The thing flames out all the time and they relight it with a cigarette lighter. It's just symbolism either way. Personally, I think it is cooler that it was in space than that some well-connected individuals touched it in several cities.
I wouldn't try it with dissimilar metals, but it might work with different alloys. The addition of an annealing step might allow some off the sharp boundaries to diffuse away. I can't speak to the waste aspect.
Your earlier comment was that people shouldn't advocate for less government regulation of corporations. You're proving my thesis here.
I understand. Let me put it another way, by way of another example. The government has intruded into the private sector in a few unbelievably disruptive ways. Some are praised by libertarians (like the civil court system, protection of personal property), and others are lambasted (limited liability, intellectual "property"). From my perspective, once you take the step of regulating the market in such a way that it completely changes the market, sweating over relatively minor details seems silly. So the government creates this very powerful entity, the corporation. It doesn't die and it's owners can't be sued or held liable for debts. It's ability to accumulate wealth is unsurpassed in human history. This wealth flows right back into the government, making it hard for me to differentiate them completely and leading to absurd things like the Supreme Court declaring that corporations have free speech rights. Now, in that context, you tell me that the government is going to require it's made-up entity to do something, whatever that might be. Please allow me to take a pass on getting worked up. I want corporations to be weaker - no limited liability for active managers and active owners. I want corporations (and unions) to be explicitly banned from funneling money back into the government. I don't want corporations to be subject to income tax. I want corporate (and union) activity limited to the economic realm. These are not modern liberal ideals.
You claimed that the oil industry gets a special benefit from the US policy towards the middle east.
You don't think that our massive military expenditures in that region aren't heavily influenced by the need to keep oil lanes open? I'm a little incredulous. True, Afghanistan has nothing directly to do with oil - but how much do you think we'd be supporting the Saudis if not for oil? Do you think Osama Bin Laden would have given a flying shit about us if we weren't cozy with the Saudis? The only non-oil interest in the Middle East is Israel. It's a big one, but they can take care of themselves if we keep throwing them money.
the policies you're advocating for are a push towards modern American liberalism.
No, it's a recognition of American liberalism as our starting point.
You responded to someone promoting conservatism by arguing against them with liberal ideas, while claiming "I'm a pragmatist."
Actually, if you read up the chain, I entered the conversation by saying that "conservatives" were not any different than "liberals" in practice, and I pointed to some expansion of government by two "conservatives" as an example. I mentioned my pragmatism only in passing.
Thank you for answering my question, though.
Apparently, I am very bad at communication, because I read your rewording of my argument and it does not match my opinion.
If you want to be really nerdy, I think you'd just say "persistent storage". But I'm cool with "hard drive".
By the way, remember how Palm kept everything in memory all the time, which is how they had such great performance on such spartan hardware? I think there might be some room for that on smartphones, which would further blur the line.
Well, like I said, I'm comfortable saying "hard drive" because it lets me communicate adequately. I don't complain when people say to "dial" a phone number, either.
It is when you can create a wallet, use it for the transaction, and then destroy the wallet. You launder the money in the same way people do today with dollars - set up a sham business and use patsies. "Earn money from home!" When my step mother smoked, she bought cigarettes from Ukraine. Each carton came from a different return address. Yes the transaction record is there in the bitcoins that you used, but who cares? The trail stops at some woman in Oklahoma who was paid to convert bitcoins to cash and then deposit the cash to some Nigerian bank account.
No, it was the general election. But for my locality, the general election is a formality. Democrats hold every single office - even the school board. If you want to select a candidate, it has to be done as part of the Democratic primary process. I only registered as a Republican so that I could vote in the statewide and national Republican primaries. I've come around to thinking that the local elections are actually more important to me.
OK, so you believe in stronger government regulation of commerce and industry... Let's keep going.
Re-read what I said. I'd like less government regulation. I'd like to weaken limited liability.
This sounds like you're in favor of "the public option" of a single payer healthcare system... Nothing wrong with that...
Actually, that's the kind of detail that I don't really care about. I'm just bitter that I cannot negotiate a price on a level playing field. There is competition with the new exchanges, but it could have been better IMHO.
That's not how military policy works
I'm talking about tax policy, not military policy.
So you believe that some industries are deserving of government protection, and others aren't and thus should have their taxes increased?
No, it's not that I feel that some industries deserve government protection. Instead, I recognize that some already have this protection and so I feel the external costs should get moved to that product. Oil is one example, but there are others. In some cases we already do this: much of the FDA is funded with pharma money, for instance.
I hate to break it to you, but you're a liberal.
Yes, but a classic liberal at heart. I recognize that we have gotten much more liberal (in your sense) as a society and do not have delusions that this will change dramatically. The best I can hope for are policies that gently nudge us the other way. Anything else gets labeled "radical" and cast aside.
Claiming that liberal ideas are the only pragmatic ideas
I know it is unpopular 'round these parts, but SSDs are still referred to as "hard disks" among the unwashed masses. I don't even mind, because it's preferable to the days where you had to teach people that there were different kinds of memory.
A better point might be: how the heck did this article get posted to Slashdot? Aren't we more of a custom ROM (also a misnomer) crowd than a "disable apps" crowd?
My "label" seems to change. In Tuesday's election, I voted as a registered Republican. However, I'm probably going to change to Democrat because my locality is heavily Democrat and I would like to have some say in local elections.
I'll give you an example of pragmatism: On a purely ideological basis, I'm against the concept of a limited liability corporation. It represents a massive interference of the government in the free market, and decouples actors from consequences. That said, I recognize the reality that limited liability isn't going anywhere. So rather than waste my breath railing against corporations, I instead advocate for reform. I also happen to think that people (including many libertarians and conservatives) are barking up the wrong tree when they advocate for less corporate regulation... A corporation is nothing but a gigantic pile of government regulation - deregulating it is folly.
Health care. Naturally, I'd like to emphasize personal responsibility as much as possible. On the other hand, we've had socialized health care since the Reagan-era law that forbade ERs from turning away patients - I doubt we are going back to some kind of less compassionate system. As such, I don't spend my time railing against health care laws. Instead, I try to advocate that they not come in the form of unfunded mandates (such as the Reagan-era law) and try to rely more on individual responsibility. Obamacare has some elements of this (the exchanges), but it also expanded Medicare/Medicaid. And most irresponsibly, it continues to forbid me from getting together with a million or so of my closest friends to form a health-care co-op. If the insurance is being provided by a huge government-enabled corporation, it only seems fair that the government let me negotiate on an equal footing. As it is now, I have to join a union or have an employer who can negotiate.
As for foreign policy... I'd say it is important for the goverment to protect trade routes. Otherwise we are back to armed merchants, which I feel is suboptimal. I would like the funding of the military to be distributed to the industries it most helps, though. For instance, a duty applied to Middle Eastern oil might work wonders for our policy over there. If we spend $100 billion protecting oil routes, then we should probably have that reflected in the price of oil from that region. Other issues fall back to pragmatism. I'm not sure that libertarian ideals really address issues like state sovereignty. Indeed, things like nations that do not respect natural rights present quite the quandary.
For big summer action movies or certain dramas, sure, a tablet won't be as great as the theater. But for most comedies and such, a tablet is no worse than a 27" CRT screen and a VHS from 15 feet away, like we were all used to in the 90s.
I'm defining success as making progress towards one's goals. In that regard, the Tea Party has been pretty successful given their small number and unorthodox ideology. I'd give them a bit more credit than you - they did force the government to cut spending (excluding entitlements), even if they were unable to prevent all taxes from going up. I think most of them are quite happy with the sequester, and they were positively giddy with excitement over the shutdown. It remains to be seen, but they might even completely hijack one of America's two major political parties.
I was trying to stay more recent, but yes, those were also well organized, which is why we have Susan B. Anthony on a coin and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
If you have an example of another grassroots movement turned successful political movement, I'm all ears. OWS had great potential, but they quickly learned (or perhaps failed to learn) that Quaker-style governance doesn't really scale.
I'm all for personal liberty. I'm all for lower taxes (but not for the resulting debt when politicians can't cut spending). I'm all for less intrusive government. The Tea Party loses me when they start talking social issues and when they somehow see corporations as part of the "free market". I've never seen an official platform I could jump on board with.
Is "refined" the new word for "really, really old"? The newest one was built over 40 years ago. They keep reworking them, and they currently are expected to last until 2020 or so, but at some point the returns on refurbishing these things will start to diminish greatly. Perhaps they will outlast manned fighters, though.
That's the general idea behind American Conservatism.
That might be what fires up people, but in practice they do the same thing as the Democrats when they get into power: grow government and enforce their morals upon society. Bush got elected, managed to get a majority in both houses of congress and... promptly passed the largest expansion of Medicare up to that time, and passed a law banning the budding gay marriage movement.
Slashdot Mirror
The thing flames out all the time and they relight it with a cigarette lighter. It's just symbolism either way. Personally, I think it is cooler that it was in space than that some well-connected individuals touched it in several cities.
I wouldn't try it with dissimilar metals, but it might work with different alloys. The addition of an annealing step might allow some off the sharp boundaries to diffuse away. I can't speak to the waste aspect.
All this talk about gimps and San Francisco...
Your earlier comment was that people shouldn't advocate for less government regulation of corporations. You're proving my thesis here.
I understand. Let me put it another way, by way of another example. The government has intruded into the private sector in a few unbelievably disruptive ways. Some are praised by libertarians (like the civil court system, protection of personal property), and others are lambasted (limited liability, intellectual "property"). From my perspective, once you take the step of regulating the market in such a way that it completely changes the market, sweating over relatively minor details seems silly. So the government creates this very powerful entity, the corporation. It doesn't die and it's owners can't be sued or held liable for debts. It's ability to accumulate wealth is unsurpassed in human history. This wealth flows right back into the government, making it hard for me to differentiate them completely and leading to absurd things like the Supreme Court declaring that corporations have free speech rights. Now, in that context, you tell me that the government is going to require it's made-up entity to do something, whatever that might be. Please allow me to take a pass on getting worked up. I want corporations to be weaker - no limited liability for active managers and active owners. I want corporations (and unions) to be explicitly banned from funneling money back into the government. I don't want corporations to be subject to income tax. I want corporate (and union) activity limited to the economic realm. These are not modern liberal ideals.
You claimed that the oil industry gets a special benefit from the US policy towards the middle east.
You don't think that our massive military expenditures in that region aren't heavily influenced by the need to keep oil lanes open? I'm a little incredulous. True, Afghanistan has nothing directly to do with oil - but how much do you think we'd be supporting the Saudis if not for oil? Do you think Osama Bin Laden would have given a flying shit about us if we weren't cozy with the Saudis? The only non-oil interest in the Middle East is Israel. It's a big one, but they can take care of themselves if we keep throwing them money.
the policies you're advocating for are a push towards modern American liberalism.
No, it's a recognition of American liberalism as our starting point.
You responded to someone promoting conservatism by arguing against them with liberal ideas, while claiming "I'm a pragmatist."
Actually, if you read up the chain, I entered the conversation by saying that "conservatives" were not any different than "liberals" in practice, and I pointed to some expansion of government by two "conservatives" as an example. I mentioned my pragmatism only in passing.
Thank you for answering my question, though.
Apparently, I am very bad at communication, because I read your rewording of my argument and it does not match my opinion.
It's a stretch, but there you go!
("Hard" specifically refers to the platter, as opposed to "floppy" - which I always found funny as a technical term.)
You have to admit that it is an easy way to move money around. No mailing of currency required.
If you want to be really nerdy, I think you'd just say "persistent storage". But I'm cool with "hard drive".
By the way, remember how Palm kept everything in memory all the time, which is how they had such great performance on such spartan hardware? I think there might be some room for that on smartphones, which would further blur the line.
Well, like I said, I'm comfortable saying "hard drive" because it lets me communicate adequately. I don't complain when people say to "dial" a phone number, either.
It is when you can create a wallet, use it for the transaction, and then destroy the wallet. You launder the money in the same way people do today with dollars - set up a sham business and use patsies. "Earn money from home!" When my step mother smoked, she bought cigarettes from Ukraine. Each carton came from a different return address. Yes the transaction record is there in the bitcoins that you used, but who cares? The trail stops at some woman in Oklahoma who was paid to convert bitcoins to cash and then deposit the cash to some Nigerian bank account.
Were there primaries on Tuesday in your area?
No, it was the general election. But for my locality, the general election is a formality. Democrats hold every single office - even the school board. If you want to select a candidate, it has to be done as part of the Democratic primary process. I only registered as a Republican so that I could vote in the statewide and national Republican primaries. I've come around to thinking that the local elections are actually more important to me.
OK, so you believe in stronger government regulation of commerce and industry... Let's keep going.
Re-read what I said. I'd like less government regulation. I'd like to weaken limited liability.
This sounds like you're in favor of "the public option" of a single payer healthcare system... Nothing wrong with that...
Actually, that's the kind of detail that I don't really care about. I'm just bitter that I cannot negotiate a price on a level playing field. There is competition with the new exchanges, but it could have been better IMHO.
That's not how military policy works
I'm talking about tax policy, not military policy.
So you believe that some industries are deserving of government protection, and others aren't and thus should have their taxes increased?
No, it's not that I feel that some industries deserve government protection. Instead, I recognize that some already have this protection and so I feel the external costs should get moved to that product. Oil is one example, but there are others. In some cases we already do this: much of the FDA is funded with pharma money, for instance.
I hate to break it to you, but you're a liberal.
Yes, but a classic liberal at heart. I recognize that we have gotten much more liberal (in your sense) as a society and do not have delusions that this will change dramatically. The best I can hope for are policies that gently nudge us the other way. Anything else gets labeled "radical" and cast aside.
Claiming that liberal ideas are the only pragmatic ideas
I've done no such thing.
Flash drive?
It certainly isn't inherently untraceable, but it is trivial to launder. Wallets are anonymous and unlimited.
I know it is unpopular 'round these parts, but SSDs are still referred to as "hard disks" among the unwashed masses. I don't even mind, because it's preferable to the days where you had to teach people that there were different kinds of memory.
A better point might be: how the heck did this article get posted to Slashdot? Aren't we more of a custom ROM (also a misnomer) crowd than a "disable apps" crowd?
My "label" seems to change. In Tuesday's election, I voted as a registered Republican. However, I'm probably going to change to Democrat because my locality is heavily Democrat and I would like to have some say in local elections.
I'll give you an example of pragmatism:
On a purely ideological basis, I'm against the concept of a limited liability corporation. It represents a massive interference of the government in the free market, and decouples actors from consequences. That said, I recognize the reality that limited liability isn't going anywhere. So rather than waste my breath railing against corporations, I instead advocate for reform. I also happen to think that people (including many libertarians and conservatives) are barking up the wrong tree when they advocate for less corporate regulation... A corporation is nothing but a gigantic pile of government regulation - deregulating it is folly.
Health care. Naturally, I'd like to emphasize personal responsibility as much as possible. On the other hand, we've had socialized health care since the Reagan-era law that forbade ERs from turning away patients - I doubt we are going back to some kind of less compassionate system. As such, I don't spend my time railing against health care laws. Instead, I try to advocate that they not come in the form of unfunded mandates (such as the Reagan-era law) and try to rely more on individual responsibility. Obamacare has some elements of this (the exchanges), but it also expanded Medicare/Medicaid. And most irresponsibly, it continues to forbid me from getting together with a million or so of my closest friends to form a health-care co-op. If the insurance is being provided by a huge government-enabled corporation, it only seems fair that the government let me negotiate on an equal footing. As it is now, I have to join a union or have an employer who can negotiate.
As for foreign policy... I'd say it is important for the goverment to protect trade routes. Otherwise we are back to armed merchants, which I feel is suboptimal. I would like the funding of the military to be distributed to the industries it most helps, though. For instance, a duty applied to Middle Eastern oil might work wonders for our policy over there. If we spend $100 billion protecting oil routes, then we should probably have that reflected in the price of oil from that region. Other issues fall back to pragmatism. I'm not sure that libertarian ideals really address issues like state sovereignty. Indeed, things like nations that do not respect natural rights present quite the quandary.
Wow, I never thought of it like that.
For big summer action movies or certain dramas, sure, a tablet won't be as great as the theater. But for most comedies and such, a tablet is no worse than a 27" CRT screen and a VHS from 15 feet away, like we were all used to in the 90s.
Not quite. If they don't keep reworking them, the wings will fall off.
I'm defining success as making progress towards one's goals. In that regard, the Tea Party has been pretty successful given their small number and unorthodox ideology. I'd give them a bit more credit than you - they did force the government to cut spending (excluding entitlements), even if they were unable to prevent all taxes from going up. I think most of them are quite happy with the sequester, and they were positively giddy with excitement over the shutdown. It remains to be seen, but they might even completely hijack one of America's two major political parties.
I was trying to stay more recent, but yes, those were also well organized, which is why we have Susan B. Anthony on a coin and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
If you have an example of another grassroots movement turned successful political movement, I'm all ears. OWS had great potential, but they quickly learned (or perhaps failed to learn) that Quaker-style governance doesn't really scale.
Here's a novel concept. Conservative =/= Republican. Bush was never a conservative. He was a liberal republican.
Do you have an example of a "real" conservative president? Like Reagan, who grew the debt and gave us socialized health care?
That would be I support individual liberty and limiting government.
That is more libertarian than conservative. That is my nominal ideology, though I'm far too pragmatic to call myself such.
I'm all for personal liberty. I'm all for lower taxes (but not for the resulting debt when politicians can't cut spending). I'm all for less intrusive government. The Tea Party loses me when they start talking social issues and when they somehow see corporations as part of the "free market". I've never seen an official platform I could jump on board with.
It was like they were... organized...
Is "refined" the new word for "really, really old"? The newest one was built over 40 years ago. They keep reworking them, and they currently are expected to last until 2020 or so, but at some point the returns on refurbishing these things will start to diminish greatly. Perhaps they will outlast manned fighters, though.
That's the general idea behind American Conservatism.
That might be what fires up people, but in practice they do the same thing as the Democrats when they get into power: grow government and enforce their morals upon society. Bush got elected, managed to get a majority in both houses of congress and... promptly passed the largest expansion of Medicare up to that time, and passed a law banning the budding gay marriage movement.