I thought meowing was a message saying "You are bigger than me, please don't hurt me". Since other cats aren't nearly so huge as us that may be why they don't do it to each other.
When we have a pet cat (especially if you get it as a baby) it stays in a kind of arrested kittenhood. As an example, drueling and pawing are from kittens going after mom's milk. Dogs are the same way, they are big puppies. People sometimes stay in an arrested childhood if allowed to live at home past 18.;)
Well, cats, like people and other animals, will do the things that get results. So if tapping you with a paw will get you off your behind and feed the kitty then your cat will do that.
I also think there is some truth to the baby connection. Cats have those big baby-like eyes that have been shown to trigger our protective instincts. Just look at those hideous "big eyed children" paintings.
All I know is that all my cat needs to do to get me to roll on the floor making goo-goo noises at her is for her to look up at me with those big eyes and go "mreow!". I'd say there was some sort of mental control (or lack on my part) going on there.
Ok...so how does forcing me to watch ads that I won't respond to going to make money for anyone? I might as well have not watched them in the first place and thus we are back where we started...
For all the crap they add on the screen (banners, sidebars, scrolling text...) CNN News has become virtually unwatchable. I can't even watch a pleasant interview without noticing the constant flow of death and destruction scrolling by at the bottom.
On a side note, I can't even go to the airport now without having CNN force fed to me. They broadcast it in the waiting areas. I especially like it when they go on about an aircrash while I'm waiting for a plane.
I always thought it was rather naive for people to say "If you don't like ads you don't have to buy that stuff!". If advertising was so easy to ignore then why do companies spend BILLIONS on ad budgets? Rarely do ads focus on useful information, the vast majority of ads focus on validating consumers and building desire. I'm always amazed by how I get a craving for some food product after seeing it waved in front of me. The fact of the matter is that our economy is built on building the desire for junk we don't need. The next time you are about to buy something (other than a needed consumable like gas) wait a day, it is amazing how you lose the desire for it.
Communism is, at it's heart, about communal ownership of property and resources. The family unit then is basically communist. Legally the parents have the ownership rights but functionally everyone does and everyone (unless you have a dysfunctional family) pitches in for the common good and has access to resources (the refrigerator, the car, the tv, etc). Volunteer organizations wouldn't exist unless this was the case also.
The catch is that this only works for groups who believe in the common cause (our family, the Red Cross, etc). As soon as you try to force people who don't care it falls apart and you have to resort to pure self interest (capitalism).
You need to get a grip on a copy of the Constitution my friend. What you call "childish idealism" is the basis for it ("What, freedom of speech for all?! Even the landless slobs!?"). The fact of the matter is that one of the foundations of our country is the protection of the minority from the majority. Based on your logic if the people voted that blacks should be forced to pick cotton again you'd support that based on your robotic ideology. Last time I checked a majority of the SE US was very much in favor of cott'n pick'n in the 1800's.
Make sure you are never on the receiving end of your fire & brimstone beliefs. Poetic justice really sucks.
"The issue at hand is the development of an international legal system which has teeth. A system which will might cause a mass-murderer, for instance, to think twice before killing a village full of innocent people."
And what do you propose would be a punishment that would deter a suicidal mass-murderer? Putting them in a plane and crashing them into a building? Allow them to retire to the jungles of Cambodia?
You are obviously a commie^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hterrorist lover! No REAL American would ever say such a thing. I bet you don't even have the required flags on your car antennae and bumper.
Nothing pisses off a control freak more than having to accept someone or something they dislike ideologically and cannot control. Groups like the KKK and Hell's Angels are generally common criminals and don't bother rulers deeply (sometimes they are even helpful for doing dirty work). People like Abbie Hoffman and MLK though disturb rulers at an emotional level, yet they are not real criminals so they have to swallow their hate and accept them. That is something that REALLY bothers them.
Since Einstein got into the US anyway I assume, like a number of ex-Nazi scientists, that his genius overshadowed his supposedly evil Commie tendencies. The ideology of convenience at work.
Since when did just using the same word as another person count as plagarism? He also used the word "the" a lot. Guess that is plagarism also. Plagarism is the use of recognizable SECTIONS of text, not words freely available in the dictionary.
Are you implying that you have to read every book you own at all times? I also doubt your PDA can hold high-quality (NOT ascii text) scans of hundreds of books.
Even if you could hold all that info and needed access to all of it you'd still be destroying your primary data source. Sort of like a Xerox machine that turns the original to ashes when you are done.
Well the powers that be have to justify their existence. It isn't enough to maintain the status quo, they have to give the impression that they are working against something. In the case of foreign relations as soon as the Soviet Union disappeared new boogie-men were instantly created, such as Iraq and North Korea, that were previously of little importance (and still are).
Now since the US is actually a pretty safe place with most serious crime being rare (it just gets condensed for the nightly news and COPS) they have to push the boundaries of what is considered crime to justify their existence.
Health care is the same way, now that they have gotten rid of the real threats to human life, such as disease, afflictions of old age and rare conditions are presented to the public as if they were the scourge that smallpox was.
They sterilize remote craft destined for planetary exploration. It is far easier to do that to an unmanned craft than to a person who may not appreciate being put in an autoclave.
They have found bacteria miles down in solid rock and in boiling hot salt water here on Earth and you think bacteria couldn't survive a little bit of a freeze/thaw cycle during a Martian day?
Those damn "tree-huggers"! How dare they let things like ethics get in the way of manifest destiny! Your right-thinking has certainly cleared up any doubts in my mind. Screw the consequences of your actions someone will figure out a fix, any good 5 year old can tell you that.
I like how you not only have written off an entire planet but the moon too, nice catch.
I think the first test flight to Mars should be Slashdot trolls with tattered space suits.
"I think you'd want to take some precautions, but I wouldn't be overly concerned. The conditions on the surface of Mars are pretty lethal to Earthly life forms."
Bacteria have been found in environments on Earth even more hostile than that on Mars. They have been found at the bottom of multi-kilometer deep drill holes, boiling springs, extremely acidic/salty water, surviving heavy radiation exposure, surviving in vacuum, etc. Compared to some of these places Mars might be a walk in the park for some of these bacteria.
Slashdot Mirror
No no no...thats your significant other
I thought meowing was a message saying "You are bigger than me, please don't hurt me". Since other cats aren't nearly so huge as us that may be why they don't do it to each other.
;)
When we have a pet cat (especially if you get it as a baby) it stays in a kind of arrested kittenhood. As an example, drueling and pawing are from kittens going after mom's milk. Dogs are the same way, they are big puppies. People sometimes stay in an arrested childhood if allowed to live at home past 18.
Well, cats, like people and other animals, will do the things that get results. So if tapping you with a paw will get you off your behind and feed the kitty then your cat will do that.
I also think there is some truth to the baby connection. Cats have those big baby-like eyes that have been shown to trigger our protective instincts. Just look at those hideous "big eyed children" paintings.
Excuse me now, my kitty is demanding a belly rub.
All I know is that all my cat needs to do to get me to roll on the floor making goo-goo noises at her is for her to look up at me with those big eyes and go "mreow!". I'd say there was some sort of mental control (or lack on my part) going on there.
Ok...so how does forcing me to watch ads that I won't respond to going to make money for anyone? I might as well have not watched them in the first place and thus we are back where we started...
For all the crap they add on the screen (banners, sidebars, scrolling text...) CNN News has become virtually unwatchable. I can't even watch a pleasant interview without noticing the constant flow of death and destruction scrolling by at the bottom.
On a side note, I can't even go to the airport now without having CNN force fed to me. They broadcast it in the waiting areas. I especially like it when they go on about an aircrash while I'm waiting for a plane.
I always thought it was rather naive for people to say "If you don't like ads you don't have to buy that stuff!". If advertising was so easy to ignore then why do companies spend BILLIONS on ad budgets? Rarely do ads focus on useful information, the vast majority of ads focus on validating consumers and building desire. I'm always amazed by how I get a craving for some food product after seeing it waved in front of me. The fact of the matter is that our economy is built on building the desire for junk we don't need. The next time you are about to buy something (other than a needed consumable like gas) wait a day, it is amazing how you lose the desire for it.
There are no absolute rights. Even the "right" to life doesn't exist in the face of support for capital punishment and warfare.
You can't go up to someone and threaten their life . All "rights" can be regulated.
Sure the bacteria isn't all coming from that big smelly hairy guy in the next cube who has the Princess Amidala screensaver?
Communism is, at it's heart, about communal ownership of property and resources. The family unit then is basically communist. Legally the parents have the ownership rights but functionally everyone does and everyone (unless you have a dysfunctional family) pitches in for the common good and has access to resources (the refrigerator, the car, the tv, etc). Volunteer organizations wouldn't exist unless this was the case also.
The catch is that this only works for groups who believe in the common cause (our family, the Red Cross, etc). As soon as you try to force people who don't care it falls apart and you have to resort to pure self interest (capitalism).
You need to get a grip on a copy of the Constitution my friend. What you call "childish idealism" is the basis for it ("What, freedom of speech for all?! Even the landless slobs!?"). The fact of the matter is that one of the foundations of our country is the protection of the minority from the majority. Based on your logic if the people voted that blacks should be forced to pick cotton again you'd support that based on your robotic ideology. Last time I checked a majority of the SE US was very much in favor of cott'n pick'n in the 1800's.
Make sure you are never on the receiving end of your fire & brimstone beliefs. Poetic justice really sucks.
"The issue at hand is the development of an international legal system which has teeth. A system which will might cause a mass-murderer, for instance, to think twice before killing a village full of innocent people."
And what do you propose would be a punishment that would deter a suicidal mass-murderer? Putting them in a plane and crashing them into a building? Allow them to retire to the jungles of Cambodia?
You are obviously a commie^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hterrorist lover! No REAL American would ever say such a thing. I bet you don't even have the required flags on your car antennae and bumper.
(Getting out my "Little Bastard Snitch" kit)
I believe the god in question is Quetzalcoatl (http://weber.ucsd.edu/~anthclub/quetzalcoatl/quet zal.htm), the winged serpent, thank you very much.
I now have a heart sacrifice to attend to.
Nothing pisses off a control freak more than having to accept someone or something they dislike ideologically and cannot control. Groups like the KKK and Hell's Angels are generally common criminals and don't bother rulers deeply (sometimes they are even helpful for doing dirty work). People like Abbie Hoffman and MLK though disturb rulers at an emotional level, yet they are not real criminals so they have to swallow their hate and accept them. That is something that REALLY bothers them.
Since Einstein got into the US anyway I assume, like a number of ex-Nazi scientists, that his genius overshadowed his supposedly evil Commie tendencies. The ideology of convenience at work.
Since when did just using the same word as another person count as plagarism? He also used the word "the" a lot. Guess that is plagarism also. Plagarism is the use of recognizable SECTIONS of text, not words freely available in the dictionary.
Are you implying that you have to read every book you own at all times? I also doubt your PDA can hold high-quality (NOT ascii text) scans of hundreds of books.
Even if you could hold all that info and needed access to all of it you'd still be destroying your primary data source. Sort of like a Xerox machine that turns the original to ashes when you are done.
If you play the Star Trek theme song backwards you can distincly hear "Scotty is dead" being spoken by Paul McCartney.
Well the powers that be have to justify their existence. It isn't enough to maintain the status quo, they have to give the impression that they are working against something. In the case of foreign relations as soon as the Soviet Union disappeared new boogie-men were instantly created, such as Iraq and North Korea, that were previously of little importance (and still are).
Now since the US is actually a pretty safe place with most serious crime being rare (it just gets condensed for the nightly news and COPS) they have to push the boundaries of what is considered crime to justify their existence.
Health care is the same way, now that they have gotten rid of the real threats to human life, such as disease, afflictions of old age and rare conditions are presented to the public as if they were the scourge that smallpox was.
They sterilize remote craft destined for planetary exploration. It is far easier to do that to an unmanned craft than to a person who may not appreciate being put in an autoclave.
They have found bacteria miles down in solid rock and in boiling hot salt water here on Earth and you think bacteria couldn't survive a little bit of a freeze/thaw cycle during a Martian day?
Those damn "tree-huggers"! How dare they let things like ethics get in the way of manifest destiny! Your right-thinking has certainly cleared up any doubts in my mind. Screw the consequences of your actions someone will figure out a fix, any good 5 year old can tell you that.
I like how you not only have written off an entire planet but the moon too, nice catch.
I think the first test flight to Mars should be Slashdot trolls with tattered space suits.
If that is your concern then don't send a manned mission to Mars. DUH
You make the mission sound like we have to do it, not because we want to do it to basically entertain ourselves.
"I think you'd want to take some precautions, but I wouldn't be overly concerned. The conditions on the surface of Mars are pretty lethal to Earthly life forms."
Bacteria have been found in environments on Earth even more hostile than that on Mars. They have been found at the bottom of multi-kilometer deep drill holes, boiling springs, extremely acidic/salty water, surviving heavy radiation exposure, surviving in vacuum, etc. Compared to some of these places Mars might be a walk in the park for some of these bacteria.