Personally I'm not a big believer in chaos. Misunderstood order, yes. This view was shared by David Bohm. Bohm believed that there is no such thing as randomness, only order of a very high degree, so high that it is not recognizable as such at first glance or, possibly, ever.
An example I came across is that of a random number generator. A decent one will spit out numbers that are indistinguishable from a random sequence. If the RNG is started twice with the same seed it will produce the same sequence, proving that the numbers aren't really random at all. They have a definite order, but it is one that is so convoluted that without more information (such as the source code for the RNG) the order is nearly impossible to discern.
I'm afraid I haven't explained the idea very well. It's all in Bohm's book Wholeness and the Implicate Order, which also happens to be the foundation of the Holographic Universe theory set. Parts of it are very good, other parts are very dry, and still other parts contain maths that were impenetrable to me but should be transparent (or at least somewhat translucent) to someone with a background in Quantum Mechanics.
I like Bohm's ideas, but I don't have the intellectual tools to make any sort of claim on their veracity. I do know this: the theory hasn't gained much traction because it's off the wall, but to my knowledge there haven't been any problems pointed out with it either. Consider this a failed exposition on order turned into a shameless plea for more informed people to check out Bohm's ideas =)
Yes, that is quite good, but it's only getting done because Bush thought "big marine reserve" meant "a whole slew of new US Marines" and not "another place where I can't fish."
A nitpick, perhaps, but this isn't so much _the_ Nanny State as _a_ Nanny State. I don't like this policy any more than you do, but I'm glad it's at the state level and not federal. This is the way things ought to be, and it should make it easier for Californians such as yourself to push for a change.
It would be like going to a model train club and expecting help to build radio controlled airplanes. It's not their forte. Oh, so fucking girls is part of the scout program? Because that's what you're implying. Unless you are saying that gay boys' sexual preferences have such far-reaching consequences that they cannot intermingle with straight guys and learn to start fires with rocks or kill bears or whatever. Which I can totally understand - I find it hard to understand what people who prefer blondes are saying when they talk to me, for instance.
I bought a 2005 Scion xB a few years ago, and it's fantastic. The ride is a little bumpy like most Toyotas, but nothing like a jeep. I am of average height but it sits high enough for my tall friends (6'4 and 6'6) to enter, exit, and sit comfortably in the front and back seats, no less. A fair amount of space in the rear plus 60/40 folding back seat gives you plenty of room for cargo. Overall, it's a bit like the TARDIS - bigger on the inside than the outside. You won't be able to see over a lot of traffic (which shouldn't matter anyway if you're a decent driver), but you will get 34 MPG highway and 31 city.
I'd recommend checking one out, but Scion went and nerfed the thing for the 2nd generation: it now resembles an undersized SUV, is perfectly hideous (not that most people thought the first gen was all that pleasant to look at) and now gets a paltry 24 MPG. If you're not hell-bent on a pickup, you might be able to get a good deal on a used one, provided you can find someone willing to sell theirs. I'll most likely be driving mine until it dies.
I had a few issues with Leopard when I first purchased my MacBook Pro, the most annoying of which was the failure to wake up at least half the time when I opened the laptop. This seems to have been fully resolved with the last system update.
Everyone except for me, perhaps. I interpreted "freakish hand symbol" as "gang sign," and ran with it. I guess nobody else did, or it just wasn't funny, or whatever.
My dreams of getting a +5, Funny are dashed yet again, but at least I can count on an Informative point or two for clearing it up, yeah?
(skip it, don't need the karma) (better yet, mod me offtopic...excellent karma is teh boredom, and mod points just overload my decision-maker)
What the fuck, man? You can't just go around stacking as part of some fucking joke. Around here, that gets you killed. The Blues see you, they kill you cause they're rival. The Reds see you, they kill you for claiming. I see you stacking again, I kill you for being a punk-ass, shit-for-brains nerd who don't belong in this 'hood, who don't respect the law of the land, and who doesn't recognize good fucking advice when someone takes the time to explain it to his stupid self.
Sure, but is it really worth to go to all the trouble of setting up your sound card for the recording, saving, and maybe tagging the file yourself for every single song rather than paying a dime for the added convenience of having the track available to you from any web-connected computer? Really?
If it's a choice between abusing this service and finding the tracks on a torrent site, I'd pick the torrent site. Personally, I think the 0.10 per track is quite fair, and I'll probably give this new service a shot since I'm already a member of lala's CD trading service.
In addition, signing up to lala gets you access to their CD trading network, which I've been a part of for a few years. Basically, you list as many of the CDs that you own as you feel like taking the time to list, along with any CDs you are interested in owning. You'll be notified if other users have a CD in their wishlist that you own, and you can choose to send them your CD using the provided shipping cases / envelopes. You get no money from this. However, if someone decides to send you a CD from your wishlist, you only pay around $1.50 to receive it. It's cheap, and a great way to replace your junk CDs (assuming others want them) with music you are currently interested in.
Couple that with this new streamed collection, and it turns into a no-brainer. I hope this takes off as it will bring a lot of new blood to the CD trading network, giving me access to cheap music that the labels haven't authorized for streaming.
[T]he only way to perceive one is to step up a dimension and become a four dimensional entity. ...which, as your post is written without including yourself among us three-dee mortals, you have obviously done. What's the secret? Or is it something that involves long years of meditation and fence-painting? Because it'd be cool to see the edges of the universe and whatnot, but probably not worth all that trouble.
But regardless in my own experiences in one of the highest per-capita marijuana abusing cities in the US (Eugene, Oregon) I have had ample experience on the topic. Higher than normal taxes and a weak economy because most people are to lazy to do any real work and would rather just sit around smoking a bowl. I "Used" to smoke pot... it removes most motivations other than "Smoking pot", Munchies, and sleeping. I call shenanigans. First of all, your experience is anecdotal evidence and should not be taken as any sort of basis for national policy. Your claim that your city's economy and tax rates are due to some pot smokers is simply ludicrous. Do you have a shred of evidence to back this up? I didn't think so.
Second, you state that Eugene is one of the "highest per-capita marijuana abusing cities." I am guessing that you make no room for marijuana users as opposed to abusers. I guess everyone who unwinds with a beer is also an alcoholic, eh? There are millions of pot smokers who have steady jobs and contribute a lot to society. You don't hear much about them because they don't get caught very often (largely due, IMO, to racial profiling, but that's a rabbit trail I'd rather not go down here).
Don't get me wrong there are exceptions to every rule... but exceptions are a small % of the people. Exactly right. And you seem to be mistaking the exception for the norm. There will be some people who do nothing but waste their lives smoking pot, just as there are some people who waste their lives drinking alcohol, or watching TV, or working nonstop.
What you want is for Marijuana to become legal under the same classification. This is much different than changing Marijuana's classification. I can't comment on this because it doesn't make any sense. Were you high when you wrote it?
Hence if you actually read my whole post instead of getting ADD from your POT and falling asleep you would have noticed the beginning part of the line you quoted:
"While I personally think Marijuana should be legalized with the same types of restrictions as alcohol" Due to the failure of text to indicate tone, I'm not sure what the spirit of the above quote was, especially due to the mixed content of your post. If you were poking fun at pot smokers, then it was kind of funny. If you intended to be insulting, then it's just kind of sad. I hope for the former. I am wondering though, since you seem to really dislike the drug and its purported effects on people in your city, why exactly you want it to be legalized?
But that's okay... All illegal drug users can't do no wrong.. thats why they break into peoples houses and are the vast majority of criminals. That is why I own a handgun and can legally pack it around with me so I can shoot "Morons" like you when I "Fear for my life" due to you being high. Come now. Breaking into people's houses is the domain of meth heads and maybe crackheads. I have never, ever heard of a stoned guy doing anything like that. I've heard of criminals (thieves, gang members, etc.) who happen to use marijuana doing such things while sober or on a different drug. Believing that all or even most or even many pot smokers act this way is like believing the same thing of hip-hop fans or Pepsi drinkers.
As for them being the "vast majority of criminals," you're not far off the mark there. The catch is that they are criminals solely because of the drug laws - these are nonviolent offenders, guilty of nothing more than being in possession of a substance that can't harm anybody unless they ingest it. And here we are, with more than 1% of our population behind bars (about 1.5 million people), overcrowded, expensive prisons, and no signs of slowing.
Hell no, I won't vote for someone who supports that. I'm not a single-issue voter, but I dislike most of the republicrats' other policies as well. That leaves me the option of voting for a 3rd-party loser or a write in in order for my vote to be at all meaningful, so that's exactly what I am going to do.
Thanks for the info. For anyone else interested, you can buy their stuff direct at jonessodastore.com.
While we're sort of on the topic, another thing to look out for is crystalline fructose. It's derived from HFCS and contains an even larger ratio of fructose to glucose, so the health effects still apply. Crystalline fructose is appearing in more and more stuff, including Vitamin Water as I discovered this morning, which is supposed to be a healthy drink. Keep your eyes peeled my friends; it's still a jungle out there, but now it's disguised as a theme park.
It would be fantastic if a few companies (Coca-Cola, for example) who regularly use HFCS in their products could be convinced to start a "premium" line that uses real sugar. They would have to charge a little more due to the bullshit sugar tariffs, but they could also advertise better taste and better health.
Get enough companies to do this, and they could run ads saying, "Hey, you know that Coke Premium that tastes a little better than regular Coke? The only reason it's more expensive is because we have to pay sugar tariffs. We have to pay those because the US gov't decided that the income of corn-growing farmers is more important than your health. If you want cheaper Coke Premium and a whole range of healthier foods using natural sugar instead of HFCS, go to www.fuckHFCS.com to see how you can help make your gov't work for you again."
There could be something obvious I'm missing, but it looks like a win-win situation. The people are happy because their food tastes better, the companies involved are happy because they'll see increased revenues due to better-tasting food plus a ton of goodwill that they are perceived as looking out for the consumer.
The US is FAR from bankrupt. China's only where they are in the world because we're allowing them to grossly distort the currency exchange, because we want them to work for peanuts. Push comes to shove, we can just sue in the WTO and slap a Tarrif on investments and production from China. The US is not at all far from being bankrupt. We are borrowing over $1 billion a day, and most of that money comes from China. If our government tries to pull any funny business, China can dump the dollar and crash our currency in a matter of weeks or days. Now, they probably won't because it would cause a fair amount of global economic chaos, which isn't in the interest of any major nation. If you believe that we can stay financially afloat with such massive incurrence of debt, such devaluation of our currency by printing money whenever we feel like it?
3: The dollar is rapidly losing ground against every single currency in the world. The only reason that the dollar buys what it does is because people believe in it... and people are not anymore. Odd. I still get paid in dollars, and they purchase enough goods for me to go back to work tomorrow. And that doesn't strike you at all as short-sighted? Have you seriously failed to notice the slow creep of inflation over the past $number_of_years_since_you_started_buying_stuff years? Have you failed to notice how that rate is increasing? The dollar has already lost 96% of its purchasing power since 1913. Hyperinflation is a very real possibility.
The USSR did not have a free market, and was unable to feed people who did everything right. And here we come to a key part of the problem. The United States of America does not have a free market either. A free market is a market in which prices of goods and services are arranged completely by the mutual consent of sellers and buyers. Here in the US this is mostly true except that we have one buyer, (the Federal Reserve, that artificially, temporarily lowers prices by creating money out of thin air, something that cannot happen in a free market and something that devalues every dollar already in circulation. In case you believe I am going over the top, here is a video of Alan Greenspan stating quite clearly that we do not have a free market, along with some hand-waving about how we can't have one because of human nature.
The fact is, we're in pretty deep shit, and nobody's talking about it because nobody in the government or the media is talking about it, and we really need to talk about it if we're going to do anything to improve the situation.
Slashdot Mirror
An example I came across is that of a random number generator. A decent one will spit out numbers that are indistinguishable from a random sequence. If the RNG is started twice with the same seed it will produce the same sequence, proving that the numbers aren't really random at all. They have a definite order, but it is one that is so convoluted that without more information (such as the source code for the RNG) the order is nearly impossible to discern.
I'm afraid I haven't explained the idea very well. It's all in Bohm's book Wholeness and the Implicate Order, which also happens to be the foundation of the Holographic Universe theory set. Parts of it are very good, other parts are very dry, and still other parts contain maths that were impenetrable to me but should be transparent (or at least somewhat translucent) to someone with a background in Quantum Mechanics.
I like Bohm's ideas, but I don't have the intellectual tools to make any sort of claim on their veracity. I do know this: the theory hasn't gained much traction because it's off the wall, but to my knowledge there haven't been any problems pointed out with it either. Consider this a failed exposition on order turned into a shameless plea for more informed people to check out Bohm's ideas =)
Yes, that is quite good, but it's only getting done because Bush thought "big marine reserve" meant "a whole slew of new US Marines" and not "another place where I can't fish."
A nitpick, perhaps, but this isn't so much _the_ Nanny State as _a_ Nanny State. I don't like this policy any more than you do, but I'm glad it's at the state level and not federal. This is the way things ought to be, and it should make it easier for Californians such as yourself to push for a change.
Excellent response. Wish I had mod points. Here's a "me too!" instead.
On the other hand, a supper bug might just be the answer to the looming food crisis I keep hearing about!
I bought a 2005 Scion xB a few years ago, and it's fantastic. The ride is a little bumpy like most Toyotas, but nothing like a jeep. I am of average height but it sits high enough for my tall friends (6'4 and 6'6) to enter, exit, and sit comfortably in the front and back seats, no less. A fair amount of space in the rear plus 60/40 folding back seat gives you plenty of room for cargo. Overall, it's a bit like the TARDIS - bigger on the inside than the outside. You won't be able to see over a lot of traffic (which shouldn't matter anyway if you're a decent driver), but you will get 34 MPG highway and 31 city.
I'd recommend checking one out, but Scion went and nerfed the thing for the 2nd generation: it now resembles an undersized SUV, is perfectly hideous (not that most people thought the first gen was all that pleasant to look at) and now gets a paltry 24 MPG. If you're not hell-bent on a pickup, you might be able to get a good deal on a used one, provided you can find someone willing to sell theirs. I'll most likely be driving mine until it dies.
...and expected to reach its peak sometime around 2012 Causing the apocalypse predicted by the Mayan calendar, no doubt.I had a few issues with Leopard when I first purchased my MacBook Pro, the most annoying of which was the failure to wake up at least half the time when I opened the laptop. This seems to have been fully resolved with the last system update.
Everyone except for me, perhaps. I interpreted "freakish hand symbol" as "gang sign," and ran with it. I guess nobody else did, or it just wasn't funny, or whatever.
My dreams of getting a +5, Funny are dashed yet again, but at least I can count on an Informative point or two for clearing it up, yeah?
(skip it, don't need the karma)
(better yet, mod me offtopic...excellent karma is teh boredom, and mod points just overload my decision-maker)
What the fuck, man? You can't just go around stacking as part of some fucking joke. Around here, that gets you killed. The Blues see you, they kill you cause they're rival. The Reds see you, they kill you for claiming. I see you stacking again, I kill you for being a punk-ass, shit-for-brains nerd who don't belong in this 'hood, who don't respect the law of the land, and who doesn't recognize good fucking advice when someone takes the time to explain it to his stupid self.
Sure, but is it really worth to go to all the trouble of setting up your sound card for the recording, saving, and maybe tagging the file yourself for every single song rather than paying a dime for the added convenience of having the track available to you from any web-connected computer? Really?
If it's a choice between abusing this service and finding the tracks on a torrent site, I'd pick the torrent site. Personally, I think the 0.10 per track is quite fair, and I'll probably give this new service a shot since I'm already a member of lala's CD trading service.
In addition, signing up to lala gets you access to their CD trading network, which I've been a part of for a few years. Basically, you list as many of the CDs that you own as you feel like taking the time to list, along with any CDs you are interested in owning. You'll be notified if other users have a CD in their wishlist that you own, and you can choose to send them your CD using the provided shipping cases / envelopes. You get no money from this. However, if someone decides to send you a CD from your wishlist, you only pay around $1.50 to receive it. It's cheap, and a great way to replace your junk CDs (assuming others want them) with music you are currently interested in.
Couple that with this new streamed collection, and it turns into a no-brainer. I hope this takes off as it will bring a lot of new blood to the CD trading network, giving me access to cheap music that the labels haven't authorized for streaming.
penniesfromheaven
/obscure?
This is the same lala that has the fantastic purchase-a-physical-cd-for-a-buck p2p network, right? Please tell me that part isn't going away!
Second, you state that Eugene is one of the "highest per-capita marijuana abusing cities." I am guessing that you make no room for marijuana users as opposed to abusers. I guess everyone who unwinds with a beer is also an alcoholic, eh? There are millions of pot smokers who have steady jobs and contribute a lot to society. You don't hear much about them because they don't get caught very often (largely due, IMO, to racial profiling, but that's a rabbit trail I'd rather not go down here). Don't get me wrong there are exceptions to every rule... but exceptions are a small % of the people. Exactly right. And you seem to be mistaking the exception for the norm. There will be some people who do nothing but waste their lives smoking pot, just as there are some people who waste their lives drinking alcohol, or watching TV, or working nonstop. What you want is for Marijuana to become legal under the same classification. This is much different than changing Marijuana's classification. I can't comment on this because it doesn't make any sense. Were you high when you wrote it? Hence if you actually read my whole post instead of getting ADD from your POT and falling asleep you would have noticed the beginning part of the line you quoted:
"While I personally think Marijuana should be legalized with the same types of restrictions as alcohol" Due to the failure of text to indicate tone, I'm not sure what the spirit of the above quote was, especially due to the mixed content of your post. If you were poking fun at pot smokers, then it was kind of funny. If you intended to be insulting, then it's just kind of sad. I hope for the former. I am wondering though, since you seem to really dislike the drug and its purported effects on people in your city, why exactly you want it to be legalized? But that's okay... All illegal drug users can't do no wrong.. thats why they break into peoples houses and are the vast majority of criminals. That is why I own a handgun and can legally pack it around with me so I can shoot "Morons" like you when I "Fear for my life" due to you being high. Come now. Breaking into people's houses is the domain of meth heads and maybe crackheads. I have never, ever heard of a stoned guy doing anything like that. I've heard of criminals (thieves, gang members, etc.) who happen to use marijuana doing such things while sober or on a different drug. Believing that all or even most or even many pot smokers act this way is like believing the same thing of hip-hop fans or Pepsi drinkers.
As for them being the "vast majority of criminals," you're not far off the mark there. The catch is that they are criminals solely because of the drug laws - these are nonviolent offenders, guilty of nothing more than being in possession of a substance that can't harm anybody unless they ingest it. And here we are, with more than 1% of our population behind bars (about 1.5 million people), overcrowded, expensive prisons, and no signs of slowing.
Hell no, I won't vote for someone who supports that. I'm not a single-issue voter, but I dislike most of the republicrats' other policies as well. That leaves me the option of voting for a 3rd-party loser or a write in in order for my vote to be at all meaningful, so that's exactly what I am going to do.
Right, because punishing the populace of the state for mistakes and shady dealings perpetrated by party officials is a fair and sensible practice.
This thing looks almost exactly like the wheelers from Return to Oz, sans creepy face-looking helmets.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM0RFE3QGAU
I always thought something like that would be tons of fun.
No, but the system SHOULD track the ratio of flamebait mods for a particular user, and upon reaching 70% or 80% give them a ranking of Master Baiter.
Thanks for the info. For anyone else interested, you can buy their stuff direct at jonessodastore.com.
While we're sort of on the topic, another thing to look out for is crystalline fructose. It's derived from HFCS and contains an even larger ratio of fructose to glucose, so the health effects still apply. Crystalline fructose is appearing in more and more stuff, including Vitamin Water as I discovered this morning, which is supposed to be a healthy drink. Keep your eyes peeled my friends; it's still a jungle out there, but now it's disguised as a theme park.
It would be fantastic if a few companies (Coca-Cola, for example) who regularly use HFCS in their products could be convinced to start a "premium" line that uses real sugar. They would have to charge a little more due to the bullshit sugar tariffs, but they could also advertise better taste and better health.
Get enough companies to do this, and they could run ads saying, "Hey, you know that Coke Premium that tastes a little better than regular Coke? The only reason it's more expensive is because we have to pay sugar tariffs. We have to pay those because the US gov't decided that the income of corn-growing farmers is more important than your health. If you want cheaper Coke Premium and a whole range of healthier foods using natural sugar instead of HFCS, go to www.fuckHFCS.com to see how you can help make your gov't work for you again."
There could be something obvious I'm missing, but it looks like a win-win situation. The people are happy because their food tastes better, the companies involved are happy because they'll see increased revenues due to better-tasting food plus a ton of goodwill that they are perceived as looking out for the consumer.
The fact is, we're in pretty deep shit, and nobody's talking about it because nobody in the government or the media is talking about it, and we really need to talk about it if we're going to do anything to improve the situation.