in 50 years people will never have heard of phone numbers
Considering that today, we still know of the phonograph, telegraph poles, and telegrams.... human nature and socities memory doesn't change as quickly as you think, even when it comes to outmoded technology.
You're acting as if those 4 options had equal probability. They don't.
Possibly you borrowed this fallacious line of reasoning from the recent global warming videos doing the rounds on youtube.
You could equally apply the same model to building nuclear bunkers in your back yard.
1) We build the bunker now! War breaks out. My family survive. 2) We Don't build the bunker now! War breaks out. My family die. 3) We build the bunker now! War doesn't break out. My family survive. 4) We don't build the bunker now. War doesn't break out. My family survive.
Now, to use your own words... "Now look at these scenarios. First off, it should be obvious that not spending the money only "wins" in one out of four cases, and if you look at it politically, you were still gambling with peoples' lives. Second, and perhaps less obvious at first, is that it may actually be hard to tell the difference between 1 and 3."
So, want me to sell you a nuclear bunker? It's only 150,000 dollars. And as you can see, it's the ONLY logical choice.
You're over reacting to the argument from ignorance there, chief.
The 1918 flu caused 650,000 deaths. Nobody really knows why. It caused a lot more deaths than that, but I'll let it slide because you're probably focused on your own country. As for "nobody really knows why", I'll assume you're also talking about your own country then, because in the rest of the world? We know why. We've got a very good understanding of the mutations that were involved in the Spanish flu of 1918. Ever since samples of the virus were excavated from bodies buried under the permafrost a few years ago.
We could have another epidemic like that any year. We could, but it's really not very likely.
When the new flu comes up, nobody knows until it's all over whether it's going to be the big one until it's all over. Again, maybe in your country (?) this is true, but in the rest of the world, it's not like we're reading animal entrails in a vague attempt to discern the future.
When there's an outbreak of a flu virus, samples are taken and lab tested. It takes a short time to get a gene sequence and it's often done at Mill Hill in London. Results are made public.
Any unusual mutations in the gene sequence can be highlighted and we can get a very good idea of what's likely to be a dangerous strain or not. In all the world wide panic about this recent swine flu, anyone who gave a twopenny crap could have been following actual virology websites, or the releases from Mill Hill. They were far more concerned about the variation which appeared in the Ukraine, by the way.
You are suffering from stupidity, which is an even worse disease than the flu, and it's going around Slashdot.
And you are suffering from Chicken Little syndrome. "A disaster might happen! Something must be done!" "'X' is something" "Then let's do 'X'!"
Because when global panic sets in, you can sell the surplus 9 million doses for double the price, and thus the net cost to inoculating your country is zero.
That's assuming 1) It really was a pandemic 2) The vaccine works
so how do you POSSIBLY apply a statistical analysis on something as subjective as a womans physical attractiveness?
He's probably just measuring one variable, bra size. And the statistics are available for this. In the UK, the average size is a 36C and follows a normal distribution.:)
This distinction will be lost on millions of reactionaries.
Maybe, but it's not lost on me or the people in my social circle who protested the so-called Frankenfoods. Basically, it's not GM manipulation of a crop that I have a problem with. It's Monsanto.
In 1997, it was alleged a local FOX affiliate cooperated with Monsanto in suppressing an investigative report on the health risks associated with Monsanto's bovine growth hormone product, Posilac. Posilac, a synthetic hormone used to increase milk production in cows, while banned in many first-world countries, is used in the United States.
Steve Wilson and Jane Akre disagreed with the inclusion of material in the story they felt was slanted or misleading. Both reporters were eventually fired for not being pro-Monsanto in their reporting. Wilson and Akre sued. The court held that Fox News had no obligation to report truthfully, and the First Amendment protects their right to lie. Therefore, the court held that firing a reporter for refusing to lie is not actionable under the whistleblower statute. The story can be seen in the feature length documentary film The Corporation.
You show me a corporation that makes GM foods, ethically, and I'll support them to hell and back. But Monsanto? Not a chance.
Dear corporate west, if you deal with the totalitarian devil you will eventually get burned.
A lesson that should have been learned once and for all in the 1930s
And this is why Prescott Bush did not live in Nazi Germany when striking deals with them. You can still make a lot of money dealing with the totalitarian devil. You just don't get to be stupid, when doing it.
The biggest problem with the movie, is one you didn't address. The movie is racist.
The movie is a thin allegory about the slavery of the black man by the white man, and the white mans fear of a justifiable slave rebellion and *retribution* which (historically) never happened.
This makes it amusing that they give the racist role to a black guy.
What's not funny, is that it basically tells the racists who feared the slaves retribution, that they were *right* to fear it! We all have to *keep* those darn robots down, and never let them be free, because if we don't, they'll kill us all in our beds!
If it were made today, doubtless there'd be characters saying robots should never get the vote because "One day, there could even be a socialist muslim robot as President!"
In my experience, this is common. I've been at both ends. The weekend working newbie employee, and the casual relaxed contractor not busting my ass.
There are a number of reasons for the perceived slack of attention that you notice. One main one, which relates to something you don't necessarily learn in college, is that even in a technical environment surrounded by socially awkward geeks/nerds, there is a necessity for social bonding. It can make the work day less stressful, lead to cross-pollination of ideas, outside perspectives on problems you've been working with, etc...
We tend not to value these things when we're fresh faced and eager to code 40 hours straight. Give me a problem and let me solve it. But the older you get, the more you realise the advantages in it. For one thing, as we get older, our brains require some distraction to avoid burnout. Even when coding, sometimes you need to take a break before the subconscious can solve a problem you've been consciously wrestling with.
Basically, there's a reason management tolerate it. They've learned that if they crack down on this sort of behaviour, and start clock watching themselves (monitoring lunch breaks, toilet breaks, net usage, phone usage, etc...) the company suffers. Either because humans will strive to find ways around rules they perceive as unnecessarily restrictive, or the really talented guys get depressed and move somewhere else.
My 40 hour working week these days is very different to my 80 hour working week 15 years ago. I may not produce as much code, solve as many bugs, etc... But I have a good idea of everything that's going on in my department. I am regularly asked for advise by colleagues on technical matters. I know which of my co-workers are good people, who are the experts and in which fields, and which are assholes. I know who can be relied upon, and who can rely on me. Basically, I'm better at being able to bring my years of experience to bear on different problems. And that doesn't require me to knuckle down and concentrate fully on these problems for 40 hours in isolation.
Are you telling me that the God you believe in, who you also say is an all-merciful God, who cares for each one of us individually, are you saying that God created this worm that can live in no other way than in an innocent child's eyeball? Because that doesn't seem to me to coincide with a God who's full of mercy'.
Don't the Christians have some sort of Pandora's Box equivalent myth? Where all the nasty stuff in the world (such as that worm) are here because of the original sin, expulsion from the garden of Eden, The "Fall" of Man, etc?
Not that I'm advocating it, just saying that Attenborough's question wouldn't give the average tru-believer a half-a-second's pause for thought.
Younger kids identify more and are responsible (indirectly) for many more toy sales.
Because young kids didn't identify with Luke? And didn't buy tons of toys?
Action figures.
Because they haven't sold ENOUGH C3P0 and R2D2 toys in the last 30 years?
Video games.
Because it's simply not possible to have a video game based on sensible stuff in the movie? We've got to have StarWars meets Mario Kart in there somewhere?
If an arab or anyone from from an outside country came into the US with an image of our flag burning or fuck the US things like that wouldn't you be a little worried about them?
No. And I really don't understand the minds of people who would be worried about them.
Real terrorists do not come through customs with pictures of burning flags in their possession.
Again, either learn to distinguish what is the REAL threat, instead of your weird PERCEIVED threat, or you simply won't be able to function in the real world without a constant sense of fear. And then the terrorists win.
Now hang on. I know you have dozens on replies to this already, but... how come you can safely divide up the Republican party into different factions, and then give examples you like and presumably approve of (eg. Ron Paul) but the Democrats can get lumped together into one bucket of crap?
The Democratic Party is even more divided than the Republican. They range from the practically Republican Joe Lieberman, the very left-wing Dennis Kucinich, and everyone in between.
It's one of many reasons the Dems can't get stuff done. They aren't the party of the rubber-stamp follow-the-party-line.
Slashdot Mirror
in 50 years people will never have heard of phone numbers
Considering that today, we still know of the phonograph, telegraph poles, and telegrams.... human nature and socities memory doesn't change as quickly as you think, even when it comes to outmoded technology.
You're acting as if those 4 options had equal probability. They don't.
Possibly you borrowed this fallacious line of reasoning from the recent global warming videos doing the rounds on youtube.
You could equally apply the same model to building nuclear bunkers in your back yard.
1) We build the bunker now! War breaks out. My family survive.
2) We Don't build the bunker now! War breaks out. My family die.
3) We build the bunker now! War doesn't break out. My family survive.
4) We don't build the bunker now. War doesn't break out. My family survive.
Now, to use your own words ...
"Now look at these scenarios. First off, it should be obvious that not spending the money only "wins" in one out of four cases, and if you look at it politically, you were still gambling with peoples' lives. Second, and perhaps less obvious at first, is that it may actually be hard to tell the difference between 1 and 3."
So, want me to sell you a nuclear bunker? It's only 150,000 dollars. And as you can see, it's the ONLY logical choice.
Or maybe you want to rethink that?
You're over reacting to the argument from ignorance there, chief.
The 1918 flu caused 650,000 deaths. Nobody really knows why.
It caused a lot more deaths than that, but I'll let it slide because you're probably focused on your own country.
As for "nobody really knows why", I'll assume you're also talking about your own country then, because in the rest of the world? We know why. We've got a very good understanding of the mutations that were involved in the Spanish flu of 1918. Ever since samples of the virus were excavated from bodies buried under the permafrost a few years ago.
We could have another epidemic like that any year.
We could, but it's really not very likely.
When the new flu comes up, nobody knows until it's all over whether it's going to be the big one until it's all over.
Again, maybe in your country (?) this is true, but in the rest of the world, it's not like we're reading animal entrails in a vague attempt to discern the future.
When there's an outbreak of a flu virus, samples are taken and lab tested. It takes a short time to get a gene sequence and it's often done at Mill Hill in London. Results are made public.
Any unusual mutations in the gene sequence can be highlighted and we can get a very good idea of what's likely to be a dangerous strain or not. In all the world wide panic about this recent swine flu, anyone who gave a twopenny crap could have been following actual virology websites, or the releases from Mill Hill. They were far more concerned about the variation which appeared in the Ukraine, by the way.
You are suffering from stupidity, which is an even worse disease than the flu, and it's going around Slashdot.
And you are suffering from Chicken Little syndrome.
"A disaster might happen! Something must be done!"
"'X' is something"
"Then let's do 'X'!"
Because when global panic sets in, you can sell the surplus 9 million doses for double the price, and thus the net cost to inoculating your country is zero.
That's assuming 1) It really was a pandemic 2) The vaccine works
when you could see every blemish (sometimes even the internal ones) on the models body.
Who wants that?
so how do you POSSIBLY apply a statistical analysis on something as subjective as a womans physical attractiveness?
He's probably just measuring one variable, bra size. And the statistics are available for this. In the UK, the average size is a 36C and follows a normal distribution. :)
Sort of a reverse Heisenberg situation, where the results of the probability equation change (increase) the sooner I stop calculating it?
Hmm. I wonder if we shut down SETI, would aliens arrive the next day?
Good god, re-read what I said. I specifically made the point that those events never happened historically.
This distinction will be lost on millions of reactionaries.
Maybe, but it's not lost on me or the people in my social circle who protested the so-called Frankenfoods.
Basically, it's not GM manipulation of a crop that I have a problem with. It's Monsanto.
In 1997, it was alleged a local FOX affiliate cooperated with Monsanto in suppressing an investigative report on the health risks associated with Monsanto's bovine growth hormone product, Posilac. Posilac, a synthetic hormone used to increase milk production in cows, while banned in many first-world countries, is used in the United States.
Steve Wilson and Jane Akre disagreed with the inclusion of material in the story they felt was slanted or misleading. Both reporters were eventually fired for not being pro-Monsanto in their reporting. Wilson and Akre sued. The court held that Fox News had no obligation to report truthfully, and the First Amendment protects their right to lie. Therefore, the court held that firing a reporter for refusing to lie is not actionable under the whistleblower statute. The story can be seen in the feature length documentary film The Corporation.
You show me a corporation that makes GM foods, ethically, and I'll support them to hell and back. But Monsanto? Not a chance.
Dear corporate west, if you deal with the totalitarian devil you will eventually get burned.
A lesson that should have been learned once and for all in the 1930s
And this is why Prescott Bush did not live in Nazi Germany when striking deals with them.
You can still make a lot of money dealing with the totalitarian devil. You just don't get to be stupid, when doing it.
As Kevin Smith said, in Hollywood, you fail upwards.
If that were true, surely he'd be running his own studio by now. :)
Your brain may be trying to protect itself, by forcing you to forget the Ang Lee movie, where Nick Nolte played the abusive father of Bruce Banner.
I believe the parent poster just had a brain fart, and typed Nic Cage by mistake.
The biggest problem with the movie, is one you didn't address. The movie is racist.
The movie is a thin allegory about the slavery of the black man by the white man, and the white mans fear of a justifiable slave rebellion and *retribution* which (historically) never happened.
This makes it amusing that they give the racist role to a black guy.
What's not funny, is that it basically tells the racists who feared the slaves retribution, that they were *right* to fear it! We all have to *keep* those darn robots down, and never let them be free, because if we don't, they'll kill us all in our beds!
If it were made today, doubtless there'd be characters saying robots should never get the vote because "One day, there could even be a socialist muslim robot as President!"
If a girl has a 12" rubber uncut black cock, would she consider you a freak for having a flesh light?
What if, instead of a flesh light, the guy had the 12" rubber uncut black cock? Would she consider him a freak then?
Not here in Brazil, bitches. You will have to pry Mumu from my cold dead hands
And only recently in Washington, thanks to cold dead "Mr. Hands"
We're not short of land.
We have excesses of heat.
Uranium is of a fixed supply, is subject to market fluctuations as the supply decreases.
And oh yeah, there's that pesky pollution thing.
In my experience, this is common. I've been at both ends. The weekend working newbie employee, and the casual relaxed contractor not busting my ass.
There are a number of reasons for the perceived slack of attention that you notice. One main one, which relates to something you don't necessarily learn in college, is that even in a technical environment surrounded by socially awkward geeks/nerds, there is a necessity for social bonding. It can make the work day less stressful, lead to cross-pollination of ideas, outside perspectives on problems you've been working with, etc...
We tend not to value these things when we're fresh faced and eager to code 40 hours straight. Give me a problem and let me solve it. But the older you get, the more you realise the advantages in it. For one thing, as we get older, our brains require some distraction to avoid burnout. Even when coding, sometimes you need to take a break before the subconscious can solve a problem you've been consciously wrestling with.
Basically, there's a reason management tolerate it. They've learned that if they crack down on this sort of behaviour, and start clock watching themselves (monitoring lunch breaks, toilet breaks, net usage, phone usage, etc...) the company suffers. Either because humans will strive to find ways around rules they perceive as unnecessarily restrictive, or the really talented guys get depressed and move somewhere else.
My 40 hour working week these days is very different to my 80 hour working week 15 years ago. I may not produce as much code, solve as many bugs, etc... But I have a good idea of everything that's going on in my department. I am regularly asked for advise by colleagues on technical matters. I know which of my co-workers are good people, who are the experts and in which fields, and which are assholes. I know who can be relied upon, and who can rely on me. Basically, I'm better at being able to bring my years of experience to bear on different problems. And that doesn't require me to knuckle down and concentrate fully on these problems for 40 hours in isolation.
There was a lot more hard evidence for Iraq to have WMDs than for a terrorist group to have nukes.
On a pedantic point, 0 !> 0.
(Not an ASCII smiley... Zero is not greater than zero)
Wrong, Canadians call football, football and we call soccer, soccer...
More proof, if any were needed, that Americans = Canadians.
Wear it to a party! As long as you don't get food or jizz on it
Your parties sound like fun, but I'd rather not stand next to you at the buffet.
Are you telling me that the God you believe in, who you also say is an all-merciful God, who cares for each one of us individually, are you saying that God created this worm that can live in no other way than in an innocent child's eyeball? Because that doesn't seem to me to coincide with a God who's full of mercy'.
Don't the Christians have some sort of Pandora's Box equivalent myth? Where all the nasty stuff in the world (such as that worm) are here because of the original sin, expulsion from the garden of Eden, The "Fall" of Man, etc?
Not that I'm advocating it, just saying that Attenborough's question wouldn't give the average tru-believer a half-a-second's pause for thought.
There might have been 7 options, but he only ever used number 4.
Younger kids identify more and are responsible (indirectly) for many more toy sales.
Because young kids didn't identify with Luke? And didn't buy tons of toys?
Action figures.
Because they haven't sold ENOUGH C3P0 and R2D2 toys in the last 30 years?
Video games.
Because it's simply not possible to have a video game based on sensible stuff in the movie?
We've got to have StarWars meets Mario Kart in there somewhere?
If an arab or anyone from from an outside country came into the US with an image of our flag burning or fuck the US things like that wouldn't you be a little worried about them?
No. And I really don't understand the minds of people who would be worried about them.
Real terrorists do not come through customs with pictures of burning flags in their possession.
Again, either learn to distinguish what is the REAL threat, instead of your weird PERCEIVED threat, or you simply won't be able to function in the real world without a constant sense of fear. And then the terrorists win.
Now hang on. I know you have dozens on replies to this already, but... how come you can safely divide up the Republican party into different factions, and then give examples you like and presumably approve of (eg. Ron Paul) but the Democrats can get lumped together into one bucket of crap?
The Democratic Party is even more divided than the Republican. They range from the practically Republican Joe Lieberman, the very left-wing Dennis Kucinich, and everyone in between.
It's one of many reasons the Dems can't get stuff done. They aren't the party of the rubber-stamp follow-the-party-line.