alcohol industries are also guilty.)
Drug prohibtion makes it pretty difficult to pull out your copy of "Shopping for a Better World" to find a more ethical heroin dealer, those I do know some soft-drug users who try to trace back their sources of cannabis or psilocybin mushrooms back to a bengin source.
At least when I buy a beer, and can (and do) take business practices into consideration. And I know some people who try to purchase their cigarettes from more responsible companies (like Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company ("American Spirit") before their takeover by R.J. Reynolds takeover).
Slashdot Mirror
Shouting doesn't make you right. Please use your "inside voice".
The American Hertitage Dictionary beats a Wikipeida article (especially one flagged as not citing references) as a source, and it says: "Having sense perception; conscious...Experiencing sensation or feeling."
To have an experience or perception (as opposed to a mechanical/chemical reflex) requires consciousness. You or I or my dogs can have an experience, our nervous systems can organize sense data into perceptions; a mechnical device (even one with sensors), an bacterium (even with sense organelles), or a plant (even with sense organs) cannot.
Indeed, had you read the entire Wikipedia article you link to, you would see a mention of the sense of "sentient" that's exactly relevant here: "In the philosophy of animal rights, sentience is commonly seen as the ability to experience suffering."
(Oh, and looking at Latin or Greek roots is a lousy way to understand English. "Tragedy", for example, does not mean "goat song".)
No, it doesn't:
1. having the power of perception by the senses; conscious.
2. characterized by sensation and consciousness.
How about we look at the actual scientific consensus rather than anecdotes?
Now, if you're a younger fellow (as the /. readership trends), there is mentioned a possible reason why you may observe some unhealthy vegans: "Vegetarian diets are somewhat more common among adolescents with eating disorders than in the general adolescent population; therefore, dietetics professionals should be aware of young clients who greatly limit food choices and who exhibit symptoms of eating disorders. However, recent data suggest that adopting a vegetarian diet does not lead to eating disorders."
I.e., if due to some mental health issue you don't want to eat, "I can't eat that because I'm vegan" makes a good excuse, at least if the people around you don't understand veganism.
Hi there! Name's Tom, nice to meet you.
I've been vegan since 1990, and am, at the least, healthier than the average American. Made yondan in a fairly tough karate style just this spring (that's me punching through the stack of boards in that photo); do a 5k run about once a week in addition to my karate training; not at all a champion athlete or anything (though vegetarian champion athletes are numerous) but I'll wager my physical condition to be significantly superior to that of the average /. reader.
Unfortunately a lot of non-vegan vegetarians, convinced by the animal products that they need a lot of protein in their diet, go heavily for dairy products - which will worsen mucus problems. (And also are very low in iron.) My own allergies (which I've had all my life, since before I went vegetarian) have definitely improved since I went vegan.
No, they're not. "Sentient" implies conscious, which implies a complex nervous system or analagous structure.
Are you suggesting that heliostatic photovoltaic panels are sentient?
Wearing such masks while sick is common behavior in Japan, and I think it's a darned good idea.
Compared to carnivorous species, human teeth aren't pointy enough to be worth talking about.
There's also a reason why carnivorous species don't get hyperlipidema, but humans who eat a diet high in animal flesh do.
There is no nutritional requirement for flesh food, or indeed for animal foods of any sort, in the human diet, as the the existance of legions of healthy vegetarians and vegans proves. (Which is not to say that there are not healthful diets that contain flesh foods, and unhealthful vegan diets.)
Moving towards a plant-centered diet doen't just mean more food, it means less resources are consumed to make food. A meat-heavy diet requires farming practices that increase pollution and emissions of greenhouse gas; and reducing that will indeed help people survive.
And avoiding killing sentient beings for our own pleasure is also a good idea.
My ReplayTV 5000 series unit has it. Works better on some shows than others; I usually just skip-skip-skip-replay.
Yes. They're also made by a company that supplies vivisection equipment, so I never bought one, but Nalgene and many other brands of drinking water bottles are made from polycarbonate. I'd suggest a Sigg instead - aluminum with an enamel lining.
But the TSA is doing their job: providing the illusion that the government is Doing Something to Protect Us.
If the goal was actually to protect us, best option I've heard is to equip each seat on an airplane with a miniature baseball bat, released under cockpit control. Let the passengers bonk would-be hijackers on the noggin but good.
If you think that treating others rudely is what makes a man a man, that's a damn shame.
Some feminists are quick to claim the many of the world's problems are due to men being in charge. Really though, the problem is that there are few actual men, and a hell of a lot of boys in adult bodies, running things.
Indeed, polycarbonate - which is in pretty much everything - is made from a chemical originally used as a synthetic estrogen, bisphenol A. Bisphenol A will leech from polycarbonate food or drink containers, especially ones cleaned with very hot water, or with bleach. (Some plastics are safer: #1 PETE, #2 HDPE are fairly safe from leaching and are easy to recycle, #4 LDPE and #5 PP are also said to be safe for food storage.)
Many other chemical pollutants are also xenoestrogens. And there's also the widespread use of hormones in animal farming, as well as medical uses which means excess amounts being urinated out and ending up in the water supply.
It being close to the elections, there's naturally a flurry of activity as people try to either 1) make themselves look good, or 2) do their dirty deeds before they get booted.
Actually gun control attitudes correspond better to urban/rural than lef/right. There are a significant number of leftists with guns out there, and a lot of conservatives who favor gun control.
Remember, it was conservative icon Ronald Reagan who signed the first modern gun control law, California's 1967 Mulford Act, to disarm the leftist Black Panthers.
...both of which bodies are currently under Republican control, and both of which have shown for decades a disappointing tendancy toward supporting an imperial presidency.
We know they did that with the "USA PATRIOT" Act.
Ah, you kids today and your multi-threads GUI programs.
It's entirely possible - indeed, was once common - to use an event loop/callback scheme to run a GUI program in a single thread. Obviously non-blocking calls must be used.
Threading only started to become common with the release of Pthreads, in the mid-1990s. (Of course it existed long before then!) I don't do much GUI programming but I would not be surprised if back in the days of X11R4, the X libraries weren't even thread-safe.
Put barcode readers at security checkpoints. Verify that the barcoded info (presumably digitally signed) matches the printed text, and that the ID presented matches.
Ah yes, let us return to those thrilling days of the 1800s, when liberty was safe - provided of course that you were a land-owning male of pure ancestry from the right sort of European stock, not some vagrant or octaroon or woman or Native American/American Indian or immigrant from Ireland or Germany or something. And that you weren't some kind of dirty unionist. And that the vigilantee mobs didn't come after you.
D'oh! Yes, that should read "Iran and North Korea".
My neighbor possesssing a nuclear bomb - or a stockpile of anthrax or TNT - is a direct threat to my safety. It's reasonable to regulate hazardous materials and devices.
My neighbor possessing directions for building a nuclear bomb does not pose a direct threat to my safety.
It's sad that our nuclear proliferation policy for the past few decades has been to pretend that we can efecctively restrict information about how to make nukes. We can see that crumbling almost day-by-day now, betweem Iraq and North Korea.
Someone upthread pointed out the old Mad Magazine Trac LXXVI razor spoof.
See, that's what I don't understand. Drawing a blade length-wise along a surface is how it cuts - in fact, the only times I cut myself with a shaving razor (twin-blade style) is if I've slipped and pulled the blade length-wise (i.e., perpendicular to the handle).
So how is it that a "sawing" effect doesn't rip up your face?
Drug prohibtion makes it pretty difficult to pull out your copy of "Shopping for a Better World" to find a more ethical heroin dealer, those I do know some soft-drug users who try to trace back their sources of cannabis or psilocybin mushrooms back to a bengin source.
At least when I buy a beer, and can (and do) take business practices into consideration. And I know some people who try to purchase their cigarettes from more responsible companies (like Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company ("American Spirit") before their takeover by R.J. Reynolds takeover).