Of course, this is straight from the mouth of an electric car maker, so take it with your appropriate grain of salt. FWIW, as it were, or if we're being slightly more clever: YMMV? Regardless, the stats look pretty accurate. I'm guessing that if you google "well-to-wheel" you'll find more stuff as well. =)
Your major problem begins in your first step: "1. Government should ban smoking by people under 18, because of the harmful health effects." I don't think that's why we ban people under 18 from smoking. It's not because of the harmful health effects, it's because we, as a society, believe that minors don't have the appropriate mental facilities to appropriately handle and take responsibility for the harmful health effects.
For example -- examine the following statement: "Government should ban driving by people under 18, because of the harmful health effects." Well, that's certainly plausible enough; we don't want them to hurt themselves or others. But both you and I know that the above reason is NOT why we ban underage people from driving; it's because they are not COMPETENT to assume the responsibility of their own and other people's lives. After all, adults risk their own and other people's lives daily by driving automobiles, but because they can understand and take responsibility for the involved risks, we tend to think it's ok.
The most puzzling point in your argument, for me, was this: "Treating the two groups differently, is a bit like saying we should have lighter sentences for female murderers than for male murderers, just because men are more likely to commit murder." Or it's more like having lighter sentences for child murderers than adult murderers? Why would you use a bad analogy when the actual state of affairs shows how absurd your conception is? Do you think a 5-year-old should do 25-to-life for "play" shooting mommy with daddy's handgun? No, of course not -- it's fairly obvious that the child does not possess the skills and knowledge necessary to be held accountable for his actions.
The truth is much simpler than you're making it out to be: we don't think that people under 18 can handle the responsibility of life-or-death decisions (and even some other types of decisions). Therefore, we restrict them from making such decisions. We shouldn't allow children to smoke because, quite frankly, the average 7-year-old is too freaking stupid to understand the effects that smoking might have on them. I don't necessarily think that adults are that much better off in the "understanding and appreciating risks" area, but at least we tend to think: "that dumbass brought it on himself" when an adult cognizant of smoking's risks takes up the habit.
And another interesting quote, to respond to this type of objection: "(I still say that doesn't matter, because you're talking about comparing a person under 18 who smokes, with a person over 18 who smokes, and their judgment in both cases is the same, etc.)". This statement is a bit unclear, but I think you're actually raising a DIFFERENT counter-objection than you think you are. I think you're saying this: 'maybe we're comparing a 17.995-year-old to an 18.005-year-old -- they can't be that different, right? Why should one be allowed to smoke and not the other?'
While I agree, this is a completely separate argument. You're arguing about the arbitrary point at which something "becomes a good idea". Maybe you're right, there, but it doesn't respond to the objection raised. If it's a 17 and 18-year-old, that's one thing. But what about a 5-year-old and an 18-year-old? Surely you wouldn't say the reasoning skills of those two individuals will be the same in this regard? And yes, you're right -- any arbitrary point in time will lead you to the conclusion of "hey why is this banned now but not 5 minutes from now?" The answer is simple and obvious -- because any arbitrary point in time is as good as another, and so we choose an average arbitrary point in time that maximizes our satisfaction that the smoker is "competent" to understand and accept the risks of smoking.
All in all, I think your argument is lamentably poor. Rather than arguing against the age split between allowed to smoke vs not allowed to smoke, you're much better off creating a good argument for banning it for everyone (e.g., the same en
Or do you only turn into a pedantic snobbish asshat when it's convenient to dodge criticism of your preciousssss.... preciousssss...
Yes, that is one explanation. But if you READ the context (shocker) -- he brings it up because it's a TERMINOLOGY debate. The point was that they should call it the "Kernel Driver Project" instead of "Linux Driver Project." Hey, guess what -- that's the same thing! And furthermore -- this whole discussion is about DEVELOPMENT. The fact that "Linux is only the kernel" is notable primarily to DEVELOPERS -- when you're comparing "Linux" to Vista, that's not a development discussion at all. I'm guessing you're more comfortable in those discussions.
And how is anyone shying away from the "slightly critical of linux?" Seems to me that most people agree -- we'd love to see more drivers for printers, scanners, and usb devices. And we think it's lacking now! However, if you were clued in to the DEVELOPMENT discussion, you'd realize that's not what these developers DO. They develop the KERNEL. I'd love to have my auto mechanic fix my computer, but goddammit, he can't seem to. OUTRAGE!!!
Actually, plane crashes are scary because once you're on the plane, there is nothing you can do about them.
There are huge numbers of colluding biases that make planes scary for people. Some are logical, and others are less logical -- either way, I think people characterize fear of things like planes incorrectly. It's not just a matter of risk, it's also a matter of perception. For example, take flamethrowers. Horribly ineffective weapon, horribly effective scare tactic -- who would want to die like that? In the case of planes, some of the contributing factors include:
Natural, inborn fear of heights present in many mammals
Fear of the unknown
Betrayal of "common sense" -- it seems unreasonable that something so heavy could actually stay aloft
Ignorance of real risk facts
Fear culture that has evolved around airplanes since their inception
Fear of dying in a "gruesome" manner
Social reinforcement for fear -- lots of other people are scared, too
The list, of course, continues. To try and isolate causes of complex fears and other actions is a serious error that humans make all the time, in an effort to understand and interact with our circumstances. Why do you love your parents? Is it because it's inborn, or learned, or because they gave you cookies, or because it's necessary to create a social fabric? Of course, it's not any of those -- it's all of them, and many, many more reasons.
Punishment, on the other hand, is something prison is really good at. And once you start realizing that crininals are there to be punished, it becomes that much easier to ignore the situation when the other inmates take it upon themselves to be "cruel and unusual." Now, that doesn't mean prison rape is okay; far from it! But it does mean that prison rape is not as bad as rape of a non-criminal. And, dispite being cruel and unsual, rape is an effective punishment.
So you're admitting that it's a constitutional violation, ineffective in rehabilitating criminals, and immoral, but you're defending it anyway? Regardless, prison is a very strange punishment, if that's what you think it is. I'm assuming you've never actually been inside a prison -- or you'd have a better idea what life is really like in lockup.
On the other hand, while I was doing research investigating patterns of conflict in prisons, I got the exact opposite impression that you express here. Far from "punishing" criminals, prison reinforces criminals' social schemas and increases the likelihood of violent crime. Most inmates I talked to said "yeah, prison sucks, but it's not so bad -- at least the people here understand me." Studies on recidivism consistently find that many criminals commit crimes after release because they have no social outlet or support on the outside -- they only "fit in" in jail (institutionalization).
Of course, most people probably identify this clearly with Red from "Shawshank Redemption" -- he's an institutional man; he's a nobody on the outside. Another good pop culture scene that actually mirrored my observations in prisons is from "Blow" -- "I went in with a bachelor's in marijuana and left with a doctorate in cocaine." We're doing our inmates and our society a disservice in the way we handle criminals in America (but that's another story).
More to the point -- this case. You call this guy "psychopathically malicious." Now, ignoring the fact that you clearly misuse and misunderstand the idea of psychopathy, let's look at how risky what he did is. He called SWAT down on a house, and everyone was fine. As a matter of fact, the grand, grand majority of SWAT stings go down just fine. The fact that so many raids are carried out daily without incident is a testimony to the efficiency and training of most SWAT teams. Furthermore, I don't agree that it was malicious at all. Malice is generally typified by an extreme emotion toward your "victim" -- in this case, the guy was clearly not emotionally attached to the victims; he selected them at random. Furthermore, we can't say that he intended anyone to be hurt, although he clearly wasn't using very sound judgment (e.g., he was "stupid").
I would estimate that the risk he created is approximately equal to that of a typical (very) drunk driver -- would you say that all drunk drivers also deserved to be raped? Many people have driven intoxicated in the past, perhaps even you.
As to my "straw man" -- you think that just because you wouldn't personally advocate it, it doesn't occur, or nobody else advocates it? The attitude of "ha ha you're going to get raped in prison" creates a social atmosphere where prison rape is OK -- even if it's just rape of your marijuana-possessing mother. It also creates a generation of violent criminals with a history of sexual assault -- which is likely to be passed on to their children and other people in "free society".
There is no good reason to advocate, joke about, or create a socially acceptable atmosphere for any rape, even in prison. Even if prison is for "punishment" (which I don't accept) -- rape isn't supposed to be part of the package. If we, as a society, really think that it should be, then we should own up to it and institutionalize it (everyone gets raped at the door or some such nonsense).
This silly explanation can be easily summed with one simple truth of English (American or otherwise): punctuation goes inside quotation marks for any actual QUOTE, but outside for anything that is not a quote. That's how the MLA and most professional writers prefer it.
Correctly punctuated sentences:
Susie said: "you're a jerk!"
Susie said you're a jerk!
Susie said you're a "jerk"! (OK, this one's a little shady, but you can assume the speaker's paraphrasing)
lets hope this guys cellmate does what he has been training to do. He is going to get his ports probed.
Why is it that people in this country encourage rape as part of punishment? That sentiment is absolutely sickening. If that was your brother, or your son, or your father -- would you want his ports probed, even if he did do something incredibly stupid? What about your mother? Would you want your mother raped repeatedly over the course of years if she was found with a piddling amount of a controlled substance (even a tiny amount of cocaine or other drugs can get you locked up for years in this country)?
Rape is not, and should not be a part of incarceration in America. It is not helpful for punishing or rehabilitating criminals -- you're many times more likely to perpetrate sexual crimes and violent crimes if you have been sexually assaulted yourself. That assholes like you think it's funny to contemplate male rape while likely voting to strip homosexuals of basic human rights is a pure travesty.
You can also get history by months, etc. Anyway, you don't need to write a script -- you just have to go to the history for particular days and see what the heat index was. Problem solved. It looks like the heat index easily hits 110 in the summer; it's over 100 in many parts of southern florida even today.
As stupid as some people are, no cop would be that stupid. I'm sure he's aware that the camera on his cruiser is rolling the whole time, and there's absolutely no way he would have been able to justify shooting the "perp". That's exactly the thing -- tazers are supposed to replace guns in many situations. Instead, they have absolutely no relation to the utilization of guns; if a cop actually NEEDS to take you down, he's going to use a gun, not a tazer.
A tazer's more like a fun toy that they give cops and tell them that they're not lethal, so just go to freakin town. Imagine my scenario without a tazer -- the guy would have complied (albeit perhaps taking his hands down to the ground, and the cop would have just yelled a little bit. It might have taken a little longer, but it's not as if the cop was in any danger from the suspect.
That was an absolutely fantastic read. The conclusions of those tests are pretty insightful; he accurately predicted the dominance of botnets and DDoSing -- both of which were not popular at all when he wrote the article (1998). He also proposes a distributed network that scans for vulnerabilities on the Internet, which I found pretty interesting (and quite honestly, probably a much better use of resources than something like SETI@home).
Furthermore, he points out something that has not yet come to pass (that I know of), but will almost certainly become popular soon. Botnets like the Storm worm are huge and powerful, but not very efficiently organized, and only operated for financial or childish gain. The writer accurately foresees the dangers of such a situation in truly malicious hands -- as a tool of war, corrupt governments, or organized criminal groups. One very important consideration he doesn't mention and perhaps could not anticipate is the huge effect such a botnet could have on an economy or economic sector. Now that a good portion of consuming is done online, interruptions to the public internet could cause serious economic consequences, to the benefit of some and the detriment of others. How do you think key markets would react if suddenly distribution and communications networks were crippled by targeted DDoSing of logistical systems? Talk about scaring up commodity prices...
Re:It doesn't "remotely shut down vehicles"
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Stalling Cars Via OnStar
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· Score: 3, Interesting
i'm yet to see a single video of a cop using a taser on someone who didn't deserve it.
You thought the John Kerry kid deserved it? If that situation isn't enough, you should really watch more SPIKE TV or Court TV -- with Sheriff John Bunnell, or whatever his name is. I saw a show entitled something like "COPS - TAZED AND CONFUSED" where they showed consecutive clips of cops using tazers in hilarious situations.
In one, here was the situation -- cop is following a pickup (somewhere in the rural western US). He follows the guy into a store parking lot, then puts on his flashers. Mind you, he has no information that this guy is shady in any way shape or form (though he was black) -- or Sheriff John certainly would have informed us, as he always does. So the guy I don't think even notices the cop at first, and starts to open his door. The cop draws his tazer and starts yelling at him like crazy, so much that I could barely make out what he was saying. He starts telling the guy how to step away from the truck and lie down face down on the ground. Again -- this guy did nothing wrong that the cop knew!
So the guy has his hands up (as ordered), and is ordered to get on the ground face down. So he starts putting his hands down to get down on the ground (as a somewhat fatter individual). The cop flips out (from like 20 feet away) and screams to continue putting his hands in the air, although he only moved them down like 6 inches as he was trying to go to his knees. The guy is scared by the scream, and puts his hands up, but kinda jumps up from his half-kneel, then starts trying to go back down. But he forgets not to lock his arms straight above his head. Cue announcer: "this officer had no choice but to subdue the suspect. Next time he thinks about not following a cop's orders, he'll remember THAT 50,000 volts!"
Turns out, the guy had some warrant for trespassing or something 6 months prior, but the cop clearly didn't know that until he ran his ID. I couldn't believe it -- and this is the "valor" that they show on national TV! Imagine the "normal" usages!
Read the parent of my post. That is exactly what I'm objecting to -- his amalgamation of religion and theism. Christianity actually has little to do with it, apart from the fact that many religious people also practice christianity. The point is this: science and religion are not orthogonal. Science and THEISM are orthogonal, in the case of a theist who believes that god's existence cannot be falsified.
Science and religion are orthogonal to each other. The set of axioms that runs:
1. Science deals in falsifiable statements.
2. 'God' cannot be falsified.
3. Science disproves (falsifies) 'God'
As a logician, your construction of this logical system astounds me. Your conclusions about this set of statements is correct; these statements are inconsistent. However, how that relates to science and religion being orthogonal is beyond me. The claim that science and religion are orthogonal would be true if the entire substance of religion was contained in the existence/falsifiability of God. But it clearly does not.
Furthermore, it's not the existence or non-existence of God that really causes controversy between religious and non-religious people, either. Rather, it's the specific beliefs that people hold as a consequence of a particular religion that tend to create conflicts between religion and science.
For example: as a result of their interpretation of the Bible, some people thought (and several still think) that any of the following were true:
The earth is flat.
The earth is the center of the solar system.
The earth is only several thousand years old.
All plagues in known history were the result of God's wrath.
All of the creatures currently existant on earth were present at the time of Earth's creation.
The list goes on, of course. Certainly you won't claim that these beliefs are orthogonal with science? And that, folks, is why pure mathematicians should not be philosophers.
I apologize, but that site is awful. I've no idea why you would link to that. The writer has all of the persuasiveness of a whiny six-year-old. If you want to convince people of your ideas, linking them to invective-soaked drivel written by a "true believer" who can't step back from his own beliefs to explain them to someone else is an awful strategy.
For example, in response to the story of Aisha, you link to a ridiculous article that spends 4-5 paragraphs talking about how Muslims blasphemously avoided the truth of the Prophet's pious acts, and then goes on to say that although he married her at age 6, he consummated it at age 9! And then he claims that she liked it! That's not a stellar defense, from where I'm sitting. Would you claim that having sex with a 9-year-old is a pious act?
And then he spends many paragraphs trying to defend the act because she MAYBE could have A LITTLE been in the age range for puberty. Never mind that all of the sources he cites are out of date, and that the age of puberty has rapidly advanced over the last century (onset of puberty was almost never before age 13 prior to modern times).
In the "article" you use to respond to the idea that he was misogynist and that he created an unfair system for himself (lie.html), there is not a single thing to respond to the GP's claims. All it has is hand-picked quotes from century-old (bad) scholarship by "orientalists" -- obviously not a term a reasonable scholar would use today. Highlighting the following quote: "that is not the work of a traitor or a lecher" in some muslim-friendly scholar's work hardly disproves anything. It's identical to looking at George W. Bush's presidency and saying: "well he was President and stayed true to his wife and didn't raise taxes for the rich -- that's not the work of a traitor or lecher!" Yeah, true, THAT is not the work of a traitor or lecher. But it doesn't mean that he's not a traitor or lecher in other ways!
Most telling is that he doesn't bother to actually quote from the Qu'ran in this matter -- all of the claims made in the GP are supported by hard, textual evidence in the Qu'ran itself (in terms of the facts). This is a text that that you supposedly hold as the absolutely true word of GOD, yet to respond to the allegations, we turn to poor scholarship over 50 years old by unknown "orientalists"? Almost all of these debates are satisfied concretely by a strict reading of the Qu'ran -- and although they sound sensationalist when played out in a list like GP did, there's no reason to be an apologist. If you think that having sex with a 9-year-old is pious, that's your right -- just don't expect everyone else to agree with you.
Cheers!
PS -- I am not affiliated with any religion, and find GP mildly offensive. But your response is many times worse.
It's a tough call on when cops should draw their guns.
Well, it may be a tough call sometimes, but other times, it's clearly not. For example, if it really WAS a bomb, she wasn't planning on SURVIVING the attempt. The "PUT DOWN THE SUICIDE BOMB OR I WILL KILL YOU" threat rings slightly hollow to me. Drawing a weapon as deterrent is 100% idiotic in this situation. Here are the scenarios:
It is not a bomb. You've now put innocent lives at risk and incited panic needlessly.
It is a bomb, but she doesn't actually plan on killing anyone with it. You've now put her in fear of her life. There's no better way to convince someone to take the most desperate measure possible than to threaten his or her life.
It is a bomb, and she intends on killing people with it. You've now informed her that she's found out, and her time to detonate is limited. This likely prompts her detonation of the device.
The only use of a gun that is appropriate in a scenario like this is when you are convinced enough that it is a bomb to use lethal force, and you think you have gotten the "drop" on the bomber. At that point, you should probably start shooting as quickly as possible, and don't stop until you're 100% certain they aren't breathing/no longer pose a threat.
You're 100% better off just subduing the person by numbers/physical force/negotiation. In situation 1, everybody walks away with no risk to anyone's life. In situation 2, you're much more likely to succeed in negotiations, and also in your ability to clear civilians and neutralize the subject. In situation 3, you're much more likely to get accurate information that allows you to surprise, disable, or kill the subject.
Or am I missing something? Long story short: in scenarios where the only option is kill or be killed, there's absolutely no point in drawing a weapon unless you plan on doing the killing. Anything else is just waiting for them to kill you.
Speaking only Japanese when English is your native language is "impeding." While I generally agree with you, I just wanted to point out that this is wrong. You are not required to talk to police officers at all, and you are certainly allowed to speak in another language. If it can be shown that something you said impeded an investigation (e.g., you were shouting instructions to destroy evidence to accomplice in the other room), that's another matter entirely. Speaking another language or even pretending not to speak English is by no means illegal.
One notable exception to this rule is a focal point of the case at hand: if you understand/speak English and are asked to provide a name and address, you must. Remember, kids; you're not required to say anything to the police, but you also aren't restricted from saying anything to them. Normally, that benefits the police, but not always.
One is that porn is hard to recognize for software.
Yep. There's another biggie you don't mention too: porn can come from almost anywhere. Filtering gets realllllly tricky when people start getting porn via p2p or distributed fileservers, for example. I think that if a kid found out he couldn't access some porn site because of a filter, he'd just fire up kazaa (or whatever silly children use these days) and get something 50x worse there.
I actually think it's often worse -- while you're much more likely to find vanilla porn on web sites, there's no end to the incredibly niche crap (pun intended) you can find via p2p.
See, that is exactly the difference I mean. For women, replace the word "child" with "career."
Um, I was talking about careers. The situation is the same for me as for a woman (at least with respect to this line of logic) -- if I had a child, it would, in effect, end my career. The expectation is that someday I will have kids as well, and I fully plan on actually participating in my children's rearing (shock). I actually had a stay-at-home dad for much of my childhood, so perhaps my roles are a bit different. The point is this: I'm faced with many of the same life decisions and challenges regarding children as many women. After all, if a woman's career is that important, she could always have a husband stay home and take care of the kids. I personally don't think that there is any externally-imposed unfairness (wrt to career) in child rearing except for a medically necessary short maternity leave.
It's a compromise, like everything else in life. You compromise your career to be a mother. Or the father compromises his career to be a father. Or both, but certainly not neither. If you want to sacrifice your career to raise children, that's you and your husband's choice. If your husband is willing (or happy) to sacrifice his career to raise children, that's also your (collective) choice. If you conform to the "motherhood is speshul and requires speshul dispensation" drone that society espouses, then yes, it can be a problem. But the problem there can't be blamed on society; it's your choice.
But, as I noted with my anecdotal evidence from my friends, often women WANT to be housewife (at least for a while, until they get bored of it). Often men want a career for a while too, until they get bored of it. But just as the woman can't easily jump ship back to a career, the man can't easily dump his career and magically have his family supported, either.
To your point about the plenum of babies in graduate school: right. I know some of those people too, and they're all blessed with rich mommies and daddies (that 12k stipend definitely isn't enough to raise a child). If I had rich and giving parents, it would seem easy to me too. For me, going to graduate school would basically be a moot point if I had a kid. I can make more than enough money to live comfortably and support a family now, and if I had a child, I wouldn't really be able to devote enough time to advance meaningfully past my current career track (which would essentially be the point of a graduate degree). You see, I'd be a father. Contrary to your opinion (apparently), that actually takes a lot of effort, or at least it would for me.
guess I know women with more fulfilling careers than you do.
"More fulfilling" misses the point entirely. You're assuming that child rearing has a value of X=5, let's say, and career has variable per-person value Y. For my friends, Y is less than X, but for your friends, Y is greater than X. Thus, Y(your friends) is greater than Y(my friends). This is clearly false. Some people have very fulfilling careers (for example, one of my friends is a very happy and accomplished teacher), but feel as if child-rearing is overwhelmingly important to them. Many parents dump their kids in day care so they can work at jobs they hate, while others sacrifice exceptionally fulfilling careers to be with their kids.
Anyway, if all of these women friends of yours aren't skipping a beat in their careers while having children, doesn't that prove the opposite of your point?
Most guys I know, it's not even a blip on their radar, it's just not something that comes to mind when they think about having kids.
Wow, are you serious? I'd say it's probably one of the top 3 considerations for men when even _thinking_ about having a child. I'm not in a place where I'd want a child even remotely (24 with a competitive, fast-track job), but of course I've considered what the impact of having children would be on my career. Truth is, it would be disastrous, and I definitely wouldn't be able to continue on the track I'm on.
Graduate school? Right out. Working exceptionally long hours, traveling? Not unless I wanted to screw up my children as badly as everyone else in America seems happy to. I would say it is easily the #1 consideration against having children for me right now. I certainly have the money, the security, the opportunity, and the social pressure to start down that path, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out what the effect of a child on a working father's career is.
Most women that I know, on the other hand (almost all of my friends are women) -- they are genuinely eager to leave the work force and have kids. They're not exclaiming "Oh no,I might miss out on this career opportunity if I have a kid," they're saying "ugh, work is terrible, I can't wait to get married and have babies." That last is almost an exact quote.
You NEED to feel at some point in a female's life cycle that they are vulnerable for no other reason than they are female. That a female couldn't possible see the forest for the trees and separate content from context. The worst part is, your closet superiority complex is what is giving you the biggest problem relating to people.
Aside from being unnecessarily hostile in a purely theoretical discussion, the generalizations you present here are the kind of infectious stupidity that lead to horrible social policy and broad discontent across societal segments. OF COURSE females are vulnerable at some points of their life just because they're female. Is that supposed to be some sort of a revelation? That's true of absolutely everyone, female or not.
Regardless, you're responding to a post explaining a _joke_, pal. He correctly identified WHY it's supposed to be ironic; he's not claiming that the book actually does that at all. Hence the phrase: "something which supposes to emancipate women" -- supposes being the key word. I like how you get your panties in a twist, as it were, over a joke's explanation, but then go on to say:
You know, you may not like it, but there is a class of women out there who are effectively super women. Beautiful, intellectual, empowered, employed in high paying and influential positions, and raising kids.
Brilliant. So let's get this straight. That's the virtue of women (in order of decreasing importance)? Good to see where your priorities lie. Not to mention the fact that the word "empowered" is absolutely worthless. You're making a shallow mockery of a truly deep and important subject, so please, stop.
In an ICE-powered car, you have a central powerplant. Having multiple ICE's is just wasteful and prone to error and breakage. With electric cars, the powertrain should be no further from the wheel than the wheel-hub.
That seems brilliantly obvious, but tragically for you, it's wrong. That's a REALLY great plan on paper, but a terrible one in real life. It's fantastic for the track, but not for real roads. Why? Well, there's this thing called suspension. You see, when your motors are inside your wheel hubs or near thereto, your wheels get quite a bit heavier, and your suspension can't take even a 2mm drop without basically ruining the frame. Furthermore your motors get a ton of wear and high breakage possibility from bumps and just road vibration.
And if that's not enough, have you ever noticed how your wheels angle out from the body of your car when your turn, kind of like a banking plane? That's so your tires actually stay on the road. As you increase the mass of your wheels, your gyroscopic effect gets worse, and worse, and worse. As you can imagine, you very quickly run into a very difficult problem with that whole "turning" business, or at least, turning and actually keeping the wheels on the vehicle.
I love how people think that Toyota's engineers wouldn't have thought of something like this. Of course they thought of this -- 4-motor electric cars have been around in some form for over 50 years. They're trying to overcome the challenges I mention above, but so far, progress is very slow. While I agree that it's fantastic in concept, it just so happens that doing it in real life is quite a bit harder.
Slashdot Mirror
Since it seems that actual stats (as you requested) were woefully lacking from the replies, I remembered seeing this a while back:
http://www.teslamotors.com/efficiency/well_to_wheel.php
Of course, this is straight from the mouth of an electric car maker, so take it with your appropriate grain of salt. FWIW, as it were, or if we're being slightly more clever: YMMV? Regardless, the stats look pretty accurate. I'm guessing that if you google "well-to-wheel" you'll find more stuff as well. =)
Your major problem begins in your first step: "1. Government should ban smoking by people under 18, because of the harmful health effects." I don't think that's why we ban people under 18 from smoking. It's not because of the harmful health effects, it's because we, as a society, believe that minors don't have the appropriate mental facilities to appropriately handle and take responsibility for the harmful health effects.
For example -- examine the following statement: "Government should ban driving by people under 18, because of the harmful health effects." Well, that's certainly plausible enough; we don't want them to hurt themselves or others. But both you and I know that the above reason is NOT why we ban underage people from driving; it's because they are not COMPETENT to assume the responsibility of their own and other people's lives. After all, adults risk their own and other people's lives daily by driving automobiles, but because they can understand and take responsibility for the involved risks, we tend to think it's ok.
The most puzzling point in your argument, for me, was this: "Treating the two groups differently, is a bit like saying we should have lighter sentences for female murderers than for male murderers, just because men are more likely to commit murder." Or it's more like having lighter sentences for child murderers than adult murderers? Why would you use a bad analogy when the actual state of affairs shows how absurd your conception is? Do you think a 5-year-old should do 25-to-life for "play" shooting mommy with daddy's handgun? No, of course not -- it's fairly obvious that the child does not possess the skills and knowledge necessary to be held accountable for his actions.
The truth is much simpler than you're making it out to be: we don't think that people under 18 can handle the responsibility of life-or-death decisions (and even some other types of decisions). Therefore, we restrict them from making such decisions. We shouldn't allow children to smoke because, quite frankly, the average 7-year-old is too freaking stupid to understand the effects that smoking might have on them. I don't necessarily think that adults are that much better off in the "understanding and appreciating risks" area, but at least we tend to think: "that dumbass brought it on himself" when an adult cognizant of smoking's risks takes up the habit.
And another interesting quote, to respond to this type of objection: "(I still say that doesn't matter, because you're talking about comparing a person under 18 who smokes, with a person over 18 who smokes, and their judgment in both cases is the same, etc.)". This statement is a bit unclear, but I think you're actually raising a DIFFERENT counter-objection than you think you are. I think you're saying this: 'maybe we're comparing a 17.995-year-old to an 18.005-year-old -- they can't be that different, right? Why should one be allowed to smoke and not the other?'
While I agree, this is a completely separate argument. You're arguing about the arbitrary point at which something "becomes a good idea". Maybe you're right, there, but it doesn't respond to the objection raised. If it's a 17 and 18-year-old, that's one thing. But what about a 5-year-old and an 18-year-old? Surely you wouldn't say the reasoning skills of those two individuals will be the same in this regard? And yes, you're right -- any arbitrary point in time will lead you to the conclusion of "hey why is this banned now but not 5 minutes from now?" The answer is simple and obvious -- because any arbitrary point in time is as good as another, and so we choose an average arbitrary point in time that maximizes our satisfaction that the smoker is "competent" to understand and accept the risks of smoking.
All in all, I think your argument is lamentably poor. Rather than arguing against the age split between allowed to smoke vs not allowed to smoke, you're much better off creating a good argument for banning it for everyone (e.g., the same en
Yes, that is one explanation. But if you READ the context (shocker) -- he brings it up because it's a TERMINOLOGY debate. The point was that they should call it the "Kernel Driver Project" instead of "Linux Driver Project." Hey, guess what -- that's the same thing! And furthermore -- this whole discussion is about DEVELOPMENT. The fact that "Linux is only the kernel" is notable primarily to DEVELOPERS -- when you're comparing "Linux" to Vista, that's not a development discussion at all. I'm guessing you're more comfortable in those discussions.
And how is anyone shying away from the "slightly critical of linux?" Seems to me that most people agree -- we'd love to see more drivers for printers, scanners, and usb devices. And we think it's lacking now! However, if you were clued in to the DEVELOPMENT discussion, you'd realize that's not what these developers DO. They develop the KERNEL. I'd love to have my auto mechanic fix my computer, but goddammit, he can't seem to. OUTRAGE!!!
Oh, the inanity!
There are huge numbers of colluding biases that make planes scary for people. Some are logical, and others are less logical -- either way, I think people characterize fear of things like planes incorrectly. It's not just a matter of risk, it's also a matter of perception. For example, take flamethrowers. Horribly ineffective weapon, horribly effective scare tactic -- who would want to die like that? In the case of planes, some of the contributing factors include:
- Natural, inborn fear of heights present in many mammals
- Fear of the unknown
- Betrayal of "common sense" -- it seems unreasonable that something so heavy could actually stay aloft
- Ignorance of real risk facts
- Fear culture that has evolved around airplanes since their inception
- Fear of dying in a "gruesome" manner
- Social reinforcement for fear -- lots of other people are scared, too
The list, of course, continues. To try and isolate causes of complex fears and other actions is a serious error that humans make all the time, in an effort to understand and interact with our circumstances. Why do you love your parents? Is it because it's inborn, or learned, or because they gave you cookies, or because it's necessary to create a social fabric? Of course, it's not any of those -- it's all of them, and many, many more reasons.Funny, it seems that a lot of scientists have done just that.
For a pretty decent explanation: the mysterious Dr. Karl!
So you're admitting that it's a constitutional violation, ineffective in rehabilitating criminals, and immoral, but you're defending it anyway? Regardless, prison is a very strange punishment, if that's what you think it is. I'm assuming you've never actually been inside a prison -- or you'd have a better idea what life is really like in lockup.
On the other hand, while I was doing research investigating patterns of conflict in prisons, I got the exact opposite impression that you express here. Far from "punishing" criminals, prison reinforces criminals' social schemas and increases the likelihood of violent crime. Most inmates I talked to said "yeah, prison sucks, but it's not so bad -- at least the people here understand me." Studies on recidivism consistently find that many criminals commit crimes after release because they have no social outlet or support on the outside -- they only "fit in" in jail (institutionalization).
Of course, most people probably identify this clearly with Red from "Shawshank Redemption" -- he's an institutional man; he's a nobody on the outside. Another good pop culture scene that actually mirrored my observations in prisons is from "Blow" -- "I went in with a bachelor's in marijuana and left with a doctorate in cocaine." We're doing our inmates and our society a disservice in the way we handle criminals in America (but that's another story).
More to the point -- this case. You call this guy "psychopathically malicious." Now, ignoring the fact that you clearly misuse and misunderstand the idea of psychopathy, let's look at how risky what he did is. He called SWAT down on a house, and everyone was fine. As a matter of fact, the grand, grand majority of SWAT stings go down just fine. The fact that so many raids are carried out daily without incident is a testimony to the efficiency and training of most SWAT teams. Furthermore, I don't agree that it was malicious at all. Malice is generally typified by an extreme emotion toward your "victim" -- in this case, the guy was clearly not emotionally attached to the victims; he selected them at random. Furthermore, we can't say that he intended anyone to be hurt, although he clearly wasn't using very sound judgment (e.g., he was "stupid").
I would estimate that the risk he created is approximately equal to that of a typical (very) drunk driver -- would you say that all drunk drivers also deserved to be raped? Many people have driven intoxicated in the past, perhaps even you.
As to my "straw man" -- you think that just because you wouldn't personally advocate it, it doesn't occur, or nobody else advocates it? The attitude of "ha ha you're going to get raped in prison" creates a social atmosphere where prison rape is OK -- even if it's just rape of your marijuana-possessing mother. It also creates a generation of violent criminals with a history of sexual assault -- which is likely to be passed on to their children and other people in "free society".
There is no good reason to advocate, joke about, or create a socially acceptable atmosphere for any rape, even in prison. Even if prison is for "punishment" (which I don't accept) -- rape isn't supposed to be part of the package. If we, as a society, really think that it should be, then we should own up to it and institutionalize it (everyone gets raped at the door or some such nonsense).
Correctly punctuated sentences:
- Susie said: "you're a jerk!"
- Susie said you're a jerk!
- Susie said you're a "jerk"! (OK, this one's a little shady, but you can assume the speaker's paraphrasing)
- Susie and Bobby are "friends".
- Susie and Bobby are friends.
- Susie says "Bobby and I are friends!"
Klar?Why is it that people in this country encourage rape as part of punishment? That sentiment is absolutely sickening. If that was your brother, or your son, or your father -- would you want his ports probed, even if he did do something incredibly stupid? What about your mother? Would you want your mother raped repeatedly over the course of years if she was found with a piddling amount of a controlled substance (even a tiny amount of cocaine or other drugs can get you locked up for years in this country)?
Rape is not, and should not be a part of incarceration in America. It is not helpful for punishing or rehabilitating criminals -- you're many times more likely to perpetrate sexual crimes and violent crimes if you have been sexually assaulted yourself. That assholes like you think it's funny to contemplate male rape while likely voting to strip homosexuals of basic human rights is a pure travesty.
Bald Detective:You know the drill. You said if anyone ever tries to interfere with Project Mayhem, even you, we got to get his balls.
Redhead:This is really a powerful gesture, Mr. Durden. It'll set quite an example.
Jack: No... you're making a mistake!
Flat-Top: You told us you'd say that.
Jack: I'm not Tyler Durden!
Baldy: You told us you'd say that, too.
Jack: Okay, I am Tyler Durden and I'm ordering you to abort the mission!
Flat-Top: You said you would definitely say that.
You can also get history by months, etc. Anyway, you don't need to write a script -- you just have to go to the history for particular days and see what the heat index was. Problem solved. It looks like the heat index easily hits 110 in the summer; it's over 100 in many parts of southern florida even today.
As stupid as some people are, no cop would be that stupid. I'm sure he's aware that the camera on his cruiser is rolling the whole time, and there's absolutely no way he would have been able to justify shooting the "perp". That's exactly the thing -- tazers are supposed to replace guns in many situations. Instead, they have absolutely no relation to the utilization of guns; if a cop actually NEEDS to take you down, he's going to use a gun, not a tazer.
A tazer's more like a fun toy that they give cops and tell them that they're not lethal, so just go to freakin town. Imagine my scenario without a tazer -- the guy would have complied (albeit perhaps taking his hands down to the ground, and the cop would have just yelled a little bit. It might have taken a little longer, but it's not as if the cop was in any danger from the suspect.
That was an absolutely fantastic read. The conclusions of those tests are pretty insightful; he accurately predicted the dominance of botnets and DDoSing -- both of which were not popular at all when he wrote the article (1998). He also proposes a distributed network that scans for vulnerabilities on the Internet, which I found pretty interesting (and quite honestly, probably a much better use of resources than something like SETI@home).
Furthermore, he points out something that has not yet come to pass (that I know of), but will almost certainly become popular soon. Botnets like the Storm worm are huge and powerful, but not very efficiently organized, and only operated for financial or childish gain. The writer accurately foresees the dangers of such a situation in truly malicious hands -- as a tool of war, corrupt governments, or organized criminal groups. One very important consideration he doesn't mention and perhaps could not anticipate is the huge effect such a botnet could have on an economy or economic sector. Now that a good portion of consuming is done online, interruptions to the public internet could cause serious economic consequences, to the benefit of some and the detriment of others. How do you think key markets would react if suddenly distribution and communications networks were crippled by targeted DDoSing of logistical systems? Talk about scaring up commodity prices...
You thought the John Kerry kid deserved it? If that situation isn't enough, you should really watch more SPIKE TV or Court TV -- with Sheriff John Bunnell, or whatever his name is. I saw a show entitled something like "COPS - TAZED AND CONFUSED" where they showed consecutive clips of cops using tazers in hilarious situations.
In one, here was the situation -- cop is following a pickup (somewhere in the rural western US). He follows the guy into a store parking lot, then puts on his flashers. Mind you, he has no information that this guy is shady in any way shape or form (though he was black) -- or Sheriff John certainly would have informed us, as he always does. So the guy I don't think even notices the cop at first, and starts to open his door. The cop draws his tazer and starts yelling at him like crazy, so much that I could barely make out what he was saying. He starts telling the guy how to step away from the truck and lie down face down on the ground. Again -- this guy did nothing wrong that the cop knew!
So the guy has his hands up (as ordered), and is ordered to get on the ground face down. So he starts putting his hands down to get down on the ground (as a somewhat fatter individual). The cop flips out (from like 20 feet away) and screams to continue putting his hands in the air, although he only moved them down like 6 inches as he was trying to go to his knees. The guy is scared by the scream, and puts his hands up, but kinda jumps up from his half-kneel, then starts trying to go back down. But he forgets not to lock his arms straight above his head. Cue announcer: "this officer had no choice but to subdue the suspect. Next time he thinks about not following a cop's orders, he'll remember THAT 50,000 volts!"
Turns out, the guy had some warrant for trespassing or something 6 months prior, but the cop clearly didn't know that until he ran his ID. I couldn't believe it -- and this is the "valor" that they show on national TV! Imagine the "normal" usages!
Read the parent of my post. That is exactly what I'm objecting to -- his amalgamation of religion and theism. Christianity actually has little to do with it, apart from the fact that many religious people also practice christianity. The point is this: science and religion are not orthogonal. Science and THEISM are orthogonal, in the case of a theist who believes that god's existence cannot be falsified.
1. Science deals in falsifiable statements.
2. 'God' cannot be falsified.
3. Science disproves (falsifies) 'God'
As a logician, your construction of this logical system astounds me. Your conclusions about this set of statements is correct; these statements are inconsistent. However, how that relates to science and religion being orthogonal is beyond me. The claim that science and religion are orthogonal would be true if the entire substance of religion was contained in the existence/falsifiability of God. But it clearly does not.
Furthermore, it's not the existence or non-existence of God that really causes controversy between religious and non-religious people, either. Rather, it's the specific beliefs that people hold as a consequence of a particular religion that tend to create conflicts between religion and science.
For example: as a result of their interpretation of the Bible, some people thought (and several still think) that any of the following were true:
The list goes on, of course. Certainly you won't claim that these beliefs are orthogonal with science? And that, folks, is why pure mathematicians should not be philosophers.
Qube --
I apologize, but that site is awful. I've no idea why you would link to that. The writer has all of the persuasiveness of a whiny six-year-old. If you want to convince people of your ideas, linking them to invective-soaked drivel written by a "true believer" who can't step back from his own beliefs to explain them to someone else is an awful strategy.
For example, in response to the story of Aisha, you link to a ridiculous article that spends 4-5 paragraphs talking about how Muslims blasphemously avoided the truth of the Prophet's pious acts, and then goes on to say that although he married her at age 6, he consummated it at age 9! And then he claims that she liked it! That's not a stellar defense, from where I'm sitting. Would you claim that having sex with a 9-year-old is a pious act?
And then he spends many paragraphs trying to defend the act because she MAYBE could have A LITTLE been in the age range for puberty. Never mind that all of the sources he cites are out of date, and that the age of puberty has rapidly advanced over the last century (onset of puberty was almost never before age 13 prior to modern times).
In the "article" you use to respond to the idea that he was misogynist and that he created an unfair system for himself (lie.html), there is not a single thing to respond to the GP's claims. All it has is hand-picked quotes from century-old (bad) scholarship by "orientalists" -- obviously not a term a reasonable scholar would use today. Highlighting the following quote: "that is not the work of a traitor or a lecher" in some muslim-friendly scholar's work hardly disproves anything. It's identical to looking at George W. Bush's presidency and saying: "well he was President and stayed true to his wife and didn't raise taxes for the rich -- that's not the work of a traitor or lecher!" Yeah, true, THAT is not the work of a traitor or lecher. But it doesn't mean that he's not a traitor or lecher in other ways!
Most telling is that he doesn't bother to actually quote from the Qu'ran in this matter -- all of the claims made in the GP are supported by hard, textual evidence in the Qu'ran itself (in terms of the facts). This is a text that that you supposedly hold as the absolutely true word of GOD, yet to respond to the allegations, we turn to poor scholarship over 50 years old by unknown "orientalists"? Almost all of these debates are satisfied concretely by a strict reading of the Qu'ran -- and although they sound sensationalist when played out in a list like GP did, there's no reason to be an apologist. If you think that having sex with a 9-year-old is pious, that's your right -- just don't expect everyone else to agree with you.
Cheers!
PS -- I am not affiliated with any religion, and find GP mildly offensive. But your response is many times worse.
Well, it may be a tough call sometimes, but other times, it's clearly not. For example, if it really WAS a bomb, she wasn't planning on SURVIVING the attempt. The "PUT DOWN THE SUICIDE BOMB OR I WILL KILL YOU" threat rings slightly hollow to me. Drawing a weapon as deterrent is 100% idiotic in this situation. Here are the scenarios:
The only use of a gun that is appropriate in a scenario like this is when you are convinced enough that it is a bomb to use lethal force, and you think you have gotten the "drop" on the bomber. At that point, you should probably start shooting as quickly as possible, and don't stop until you're 100% certain they aren't breathing/no longer pose a threat.
You're 100% better off just subduing the person by numbers/physical force/negotiation. In situation 1, everybody walks away with no risk to anyone's life. In situation 2, you're much more likely to succeed in negotiations, and also in your ability to clear civilians and neutralize the subject. In situation 3, you're much more likely to get accurate information that allows you to surprise, disable, or kill the subject.
Or am I missing something? Long story short: in scenarios where the only option is kill or be killed, there's absolutely no point in drawing a weapon unless you plan on doing the killing. Anything else is just waiting for them to kill you.
One notable exception to this rule is a focal point of the case at hand: if you understand/speak English and are asked to provide a name and address, you must. Remember, kids; you're not required to say anything to the police, but you also aren't restricted from saying anything to them. Normally, that benefits the police, but not always.
Yikes -- might have wanted to post this AC? I know retaliation isn't supposed to happen... but jeeze, it's common sense people!
Yep. There's another biggie you don't mention too: porn can come from almost anywhere. Filtering gets realllllly tricky when people start getting porn via p2p or distributed fileservers, for example. I think that if a kid found out he couldn't access some porn site because of a filter, he'd just fire up kazaa (or whatever silly children use these days) and get something 50x worse there.
I actually think it's often worse -- while you're much more likely to find vanilla porn on web sites, there's no end to the incredibly niche crap (pun intended) you can find via p2p.
Um, I was talking about careers. The situation is the same for me as for a woman (at least with respect to this line of logic) -- if I had a child, it would, in effect, end my career. The expectation is that someday I will have kids as well, and I fully plan on actually participating in my children's rearing (shock). I actually had a stay-at-home dad for much of my childhood, so perhaps my roles are a bit different. The point is this: I'm faced with many of the same life decisions and challenges regarding children as many women. After all, if a woman's career is that important, she could always have a husband stay home and take care of the kids. I personally don't think that there is any externally-imposed unfairness (wrt to career) in child rearing except for a medically necessary short maternity leave.
It's a compromise, like everything else in life. You compromise your career to be a mother. Or the father compromises his career to be a father. Or both, but certainly not neither. If you want to sacrifice your career to raise children, that's you and your husband's choice. If your husband is willing (or happy) to sacrifice his career to raise children, that's also your (collective) choice. If you conform to the "motherhood is speshul and requires speshul dispensation" drone that society espouses, then yes, it can be a problem. But the problem there can't be blamed on society; it's your choice.
But, as I noted with my anecdotal evidence from my friends, often women WANT to be housewife (at least for a while, until they get bored of it). Often men want a career for a while too, until they get bored of it. But just as the woman can't easily jump ship back to a career, the man can't easily dump his career and magically have his family supported, either.
To your point about the plenum of babies in graduate school: right. I know some of those people too, and they're all blessed with rich mommies and daddies (that 12k stipend definitely isn't enough to raise a child). If I had rich and giving parents, it would seem easy to me too. For me, going to graduate school would basically be a moot point if I had a kid. I can make more than enough money to live comfortably and support a family now, and if I had a child, I wouldn't really be able to devote enough time to advance meaningfully past my current career track (which would essentially be the point of a graduate degree). You see, I'd be a father. Contrary to your opinion (apparently), that actually takes a lot of effort, or at least it would for me.
guess I know women with more fulfilling careers than you do.
"More fulfilling" misses the point entirely. You're assuming that child rearing has a value of X=5, let's say, and career has variable per-person value Y. For my friends, Y is less than X, but for your friends, Y is greater than X. Thus, Y(your friends) is greater than Y(my friends). This is clearly false. Some people have very fulfilling careers (for example, one of my friends is a very happy and accomplished teacher), but feel as if child-rearing is overwhelmingly important to them. Many parents dump their kids in day care so they can work at jobs they hate, while others sacrifice exceptionally fulfilling careers to be with their kids.
Anyway, if all of these women friends of yours aren't skipping a beat in their careers while having children, doesn't that prove the opposite of your point?
Wow, are you serious? I'd say it's probably one of the top 3 considerations for men when even _thinking_ about having a child. I'm not in a place where I'd want a child even remotely (24 with a competitive, fast-track job), but of course I've considered what the impact of having children would be on my career. Truth is, it would be disastrous, and I definitely wouldn't be able to continue on the track I'm on.
Graduate school? Right out. Working exceptionally long hours, traveling? Not unless I wanted to screw up my children as badly as everyone else in America seems happy to. I would say it is easily the #1 consideration against having children for me right now. I certainly have the money, the security, the opportunity, and the social pressure to start down that path, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out what the effect of a child on a working father's career is.
Most women that I know, on the other hand (almost all of my friends are women) -- they are genuinely eager to leave the work force and have kids. They're not exclaiming "Oh no,I might miss out on this career opportunity if I have a kid," they're saying "ugh, work is terrible, I can't wait to get married and have babies." That last is almost an exact quote.
We're not so different, you and I!
Aside from being unnecessarily hostile in a purely theoretical discussion, the generalizations you present here are the kind of infectious stupidity that lead to horrible social policy and broad discontent across societal segments. OF COURSE females are vulnerable at some points of their life just because they're female. Is that supposed to be some sort of a revelation? That's true of absolutely everyone, female or not.
Regardless, you're responding to a post explaining a _joke_, pal. He correctly identified WHY it's supposed to be ironic; he's not claiming that the book actually does that at all. Hence the phrase: "something which supposes to emancipate women" -- supposes being the key word. I like how you get your panties in a twist, as it were, over a joke's explanation, but then go on to say:
You know, you may not like it, but there is a class of women out there who are effectively super women. Beautiful, intellectual, empowered, employed in high paying and influential positions, and raising kids.
Brilliant. So let's get this straight. That's the virtue of women (in order of decreasing importance)? Good to see where your priorities lie. Not to mention the fact that the word "empowered" is absolutely worthless. You're making a shallow mockery of a truly deep and important subject, so please, stop.
That seems brilliantly obvious, but tragically for you, it's wrong. That's a REALLY great plan on paper, but a terrible one in real life. It's fantastic for the track, but not for real roads. Why? Well, there's this thing called suspension. You see, when your motors are inside your wheel hubs or near thereto, your wheels get quite a bit heavier, and your suspension can't take even a 2mm drop without basically ruining the frame. Furthermore your motors get a ton of wear and high breakage possibility from bumps and just road vibration.
And if that's not enough, have you ever noticed how your wheels angle out from the body of your car when your turn, kind of like a banking plane? That's so your tires actually stay on the road. As you increase the mass of your wheels, your gyroscopic effect gets worse, and worse, and worse. As you can imagine, you very quickly run into a very difficult problem with that whole "turning" business, or at least, turning and actually keeping the wheels on the vehicle.
I love how people think that Toyota's engineers wouldn't have thought of something like this. Of course they thought of this -- 4-motor electric cars have been around in some form for over 50 years. They're trying to overcome the challenges I mention above, but so far, progress is very slow. While I agree that it's fantastic in concept, it just so happens that doing it in real life is quite a bit harder.