You could have evolution without selection, but not without mutation.
Hmmmm, I have a problem with the first part of that statement. If we hypothesize a world where there is no selection, i.e. every mutation is just as viable as every other mutation, I do not think evolution would occur. Individuals would change, but evolution of species would not happen because there would be no species - only individuals, each divergent from every other individual. Typically we think of natural selection as selecting only the best traits of all alternatives, but that is not accurate. Natural selection selects the best traits of all *viable* alternatives. Because the "purpose" of a species is to maximize offspring viability, this narrow band of viable mutations defines a species. I risk repeating myself, but if all mutations were equally viable then there would be no need for species.
In our impossible thought-experiment world where there is no selection, no mutation would be disadvantageous no matter how radical.In this world there would no longer be a need for species because every individual (or pair) could reproduce without dire consequences for the offspring. My daughter could have no liver. Her daughter could have no head, etc., but since there is no selection in this strange world each individual is perfectly viable and as "good" as any other. Like mating with like would have no advantage. This leads us to the conclusion that without selection there would be no species, and of course without species there would be no evolution, by definition.
Certainly, both are important to evolution, but it would be more correct to say that variation drives evolution, while selection shapes it.
I understand what you are saying but I think it is correct in the way that Newtonian physics is "correct". It works in the everyday world but when we get down to the nitty gritty it fails. I still maintain that without natural selection there can be no evolution - just a planetary puree of randomly changing individuals.
If you received a PhD in 2003 and were taught that natural selection is the driving force of evolution, then I am sorry that you wasted your money.
Oops, how embarrassing for you, because a REALLY top-flight education would have taught you to be more precise. Natural selection IS the driving force that propogates desirable characteristics (and therefore evolution). You forgot that natural selection operates on mutations just as it does on intra-species genetic variation. Perhaps you meant "Darwinism" instead of natural selection, but even then some clear thinking would show that Darwin's theories are very compatable with evolution via mutational variation even though he did not recognize it. After all, where do you think all those intra-species variations came from except mutation, interbreeding and natural selection?
Imagine a species that has only genetic mutation and no intra-species variability (a population of clones, perhaps). Any genetic mutation will be either good for offspring or bad. Natural selection "decides" which is which. Without natural selection mutations are, by definition, neither good nor bad, nor can they result in any evolutionary advancement. If there is no disadvantage to change then neither is there any advantage. Without natural selection random mutational variation would eventually populate the universe with a near-infinite number of completely different individuals.
Far from being relegated to the scientific scrap heap, natural selection is still the prime mover (in fact the only mover) in evolution.
There is no court that will support the position that people are no longer allowed to make a living in their profession simply because they once worked for a company. Although it would not hurt, money alone would not compensate Lee since part of the alure of creative jobs is being able to create. A monthly chack from MS would make Lee a defacto employee of MS even though he had no duties. My opinion is that MS is trying the intimidation-by-lawsuit technique to make other MS employees think twice before abandoning ship for Google.
Isn't there an 'unwritten' rule amongst thieves on cell phones in countries with oligopoly-based cell phone services, saying that stealing cell phones is a big no-no, because they can be tracked?
Man, I think you are giving thieves way too much credit. The morons who murdered Michael Jordan's father several years ago drove his red Lexus around their rural town and called all their friends on the car phone. The problem many thieves have is that they are so stupid they haven't figured out that other people are way smarter than they are.
DustBuster... the batts (NiCad I believe) in mine are just about shot. I called a nearby B&D parts store and asked about replacements. They said to just toss it and go buy a new one. But I like this one !
You can get replacement batteries for them, and they are easy to replace - just google a bit. It is your local store that doesn't want to stock them and/or wants to sell you a new one.
"It would really suck if we killed off some kind of plant that was going to hold the key to solving a horrible disease" Indeed, but then again, if it's gone, how would we know, especially a disease in the future? Quite possibly happened already---
Rather than a specific plant or animal saving us from a specific disease, it is really that less biodiversity results in much less chance at finding treatments for many different diseases, present and future.
There's a movie service that has allowed you to download movies for quite awhile. The only downsides to MovieLink are that a) It requires IE/Windows and b) It's only rentals.
Oh yeah, this is a great site...not! After reading your post I decided to give it a try. First it does absolutely require IE which I loath, but then when signing up I got the message "By registering you agree that you may receive free offers and free software updates". SHeesh! SPAM/Spyware/Popups anyone? THEN, after signing up anyway (with my generic spam-accepting email address) the stupid program froze and wouldn't run.
Oh yeah, great service. Conceptually it is a great idea, but MovieLink's execution is horrible IMHO.
The reactors at Chernobyl are not the same design of any reactors built in the US. So there's no point in bringing it up unless you just want to scare people.
Wrong. There are two government-owned research reactors in Washington state that are of the Chernobyl type.
And the fears over Three Mile Island are just plain ignorance. It was a minor incident that didn't hurt anyone.
TMI was far from a minor incident. The NRC itself claassifies the TMI incident as a "major event" involving an uncontrolled partial meltdown of the reactor core. I can't imagine what kind of weird logic you use to call this a minor incident.
There are also legitimate concerns about the type of reactor, the inept and incompetent management during the incident, illegal activities of the TMI owners (falsification of radiation release reports prior to and during the incident), the poor design, the non-existent emergency response plan, the downright lies told by TMI and the governor and about the possibility of a leak, and the possibility that it may happen again with more dire consequences.
I was a part of the nuclear air-cleaning industry at that time and I know for a fact that it was only by the slimmest of margins that a failure of the activated-carbon air scubbing system was avoided that would have led to a major atmospheric release of radioactive material. You want to know the really scary part? The release was prevented only because the control valve for the air cleaning system was installed wrong to begin with - the control-room panel indicator read closed when the valve to the auxilliary carbon-scrubber unit was really open (it had been open for years and they did not know it). When the main carbon bank was in danger of catching fire because of the heat of the radio-activity trapped there, the operators tried to open the auxilliary unit to bypass it. But because it was wired wrong the valve really tried to CLOSE! Luckily, and this is the really scary part, because the valve had been installed 45 degrees in the wrong direction it would not fully close. This alone allowed enough air to bypass the main unit preventing the fire. This comedy of errors alone does not give me much confidence in the nuclear power industry.
However, even a failure of the air cleaning system would have been miniscule compared to the breach of the containment vessel, which was also averted only because of a mistake. Incredibly, penetration of the containment vessel was slowed by construction errors that had left voids in the concrete containment vessel wall. Had the wall been constructed as designed it would have been penetrated by the molten core.
Only a fool points a gun at his head, pulls the trigger, and then when it misfires says "Oh, that's clearly safe, let's do it again."
Ah, but then you're violating their civil rights, so says the namby-pamby branch of politics. You see, the fact that all 19 of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Middle-Eastern should never be factored into who gets searched at the airport and who doesn't, because we all know that a 70-year-old white female American citizen is just as likely to be a terrorist as a 20-year-old arab male who's here on a student visa. Bend over, granny, while we get the gloves and K-Y.
You are letting your right-wing philosophy override common sense. We had our own home-grown hijackers and bombers long before 9/11. Restricting searches to one group when you know there have been hijackers in other groups is simply stupid. And let's face it - the middle-eastern terrorists aren't stupid. It would be easy enough to plant a bomb in poor trusting granny's bags knowing she would be excluded from searches.
Profiling works both ways - it also lets terrorists know which groups are NOT going to be searched. If for no other reason than that it is a horrible policy.
You can put them in license plates. Afterall, the only difference will be being able to read the plate number from any angle within a distance.
I don't agree. It takes a person to read a license plate while RFID tags allow for the constant, automated real-time tracking of vehicles. By your logic it would be OK for the government to require GPS senders on all cars so their computers could track them - after all, every car already has a unique licesnse plate that can be read on the street, right?
I also do not understand nor agree with this "its ok to track my stuff but its not ok to track me" thinking. If the government can track your car or your coat or your hat they are really tracking you. Simply not allowing the government to put an RFID tracker in your body is no protection - they can simply track you by what is around your body.
My car has a registration tag, and I carry a driver's license when I drive. What is this license plate of which you speak?
You have a driver's license in your wallet, a registration card or slip that you keep in your glove box, and a license plate that attaches to the outside of the car. If you are going to be pedantic at least make sure of your terminology.
Have you read their IPO filing with SEC? They specifically state following 'do no evil'... Certainly, it would NOT maximize shareholder value in the long run to 'do evil'. The most successful companies in history have had similiar policies.
Yeah right. The drug companies being a perfect example with "benefit patients" in their charters yet they knowingly sell pain medication that causes heart attacks and blood pressure medications that actually increase the risk of heart attacks. They hide bad news and unfavorable studies that point to ineffectiveness or downright hazards of their products all the time yet they, too, have the equivalent of "do no evil" in their public relations crap.
Having worked at fairly high levels of several major corporations I know first hand the amount of rationalization these companies go through to justify the damage they do as being "good".
So it isn't really important that "do no evil" is in Google's charter - what is important is how the future leaders of that company define it. Once the two original Google founders leave, the next leaders will define "do no evil" in any way that maximizes the money in their pockets - mark my words.
The wireless network was not "inviting" him to connect. The wireless network is not a sentient entity, still less one with the legal power to do so. At best, it might have been broadcasting a message saying "My owner welcomes complete strangers to this network", but as of yet there is no protocol within 802.11* for doing this.
This is true, but the owner of the network DID invite him in (at least according to UK law as described in the article). In the article the prosecuter said that the owner of any network is legally responsible for any crime committed with that network - aware or not, the owner is responsible. Therefore, if accessing his network was illegal then the owner was responsible because he ALLOWED it to happen by not setting security! But in this case since he allowed it, ipso facto there was no crime committed. The government can't have it both ways. I think this guy needed a better lawyer.
This case notwithstanding, the law is clearly not settled on whether or not accessing unsecured wifi networks is a criminal act.
There's that whole "non-combatant" thing that screws up the curve and makes simplistic answers like the one you gave untrue. Patriots tend to know who non-combatants are. Terrorists don't know the meaning of the term.
I get your point, but it isn't really accurate. A good example is the non-combatant civilian killed by the police in the London Underground. Also, I am sure the IRA thinks of itself as patriotic organization, but they have killed hundreds of non-combatants.
And let's face it, the Iraqi insurgents consider themselves patriots fighting an occupying army, and they kill indescriminantly with their bombs.
I think al-Queda recognizes non-combatants (although their definition is very different than ours), but from their position of weakness they could never fight army to army. This is the way it has always been when the weak fight the strong. Their only hope for success is to fight unconventional war and accept the innocent lives lost as acceptable to acheiving their goals. It isn't that al-Queda does not recognize that there are non-combatants, they target them. It is the only way to effectively use the their limited power.
Before I get blasted, I'm no al-Queda apologist. I think terrorists of that ilk should be hunted down, tried and executed. But using 'patriotism" of itself as a separator between ourselves and our enemies is meaningless. The Nazis were patriots, so clearly patriotism can be a very bad thing. What is important are the ideals of the country of which you are a patriot.
Your statistics are misleading and mis-applied. The German unemployment rate for June 2005 was a whopping 20.5% in the former East German sections of Germany, while the country's overall unemployment rate was 12.5%. Therefore the western, industrialized, parts of Germany have a rate roughly comparable to the US.
The overall 12.5% jobless rate is clearly not a result of unionization or social programs as you imply, but from re-unification problems. I dare say that if Mexico were added to the US overnight our unemployment rate would skyrocket too.
Should I be banned from themeparks? What about grocery stores? Privately owned markets? This is the same kind of argument most liberals use for employers. They can do whatever they please - if you don't like it, look for another job.
And this is just the kind of reply that non-thinking people make. Think about it for cryin' out loud - do you think liberals LIKE corporations intruding into their privacy and lives? Of course they don't. The original poster was making a valid point that the Constitution protects us from abuse of our privacy BY THE GOVERNMENT, not by private citizens or corporations.
In your blind, non-thinking way you just assume that what liberals believe is bad and since this particular liberal was saying that corporations have the right to intrude on your privacy (and face it, they do) that was the liberal credo. Nothing could be further from reality. It is primarily CONSERVATIVES that have little problem with oppressive corporations and their abuse of both their employees and their customers. The so-called "free-market" that you incorrectly ascribe as a liberal position is in fact a conservative spinword that loosly translates into "no controls on corporations".
This is just another example of the conservative take-over of the language in order to make bad ideas sound good. "Free market" translates into "non-regulatory", "no child left behind" into "Federally mandated educational testing", "clear skies" into the cancellation of New Source Review, "Healthy Forests" into more clear cutting on Federal lands, and the list goes on.
Use your brain! It makes no sense to attribute liberals with the support of corporations intruding on our privacy!
I spend a lot of time in New York and "being truly free" is the last sentiment that comes to my mind, when I'm here. People tend to be rude, nasty, and obnoxious. They are noisy and would not yield a seat on a subway. Service in most businesses is awful.
You don't know what the F* you are talking about. My rudeness aside, New Yorkers are not rude - they simply don't spout all the meaningless "Have a nice day" nonsense the rest of the country spouts without meaning a word of it. Because most visitors don't realize this they interpret New Yorkers as cold and rude. It really brands you as a tourist. I've found New Yorker's to be extremely friendly and helpful.
Service in NY is BAD? WTF are you talking about!? There is NO city in this country where service is a good as in NYC. Sure, you don't get a salesperson in a department store helping you pick out just the right shade of sweater (unless you are at Barney's looking for a $1,200 one), but most New Yorkers don't want salepeople bothering then uselessly anyway. Most New Yorkers just want all the useless salespeople to go away when we visit other parts of the country. "Just let me shop and stop bothering me for cryin out loud - if I need help I'll ask!"
And restaurants - there are no better restaurants in the country for service. Service levels that are unacceptable in NYC are the rule in most of the rest of the country.
Oh, and you didn't get a seat on the subway!! Well Boo-hoo! How horrible for you. The MTA only carries 5 million people a day and I guess someone just forgot to call ahead and save your seat for you? How many other New Yorkers were standing? I have seen people offer seats to people with kids, elderly and handicapped people daily on subways and buses in NYC for decades.
But then maybe New Yorkers are just rude to you because you are such a jerk - ever think of that?
We should throw out the old spelling. Knight is spelled the way it is because it used to be pronounced kuh-nig-it (yes, just like monty python). All it does is confuse everyone. With its odd mix of Latin and Anglo-Saxon words and grammar rules it's complicated enough as it is without weirdo spellings that are unrelated to pronunciation.
I disagree. Various spellings give a richness to the language that would be obliterated if everything was reduced to the fewest vowels and consonants. Besides, different spellings help make meaning clear in the written word. "I threw the spear into the knight" has a very different meaning than "I threw the spear into the night" (or 'into the nite' for both as you are proposing).
Also, because many English words are made up from roots of Latin or Greek, the "old" spellings of words often give clues to the meaning of unfamiliar words. This great advantage works for non-native speakers of the romance languages as well. I can go to any of the romance language countries and decipher about 30% of the written word even though I do not speak the language - because we share common roots and spellings. Change knight to nite and chevalier to shevaleeay and French, English, Spanish and Italian would become about as comprehensible to their non-speakers as Chinese.
Seriously though, I think being taught phonix(sp? lol) as a child really hendered my spelling capabilities because so many words are spelled in ways they shouldn't...
Baloney! I was taught to read using Phonics and it hasn't hindered my spelling at all. I suspect you just didn't pay attention during your spelling lessons and are now conveniently blaming it on Phonics.
I have to agree with 1u3hr on this one. There has to be something wrong with the original poster's system - probably adware, spyware or viruses. I have a three year old install of MS Office, running on a three year old mid-level PC with tons of installs over the years. When I just tested it MSWord took about four seconds to load from icon to blank doc (and that is without any pre-loading). Loading a small document was practically instantaneous after that. What I don't have are viruses or (much) spyware.
Now I have time to go make a cup of tea while my PC boots... You are changing the parameters of the question - this thread is about MS Word load times, NOT Windows system-boot time. OF course if you load a lot of programs then the PC will take longer to boot - there is no free lunch. Yes, all those programs and processes can use up system resources...but 30 seconds to load Word in XP!?? Even my old (virus free) laptop doesn't take that long.
What the original poster needs to do is intall MORE software - namely Ad-Aware, SpyBot and AVG.
Slashdot Mirror
You could have evolution without selection, but not without mutation.
Hmmmm, I have a problem with the first part of that statement. If we hypothesize a world where there is no selection, i.e. every mutation is just as viable as every other mutation, I do not think evolution would occur. Individuals would change, but evolution of species would not happen because there would be no species - only individuals, each divergent from every other individual. Typically we think of natural selection as selecting only the best traits of all alternatives, but that is not accurate. Natural selection selects the best traits of all *viable* alternatives. Because the "purpose" of a species is to maximize offspring viability, this narrow band of viable mutations defines a species. I risk repeating myself, but if all mutations were equally viable then there would be no need for species.
In our impossible thought-experiment world where there is no selection, no mutation would be disadvantageous no matter how radical.In this world there would no longer be a need for species because every individual (or pair) could reproduce without dire consequences for the offspring. My daughter could have no liver. Her daughter could have no head, etc., but since there is no selection in this strange world each individual is perfectly viable and as "good" as any other. Like mating with like would have no advantage. This leads us to the conclusion that without selection there would be no species, and of course without species there would be no evolution, by definition.
Certainly, both are important to evolution, but it would be more correct to say that variation drives evolution, while selection shapes it.
I understand what you are saying but I think it is correct in the way that Newtonian physics is "correct". It works in the everyday world but when we get down to the nitty gritty it fails. I still maintain that without natural selection there can be no evolution - just a planetary puree of randomly changing individuals.
To falsely assume proving [you're] wrong necessarily means proving yourself correct.
This makes no sense.
If you received a PhD in 2003 and were taught that natural selection is the driving force of evolution, then I am sorry that you wasted your money.
Oops, how embarrassing for you, because a REALLY top-flight education would have taught you to be more precise. Natural selection IS the driving force that propogates desirable characteristics (and therefore evolution). You forgot that natural selection operates on mutations just as it does on intra-species genetic variation. Perhaps you meant "Darwinism" instead of natural selection, but even then some clear thinking would show that Darwin's theories are very compatable with evolution via mutational variation even though he did not recognize it. After all, where do you think all those intra-species variations came from except mutation, interbreeding and natural selection?
Imagine a species that has only genetic mutation and no intra-species variability (a population of clones, perhaps). Any genetic mutation will be either good for offspring or bad. Natural selection "decides" which is which. Without natural selection mutations are, by definition, neither good nor bad, nor can they result in any evolutionary advancement. If there is no disadvantage to change then neither is there any advantage. Without natural selection random mutational variation would eventually populate the universe with a near-infinite number of completely different individuals.
Far from being relegated to the scientific scrap heap, natural selection is still the prime mover (in fact the only mover) in evolution.
There is no court that will support the position that people are no longer allowed to make a living in their profession simply because they once worked for a company. Although it would not hurt, money alone would not compensate Lee since part of the alure of creative jobs is being able to create. A monthly chack from MS would make Lee a defacto employee of MS even though he had no duties. My opinion is that MS is trying the intimidation-by-lawsuit technique to make other MS employees think twice before abandoning ship for Google.
Isn't there an 'unwritten' rule amongst thieves on cell phones in countries with oligopoly-based cell phone services, saying that stealing cell phones is a big no-no, because they can be tracked?
Man, I think you are giving thieves way too much credit. The morons who murdered Michael Jordan's father several years ago drove his red Lexus around their rural town and called all their friends on the car phone. The problem many thieves have is that they are so stupid they haven't figured out that other people are way smarter than they are.
You've just learnt a useful new word today...it's much more succinct than the usual "a list of names and stuff and other shit".
Oh yeah? Well, uh, ummm,... SAME TO YOU!
DustBuster... the batts (NiCad I believe) in mine are just about shot. I called a nearby B&D parts store and asked about replacements. They said to just toss it and go buy a new one. But I like this one !
You can get replacement batteries for them, and they are easy to replace - just google a bit. It is your local store that doesn't want to stock them and/or wants to sell you a new one.
"It would really suck if we killed off some kind of plant that was going to hold the key to solving a horrible disease"
Indeed, but then again, if it's gone, how would we know, especially a disease in the future? Quite possibly happened already---
Rather than a specific plant or animal saving us from a specific disease, it is really that less biodiversity results in much less chance at finding treatments for many different diseases, present and future.
There's a movie service that has allowed you to download movies for quite awhile. The only downsides to MovieLink are that a) It requires IE/Windows and b) It's only rentals.
Oh yeah, this is a great site...not! After reading your post I decided to give it a try. First it does absolutely require IE which I loath, but then when signing up I got the message "By registering you agree that you may receive free offers and free software updates". SHeesh! SPAM/Spyware/Popups anyone? THEN, after signing up anyway (with my generic spam-accepting email address) the stupid program froze and wouldn't run.
Oh yeah, great service. Conceptually it is a great idea, but MovieLink's execution is horrible IMHO.
The reactors at Chernobyl are not the same design of any reactors built in the US. So there's no point in bringing it up unless you just want to scare people.
Wrong. There are two government-owned research reactors in Washington state that are of the Chernobyl type.
And the fears over Three Mile Island are just plain ignorance. It was a minor incident that didn't hurt anyone.
TMI was far from a minor incident. The NRC itself claassifies the TMI incident as a "major event" involving an uncontrolled partial meltdown of the reactor core. I can't imagine what kind of weird logic you use to call this a minor incident.
There are also legitimate concerns about the type of reactor, the inept and incompetent management during the incident, illegal activities of the TMI owners (falsification of radiation release reports prior to and during the incident), the poor design, the non-existent emergency response plan, the downright lies told by TMI and the governor and about the possibility of a leak, and the possibility that it may happen again with more dire consequences.
I was a part of the nuclear air-cleaning industry at that time and I know for a fact that it was only by the slimmest of margins that a failure of the activated-carbon air scubbing system was avoided that would have led to a major atmospheric release of radioactive material. You want to know the really scary part? The release was prevented only because the control valve for the air cleaning system was installed wrong to begin with - the control-room panel indicator read closed when the valve to the auxilliary carbon-scrubber unit was really open (it had been open for years and they did not know it). When the main carbon bank was in danger of catching fire because of the heat of the radio-activity trapped there, the operators tried to open the auxilliary unit to bypass it. But because it was wired wrong the valve really tried to CLOSE! Luckily, and this is the really scary part, because the valve had been installed 45 degrees in the wrong direction it would not fully close. This alone allowed enough air to bypass the main unit preventing the fire. This comedy of errors alone does not give me much confidence in the nuclear power industry.
However, even a failure of the air cleaning system would have been miniscule compared to the breach of the containment vessel, which was also averted only because of a mistake. Incredibly, penetration of the containment vessel was slowed by construction errors that had left voids in the concrete containment vessel wall. Had the wall been constructed as designed it would have been penetrated by the molten core.
Only a fool points a gun at his head, pulls the trigger, and then when it misfires says "Oh, that's clearly safe, let's do it again."
Ah, but then you're violating their civil rights, so says the namby-pamby branch of politics. You see, the fact that all 19 of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Middle-Eastern should never be factored into who gets searched at the airport and who doesn't, because we all know that a 70-year-old white female American citizen is just as likely to be a terrorist as a 20-year-old arab male who's here on a student visa. Bend over, granny, while we get the gloves and K-Y.
You are letting your right-wing philosophy override common sense. We had our own home-grown hijackers and bombers long before 9/11. Restricting searches to one group when you know there have been hijackers in other groups is simply stupid. And let's face it - the middle-eastern terrorists aren't stupid. It would be easy enough to plant a bomb in poor trusting granny's bags knowing she would be excluded from searches.
Profiling works both ways - it also lets terrorists know which groups are NOT going to be searched. If for no other reason than that it is a horrible policy.
You can put them in license plates. Afterall, the only difference will be being able to read the plate number from any angle within a distance.
I don't agree. It takes a person to read a license plate while RFID tags allow for the constant, automated real-time tracking of vehicles. By your logic it would be OK for the government to require GPS senders on all cars so their computers could track them - after all, every car already has a unique licesnse plate that can be read on the street, right?
I also do not understand nor agree with this "its ok to track my stuff but its not ok to track me" thinking. If the government can track your car or your coat or your hat they are really tracking you. Simply not allowing the government to put an RFID tracker in your body is no protection - they can simply track you by what is around your body.
My car has a registration tag, and I carry a driver's license when I drive. What is this license plate of which you speak?
You have a driver's license in your wallet, a registration card or slip that you keep in your glove box, and a license plate that attaches to the outside of the car. If you are going to be pedantic at least make sure of your terminology.
Have you read their IPO filing with SEC? They specifically state following 'do no evil' ... Certainly, it would NOT maximize shareholder value in the long run to 'do evil'. The most successful companies in history have had similiar policies.
Yeah right. The drug companies being a perfect example with "benefit patients" in their charters yet they knowingly sell pain medication that causes heart attacks and blood pressure medications that actually increase the risk of heart attacks. They hide bad news and unfavorable studies that point to ineffectiveness or downright hazards of their products all the time yet they, too, have the equivalent of "do no evil" in their public relations crap.
Having worked at fairly high levels of several major corporations I know first hand the amount of rationalization these companies go through to justify the damage they do as being "good".
So it isn't really important that "do no evil" is in Google's charter - what is important is how the future leaders of that company define it. Once the two original Google founders leave, the next leaders will define "do no evil" in any way that maximizes the money in their pockets - mark my words.
Hey, I remember back in 1970 when it was pretty amazing to interact with a COMPUTER in real time using a teletype machine (as opposed to punch cards).
Star Trek on an IBM 360 via teletype:
fire photon torpedos...
miss
fire phasers...
hit, 20% damage to Klingon shields
etc...
Considering this was a multimillion dollar computer I'd say the price of computer games has come down considerably!
The wireless network was not "inviting" him to connect. The wireless network is not a sentient entity, still less one with the legal power to do so. At best, it might have been broadcasting a message saying "My owner welcomes complete strangers to this network", but as of yet there is no protocol within 802.11* for doing this.
This is true, but the owner of the network DID invite him in (at least according to UK law as described in the article). In the article the prosecuter said that the owner of any network is legally responsible for any crime committed with that network - aware or not, the owner is responsible. Therefore, if accessing his network was illegal then the owner was responsible because he ALLOWED it to happen by not setting security! But in this case since he allowed it, ipso facto there was no crime committed. The government can't have it both ways. I think this guy needed a better lawyer.
This case notwithstanding, the law is clearly not settled on whether or not accessing unsecured wifi networks is a criminal act.
There's that whole "non-combatant" thing that screws up the curve and makes simplistic answers like the one you gave untrue. Patriots tend to know who non-combatants are. Terrorists don't know the meaning of the term.
I get your point, but it isn't really accurate. A good example is the non-combatant civilian killed by the police in the London Underground. Also, I am sure the IRA thinks of itself as patriotic organization, but they have killed hundreds of non-combatants.
And let's face it, the Iraqi insurgents consider themselves patriots fighting an occupying army, and they kill indescriminantly with their bombs.
I think al-Queda recognizes non-combatants (although their definition is very different than ours), but from their position of weakness they could never fight army to army. This is the way it has always been when the weak fight the strong. Their only hope for success is to fight unconventional war and accept the innocent lives lost as acceptable to acheiving their goals. It isn't that al-Queda does not recognize that there are non-combatants, they target them. It is the only way to effectively use the their limited power.
Before I get blasted, I'm no al-Queda apologist. I think terrorists of that ilk should be hunted down, tried and executed. But using 'patriotism" of itself as a separator between ourselves and our enemies is meaningless. The Nazis were patriots, so clearly patriotism can be a very bad thing. What is important are the ideals of the country of which you are a patriot.
Your statistics are misleading and mis-applied. The German unemployment rate for June 2005 was a whopping 20.5% in the former East German sections of Germany, while the country's overall unemployment rate was 12.5%. Therefore the western, industrialized, parts of Germany have a rate roughly comparable to the US.
The overall 12.5% jobless rate is clearly not a result of unionization or social programs as you imply, but from re-unification problems. I dare say that if Mexico were added to the US overnight our unemployment rate would skyrocket too.
Should I be banned from themeparks? What about grocery stores? Privately owned markets? This is the same kind of argument most liberals use for employers. They can do whatever they please - if you don't like it, look for another job.
And this is just the kind of reply that non-thinking people make. Think about it for cryin' out loud - do you think liberals LIKE corporations intruding into their privacy and lives? Of course they don't. The original poster was making a valid point that the Constitution protects us from abuse of our privacy BY THE GOVERNMENT, not by private citizens or corporations.
In your blind, non-thinking way you just assume that what liberals believe is bad and since this particular liberal was saying that corporations have the right to intrude on your privacy (and face it, they do) that was the liberal credo. Nothing could be further from reality. It is primarily CONSERVATIVES that have little problem with oppressive corporations and their abuse of both their employees and their customers. The so-called "free-market" that you incorrectly ascribe as a liberal position is in fact a conservative spinword that loosly translates into "no controls on corporations".
This is just another example of the conservative take-over of the language in order to make bad ideas sound good. "Free market" translates into "non-regulatory", "no child left behind" into "Federally mandated educational testing", "clear skies" into the cancellation of New Source Review, "Healthy Forests" into more clear cutting on Federal lands, and the list goes on.
Use your brain! It makes no sense to attribute liberals with the support of corporations intruding on our privacy!
I spend a lot of time in New York and "being truly free" is the last sentiment that comes to my mind, when I'm here. People tend to be rude, nasty, and obnoxious. They are noisy and would not yield a seat on a subway. Service in most businesses is awful.
You don't know what the F* you are talking about. My rudeness aside, New Yorkers are not rude - they simply don't spout all the meaningless "Have a nice day" nonsense the rest of the country spouts without meaning a word of it. Because most visitors don't realize this they interpret New Yorkers as cold and rude. It really brands you as a tourist. I've found New Yorker's to be extremely friendly and helpful.
Service in NY is BAD? WTF are you talking about!? There is NO city in this country where service is a good as in NYC. Sure, you don't get a salesperson in a department store helping you pick out just the right shade of sweater (unless you are at Barney's looking for a $1,200 one), but most New Yorkers don't want salepeople bothering then uselessly anyway. Most New Yorkers just want all the useless salespeople to go away when we visit other parts of the country. "Just let me shop and stop bothering me for cryin out loud - if I need help I'll ask!"
And restaurants - there are no better restaurants in the country for service. Service levels that are unacceptable in NYC are the rule in most of the rest of the country.
Oh, and you didn't get a seat on the subway!! Well Boo-hoo! How horrible for you. The MTA only carries 5 million people a day and I guess someone just forgot to call ahead and save your seat for you? How many other New Yorkers were standing? I have seen people offer seats to people with kids, elderly and handicapped people daily on subways and buses in NYC for decades.
But then maybe New Yorkers are just rude to you because you are such a jerk - ever think of that?
Brilliant.
We should throw out the old spelling. Knight is spelled the way it is because it used to be pronounced kuh-nig-it (yes, just like monty python). All it does is confuse everyone. With its odd mix of Latin and Anglo-Saxon words and grammar rules it's complicated enough as it is without weirdo spellings that are unrelated to pronunciation.
I disagree. Various spellings give a richness to the language that would be obliterated if everything was reduced to the fewest vowels and consonants. Besides, different spellings help make meaning clear in the written word. "I threw the spear into the knight" has a very different meaning than "I threw the spear into the night" (or 'into the nite' for both as you are proposing).
Also, because many English words are made up from roots of Latin or Greek, the "old" spellings of words often give clues to the meaning of unfamiliar words. This great advantage works for non-native speakers of the romance languages as well. I can go to any of the romance language countries and decipher about 30% of the written word even though I do not speak the language - because we share common roots and spellings. Change knight to nite and chevalier to shevaleeay and French, English, Spanish and Italian would become about as comprehensible to their non-speakers as Chinese.
Seriously though, I think being taught phonix(sp? lol) as a child really hendered my spelling capabilities because so many words are spelled in ways they shouldn't...
Baloney! I was taught to read using Phonics and it hasn't hindered my spelling at all. I suspect you just didn't pay attention during your spelling lessons and are now conveniently blaming it on Phonics.
- gas station used to fuel the trucks
- hose used to clean the trucks
- steel drums containing the trucks used oil
What would really be interesting is a picture of a place the truck might drive by one day!
I have to agree with 1u3hr on this one. There has to be something wrong with the original poster's system - probably adware, spyware or viruses. I have a three year old install of MS Office, running on a three year old mid-level PC with tons of installs over the years. When I just tested it MSWord took about four seconds to load from icon to blank doc (and that is without any pre-loading). Loading a small document was practically instantaneous after that. What I don't have are viruses or (much) spyware.
Now I have time to go make a cup of tea while my PC boots...
You are changing the parameters of the question - this thread is about MS Word load times, NOT Windows system-boot time. OF course if you load a lot of programs then the PC will take longer to boot - there is no free lunch. Yes, all those programs and processes can use up system resources...but 30 seconds to load Word in XP!?? Even my old (virus free) laptop doesn't take that long.
What the original poster needs to do is intall MORE software - namely Ad-Aware, SpyBot and AVG.