He basically has two ideas. One of which is BRILLIANT, the other is questionable.
Idea 1: Hide the non-essential icons/user interface tools behind a control key
That idea is brilliant in my opinion. Take the Internet Browser. When reading the pages on the internet you do NOT need the three or four or more menu bars. When you add in the file set, my links, the back etc., the address bar, and any google/yahoo/ etc. menu bar, that can add up to quite a lot of space not always neccessary. I have two hands, I see no reason why we can not implement his concept of HIDING that all away until you press the Control key.
Idea 2: Making all those controls key controlled. Now, I am in favor of more/better key commands. But honestly, I see no reason not to also button up those same commands. If we write "Alt-S: Save document" then why not draw a line around it and allow a mouse click as an alternate way to save the document.
As others said, that joke is neither funny nor anything close to the truth.
In point of fact, NASA was using pencils for quite some time, but were complaining about it - bits of graphite get into the air.
A NASA employee heard about the problem, invented a pen that can work in zero-G spending his own personal money to do it (not millions). Then he sold it to NASA rather cheaply (again, not millions). He did end up sellling his COMPANY that made the pen for millions.
Let's be honest. 99% of the time, for a software, books, music, and movies, 95% of the profit is in over the first 5 years. After that, if you get any sales at all, they are dribles in. A slight exception is for series books, where if someone reads book #5 and likes it, they might go out and buy #1-4.
Still, that generally only pumps up your profit for an additional 5-10 years.
After 20 years on sale, your profit is practically nothing... UNLESS you wrote a masterpiece.
But if you wrote a masterpiece then:
1. You probably got rich by then anyway.
2. The public wants you to WRITE ANOTHER ONE
3. A sequel/new book would earn a ton more money and also can pump up sales of the first thing.
Net Net, it is in the PUBLIC'S interest that after just 10 years, copyrights run out. AND it does not significantly affect any creator's income.
The real reason why we have copyright laws over 10 years is not for the writer, but instead for the major corporations that can make money lots of tiny sales 15, 20 or 50 years after creation of the author. It is pretty much ONLY them that really benefit, at the expense of society by a LOT.
Now, there is one other factor - derivative work. Movies based on books etc. That kind of thing it is reasonable to allow the original writer to retain. But honestly it should ALWAYS be the original writer, i.e. the right should not be saleable. That prevents them from selling it to a corp for a quick profit and then having the corp. massacre their work. By requirin the original actual author to give always give consent, we can increase the quality of the work.
OK, I checked my source and I was misremembering and misquoting. The actual source said "People arrested for child abuse were more likley to be arrested again for other crimes than other people arrested".
But my main point was in fact correct. People that view BDSM are less likely to commit crimes, not more.
The honest truth is that images NOT ONCE ever "for this stuff to trigger an unbalanced mind."
One of the main problems that prudes have is that any fair study of this disgusting filth shows that people that view it are LESS likely to commit crimes, whether violent or not.
This is in dinstinct difference from peopel that view kiddie porn, who are in fact more likely to commit crimes.
Apparently it seems that smart people like getting hit, not hitting on children.
Because despite your silly claims, they are not the same offense.
The offense is not lying. Every man, woman and child in the world lies. (How tall are you, How much do you weigh, how old are you, did you break that?).
The offense is a specific one, it depends on what you are lying ABOUT.
Lying about your weight? Not a big deal - even if it is to a federal investigator
Lying about sex? Most americans again say NOT a big deal.
Lying about a federal investigation into potential treason, revealing a Spy's name?
Well, I hate to tell you but most Americans (and most sane people in the world) consider that to be a REAL offense, not a mere attempt to embarrass a political opponent.
And NO, it does not matter if you are protecting a guilty person or protecting an innocent person - you personally may not know if they are innocent or guilty and do NOT get to make that call.
You have a serious lack of knowledge about this subject.
You are making several false beliefs.
1. People that take out loans generally do NOT deposit the full amount back into the bank. Usually they deposit a minutre fraction.
2. People default on loans is an immediate and DIRECT loss to the bank.
Here it works like this in real life.
I deposit 100 to the bank.
The bank loans out 900 to various people (using my 100 and a 10% reserve)
The bank really wishes those people would deposit it back to them, but they don't. Instead they spend it, where it eventually gets deposited into a DIFFERENT bank. Currently the bank is +100 real, -100 withdrawable, -900 loaned out, with 900 IOU to the bank.
A year goes by.
The bank has received about 70 in interest on the money they loaned out, but paid me 3. 167 real, -100 withdrawable, -900 loaned, 900 IOU
80 has been paid off by people that made their money and closed out their accounts, in real cash (likely from another bank's loan). 247 real, -100 withdawable, -820 loaned, 820 IOU
I withdrew 50 of my original money. 197 real, -50 withdawable, -820 loaned, 820 IOU
AND MOST IMPORTNATLY, they have 100 in defaults, that they sold off to a collection agency for 5. 203 real, -50 withdawable, -820 loaned, 720 IOU.
Now, they technically have a problem. They are not allowed to just keep -820 loaned on the books unless they have 820 IOU. So they do book keeping and in effect pay off their extra 100 loaned dollars with real money.
103 real, -50 withdrawable by me, -720 loaned, 720 IOU.
This ends the year. They have a net 53 real profit, and can loan out approximately 310 more dollars.
The loss was a real loss, cause they HAVE to pay off their own loan when it defaults.
Not really.
The chip can also include a simple clock. Then it changes per the time, not a handshake response.
If the time says 5:43 and 12 seconds, but the RFID signal decrypts to 4:23, yesterday multiplied by the secret number, that is a lot different.
The argument for the ruling is to prevent a single low end seller, (read WALMART) from undercutting everyone else's price, driving everyone out of the business except for them.
The argument against the ruling is:
If the rest of the world can't compete with the low end seller, they SHOULD get out of the business. Otherwise we leave crappy, foolish business men in charge and surprise surprise, we can't compete with China's low prices. Of course we can't, we let idiots that have no idea how to run a low priced business run our corporations.
Me, I am against the ruling. There is no reason ever to have a price floor. If you can't compete with Walmart, then find another business.
Some of the people that replied to my reply gave some uneducated, poor responses. One of the things people claimed was that "foreign language ballots" are acceptable.
Here is a recent article, from the AP. Computerized forms let you hear the real name, and can even include a picture of the man. For 'issues' instead of ads, the problem is MUCH worse, because they tend to use formalized/legallized language, that is hard to understand in the original english.
BOSTON (AP) - Mitt Romney's been called many things as he runs for president, but chances are "Sticky Rice" isn't one of them.
That's how his name might be read on some ballots, according to state Secretary William Galvin.
Galvin says the federal Justice Department is pressuring Boston election officials to translate candidates' names into Chinese characters in precincts with prominent Chinese-speaking populations.
But there's more than a little lost in translation, according to Galvin.
Since there's no Chinese character for "Romney," translators have resorted to finding characters that most closely match the sound of each syllable in the name.
The problem is that there are many different characters that could be used to match the sound of each syllable, and many different meanings for each character.
So Mitt Romney could be read as "Sticky Rice" or "Uncooked Rice." Fred Thompson might be read as "Virtue Soup." And Barack Obama could be read as "Oh Bus Horse."
Galvin's own name could be read at least two different ways, as "High Prominent Noble Educated" or "Stick Mosquito."
But perhaps the most perplexing translation would be for Boston Mayor Thomas Menino's name, which could be read as "Sun Moon Rainbow Farmer" or "Imbecile," or "Barbarian Mud No Mind of His Own."
"To try to make rhymes or approximations in Chinese, you can have unintended negative meanings," Galvin said. "It leads to confusion. You can render it with a good meaning or a bad meaning."
To add to the confusion, Galvin said, the ballots have to be offered in two major Chinese dialects, Mandarin and Cantonese, leading to even more potential variations of candidates's names.
But advocates for minority voting rights say Galvin's objections are misdirected. If the translations are awkward, they say, the candidates should be free to offer variations, or look to the way Asian language newspapers already transliterate their names.
"We are looking to make sure Asian Americans are able to vote for their candidates of choice," Glenn Magpantay, staff attorney of the New York-based Asian American Defense Fund, told the Boston Globe. "This is difficult to do when voters with limited English proficiency cannot find those candidates."
Cynthia Magnuson, spokeswoman to the Justice Department's civil rights division, said a system is needed to let voters with limited English vote without the aid of election monitors.
"This will allow them to vote independently," she said.
Galvin said he supports translating the bulk of the ballots into Chinese as required by a 2005 agreement with the justice department, as long as the names of the candidates' names remain in Roman letters.
Hm. Well, I did go to college, not the military.
But I do have a Myspace account, not a Facebook account.
I am a computer programmer, published Dungons and Dragon writer (don't play that much anymore), dance tango (OK, I teach some also), do some acting (taking improv classees), do some glass blowing (low quality stuff and NO I won't make you a bong).
Hypothesis one (original theory): This gives us mroe time to spend with family
Hypothesis two (their reply): Despite this time saved, we seem to have it sucked away. It must be that the devices are EVIL. SATAN SPAWN EVIL. Cue Manical laughter now.
Hypothesis three (reasonable, intelligent, but not panicy enough to get a book):
About 50-100 years ago, we settled down to a reasonable ratio of time spent with family vs. work. Any thing that saves us time will NOT increase the time we spend with one or the other. Instead we will keep the same ratio of time spent working vs time spent with our family. Work is not evil, it is a GOOD thing. We either enjoy it, or we enjoy what it lets us earn. We like more money more than the time with our family, becaue we can use the money to have higher quality time (or we just don't like our family.)
You have a point, but are over-estimating it's value.
Much of what the author did could have been done by stating:
"As kids don't have their real jobs yet, it is harder to tell what their personal class is. We can either go by their parent's class, or by an estimate of what the kid's job will be eventually, based on whether they are on the college track, the military track, or the lowe end job track. While both methods have their problems, I choose to use the estimate based on track method."
While normally scientists would use the parent's class method, as you seem to think is appropriate, I do believe that his arguments are pretty convincing.
Given that information, I can not consider this to be a no true scotsman fallacy. While he is using a slight new definition, it is in an area where the typical definition is not useable, and I find much of his work to be interesting. Perhaps a better analysis will ocure in 10 years, when we can see whether his 'college/military/other' track concept was in fact a good estiamte of actual social class. More importantly, it might be surprising if we found out that people in the college track that went with Facebook were more likely to end up in the upper class then those that were on the college track but did not have Facebook.
Wow, you put a lot of your own arguemnts and have no idea what I was saying. Look, if you disagree with me fine. But you are not god, and I was polite to a rude posting. Don't be rude to me. I can do it back toyou: Grow up and admit people may differ in opinion with you . You are not right all the time - otherwise you would be elected president instead of Bush.
Here, why don't you listen to someone else once in your life. I also have worked at an election. And this is what I know.
1. Thank you for admitting the Chad problem. Too bad you did not do anything at all besides admit it. OK, so the problem was caused by faulty paper machines. So what? It still existed. it still applies. Try acutally RESPONDING to my point instead of simply admitting it existed and then ignoring it. Chad was one example of problems with paper. Ink also has similar issues. It runs. It runs out. People check not quite in the box.
2. Nice statement of no with total lack of response to my argument. Something that is obvious and clearly possible, you just say NO, without actually saying why it is impossible. Yes I admited that current machines don't do it. That is not the point. Here let me explain why people want electornic machines, - it has to do with theory, not fact.
You have one way of storing votes. To cheat an election, you have to alter the votes in that one method.
You could have TWO ways of storing the vote. To cheat an election you now have to alter the votes TWICE. You have to do everything required for the first way and then do something just as hard again. Could this possibly make it harder to cheat? Yes. I am not refering to any particular method, but instead to the OBVIOUS fact that requireing people to cheat twice is harder than letting them get away with it just once. As long as both methods are built to be acceptable by themselves, this way works. The fact that idiots making the first set of machines built crappy shit does NOT mean it is impossible to build effective mechanism. We just have to demand they do it right.
3. Wow. Your particular county does not have a problem counting ballots. Good for you. OK, maybe we can pay you to do the entire country. That sound good to you? Yes it is possible to get all the counting of poles done no matter how many votes you have. But wait a second. The hand recounts take forever. Hm. Could that be a problem? The republicans repeatedly objected to recounts cause they take too long. Recounts take time, a lot of it.Why? Because recounts are done after most of the volunteers have gone home. Sorry charlie, you don't know what you are talking about, speed IS an issue. Watch the news once in a while, you might learn something.
4. Yes, computers take up space. A set amount of space forever. Can you show me the votes for last election? Sure you say, they are in the warehouse. Woops. Investigations clearly show that those votes routinely get thrown OUT, often before the recounts are done, because of space constraints. With electronic storage, we can keep electronic records basically for ever. Makes rechecking and looking for fraud a lot easier. Paper gets thrown out, electronic records do not. Simple fact of life.
5. Yes upfront costs are greater for the machines. The machine I used to vote is 40 years old. If we buy a new electronic voting machine that works and keep it for 40 years, guess what, it is cheaper than the paper one.
6. Straw man argument? Hm. Nope, I just checked, this is NOT a straw man argument. Definition of a Straw man argument: "to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent".
What exactly are you talking about? This is MY argument - I am NOT attributing any argument to anyone else.
It repeatedly happens in real life - ballots change. People die. Courts throw people off the ballot, or demand someone should have been on it. Computers allow us to change it instantly. Paper does not. Yes, we can live with this
Long history of people cheating them (While the current system sucks, a combo of electtronic + paper if properly done, can double our chances of catching fraud)
Takes too long to count.
Takes up a lot of space.
Costs a lot more money.
If someone is removed from the ballot, we have to reprint, which may not happen in time
Delivery must be assured with enough to all, which means a lot of waste
Blind people have issues
People that don't read english have issues
Ballot design for large number of possible candidates - people seriously want to be the guy on the top of the list, it gives a small, but real boost to their numbers
Oh wait, you just wanted ONE issue. Hm. Hard too choose just one.
Not having to pay a monthly fee to automatically record shows you watched previously
Not having to deal with commercials inserted when you fast forward 30 seconds.
Now, if they could only find a way to strip thos FREAKIN' RUDE graphics that certain vile channels overlay on top of the movie/show. I can deal with a tiny little station identification, but those rude obnoxious ads obscure vital parts of the show about one out of every 3 times.
I swear my Blood pressure goes through the roof.
You went from 3 certain, 3 in doubt, 3 definitely lost to 6 almost certain, one in doubt, 2 defitinely lost. Assuming a typical year, you go from an everage of 4.5 seats to an average of 6.5 seats. Two seat gain.
The only problem with this idea is that people MOVE and the data tends to be at least one year old. If you don't pay attention to trends, you gerrymandering works for about two years. If you do, you might be able to get 4 or 5 years out of it. Even then, it dies.
I read Stross's books. They have interesting ideas, but BAD LOGIC.
This is also an accurate evaluation of his blog.
He basically postulates that things are too far away to get to and that Einstein's theory of relativity means that will never change.
It is NO different than someone 300 years ago saying "We can't get to the moon because the only way we can currently think of to fly is by balloon, and a balloon can't get there.
He talks about a "Magic Wand" that would change the physics of the universe. What the rest of us call that Magic Wand is "Scientific Progress". He then discusses some of the highly likely ways to get around the problems he forsees, but says they are basically NOT WORTH IT. He does NOT know that answer.
We determine what is worth it and not worth it. We can decide we want to do this, and then if it is possible, it CAN be done.
He simply does not understand all the new technology, claiming it will be too expensive (mostly in energy), without truly understanding if we value it, we will do it.
Yes, colonozing a new world may take a long time and be incredibally expensive. Yes, most people won't want to actually be the colonizers. But there are lots of ways it can be made profitable.
A major one is prison. Right now it costs us hundreds of thousands of dollars per prisoner to imprison men and women. I bet you many of them would rather go to another planet, taking the huge risk involved, including the hybernation risk, and the risk of failing to create a new biosphere.
Many of them ARE smart, not stupid. Send them the right books/records and they will succeed.
All they really need is a planet that has an oxygen atmosphere, which CAN be achieved if the right temperature planet is found with water (one of the most common materials in the universe - commets. Just seed the planet with the right bacteria - keep the colonists in hybernation till a computer detects sufficient oxygen.
Not perfect. High probability of death. But at least a 10% chance of success, and prisoners will accept it.
If you are being sued for less than 1,000 then a lawyer will charge you more than you save. In fact, anything less than 2,000 is probably not worth it to get a lawyer.
Given that this is clearly small claims court, and the article did NOT specify the damages he paid, then you do NOT know if he made a mistake or not.
If the damages were say 3,000, then you are probably correct. If not, you are wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
Idea 1: Hide the non-essential icons/user interface tools behind a control key
That idea is brilliant in my opinion. Take the Internet Browser. When reading the pages on the internet you do NOT need the three or four or more menu bars. When you add in the file set, my links, the back etc., the address bar, and any google/yahoo/ etc. menu bar, that can add up to quite a lot of space not always neccessary. I have two hands, I see no reason why we can not implement his concept of HIDING that all away until you press the Control key.
Idea 2: Making all those controls key controlled. Now, I am in favor of more/better key commands. But honestly, I see no reason not to also button up those same commands. If we write "Alt-S: Save document" then why not draw a line around it and allow a mouse click as an alternate way to save the document.
Product TESTING
In point of fact, NASA was using pencils for quite some time, but were complaining about it - bits of graphite get into the air.
A NASA employee heard about the problem, invented a pen that can work in zero-G spending his own personal money to do it (not millions). Then he sold it to NASA rather cheaply (again, not millions). He did end up sellling his COMPANY that made the pen for millions.
Still, that generally only pumps up your profit for an additional 5-10 years.
After 20 years on sale, your profit is practically nothing ... UNLESS you wrote a masterpiece.
But if you wrote a masterpiece then:
1. You probably got rich by then anyway.
2. The public wants you to WRITE ANOTHER ONE
3. A sequel/new book would earn a ton more money and also can pump up sales of the first thing.
Net Net, it is in the PUBLIC'S interest that after just 10 years, copyrights run out. AND it does not significantly affect any creator's income.
The real reason why we have copyright laws over 10 years is not for the writer, but instead for the major corporations that can make money lots of tiny sales 15, 20 or 50 years after creation of the author. It is pretty much ONLY them that really benefit, at the expense of society by a LOT.
Now, there is one other factor - derivative work. Movies based on books etc. That kind of thing it is reasonable to allow the original writer to retain. But honestly it should ALWAYS be the original writer, i.e. the right should not be saleable. That prevents them from selling it to a corp for a quick profit and then having the corp. massacre their work. By requirin the original actual author to give always give consent, we can increase the quality of the work.
But my main point was in fact correct. People that view BDSM are less likely to commit crimes, not more.
One of the main problems that prudes have is that any fair study of this disgusting filth shows that people that view it are LESS likely to commit crimes, whether violent or not.
This is in dinstinct difference from peopel that view kiddie porn, who are in fact more likely to commit crimes.
Apparently it seems that smart people like getting hit, not hitting on children.
http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/pages/tidal.html
http://www.marineturbines.com/home.htm
Actually we CAN an DO do this: http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/pages/tidal.html http://www.marineturbines.com/home.htm
The offense is not lying. Every man, woman and child in the world lies. (How tall are you, How much do you weigh, how old are you, did you break that?).
The offense is a specific one, it depends on what you are lying ABOUT.
Lying about your weight? Not a big deal - even if it is to a federal investigator
Lying about sex? Most americans again say NOT a big deal.
Lying about a federal investigation into potential treason, revealing a Spy's name?
Well, I hate to tell you but most Americans (and most sane people in the world) consider that to be a REAL offense, not a mere attempt to embarrass a political opponent.
And NO, it does not matter if you are protecting a guilty person or protecting an innocent person - you personally may not know if they are innocent or guilty and do NOT get to make that call.
It also makes a mockery of Bush's promise to punish the guilty. Letting a guy obstruct justice is not "finding the leak" as he promissed.
You are making several false beliefs.
1. People that take out loans generally do NOT deposit the full amount back into the bank. Usually they deposit a minutre fraction.
2. People default on loans is an immediate and DIRECT loss to the bank.
Here it works like this in real life.
I deposit 100 to the bank.
The bank loans out 900 to various people (using my 100 and a 10% reserve)
The bank really wishes those people would deposit it back to them, but they don't. Instead they spend it, where it eventually gets deposited into a DIFFERENT bank. Currently the bank is +100 real, -100 withdrawable, -900 loaned out, with 900 IOU to the bank.
A year goes by.
The bank has received about 70 in interest on the money they loaned out, but paid me 3. 167 real, -100 withdrawable, -900 loaned, 900 IOU
80 has been paid off by people that made their money and closed out their accounts, in real cash (likely from another bank's loan). 247 real, -100 withdawable, -820 loaned, 820 IOU
I withdrew 50 of my original money. 197 real, -50 withdawable, -820 loaned, 820 IOU
AND MOST IMPORTNATLY, they have 100 in defaults, that they sold off to a collection agency for 5. 203 real, -50 withdawable, -820 loaned, 720 IOU.
Now, they technically have a problem. They are not allowed to just keep -820 loaned on the books unless they have 820 IOU. So they do book keeping and in effect pay off their extra 100 loaned dollars with real money.
103 real, -50 withdrawable by me, -720 loaned, 720 IOU.
This ends the year. They have a net 53 real profit, and can loan out approximately 310 more dollars.
The loss was a real loss, cause they HAVE to pay off their own loan when it defaults.
Not really. The chip can also include a simple clock. Then it changes per the time, not a handshake response. If the time says 5:43 and 12 seconds, but the RFID signal decrypts to 4:23, yesterday multiplied by the secret number, that is a lot different.
I.E. We got 100 dealers selling X for us. They buy X at 90, and they sell it at 100.
Then Walmart talks to us about buying it. They want to buy it at 90 and sell it at 95.
Our network of 100 Dealers, who currently make up our entire distrubtion hear about it and complain.
They demand a price floor of 99, or they switch immediately to new competitors product that costs them 93 and normallyu sells for 103.
If we don't agree, then we are taking a big risk. We decide to support our dealers and put in a price floor.
The argument against the ruling is:
If the rest of the world can't compete with the low end seller, they SHOULD get out of the business. Otherwise we leave crappy, foolish business men in charge and surprise surprise, we can't compete with China's low prices. Of course we can't, we let idiots that have no idea how to run a low priced business run our corporations.
Me, I am against the ruling. There is no reason ever to have a price floor. If you can't compete with Walmart, then find another business.
Here is a recent article, from the AP. Computerized forms let you hear the real name, and can even include a picture of the man. For 'issues' instead of ads, the problem is MUCH worse, because they tend to use formalized/legallized language, that is hard to understand in the original english. BOSTON (AP) - Mitt Romney's been called many things as he runs for president, but chances are "Sticky Rice" isn't one of them. That's how his name might be read on some ballots, according to state Secretary William Galvin. Galvin says the federal Justice Department is pressuring Boston election officials to translate candidates' names into Chinese characters in precincts with prominent Chinese-speaking populations. But there's more than a little lost in translation, according to Galvin. Since there's no Chinese character for "Romney," translators have resorted to finding characters that most closely match the sound of each syllable in the name. The problem is that there are many different characters that could be used to match the sound of each syllable, and many different meanings for each character. So Mitt Romney could be read as "Sticky Rice" or "Uncooked Rice." Fred Thompson might be read as "Virtue Soup." And Barack Obama could be read as "Oh Bus Horse." Galvin's own name could be read at least two different ways, as "High Prominent Noble Educated" or "Stick Mosquito." But perhaps the most perplexing translation would be for Boston Mayor Thomas Menino's name, which could be read as "Sun Moon Rainbow Farmer" or "Imbecile," or "Barbarian Mud No Mind of His Own." "To try to make rhymes or approximations in Chinese, you can have unintended negative meanings," Galvin said. "It leads to confusion. You can render it with a good meaning or a bad meaning." To add to the confusion, Galvin said, the ballots have to be offered in two major Chinese dialects, Mandarin and Cantonese, leading to even more potential variations of candidates's names. But advocates for minority voting rights say Galvin's objections are misdirected. If the translations are awkward, they say, the candidates should be free to offer variations, or look to the way Asian language newspapers already transliterate their names. "We are looking to make sure Asian Americans are able to vote for their candidates of choice," Glenn Magpantay, staff attorney of the New York-based Asian American Defense Fund, told the Boston Globe. "This is difficult to do when voters with limited English proficiency cannot find those candidates." Cynthia Magnuson, spokeswoman to the Justice Department's civil rights division, said a system is needed to let voters with limited English vote without the aid of election monitors. "This will allow them to vote independently," she said. Galvin said he supports translating the bulk of the ballots into Chinese as required by a 2005 agreement with the justice department, as long as the names of the candidates' names remain in Roman letters.
I am a computer programmer, published Dungons and Dragon writer (don't play that much anymore), dance tango (OK, I teach some also), do some acting (taking improv classees), do some glass blowing (low quality stuff and NO I won't make you a bong).
So, you make the call.
Hypothesis one (original theory): This gives us mroe time to spend with family
Hypothesis two (their reply): Despite this time saved, we seem to have it sucked away. It must be that the devices are EVIL. SATAN SPAWN EVIL. Cue Manical laughter now.
Hypothesis three (reasonable, intelligent, but not panicy enough to get a book):
About 50-100 years ago, we settled down to a reasonable ratio of time spent with family vs. work. Any thing that saves us time will NOT increase the time we spend with one or the other. Instead we will keep the same ratio of time spent working vs time spent with our family. Work is not evil, it is a GOOD thing. We either enjoy it, or we enjoy what it lets us earn. We like more money more than the time with our family, becaue we can use the money to have higher quality time (or we just don't like our family.)
Much of what the author did could have been done by stating:
"As kids don't have their real jobs yet, it is harder to tell what their personal class is. We can either go by their parent's class, or by an estimate of what the kid's job will be eventually, based on whether they are on the college track, the military track, or the lowe end job track. While both methods have their problems, I choose to use the estimate based on track method."
While normally scientists would use the parent's class method, as you seem to think is appropriate, I do believe that his arguments are pretty convincing.
Given that information, I can not consider this to be a no true scotsman fallacy. While he is using a slight new definition, it is in an area where the typical definition is not useable, and I find much of his work to be interesting. Perhaps a better analysis will ocure in 10 years, when we can see whether his 'college/military/other' track concept was in fact a good estiamte of actual social class. More importantly, it might be surprising if we found out that people in the college track that went with Facebook were more likely to end up in the upper class then those that were on the college track but did not have Facebook.
Here, why don't you listen to someone else once in your life. I also have worked at an election. And this is what I know.
1. Thank you for admitting the Chad problem. Too bad you did not do anything at all besides admit it. OK, so the problem was caused by faulty paper machines. So what? It still existed. it still applies. Try acutally RESPONDING to my point instead of simply admitting it existed and then ignoring it. Chad was one example of problems with paper. Ink also has similar issues. It runs. It runs out. People check not quite in the box.
2. Nice statement of no with total lack of response to my argument. Something that is obvious and clearly possible, you just say NO, without actually saying why it is impossible. Yes I admited that current machines don't do it. That is not the point. Here let me explain why people want electornic machines, - it has to do with theory, not fact.
You have one way of storing votes. To cheat an election, you have to alter the votes in that one method.
You could have TWO ways of storing the vote. To cheat an election you now have to alter the votes TWICE. You have to do everything required for the first way and then do something just as hard again. Could this possibly make it harder to cheat? Yes. I am not refering to any particular method, but instead to the OBVIOUS fact that requireing people to cheat twice is harder than letting them get away with it just once. As long as both methods are built to be acceptable by themselves, this way works. The fact that idiots making the first set of machines built crappy shit does NOT mean it is impossible to build effective mechanism. We just have to demand they do it right.
3. Wow. Your particular county does not have a problem counting ballots. Good for you. OK, maybe we can pay you to do the entire country. That sound good to you? Yes it is possible to get all the counting of poles done no matter how many votes you have. But wait a second. The hand recounts take forever. Hm. Could that be a problem? The republicans repeatedly objected to recounts cause they take too long. Recounts take time, a lot of it.Why? Because recounts are done after most of the volunteers have gone home. Sorry charlie, you don't know what you are talking about, speed IS an issue. Watch the news once in a while, you might learn something.
4. Yes, computers take up space. A set amount of space forever. Can you show me the votes for last election? Sure you say, they are in the warehouse. Woops. Investigations clearly show that those votes routinely get thrown OUT, often before the recounts are done, because of space constraints. With electronic storage, we can keep electronic records basically for ever. Makes rechecking and looking for fraud a lot easier. Paper gets thrown out, electronic records do not. Simple fact of life.
5. Yes upfront costs are greater for the machines. The machine I used to vote is 40 years old. If we buy a new electronic voting machine that works and keep it for 40 years, guess what, it is cheaper than the paper one.
6. Straw man argument? Hm. Nope, I just checked, this is NOT a straw man argument. Definition of a Straw man argument: "to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent". What exactly are you talking about? This is MY argument - I am NOT attributing any argument to anyone else.
It repeatedly happens in real life - ballots change. People die. Courts throw people off the ballot, or demand someone should have been on it. Computers allow us to change it instantly. Paper does not. Yes, we can live with this
Long history of people cheating them (While the current system sucks, a combo of electtronic + paper if properly done, can double our chances of catching fraud)
Takes too long to count.
Takes up a lot of space.
Costs a lot more money.
If someone is removed from the ballot, we have to reprint, which may not happen in time
Delivery must be assured with enough to all, which means a lot of waste
Blind people have issues
People that don't read english have issues
Ballot design for large number of possible candidates - people seriously want to be the guy on the top of the list, it gives a small, but real boost to their numbers
Oh wait, you just wanted ONE issue. Hm. Hard too choose just one.
Rude fools would download it for free, then charge other people to look at it.
Not having to pay a monthly fee to automatically record shows you watched previously
Not having to deal with commercials inserted when you fast forward 30 seconds.
Now, if they could only find a way to strip thos FREAKIN' RUDE graphics that certain vile channels overlay on top of the movie/show. I can deal with a tiny little station identification, but those rude obnoxious ads obscure vital parts of the show about one out of every 3 times. I swear my Blood pressure goes through the roof.3. There are 9 districts. Percentages republican are as follows: #1 = 90%, 2 = 80%, 3 = 70%, 4 = 60%, 5 = 50%, 6 = 40%, 7 = 30%, 8 = 20%, 9 = 10%.
Now change it as follows:
1 = 65%, 2 = 65%, 3 = 65%, 4 = 65%, 5 = 65%, 6 = 65%, 7 = 50%, 8= 5%, 9 =5%
You went from 3 certain, 3 in doubt, 3 definitely lost to 6 almost certain, one in doubt, 2 defitinely lost. Assuming a typical year, you go from an everage of 4.5 seats to an average of 6.5 seats. Two seat gain.
The only problem with this idea is that people MOVE and the data tends to be at least one year old. If you don't pay attention to trends, you gerrymandering works for about two years. If you do, you might be able to get 4 or 5 years out of it. Even then, it dies.
This is also an accurate evaluation of his blog.
He basically postulates that things are too far away to get to and that Einstein's theory of relativity means that will never change.
It is NO different than someone 300 years ago saying "We can't get to the moon because the only way we can currently think of to fly is by balloon, and a balloon can't get there.
He talks about a "Magic Wand" that would change the physics of the universe. What the rest of us call that Magic Wand is "Scientific Progress". He then discusses some of the highly likely ways to get around the problems he forsees, but says they are basically NOT WORTH IT. He does NOT know that answer.
We determine what is worth it and not worth it. We can decide we want to do this, and then if it is possible, it CAN be done.
He simply does not understand all the new technology, claiming it will be too expensive (mostly in energy), without truly understanding if we value it, we will do it.
Yes, colonozing a new world may take a long time and be incredibally expensive. Yes, most people won't want to actually be the colonizers. But there are lots of ways it can be made profitable.
A major one is prison. Right now it costs us hundreds of thousands of dollars per prisoner to imprison men and women. I bet you many of them would rather go to another planet, taking the huge risk involved, including the hybernation risk, and the risk of failing to create a new biosphere.
Many of them ARE smart, not stupid. Send them the right books/records and they will succeed.
All they really need is a planet that has an oxygen atmosphere, which CAN be achieved if the right temperature planet is found with water (one of the most common materials in the universe - commets. Just seed the planet with the right bacteria - keep the colonists in hybernation till a computer detects sufficient oxygen.
Not perfect. High probability of death. But at least a 10% chance of success, and prisoners will accept it.
Given that this is clearly small claims court, and the article did NOT specify the damages he paid, then you do NOT know if he made a mistake or not.
If the damages were say 3,000, then you are probably correct. If not, you are wrong.