Because everybody knows that before the advent designer clothes, free prim,ary education, hourly/salaried employment, college, cars and the internet, nobody was happy in the US, and life was similiar to what Nigeria is today. That must be why all those people in those 1800 vintage US photos are not smiling.
While I agree with your comments in-total, the lack of "things" is never a cause of "my life sucks." Life sucks in Nigeria, because society sucks in Nigeria, not because people don't have designer clothes, cars and internet access. And no, United States haters, it is not the United States' fault. Nice try, though.
Rich guy: $500,000 for a course of cancer treatment. Middle class guy: $5,000 deductable insurance policy at $250/month plus you get to pay for the poor guys health care too. Poor guy: Free health care at the county clinic
This reminds me of the comment my wife made when I said "Wouldn't it be cool of someone came up with something where you did not have to sleep?" Her respond "No, becuase you would be tired all the time." The point that excites everyone is not the potential of 230 years of extended dementia, but being able to live with good health for 300 years. Why does everyone assume if we learn to exend life, it will only occu by exending the most frail portion of our lifespan? That actually seems like the least likely scenario. Is is easier to keep a 80 year old body alive for 200 years or a 20 year old body?
Personally, I find that the most common cause of a decent into law breaking is the issuance of a drivers license. I do not know a single person with a driver license who has not sped on at least one occasion. I think that if we just got rid of cars, everyone would purchase at least two 19.99 Hillary Duff CDs every week.
Please, tell me, why was it necessary to build parts of NO below sea level? Because I truly do not have a clue why this would be true. In the Netherlands, where there is no land, I can see this. But why in the US? I think you are overstaing your case. Please explain.
As a structural engineer, let me assue you that a 2x4 house that will withstand 150 mph winds is easily possible. All that is required is 1) tie the walls to the concrete slab with hold-downs 2) tie the walls together with continuous plywood or osb sheathing and 3)tie the roof to the walls using hurricane straps. Doing this properly requires perhaps a 5%-7% increase in the cost of construction. If this ever done right? Unfortuntely, rarely. Why? Many different reasons.
No, about 70% of the county is allowed to vote. About 25% of these bothered to vote. About 50.1% of those voted for bush. These are all rough numbers. Thus,
The 52.5% of the country that cannot be bothered to vote, allowed the 8.75% who wanted a wack job in office, to in fact elect such wack job. This imposed the wack job on the 38.75% of the population who either a) cannot vote or b) did not want a wack job for president and voted aginst him.
Long live minority rule!
Actually, this would be the best thing that ever happen to you. Juries hate bad-faith claims aginst insurance companies. As a participant in several such lawsuits, I would give you a 99% chance that you would retire after the jury returned their verdict.
However, this is pretty much academic, as FEMA does not provide significant resources to those with insurance (they provide short-tem relief only). They request the insured to talk to their insurance companies. The big money is reserved for those without insurance. It sucks to lose your house, but it also sucks to pay for your homeowners insurance plus someone elses.
Hey, I live in Houston too, and I want to point out one major difference here. When my levees need improved, my levee improvement taxes go up. I pay these every year as part of my property taxes. Why does the federal government pay for NOLA levees? If they have a problem, they need to fix it. Note this is titally outside of dissaster relief, which I see as a legitament federal responsibility.
More accurately, to protect your enture county, when there is no option to live anywhere else, and to protect a small area of the country that is a lost cause when you have 99.9% of the rest of the country that is usable as-is.
Does this mean I have to post a serious reply? The point is, IP is a right clearly created by society and is supposed to represent a trade-off between the consumer and producer. Most people feel that the system is seriously out-of-wack in favor of the producer. I mean, get real, a patent on lifer saving drugs only last 20 years, but Micky Mouse gets 90? Unfortuntely, $$$ have trampled good sense, and file sharing is partially a result of this. Of course, it is also a partially a result of people not wanting to pay for IP, which is obviously wrong (i.e. imoral & illegal), but is not theft is the traditional sense of the word.
What? It's completely unambiguous, and there are very clear-cut laws on the books. You Cannot Speed - what haven't we figured out about that?
What you probably mean to say is that the part of the population that doesn't like to obey the speed limits haven't yet brainwashed enough eventual voters into thinking that they have an entitlement to drive as fast as they like, and thus we haven't yet changed the laws to make it so. Right now it's unambiguously illegal to speed, and the only variable is the number of people that think it should be OK. The good news (for the driver who obey the speed limit) is that the people that speed are also, generally, too intellectually lazy to even go through the motions of justifying speeding in terms that the rest of the productive economy will endorse.
You silly twit. What matters is what is says in the King James Bible, which King James hired God to write. In the KJB is says day, which in Engilish, the official language of God since the KJB was written, means 24 hours plus some small change.
You have obviously not applied reasoning and science to your position.
Um, no...
God is all-knowing, correct? And God knew the apple would be eaten, correct? So that makes him a child abuser, correct? I mean, would you put a syringe of heroin out for your child, and tell them not to inject it, in order the "test" them? Even I know better than that.
OTOH, I know some religious whacks who probably would.
Definitely to flame. Why? Because ID cannot do what it claims to do; explain the origin of the universe. Let us assume for discussions sake that we are willing to accept the creation of the universe is the result of some intelligent agent. Where the hell did the intelligent agent come from? ID just bumps up the same problem to another level, but the problem still exist. If mankind cannot evolve, how did the creator come into being? Actually, it even makes is worse. If totally flawed human cannot come into creation on their own, what hope do we have that a perfect, flawless being came into existence on their own?
Yeah, I know, God always was and always will be, but I though we were discussing ID, which claims all complex systems must have a creator? ID supporters are, in my extensive (an on-going) experience as a good Southern Baptist, always religious whack-jobs with no understanding of science.
Laugh all you want, but I think that we as a society need to seriously question where we are going, when you consider the popularity of this game (regardless of the ages of those who play it).
Personally, I would hate to think that my money was going to support this kind of stuff. Why is it so awfull that I want to shape the society that I live in? We have no problem making it mandatory for kids to learn to read and do math.
What limits we place on individual freedom vs societal rights is a reasonable arguement, but the line has to be between the two points, and always has been.
Hey,
Let's get off grandmothers and eigenvectors/eigenvalues. Mine taught me that Jacobian itteration is simple, but subspace itteration is more efficient for large matrices. What did yours teach you?
Of course, most of the good people of kansas realize that just at evolution is a farce, so is the idea of flying around the world. I mean, you would fall off the edge of the world if you tried to "fly around it."
Get real!
Actually, despite your very polite post, I am forced, however relutantly, to disagree with you. You are making a very artificial distinction when you say "physcial harm." You are at a minimum insinuating that artist, writers and the like cannot "harm" society. In fact, these parties are capable of great harm, and should be culpable for the harm that they create.
Now, I agree 100% that it is very difficult to define and measure these harms. But, just as it is difficult to measure the location of an electron, I have no doubt it has one.
Should it be illegal to stand on the public sidewalk in front of your house and have sex with a chicken? There is no physical harm here (at least to any people). If you object that a chicken cannot consent, can I have sex with my 65 year old mother on the sidewalk instead, as long as she consents? How about my 18 year old daughter?
We ban many things on the basis of morals. Most are so ingrained in our morays and folkways that we do not even see them. While this is definitely a slipperly slope, we have not choice but to deal with it.
BTW, you are not currently allowed, in any of the 50 states, to design or build a buildign that will fall down. It is explicitly illegal.
Actually, I would like to park my naked, 450 pound obese body on the public sidewalk in front of your house and beat off in front of your wife and kids. Could you send me your address?
Oh crap, I forgot, this is slashdot, you don't have a wife or kids. So what am I doing here?
Slashdot Mirror
Because everybody knows that before the advent designer clothes, free prim,ary education, hourly/salaried employment, college, cars and the internet, nobody was happy in the US, and life was similiar to what Nigeria is today. That must be why all those people in those 1800 vintage US photos are not smiling. While I agree with your comments in-total, the lack of "things" is never a cause of "my life sucks." Life sucks in Nigeria, because society sucks in Nigeria, not because people don't have designer clothes, cars and internet access. And no, United States haters, it is not the United States' fault. Nice try, though.
Sorry, you missed:
Rich guy:
$500,000 for a course of cancer treatment.
Middle class guy:
$5,000 deductable insurance policy at $250/month plus you get to pay for the poor guys health care too.
Poor guy:
Free health care at the county clinic
Who do you think is going to live longer?
This reminds me of the comment my wife made when I said "Wouldn't it be cool of someone came up with something where you did not have to sleep?" Her respond "No, becuase you would be tired all the time." The point that excites everyone is not the potential of 230 years of extended dementia, but being able to live with good health for 300 years. Why does everyone assume if we learn to exend life, it will only occu by exending the most frail portion of our lifespan? That actually seems like the least likely scenario. Is is easier to keep a 80 year old body alive for 200 years or a 20 year old body?
Personally, I find that the most common cause of a decent into law breaking is the issuance of a drivers license. I do not know a single person with a driver license who has not sped on at least one occasion. I think that if we just got rid of cars, everyone would purchase at least two 19.99 Hillary Duff CDs every week.
Please, tell me, why was it necessary to build parts of NO below sea level? Because I truly do not have a clue why this would be true. In the Netherlands, where there is no land, I can see this. But why in the US? I think you are overstaing your case. Please explain.
As a structural engineer, let me assue you that a 2x4 house that will withstand 150 mph winds is easily possible. All that is required is 1) tie the walls to the concrete slab with hold-downs 2) tie the walls together with continuous plywood or osb sheathing and 3)tie the roof to the walls using hurricane straps. Doing this properly requires perhaps a 5%-7% increase in the cost of construction. If this ever done right? Unfortuntely, rarely. Why? Many different reasons.
640kb? What a luxury. I bet you even had a video display device. I only had 16kb and a tty. Amazingly, I did like it.
No, about 70% of the county is allowed to vote. About 25% of these bothered to vote. About 50.1% of those voted for bush. These are all rough numbers. Thus, The 52.5% of the country that cannot be bothered to vote, allowed the 8.75% who wanted a wack job in office, to in fact elect such wack job. This imposed the wack job on the 38.75% of the population who either a) cannot vote or b) did not want a wack job for president and voted aginst him. Long live minority rule!
(/tinfoil on)Hmmm... maybe that is the point(/tinfoil off)
Actually, this would be the best thing that ever happen to you. Juries hate bad-faith claims aginst insurance companies. As a participant in several such lawsuits, I would give you a 99% chance that you would retire after the jury returned their verdict. However, this is pretty much academic, as FEMA does not provide significant resources to those with insurance (they provide short-tem relief only). They request the insured to talk to their insurance companies. The big money is reserved for those without insurance. It sucks to lose your house, but it also sucks to pay for your homeowners insurance plus someone elses.
Hey, I live in Houston too, and I want to point out one major difference here. When my levees need improved, my levee improvement taxes go up. I pay these every year as part of my property taxes. Why does the federal government pay for NOLA levees? If they have a problem, they need to fix it. Note this is titally outside of dissaster relief, which I see as a legitament federal responsibility.
More accurately, to protect your enture county, when there is no option to live anywhere else, and to protect a small area of the country that is a lost cause when you have 99.9% of the rest of the country that is usable as-is.
is powered by at least a million tribbles because they're going to need it.
Cap'n, I canna' give ya 'ny more pageloads, tha' tribbles are typin' 'a fast a they can!
I think that "self defense" doesn't mean what you think it does.
Does this mean I have to post a serious reply? The point is, IP is a right clearly created by society and is supposed to represent a trade-off between the consumer and producer. Most people feel that the system is seriously out-of-wack in favor of the producer. I mean, get real, a patent on lifer saving drugs only last 20 years, but Micky Mouse gets 90? Unfortuntely, $$$ have trampled good sense, and file sharing is partially a result of this. Of course, it is also a partially a result of people not wanting to pay for IP, which is obviously wrong (i.e. imoral & illegal), but is not theft is the traditional sense of the word.
What? It's completely unambiguous, and there are very clear-cut laws on the books. You Cannot Speed - what haven't we figured out about that? What you probably mean to say is that the part of the population that doesn't like to obey the speed limits haven't yet brainwashed enough eventual voters into thinking that they have an entitlement to drive as fast as they like, and thus we haven't yet changed the laws to make it so. Right now it's unambiguously illegal to speed, and the only variable is the number of people that think it should be OK. The good news (for the driver who obey the speed limit) is that the people that speed are also, generally, too intellectually lazy to even go through the motions of justifying speeding in terms that the rest of the productive economy will endorse.
You have obviously not applied reasoning and science to your position.
OTOH, I know some religious whacks who probably would.
However, evolution disproves literal biblical inerrency, which to the conservative power structure would be even worse than proving God did not exist.
Yeah, I know, God always was and always will be, but I though we were discussing ID, which claims all complex systems must have a creator? ID supporters are, in my extensive (an on-going) experience as a good Southern Baptist, always religious whack-jobs with no understanding of science.
Laugh all you want, but I think that we as a society need to seriously question where we are going, when you consider the popularity of this game (regardless of the ages of those who play it). Personally, I would hate to think that my money was going to support this kind of stuff. Why is it so awfull that I want to shape the society that I live in? We have no problem making it mandatory for kids to learn to read and do math. What limits we place on individual freedom vs societal rights is a reasonable arguement, but the line has to be between the two points, and always has been.
Hey, Let's get off grandmothers and eigenvectors/eigenvalues. Mine taught me that Jacobian itteration is simple, but subspace itteration is more efficient for large matrices. What did yours teach you?
Of course, most of the good people of kansas realize that just at evolution is a farce, so is the idea of flying around the world. I mean, you would fall off the edge of the world if you tried to "fly around it." Get real!
Actually, despite your very polite post, I am forced, however relutantly, to disagree with you. You are making a very artificial distinction when you say "physcial harm." You are at a minimum insinuating that artist, writers and the like cannot "harm" society. In fact, these parties are capable of great harm, and should be culpable for the harm that they create. Now, I agree 100% that it is very difficult to define and measure these harms. But, just as it is difficult to measure the location of an electron, I have no doubt it has one. Should it be illegal to stand on the public sidewalk in front of your house and have sex with a chicken? There is no physical harm here (at least to any people). If you object that a chicken cannot consent, can I have sex with my 65 year old mother on the sidewalk instead, as long as she consents? How about my 18 year old daughter? We ban many things on the basis of morals. Most are so ingrained in our morays and folkways that we do not even see them. While this is definitely a slipperly slope, we have not choice but to deal with it. BTW, you are not currently allowed, in any of the 50 states, to design or build a buildign that will fall down. It is explicitly illegal.
Actually, I would like to park my naked, 450 pound obese body on the public sidewalk in front of your house and beat off in front of your wife and kids. Could you send me your address? Oh crap, I forgot, this is slashdot, you don't have a wife or kids. So what am I doing here?