The 'working class' whines about paying for school for the young and healthcare for the old, while blithely ignoring that they were once part of the former and in all likelihood will be part of the latter. I suppose that means they're just as short-sighted as everyone else.
A REAL totalitarian government, not the mostly-democratic but just-corrupt-enough-to-upset-the-idealists government the US has.
You need to re-read history, friend. While military expansion helped fuel the empire for a long time, two things of interest happened near it's collapse.
First, corporations (moneyed merchants, guilds, etc. in those days) started buying protectionist laws to protect their industry. This reduced competition, hurt the economy, and had a negative impact on the vast majority of people.
Second, tax collection started being auctioned off, with tax rates set by the bidders, and profits being made by taking more off the top.
These two burdens pushed things over the edge. People were no longer able to live reasonably profitable lives, which leads to poverty, disregard for law, and general dissatisfaction with the government. At some point, the tipping point is reached and the whole thing collapses.
The states seem to no longer be passing laws that benefit the citizen, but benefit the corporation, the elite. that burden will be carried by all the citizens.
It seems unlikely that the states will follow the Roman model and contract out tax collection entirely, but economic collapse is one of the big things that kills empires. The states won't be the first, I doubt they'll be the last.
And speaking of work, more work is done by the hornets in the middle of the day, indicating that their energy production model is different from other hornets. This makes their conclusion that the electricity is used for energy somehow not much of a stretch.
Keep in mind, chlorophyll's primary purpose in plants is to free electrons, which allows plants to make sugar. I'd be unsurprised to find that the electrons freed by the hornet don't have a similar purpose.
It's really bothering me, that in all these things people keep bringing up "the risk of a terrorist attack being so low" as an argument against security measures.
Being against them because of privacy concerns or basic rights, that makes a ton of sense and is a great argument. But to me it's absurd to claim that we should drop security measures that may be preventing terrorist attacks because of the rate of said attacks being so low. As in, we have no idea how likley they are wihtout these measures.
This is basic cost-benefit analysis, which all businesses do. The cost is reduced liberties, personal debasement, longer lines, increased risk of cancer, etc. The benefit is an infinitesimal reduction of risk from a terrorist attack (which, if it is caught in the current security model probably wouldn't have succeeded anyway). Based on the huge costs and minute gains, it raises the question of whether our security dollars could be spent more effectively.
Similarily we all know you could probably slip something past security as it is today. But there's a chance to cannot as well because of all these measures, and why would someone attack if there was a decent chance they'd never get a chance to actually do anything?
The problem is, the experts have already stated that these are pretty ineffective in deterring plane attacks, and they also present a new target, in the form of a crowd of people waiting to go through the security checkpoint. Which is another threat that just isn't getting hit very much.
Security measures have gone to far, no question. So lets make sound arguments for rolling them back to things that make the most sense. But don't pretend you know exactly what risks will be like after you change the whole system. There's no need.
And the first argument is we can do something that's actually effective with our security dollars, something with a better cost benefit ratio. Hell, it might even be possible to do something that is more effective, reducing the risk to effectively zero (if it isn't already), and still cost less money. But there are no redeeming qualities to the current scanning practices.
If all we are is data and processing, this is like saying that I really can steal digital music, because when I copy it from you, you don't have it anymore.
Again, if it really is like data and processing, you go in, get your brain copied, and now there are two of you - the organic you and the electronic you. The organic one remembers going for the procedure, perhaps a gap due to sedation or whatever, and talking to the electronic one when the procedure is finished. The electronic one remembers going for the procedure, perhaps a gap between when the recording started and ended, and talking to the organic one when the procedure is finished.
Unless the procedure actually results in the organic you dying, why would you assume that you are some unique snowflake, and that only one of you can exist at the same time, especially if you've already discounted the idea of a soul?
The problem with this is the first statement is usually what you really meant to say. You shoot it out in the heat of the moment when all your mental filters are distracted.
If we only ever judge people by their initial reactions, then all people aren't much different. It's taking that moment to think before we act that causes little things like not killing the messenger, or not behaving like a toddler who doesn't get his way.
That said, it was still an asshole thing of Flanagan to say, and it probably accurately reflects his gut response to the whole situation. He could also do to learn to keep his mouth shut til those filters kick in.
I suspect that we may regret introducing this, once it's copied and sold cheap by certain other nations which will go unnamed... Maybe it'll give us the advantage in a burned-out dust bowl like Afghanistan, but it would hurt us somewhere like Iraq.
There's a few simple rules about combat that you need to keep in mind.
If you don't have a weapon, it doesn't mean the enemy won't have that weapon.
If you thought of a weapon, it's only a matter of time before someone else thinks of that weapon.
It's always better to have a new weapon before your enemies (especially if you deploy it for the right applications).
Different situations need different weapons, so having the appropriate weapons to cover all likely situations is crucial.
We now have a small-shell grenade launcher with a practical range of 800 m. I can see a number of uses for this, besides the 'hiding behind a wall' one. And yes, in time other people will have it. But the Americans have it first.
Too expensive will change when the cheap sources are used up. Which means that we don't have a shortage on the horizon. At worst, we might have a shortage of cheap lithium.
I don't watch DVD's while driving, the mountains, stars, and bad drivers are entertaining enough.
I have nothing but trouble seeing the mountains and stars while I'm driving, but I'm sure trying improves my driving. I suppose that means I'm one of your sources of entertainment!
(Now, cats in America in 2010, that's a different story.)
[sarcasm]Yes, it's a blessing that rodents took the twenty-first century as the one to stop living in cities.[/sarcasm]
We didn't have much of a problem with mice in the city where I live until they passed a law where people could live-trap stray cats. The next year had a huge jump in the mouse population.
That is only useful if not enough data is lost. The kiddie porn conviction was aided due to the criminal using a swirl transform, which is almost lossless.
Of course, if too much data is lost, then users aren't going to be able to identify potential threats, so it's almost certain the transforms can be usefully reversed, where useful means 'shows boobies'.
Just think of it as a Mexican border-jumping into the United States. It could have happened when he was 10, and he's 95 now, but he's still an illegal alien*. Right?
*This may not be the legal case in the U.S.A., and doesn't reflect my opinions on the matter, but it probably reflects the opinion of a significant number of Americans.
Oh, yeah? Then how come I always pass signs on the Autobahn saying, "Auf Wiedersehen in Baden-Wurrtemburg!" and "Willkommen in Hessen!" That's kinda sorta advertising. Granted, it pales in comparison to the US, with their signs: "Stuckey's, 10 Miles!", "Stuckey's 9 1/2" Miles!"... etc.
I hardly think telling you where you are, while driving, counts as a distraction, no matter how nicely it's done. Some people aren't just tooling around the road looking for a nice place to eat.
And yet, my girlfriend talking on the phone while I'm driving barely impairs my driving at all. Also, the person talking on the phone at the street corner when I'm at a stop light doesn't impair my driving, either, yet you propose we inconvenience all those millions of people who walk beside city streets for the sake of thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) who are stupid enough to use their phone while driving.
There are far more risks, and often more serious risks, from the unintended consequences of this idea than it solves. If you don't realize this, you haven't just not thought about it enough, you haven't thought about it at all.
No, this was science not accepting claims without sufficient data. Once the actual research was done to back up the claims, it was accepted. Just the way it's supposed to work.
No one thought ulcers were caused by an infection at all, but no one had bothered to check. When someone did, he was ignored, and probably laughed at, for years before anyone bothered to try to replicate his results.
No, he was ignored because he didn't have the research to back up his claims. Once he did, it was accepted.
Did you not read the part where he did some experiments, yet was ignored? He collected data according to the standards, yet there was no response in the community. Why would that be?
They wouldn't be able to strip you of control over your own property (which it does eventually become.)
Eventually?!
You keep using that word...
My phone was mine the instant I bought it. I did, however, acquire it for a sub-retail price by agreeing to be either a customer of the reseller for 24 successive months or to pay them $375, pro-rated monthly after fulfillment of the first 12 months of the prior option have elapsed.
Yep, and when you have eventually paid for the item in full, or eventually go into the store and buy it outright, it's all yours. Until then, it belongs to someone else - the manufacturer or the phone company.
I like your fairy-tale world where scientists aren't fallible like all the people I know. Just one example, which is more public, but probably happens all the time. Some guy did some experiments and found that a large number of people with ulcers (about 75%) had a certain kind of gut bacteria in their stomach. Moreover, putting them on a course of antibiotics would cure the ulcer. It took the guy 5 years for anyone to take him seriously, and another 5 years or so before it became common practice to check for the bacteria in question, or put the patient on a course of antibiotics first. This was dogma in action. No one thought ulcers were caused by an infection at all, but no one had bothered to check. When someone did, he was ignored, and probably laughed at, for years before anyone bothered to try to replicate his results. Don't get me wrong. I don't think scientists are a bunch of petty, close-minded demagogues who think the only thing worse than being wrong is being proven wrong (by someone they hate!), but they are people, and people tend very much towards the subjective. Even scientists, sometimes.
Yeah, not showing their content at all would be a bad thing, but a 'bad actor' flag would be useful. Use something like the yellow-orange diamond traffic sign, so anyone seeing it would recognize it as a warning, have a link saying why the site got this warning, and how this affects Google users.
When you're one of the biggest advertisers in the world, you can generate a lot of negative press with very little effort.
I can only assume you've not worked in Windows. When anything short of administrator rights is needed for an application to run properly, and not just some little utility app from a near-novice programmer, there is a fundamental problem with the system. One shouldn't need administrator rights for everyday tasks, and it hasn't been that way on other OS's for over 20 years. Adding a couple more layers of 'administrator' is acknowledgment of the problem, without really fixing it. Neither is throwing up a security dialog on every action more significant than accessing a document.
Slashdot Mirror
The 'working class' whines about paying for school for the young and healthcare for the old, while blithely ignoring that they were once part of the former and in all likelihood will be part of the latter. I suppose that means they're just as short-sighted as everyone else.
A REAL totalitarian government, not the mostly-democratic but just-corrupt-enough-to-upset-the-idealists government the US has.
You need to re-read history, friend. While military expansion helped fuel the empire for a long time, two things of interest happened near it's collapse.
First, corporations (moneyed merchants, guilds, etc. in those days) started buying protectionist laws to protect their industry. This reduced competition, hurt the economy, and had a negative impact on the vast majority of people.
Second, tax collection started being auctioned off, with tax rates set by the bidders, and profits being made by taking more off the top.
These two burdens pushed things over the edge. People were no longer able to live reasonably profitable lives, which leads to poverty, disregard for law, and general dissatisfaction with the government. At some point, the tipping point is reached and the whole thing collapses.
The states seem to no longer be passing laws that benefit the citizen, but benefit the corporation, the elite. that burden will be carried by all the citizens.
It seems unlikely that the states will follow the Roman model and contract out tax collection entirely, but economic collapse is one of the big things that kills empires. The states won't be the first, I doubt they'll be the last.
More work clearly remains to be done.
And speaking of work, more work is done by the hornets in the middle of the day, indicating that their energy production model is different from other hornets. This makes their conclusion that the electricity is used for energy somehow not much of a stretch.
Keep in mind, chlorophyll's primary purpose in plants is to free electrons, which allows plants to make sugar. I'd be unsurprised to find that the electrons freed by the hornet don't have a similar purpose.
It's really bothering me, that in all these things people keep bringing up "the risk of a terrorist attack being so low" as an argument against security measures.
Being against them because of privacy concerns or basic rights, that makes a ton of sense and is a great argument. But to me it's absurd to claim that we should drop security measures that may be preventing terrorist attacks because of the rate of said attacks being so low. As in, we have no idea how likley they are wihtout these measures.
This is basic cost-benefit analysis, which all businesses do. The cost is reduced liberties, personal debasement, longer lines, increased risk of cancer, etc. The benefit is an infinitesimal reduction of risk from a terrorist attack (which, if it is caught in the current security model probably wouldn't have succeeded anyway). Based on the huge costs and minute gains, it raises the question of whether our security dollars could be spent more effectively.
Similarily we all know you could probably slip something past security as it is today. But there's a chance to cannot as well because of all these measures, and why would someone attack if there was a decent chance they'd never get a chance to actually do anything?
The problem is, the experts have already stated that these are pretty ineffective in deterring plane attacks, and they also present a new target, in the form of a crowd of people waiting to go through the security checkpoint. Which is another threat that just isn't getting hit very much.
Security measures have gone to far, no question. So lets make sound arguments for rolling them back to things that make the most sense. But don't pretend you know exactly what risks will be like after you change the whole system. There's no need.
And the first argument is we can do something that's actually effective with our security dollars, something with a better cost benefit ratio. Hell, it might even be possible to do something that is more effective, reducing the risk to effectively zero (if it isn't already), and still cost less money. But there are no redeeming qualities to the current scanning practices.
If all we are is data and processing, this is like saying that I really can steal digital music, because when I copy it from you, you don't have it anymore.
Again, if it really is like data and processing, you go in, get your brain copied, and now there are two of you - the organic you and the electronic you. The organic one remembers going for the procedure, perhaps a gap due to sedation or whatever, and talking to the electronic one when the procedure is finished. The electronic one remembers going for the procedure, perhaps a gap between when the recording started and ended, and talking to the organic one when the procedure is finished.
Unless the procedure actually results in the organic you dying, why would you assume that you are some unique snowflake, and that only one of you can exist at the same time, especially if you've already discounted the idea of a soul?
Tubes are the road of the future.
As seen on Futurama!
The problem with this is the first statement is usually what you really meant to say. You shoot it out in the heat of the moment when all your mental filters are distracted.
If we only ever judge people by their initial reactions, then all people aren't much different. It's taking that moment to think before we act that causes little things like not killing the messenger, or not behaving like a toddler who doesn't get his way.
That said, it was still an asshole thing of Flanagan to say, and it probably accurately reflects his gut response to the whole situation. He could also do to learn to keep his mouth shut til those filters kick in.
Reason is of course that she is crazy and has basically no chance.
Hmm, where's the mod point selection for "God, I hope you're right"?
I suspect that we may regret introducing this, once it's copied and sold cheap by certain other nations which will go unnamed... Maybe it'll give us the advantage in a burned-out dust bowl like Afghanistan, but it would hurt us somewhere like Iraq.
There's a few simple rules about combat that you need to keep in mind.
We now have a small-shell grenade launcher with a practical range of 800 m. I can see a number of uses for this, besides the 'hiding behind a wall' one. And yes, in time other people will have it. But the Americans have it first.
(Or does anyone know of any young/female Greens who support nuclear power ?)
That made me smile. I think the general consensus is that no one on this site knows young females.
Too expensive will change when the cheap sources are used up. Which means that we don't have a shortage on the horizon. At worst, we might have a shortage of cheap lithium.
I don't watch DVD's while driving, the mountains, stars, and bad drivers are entertaining enough.
I have nothing but trouble seeing the mountains and stars while I'm driving, but I'm sure trying improves my driving. I suppose that means I'm one of your sources of entertainment!
(Now, cats in America in 2010, that's a different story.)
[sarcasm]Yes, it's a blessing that rodents took the twenty-first century as the one to stop living in cities.[/sarcasm]
We didn't have much of a problem with mice in the city where I live until they passed a law where people could live-trap stray cats. The next year had a huge jump in the mouse population.
That is only useful if not enough data is lost. The kiddie porn conviction was aided due to the criminal using a swirl transform, which is almost lossless.
Of course, if too much data is lost, then users aren't going to be able to identify potential threats, so it's almost certain the transforms can be usefully reversed, where useful means 'shows boobies'.
If you were a true (math) nerd you would know that, statistically, that is quite likely the case.
Just think of it as a Mexican border-jumping into the United States. It could have happened when he was 10, and he's 95 now, but he's still an illegal alien*. Right?
*This may not be the legal case in the U.S.A., and doesn't reflect my opinions on the matter, but it probably reflects the opinion of a significant number of Americans.
because advertising is strictly prohibited.
Oh, yeah? Then how come I always pass signs on the Autobahn saying, "Auf Wiedersehen in Baden-Wurrtemburg!" and "Willkommen in Hessen!" That's kinda sorta advertising. Granted, it pales in comparison to the US, with their signs: "Stuckey's, 10 Miles!", "Stuckey's 9 1/2" Miles!" ... etc.
I hardly think telling you where you are, while driving, counts as a distraction, no matter how nicely it's done. Some people aren't just tooling around the road looking for a nice place to eat.
And yet, my girlfriend talking on the phone while I'm driving barely impairs my driving at all. Also, the person talking on the phone at the street corner when I'm at a stop light doesn't impair my driving, either, yet you propose we inconvenience all those millions of people who walk beside city streets for the sake of thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) who are stupid enough to use their phone while driving. There are far more risks, and often more serious risks, from the unintended consequences of this idea than it solves. If you don't realize this, you haven't just not thought about it enough, you haven't thought about it at all.
I need to fear the slap of a women before I drop the worst pickup lines of the century.
I thought it was the desire to get laid that prevented that.
No, this was science not accepting claims without sufficient data. Once the actual research was done to back up the claims, it was accepted. Just the way it's supposed to work.
No, he was ignored because he didn't have the research to back up his claims. Once he did, it was accepted.
Did you not read the part where he did some experiments, yet was ignored? He collected data according to the standards, yet there was no response in the community. Why would that be?
Huh???? In a half mile area? WTF?
It's over 1/3 the size of Central Park (about 1.3 sq. mi.), minus the footprint of the central tower. Not bad, IMO, especially for such a small town.
They wouldn't be able to strip you of control over your own property (which it does eventually become.)
Eventually?!
You keep using that word...
My phone was mine the instant I bought it. I did, however, acquire it for a sub-retail price by agreeing to be either a customer of the reseller for 24 successive months or to pay them $375, pro-rated monthly after fulfillment of the first 12 months of the prior option have elapsed.
Yep, and when you have eventually paid for the item in full, or eventually go into the store and buy it outright, it's all yours. Until then, it belongs to someone else - the manufacturer or the phone company.
So what's your point again?
I like your fairy-tale world where scientists aren't fallible like all the people I know. Just one example, which is more public, but probably happens all the time.
Some guy did some experiments and found that a large number of people with ulcers (about 75%) had a certain kind of gut bacteria in their stomach. Moreover, putting them on a course of antibiotics would cure the ulcer. It took the guy 5 years for anyone to take him seriously, and another 5 years or so before it became common practice to check for the bacteria in question, or put the patient on a course of antibiotics first.
This was dogma in action. No one thought ulcers were caused by an infection at all, but no one had bothered to check. When someone did, he was ignored, and probably laughed at, for years before anyone bothered to try to replicate his results.
Don't get me wrong. I don't think scientists are a bunch of petty, close-minded demagogues who think the only thing worse than being wrong is being proven wrong (by someone they hate!), but they are people, and people tend very much towards the subjective. Even scientists, sometimes.
Yeah, not showing their content at all would be a bad thing, but a 'bad actor' flag would be useful. Use something like the yellow-orange diamond traffic sign, so anyone seeing it would recognize it as a warning, have a link saying why the site got this warning, and how this affects Google users.
When you're one of the biggest advertisers in the world, you can generate a lot of negative press with very little effort.
I can only assume you've not worked in Windows. When anything short of administrator rights is needed for an application to run properly, and not just some little utility app from a near-novice programmer, there is a fundamental problem with the system. One shouldn't need administrator rights for everyday tasks, and it hasn't been that way on other OS's for over 20 years. Adding a couple more layers of 'administrator' is acknowledgment of the problem, without really fixing it. Neither is throwing up a security dialog on every action more significant than accessing a document.