Because we're in a recession and need to stimulate pointless consumer spending, that's why! Now, are you in favor of spending all your money on stuff that will not appreciably improve your life, or are you a Communist?
What's keeping the US out of Assad's civil war (officially at least) is good old uncle Vladimir up in Moscow. This agreements actually gets the US out of a jam, because they were putting themselves into a position where they would both have to attack because otherwise their threats weren't credible, and would have to not attack because it would start a much bigger fight with Russia. Of course, I'm sure there are elements in the US who want to blow something up and would be disappointed in a diplomatic solution.
D) Harass anyone the government doesn't like, e.g. reporters who have written stuff critical of US war efforts. E) Find out privileged secrets by illegally searching attorneys representing defendants on high-profile cases, e.g. Chelsea Manning's counsel.
There's been a whole series of "Waaa, Linus told me I was wrong and is a big meanie" articles over the last few years. I'm unclear exactly why, but it seems as though some feel like if they don't get their way on LKML, the next logical step is to complain to Slashdot.
Surely it's at least as easy to help folks without vitamin A grow spinach, kale, carrots, sweet potatoes, etc as it is to have them grow a different variety of rice. I understand the instinct to find a technical fix, but hunger is not really a technical problem, it's a political and distribution problem with a few major causes: - Feeding poor people is not typically profitable. If there's no money in it, it doesn't happen on its own. - Government programs in poor countries designed to feed people are typically quite corrupt, so the people may or may not get fed depending on the whims of the bureaucrats. - US-based farm equipment and seed companies want to turn farmers in poor countries into a revenue stream. - It's damn near impossible to get food into a war zone for anyone but soldiers.
There's enough healthy food in the world. That's not the problem.
Pleading "Not Guilty" is the same as saying, "I didn't do it."
Actually, pleading "not guilty" can mean any of these, plus possibly a few more: - I didn't do it. - I did it, but it wasn't a crime (e.g. Henry Louis Gates III breaking into his own house). - I did it, but I was insane at the time (e.g. Lorena Bobbitt). - I did it, but I was justified because not doing it would have allowed something worse to happen (e.g. "Yes, I shot him, but that's because he was about to bomb the building."). - I did it, but I was forced to do it (e.g. bank manager forced to open the vault by a gunman is technically part of the theft). - I did it, but the law that made it illegal was unconstitutional and should be struck down. (e.g. Scopes Trial) - I did it, but I don't think the prosecution can prove it. - I did it, and the prosecution can prove it, but I can be sympathetic enough to the jury that one of them will nullify (e.g. those few times when lynchings ended up in court).
I'm actually unsure why this even got posted. "Why aren't 3rd parties protected?" Uh, because they aren't in jeopardy perhaps?
Also, if you are a 3rd party witness, and are asked a question that would potentially incriminate yourself, you cannot be compelled to answer that one. So for example, this line of questioning can sometimes be stopped by the Fifth Amendment:
Prosecutor: "Did you observe any illegal substances in the defendant's hands?" Witness: "Yes, sir. The defendant was holding a jar of pot." Prosecutor: "Did the defendant hand it to you?"
The witness can legally refuse to answer the second question, because that question has no purpose other than to incriminate the witness.
Alternately, if allowed by your state, start organizing citizens to put together a ballot initiative. If the folks in Washington state can do it, so can you.
In Washington, it actually led to an extremely high voter turnout (pun fully intended). Apparently that's the kind of thing that leads people to actually care about politics.
What you're advocating for amounts to stories saying "Opinions Differ on the Shape of the Earth" with one link to, say, the Geological Society of America and the other link to the Flat Earth Society. Sometimes, when there are two sides to an issue, one side is definitively wrong, and reporting it any way other than that is just plain stupid.
Even if they're right, they're not promoting this for the right reason (telling the truth).. They're promoting it to push a political agenda (justification of center left politics, which means more funding for them).
1. What if there were large funds and grants to be had by saying that global warming is a myth? Wouldn't that mean that you're presumably money-grubbing scientists have an easier time just switching sides than they would trying to change the politics of the situation in the hopes that in a decade or two they could get more money?
2. Even if the politics of the situation changed, why would that result in more money for them? Presumably, the same number of people who are monitoring the increase in global average temperature could monitor the decrease just as easily, and any center-right politician could easily argue that point and keep their funding level at exactly what it is now. Or even decrease it, since they think they understand the problem now so no further research is needed.
3. If climate scientists were trying to get rich, wouldn't they have gone into a much higher-paying profession like finance? Companies like Goldman Sachs snap up would-be scientists all the time because they like their statistical and mathematical skills, and pay very very well. If there's a selfish motivation for scientists, I'd expect it to be vying for the chance to be immortalized with the name associated with a correct theory, the way Einstein, Darwin, Mendel, etc are. Being wrong doesn't help with that.
The claim that climate scientists are in it for the money just doesn't make sense: They aren't particularly stupid, and there are easier ways for them to make big bucks than providing reading material for Al Gore.
It's impossible to tell someone what the odds are of X being compromised due to Y risk, resulting in Z cost; the best you can do is look for weaknesses and then come up with a plan to prioritize and fix them.
The thing is, there are often ways of quantifying it. For instance, let's say there's a risk in exposing N customer credit cards. Look at what it cost TJ Maxx and some other high-profile victims. That's the Z variable in your equation. Then you can evaluate the difficulty of exploiting the weakness: If you can find it easily on your website with Google, that's high, if there's some obscure combination of weird parameters done just right, that's a lower risk, getting the odds. Multiply the odds by the cost, and that's what you can reasonably argue for spending to fix the problem.
The real issue here is that the US, unlike a lot of other countries, allows businesses who act like commercial banks to not be regulated like commercial banks. That's actually something the CFPB is supposed to be doing, is adding duck-typing to the laws around customer disclosures, access to accounts, etc.
Some examples of businesses who sometimes act like commercial banks but don't get the same regulations as commercial banks: - Mixed commercial and investment banks like BofA. - Mortgage brokers - Payday lenders - Check cashers (often linked to payday lenders) - Credit card issuers - Gift card issuers - Anyone who allows users to have an account with a dollar value that they can withdraw or redeem later
AC brings up a legitimate point: All search engines are involved in a race between themselves and those trying to spam the results.
In the very early days of the WWW, there were a smattering of sites, with actual content, so the basic word-counting approach was fine. Then the spammers showed up, saw the potential of spamming search engines, saw that they were doing word-counting, and just filled their pages with search terms repeated about 300 times, and poof, those search engines were useless.
Then Google came in, and for the first time focused not on what the contents of the page were but instead on what the links to that page said. This was vulnerable too, to Google bombing, but it was far less vulnerable to SEO spammers, so it was a big improvement. As Google grew, it put a lot of resources into trying to prevent SEO spamming. It's not wholly successful, but the fact is that it's better at it than anyone else.
Khamenei isn't crazy either, he's just doing his best to hang onto the power he has, even if he has to be cruel to his citizens to do it. Your typical person with power and no term limits, in other words.
One moment, they're saying "Yeah, this is great, we're going to make terrestrial and gas giant and ice ball planets and dwarf planets and everything", but before you know it they're just sitting there sulking.
Yes, if you want to go beyond the basics. That's part of the differences between Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Judaism.
There is, of course, Rabbi Hillel's version: ""That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary."
If you're talking about Mahmoud Ahmadinajad, he's not crazy at all: He acts crazy to try to keep the US from attacking his country. And pursuing a nuclear weapon also isn't a dumb move, because the US has made it clear that it leaves countries with nukes and crazy-seeming leaders (e.g. North Korea) alone while attacking countries without nukes (e.g. Iraq).
If you're talking about the current guy running Iran, Hassan Rouhani, he ran on a campaign of negotiating with foreign powers and more centrist policies, and is decidedly not crazy.
By offing all lawyers, you'll get most politicians too.
Actually, it won't: only 225 Congresscritters and Senators are lawyers, which doesn't constitute a majority of the 535 in office.
As far as killing anyone wearing a tie, I think it depends: A guy who's going to a wedding or funeral dressed in a tie is probably OK, a guy who's approaching you with a smile and a great deal at low low prices is probably not.
Another way of looking at it is that religions typically either demand certain behaviors or prohibit certain behaviors. For Jews, the basics are more-or-less the 10 Commandments. For Christians, the basics are laid out in Matthew 22:36-40, to love thy neighbor and love God. For Muslims, the basics are the 5 Pillars, which are: 1. A declaration that Allah is the one true god, and Mohammed is his prophet. 2. Praying 5 times a day. 3. Fasting during Ramadan. 4. Give a percentage of your income to the poor. 5. Try to get to Mecca at least once in your life.
The vast majority of Muslims kinda sorta do that, although many fudge the praying 5 times a day part when it's inconvenient, and many never make it to Mecca. The idea, very popular in some Christian circles, that all Muslims are some sort of barbarian horde that would destroy everything good in the world if given a chance, just doesn't match up with reality.
Likewise, the idea, very popular in some Muslim circles, that all Christians are some sort of decadant horde that would destroy everything good in the world if given a chance, also fails to match up with reality. For some reason, blanket statements about the worldviews of a billion people just doesn't capture the nuances of human thought and behavior.
1. Can they? Of course. 2. Should they or will they? Maybe.
More to the point, has anyone actually demonstrated that "makerspaces" are an improvement over a standard school shop class or (for particularly motivated students) a public vocational school?
Clean water? The Federal Government doesn't do this. State and local governments do this.
The states and municipalities do the work of building and maintaining water supplies, but they do it to standards developed and enforced by the federal EPA, under the Clean Water Act, which means that you have few instances of a municipality skimping on, say, water main maintenance. The feds also sometimes get involved in interstate water deals and disputes between states over who gets what from a shared water supply.
Lights? The Federal Government does not supply electricity to homes. Local governments, usually through public corporations, and some private companies do this.
Again, the feds, specifically the Department of Energy, are involved in making that all work.
Air Travel? The Federal Government doesn't do this--they only "regulate" it. Airlines are privately owned.
Yeah, those air traffic controllers, crash investigators, aircraft inspectors, pilot license examiners, etc don't do anything important, right? I agree that private corporations play an important role in air travel, but it's not like the feds are not intimately involved in making everything run smoothly.
Radio? The Federal Government doesn't do this--they only "regulate" it. Local radio stations are privately owned.
And that regulation means that you don't have 10 radio stations in your immediate vicinity all broadcasting on 90.1 FM, or radio stations trying to drown out other stations by broadcasting a louder and stronger signal.
Don't leave your records in the sun, They'll warp and they won't be good for anyone. Don't leave your records in the sun, They'll get all wavy and they just won't run. They just won't play (skip) just won't play (skip and repeat about 15 times) no more.
Slashdot Mirror
Why replace perfectly fine 1080p HDTV?
Because we're in a recession and need to stimulate pointless consumer spending, that's why! Now, are you in favor of spending all your money on stuff that will not appreciably improve your life, or are you a Communist?
What's keeping the US out of Assad's civil war (officially at least) is good old uncle Vladimir up in Moscow. This agreements actually gets the US out of a jam, because they were putting themselves into a position where they would both have to attack because otherwise their threats weren't credible, and would have to not attack because it would start a much bigger fight with Russia. Of course, I'm sure there are elements in the US who want to blow something up and would be disappointed in a diplomatic solution.
D) Harass anyone the government doesn't like, e.g. reporters who have written stuff critical of US war efforts.
E) Find out privileged secrets by illegally searching attorneys representing defendants on high-profile cases, e.g. Chelsea Manning's counsel.
There's been a whole series of "Waaa, Linus told me I was wrong and is a big meanie" articles over the last few years. I'm unclear exactly why, but it seems as though some feel like if they don't get their way on LKML, the next logical step is to complain to Slashdot.
Surely it's at least as easy to help folks without vitamin A grow spinach, kale, carrots, sweet potatoes, etc as it is to have them grow a different variety of rice. I understand the instinct to find a technical fix, but hunger is not really a technical problem, it's a political and distribution problem with a few major causes:
- Feeding poor people is not typically profitable. If there's no money in it, it doesn't happen on its own.
- Government programs in poor countries designed to feed people are typically quite corrupt, so the people may or may not get fed depending on the whims of the bureaucrats.
- US-based farm equipment and seed companies want to turn farmers in poor countries into a revenue stream.
- It's damn near impossible to get food into a war zone for anyone but soldiers.
There's enough healthy food in the world. That's not the problem.
Failing to report a crime is a crime in itself.
No it isn't. For instance, if I witness somebody soliciting a prostitute, I am not committing a crime if I don't immediately tell the police about it.
Pleading "Not Guilty" is the same as saying, "I didn't do it."
Actually, pleading "not guilty" can mean any of these, plus possibly a few more:
- I didn't do it.
- I did it, but it wasn't a crime (e.g. Henry Louis Gates III breaking into his own house).
- I did it, but I was insane at the time (e.g. Lorena Bobbitt).
- I did it, but I was justified because not doing it would have allowed something worse to happen (e.g. "Yes, I shot him, but that's because he was about to bomb the building.").
- I did it, but I was forced to do it (e.g. bank manager forced to open the vault by a gunman is technically part of the theft).
- I did it, but the law that made it illegal was unconstitutional and should be struck down. (e.g. Scopes Trial)
- I did it, but I don't think the prosecution can prove it.
- I did it, and the prosecution can prove it, but I can be sympathetic enough to the jury that one of them will nullify (e.g. those few times when lynchings ended up in court).
I'm actually unsure why this even got posted. "Why aren't 3rd parties protected?" Uh, because they aren't in jeopardy perhaps?
Also, if you are a 3rd party witness, and are asked a question that would potentially incriminate yourself, you cannot be compelled to answer that one. So for example, this line of questioning can sometimes be stopped by the Fifth Amendment:
Prosecutor: "Did you observe any illegal substances in the defendant's hands?"
Witness: "Yes, sir. The defendant was holding a jar of pot."
Prosecutor: "Did the defendant hand it to you?"
The witness can legally refuse to answer the second question, because that question has no purpose other than to incriminate the witness.
Alternately, if allowed by your state, start organizing citizens to put together a ballot initiative. If the folks in Washington state can do it, so can you.
In Washington, it actually led to an extremely high voter turnout (pun fully intended). Apparently that's the kind of thing that leads people to actually care about politics.
What you're advocating for amounts to stories saying "Opinions Differ on the Shape of the Earth" with one link to, say, the Geological Society of America and the other link to the Flat Earth Society. Sometimes, when there are two sides to an issue, one side is definitively wrong, and reporting it any way other than that is just plain stupid.
Even if they're right, they're not promoting this for the right reason (telling the truth).. They're promoting it to push a political agenda (justification of center left politics, which means more funding for them).
1. What if there were large funds and grants to be had by saying that global warming is a myth? Wouldn't that mean that you're presumably money-grubbing scientists have an easier time just switching sides than they would trying to change the politics of the situation in the hopes that in a decade or two they could get more money?
2. Even if the politics of the situation changed, why would that result in more money for them? Presumably, the same number of people who are monitoring the increase in global average temperature could monitor the decrease just as easily, and any center-right politician could easily argue that point and keep their funding level at exactly what it is now. Or even decrease it, since they think they understand the problem now so no further research is needed.
3. If climate scientists were trying to get rich, wouldn't they have gone into a much higher-paying profession like finance? Companies like Goldman Sachs snap up would-be scientists all the time because they like their statistical and mathematical skills, and pay very very well. If there's a selfish motivation for scientists, I'd expect it to be vying for the chance to be immortalized with the name associated with a correct theory, the way Einstein, Darwin, Mendel, etc are. Being wrong doesn't help with that.
The claim that climate scientists are in it for the money just doesn't make sense: They aren't particularly stupid, and there are easier ways for them to make big bucks than providing reading material for Al Gore.
Or, as Groucho Marx once put it, "I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member."
It's impossible to tell someone what the odds are of X being compromised due to Y risk, resulting in Z cost; the best you can do is look for weaknesses and then come up with a plan to prioritize and fix them.
The thing is, there are often ways of quantifying it. For instance, let's say there's a risk in exposing N customer credit cards. Look at what it cost TJ Maxx and some other high-profile victims. That's the Z variable in your equation. Then you can evaluate the difficulty of exploiting the weakness: If you can find it easily on your website with Google, that's high, if there's some obscure combination of weird parameters done just right, that's a lower risk, getting the odds. Multiply the odds by the cost, and that's what you can reasonably argue for spending to fix the problem.
The real issue here is that the US, unlike a lot of other countries, allows businesses who act like commercial banks to not be regulated like commercial banks. That's actually something the CFPB is supposed to be doing, is adding duck-typing to the laws around customer disclosures, access to accounts, etc.
Some examples of businesses who sometimes act like commercial banks but don't get the same regulations as commercial banks:
- Mixed commercial and investment banks like BofA.
- Mortgage brokers
- Payday lenders
- Check cashers (often linked to payday lenders)
- Credit card issuers
- Gift card issuers
- Anyone who allows users to have an account with a dollar value that they can withdraw or redeem later
AC brings up a legitimate point: All search engines are involved in a race between themselves and those trying to spam the results.
In the very early days of the WWW, there were a smattering of sites, with actual content, so the basic word-counting approach was fine. Then the spammers showed up, saw the potential of spamming search engines, saw that they were doing word-counting, and just filled their pages with search terms repeated about 300 times, and poof, those search engines were useless.
Then Google came in, and for the first time focused not on what the contents of the page were but instead on what the links to that page said. This was vulnerable too, to Google bombing, but it was far less vulnerable to SEO spammers, so it was a big improvement. As Google grew, it put a lot of resources into trying to prevent SEO spamming. It's not wholly successful, but the fact is that it's better at it than anyone else.
Khamenei isn't crazy either, he's just doing his best to hang onto the power he has, even if he has to be cruel to his citizens to do it. Your typical person with power and no term limits, in other words.
One moment, they're saying "Yeah, this is great, we're going to make terrestrial and gas giant and ice ball planets and dwarf planets and everything", but before you know it they're just sitting there sulking.
Yes, if you want to go beyond the basics. That's part of the differences between Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Judaism.
There is, of course, Rabbi Hillel's version: ""That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary."
The one running Iran is crazy
If you're talking about Mahmoud Ahmadinajad, he's not crazy at all: He acts crazy to try to keep the US from attacking his country. And pursuing a nuclear weapon also isn't a dumb move, because the US has made it clear that it leaves countries with nukes and crazy-seeming leaders (e.g. North Korea) alone while attacking countries without nukes (e.g. Iraq).
If you're talking about the current guy running Iran, Hassan Rouhani, he ran on a campaign of negotiating with foreign powers and more centrist policies, and is decidedly not crazy.
By offing all lawyers, you'll get most politicians too.
Actually, it won't: only 225 Congresscritters and Senators are lawyers, which doesn't constitute a majority of the 535 in office.
As far as killing anyone wearing a tie, I think it depends: A guy who's going to a wedding or funeral dressed in a tie is probably OK, a guy who's approaching you with a smile and a great deal at low low prices is probably not.
If you can't remember, it shoots you in the face.
Why get a robot when you could just get Dick Cheney to do it for free?
Another way of looking at it is that religions typically either demand certain behaviors or prohibit certain behaviors. For Jews, the basics are more-or-less the 10 Commandments. For Christians, the basics are laid out in Matthew 22:36-40, to love thy neighbor and love God. For Muslims, the basics are the 5 Pillars, which are:
1. A declaration that Allah is the one true god, and Mohammed is his prophet.
2. Praying 5 times a day.
3. Fasting during Ramadan.
4. Give a percentage of your income to the poor.
5. Try to get to Mecca at least once in your life.
The vast majority of Muslims kinda sorta do that, although many fudge the praying 5 times a day part when it's inconvenient, and many never make it to Mecca. The idea, very popular in some Christian circles, that all Muslims are some sort of barbarian horde that would destroy everything good in the world if given a chance, just doesn't match up with reality.
Likewise, the idea, very popular in some Muslim circles, that all Christians are some sort of decadant horde that would destroy everything good in the world if given a chance, also fails to match up with reality. For some reason, blanket statements about the worldviews of a billion people just doesn't capture the nuances of human thought and behavior.
1. Can they? Of course.
2. Should they or will they? Maybe.
More to the point, has anyone actually demonstrated that "makerspaces" are an improvement over a standard school shop class or (for particularly motivated students) a public vocational school?
Clean water? The Federal Government doesn't do this. State and local governments do this.
The states and municipalities do the work of building and maintaining water supplies, but they do it to standards developed and enforced by the federal EPA, under the Clean Water Act, which means that you have few instances of a municipality skimping on, say, water main maintenance. The feds also sometimes get involved in interstate water deals and disputes between states over who gets what from a shared water supply.
Lights? The Federal Government does not supply electricity to homes. Local governments, usually through public corporations, and some private companies do this.
Again, the feds, specifically the Department of Energy, are involved in making that all work.
Air Travel? The Federal Government doesn't do this--they only "regulate" it. Airlines are privately owned.
Yeah, those air traffic controllers, crash investigators, aircraft inspectors, pilot license examiners, etc don't do anything important, right? I agree that private corporations play an important role in air travel, but it's not like the feds are not intimately involved in making everything run smoothly.
Radio? The Federal Government doesn't do this--they only "regulate" it. Local radio stations are privately owned.
And that regulation means that you don't have 10 radio stations in your immediate vicinity all broadcasting on 90.1 FM, or radio stations trying to drown out other stations by broadcasting a louder and stronger signal.
Also, don't leave your records in the sun:
Don't leave your records in the sun,
They'll warp and they won't be good for anyone.
Don't leave your records in the sun,
They'll get all wavy and they just won't run.
They just won't play (skip)
just won't play (skip and repeat about 15 times)
no more.