Actually, the court said that they didn't want to rule on what qualifies a person as a "journalist" but would rather focus on the activity. That's a quite sane and reasonable approach.
I doubt a judge would make the mistake of informing the public that journalists are no better or worse than the average joe. There's an imaginary line between self-righteous idiots who re-write associated press articles for a living and a humble blogger who does the same thing for free.
For those of us who run websites which often disseminate these sorts of trade secrets for the sake of the public good, this is a big win.
I doubt mentioning a product that's about to come out is considered a "trade secret." There were many flaws in Apple's argument, the judge went after something with less impact on the precedence.
First of all, don't go with 'flashy' hosts that try to woo you with their whiz-bang web design unless it's one of the big, well-known hosts. By this, I mean look at their website design. Does it look like a template? The sort that involve stock art pictures of people. If so, stay away.
You know.. I actually never thought of that but it's totally true. My web host's site had no CSS when I joined and the tables were all borked so bad I had to call them. $60/year for a gig of space and 3 gigs of bandwidth and my sites are the fastest I've visited (no links to avoid being labeled a whore). Since I know the guy, I'll leave the name of my host out of it.
I will, however, mention bargainname.com. Their website is almost 1997 vintage (it works but it's barely even HTML 4), but I've bought ~20 domains from them at $8/year (likely higher now) with no strings attached. I've even transfered to another domain provider for free (when a different hosting service forced me to). I'm not affiliated with bargainname in any way. They're owned by "dotster".. whoever that is..
Btw, bargainname may have sold my mailing address (how would I know), but apart from *possibly* that, I've never even shopped for another domain reseller since I've found them.
Once the rainforests are gone, discovering these chemicals and constituants will get much tougher and many drugs simply wont be invented. Reefs may help produce some drugs, but the article ignores the fact that the diminishing rainforests and other similar natural sources provide far better places to look for potential drug ingredients!
In other news, cleaning my counter with bleach could kill microbes which produce the cure for obsessive compulsive disorder.
There are unumerable (well, we'll call it 10^30 or something) chemicals being produced by organisms in the world. It hardly matters if the cure for cancer is hiding in a slime mold under a rock, because it's more likely a synthetic cure would be invented before we find cures in the wilderness.
Adolf Hitler and Stalin are on the ballot (cliche, I know).. PICK ONE!!
I put in a link to lp.org in my post to show my lack of affiliation with either of the big two. So save your "you criticized X so you MUST be Y" rant for someone who believes in that logical fallacy.
The Bush regime is currently trying to suffocate any movements that are active against it's highly inhuman and dirty practices to keep holding power in America yet are trying to fool the world about their support for democracy and free speech.
I'm a libertarian.. I don't see how the libertarianism would solve this as it's a private matter with private phone companies dispensing private information to private investigators... who need kicked in the privates.
I wonder how AT&T and Verizon will try to extort money for this to happen. Are they gonna track ITunes bittorrent traffic and charge Apple for it? If they can demand money from Google, Amazon etc for their content, which is incedentally less amount of data (per request probably megs at max) than a HD movie (gigs of data per request), I don't see why these cartels wouldn't eye Apple as their next target.
Funny you should mention that, I was thinking the same thing.
I think the only reason we have spam legislation (albeit inneffective) is that these companies demanded it. Most ISPs let you use infinite bandwidth per month (limited only by your throughput and the number of hours in the day), therefore, it was costing ISPs, and not the consumer. Ergo, if all spam stopped tomorrow, your ISP still wouldn't reduce rates, even a penny per subscriber per month. That sort of puts them in a position to want consumers to use less bandwidth.
So far, I think their demands to get money from Google/Amazon have been deflected. Those companies sell bandwidth, Google sells something to do with that bandwidth. That'd be like Apple demanding money from iPod accessory makers, especially ones that sell replacement batteries (which Apple profits on).
I don't see how these companies could do anything about this, except by teaming with the (RI|MP)AA to criminalize torrents. Congress either feigns ignorance or, just as bad, is ignorant about the internet. Therefore, if enough companies get on board, it's possible we could see this happening, or at least having it introduced (a media litmus-test to see if anyone notices). Show me a candidate that understands the internet and I'll vote for him/her.. PS, I haven't voted since 2004.
"That was very lucky," Laveroni said. "Anytime you are using an explosive you can cause harm to yourself, harm to witnesses, harm to the person who videotaped it and harm to the structure you are throwing at or setting aflame."
Anyone else have a problem with misguided teens being sent to jail for causing "minimal" damage to an "abandoned" building under the guise of their own "protection."
OK so some stupid prank done by stupid neo-nazi punks which doesn't hurt anybody (physically or financially) went down.. should people really have their whole lives thrown away for it? How about knocking it down to trespassing and destruction of property with a sentence of "how not to be fucking moron" classes and community service?
We've all done stupid things as a kid. I for one was a total fucktard when I was a teen. Now I'm going for my PhD in pharmacology. It'd be a damn shame for kids to not have the same opportunity simply because they decided sniffing glue and being racist was "like totalleh awesome." Kids are kids. Think of the lost potential vs what they've taken from anyone else. They broke a window and made a scorch mark on some pavement, should they have a felonly with "neo nazi" stamped on it when they go to apply for a job several years later?
Well, one of the domains I own (stampoutliteracy.com) has been compared to a mountain of "bullcrap." It's currently for sale for the low, low price of $8.3 million.
Any takers? We're talking a whole mountain here...
Solar cells may not be very efficient... yet. But the point is that you don't drain its availability by using it. Wind power, by the way, is also a form of solar power, and is in quite common use already at various places around the world.
Well if you want to get technical, alcohol-powered vehicles are actually solar powered, along with hydro.
Why stop there?
The earth came from the a star, right? well I guess that means even geothermal and fossile fuels are solar powered.
Efficacy is as important as efficiency here, which is why I don't think any of the currently popular 'renewable' sources of energy are going to do the trick.
Really, I think everbody's waiting for something like fusion. Though not renewable, there's enough heavy water in the oceans to last us until we can start invading other planets and stealing their stuff (a couple thousand years, this includes adjustments for the 200 world wars that will occur in that time)
Did you know that the Bush administration has barred climate researchers working for the government from speaking directly to the press? And that press releases, statements, or publicly released research on any climate matter must pass through the White House first, where they are essentially rewritten?
Maybe you should tune into 60 minutes more often. .. 60 minutes.. weren't they the ones who..
Where does the electricity to use for electrolysis come from?
Fossile fuels (wait, wouldn't that defeat the purpose?), nuclear (misguided eco-nuts are against it), or solar (I'm pretty sure hampsters on wheels with dynamos are more cost-effective).
I never understood how the mass media has no grasp of thermodynamics. You only need to memorize 2 stinkin words to undertand our energy problems: ENTROPY and CONSERVATION.
1. Entropy: Physics is out to screw over the environment by making EVERYTHING less than 100% efficient 2. Conservation: You can't get somethin' from nothin; no such thing as a free lunch; if I eat 2 tacos, I'm not going to take 3 dumps; etc.
Maybe according to economics I would have the same take home pay, but in the real world I can guarantee you my boss would not give me a raise, if I had to pay more taxes. I can also tell you fairly certainly yours would not either. This is the sort of economics that says people are paid exactly what they are worth. Which does not explain how I this year have saved my employer 10 times my own income, yet received no raise, and how as our company goes deeper into debt the CIO and CEO have gotten huge raises. Your fairy tale capitalism is just that a fairy tale.
Barring chronism and nepotism (your situation, not your bosses'), people are paid based on how many people will do the job at a given price (supply), and how much the employer is willing to spend to fill the position (demand). If you have a 90% tax rate on a $10,000/year job, nobody will be willing to work it because it's simply impossible to live on that little money.
Just because the curves aren't "simple" doesn't mean they're not there. You also must factor in the cost of information (can an employer find a dumbass willing to work for so little, or can an employee find a job that they think they're worth). The board at your company might see the cost of information on finding a new CEO/CIO for lower pay as too high to bother, not to mention the added costs of them picking their butt and not knowing there way around (as percieved by the board).
Per capita taxes usually rise (take a 10 year span, not a 1 year), as do wages.
Not quite right. We pay less in INCOME TAX than you do. But our total tax burden is slightly higher (IIRC, about 8% higher?)
What I DO find interesting, though, is that the single biggest governmental programme in canada (all levels) is the health care system - it's far from free.
But we still pay LESS per capita on health care than you do.
I remember recalling a story out of General Motors about 6 months or a year ago saying that they estimated that not having to contribute to medical insurance for their employees in Canada saves them something like $800 per vehicle.
Last time I checked, income taxes paid by americans averaged $22,000 per capita. I doubt it's that high in Canada, however you could be right as the numbers I used were on income tax (I didn't know employers paid so much).
I find it funny that governments try to conceal taxes by putting the number-crunching on the corporate side. In that I think the sales and income tax is the most honest: at least you KNOW what's being paid.
Economics Side-Note: Keep in mind that according to economics, whenever ANY good or serviced is taxed, less of it is bought and what is bought will be purchased at a higher cost (take a 100-level econ course in college to find out how much). Therefore, the higher the income taxes, the fewer the workers, and the higher the pay. By the same token, if employers are forced to pay taxes per laborer, they too will hire fewer workers but the pay will be lower. Either way, your take-home pay will be the same no matter who pays it if the total tax is the same, and companies will have fewer employees.
So, as an example, with social security, 6% of your paycheck is ganked, and the company matches it. According to economics, your take home pay would be the same if the company paid all the tax or you paid all the tax. The burden is determined by the tax and the supply and demand curves for your job, and not who writes the actual check to the government.
When you say things like that, what it basicly means is you think people like my grandmother- 80 years old, suffering from macular degeneration, and having lost an arm to cancer- should have been living in the streets. She should have had no help for her sight, she should have had no help for her heart medication. In other words, she should have died a decade before she did.
Yes but both of the programs that actually DO help people (medicare and social security) will be gone by the time I retire (I'm 23 ATM), and I'll have paid all those taxes and recieved precisely SQUAT for my troubles, aside from a few whore-iffic politicians buying old peoples' votes with promises of riches (which, unfortunately, belong to my generation).
My grandmother (before she died) stopped voting when all the polticians on the ballot offered her more tax-payer dollars. She considered it 'theft.' She died poor, but she was directly supported by her children. My parents just vote libertarian.
Social Security started out as a scam (retirement age was 65 which was the same as the life-expentancy), and it turned into a scheme (LBJ added SS dollars to the general fund, allowing him to buy 'guns and butter'). Now, polticians are struggling to gain political clout by fixing or ignorning the situation. Can someone tell me the Democrats' official stance on fixing SS? I heard "anything but what Bush is doing" and not a word more. Bush's stance (allowing you to keep would-be SS taxes in something like a 401k) did NOTHING to fix SS, but simply allowed some people to have a bit more when the system collapses.
My solution is to slowely eliminate social security spending over time, to the point where it's as worthless as welfare (in spite of all the bitching, Social Security is despensing ~960 TIMES more dollars than welfare).
Part of it is woeful mismanagement of our government. Consider this: Canadians and their 'free' healthcare pay LESS per capita in annual taxes than we do. If we had their government, PLUS our huge military (before you mention it), it'd STILL be less than we're paying now. However, this does not mean I'm pro-socialism, it simply means ANYTHING is better than what WE have.
I wonder if chips selected for reviews are overclocked first (just a bit), knowing full-well that it'll last long enough to go through the review process and the warantees wont be expensive to honor on just a small percentage of product.
Because the world's climate scientists have so much to gain by tricking people into driving more fuel efficient cars.
Actually, the energy companies make more money off natural gas per joule than gasoline.
Enron was 100% for America ratifying the kyoto treaty. This is directly due to the money that stands to be gained from alternative fuels like natural gas (which, btw, yields carbon dioxide when burned so it's not much better than gas).
As for TFA, I know this 'group-think' thing exists, and am not surprised that the scientific community (which is just like any other) is biased against uncommon beliefs. Just look at whenever a development in physics happens: the world descends upon the 'upstarts' and almost always criticizes their data, their methods, etc.
We'd like to think that the heliocentric theory, as an example, was initially rejected due to the catholic church (as I first learned it). However, geocentricity was also defended by fellow scientists, and if human nature remains constant, they ferverently believed it as well.
There's a very good book by PJ O'Rourke called "All the trouble in the world." He compares, side-by-side, the argument about greenhouse gasses (then called something else, obviously) and global cooling Vs. the modern statements about global warming. When looked at right next to eachother, these crises-of-the day have the same research telling opposing stories using the same wording. In one instance, statements made by scientists in the 1970's is nearly word-for-word plagurized by Al Gore in the 1990's, with a couple words moved around and "cooling" replaced with "warming" and "ice age" replaced with "flooding/drought."
As a closing thought, we already know political partisans' brains practically shut off when exposed to views they share. I wouldn't be surprised that 'kool-aid drinkers' are common in every idealogical forum, and eat up all factual and fictional data supporting their views without a second thought.
replace the word "legs" with "about 27cm" (from the looks of the thing).
Also, from the video (which is kind of silly), it looks like it's attached to a pole, which may mean it can't stand or walk on its own (certainly not without power or instruction, but maybe also not without physical guidance). I donno, neat toy at any rate.
PS, I mirrored the video here. Yeah I'm taking it down in 24 hours.
Slashdot Mirror
The only time an attack by a foreign power was ever carried out on U.S. soil was Pearl Harbour. 9/11 was done by the U.S. government. WAKE UP NOW!
I woke up this morning, drank some coffee.. but since this got modded up I must still be asleep.
9/11 was done not by the US government but by Saddam Hussein! Wait that's not right either.
Couldn't there be some sort of middle-ground? Truth, maybe?
Actually, the court said that they didn't want to rule on what qualifies a person as a "journalist" but would rather focus on the activity. That's a quite sane and reasonable approach.
I doubt a judge would make the mistake of informing the public that journalists are no better or worse than the average joe. There's an imaginary line between self-righteous idiots who re-write associated press articles for a living and a humble blogger who does the same thing for free.
For those of us who run websites which often disseminate these sorts of trade secrets for the sake of the public good, this is a big win.
I doubt mentioning a product that's about to come out is considered a "trade secret." There were many flaws in Apple's argument, the judge went after something with less impact on the precedence.
First of all, don't go with 'flashy' hosts that try to woo you with their whiz-bang web design unless it's one of the big, well-known hosts. By this, I mean look at their website design. Does it look like a template? The sort that involve stock art pictures of people. If so, stay away.
You know.. I actually never thought of that but it's totally true. My web host's site had no CSS when I joined and the tables were all borked so bad I had to call them. $60/year for a gig of space and 3 gigs of bandwidth and my sites are the fastest I've visited (no links to avoid being labeled a whore). Since I know the guy, I'll leave the name of my host out of it.
I will, however, mention bargainname.com. Their website is almost 1997 vintage (it works but it's barely even HTML 4), but I've bought ~20 domains from them at $8/year (likely higher now) with no strings attached. I've even transfered to another domain provider for free (when a different hosting service forced me to). I'm not affiliated with bargainname in any way. They're owned by "dotster".. whoever that is..
Btw, bargainname may have sold my mailing address (how would I know), but apart from *possibly* that, I've never even shopped for another domain reseller since I've found them.
Once the rainforests are gone, discovering these chemicals and constituants will get much tougher and many drugs simply wont be invented. Reefs may help produce some drugs, but the article ignores the fact that the diminishing rainforests and other similar natural sources provide far better places to look for potential drug ingredients!
In other news, cleaning my counter with bleach could kill microbes which produce the cure for obsessive compulsive disorder.
There are unumerable (well, we'll call it 10^30 or something) chemicals being produced by organisms in the world. It hardly matters if the cure for cancer is hiding in a slime mold under a rock, because it's more likely a synthetic cure would be invented before we find cures in the wilderness.
How can you pick the lesser of two evils.
Adolf Hitler and Stalin are on the ballot (cliche, I know).. PICK ONE!!
I put in a link to lp.org in my post to show my lack of affiliation with either of the big two. So save your "you criticized X so you MUST be Y" rant for someone who believes in that logical fallacy.
OH NOES! NOT SGI! How long before that beleaguered fruit company follows suit?!
Wait, is that still funny?
The Bush regime is currently trying to suffocate any movements that are active against it's highly inhuman and dirty practices to keep holding power in America yet are trying to fool the world about their support for democracy and free speech.
Really? An American president is trying to eliminate discourse? That's totally a new concept. Surely the Bush Administration is biggest threat to the constitution in American history.
Well at least we can get rid of this problem by voting Democrat, right? After all, they call themselves The Party Of Free Speech. They wouldn't lie, would they?
I'm a libertarian.. I don't see how the libertarianism would solve this as it's a private matter with private phone companies dispensing private information to private investigators... who need kicked in the privates.
I think they already do this in some states, except they discriminate by how many blow-up dolls you are transporting in your vehicle.
Boy howdy!
In Phoenix, we renamed the HOV/Carpool lane the 'pervert lane'. Rush hour? I fart in your general direction!
So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.
I wonder how AT&T and Verizon will try to extort money for this to happen. Are they gonna track ITunes bittorrent traffic and charge Apple for it? If they can demand money from Google, Amazon etc for their content, which is incedentally less amount of data (per request probably megs at max) than a HD movie (gigs of data per request), I don't see why these cartels wouldn't eye Apple as their next target.
Funny you should mention that, I was thinking the same thing.
I think the only reason we have spam legislation (albeit inneffective) is that these companies demanded it. Most ISPs let you use infinite bandwidth per month (limited only by your throughput and the number of hours in the day), therefore, it was costing ISPs, and not the consumer. Ergo, if all spam stopped tomorrow, your ISP still wouldn't reduce rates, even a penny per subscriber per month. That sort of puts them in a position to want consumers to use less bandwidth.
So far, I think their demands to get money from Google/Amazon have been deflected. Those companies sell bandwidth, Google sells something to do with that bandwidth. That'd be like Apple demanding money from iPod accessory makers, especially ones that sell replacement batteries (which Apple profits on).
I don't see how these companies could do anything about this, except by teaming with the (RI|MP)AA to criminalize torrents. Congress either feigns ignorance or, just as bad, is ignorant about the internet. Therefore, if enough companies get on board, it's possible we could see this happening, or at least having it introduced (a media litmus-test to see if anyone notices). Show me a candidate that understands the internet and I'll vote for him/her.. PS, I haven't voted since 2004.
Scary times.
Weird Al was unavailable for comment, but his assistant did pass along his official response, which was, "Mecha lecha hi, Mecha hiny hiny ho."
Wasn't this from PeeWee's playhouse?
"That was very lucky," Laveroni said. "Anytime you are using an explosive you can cause harm to yourself, harm to witnesses, harm to the person who videotaped it and harm to the structure you are throwing at or setting aflame."
Anyone else have a problem with misguided teens being sent to jail for causing "minimal" damage to an "abandoned" building under the guise of their own "protection."
OK so some stupid prank done by stupid neo-nazi punks which doesn't hurt anybody (physically or financially) went down.. should people really have their whole lives thrown away for it? How about knocking it down to trespassing and destruction of property with a sentence of "how not to be fucking moron" classes and community service?
We've all done stupid things as a kid. I for one was a total fucktard when I was a teen. Now I'm going for my PhD in pharmacology. It'd be a damn shame for kids to not have the same opportunity simply because they decided sniffing glue and being racist was "like totalleh awesome." Kids are kids. Think of the lost potential vs what they've taken from anyone else. They broke a window and made a scorch mark on some pavement, should they have a felonly with "neo nazi" stamped on it when they go to apply for a job several years later?
Well, one of the domains I own (stampoutliteracy.com) has been compared to a mountain of "bullcrap." It's currently for sale for the low, low price of $8.3 million.
Any takers? We're talking a whole mountain here...
Solar cells may not be very efficient... yet. But the point is that you don't drain its availability by using it. Wind power, by the way, is also a form of solar power, and is in quite common use already at various places around the world.
Well if you want to get technical, alcohol-powered vehicles are actually solar powered, along with hydro.
Why stop there?
The earth came from the a star, right? well I guess that means even geothermal and fossile fuels are solar powered.
Efficacy is as important as efficiency here, which is why I don't think any of the currently popular 'renewable' sources of energy are going to do the trick.
Really, I think everbody's waiting for something like fusion. Though not renewable, there's enough heavy water in the oceans to last us until we can start invading other planets and stealing their stuff (a couple thousand years, this includes adjustments for the 200 world wars that will occur in that time)
Did you know that the Bush administration has barred climate researchers working for the government from speaking directly to the press? And that press releases, statements, or publicly released research on any climate matter must pass through the White House first, where they are essentially rewritten?
.. 60 minutes.. weren't they the ones who..
Maybe you should tune into 60 minutes more often.
Where does the electricity to use for electrolysis come from?
Fossile fuels (wait, wouldn't that defeat the purpose?), nuclear (misguided eco-nuts are against it), or solar (I'm pretty sure hampsters on wheels with dynamos are more cost-effective).
I never understood how the mass media has no grasp of thermodynamics. You only need to memorize 2 stinkin words to undertand our energy problems: ENTROPY and CONSERVATION.
1. Entropy: Physics is out to screw over the environment by making EVERYTHING less than 100% efficient
2. Conservation: You can't get somethin' from nothin; no such thing as a free lunch; if I eat 2 tacos, I'm not going to take 3 dumps; etc.
Maybe according to economics I would have the same take home pay, but in the real world I can guarantee you my boss would not give me a raise, if I had to pay more taxes. I can also tell you fairly certainly yours would not either. This is the sort of economics that says people are paid exactly what they are worth. Which does not explain how I this year have saved my employer 10 times my own income, yet received no raise, and how as our company goes deeper into debt the CIO and CEO have gotten huge raises. Your fairy tale capitalism is just that a fairy tale.
Barring chronism and nepotism (your situation, not your bosses'), people are paid based on how many people will do the job at a given price (supply), and how much the employer is willing to spend to fill the position (demand). If you have a 90% tax rate on a $10,000/year job, nobody will be willing to work it because it's simply impossible to live on that little money.
Just because the curves aren't "simple" doesn't mean they're not there. You also must factor in the cost of information (can an employer find a dumbass willing to work for so little, or can an employee find a job that they think they're worth). The board at your company might see the cost of information on finding a new CEO/CIO for lower pay as too high to bother, not to mention the added costs of them picking their butt and not knowing there way around (as percieved by the board).
Per capita taxes usually rise (take a 10 year span, not a 1 year), as do wages.
Not quite right. We pay less in INCOME TAX than you do. But our total tax burden is slightly higher (IIRC, about 8% higher?)
What I DO find interesting, though, is that the single biggest governmental programme in canada (all levels) is the health care system - it's far from free.
But we still pay LESS per capita on health care than you do.
I remember recalling a story out of General Motors about 6 months or a year ago saying that they estimated that not having to contribute to medical insurance for their employees in Canada saves them something like $800 per vehicle.
Last time I checked, income taxes paid by americans averaged $22,000 per capita. I doubt it's that high in Canada, however you could be right as the numbers I used were on income tax (I didn't know employers paid so much).
I find it funny that governments try to conceal taxes by putting the number-crunching on the corporate side. In that I think the sales and income tax is the most honest: at least you KNOW what's being paid.
Economics Side-Note:
Keep in mind that according to economics, whenever ANY good or serviced is taxed, less of it is bought and what is bought will be purchased at a higher cost (take a 100-level econ course in college to find out how much). Therefore, the higher the income taxes, the fewer the workers, and the higher the pay. By the same token, if employers are forced to pay taxes per laborer, they too will hire fewer workers but the pay will be lower. Either way, your take-home pay will be the same no matter who pays it if the total tax is the same, and companies will have fewer employees.
So, as an example, with social security, 6% of your paycheck is ganked, and the company matches it. According to economics, your take home pay would be the same if the company paid all the tax or you paid all the tax. The burden is determined by the tax and the supply and demand curves for your job, and not who writes the actual check to the government.
When you say things like that, what it basicly means is you think people like my grandmother- 80 years old, suffering from macular degeneration, and having lost an arm to cancer- should have been living in the streets. She should have had no help for her sight, she should have had no help for her heart medication. In other words, she should have died a decade before she did.
Yes but both of the programs that actually DO help people (medicare and social security) will be gone by the time I retire (I'm 23 ATM), and I'll have paid all those taxes and recieved precisely SQUAT for my troubles, aside from a few whore-iffic politicians buying old peoples' votes with promises of riches (which, unfortunately, belong to my generation).
My grandmother (before she died) stopped voting when all the polticians on the ballot offered her more tax-payer dollars. She considered it 'theft.' She died poor, but she was directly supported by her children. My parents just vote libertarian.
Social Security started out as a scam (retirement age was 65 which was the same as the life-expentancy), and it turned into a scheme (LBJ added SS dollars to the general fund, allowing him to buy 'guns and butter'). Now, polticians are struggling to gain political clout by fixing or ignorning the situation. Can someone tell me the Democrats' official stance on fixing SS? I heard "anything but what Bush is doing" and not a word more. Bush's stance (allowing you to keep would-be SS taxes in something like a 401k) did NOTHING to fix SS, but simply allowed some people to have a bit more when the system collapses.
My solution is to slowely eliminate social security spending over time, to the point where it's as worthless as welfare (in spite of all the bitching, Social Security is despensing ~960 TIMES more dollars than welfare).
Part of it is woeful mismanagement of our government. Consider this: Canadians and their 'free' healthcare pay LESS per capita in annual taxes than we do. If we had their government, PLUS our huge military (before you mention it), it'd STILL be less than we're paying now. However, this does not mean I'm pro-socialism, it simply means ANYTHING is better than what WE have.
I wonder if chips selected for reviews are overclocked first (just a bit), knowing full-well that it'll last long enough to go through the review process and the warantees wont be expensive to honor on just a small percentage of product.
Because the world's climate scientists have so much to gain by tricking people into driving more fuel efficient cars.
Actually, the energy companies make more money off natural gas per joule than gasoline.
Enron was 100% for America ratifying the kyoto treaty. This is directly due to the money that stands to be gained from alternative fuels like natural gas (which, btw, yields carbon dioxide when burned so it's not much better than gas).
As for TFA, I know this 'group-think' thing exists, and am not surprised that the scientific community (which is just like any other) is biased against uncommon beliefs. Just look at whenever a development in physics happens: the world descends upon the 'upstarts' and almost always criticizes their data, their methods, etc.
We'd like to think that the heliocentric theory, as an example, was initially rejected due to the catholic church (as I first learned it). However, geocentricity was also defended by fellow scientists, and if human nature remains constant, they ferverently believed it as well.
There's a very good book by PJ O'Rourke called "All the trouble in the world." He compares, side-by-side, the argument about greenhouse gasses (then called something else, obviously) and global cooling Vs. the modern statements about global warming. When looked at right next to eachother, these crises-of-the day have the same research telling opposing stories using the same wording. In one instance, statements made by scientists in the 1970's is nearly word-for-word plagurized by Al Gore in the 1990's, with a couple words moved around and "cooling" replaced with "warming" and "ice age" replaced with "flooding/drought."
As a closing thought, we already know political partisans' brains practically shut off when exposed to views they share. I wouldn't be surprised that 'kool-aid drinkers' are common in every idealogical forum, and eat up all factual and fictional data supporting their views without a second thought.
Radiometric dating points to the earth's inception being ~4.6 billion years ago.
Radiometric dating.. I guess that's the first stage in how planets make other planets.
I've heard of feet per second, but legs?
replace the word "legs" with "about 27cm" (from the looks of the thing).
Also, from the video (which is kind of silly), it looks like it's attached to a pole, which may mean it can't stand or walk on its own (certainly not without power or instruction, but maybe also not without physical guidance). I donno, neat toy at any rate.
PS, I mirrored the video here. Yeah I'm taking it down in 24 hours.
Wake me up when they find some ethanol. :\
Why? So you can pass out again?