Public ballots allow shady people to head into neighborhoods, escort normal people over to polling stations, and threaten them with harm if they don't vote for Mr. X. Public voting is not just bad, it's extraordinarily bad.
You ever wonder how despots in various dictatorships around the world get 98% and 99% votes? Public voting is your answer. You take the red ballot and the blue ballot into the voting booth, in complete secrecy you put whichever ballot you want into the box, then you go outside and give the blue ballot to the guy with the gun.
Spectacularly bad idea.
What we need are verifiable ballots. Not public ballots.
Your first point is correct, your second point is not, and your conclusion is completely wrong.
First point restated: The value of currency is determined by the amount of value being traded and the amount of the currency in the economy. Qualitative value (relative to other goods or services) is a measure based on what other valueable goods or services people will give up in order to acquire this good or service. Local quantitative value (measured in units of currency) can be calculated once the scarcity of a currency has been established and it has been accepted into the economy. At that point, you can also state the value of a unit of currency in anything else of value (how much is a dollar's worth of X?).
Second point refuted: Labor is time spent generating value (presumably for exchange). If what is acquired in a game has value to others, then time spent in a game can be considered labor. The fact that chinese and koreans are hired to farm for in-game-currency and are paid for their time is conclusive. The fact that I can go on eBay (or other sites) and exchange actual currency for in-game assets is also conclusive. The fact that most games go to great effort to ensure the scarcity of certain items is supportive. Scarcity is necessary (but not sufficient) for a good or service to have value.
Ultimately: Markets determine value. There is a market for in-game items. Ergo: in-game items have value.
Now, I do agree that if you're trying to make a living in EVE or WoW and you live in the US, you'd better be living lean and have some amazing value-making strategies. On my best days playing EVE, I've acquired in-game items worth a total of about $50 (300 million isk). Not a lot of wealth (value) there.
No need to roll back the years to "be a kid again". After a little while, nobody will think it's strange. Well, they'll think it's strange, just not strange for you.
Just get a kit, spread it out on the living room floor, and go to town. They're great fun (I'm 34, married and we're expecting our first kid).
True. You have to use technic axles or snap-connectors to connect technic beams to technic bricks. They aren't stud-based, but they do connect quite nicely.
So, I would guess you're observing that the technic beams don't connect to plain bricks? Well, sure. But there have always been technic parts that don't work with plain bricks. Even the technic beams have been around for decades. The only thing that's really changed in this set is that now the emphasis is on the beams instead of the bricks.
A move which I wholeheartedly applaud. The technic beams have always had more potential for dynamic movement and better engineering than the technic bricks.
Sadly, this isn't true. It does do things to your cells, bad things, especially your brain and nervous system which is one big electrical grid.
Actually, there are a lot of assumptions in your statements that either have no evidence, or are contradicted by the available evidence.
Your central nervous system isn't a big electrical grid. One mode of communication in networks of neurons is electro-chemical, but EM radiation hasn't been shown to have any effect on electro-chemical signalling. With two exceptions.
The first is when enough microwaves tuned for water or fat are absorbed to increase the cell's temperature. But you need fairly strong EM radiation to actually heat up tissue to the point that any change is observed. Being more than a few inches away from the antenna puts you well outside the measurability range. At those distances, the temperature of the air in your house and what you've recently eaten has a much larger influence on your brain tissue temperature than all of the EM sources around you.
The second is when high energy radiation (UV, x-ray and higher frequencies) destroys and disrupts your tissues or genes, which can cause small or large injuries, cancers, etc., depending on the dose received.
Other than those two specific cases, EM radiation doesn't seem to insert unexpected signals, prevent signals from being properly received, or do anything else to neuron communication. The frequencies we're discussing here aren't energetic enough or strong enough to cause either kind of problem. Worry about what you ingest (food, drink, air) long before you worry about the EM emissions from your wireless phone/network card.
So, the radiation from these devices 1) doesn't have any effect on your central nervous system, 2) isn't cooking you, and 3) isn't damaging your genes. What other "bad things" were you thinking might happen?
I'm not destitute, but I have a hard time justifying a $50 present for a child, much less a $250 one.
When I was 6 in 1978, my dad bought and assembled a $60 bicycle for me. We were military (lower middle-class) and based on the numbers from the US government, that's about the same as $180 today. So $250 isn't really that much of a stretch...
IMHO, if your kid actually expresses an interest in creative activities (like Lego), you'd be foolish not to support that with every dollar you can spare. Better than spending all of his/her time playing schoolyard politics and learning how to be a bully or other great social lessons taught by our public school system. But then, you may have different ideas about what you think it's important for kids to learn, and so reach different conclusions about what's an appropriate place to spend your hard-earned money.
As for the value, they're durable design toys, not just toys. You can build as many toys as you want from Lego parts and most of the parts will last for decades, even when heavily used and abused. This isn't just the toy that the manufacturer wanted you to have. I grant that Lego kits are expensive, but the issue isn't whether they're worth it, but how many I can afford (and keep track of).
If you were hoping for an argument from me, you'll be disappointed. You're right that religion is not the only way to cause your followers to dehumanize others, it just happens to be how the latest group the US government labels "terrorists" does it. The fact that islam makes it very easy to do that was also a part of my thinking when I wrote my original post.
And my post was deliberately ambiguous. Of course I can't tell between islamic zealots and christian zealots (except by poverty), because I see little difference between the morality of actions by the US and Israeli governments and the actions of the insurgents they're fighting.
Both feel that their current actions are essential responses to wrongs done to them. Both have done wrongs which act as provocation for the other side. Both know that innocent civillians will be killed as a result of their actions. Both continue with their actions, feeling that the loss of innocent life is necessary to achieve their goals.
And I also agree about the future of the US. In the direction it's heading, people will soon be burned at the stake for claiming that tiny invisible things called germs are responsible for disease (and not the will of God). By then, I hope to have built a home in another part of the world where rational discourse still holds some sway. I just hope that the US doesn't take the rest of the world down with it...
I enjoy working with my Mindstorms set, but I've run into a serious limitation. The parts that come with the Mindstorms kit just aren't sufficient for building anything cool. The Technic sets are long gone. The best I could figure is that I'd have to buy a whole lot of Mindstorms to get enough gears, shafts, and standard bricks to build anything really nifty. Obviously cost prohibitive, but at least I'd have a lot of RCX bricks.
What you want are lego dacta (educational) sets. Look for Pitsco Lego Dacta.
This looks like a promising one: Educational Resource Set. It's described as complementary to the new Mindstorms Education set (derived from the NXT kit) and is only $59. Looks like lots of structure, gearing, and wheels for a decent price.
Currently out of stock. Probably worth back-ordering, however.
Not knowing how acurate the photo is in the article, it appears that they may have started moving even the Mindstorms from the standards of the Technics sets.
The standards are the same, but the primary building element has changed. From the Technic Brick to the Technic Beam.
If they weren't fundamentalist Muslims, they'd be fundamentalist Christians, or fundamentalist something else- does it really make a difference if radicals kill in the name of Yahweh or Allah?
Nope. Read my post again and you'll see that I specifically described the problem as being fundamentalist religious believers, not fundamentalist islamic believers. Down through the centuries, fundamentalist Christians have committed many of the worst atrocities in history in the name of their God.
Name a single 'basic Constitutional right' Bush has restricted. Oh yeah--you can't, because he hasn't.
Are you sure you want this?
Right to due process: Jose Padilla and everyone in Guantanamo Bay. Secure in person and posessions: PATRIOT Act. Free speech and free association: NSA wiretaps and PATRIOT Act. Right to privacy (considered an implied Constitutional right by the SCOTUS): PATRIOT Act. For goddammed starters!
Under Bush, the US has become the land of the scared and the home of the suspicious. This is no longer a country that is worth being proud of, and as long as proudly ignorant sheeple like you keep electing fascist neocons into office, the police state is only going to get worse. The fact that you continue to ignore the problems when your face is pushed into them is enough evidence for my description of you, Bob. You and your politics disgust me. I'm a registered Republican, but I can spot someone who doesn't hold the ideals of small government a mile off.
The loss of what really matters about this country is your fault. Your fault and the fault of others who voted for Bush. Twice.
You want the 'cause of terrorism'? Get your head out of fairytales about "freedom" and look what the US/UK axis has done to destroy LIBERTY throughout the world for more than 75 years.
While I agree that what you mention is the most likely provocation for worldwide ill will against the US, don't forget that terrorist action also requires a moral justification, and in this case, that moral justification comes from a literal reading of the Koran. The willingness of people to indiscriminately kill innocent people cannot be separated from the influence of fundamentalist religious belief.
The US government has pissed a lot of people off, and some of those people are willing to follow religious leaders who place no value on the lives of people who don't share their beliefs. That's the recipe for modern terrorism.
However, the main beef I have with the assertions the article makes is that CFL bulbs last 10 years. Maybe this is a function of older designs, but we haven't found CFLs to effectively last any longer than standard incandescent. Either the electronics crap out early, or the bulb dims and radically changes color (purple is popular) fairly quickly.
I haven't tried the newest round of bulbs, as all of mine (about 15) are about six years old. At the time, I was buying for a four bedroom house and have since moved into a two bedroom condo, so the three bulbs that have burned out in the last six years have been replaced by other bulbs I already owned.
Interestingly, all three burned out bulbs were mounted upside down (the ballast was at the top of the mounted bulb). Given that the manufacturers do mention a reduced life when mounted upside down, I wonder how many of your low-reliability bulbs are mounted that way?
The latest round seems to be a lot better, but they still buzz well within my hearing range.
I'm a 35 year old male and I can always hear the high-pitched sound from the TV flyback amplifier, so I understand that my hearing is still pretty acute. However, there was only one CF bulb that I could ever hear. Didn't like the color either, so it got "left behind" in the move. I wonder if the other bulbs you're hearing are particularly low quality or close to failure (from being mounted upside down:) As I mentioned earlier, my condo is currently full of six year old bulbs, and I can't hear any of them. The TV still drives me up the wall.
FWIW, I've personally settled on Commercial Electric bulbs from Home Depot. They turn on instantly to very near full brightness, are bright and have a very nice color temperature (neither too sickly yellow/green, nor glaring "cool" blue). So far so good as far as lifetime...
I suspect that you've just been unlucky in the past. Good luck with these (Home Depot seems to be pretty good about choosing quality suppliers).
That's one goal of a few religious sects (some of whom are terrorist). And since that group hasn't succeeded in that one goal, you think that all terrorists aren't happy about the progress of the conflict? pffft.
Bush said that they envy our freedom. If he's right, then their actions and our responses have done a great job of pulling us down to their level.
It's simpletons like you that cause me to look overseas for my family's future. Because of people like you, the USA has become the land of the suspicious and the home of the scared. That's not the USA I want to live in.
Apparently the Sansa line of music players use a better version of the same PortalPlayer chip found in the iPod. Better as in the version in all iPods is optimized for hard drive playback, while the version in the Sansa products is optimized for flash playback. Otherwise the same part.
Obviously, that's only the central component and there's more to a music player than the one chip. You'd by absolutely right to say that the whole analog audio pathway is critical, and Apple may do a better job shielding the analog circuitry from the digital noise in the rest of the device...
But since none of these are audiophile or near-audiophile systems, I'm not expecting miraculous clarity and staging. Just something to pass the time while exercising or...
The problem with your approach, as with all approaches that start with conception is that people will never agree when life begins. Is that fertilized egg human life? What about at the embryo stage? When we start from a state of non-life a sperm and an egg and try and determine when life begins, it's anybody's guess.
Is that my approach? Either I dramatically miswrote something or you dramatically misread something. Looking back at my post: you misread something. Take another look. I think you'll find that I do not assert that life begins with conception (or state any other conclusions about when life starts).
The big hint ought to be:
It's the definition of the start of "humanhood" that's the ultimate core of each side's argument, and for all of the attempts to draw firm black/white distinctions by both sides, what is actually a human being, with all of the rights and responsibilities of that label, has a very fuzzy start with lots of shades of grey.
By the way, birth isn't an absolute either. Other cultures have argued that a baby doesn't have human rights until one or more days after birth. It's a pragmatic approach which can allow poor mothers to avoid starving all of her children because she happened to get pregnant again.
Back to your remarks:
Who's to say their morallity [sic] is any better or worse than yours or mine? It's just different.
All moralities are equal, eh? I have a few questions for you:
Can different moral systems result in more or less happiness for people who follow them (all other things being equal)?
Do different moral systems result is more of less happiness for people in communities where most people in the community follow them (all other things being equal)?
I assert that people choose a moral system because they believe that following those morals gives them a greater chance of having "The Good Life", which I approximately define as long-term happiness. I further assert that the happiness of the individual and the happiness of the community are both important, though an appropriate balance of happiness between self and others is a much larger discussion. I also assert that some moral systems are better at maximizing self and other happiness. Finally, I'll assert that rule-based moralities (like all Bible-based moralities) are inferior to moral systems that ask you to think through consequences to achieve goals.
Ultimately, they are inferior because the world changes and rules can't adapt the way thinking can.
So, in answer to your question: who am I to say their morality is better or worse than mine? I'm me. I'm free to reach my own conclusions on the matter, and I have. From here, though I'm frequently learning new things (and changing my mind on various subjects as a result), I sincerely doubt that I'll learn something to reverse my big conclusions about morality. The details? Sure. But on the big picture, I just don't buy that there's a big guy in the sky who's got anything useful to say about right and wrong.
I personally like the part where he describes himself as being a clinical sociopath (the "about me" portion). Lots of dead giveaways in there. The fact that people like that exist is one of the scarier things about human nature.
I've managed to identify a few people like that from my acquaintances through the years. Every once in a while I get the willies wondering if there have been other sociopaths that I didn't spot.
I can imagine a whole lot of pro-choicers refusing to have these stem cells because no embryos were destroyed. They're utterly obsessed with aborting something, anything.
You may be able to imagine that, but luckily for those of us who live in the real world, those people are only in your imagination.
Nobody wants to kill babies. It's the definition of the start of "humanhood" that's the ultimate core of each side's argument, and for all of the attempts to draw firm black/white distinctions by both sides, what is actually a human being, with all of the rights and responsibilities of that label, has a very fuzzy start with lots of shades of grey.
A scenario: A couple has trouble conceiving. A doctor harvests eggs and sperm and fertilizes eight embryos, which are then frozen. Over the next three years, the doctor attempts to implant four embryos, and two children are born. The delighted couple stops trying to have children and move on to raising their family.
A question: What should happen to the other four embryos? They are the genetic and actual property of the couple. But the couple have no intention of using them and don't want to pay for indefinite storage. The couple also don't want other people to bear their genetic children.
But they are post-conception embryos, and therefore are full human beings according to the right-to-lifers. So what does that mean? Who should pay to keep them frozen? If the electrical system in the storage fails, can the maintenance company who flipped the wrong switch be charged with the manslaughter of more people than were killed in the holocaust?
The right-to-life crowd have far too simple a worldview for the real world. Their morality just doesn't resemble the realities of the world in which we live. That square-peg/round-hole mismatch might be quaint and entertaining, except when those people try to force their broken moral decision making on others, right when their morality is at it's most clearly ridiculous.
Your friend is working in a daycare. The place catches fire. Do you save your friend or the cage full of screaming toddlers? Most pick the friend.
Bullshit. The previous poster's statement was based on an actual study of hypothetical behavior. Your statement was pulled directly from your anal sphincter without leaving any time to dry.
Rabid right-to-life advocates claim that all lives are equally valuable. In the theoretical universe of their minds, perhaps. In reality, they're not. People make judgements about differing value of life every day, and those judgements make sense to those of us who choose to use our rational minds to understand the world around us.
On the other hand, FUSION is theortically possible, and that would 'destroy' its hydrogen fuel, producing worthless (you can't drink it) helium.
Oh noes! Panic!:)
Fear not! That "worthless" helium would be very useful to the mixed gas scuba diving market, which currently has to rely on the meager pickings of helium separated from natural gas.
No, really. Helium in your mixture lets you dive deeper with less mental confusion (and therefore more safely). This effect is noticeable even at deeper recreational depths (though there are not a huge number of injuries related to nitrogen narcosis in recreational diving).
At the moment, Helium is rather expensive to blend into your breathing mix. If there was enough of a fusion industry to knock the price down (though I suspect that even total conversion of all electrical production to tokamak-style fusion generation would not produce more than a few grams an hour)...
But if you want this terror problem dealt with, you have to punish those who are caught and convicted. Not let them off easy.
Which, exactly, of the people caught and held in Guantanamo, have been formally accused of a crime, let alone convicted? I'm all for throwing the book at someone after conviction, but the group you're cheering for has completely set aside due process.
Do you think for 1 second that the enemy would treat our soldiers w/ even 1% the respect that suspects we are holding are treated with? Fat Chance.
Ah, that old chestnut again. So because they do commit atrocities, it means that we should commit atrocities? That kind of unprincipled morality leads to the US being completely undistinguishable from any other police state in history. Thanks, but I'd like the US to remain the home of the free for a little longer.
I call myself a conservative, but I find you and people like you revolting in the extreme and am embarassed that you call yourself an American. You don't deserve it. It's your fucking fault that we're in this mess, you ignorant little shit. You voted for Bush twice, and you're still defending the neocon policies that make the world and you and me that much less safe every day. What the US is doing in Iraq and Afghanistan and supporting what Israel is doing in Lebanon are recruiting more and more terrorists and strengthening their resolve every single day. And yet you continue.
And I don't know if there is any method of checking for a chemical residue for nitroglycerin--unlike other chemical explosives.
Actually, nitroglycerin falls cleanly into the category of chemicals that the explosives residue detectors are most sensitive to: organic nitrous compounds. 10 years ago, they weren't doing residue checks. Now there are wipedowns, puffers, etc.; all of which are highly tuned to detect organic nitrous compounds (among other things).
And even if there was a method to detect chemical residues, noone checks the insides of the bottles. They just do a quick swab. Even today I don't see any reason why terrorists can't cleanse the outsides of containers to prevent the swab from working.
Because the detectors are sensitive to incredibly small quantities (hundreds or thousands of molecules/parts per trillion when airborne). As in: you'll need a truly great seal on the bottle, two clean rooms and a remarkable cleaning protocol to make sure that the remaining residues are below the detection threshold.
Not that it can't be done, but the cost is unbelievable (and the number of people that need to cooperate increases the risk of detection). Someone from the first room being within several feet of the bottle for a few minutes after cleaning would leave a detectable explosive residue on the bottle's surface.
Well, I'm from Texas, but living in California. And I brought all of my gear with me (except that one mean-looking hole-punch that California law is still in a snit over). Which basically means that my neighborhood will be really well armed for a California city and about on-par for Ohio.
Although I suspect that California will itself have a civil war if the feces truly hits the rotating air-circulation device. California has lots and lots of rural right-wingers who are continuously at a low boil over the fact that California consistently votes Dem in national elections (durned city-folk!). And those rednecks own *plenty* of firearms.
No, we don't know that. Children actually learn language fairly slowly, when you think about it. Most children raised in environments that are saturated with well-spoken english still take 6-7 years before they speak without making many grammatical errors in the course of a conversation.
Actually, they do learn languages very quickly and very well. English, however, isn't one language, it's a confused patois of at least three languages, and that complexity is what causes so many delays in learning. For languages that have a single grammatical rule set, children need less time before they are considered proficient. Further, doing a syntactic analysis of children speaking will usually reveal a simpler and more consistent language than adults speaking.
English is a pidgin (a conglomeration of languages defined by language-inflexible adults). Each group of children creates a creole (what children's minds create naturally when raised with a pidgin), and then we force them to learn the pidgin instead of the (often superior) creole they already know, calling the pidgin "proper". This second, square-peg/round hole learning is what takes all of the time.
As an example, ebonics is just one of many english-derives creoles that has a more consistent and easier to teach/learn syntax than english.
It's a strange world we live in. Stranger than most people know.
Slashdot Mirror
Public ballots allow shady people to head into neighborhoods, escort normal people over to polling stations, and threaten them with harm if they don't vote for Mr. X. Public voting is not just bad, it's extraordinarily bad.
You ever wonder how despots in various dictatorships around the world get 98% and 99% votes? Public voting is your answer. You take the red ballot and the blue ballot into the voting booth, in complete secrecy you put whichever ballot you want into the box, then you go outside and give the blue ballot to the guy with the gun.
Spectacularly bad idea.
What we need are verifiable ballots. Not public ballots.
Regards,
Ross
Your first point is correct, your second point is not, and your conclusion is completely wrong.
First point restated: The value of currency is determined by the amount of value being traded and the amount of the currency in the economy. Qualitative value (relative to other goods or services) is a measure based on what other valueable goods or services people will give up in order to acquire this good or service. Local quantitative value (measured in units of currency) can be calculated once the scarcity of a currency has been established and it has been accepted into the economy. At that point, you can also state the value of a unit of currency in anything else of value (how much is a dollar's worth of X?).
Second point refuted: Labor is time spent generating value (presumably for exchange). If what is acquired in a game has value to others, then time spent in a game can be considered labor. The fact that chinese and koreans are hired to farm for in-game-currency and are paid for their time is conclusive. The fact that I can go on eBay (or other sites) and exchange actual currency for in-game assets is also conclusive. The fact that most games go to great effort to ensure the scarcity of certain items is supportive. Scarcity is necessary (but not sufficient) for a good or service to have value.
Ultimately: Markets determine value. There is a market for in-game items. Ergo: in-game items have value.
Now, I do agree that if you're trying to make a living in EVE or WoW and you live in the US, you'd better be living lean and have some amazing value-making strategies. On my best days playing EVE, I've acquired in-game items worth a total of about $50 (300 million isk). Not a lot of wealth (value) there.
Regards,
Ross
No need to roll back the years to "be a kid again". After a little while, nobody will think it's strange. Well, they'll think it's strange, just not strange for you.
Just get a kit, spread it out on the living room floor, and go to town. They're great fun (I'm 34, married and we're expecting our first kid).
Regards,
Ross
True. You have to use technic axles or snap-connectors to connect technic beams to technic bricks. They aren't stud-based, but they do connect quite nicely.
So, I would guess you're observing that the technic beams don't connect to plain bricks? Well, sure. But there have always been technic parts that don't work with plain bricks. Even the technic beams have been around for decades. The only thing that's really changed in this set is that now the emphasis is on the beams instead of the bricks.
A move which I wholeheartedly applaud. The technic beams have always had more potential for dynamic movement and better engineering than the technic bricks.
Regards,
Ross
Your central nervous system isn't a big electrical grid. One mode of communication in networks of neurons is electro-chemical, but EM radiation hasn't been shown to have any effect on electro-chemical signalling. With two exceptions.
The first is when enough microwaves tuned for water or fat are absorbed to increase the cell's temperature. But you need fairly strong EM radiation to actually heat up tissue to the point that any change is observed. Being more than a few inches away from the antenna puts you well outside the measurability range. At those distances, the temperature of the air in your house and what you've recently eaten has a much larger influence on your brain tissue temperature than all of the EM sources around you.
The second is when high energy radiation (UV, x-ray and higher frequencies) destroys and disrupts your tissues or genes, which can cause small or large injuries, cancers, etc., depending on the dose received.
Other than those two specific cases, EM radiation doesn't seem to insert unexpected signals, prevent signals from being properly received, or do anything else to neuron communication. The frequencies we're discussing here aren't energetic enough or strong enough to cause either kind of problem. Worry about what you ingest (food, drink, air) long before you worry about the EM emissions from your wireless phone/network card.
So, the radiation from these devices 1) doesn't have any effect on your central nervous system, 2) isn't cooking you, and 3) isn't damaging your genes. What other "bad things" were you thinking might happen?
Regards,
Ross
Regards,
Ross
IMHO, if your kid actually expresses an interest in creative activities (like Lego), you'd be foolish not to support that with every dollar you can spare. Better than spending all of his/her time playing schoolyard politics and learning how to be a bully or other great social lessons taught by our public school system. But then, you may have different ideas about what you think it's important for kids to learn, and so reach different conclusions about what's an appropriate place to spend your hard-earned money.
As for the value, they're durable design toys, not just toys. You can build as many toys as you want from Lego parts and most of the parts will last for decades, even when heavily used and abused. This isn't just the toy that the manufacturer wanted you to have. I grant that Lego kits are expensive, but the issue isn't whether they're worth it, but how many I can afford (and keep track of).
Regards,
Ross
If you were hoping for an argument from me, you'll be disappointed. You're right that religion is not the only way to cause your followers to dehumanize others, it just happens to be how the latest group the US government labels "terrorists" does it. The fact that islam makes it very easy to do that was also a part of my thinking when I wrote my original post.
And my post was deliberately ambiguous. Of course I can't tell between islamic zealots and christian zealots (except by poverty), because I see little difference between the morality of actions by the US and Israeli governments and the actions of the insurgents they're fighting.
Both feel that their current actions are essential responses to wrongs done to them.
Both have done wrongs which act as provocation for the other side.
Both know that innocent civillians will be killed as a result of their actions.
Both continue with their actions, feeling that the loss of innocent life is necessary to achieve their goals.
And I also agree about the future of the US. In the direction it's heading, people will soon be burned at the stake for claiming that tiny invisible things called germs are responsible for disease (and not the will of God). By then, I hope to have built a home in another part of the world where rational discourse still holds some sway. I just hope that the US doesn't take the rest of the world down with it...
Regards,
Ross
This looks like a promising one: Educational Resource Set. It's described as complementary to the new Mindstorms Education set (derived from the NXT kit) and is only $59. Looks like lots of structure, gearing, and wheels for a decent price.
Currently out of stock. Probably worth back-ordering, however.
The standards are the same, but the primary building element has changed. From the Technic Brick to the Technic Beam.
Regards,
Ross
Regards,
Ross
Right to due process: Jose Padilla and everyone in Guantanamo Bay. Secure in person and posessions: PATRIOT Act. Free speech and free association: NSA wiretaps and PATRIOT Act. Right to privacy (considered an implied Constitutional right by the SCOTUS): PATRIOT Act. For goddammed starters!
Under Bush, the US has become the land of the scared and the home of the suspicious. This is no longer a country that is worth being proud of, and as long as proudly ignorant sheeple like you keep electing fascist neocons into office, the police state is only going to get worse. The fact that you continue to ignore the problems when your face is pushed into them is enough evidence for my description of you, Bob. You and your politics disgust me. I'm a registered Republican, but I can spot someone who doesn't hold the ideals of small government a mile off.
The loss of what really matters about this country is your fault. Your fault and the fault of others who voted for Bush. Twice.
Ross
The US government has pissed a lot of people off, and some of those people are willing to follow religious leaders who place no value on the lives of people who don't share their beliefs. That's the recipe for modern terrorism.
Regards,
Ross
Interestingly, all three burned out bulbs were mounted upside down (the ballast was at the top of the mounted bulb). Given that the manufacturers do mention a reduced life when mounted upside down, I wonder how many of your low-reliability bulbs are mounted that way?
I'm a 35 year old male and I can always hear the high-pitched sound from the TV flyback amplifier, so I understand that my hearing is still pretty acute. However, there was only one CF bulb that I could ever hear. Didn't like the color either, so it got "left behind" in the move. I wonder if the other bulbs you're hearing are particularly low quality or close to failure (from being mounted upside down
I suspect that you've just been unlucky in the past. Good luck with these (Home Depot seems to be pretty good about choosing quality suppliers).
Regards,
Ross
Regards,
Ross
That's one goal of a few religious sects (some of whom are terrorist). And since that group hasn't succeeded in that one goal, you think that all terrorists aren't happy about the progress of the conflict? pffft.
Bush said that they envy our freedom. If he's right, then their actions and our responses have done a great job of pulling us down to their level.
It's simpletons like you that cause me to look overseas for my family's future. Because of people like you, the USA has become the land of the suspicious and the home of the scared. That's not the USA I want to live in.
Ross
Apparently the Sansa line of music players use a better version of the same PortalPlayer chip found in the iPod. Better as in the version in all iPods is optimized for hard drive playback, while the version in the Sansa products is optimized for flash playback. Otherwise the same part.
Obviously, that's only the central component and there's more to a music player than the one chip. You'd by absolutely right to say that the whole analog audio pathway is critical, and Apple may do a better job shielding the analog circuitry from the digital noise in the rest of the device...
But since none of these are audiophile or near-audiophile systems, I'm not expecting miraculous clarity and staging. Just something to pass the time while exercising or...
Regards,
Ross
The big hint ought to be:
By the way, birth isn't an absolute either. Other cultures have argued that a baby doesn't have human rights until one or more days after birth. It's a pragmatic approach which can allow poor mothers to avoid starving all of her children because she happened to get pregnant again.
Back to your remarks:
All moralities are equal, eh? I have a few questions for you:
- Can different moral systems result in more or less happiness for people who follow them (all other things being equal)?
- Do different moral systems result is more of less happiness for people in communities where most people in the community follow them (all other things being equal)?
I assert that people choose a moral system because they believe that following those morals gives them a greater chance of having "The Good Life", which I approximately define as long-term happiness. I further assert that the happiness of the individual and the happiness of the community are both important, though an appropriate balance of happiness between self and others is a much larger discussion. I also assert that some moral systems are better at maximizing self and other happiness. Finally, I'll assert that rule-based moralities (like all Bible-based moralities) are inferior to moral systems that ask you to think through consequences to achieve goals.Ultimately, they are inferior because the world changes and rules can't adapt the way thinking can.
So, in answer to your question: who am I to say their morality is better or worse than mine? I'm me. I'm free to reach my own conclusions on the matter, and I have. From here, though I'm frequently learning new things (and changing my mind on various subjects as a result), I sincerely doubt that I'll learn something to reverse my big conclusions about morality. The details? Sure. But on the big picture, I just don't buy that there's a big guy in the sky who's got anything useful to say about right and wrong.
Regards,
Ross
I personally like the part where he describes himself as being a clinical sociopath (the "about me" portion). Lots of dead giveaways in there. The fact that people like that exist is one of the scarier things about human nature.
I've managed to identify a few people like that from my acquaintances through the years. Every once in a while I get the willies wondering if there have been other sociopaths that I didn't spot.
Regards,
Ross
Nobody wants to kill babies. It's the definition of the start of "humanhood" that's the ultimate core of each side's argument, and for all of the attempts to draw firm black/white distinctions by both sides, what is actually a human being, with all of the rights and responsibilities of that label, has a very fuzzy start with lots of shades of grey.
A scenario: A couple has trouble conceiving. A doctor harvests eggs and sperm and fertilizes eight embryos, which are then frozen. Over the next three years, the doctor attempts to implant four embryos, and two children are born. The delighted couple stops trying to have children and move on to raising their family.
A question: What should happen to the other four embryos? They are the genetic and actual property of the couple. But the couple have no intention of using them and don't want to pay for indefinite storage. The couple also don't want other people to bear their genetic children.
But they are post-conception embryos, and therefore are full human beings according to the right-to-lifers. So what does that mean? Who should pay to keep them frozen? If the electrical system in the storage fails, can the maintenance company who flipped the wrong switch be charged with the manslaughter of more people than were killed in the holocaust?
The right-to-life crowd have far too simple a worldview for the real world. Their morality just doesn't resemble the realities of the world in which we live. That square-peg/round-hole mismatch might be quaint and entertaining, except when those people try to force their broken moral decision making on others, right when their morality is at it's most clearly ridiculous.
The future will certainly be interesting.
Regards,
Ross
Rabid right-to-life advocates claim that all lives are equally valuable. In the theoretical universe of their minds, perhaps. In reality, they're not. People make judgements about differing value of life every day, and those judgements make sense to those of us who choose to use our rational minds to understand the world around us.
Regards,
Ross
Fear not! That "worthless" helium would be very useful to the mixed gas scuba diving market, which currently has to rely on the meager pickings of helium separated from natural gas.
No, really. Helium in your mixture lets you dive deeper with less mental confusion (and therefore more safely). This effect is noticeable even at deeper recreational depths (though there are not a huge number of injuries related to nitrogen narcosis in recreational diving).
At the moment, Helium is rather expensive to blend into your breathing mix. If there was enough of a fusion industry to knock the price down (though I suspect that even total conversion of all electrical production to tokamak-style fusion generation would not produce more than a few grams an hour)...
Regards,
Ross
Ah, that old chestnut again. So because they do commit atrocities, it means that we should commit atrocities? That kind of unprincipled morality leads to the US being completely undistinguishable from any other police state in history. Thanks, but I'd like the US to remain the home of the free for a little longer.
I call myself a conservative, but I find you and people like you revolting in the extreme and am embarassed that you call yourself an American. You don't deserve it. It's your fucking fault that we're in this mess, you ignorant little shit. You voted for Bush twice, and you're still defending the neocon policies that make the world and you and me that much less safe every day. What the US is doing in Iraq and Afghanistan and supporting what Israel is doing in Lebanon are recruiting more and more terrorists and strengthening their resolve every single day. And yet you continue.
Fuck you,
Ross
Because the detectors are sensitive to incredibly small quantities (hundreds or thousands of molecules/parts per trillion when airborne). As in: you'll need a truly great seal on the bottle, two clean rooms and a remarkable cleaning protocol to make sure that the remaining residues are below the detection threshold.
Not that it can't be done, but the cost is unbelievable (and the number of people that need to cooperate increases the risk of detection). Someone from the first room being within several feet of the bottle for a few minutes after cleaning would leave a detectable explosive residue on the bottle's surface.
Regards,
Ross
Well, I'm from Texas, but living in California. And I brought all of my gear with me (except that one mean-looking hole-punch that California law is still in a snit over). Which basically means that my neighborhood will be really well armed for a California city and about on-par for Ohio.
Although I suspect that California will itself have a civil war if the feces truly hits the rotating air-circulation device. California has lots and lots of rural right-wingers who are continuously at a low boil over the fact that California consistently votes Dem in national elections (durned city-folk!). And those rednecks own *plenty* of firearms.
Regards,
Ross
English is a pidgin (a conglomeration of languages defined by language-inflexible adults). Each group of children creates a creole (what children's minds create naturally when raised with a pidgin), and then we force them to learn the pidgin instead of the (often superior) creole they already know, calling the pidgin "proper". This second, square-peg/round hole learning is what takes all of the time.
As an example, ebonics is just one of many english-derives creoles that has a more consistent and easier to teach/learn syntax than english.
It's a strange world we live in. Stranger than most people know.
Regards,
Ross