Sorry to interrupt your "Evil Bill's got a needle" rant but better health means people don't have ten kids in the hope that two will survive past the age of five. A "vaccine" substitute for the pill means you only need one shot a year rather than paying for pills once a month (assuming you can find a reliable source for the pills).
The real explaination is that you and I don't have a clue what microsoft is thinking, the difference between us is that I acknowledge that fact where as you claim to know the mind of microsoft. Just because lots of people make political decisions based on emotion does not mean it's a good way to make decisions, from what I've seen of US politics such decision making behaviour is routinely manipulated to pursuade people to vote against their own interests.
"The only difference between taking it offline and destroying it, is that it (might) take longer to bring back online afterwards, if it's destroyed."
Systems control is a mature field, I don't think the engineers who built such "critical" infrastruture would make it relaint on the internet without some sort of contingency.
The towers are built to "cyclone proof" standards, and many of the towers are on backup generators. Coverage is expected to get worse before it gets better because the backups only last 8-12 hrs. But I think those backup generators will be pretty high up on the emergency service todo list.
"String theory and this multi-verse thing only have some interesting math behind them."
String theory passes all the same observational tests that the standard model does. The problem is there is no way to test which theory is better since the predictions string theory makes that are different to the standard model are currently untestable. Therefore the best course of action is to continue to devise ways to test both theories until one (or both) breaks.
Radio National (Australia) has podcasts of The science show", Robyn Williams has been it's host for about 30yrs and IMHO is the best science journalist on the planet.
Free will is an illusion created by the physical processes in your brain, it is prerequsite for the sense of self. Whatever decision you make you were always destined to make it, or as Eienstien put it; "a man cannot will what he wills". There are two arguments for the existance of free will, both of which I find unconvincing, (1) the existance of a supernatural soul, or (2) matter itself has free will.
Of course none of this stops anyone (including me) from behaving as if the illusion were real.
Yes a citation, show me that IP sales are the major export for ANY western country, let alone MOST of them. From what I can find the GLOBAL revenues from IP add up to about $100 billion, the US alone exports $1200 billion in goods and services.
"No, that's not how this works when you're not editing an encyclopedia."
Actually it is, it's up to the person making the claim to back it up, otherwise it's just a bald assertion. For example, if he claimed unicorns exist it's not up to me to disprove the claim since it is logically impossible for me to do so.
So let me be blunt, I call bullshit on the OP. I did some cursory research before my first post and found global revenues in the ten's of billions for movies, music and video games, clearly this is insuficient revenue to support the OP's claim. The OP is welcome to jump in any time and justify his bald assertion with some evidence.
Government spending during a recession is the sensible thing to do, running a surplus in boom times is the sensible thing to do. The problem is that governments rarely do the later, and even when they do it's nowhere near the scale of the former.
Since WL published the full version along side it's commentary, I think your citicisim is what is lacking credibility. It never ceases to amaze me that such credulous and morally vacuous critiques are parroted ad-nauseum while the hard evidence of real crimes is all but ignored . Where are the authorties? They have utterly failed to follow up on the factual evidence and charge people for the real crimes documented in these leaks, instead they have gone on an expensive and fruitless "investigation" looking for some way to legally muzzle WL.They are openly seeking to curtail the freedom of the press and the majority of the "freedom loving" US public are enthusistically supporting their efforts.
"they have to have someway of keeping track of where leaks are coming from and if that's not the case the journalists can't trust them because they have no way of verifying the sources are legit."
WL does not verify the authenticity of leaks by trusting the leaker, it normally verifies them simply by asking the original owner of the document if they are genuine*. Unless were talking about people who are trained to neither confirm or deny, the reaction of the owner is usually enough to confirm if the material is genuine or not.
(* - This is not the only method, WL also uses other simple verification "tricks" that are part of the toolbox of any competent investigative journalist).
1. The issue is a proverbial storm in a teacup. Neither instant search or auto-complete are advertised as a complete search list, they are recomendations.
2. What evidence and logic leads you to believe google would cut their own throat, and why would you care if they did?
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry to interrupt your "Evil Bill's got a needle" rant but better health means people don't have ten kids in the hope that two will survive past the age of five. A "vaccine" substitute for the pill means you only need one shot a year rather than paying for pills once a month (assuming you can find a reliable source for the pills).
The real explaination is that you and I don't have a clue what microsoft is thinking, the difference between us is that I acknowledge that fact where as you claim to know the mind of microsoft. Just because lots of people make political decisions based on emotion does not mean it's a good way to make decisions, from what I've seen of US politics such decision making behaviour is routinely manipulated to pursuade people to vote against their own interests.
A proposal from someone you don't like is a good reason to be suspicious but emotion is never a good reason to reject a contractual/legal proposal.
"Just look at who are backing this, and you can clearly see that it's a very bad thing for the consumer and average citizen"
Yes, because prejudice is much easier than analysis.
"The only difference between taking it offline and destroying it, is that it (might) take longer to bring back online afterwards, if it's destroyed."
Systems control is a mature field, I don't think the engineers who built such "critical" infrastruture would make it relaint on the internet without some sort of contingency.
Would that include a kill switch, or not?
The towers are built to "cyclone proof" standards, and many of the towers are on backup generators. Coverage is expected to get worse before it gets better because the backups only last 8-12 hrs. But I think those backup generators will be pretty high up on the emergency service todo list.
"Worthy" is subjective. Funny thing, but no matter who they pick for the peace prize people will fight over it.
"String theory and this multi-verse thing only have some interesting math behind them."
String theory passes all the same observational tests that the standard model does. The problem is there is no way to test which theory is better since the predictions string theory makes that are different to the standard model are currently untestable. Therefore the best course of action is to continue to devise ways to test both theories until one (or both) breaks.
Radio National (Australia) has podcasts of The science show", Robyn Williams has been it's host for about 30yrs and IMHO is the best science journalist on the planet.
Nice examples, but what's the difference in testability between the (pre-Hubble) comsological constant and current string theory?
Conway's claim is basically; if free will exists then subatomic particles must posses free will.
"Is there any logical reason to have kids in the first place?"
Yes, society cannot look after itself if eveyone is too old to work. However logic is not the reason people have children.
Free will is an illusion created by the physical processes in your brain, it is prerequsite for the sense of self. Whatever decision you make you were always destined to make it, or as Eienstien put it; "a man cannot will what he wills". There are two arguments for the existance of free will, both of which I find unconvincing, (1) the existance of a supernatural soul, or (2) matter itself has free will.
Of course none of this stops anyone (including me) from behaving as if the illusion were real.
+1 informative.
Or as Vidal Gore put it; A farmer has no reason to muzzle his sheep.
Yes a citation, show me that IP sales are the major export for ANY western country, let alone MOST of them. From what I can find the GLOBAL revenues from IP add up to about $100 billion, the US alone exports $1200 billion in goods and services.
USA's top exports are civilan aircraft and military equipment.
"No, that's not how this works when you're not editing an encyclopedia."
Actually it is, it's up to the person making the claim to back it up, otherwise it's just a bald assertion. For example, if he claimed unicorns exist it's not up to me to disprove the claim since it is logically impossible for me to do so.
So let me be blunt, I call bullshit on the OP. I did some cursory research before my first post and found global revenues in the ten's of billions for movies, music and video games, clearly this is insuficient revenue to support the OP's claim. The OP is welcome to jump in any time and justify his bald assertion with some evidence.
"as "foobar" in computer programming"
In computer programming.- FUBAR - "fucked up beyond all repair" or alternatively "fucked up beyond all recognition".
"intellectual property is the only major export most Western nations still have" - That statement is in dire need of a citation.
Government spending during a recession is the sensible thing to do, running a surplus in boom times is the sensible thing to do. The problem is that governments rarely do the later, and even when they do it's nowhere near the scale of the former.
Since WL published the full version along side it's commentary, I think your citicisim is what is lacking credibility. It never ceases to amaze me that such credulous and morally vacuous critiques are parroted ad-nauseum while the hard evidence of real crimes is all but ignored . Where are the authorties? They have utterly failed to follow up on the factual evidence and charge people for the real crimes documented in these leaks, instead they have gone on an expensive and fruitless "investigation" looking for some way to legally muzzle WL.They are openly seeking to curtail the freedom of the press and the majority of the "freedom loving" US public are enthusistically supporting their efforts.
"they have to have someway of keeping track of where leaks are coming from and if that's not the case the journalists can't trust them because they have no way of verifying the sources are legit."
WL does not verify the authenticity of leaks by trusting the leaker, it normally verifies them simply by asking the original owner of the document if they are genuine*. Unless were talking about people who are trained to neither confirm or deny, the reaction of the owner is usually enough to confirm if the material is genuine or not.
(* - This is not the only method, WL also uses other simple verification "tricks" that are part of the toolbox of any competent investigative journalist).
1. The issue is a proverbial storm in a teacup. Neither instant search or auto-complete are advertised as a complete search list, they are recomendations.
2. What evidence and logic leads you to believe google would cut their own throat, and why would you care if they did?