I know this one, it's the party you don't vote for. Race, religion and sexual orientation are also missing. How can we possibly judge this guys actions if Rupert won't tell us who he is?/sarcasam
I don't think willingly giving your government the right to kill you is the action of a rational person, it's the emotion of revenge mixed with the arrogant assumption that it will never happen to you.
1. It's an inane truisim in response to an inane ideology.
2. Who said anything about not rewarding hard work or scraping capitalisim, I'm sure as hell not signing up for that and I don't think Scandanavians are either? Why do you think "personal reward" and "a fair go for all" are mutually exclusive goals? The best outcomes in a pragmatic sense come from organisational structures that maximise both cooperation and competition, especially in areas like commercial R&D.
I have no idea what Scandanavians have invented since the viking boat and gothic architecture other than Norway is well known for it's heavy engineering expertise, especially in the areas of platform drilling and ship building. But even if I accept your claim that the US are the top ranking "ideas people", at the end of the day what's more important, the new gadgets per capita count, or a good standard of living that gives you some time and a disposable income to play with the said gadgets?
Thanks, my old man is nearly 80 and still has all his marbles, he's currently learning python and has a Raspberry-Pi on order. Already a fan of Spinoza and secular humanisim. I agree there are many things that could be improved beyond recognition but in my opion such goals are best achived via evolution of society as opposed to revolutions. Revolutions are won by the best fighters, evolution is won by the best survivers.
As for Obama, he has the right words. His big speeches nail the big issues without fail. He has done a great job of "leading the way" with those eloquent speeches to the point he effectively summoned the ghosts of MLK and JFK in his first campaign. That his followers were going to be dissapointed was pretty much a forgone conclusion for such an idealistic promise, but it was good to see people overcome their apathy and come out in droves to listen to, and vote for, the picture he painted. Compare that evolutionary behaviour to the revolutionary crowd who flew their flags upside down when he was elected, or in GWB's case, the people who peltetd his convoy with rotten fruit when he was elected for his first term. To be perfectly blunt the cynic in me thought Obama would be assisnated before he was even elected, Shrug, I was wrong.:).
Troll or otherwise, I agree with the opinion it expressed. I have posted pro-MS and pro-Billy G comments many times, MS products have indirectly provided a good income for me over the last 2 decades. I've also critsized them for things I don't like about them.
I think I have a healthy attitude, I don't think it is normal to run around trying to prove company X is 'evil', or angelic for that matter. Sure, the world would be a much better place if everyone just did the RightThing(TM), but surely if you are old enough to type a coherent post your old enough to understand that will never happen because there will never be a standard definition of RightThing(TM). It's also a trivial issue in the scheme of things, as it does not involve risk to life or limb. This doesn't mean corporations can do what they want, I am actually an advocate of strong regulatory regime focused on the health and well being of society.
Stand back for a minute and look at what you're doing to yourself. Why are you "tracking trolls" and giving yourself ulcers over it? Why is this issue so important to you? How are you personally affected by it? Have you walked a mile in your enemies shoes? - meaning - Are there things in your past that if taken in isolation would make you look 'evil'? Did you get away with them or were you punished by society?
Alternatively add me to your list of trolls, the irony would ammuse me for the rest of the day.
This is the culture in Scandanavian countries, who have been at the top end of the standard of living charts for a very long time now. It's also a common* attitude here in Australia and we rank high in those charts, (*common but not the prevalent one, which is closer to UK culture ). It was also a common attitude in the US until the 1970's when, as the song goes - "We all got stoned and driffted away".
At 50+ I've seen the political pendulum swing a few times but it's slow on the scale of a human life time, the spring driving it even unwound a bit with the civil rights movement, the disintergration of the USSR and "Gang of four" in China. Yet internet forums across the planet are chock full of angry young men who would tear all that down and start again because they don't like (say) the current IP laws. I may be wrong but I think I can understand where they are coming from because I was an angry young man once,whereas they have yet to fully experience actually "seeing it all before".
Having already made myself unpopular with at least half of slashdot I'm going to alienate the rest of you by saying that this attitude was also displayed by both Bush and Obama when the GFC exploded in their faces. They set aside their ideologies to take unpopular and decisive joint action that in my opinion avoided a global panic run on bank deposits and the subsequent great depression senario that would follow. For a trully serious problem they put society first and I think history will eventually thank them for it.
To head off any angry young men posting BraveHeart style freedom rants on my lawn. - You are alreay free from everything except consequences. Nature (AKA -The great JooJoo in the sky) intended it to be this way. Just like Ayn Rand, she does not care about your existance any more than a road train cares about the bunny hypnotized in it's headlights
If the sea level is rising, and we can't account for the extra volume of the water that means we don't know every factor yet so we need to look further.
Exactly, it's basically a large scale accounting problem. I'm not presuming to know what obvious point the "silly scientists missed", I was hoping someone would reply with a credible explaination, it still happens on slashdot every now and then. I like tmosley's reply about increased rainfall at sea, seems plausible but I haven't looked for any evidence.:)
Disclaimer: Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm a lazy armchair researcher, so sue me.
Old fashioned tidal gauges are very acurate if kept well maintained, a simple tube effectively removes the waves, larger ones use what is called a "stilling well" but the principle is the same as measureing the 'true' hieght of choppy bath water with a perspex tube. Having said that I'm pretty sure the 0.77mm/yr is a statistic, ie: the gradient of the trend over a number of decades or centuries in some areas. An (unexplained) three inch rise over 100yrs is certainly something that could be observed in historical records.
I don't know if these guys are right or wrong, so I cheated a bit by skimming TFA, the source is credible and previous research backs the general conclusion. I still don't know if they are right but either way it is nice to see a slashdot article that highlights a genuine conundrum in Earth science.
I think you mean hydrogen, Eventually Earth will be like Venus, the Sun's rays having split all the water molecules in the upper atmosphere and sent the H2 spinning off into space. On the scale your planning people will be busrting into flames in a few thousand years. OTOH you will have averted countless ice ages over the next billion years or so.
If we do the right thing and burn the H2 then there won't be any change in the total amount of water in the system, save for what is in H2 storage tanks.
They claim the ocean is rising due to increased runoff from human activity, yet it's well known that most of the worlds major rivers are a shadow of their natural self by time they reach the ocean (if they get there at all). Perhaps stormwater drains are taking up the slack, but for the moment I'm left with two credible claims that on the surface appear to directly contradict each other?
Lobbyists aren't elected. They're hired by their Political Action Committee, i.e., private citizens.
Anyone can be a lobbyist, you don't have to be paid by anyone, when you write a letter to your rep you are a "lobbyist". Lobbyists are by definition private because it would be kind of silly to have the government lobby itself, it would be just as silly for governments not to talk to lobbyists since this would leave goverment advisers and election results as the sole source of information for the government. The right to lobby the government goes back to the days of fuedal warlords where peasants could petition their lord for whatever. It is a GoodThing(TM) and is essential to a functioning society, democratic or otherwise. If you feel the lobbying system is so corrupt you opinion is never heard then you inform the government by electing someone who makes concrete suggestions as to how they would clean it up. How do you find which candidate supports your opinions,? - Well you could try lobbying them and read their responses.
The GP's point was that if you elect politicians with integrity who are willing to open their books to auditers with teeth, then the only weapon a lobbyist has is reason. For example how long have people been electing Senator Inhofe? The man is an obvious shill for the FF industry and is the Republican's ranking senator on the senate environment committe, the public keeps re-electing him so presumably they approve of his anti-science propganda machine and his relentless efforts to dismantle the EPA.
Good grief Bengie, this and your post above show a deep misunderstanding of how things work in your own justice system, what were you doing during civics class?
Pauline Hanson was the last ideologue to mishandle campaign funds, she was jailed for it. This is not the US, the guy with the most money is not the automatic winner here. Our politicians benifit greatly by pointing out fraudulent behaviour by their enemies to the federal police, if they are not prepared to take it to court then they are simply preaching to their own choir and nobody else takes it seriously.
Having seen the bombardment of political ads in the US I was stunned as to how nasty they get. At least the politicians here put some effort into their bullshit and attempt to make a reasonably civil and coherent argument in their advertising. I look at some of the attack ads in the US and think to myself; "the attacker must think I'm an idiot", I thought the same thing when they put Palin up for VP. Republican's treated their suppoerters as morons by selecting a village idiot as a VP candidate, they deserved to lose.
Except it doesn't make sense, Gillard has basically branded him a terrorist in public and was serious about it, particularly early on in the saga. The only minister who initially stood up for Assange's rights was KRuddy the foriegn minister, note that providing proper consular assistance and supporting freedom of the press are very different from supporting a senate run. I just can't see the Labor party or even the Greens offering him pre-selection so he would have to run as an independent, but where? - Which electorate is that fond of him?.
Personally I wouldn't vote for him, he's doing a fine job "keeping the bastards honest" from the outside and I think he should stick with that, unwavering ideology of any colour doesn't make for a good politician in my book. The same can be said of Peter Garret, he did a lot more good as a government critic, now that he is a minister in the labor party he is bound to vote along party lines, which in the eyes of the public just makes him look like he "sold his soul".
15M people? When was the documentry made, 1970's? Sure we still treat aboriginals abyssmaly but we look after our remaining rainforest and Koalas. As for Aussies electing Assange to the senate, I'm still stunned that we vote for the likes of Bob Kater and Barnaby Joyce in large numbers, so I suppose anything is possible.
Push "marketing" does unfortunately work, it may not be as effective as targeted "marketing" but they would have given up long ago if it didn't work at all.
Scare quote because the missues has a Phd in marketing and constantly reminds me that this sort of thing is advertising, NOT marketing.To hear her tell it, calling these pepole marketers is like calling a homeopath a doctor. She's been teaching the subject for a couple of decades so I assume she knows what she's talking about. The bits of marketing theory I actually listen to seem like formalised common-sense to me, it's about tailoring your product or service to your target market in such a way that people seek you out amoung the crowd. She's currently interested in the marketing of the Raspberry Pi as a teaching example.
Yesterday I taught her the basics of plate techtonics(sic?), I've mentioned it before but this time I rebranded it as "The ring of fire" and she listened.:)
You don't but this is precisely how triple redundant systems work. Each of the three chips has a vote, the answer with the most votes is correct. It is theoretically possible that two "insane" chips could veto the only "sane" chip but the odds against it are astronomical.
A free market is a market with zero regulations or taxes. Zero.
"Free market" in the sense of a market with no rules, is an oxymoron. A "market" IS a set of rules/regulations for trade, the most basic of these being property rights, it's paradoxical nonsense to want a set of rules for trade that has no rules. The "free" in free market actually means anyone is free to participate in the market povided they play by the rules. I don't understand why such a large number of people in the US have trouble understanding the concept, they use it every day, no?
Slashdot Mirror
I know this one, it's the party you don't vote for. Race, religion and sexual orientation are also missing. How can we possibly judge this guys actions if Rupert won't tell us who he is? /sarcasam
I don't think willingly giving your government the right to kill you is the action of a rational person, it's the emotion of revenge mixed with the arrogant assumption that it will never happen to you.
1. It's an inane truisim in response to an inane ideology.
2. Who said anything about not rewarding hard work or scraping capitalisim, I'm sure as hell not signing up for that and I don't think Scandanavians are either? Why do you think "personal reward" and "a fair go for all" are mutually exclusive goals? The best outcomes in a pragmatic sense come from organisational structures that maximise both cooperation and competition, especially in areas like commercial R&D.
I have no idea what Scandanavians have invented since the viking boat and gothic architecture other than Norway is well known for it's heavy engineering expertise, especially in the areas of platform drilling and ship building. But even if I accept your claim that the US are the top ranking "ideas people", at the end of the day what's more important, the new gadgets per capita count, or a good standard of living that gives you some time and a disposable income to play with the said gadgets?
Thanks, my old man is nearly 80 and still has all his marbles, he's currently learning python and has a Raspberry-Pi on order. Already a fan of Spinoza and secular humanisim. I agree there are many things that could be improved beyond recognition but in my opion such goals are best achived via evolution of society as opposed to revolutions. Revolutions are won by the best fighters, evolution is won by the best survivers.
:).
As for Obama, he has the right words. His big speeches nail the big issues without fail. He has done a great job of "leading the way" with those eloquent speeches to the point he effectively summoned the ghosts of MLK and JFK in his first campaign. That his followers were going to be dissapointed was pretty much a forgone conclusion for such an idealistic promise, but it was good to see people overcome their apathy and come out in droves to listen to, and vote for, the picture he painted. Compare that evolutionary behaviour to the revolutionary crowd who flew their flags upside down when he was elected, or in GWB's case, the people who peltetd his convoy with rotten fruit when he was elected for his first term. To be perfectly blunt the cynic in me thought Obama would be assisnated before he was even elected, Shrug, I was wrong.
Don't knock it until you've tried it, sunshine.
Troll or otherwise, I agree with the opinion it expressed. I have posted pro-MS and pro-Billy G comments many times, MS products have indirectly provided a good income for me over the last 2 decades. I've also critsized them for things I don't like about them.
I think I have a healthy attitude, I don't think it is normal to run around trying to prove company X is 'evil', or angelic for that matter. Sure, the world would be a much better place if everyone just did the RightThing(TM), but surely if you are old enough to type a coherent post your old enough to understand that will never happen because there will never be a standard definition of RightThing(TM). It's also a trivial issue in the scheme of things, as it does not involve risk to life or limb. This doesn't mean corporations can do what they want, I am actually an advocate of strong regulatory regime focused on the health and well being of society.
Stand back for a minute and look at what you're doing to yourself. Why are you "tracking trolls" and giving yourself ulcers over it? Why is this issue so important to you? How are you personally affected by it? Have you walked a mile in your enemies shoes? - meaning - Are there things in your past that if taken in isolation would make you look 'evil'? Did you get away with them or were you punished by society?
Alternatively add me to your list of trolls, the irony would ammuse me for the rest of the day.
there are people who are actually sick.
Yeah, we recently had a shoplifting MP here in Australia, forbidden fruit and all that...
This is the culture in Scandanavian countries, who have been at the top end of the standard of living charts for a very long time now. It's also a common* attitude here in Australia and we rank high in those charts, (*common but not the prevalent one, which is closer to UK culture ). It was also a common attitude in the US until the 1970's when, as the song goes - "We all got stoned and driffted away".
At 50+ I've seen the political pendulum swing a few times but it's slow on the scale of a human life time, the spring driving it even unwound a bit with the civil rights movement, the disintergration of the USSR and "Gang of four" in China. Yet internet forums across the planet are chock full of angry young men who would tear all that down and start again because they don't like (say) the current IP laws. I may be wrong but I think I can understand where they are coming from because I was an angry young man once,whereas they have yet to fully experience actually "seeing it all before".
Having already made myself unpopular with at least half of slashdot I'm going to alienate the rest of you by saying that this attitude was also displayed by both Bush and Obama when the GFC exploded in their faces. They set aside their ideologies to take unpopular and decisive joint action that in my opinion avoided a global panic run on bank deposits and the subsequent great depression senario that would follow. For a trully serious problem they put society first and I think history will eventually thank them for it.
To head off any angry young men posting BraveHeart style freedom rants on my lawn. - You are alreay free from everything except consequences. Nature (AKA -The great JooJoo in the sky) intended it to be this way. Just like Ayn Rand, she does not care about your existance any more than a road train cares about the bunny hypnotized in it's headlights
If the sea level is rising, and we can't account for the extra volume of the water that means we don't know every factor yet so we need to look further.
Exactly, it's basically a large scale accounting problem. I'm not presuming to know what obvious point the "silly scientists missed", I was hoping someone would reply with a credible explaination, it still happens on slashdot every now and then. I like tmosley's reply about increased rainfall at sea, seems plausible but I haven't looked for any evidence. :)
Disclaimer: Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm a lazy armchair researcher, so sue me.
On a global scale the environment is pretty fucked all round, and that definitely is "humans fault".
Old fashioned tidal gauges are very acurate if kept well maintained, a simple tube effectively removes the waves, larger ones use what is called a "stilling well" but the principle is the same as measureing the 'true' hieght of choppy bath water with a perspex tube. Having said that I'm pretty sure the 0.77mm/yr is a statistic, ie: the gradient of the trend over a number of decades or centuries in some areas. An (unexplained) three inch rise over 100yrs is certainly something that could be observed in historical records.
I don't know if these guys are right or wrong, so I cheated a bit by skimming TFA, the source is credible and previous research backs the general conclusion. I still don't know if they are right but either way it is nice to see a slashdot article that highlights a genuine conundrum in Earth science.
I think you mean hydrogen, Eventually Earth will be like Venus, the Sun's rays having split all the water molecules in the upper atmosphere and sent the H2 spinning off into space. On the scale your planning people will be busrting into flames in a few thousand years. OTOH you will have averted countless ice ages over the next billion years or so.
If we do the right thing and burn the H2 then there won't be any change in the total amount of water in the system, save for what is in H2 storage tanks.
They claim the ocean is rising due to increased runoff from human activity, yet it's well known that most of the worlds major rivers are a shadow of their natural self by time they reach the ocean (if they get there at all). Perhaps stormwater drains are taking up the slack, but for the moment I'm left with two credible claims that on the surface appear to directly contradict each other?
Lobbyists aren't elected. They're hired by their Political Action Committee, i.e., private citizens.
Anyone can be a lobbyist, you don't have to be paid by anyone, when you write a letter to your rep you are a "lobbyist". Lobbyists are by definition private because it would be kind of silly to have the government lobby itself, it would be just as silly for governments not to talk to lobbyists since this would leave goverment advisers and election results as the sole source of information for the government. The right to lobby the government goes back to the days of fuedal warlords where peasants could petition their lord for whatever. It is a GoodThing(TM) and is essential to a functioning society, democratic or otherwise. If you feel the lobbying system is so corrupt you opinion is never heard then you inform the government by electing someone who makes concrete suggestions as to how they would clean it up. How do you find which candidate supports your opinions,? - Well you could try lobbying them and read their responses.
The GP's point was that if you elect politicians with integrity who are willing to open their books to auditers with teeth, then the only weapon a lobbyist has is reason. For example how long have people been electing Senator Inhofe? The man is an obvious shill for the FF industry and is the Republican's ranking senator on the senate environment committe, the public keeps re-electing him so presumably they approve of his anti-science propganda machine and his relentless efforts to dismantle the EPA.
Their reactions from day one have already confirmed the authenticity of the documents.
Good grief Bengie, this and your post above show a deep misunderstanding of how things work in your own justice system, what were you doing during civics class?
Pauline Hanson was the last ideologue to mishandle campaign funds, she was jailed for it. This is not the US, the guy with the most money is not the automatic winner here. Our politicians benifit greatly by pointing out fraudulent behaviour by their enemies to the federal police, if they are not prepared to take it to court then they are simply preaching to their own choir and nobody else takes it seriously.
Having seen the bombardment of political ads in the US I was stunned as to how nasty they get. At least the politicians here put some effort into their bullshit and attempt to make a reasonably civil and coherent argument in their advertising. I look at some of the attack ads in the US and think to myself; "the attacker must think I'm an idiot", I thought the same thing when they put Palin up for VP. Republican's treated their suppoerters as morons by selecting a village idiot as a VP candidate, they deserved to lose.
Except it doesn't make sense, Gillard has basically branded him a terrorist in public and was serious about it, particularly early on in the saga. The only minister who initially stood up for Assange's rights was KRuddy the foriegn minister, note that providing proper consular assistance and supporting freedom of the press are very different from supporting a senate run. I just can't see the Labor party or even the Greens offering him pre-selection so he would have to run as an independent, but where? - Which electorate is that fond of him?.
Personally I wouldn't vote for him, he's doing a fine job "keeping the bastards honest" from the outside and I think he should stick with that, unwavering ideology of any colour doesn't make for a good politician in my book. The same can be said of Peter Garret, he did a lot more good as a government critic, now that he is a minister in the labor party he is bound to vote along party lines, which in the eyes of the public just makes him look like he "sold his soul".
We had some grizzly bears, the fucking crocs ate 'em.
15M people? When was the documentry made, 1970's? Sure we still treat aboriginals abyssmaly but we look after our remaining rainforest and Koalas. As for Aussies electing Assange to the senate, I'm still stunned that we vote for the likes of Bob Kater and Barnaby Joyce in large numbers, so I suppose anything is possible.
Push "marketing" does unfortunately work, it may not be as effective as targeted "marketing" but they would have given up long ago if it didn't work at all.
:)
Scare quote because the missues has a Phd in marketing and constantly reminds me that this sort of thing is advertising, NOT marketing.To hear her tell it, calling these pepole marketers is like calling a homeopath a doctor. She's been teaching the subject for a couple of decades so I assume she knows what she's talking about. The bits of marketing theory I actually listen to seem like formalised common-sense to me, it's about tailoring your product or service to your target market in such a way that people seek you out amoung the crowd. She's currently interested in the marketing of the Raspberry Pi as a teaching example.
Yesterday I taught her the basics of plate techtonics(sic?), I've mentioned it before but this time I rebranded it as "The ring of fire" and she listened.
I'd love to see them try and quantify Kate Moss.
We all know she's thin, but I'm pretty sure a set of bathroom scales would still work.
You don't but this is precisely how triple redundant systems work. Each of the three chips has a vote, the answer with the most votes is correct. It is theoretically possible that two "insane" chips could veto the only "sane" chip but the odds against it are astronomical.
A free market is a market with zero regulations or taxes. Zero.
"Free market" in the sense of a market with no rules, is an oxymoron. A "market" IS a set of rules/regulations for trade, the most basic of these being property rights, it's paradoxical nonsense to want a set of rules for trade that has no rules. The "free" in free market actually means anyone is free to participate in the market povided they play by the rules. I don't understand why such a large number of people in the US have trouble understanding the concept, they use it every day, no?
Scumbag anti-science lobbyists such as the heartland institute also have tax free charity status.