You may not have noticed, but we've been avoiding natural selection as a culture/species for a VERY long time. We take care of the disabled, the elderly, those who get badly injured, etc., etc. Imagine the loss to our civilization had we left Stephen Hawking to die. And like most people, I imagine you'll change your mind if you find you have a moderately serious congenital defect.
There is a higher incidence of fatal mutation, but over all what I have read is that it hasn't had a huge impact. The three-eyed hawks seem to have no benefit, but the three-eyed mice are doing well. The deer with heads on both ends seem to have trouble deciding where to go, but the three-headed lizards are pretty fierce. One can only imagine the scoffing such stories will bring in a few millenia's time.
I agree. Is IKEA evil if they provide the NSA with desks? No, but they are evil if they provide Microsoft with chairs. Pfft. IKEA doesn't sell consumables.
If you're delivering your bomb in a Ryder truck, this component is unnecessary. Do you have any idea what kind of energy it would take to put a Ryder truck with a nuclear payload on a ballistic trajectory with, say, China?
No, seriously, do you know? I think that would really mess them up. "Um, it's a Ryder truck. I think it's a special delivery..." BOOM!
At the Lutheran church I attended as a child, the well water came up through a sulferous layer of rock. Every time the water ran, the place reeked of rotten eggs. Maybe it wasn't the sermons that put us to sleep all those years... On the bright side, maybe those hours spent there are hours of your life that you got back.
A properly developed voting system is not farfetched, it's the security that's the issue, and the companies currently making voting machines seem to be extremely bad at making verifyiably secure machines. Not just verifiably secure, but verifiably unbiased. This can't be done without inspection of the entire system, which is much simpler for most paper ballot systems.
My personal preference for electronic voting would be a computer that lists the vote options in a clear manner (not always possible with a paper system and some of the votes that happen in the US), tabulates the votes locally, and prints out an election ballot that is both machine and human readable. The person votes, verifies the printout, hands it over to one of the election officials who feeds it into a separate voting apparatus, and stores the paper for future reference. You now have a system that is potentially easy to use, is verifiable by the voter (as much as it is today), is difficult to compromise (2 electronic systems and a paper one), and is reasonably real-time. And if you see a discrepency between the 2 electronic systems, there's probably a problem. If not tampering, then user error or bugs.
Good points. I agree that accidental nudity shouldn't be fined, so long as it's accidental. BTW, I would question why someone was wearing nipple caps if they had no intention of baring their breasts. And yes, I'm aware of those nipple caps whose intention is to give the appearance of perkiness. But be that as it may. As for granularity, I concede your point. Applying the settings for each show would be far more difficult than it would be for the end users. And yes, the filters should be driven towards what it could be argued that children should or shouldn't see, otherwise the options (or even categories) would be endless.
We should not be teaching our children that seeing someone naked is bad. However, if you DO want to tech your children that nudity of any kind is bad, and want to deal with the emotional and relationship issues that will haint them for decades because of it, then I guess you should have that right. There is bad, and there is inappropriate. If one wanted to, one could teach a child that defecation is bad, and I don't doubt it's been done unintentionally in the past. And yet I still don't want to watch people defecating on TV, let alone have my kids see it. Likewise with nudity. I can teach them that it's inappropriate without teaching them it's bad, just like I teach them not to walk into the bathroom when someone else is using it.
...it's easy enough to add a different digital bleep for accidental nudity just as it is for language...this also only needs to apply to live TV, but there's a LOT of live TV, and very little of it (what, once in the last 8 years) has included nudity, but there are frequent verbal slips. Absolutely, true. And the only instance of nudity that was unplanned by the producers wasn't accidental. A simple way to deal with people doing stupid things they should know better than to do is to throw hefty fines at them, which is how this instance was handled. I can live with that, although I'd be pissed off if that happened when my kids were watching. OTOH, I would have changed the channel when the song in question was on since I don't think it's any more appropriate than gratuitous nudity.
As for the rating scales, numbers are easy to understand, and easy to display and understand on TV screen quality and resolution. Oh, come now. A binary system can hold 3 boolean options in the space that would be required for 1 0-7 option, and 8 in the space required to pass one letter digitally. Add in a few more bits/bytes to deal with the rating version, and you're done. I can't see going past 40 or 50 bits either way, whereas yours would probably run between 9 and 15 bits. That's not a huge difference. Also, most TVs have huge lists of options for their own setup, let alone the various video players/recorders. I don't think another few lists are going to freak them out.
Also, except for a few toggles which don't fit into a simple scale (blood on/off), most things are fairly progressive. I don't see to many people approving nude sex scenes, but blocking tounge action in kissing, do you? Same goes for violence. Slapstick comedy violence is not going to get blocked while allowing rape scenes to be shown... You're not taking into consideration different cultural and religious situations. I wouldn't be surprised to find that there are cultures where bare breasts are okay and kissing or petting aren't. Then there are those who are okay with mild profanity (or even strong profanity), but not profanity with religious connotations. In short, there are a lot of people who think differently than the norm in one area or other. Why not accommodate them if it's easy enough?
And that's what I generally do. I've seen some movies that were intended for kids that I thought were unacceptable, so I generally review them before letting the kids watch (or even know I have them). I also appreciate children's series that have consistent standards - it makes my life much easier.
As for the boob slipage... Nudity, accidental or otherwise, in my opinion is completely natural, and should NEVER be censored, only sexual acts should be censored, so accidental nudity on television, in my world, needs no censorship and would not be a concern for a v-chip technology for live TV. While I don't disagree with much of what you said, you lose credibility when you assume that your morality is the right morality. I don't want my kids seeing gratuitous nudity at their current age, and I don't see why you would single that one out. After all, it's no harder to do a video blackout in the system you described than it is to do an audio blackout. Keep in mind, the whole premise of the V-chip 2 you describe would be to let people with different opinions of what's appropriate screen out what they don't approve of.
And before we get on the whole, "it's natural", etc. rants (not just you, but all the other readers, too), let's be honest with ourselves. First, there are a LOT of things that are perfectly natural that I don't want to watch, and nudity is very low on the list. Second, the primary reasons for showing nudity in most western media is for shock or erotic purposes. I'm not interested in exposing my kids to erotic material (they'll find it before I want them to anyway, but not for a while yet), and even by your reasoning of PDA, much of it would be blocked.
I want granular control. A rating of 0-9 for sexual content (kissing on lips=1, tounge=2, heavy petting=3, in bed=4, etc... all the way up to Skin-a-max late night soft core porn...) A rating of 0-9 for violence, one for adult situations, toggles for "show blood" "allow smoking" "profane language" I want granular control, too, but I wouldn't use a numeric rating. I'd go for something like this: kissing on lips (block/unblock), tongue (block/unblock), etc., grouped by the content type (sexual content, language, adult situations, etc.) and an "other" option for each one (for those things that don't fall into the listed categories). Granted, most people would have a pretty sharp line where the block/unblock happens, but so what? Why not add the flexibility.
As a parent, I generally agree with you. The problem I have is being able to tell what's going to be aired in what show. For myself, I don't care about most requirements. Sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll (now replaced with swearing) are no big deal - it's not going to change my behaviour one way or the other. But I have stricter guidelines for my children, and how I want them to develop. If the shows have no rating/warning, or don't follow the rating, I'm either not letting my kids watch, or getting pissed when the rating is ignored.
I suspect that you all-too easily attribute to malice what can be more easily attributed to incompetence, greed, and disparate desires that happen to run in parallel. How is greed not a form of malice. Intentional action to harm others financially for your own financial reward? Sounds malicious to me.
No, this has nothing to do with the rest of your post, or the topic in general, just a challenge to your interpretation of greed.
Which means that the solution, as I've often maintained, is to ban all carry-on luggage with the exception of purses and one briefcase or small backpack per person. Everything else goes through as checked backage. No garment bags. No wheelies. Nothing else. I disagree. If people carried on just what they were supposed to carry on, it would take almost no time at all. I can be completely stowed and in my seat in less than 15 seconds. The current standards aren't unreasonable, they just have to be enforced.
She then told us "You will line up by rows with the highest numbers at the front of the line and the lowest at the back. If you neighbor in line has a higher number you will let them go in front of you. If you don't have any carryon baggage and see someone who needs help you will help them." She also told us we would be polite and helpful to each other, and put our bags in any nearby compartment. I'd say I saw my teacher do this for field trips when I was in kindergarten, but I never went (what does a geek need socializing skills for?). It certainly happened in grade 1, though. But it's really sad when you can't convince a bunch of grown adults that the goal of boarding an airplane is not to get to your seat fastest, but to get the plane off the ground ASAP.
I'm sorry I ever upgraded to Leopard -- it's such a buggy piece of crap that I'm beginning to feel like I'm using a Microsoft product. Tell me about it. For a second there I thought you were describing my ThinkPad. Looks like Apple is doing their best to become a mainstream OS, bugs and all.
Read just about any thread on copyright and DRM on/. and see if you can't find at least 5 methods and tools for the EU to temporarily or permanently waive/bypass the licensing conditions of their current MS software. Now, for fun, let's look at the other spectre you laughably try to raise. All those IT professionals will be out of jobs because there are no positions at MS in the EU. If I were in charge of a socialist government that just got that slap in the face from a corporation, I'd put an incentive plan on the newly unemployed professionals who just might have a bone to pick with MS that if they provide assistance to OSS packages that replace MS software. Something like that could easily take MS from shooting themselves in the foot they have in the EU to a ricochet that blows their corporate brains out. And I honestly don't think they haven't considered that.
...stuff the phone in a lead box... Um, are these the new radioactive cell phones? Any metal will do, and some are lighter than lead. Besides, we all know the really cool guys use 18 karat gold faraday cages.
If the coating is thick enough, light should not be able to get through and start the degradation of the fabric/dyes. Um, if the light can't get through, how can the dye reflect any light? And if the dye is on the surface of the nanocrystal coating, how is this going to stop the dye from being exposed to hydroxyl ions?
Lord that thing could eat a cat, or the entire Toy Class at the Westminster Dog show. Finally, an idea that will get the majority of people, and all stereotypical rednecks, to support cloning.
A fair number of 3.5 books had updates released as pdfs. Don't ask me when - it's not something I examined more than a couple years ago. Here's the link. Given that it's free, it's at least worth examining. Of course, once you're there, why would you as a publisher keep on printing the 3.0 version?
...NASA has the military shoot them down with missiles and lets God sort out where the pieces end up. God may not play dice with the universe, but it sure sounds like he's gonna be playing craps with broken satellites.
Wow. It appears that all we need is about 200 patents a year that will totally harm major businesses in order for patent law to be reformed. Once the government's payout on bad patents reaches a significant portion of the cost of having a war, perhaps they'll consider patent reform to be the lesser inconvenience. Of course, getting the money for writing these patents for the goal of patent reform is icing on the cake. We may have a way to finally engage in patent reform without requiring large sums of money in legal fees and lobbying. It makes you look at patent trolls in a whole new way.
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You may not have noticed, but we've been avoiding natural selection as a culture/species for a VERY long time. We take care of the disabled, the elderly, those who get badly injured, etc., etc. Imagine the loss to our civilization had we left Stephen Hawking to die. And like most people, I imagine you'll change your mind if you find you have a moderately serious congenital defect.
Barbeque first aid
Barbeque Stain Removal - alternatively Carpet to match your barbeque sauce
White Carpets and Carpet Installation Guide
Consider yourself pushed.
No, seriously, do you know? I think that would really mess them up. "Um, it's a Ryder truck. I think it's a special delivery..." BOOM!
My personal preference for electronic voting would be a computer that lists the vote options in a clear manner (not always possible with a paper system and some of the votes that happen in the US), tabulates the votes locally, and prints out an election ballot that is both machine and human readable. The person votes, verifies the printout, hands it over to one of the election officials who feeds it into a separate voting apparatus, and stores the paper for future reference. You now have a system that is potentially easy to use, is verifiable by the voter (as much as it is today), is difficult to compromise (2 electronic systems and a paper one), and is reasonably real-time. And if you see a discrepency between the 2 electronic systems, there's probably a problem. If not tampering, then user error or bugs.
For geeks, wistfulness and a bit of uncertainty?
Good points. I agree that accidental nudity shouldn't be fined, so long as it's accidental. BTW, I would question why someone was wearing nipple caps if they had no intention of baring their breasts. And yes, I'm aware of those nipple caps whose intention is to give the appearance of perkiness. But be that as it may.
As for granularity, I concede your point. Applying the settings for each show would be far more difficult than it would be for the end users. And yes, the filters should be driven towards what it could be argued that children should or shouldn't see, otherwise the options (or even categories) would be endless.
...it's easy enough to add a different digital bleep for accidental nudity just as it is for language...this also only needs to apply to live TV, but there's a LOT of live TV, and very little of it (what, once in the last 8 years) has included nudity, but there are frequent verbal slips. Absolutely, true. And the only instance of nudity that was unplanned by the producers wasn't accidental. A simple way to deal with people doing stupid things they should know better than to do is to throw hefty fines at them, which is how this instance was handled. I can live with that, although I'd be pissed off if that happened when my kids were watching. OTOH, I would have changed the channel when the song in question was on since I don't think it's any more appropriate than gratuitous nudity. As for the rating scales, numbers are easy to understand, and easy to display and understand on TV screen quality and resolution. Oh, come now. A binary system can hold 3 boolean options in the space that would be required for 1 0-7 option, and 8 in the space required to pass one letter digitally. Add in a few more bits/bytes to deal with the rating version, and you're done. I can't see going past 40 or 50 bits either way, whereas yours would probably run between 9 and 15 bits. That's not a huge difference. Also, most TVs have huge lists of options for their own setup, let alone the various video players/recorders. I don't think another few lists are going to freak them out. Also, except for a few toggles which don't fit into a simple scale (blood on/off), most things are fairly progressive. I don't see to many people approving nude sex scenes, but blocking tounge action in kissing, do you? Same goes for violence. Slapstick comedy violence is not going to get blocked while allowing rape scenes to be shown... You're not taking into consideration different cultural and religious situations. I wouldn't be surprised to find that there are cultures where bare breasts are okay and kissing or petting aren't. Then there are those who are okay with mild profanity (or even strong profanity), but not profanity with religious connotations. In short, there are a lot of people who think differently than the norm in one area or other. Why not accommodate them if it's easy enough?And that's what I generally do. I've seen some movies that were intended for kids that I thought were unacceptable, so I generally review them before letting the kids watch (or even know I have them). I also appreciate children's series that have consistent standards - it makes my life much easier.
And before we get on the whole, "it's natural", etc. rants (not just you, but all the other readers, too), let's be honest with ourselves. First, there are a LOT of things that are perfectly natural that I don't want to watch, and nudity is very low on the list. Second, the primary reasons for showing nudity in most western media is for shock or erotic purposes. I'm not interested in exposing my kids to erotic material (they'll find it before I want them to anyway, but not for a while yet), and even by your reasoning of PDA, much of it would be blocked. I want granular control. A rating of 0-9 for sexual content (kissing on lips=1, tounge=2, heavy petting=3, in bed=4, etc... all the way up to Skin-a-max late night soft core porn...) A rating of 0-9 for violence, one for adult situations, toggles for "show blood" "allow smoking" "profane language" I want granular control, too, but I wouldn't use a numeric rating. I'd go for something like this: kissing on lips (block/unblock), tongue (block/unblock), etc., grouped by the content type (sexual content, language, adult situations, etc.) and an "other" option for each one (for those things that don't fall into the listed categories). Granted, most people would have a pretty sharp line where the block/unblock happens, but so what? Why not add the flexibility.
As a parent, I generally agree with you. The problem I have is being able to tell what's going to be aired in what show. For myself, I don't care about most requirements. Sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll (now replaced with swearing) are no big deal - it's not going to change my behaviour one way or the other. But I have stricter guidelines for my children, and how I want them to develop. If the shows have no rating/warning, or don't follow the rating, I'm either not letting my kids watch, or getting pissed when the rating is ignored.
No, this has nothing to do with the rest of your post, or the topic in general, just a challenge to your interpretation of greed.
...for the rest of John's review. Um, why bother? I read the first 2 sentences and figured he gave it a 10. And look, I'm right.Next!
*checks user ID*
/. and see if you can't find at least 5 methods and tools for the EU to temporarily or permanently waive/bypass the licensing conditions of their current MS software.
Yep, you are pretty new here.
Read just about any thread on copyright and DRM on
Now, for fun, let's look at the other spectre you laughably try to raise. All those IT professionals will be out of jobs because there are no positions at MS in the EU. If I were in charge of a socialist government that just got that slap in the face from a corporation, I'd put an incentive plan on the newly unemployed professionals who just might have a bone to pick with MS that if they provide assistance to OSS packages that replace MS software.
Something like that could easily take MS from shooting themselves in the foot they have in the EU to a ricochet that blows their corporate brains out. And I honestly don't think they haven't considered that.
...stuff the phone in a lead box... Um, are these the new radioactive cell phones? Any metal will do, and some are lighter than lead. Besides, we all know the really cool guys use 18 karat gold faraday cages.A fair number of 3.5 books had updates released as pdfs. Don't ask me when - it's not something I examined more than a couple years ago. Here's the link. Given that it's free, it's at least worth examining. Of course, once you're there, why would you as a publisher keep on printing the 3.0 version?
...NASA has the military shoot them down with missiles and lets God sort out where the pieces end up. God may not play dice with the universe, but it sure sounds like he's gonna be playing craps with broken satellites.Wow. It appears that all we need is about 200 patents a year that will totally harm major businesses in order for patent law to be reformed. Once the government's payout on bad patents reaches a significant portion of the cost of having a war, perhaps they'll consider patent reform to be the lesser inconvenience.
Of course, getting the money for writing these patents for the goal of patent reform is icing on the cake. We may have a way to finally engage in patent reform without requiring large sums of money in legal fees and lobbying.
It makes you look at patent trolls in a whole new way.