Over the last 40yrs China has dragged more people out of abject poverty than the rest of the world combined. Technically it's the same "communist party" who are responsible for widespread famines and the economic miracle that followed them, the turning point in their economic fortunes was the downfall of the "gang of four".
BTW, social security is not "communism", in practice communists send the unemployed to labour camps.
Indeed "faith" is part of the philosophy of Science - The faith that the real world exists outside of our individual experience, ie: there's a "reality" that we can observe and agree about what we observe, it's not just a figment of our imagination. Unlike many other "ways of thinking" science does not require blind faith, nor does it claim "the truth", but if history is any kind of judge, it does offer an increasingly accurate approximation to it.
You do realise that revenue is not profit, right? Most "blue chip" multinationals earn less than 20% (pre-tax) profit on their revenue, 15% is considered a good return on investment for a very large corporation, 5% is not uncommon at the big end of town. Large corporations have the same organisational costs as large governments. Human cooperation just doesn't scale very well, anymore than a handful working towards a common goal and we suddenly need an org chart and lots of people who spend all day coordinating and directing other people's work.
The dismal state of the US news networks became obvious to me during the invasion of Iraq. At the time I had cable feeds for the BBC, ABC (Aussie version of BBC), AJ(english) and the main US networks. The (private) US networks were wall to wall talking heads arguing about whatever the pentagon/WH told them to argue about, interspersed with the occasional video of something exploding. The state funded networks reported on a totally different war with real "boots on the ground" war correspondents, they were not shy of comparing what they saw to the airbrushed half truths of their host governments.
they get paid based upon the number of eyeballs that watch them.
No, AJ actually has a lot in common with the BBC, including the fact it is state funded so does NOT rely on eyeballs for revenue. There's also the ABC/SBS network in Australia, it was born at the same time as the BBC and copied it's funding/organisational structure (we even had the same TV license scheme in Oz up until the late 60's). The reason a state funded TV network like the BBC works so well is because they are set up as an independent state funded corporation (the 'C' in BBC/ABC stands for 'corporation'), this is vastly different to a state run TV network that's used as a political megaphone by the ruling party.
The BBC/ABC are tasked with entertaining/informing the masses, they must cater for a wide range of tastes so almost by definition they will offend someone. More importantly they are also tasked with "keeping the bastards honest". They both do a pretty good job and have an enviable track record stretching back over half a century, which is why the masses who actually pay the operating costs overwhelmingly support their continued existence.
Finally AJ haven't "gone under" in the US, AFAICT they are just rebooting the US business to get out of a contractual money pit they dug themselves into. They don't need to make a profit to serve their "foreign relations" purpose in the US, but they can't continue to feed the current money pit. Cleaning up the first launch failure and re launching seems a sensible thing to do, it's almost certain they will do a better job after such an expensive training exercise. I wish them well, this kind of foreign relations exercise is infinitely preferable to firing missiles at each other.
Geo blocking has very little to do with advertising. It's all about the content owner selling EXCLUSIVE rights to a TV network, cinema chain, pay TV channel, etc. The exclusivity only applies to a region. It a method for maximising profits in a global market, content owners get to sell as many exclusive licenses as there are regions.When those agreements expire they start selling non-exclusive licenses. Netflix and VPN make a mockery of their exclusive licenses, however Netflix is now a major distributor and a major source of revenue for content owners, so content owners who use geo-blocking now find themselves contemplating killing the global goose that pays the bills. They have been threatening to do so from the beginning, just like a hopeless alcoholic threatens to give up drinking every morning.
There's no way they can FULLY control cannibalism either, but that doesn't mean we can't do anything about it at all. I think the intention here was to "start a conversation", rather than to impose a solution. Now that everyone with a YouTwitFace account is an independent publisher, "individual privacy vs the free press" is certainly a worthy topic for formal political discussion.
I'd say most if not all of the old school media ( TVs and newspapers ) routinely ensure that the victims relatives have been notified before publishing their identity. They're certainly not in the habit of publishing grizzly videos accompanied by a narrative that deliberately mocks the death or dismemberment of another human being.
As to "why bother" - In most western democracies (including the US) politicians are expected to post bills to force a public conversation about a perceived problem. It's the formal way to "explore" what the state can/should do to deter the behaviour. I suspect that was the real purpose of this bill, if so, it seems to be working. The basic problem as I see it is there are competing "rights" at play ie: privacy vs free speech, the law needs to find a balance rather than a winner.
Having said that, tolerating arseholes who use their "rights" to do the "wrong" thing is just part of the price we pay for western style civilisation.
I agree with Feynman's assessment in the context it was made. However the advent of "brain scans" and the subsequent huge leaps in neuroscience over the last 30yrs have greatly improved the "science" part of psychiatry and even more so for psychotherapy. The problem as I see it is that GP's are too quick to prescribe head pills for someone who claims to be depressed/stressed. They wouldn't prescribe chemotherapy for cancer to a patient without consulting a specialist, so what makes them think they know what they are doing when it comes to picking the right combination of the 2000+ drugs use to treat mental issues?
Mental problem are even more specific to patients than malignant tumours but GP's will happily write scripts for "regular drinkers" without even mentioning alcohol and the devastating effects it can have on the patient's mental state when mixed with certain types of medication (eg:Zoloft). The problem of inappropriate medication as I see it comes from the fact that the average GP suffers the same ignorance as the general public when it come to the most common forms of mental illness. That is; the cure for stress is "stop worrying", and the cure for depression is "cheer up", here's some "happy pills" to get you started.
I've seen "head pills" work as advertised for several people in the last 20yrs, I've also seen them push several people off the "deep end", my ex-wife was one of then and two others ended up serving time in prison. Every one of those few that "lost the plot" were also regular drinkers and got their pills from the local GP. Alcohol is the root cause in half of all reported cases of "general stress disorder". OMO, handing out head pills to stressed drinkers without even mentioning alcohol is negligence of the highest order. Another huge mistake is cutting out close friends/relatives from the equation in the name of privacy, these are the very people who can (if properly informed) monitor the patient and spot any improvement/deterioration in their behaviour.
The GP is correct, the plural of "stigma" is "stigmas". "Stigmata" can be both singular and plural and means a mark (or marks) of shame, such as the wounds from crucifixion.
Why did it take the Google Maps Team 10 years to decide
Google didn't take 10yrs to decide they don't want wrappers, they "decided" that when they wrote the terms of service.
Some pertinent questions. When did routebuilder "decide" to ignore the TOS? When did google "decide" to do something about it? How does anyone know for certain what's in a TOS agreement if nobody ever reads it?
This is a partly corporate accounting problem, every time I have been given permission to buy software on behalf of a company they have asked me to do it with my CC and put in an expense claim. It's always the responsibility of the project/department head to manage license compliance/renewals, sucks to be them if they don't keep the license/renewal details I give them. Keeping a domain name you registered in good faith on behalf of someone else is just being a dick.
The Navy? - Countries other than the US do have them, and the Brits in particular have never been shy about using theirs to plant flags and push people around.
I look at wikipedia [as] a good starting point to find general information.
Ironically, that is exactly what you are supposed to do with ANY encyclopedia. It's entire purpose is to be a summary of knowledge found in accessible sources. The word itself derives from greek and translates to "general knowledge".
What you describe is called an "appeal to authority", it is a logical fallacy. Other than that, slashdot sure does hate an open and transparent meritocracy where they are the noob. And no, I don't edit WP, I just read it.
Some people fly drones near bushfires to take pictures, they are an unnecessary pest that clog the roads and airspace. Here in Oz firefighting aircraft operations have been delayed on several occasions due to drones. Banning toy planes in the Aussie bush would not be an appropriate response, arresting the handful of stupid fuckers who get in the way of emergency services and aircraft is much more appropriate.
Google "stanford prison experiment", human nature makes us all susceptible to what happened in Germany (and more recently Rwanda). You can't fight universal human nature but being aware you are vulnerable to it is better than blindly following your "instincts".
The US has the highest prison population on the planet both in per capita and absolute numbers. But as you say, that is a direct result of the "tyranny of the mob" cheering anyone who utters the phrase "tough on crime".
A (toy) drone with a hand-grenade strapped to it isn't going anywhere. From a non-american POV, the fact that a suspected "bad guy" on a no-fly list can legally obtain an assault rifle and a truck load of ammo but can't legally fly a toy plane in a park, is fucking insane.
Slashdot Mirror
Over the last 40yrs China has dragged more people out of abject poverty than the rest of the world combined. Technically it's the same "communist party" who are responsible for widespread famines and the economic miracle that followed them, the turning point in their economic fortunes was the downfall of the "gang of four".
BTW, social security is not "communism", in practice communists send the unemployed to labour camps.
Indeed "faith" is part of the philosophy of Science - The faith that the real world exists outside of our individual experience, ie: there's a "reality" that we can observe and agree about what we observe, it's not just a figment of our imagination. Unlike many other "ways of thinking" science does not require blind faith, nor does it claim "the truth", but if history is any kind of judge, it does offer an increasingly accurate approximation to it.
Who makes "billions" from selling spotty apples?
You do realise that revenue is not profit, right? Most "blue chip" multinationals earn less than 20% (pre-tax) profit on their revenue, 15% is considered a good return on investment for a very large corporation, 5% is not uncommon at the big end of town. Large corporations have the same organisational costs as large governments. Human cooperation just doesn't scale very well, anymore than a handful working towards a common goal and we suddenly need an org chart and lots of people who spend all day coordinating and directing other people's work.
The dismal state of the US news networks became obvious to me during the invasion of Iraq. At the time I had cable feeds for the BBC, ABC (Aussie version of BBC), AJ(english) and the main US networks. The (private) US networks were wall to wall talking heads arguing about whatever the pentagon/WH told them to argue about, interspersed with the occasional video of something exploding. The state funded networks reported on a totally different war with real "boots on the ground" war correspondents, they were not shy of comparing what they saw to the airbrushed half truths of their host governments.
they get paid based upon the number of eyeballs that watch them.
No, AJ actually has a lot in common with the BBC, including the fact it is state funded so does NOT rely on eyeballs for revenue. There's also the ABC/SBS network in Australia, it was born at the same time as the BBC and copied it's funding/organisational structure (we even had the same TV license scheme in Oz up until the late 60's). The reason a state funded TV network like the BBC works so well is because they are set up as an independent state funded corporation (the 'C' in BBC/ABC stands for 'corporation'), this is vastly different to a state run TV network that's used as a political megaphone by the ruling party.
The BBC/ABC are tasked with entertaining/informing the masses, they must cater for a wide range of tastes so almost by definition they will offend someone. More importantly they are also tasked with "keeping the bastards honest". They both do a pretty good job and have an enviable track record stretching back over half a century, which is why the masses who actually pay the operating costs overwhelmingly support their continued existence.
Finally AJ haven't "gone under" in the US, AFAICT they are just rebooting the US business to get out of a contractual money pit they dug themselves into. They don't need to make a profit to serve their "foreign relations" purpose in the US, but they can't continue to feed the current money pit. Cleaning up the first launch failure and re launching seems a sensible thing to do, it's almost certain they will do a better job after such an expensive training exercise. I wish them well, this kind of foreign relations exercise is infinitely preferable to firing missiles at each other.
Geo blocking has very little to do with advertising. It's all about the content owner selling EXCLUSIVE rights to a TV network, cinema chain, pay TV channel, etc. The exclusivity only applies to a region. It a method for maximising profits in a global market, content owners get to sell as many exclusive licenses as there are regions.When those agreements expire they start selling non-exclusive licenses. Netflix and VPN make a mockery of their exclusive licenses, however Netflix is now a major distributor and a major source of revenue for content owners, so content owners who use geo-blocking now find themselves contemplating killing the global goose that pays the bills. They have been threatening to do so from the beginning, just like a hopeless alcoholic threatens to give up drinking every morning.
There's no way they can FULLY control cannibalism either, but that doesn't mean we can't do anything about it at all. I think the intention here was to "start a conversation", rather than to impose a solution. Now that everyone with a YouTwitFace account is an independent publisher, "individual privacy vs the free press" is certainly a worthy topic for formal political discussion.
Indeed, in fact far too many professional reporters have been shot and killed while trying to assist victims.
I'd say most if not all of the old school media ( TVs and newspapers ) routinely ensure that the victims relatives have been notified before publishing their identity. They're certainly not in the habit of publishing grizzly videos accompanied by a narrative that deliberately mocks the death or dismemberment of another human being.
As to "why bother" - In most western democracies (including the US) politicians are expected to post bills to force a public conversation about a perceived problem. It's the formal way to "explore" what the state can/should do to deter the behaviour. I suspect that was the real purpose of this bill, if so, it seems to be working. The basic problem as I see it is there are competing "rights" at play ie: privacy vs free speech, the law needs to find a balance rather than a winner.
Having said that, tolerating arseholes who use their "rights" to do the "wrong" thing is just part of the price we pay for western style civilisation.
Now he wants mah guns!
I agree with Feynman's assessment in the context it was made. However the advent of "brain scans" and the subsequent huge leaps in neuroscience over the last 30yrs have greatly improved the "science" part of psychiatry and even more so for psychotherapy. The problem as I see it is that GP's are too quick to prescribe head pills for someone who claims to be depressed/stressed. They wouldn't prescribe chemotherapy for cancer to a patient without consulting a specialist, so what makes them think they know what they are doing when it comes to picking the right combination of the 2000+ drugs use to treat mental issues?
Mental problem are even more specific to patients than malignant tumours but GP's will happily write scripts for "regular drinkers" without even mentioning alcohol and the devastating effects it can have on the patient's mental state when mixed with certain types of medication (eg:Zoloft). The problem of inappropriate medication as I see it comes from the fact that the average GP suffers the same ignorance as the general public when it come to the most common forms of mental illness. That is; the cure for stress is "stop worrying", and the cure for depression is "cheer up", here's some "happy pills" to get you started.
I've seen "head pills" work as advertised for several people in the last 20yrs, I've also seen them push several people off the "deep end", my ex-wife was one of then and two others ended up serving time in prison. Every one of those few that "lost the plot" were also regular drinkers and got their pills from the local GP. Alcohol is the root cause in half of all reported cases of "general stress disorder". OMO, handing out head pills to stressed drinkers without even mentioning alcohol is negligence of the highest order. Another huge mistake is cutting out close friends/relatives from the equation in the name of privacy, these are the very people who can (if properly informed) monitor the patient and spot any improvement/deterioration in their behaviour.
The GP is correct, the plural of "stigma" is "stigmas". "Stigmata" can be both singular and plural and means a mark (or marks) of shame, such as the wounds from crucifixion.
Why did it take the Google Maps Team 10 years to decide
Google didn't take 10yrs to decide they don't want wrappers, they "decided" that when they wrote the terms of service.
Some pertinent questions.
When did routebuilder "decide" to ignore the TOS?
When did google "decide" to do something about it?
How does anyone know for certain what's in a TOS agreement if nobody ever reads it?
get licenses tied to their individual accounts
This is a partly corporate accounting problem, every time I have been given permission to buy software on behalf of a company they have asked me to do it with my CC and put in an expense claim. It's always the responsibility of the project/department head to manage license compliance/renewals, sucks to be them if they don't keep the license/renewal details I give them. Keeping a domain name you registered in good faith on behalf of someone else is just being a dick.
Compression = Bashing atoms together until photons fall off.
Friction = Bashing atoms together until photons fall off.
The Navy? - Countries other than the US do have them, and the Brits in particular have never been shy about using theirs to plant flags and push people around.
I look at wikipedia [as] a good starting point to find general information.
Ironically, that is exactly what you are supposed to do with ANY encyclopedia. It's entire purpose is to be a summary of knowledge found in accessible sources. The word itself derives from greek and translates to "general knowledge".
What you describe is called an "appeal to authority", it is a logical fallacy. Other than that, slashdot sure does hate an open and transparent meritocracy where they are the noob. And no, I don't edit WP, I just read it.
Article says fire affected areas were not counted in the survey.
Some people fly drones near bushfires to take pictures, they are an unnecessary pest that clog the roads and airspace. Here in Oz firefighting aircraft operations have been delayed on several occasions due to drones. Banning toy planes in the Aussie bush would not be an appropriate response, arresting the handful of stupid fuckers who get in the way of emergency services and aircraft is much more appropriate.
Google "stanford prison experiment", human nature makes us all susceptible to what happened in Germany (and more recently Rwanda). You can't fight universal human nature but being aware you are vulnerable to it is better than blindly following your "instincts".
The US has the highest prison population on the planet both in per capita and absolute numbers. But as you say, that is a direct result of the "tyranny of the mob" cheering anyone who utters the phrase "tough on crime".
A (toy) drone with a hand-grenade strapped to it isn't going anywhere. From a non-american POV, the fact that a suspected "bad guy" on a no-fly list can legally obtain an assault rifle and a truck load of ammo but can't legally fly a toy plane in a park, is fucking insane.
What's so special about DC?
Taxation without representation.