How much do you get taxed for petrol? What do you steal from Exxon? See, you're not acting on principle, you're just making excuses to be a leech, which is just another type of sucker.
OK, I take exception to that, because I strive to pay independent artists directly. I'm actually trying to get value for monies paid ($0.23/cd, thousands of cd's purchased over the years), and have to cast about to find mainstream/big company music I want to fulfill my levy with. Otherwise, I am the one being stolen from. Perhaps you don't understand how a levy works.
Not only that, but your exxon example is disingenuous and misdirected, by confusing copyright infringement with commodity theft, and taxes with levies. My 'petrol taxes' are misapplied by the government for general revenue, when they should go directly into subsidizing the transportation systems, but that is a local political issue as it's entirely government run, not a redistribution to the industry that assumes I'm a gas thief. So, you're either an unclear thinker subject to various logical fallacies and rudeness, or an industry shill.
Hey, I'm a municipal libertarian-leaning sovereigntist, but I think the ridiculous monarchy situation is kind of cool, given other political circumstances. Among other things, it means:
I never downloaded music until I realized I had been paying a levy for CDR's for years, totaling hundreds of dollars paid--for backing up data and recording original tracks. I felt like a chump.
Now I download anything I want that's on a major label and available, since I'm paying for it anyway. I always buy CD's direct from the artist if I can, in solidarity. Support the artists, and screw greedy middlemen with their faulty business model. The levy distribution system is as broken as a typical recording contract.
Disclaimer: I'm in Canada. Many canadians, being poisoned by USian media, are confused about this, and don't know about Section 8 of the Copyright Act.
What is to benefit from faking a death when one already has money? I think other reasons perhaps.
We had a good friend of the family go missing and presumed dead when he was in his late 50's. He was wealthy (not stinking rich, but had owned a car dealership and good investments for 30 years). The circumstances caused our family to think that he had staged things, including insider info (such as a rented car... unusual... and certain affairs nicely wrapped up, including insurance).
Why, one wonders, would he do such a thing when he was at the top of his career and independently wealthy? Easy.
kids grown and doing OK, if clingy -- obligations resolved
overbearing wife, lovely and charming but man did he have patience
Yeah, there's plenty of moderate opinions (known in America as "the left"), but the amount of right-wing posts and moderation here seems a little strange?)
I guess it depends on your measure: what do you see as "center?"
Since I live in Canuckistan, you all look like a bunch of flamin
--- 503 error: THIS POST INTERCEPTED BY GODWIN'S LAW
Did the coup succeed? Did the US end up gassing millions of Jews? No. And that's the difference.
It nearly succeeded, and only because one man, Smedley Butler, was loyal, did it fail. There were no legal repercussions, however, and in that sense, it did succeed: since the Du Ponts, U.S. Steel, General Motors, Standard Oil, Chase National Bank, and Goodyear etc. all remained in business and prospered. The BBC alleges that Prescott Bush was a backer as well.
The US rejected many jewish refugees, its industrialists did business with the Nazis, and IBM aided and abetted. The difference is one of degree, only, unless you think that business leaders are divorced from the nation.
Let ye who is without sin cast the first stone, and all that.
Well, yes, that was my original point. Perhaps the giant chip on your shoulder is hard to see around.
To the victors go the spoils, and better yet, they get to write the histories. That's the way it has always been, and is the way it will always be.
OK, baloney to that manifest destiny crap. Progress in history, polisci, anthropology, sociology, and the other social studies has been a worthwhile struggle to rise above that.
Just remember that we never asked you to, never claimed to be better than you (even though we often acted better than you) and don't expect us to feel sorry for you when you finally realize the truth. Deal with it. We won't lose any sleep over your discomfiture, believe me. Furthermore, much of Europe's history has been bloodier than ours (you call Bush a tyrant, but frankly Europe has it all over the U.S. in the tyrant department, you guys are true experts at breeding warmongering headcases.) Deal with that too, when you grow up enough to turn that critical eye upon yourself.
Ahaha, I'm a Canuck! and you're typifying the arrogant American! You do claim superiority and high mindedness, that's the point of this thread. We can poke at you all we want, you'll just blame us anyway. Hypocritical self-reflexive antiamericanism is our pastime. Still, lots of us canadians realize that we live in a genocidal settler state just like you.
That war cost us, on so many levels, and we're still paying for it... in spades.
Oh cry me a river. That war set you up for a military industrial economy (cf. Ike) and has been the engine of your economic dominance for half a century. Look at the stats on military spending, on WMD production, on exports of guns and planes and mines, on your major customers. You have 700 military bases on foreign soil. Yes, the war hurt America in some ways, especially in compromising the integrity of your politics, but it also floated your boat. My point: military jingoism has hurt the clarity of the American self-image to the point of blindness.
Think of this also: much as you dislike the United States' current policies, there's much worse than us loose in the world.
I dunno, many millions dead in overt and covert wars over the last 60 years, support for some of the worst badasses in history? How does one measure depravity? Sure, the USA is big and complicated, has noble ideals etc, that's the Brave + Beautiful stuff. Mass murder and pro-fascism without the knowledge of its citizens? That too. Your argument relies on misdirection and false relativism.
Bush was responsible for managing the firm's domestic portfolios here in the U.S. The firm's founder retained control of the firm's foreign portfolios--including the firm's investments in Nazi Germany.
Conceded that Bush's ass was covered and the evidence of complicity is slim, though your faith in the good faith of investment bankers of the period is touching.
You know, I really don't think someone who lives in a country that actively collaborated with actual fascists should be slinging that kind of abuse at a country that fought them.
Oh, that's ripe! You're suggesting that the USA has clean hands, never supported or installed tyrants and corporatists, that Prescott Bush and his cronies didn't fund the Nazi war machine, that IBM had nothing to do with the Holocaust, that Operation Paperclip was just a liberation, that the fascists who attempted a coup on FDR met justice and were punished (look up Smedley Butler).
One of the most disappointing things about America the Brave, the Beautiful, is the perverse revisionist history that its patriotism requires.
Microsoft weariness, even for XP (e.g. WGA breaking and providing false negatives)
legitimate FUD: people are starting to hear the "70,000 types of malware" mantra
as an upgrade vector: Linux will usually speed up a 4-yr-old machine
a growing grassroots of support
I'm one of two nerds in our community of 1200 who has a handful of distros in a CD case, and can show off SUSE or ubuntu or dyne when curiosity is expressed. I give away refurbished old pentiums with Puppy linux on them, and offer a discount for linux support. While most people just want their old way of doing things to continue, the fact that the local school has switched to Fedora and Mac has helped quite a bit. At the next local computer fair, I plan on showing some compiz razzledazzle.
OK, so now I'm off to replace an XP install with ubuntu, since the user's a newbie and offended by all the XP pop-ups (and aforementioned WGA false accusations), and just wants to use picasa, web, email, word processing, spreadsheets.
American strategy? You've got to be kidding me, if anything he used Russian strategy.
whooosh
No, I wasn't kidding, but I was making a point. If you must be pedantic, he used a combination of American (Thoreau), Russian (Tolstoi), Indian (various ancient and contemporary sources) and his own brilliant strategies. There, satisfied?
Yeah, that would actually make sense, you know, if you also had the right to own guided missiles and tanks. I mean, what are you going to do with your assault rifle against those?
You folks have a short memory... the Viet Cong kicked your asses using old rifles and discarded bean cans and a willingness to die. Read up on guerilla warfare sometime. BTW, a trillion dollars in Iraq and lots of missiles and tanks hasn't won it, either.
For that matter, Gandhi didn't use a single bullet, just serious nerve and (American) strategy.
Could someone please explain to me, why... Canadians... are so afraid of a national ID card?
Here in BC, the provincial government subcontracted out some of the management of our provincial health care records to a subsidiary of an American company. This means that we essentially lose sovereignty over those records, through any quasi-totalitarian homeland security intelligence bungle the Americans want to cook up. It is an end-run (intentional or not) around our political protections and sovereign rights.
If you know many Canucks, you'll know that a certain significant percentage of us are touchy about our sovereignty, and not just the sovereignty of Quebec from Canada or of the First Nations from the Queen... but from the USA. We resent being told how to run our country, and while we lap up the American media, we don't want to be told what wars to fight or laws to have or what is moral (Alberta excepted, of course). We look for all the little ways to differentiate us from the USA... lately, one of the differences is that it looks to be turning paranoid and oppressive down there. We keep reading stories about people having to 'show their papers' and being turned away from planes and such.
Many people will take these cards and run, because they have to cross the border weekly or more, and it will be the thin edge of the wedge. But there will be a stubborn battle over them. We aren't always as polite and apathetic as the stereotype.
I doubt it. If anything, we would want Iran to have 100% free and uncensored access for all citizens.
If anything, the USA could have saved half a trillion dollars to achieve democracy in Iraq without invading, by using 500 billion dollars to train it (from the outside) for revolutionary democracy. If that was really their goal. But, it wouldn't have brought about the current geopolitical situation, which is more akin to the true goals of your Administration.
So, your assertion about the good intentions of the USA towards the populace of Iran is unsupported by any evidence or past behaviour, or fiscal responsibility.
It's frightening how many have drunk the pro-democracy-USA koolaid, while ignoring 700 military bases placed on foreign soil.
Back in the stone age when you didn't own your phone, but just leased it from the phone company, those things were darn near indestructible.
Ours is an indispensable part of our communications system. It's black, shiny, bakelite, and rotary, with metal bells. Most importantly, it works when the power is out, which happens fairly often in the winter storms. It sits right next to the handy but vulnerable wireless phone. Those real bells make the phone ring sound better, more real. And... we own it!
Why not? We fill our jury pools with random conscripts, so why not the Oval Office, as well? While we're at it, let's do the same for Congress.
This isn't as frivolous as it seems. Using a jury-like selection process for what are currently electable positions would place some statistical limits on corruption, and ensure that we are truly governed by peers. On the issue of competency, I think it would average out as well as it does now. The big issue would be the resulting influence of high-level bureaucrats, so perhaps some of those should be jury-selected as well, from an appropriate pool.
An interesting thought-experiment, however far-fetched it may be.
the reason we have broadband is to allow us to download large files quickly.
I respectfully disagree (mostly), you have your nerd glasses on. There is another, more compelling reason to have 'broadband.' Since I'm in a market that is rapidly converting from 56K, and I support clients in their transition to the 21st C, I get to see the process first hand.
For the average busy or middle-aged user, large files are an added bonus. The main goal is 'always on' and quick web browsing. Period. Young people, technophiles, nerds, sure, they download large files. Older folks don't know how, mostly. But they want email, they want it now. They want weather reports, google, wikipedia, stocks, and inspirational or funny streaming video (not really qualifying as large files, I think) sent to them by relatives and friends. For many of them, especially telecommuters, the other big thing is being online for hours at a time with no grief.
My clients are wonderfully relieved to have their phone lines back, to not have their connection drop out, to get those medium sized photos via email without interminable crossed fingers. They love sitting down and getting the answer to an obscure question in 20 seconds instead of 20 minutes, and reading webmail without suffering. It's speed/latency, not capacity, that comes first.
Water. It's explosive when mixed with certain dry substances, and can even be used to start fires when mixed with one of several metals.
Thank you! I just can't believe how unimaginative some of the security policies are. Were they never juvenile delinquents? Wasn't an interest in a security career preceded by years of fascination with big bangs etc.? Obviously they never went to my high school.
Now, I'm a flaming peacenik, but even I can easily think of many ways to create havoc, based on simple observations and a little chemistry, and ok, a wasted youth. Take water:
A couple of hundred grams of cesium stashed inside legitimate metal objects could make it through security scanners. Just Add Water! Woah!! Anyone with a little chemistry knows that. Various posters mentioned glass bottles, hard liquor, dinner cutlery, etc. A determined maniac can use all kinds of materials.
The point is that real security relies on not having outright enemies, especially hopeless occupied peoples. Assymetric warfare, such as smuggling cesium into your complimentary drink, is impossible to win, because you have to assume guilt to screen for it, make every flight a customs experience, and even then good liars will get through. The fact that planes aren't dropping out of the skies and that you can still ride a bus tells me that there just aren't that many real terrorists in our midst, just a lot of pissed off people who might become terrorists if pushed too hard. Now, Israel and Iraq and Afghanistan, those are places where there are lots of terrorists. I wonder why?
Throw your soldiers into positions whence there is no escape, and they will prefer death to flight. If they will face death, there is nothing they may not achieve. Officers and men alike will put forth their uttermost strength.
Soldiers when in desperate straits lose the sense of fear. If there is no place of refuge, they will stand firm. If they are in hostile country, they will show a stubborn front. If there is no help for it, they will fight hard.
... In hemmed-in situations, you must resort to stratagem. In desperate position, you must fight.
Like what? Please, great prophet, what truth will be revealed to be false? Have your god(s) spoken to you?
*Sigh* yer a fricken' troll. You don't have to be a prophet to see that, just over 14 years old. By definition, we don't know what things we're idiots about yet, though life is being debunked daily. The process hasn't stopped, for some of us, anyway. You write like the arrogant juvie who has it all figured out.
Many things labelled "morals" will change, things like the 'traditional' family (a recent invention) for instance. Here's a guess at a few things that we'll think are silly in the future: the description of time and space; our pervasive use of plastics; the process of constructing belief; our political beliefs; economics; aliens/not aliens; cartesian mindset; colonial sense of superiority. The ethics of the Settler State. Disavowance of collective responsibility for genocide. The notion that one language is good enough. Swimming after lunch will give you cramps. Etc.
The older I grow the more I recall how little I knew when I knew it all.
Note to the primitives: y'all lost. Suck it. Suck. It. Hard.
How civilized, how enlightened you are! Please explain to us why we should follow your wittily expressed contempt.
This isn't flamebait, merely an expression of one man's frustration from having to deal with the pathetic primitives that can't accept the fact that the world has evolved past the sillier forms of supernaturalism.
That which to us seems perfectly obvious will some day be revealed as silly superstition.
Well I was put into a private school and have no kids and plan to have no kids, so therefore I shouldn't have to pay as much taxes as part of it goes to funding public schools.
You don't even know what services your taxes are buying. They aren't user fees. You aren't paying for YOUR use of the system, you're paying for a better educated and healthier populace. It means your fellow citizens are less likely to be desperate and rip you off. It means they'll be more productive, less of an overall drag on the economy, less likely to erupt into class war. It means non-obvious things like your streets are cleaner and foreclosures are fewer. Since disparity is a determinate factor in one's health, as well as the health of society overall, it means you get secondary health effects yourself.
Not that the canadian system is fully effective or efficient or even completely genuine, but it is a better deal than most alternatives. If you don't value those things, perhaps you should consider emigrating to a place where despair is better tolerated... there are many to choose from.
I think what the mediums are best for expressing are what make them pointlessly different to compare.
Since this is a technical discussion about literacy, it isn't OT to point out that mediums speak to the dead, while media are forms of mass communication. OK, maybe they aren't that different, then.
Regarding your main point, I think convergence is coming down the road in about 20 years, as per The Diamond Age. The only reason video games can't rival books for depth is that print media are thousands of years old; the geometry of book publishing was established 500 years ago, it's a mature form. Give gaming/simulation 50 years, it will be a superior learning method, and possibly a superior art.
Slashdot Mirror
OK, I take exception to that, because I strive to pay independent artists directly. I'm actually trying to get value for monies paid ($0.23/cd, thousands of cd's purchased over the years), and have to cast about to find mainstream/big company music I want to fulfill my levy with. Otherwise, I am the one being stolen from. Perhaps you don't understand how a levy works.
Not only that, but your exxon example is disingenuous and misdirected, by confusing copyright infringement with commodity theft, and taxes with levies. My 'petrol taxes' are misapplied by the government for general revenue, when they should go directly into subsidizing the transportation systems, but that is a local political issue as it's entirely government run, not a redistribution to the industry that assumes I'm a gas thief. So, you're either an unclear thinker subject to various logical fallacies and rudeness, or an industry shill.
Hey, I'm a municipal libertarian-leaning sovereigntist, but I think the ridiculous monarchy situation is kind of cool, given other political circumstances. Among other things, it means:
I never downloaded music until I realized I had been paying a levy for CDR's for years, totaling hundreds of dollars paid--for backing up data and recording original tracks. I felt like a chump.
Now I download anything I want that's on a major label and available, since I'm paying for it anyway. I always buy CD's direct from the artist if I can, in solidarity. Support the artists, and screw greedy middlemen with their faulty business model. The levy distribution system is as broken as a typical recording contract.
Disclaimer: I'm in Canada. Many canadians, being poisoned by USian media, are confused about this, and don't know about Section 8 of the Copyright Act.
We had a good friend of the family go missing and presumed dead when he was in his late 50's. He was wealthy (not stinking rich, but had owned a car dealership and good investments for 30 years). The circumstances caused our family to think that he had staged things, including insider info (such as a rented car... unusual... and certain affairs nicely wrapped up, including insurance).
Why, one wonders, would he do such a thing when he was at the top of his career and independently wealthy? Easy.
I guess it depends on your measure: what do you see as "center?"
Since I live in Canuckistan, you all look like a bunch of flamin
--- 503 error: THIS POST INTERCEPTED BY GODWIN'S LAW
right, it's on-off, is it?
It nearly succeeded, and only because one man, Smedley Butler, was loyal, did it fail. There were no legal repercussions, however, and in that sense, it did succeed: since the Du Ponts, U.S. Steel, General Motors, Standard Oil, Chase National Bank, and Goodyear etc. all remained in business and prospered. The BBC alleges that Prescott Bush was a backer as well.
The US rejected many jewish refugees, its industrialists did business with the Nazis, and IBM aided and abetted. The difference is one of degree, only, unless you think that business leaders are divorced from the nation.
Well, yes, that was my original point. Perhaps the giant chip on your shoulder is hard to see around.
To the victors go the spoils, and better yet, they get to write the histories. That's the way it has always been, and is the way it will always be.OK, baloney to that manifest destiny crap. Progress in history, polisci, anthropology, sociology, and the other social studies has been a worthwhile struggle to rise above that.
Just remember that we never asked you to, never claimed to be better than you (even though we often acted better than you) and don't expect us to feel sorry for you when you finally realize the truth. Deal with it. We won't lose any sleep over your discomfiture, believe me. Furthermore, much of Europe's history has been bloodier than ours (you call Bush a tyrant, but frankly Europe has it all over the U.S. in the tyrant department, you guys are true experts at breeding warmongering headcases.) Deal with that too, when you grow up enough to turn that critical eye upon yourself.Ahaha, I'm a Canuck! and you're typifying the arrogant American! You do claim superiority and high mindedness, that's the point of this thread. We can poke at you all we want, you'll just blame us anyway. Hypocritical self-reflexive antiamericanism is our pastime. Still, lots of us canadians realize that we live in a genocidal settler state just like you.
That war cost us, on so many levels, and we're still paying for itOh cry me a river. That war set you up for a military industrial economy (cf. Ike) and has been the engine of your economic dominance for half a century. Look at the stats on military spending, on WMD production, on exports of guns and planes and mines, on your major customers. You have 700 military bases on foreign soil. Yes, the war hurt America in some ways, especially in compromising the integrity of your politics, but it also floated your boat. My point: military jingoism has hurt the clarity of the American self-image to the point of blindness.
Think of this also: much as you dislike the United States' current policies, there's much worse than us loose in the world.I dunno, many millions dead in overt and covert wars over the last 60 years, support for some of the worst badasses in history? How does one measure depravity? Sure, the USA is big and complicated, has noble ideals etc, that's the Brave + Beautiful stuff. Mass murder and pro-fascism without the knowledge of its citizens? That too. Your argument relies on misdirection and false relativism.
Conceded that Bush's ass was covered and the evidence of complicity is slim, though your faith in the good faith of investment bankers of the period is touching.
Oh, that's ripe! You're suggesting that the USA has clean hands, never supported or installed tyrants and corporatists, that Prescott Bush and his cronies didn't fund the Nazi war machine, that IBM had nothing to do with the Holocaust, that Operation Paperclip was just a liberation, that the fascists who attempted a coup on FDR met justice and were punished (look up Smedley Butler).
One of the most disappointing things about America the Brave, the Beautiful, is the perverse revisionist history that its patriotism requires.
Allow me to add a few points:
I'm one of two nerds in our community of 1200 who has a handful of distros in a CD case, and can show off SUSE or ubuntu or dyne when curiosity is expressed. I give away refurbished old pentiums with Puppy linux on them, and offer a discount for linux support. While most people just want their old way of doing things to continue, the fact that the local school has switched to Fedora and Mac has helped quite a bit. At the next local computer fair, I plan on showing some compiz razzledazzle.
OK, so now I'm off to replace an XP install with ubuntu, since the user's a newbie and offended by all the XP pop-ups (and aforementioned WGA false accusations), and just wants to use picasa, web, email, word processing, spreadsheets.
whooosh
No, I wasn't kidding, but I was making a point. If you must be pedantic, he used a combination of American (Thoreau), Russian (Tolstoi), Indian (various ancient and contemporary sources) and his own brilliant strategies. There, satisfied?
You folks have a short memory... the Viet Cong kicked your asses using old rifles and discarded bean cans and a willingness to die. Read up on guerilla warfare sometime. BTW, a trillion dollars in Iraq and lots of missiles and tanks hasn't won it, either.
For that matter, Gandhi didn't use a single bullet, just serious nerve and (American) strategy.
Here in BC, the provincial government subcontracted out some of the management of our provincial health care records to a subsidiary of an American company. This means that we essentially lose sovereignty over those records, through any quasi-totalitarian homeland security intelligence bungle the Americans want to cook up. It is an end-run (intentional or not) around our political protections and sovereign rights.
If you know many Canucks, you'll know that a certain significant percentage of us are touchy about our sovereignty, and not just the sovereignty of Quebec from Canada or of the First Nations from the Queen... but from the USA. We resent being told how to run our country, and while we lap up the American media, we don't want to be told what wars to fight or laws to have or what is moral (Alberta excepted, of course). We look for all the little ways to differentiate us from the USA... lately, one of the differences is that it looks to be turning paranoid and oppressive down there. We keep reading stories about people having to 'show their papers' and being turned away from planes and such.
Many people will take these cards and run, because they have to cross the border weekly or more, and it will be the thin edge of the wedge. But there will be a stubborn battle over them. We aren't always as polite and apathetic as the stereotype.
Step 1: photocopy.
Step 2: stuff envelope, post
Step 3: retrieve from relative upon return.
If anything, the USA could have saved half a trillion dollars to achieve democracy in Iraq without invading, by using 500 billion dollars to train it (from the outside) for revolutionary democracy. If that was really their goal. But, it wouldn't have brought about the current geopolitical situation, which is more akin to the true goals of your Administration.
So, your assertion about the good intentions of the USA towards the populace of Iran is unsupported by any evidence or past behaviour, or fiscal responsibility.
It's frightening how many have drunk the pro-democracy-USA koolaid, while ignoring 700 military bases placed on foreign soil.
Ours is an indispensable part of our communications system. It's black, shiny, bakelite, and rotary, with metal bells. Most importantly, it works when the power is out, which happens fairly often in the winter storms. It sits right next to the handy but vulnerable wireless phone. Those real bells make the phone ring sound better, more real. And... we own it!
This isn't as frivolous as it seems. Using a jury-like selection process for what are currently electable positions would place some statistical limits on corruption, and ensure that we are truly governed by peers. On the issue of competency, I think it would average out as well as it does now. The big issue would be the resulting influence of high-level bureaucrats, so perhaps some of those should be jury-selected as well, from an appropriate pool.
An interesting thought-experiment, however far-fetched it may be.
I respectfully disagree (mostly), you have your nerd glasses on. There is another, more compelling reason to have 'broadband.' Since I'm in a market that is rapidly converting from 56K, and I support clients in their transition to the 21st C, I get to see the process first hand.
For the average busy or middle-aged user, large files are an added bonus. The main goal is 'always on' and quick web browsing. Period. Young people, technophiles, nerds, sure, they download large files. Older folks don't know how, mostly. But they want email, they want it now. They want weather reports, google, wikipedia, stocks, and inspirational or funny streaming video (not really qualifying as large files, I think) sent to them by relatives and friends. For many of them, especially telecommuters, the other big thing is being online for hours at a time with no grief.
My clients are wonderfully relieved to have their phone lines back, to not have their connection drop out, to get those medium sized photos via email without interminable crossed fingers. They love sitting down and getting the answer to an obscure question in 20 seconds instead of 20 minutes, and reading webmail without suffering. It's speed/latency, not capacity, that comes first.
ha! assymetric! great typo.
Thank you! I just can't believe how unimaginative some of the security policies are. Were they never juvenile delinquents? Wasn't an interest in a security career preceded by years of fascination with big bangs etc.? Obviously they never went to my high school.
Now, I'm a flaming peacenik, but even I can easily think of many ways to create havoc, based on simple observations and a little chemistry, and ok, a wasted youth. Take water:
A couple of hundred grams of cesium stashed inside legitimate metal objects could make it through security scanners. Just Add Water! Woah!! Anyone with a little chemistry knows that. Various posters mentioned glass bottles, hard liquor, dinner cutlery, etc. A determined maniac can use all kinds of materials.
The point is that real security relies on not having outright enemies, especially hopeless occupied peoples. Assymetric warfare, such as smuggling cesium into your complimentary drink, is impossible to win, because you have to assume guilt to screen for it, make every flight a customs experience, and even then good liars will get through. The fact that planes aren't dropping out of the skies and that you can still ride a bus tells me that there just aren't that many real terrorists in our midst, just a lot of pissed off people who might become terrorists if pushed too hard. Now, Israel and Iraq and Afghanistan, those are places where there are lots of terrorists. I wonder why?
*Sigh* yer a fricken' troll. You don't have to be a prophet to see that, just over 14 years old. By definition, we don't know what things we're idiots about yet, though life is being debunked daily. The process hasn't stopped, for some of us, anyway. You write like the arrogant juvie who has it all figured out.
Many things labelled "morals" will change, things like the 'traditional' family (a recent invention) for instance. Here's a guess at a few things that we'll think are silly in the future: the description of time and space; our pervasive use of plastics; the process of constructing belief; our political beliefs; economics; aliens/not aliens; cartesian mindset; colonial sense of superiority. The ethics of the Settler State. Disavowance of collective responsibility for genocide. The notion that one language is good enough. Swimming after lunch will give you cramps. Etc.
The older I grow
the more I recall
how little I knew
when I knew it all.
How civilized, how enlightened you are! Please explain to us why we should follow your wittily expressed contempt.
This isn't flamebait, merely an expression of one man's frustration from having to deal with the pathetic primitives that can't accept the fact that the world has evolved past the sillier forms of supernaturalism.That which to us seems perfectly obvious will some day be revealed as silly superstition.
You don't even know what services your taxes are buying. They aren't user fees. You aren't paying for YOUR use of the system, you're paying for a better educated and healthier populace. It means your fellow citizens are less likely to be desperate and rip you off. It means they'll be more productive, less of an overall drag on the economy, less likely to erupt into class war. It means non-obvious things like your streets are cleaner and foreclosures are fewer. Since disparity is a determinate factor in one's health, as well as the health of society overall, it means you get secondary health effects yourself.
Not that the canadian system is fully effective or efficient or even completely genuine, but it is a better deal than most alternatives. If you don't value those things, perhaps you should consider emigrating to a place where despair is better tolerated... there are many to choose from.
Since this is a technical discussion about literacy, it isn't OT to point out that mediums speak to the dead, while media are forms of mass communication. OK, maybe they aren't that different, then.
Regarding your main point, I think convergence is coming down the road in about 20 years, as per The Diamond Age. The only reason video games can't rival books for depth is that print media are thousands of years old; the geometry of book publishing was established 500 years ago, it's a mature form. Give gaming/simulation 50 years, it will be a superior learning method, and possibly a superior art.