"... it's a minority of millionaire artists... there are a hundred real artists..."
These.
It's the same old story about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. The people behind (and taking obscene percentages from) AAA "artists" want to continue making millions while proportionately doing far less than your local band, recording an album every other year but not having to actually work hard promoting and touring. The truth is their "music" has become a factory-produced product, where risk isn't taken and as a result all sound exactly the same.
Real music cannot die, it's part of humanity, and will always be a form of entertainment in demand. The only thing which is going away is the ability of a few lucky *cough* artists *cough* to win the lottery and live like kings for the rest of their life. Music will return to being diverse and affordable ($150 for kids tickets to "Hannah Montana" - are you kidding me?!), with the advantage of wide and consumer-friendly distribution.
My take on the "typical politician" angle: he's oblivious of the fact that for this to work Brin and Page would have to be just as vain and corrupt as his ilk.
My employer, despite generally being a Microsoft shop, is aware of security and pays for proper software which has no problem handling popular non-Microsoft software.
Our corporate security software automatically updates IE and notifies me every time my Firefox & Chrome need updates (which, for anyone hiding under a rock, perform self-updates on startup) as well as many other pieces of software. My boss is notified if I don't take care of things within a set deadline. It's all automatic except for a few weird applications I need to update myself.
If you admit IE is a productivity drain, why not do your homework and figure out how to take advantage of better software? Is your convenience and stubbornness more important than the output and happiness of your users?
it is a perfectly sensible solution e.g. to have the executive branch refuse to enforce it, if it is absolutely clear that it is extremely unpopular.
Good points, but I wonder if we're missing another variable in the equation. I would not assume that the law is unpopular as you speculate. Such a law is likely based on residents expecting their neighbors to assist in maintaining property values, which is hardly unique to Orange. If that's the case, this couple is harming their immediate neighbors in favor of the larger global community.
That and what politician would act against increasing tax revenue during a budget crisis at the cost of a single vote?
Among your mistaken premises: 1) Google actually is "too big" - Google cannot compete in the global energy market with giants like Exxon Mobil, Shell & BP. It's not even capable of competing on a local scale without dedicating a massive amount of its resources, in which I highly doubt it is interested. 2) Google will fail in 5 years- which I presume is just wishful thinking on your part. Google has never shown itself to be reckless in the way Enron and the financial sector have. If they do, please make sure we and their shareholders know. 3) A Google failure will necessarily mean loss of email archives - Nope. Check out the terms of agreement, specifically 12.2 (ii): "Google will provide Customer access to, and the ability to export, the Customer Data for a commercially reasonable period of time at Google's then-current rates for the applicable Service;". And yes, "Customer data" is defined as emails. 4) The federal government cares about companies' email systems - seriously, you really think they're going to bail out the entire Google corporation just for email? It will occasionally step in to save the life-savings of thousands, try to keep the country from sliding into a depression, or in the case of US Auto save a critical industry which provides tens of thousands of jobs and significant economic benefit. Your TPS reports are not on the same scale as these. 5) If Google has the *potential* to become too big to fail at some point in the future it must be stopped from growing any larger immediately - obviously a silly argument.
Thanks for sharing that link. My gut reaction is "Israelification" sounds nice but may not be simple to implement by throwing money at the problem. Air travel in the US is far more complex than in Israel for many reasons. Among them a population which flies far less frequently, and the fact that there's really only one large international airport, and it's nothing like the huge open shopping malls we call airports here in the States and in Europe. In Israel security often comes before all else, which is something Americans would not stand for.
I was reading another article just yesterday, where the security consultant was specifically saying that relying on technology (as per TFA) is the wrong way to go, and I agree. Yes there are many interesting things we have been able to teach computers to do, simulating our own senses, but we're far from building something which could surpass the Israeli trained security personnel whom the article so carelessly dismisses.
I don't buy the Future Europe to past immigrants thing.
Wasn't it Past Europe that caused past emigration to the New World and later the USA? Lack of religious freedoms, political persecution, famines, freedom, those sorts of things?
I think posting vulgarity on news stories is more a crime of opportunity, which is generally preventable if precautions are taken. I agree that they're certainly not open invitations, but unless you're naive enough to assume bored and stupid people do not exist (and FSM help you if you are), you're a fool to not protect yourself with email validation or a captcha. Tight jeans are certainly no excuse for the crimes of a rapist, but a woman objectifying herself is the best way of attracting those criminals, just as showing off your wealth or walking alone at night are the best ways of getting mugged. It's not the cause of the crime, but it can determine what makes one person a victim rather than another.
The question should have included "easily countable," which is where they fall short. Diamonds are not as uniform in chemical composition as gold bars, malleable or otherwise easy to label or once their value is discerned, nor they stack neatly in piles for the purpose of heist-centered movies.
It's also far easier to steal a diamond than a gold brick- a terrible feature considering the security concerns involved when you're looking for something on which to base an economy.
Except that version isn't funny unless you're a Republican who has a lousy sense of humor. Switch "Democrat" and "Repblican" around and it'll be funny to Democrats with no sense of humor. Members of both parties are too arrogant to think the other has something to offer in the way of help.
To simply dismiss those who fall to scams as stupid is a gross generalization.
Your argument seems to suggest that scams are easy to detect and avoid, which is of course untrue, as successful scam artists have the required savvy to obfuscate the evidence in a torrent of hope. This is a great assumption if you have more education than a desire to improve your lot in life, which both protects you from the need to believe the scam will help you, while at the same time allowing you to evaluate it critically and recognize its nature. Sadly this is not the case for most people, which is why scams continue to exist and thrive.
I suggest that the second case's alternative is not always a valid option so long people remain vulnerable to what to you is obviously a scam. Force is applied in both cases. Sure, the physical one sucks- a broken arm, a few cracked ribs and a fat lip, the resulting medical bills and few months of pain and loss of employment. The other is psychological- an abuse of the dissatisfaction, jealousy, and even depression that come with limited purchasing power in a very materialistic nation.
I would try and allieviate this boredom by doodling, and this often got me in trouble.
My solution was to make it look like I was paying attention when they repeated the material and faked taking notes. Just look up every few seconds trying to make eye-contact; Once you do, you're set for about two minutes of "me-time" before having to get back to making the teacher feel like they're being a useful member of society. I spent classtime reading books, writing computer programs and doing homework. Great way to maximize your playtime after school. Another method useful on smarter teachers is to engage them in a way that demonstrates your understanding of the material and ability to take care of yourself. I once argued my fourth grade teacher into proving that a power of zero results in 1. When she saw I wouldn't just memorize a what she said and accept the given answer on faith alone, I was never bothered to demonstrate my understanding of future material at the chalkboard again. For other teachers, simply answering one question was enough to get them to ignore me for the rest of the period- give your history teacher a well thought-out answer and they'll let you spend the rest of class reading next week's required reading assignment.
The only time I actually got caught was with a high-school literature teacher who taught us to plagiarize (she dictated from a textbook and we were supposed to copy it into our notebooks- Hey kids! Can you say "incompetent and morally bankrupt"?) who noticed I was thinking (God forbid) instead of writing furiously like a good induhvidual. As a punishment and to make up for lost material I had to photocopy a classmate's notebook. Best five bucks I ever spent.
As previously posted- people pay for value. Your games are probably as cheap, stupid and homogeneous as your players (who obviously can't get any either).
Aren't rude unconstructive comments just great?
But seriously now. Given the mention of "sunk costs" (on developing a Facebook app- we're talking BIG venture money there </sarcasm>), advising simply for "your own infrastructure" (while perhaps appropriate to an entrepreneur) is useless to the asker in question.
You've made the assumption that advertisers don't know that Grandma buys the occasional video game for Bobby at Christmas. Don't worry- she'll get those ads too- they will just appear at a frequency appropriate to her visits to Gamestop.
What I wonder is what kind of ads they'll show my MythTv box. I suppose the equivalents of ExtenZe and Internet Millions would by bigger hard drives and air-in-a-can respectively...
And frankly, the whole "military" vs "civilian" thing is fairly specious. If we're worried about abuse of government power, the fact that the NSA is a nominally "civilian" agency doesn't really matter. They can still abuse their power just as well. What difference does it make that their CO is a "Director" rather than a "General"?
Disobeying a corrupt director won't get you hanged. Generals wield far more power and are thus far more dangerous a threat to democracy than civilian chief executives. How common is it for a coup d'état to come from a minister of interior security?
I suspect belief in Snow White is a poor analogy for Dawkins' work, but I'd argue your action was both.
If you are acceptive of common sense (which translates into social acceptance) it would be completely reasonable for you to claim that believing in fictional characters is an act of idiocy. Looking at the situation from a purely logical perspective, you can't provide proof that the tale isn't based on a true story. Thus your accusation isn't based on anything but your belief to the contrary, which is no good for discounting someone else's belief.
Interesting point. I don't know if "improper chliche" is the best argument to point out the absurdity of this politician's crusade. Short of "Die Hard 3", I can't really think of any instance in which U.S. schools were used as a target (and in that case it was a decoy).
What that movie does teach us is that politicians trying to ram through a bad law can try to exploit this idea due to its powerful appeal to emotion, as we will put aside many concerns to protect our young. I'm a little surprised that the thinkofthechildren tag wasn't used.
That's one way of looking at it. Another is that Microsoft probably prefers to have its legions of fanboys do it for free rather than doing it internally by hiring 1400 beta-testers.
But seriously- saying you shouldn't beta test software externally doesn't make sense for many types of software where the complexity of testing makes it prohibitive (such as modern Windows deployed on a myriad of hardware and used in many different ways). If you think about open source software, the cost is an obvious benefit to getting users to testing for you, but just as important is the ability to get feedback from real users early enough in the development process to still be fixable. Remember- by the time Microsoft cuts a release candidate, there are only so many man-hours left to allocate to the feedback coming back. Most anything reported at that point has to wait for a service pack.
Based on your genetics, you simply never would have been born.
This is the oft-represented suggestion that something of value is lost in the process of abortion. I also find distasteful how it borders on fear-mongering, a favorite tactic by dictators wishing to suppress the intellectual progress of their controlled populations.
To suggest that the life of AC and their experiences and influence on the world would be destroyed is misleading, since it has the culturally-infiltrated assumption that this lost "stuff" was intended to be by God, fate, or whatever other rationale you decide to use. Unless you make a truly convincing argument for your assumption, you'll not be able to persuade those who have no trouble with a specific method of genetic engineering, abortion, et cetera of your conclusion.
The counterargument is simple: simply make a contradictory assumption. If one believes that each newborn soul is "waiting in line" for the next birth (rather than conception, as some Christians do), AC then would still be born regardless of how many embryos are not-implanted or aborted. And if genetic selection was widespread, he'd be much healthier too. So under this assumption, killing off imperfect embryos is a great thing, up to the point where the cost of performing these procedures becomes detrimental to humanity. There- your turn to prove my assumption wrong.
What I find sad about the never-ending intrusion of the Catholic and now evangelical churches and into science is that they bring assumptions that have little or no scientific merit whatsoever. The "best"* of ideas have only been derived from Jesus' teachings and those are few and far between. More often it's the case that rules were created by inferring various texts, historic political needs, and today in mistranslations (and modern political needs). Don't get me wrong- religion can be a wonderful thing, bettering individuals and communities- I recognize that and don't seek to suppress belief. But the inclusion of biased information into fields dealing with objective, testable observations cannot be forgiven. The fact that the world is round despite the Vatican's best efforts to declare it otherwise, should be sufficient to keep an honest believer from relying on faith when studying science.
* "Best" for my current purpose is something that a Christian can honestly try to claim was intended/said by God, though something I would still probably reject due to the scientific need to doubt God's existence and Jesus' divinity as well as said teachings' applicability in modern society.
Re:No idea where that will lead?
on
Designer Babies
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· Score: 1
More crime as the supply of wives and girlfriends dwindles
If you think that's bad, think about the effect a glut of men in the workforce combined with the surging hourly rates for prostitutes.
I think what's tripping up this train of thought is the idea of "easy to use". Microsoft Word, for example, fits this category nicely, and even doing the stuff taught in an "Advanced Word" courses is actually easy- at most I have to take a quick look at the manual.
These training courses (or at least each of the four Microsoft software development courses I attended at the beginning of my career) are great for people who need hand-holding. From what I can guess, this means either folks who have trouble comprehending the manual (e.g. a technophobic secretary who can't figure out how to build a table of contents into a document, even though it's trivial once you're aware of Styles and Fields) or those too lazy to locate the information themselves (i.e. find "Table of Contents" in an alphabetically arranged index, turn or click to the indicated page, and read something shorter than this post).
I don't find Microsoft products to be intentionally confusing. Poorly thought-out in many places- yup, sloppily implemented in many others- most certainly, inconsiderate of existing users' needs- for sure. But deliberately hard to use? No- I don't think many companies will stoop so low as that and risk losing sales on their primary revenue generator. The reason is stockholders don't take kindly to that, and Microsoft is driven by its shareholders, not by this despicable false claim of patriotism. I love bashing Microsoft as much as the next Slashdotter, but to be fair- they actually think they're doing right by consumers. Even the criminally heavy-handed business tactics are designed to spread what they believe is best for consumers. Microsoft needs to be committed to the corporate equivalent of an asylum, not prison.
The first thing you and your fellow nutjobs must realize is that in a democracy government is not an evil entity whose entire mission is to screw you over and take your money. When it takes your money, it's because you asked it to.
If you want smaller government and lower taxes, stop voting back the Republicans and Democrats, and keep replacing inefficient/unresponsive/corrupt/all-of-the-above politicians.
If you really want to make a difference, go work for the government. Based on your brilliant comment, it's quite clear that you're obviously superior to anyone there, so our government is sure to improve.
You neglected to mention the one and only thing your audience cares about: $$$.
How much will you pay them to watch the content you will if they send it the way you like? If your reply (whether cash, or seconds of ad time, per 30... err... 18 minute show) is far less than they are bilking their subscribers, they won't listen to you.
Instead, they will just keep calling you a pirate and waste everyone's money lobbying congress to send you to jail. Yes, it's stupid, but they're oblivious when it comes to modern technology and culture.
In this clip we have three given examples, which are used to suggest, but do not actually constitute a meaningful statistic. There is no sample size- how many interviews were required to obtain this clip? There's no control group- do McCain supporters respond the same way with similar replies? Where these individuals chosen randomly out of the population being studied (black Harlem residents), or were they targeted in some way to make this case? Presented in a different context, these same clips could be used to imply that the entire American population was stupid. Plenty examples of this can be found on YouTube- just search for "stupid americans" (substitute "americans" for members of any other nationality for more examples of such silliness).
The main problem I have with this clip is that it was done with insincere intent- as is often the case with Stern. There's nothing scientific or objective about tricking people into saying something contradictory. Stephen Colbert is a master at getting politicians to do that; but as much as I love watching him cause Republicans to look like idiot this sort of tactic does not invalidate their political ideology. Nor does a lousy argument made by a layman lessen it- I can be an Obama supporter and say the dumbest thing you ever heard; how can you honestly say that reflects badly on Obama? I require an honest debate involving the actual candidate to dismiss their views, and believe Stern's (and the rest of TV&radio pundits') listeners are the uneducated ones to do otherwise.
Slashdot Mirror
"... it's a minority of millionaire artists ... there are a hundred real artists..."
These.
It's the same old story about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. The people behind (and taking obscene percentages from) AAA "artists" want to continue making millions while proportionately doing far less than your local band, recording an album every other year but not having to actually work hard promoting and touring. The truth is their "music" has become a factory-produced product, where risk isn't taken and as a result all sound exactly the same.
Real music cannot die, it's part of humanity, and will always be a form of entertainment in demand. The only thing which is going away is the ability of a few lucky *cough* artists *cough* to win the lottery and live like kings for the rest of their life. Music will return to being diverse and affordable ($150 for kids tickets to "Hannah Montana" - are you kidding me?!), with the advantage of wide and consumer-friendly distribution.
My take on the "typical politician" angle: he's oblivious of the fact that for this to work Brin and Page would have to be just as vain and corrupt as his ilk.
My employer, despite generally being a Microsoft shop, is aware of security and pays for proper software which has no problem handling popular non-Microsoft software.
Our corporate security software automatically updates IE and notifies me every time my Firefox & Chrome need updates (which, for anyone hiding under a rock, perform self-updates on startup) as well as many other pieces of software. My boss is notified if I don't take care of things within a set deadline. It's all automatic except for a few weird applications I need to update myself.
If you admit IE is a productivity drain, why not do your homework and figure out how to take advantage of better software? Is your convenience and stubbornness more important than the output and happiness of your users?
Who's really not thinking strategically?
it is a perfectly sensible solution e.g. to have the executive branch refuse to enforce it, if it is absolutely clear that it is extremely unpopular.
Good points, but I wonder if we're missing another variable in the equation. I would not assume that the law is unpopular as you speculate. Such a law is likely based on residents expecting their neighbors to assist in maintaining property values, which is hardly unique to Orange. If that's the case, this couple is harming their immediate neighbors in favor of the larger global community.
That and what politician would act against increasing tax revenue during a budget crisis at the cost of a single vote?
Yawn. Anti-Google fanatics make me tired.
Among your mistaken premises:
1) Google actually is "too big" - Google cannot compete in the global energy market with giants like Exxon Mobil, Shell & BP. It's not even capable of competing on a local scale without dedicating a massive amount of its resources, in which I highly doubt it is interested.
2) Google will fail in 5 years- which I presume is just wishful thinking on your part. Google has never shown itself to be reckless in the way Enron and the financial sector have. If they do, please make sure we and their shareholders know.
3) A Google failure will necessarily mean loss of email archives - Nope. Check out the terms of agreement, specifically 12.2 (ii): "Google will provide Customer access to, and the ability to export, the Customer Data for a commercially reasonable period of time at Google's then-current rates for the applicable Service;". And yes, "Customer data" is defined as emails.
4) The federal government cares about companies' email systems - seriously, you really think they're going to bail out the entire Google corporation just for email? It will occasionally step in to save the life-savings of thousands, try to keep the country from sliding into a depression, or in the case of US Auto save a critical industry which provides tens of thousands of jobs and significant economic benefit. Your TPS reports are not on the same scale as these.
5) If Google has the *potential* to become too big to fail at some point in the future it must be stopped from growing any larger immediately - obviously a silly argument.
Thanks for sharing that link. My gut reaction is "Israelification" sounds nice but may not be simple to implement by throwing money at the problem.
Air travel in the US is far more complex than in Israel for many reasons. Among them a population which flies far less frequently, and the fact that there's really only one large international airport, and it's nothing like the huge open shopping malls we call airports here in the States and in Europe. In Israel security often comes before all else, which is something Americans would not stand for.
I was reading another article just yesterday, where the security consultant was specifically saying that relying on technology (as per TFA) is the wrong way to go, and I agree. Yes there are many interesting things we have been able to teach computers to do, simulating our own senses, but we're far from building something which could surpass the Israeli trained security personnel whom the article so carelessly dismisses.
I don't buy the Future Europe to past immigrants thing. Wasn't it Past Europe that caused past emigration to the New World and later the USA? Lack of religious freedoms, political persecution, famines, freedom, those sorts of things?
I think posting vulgarity on news stories is more a crime of opportunity, which is generally preventable if precautions are taken. I agree that they're certainly not open invitations, but unless you're naive enough to assume bored and stupid people do not exist (and FSM help you if you are), you're a fool to not protect yourself with email validation or a captcha.
Tight jeans are certainly no excuse for the crimes of a rapist, but a woman objectifying herself is the best way of attracting those criminals, just as showing off your wealth or walking alone at night are the best ways of getting mugged. It's not the cause of the crime, but it can determine what makes one person a victim rather than another.
Good answer.
The question should have included "easily countable," which is where they fall short. Diamonds are not as uniform in chemical composition as gold bars, malleable or otherwise easy to label or once their value is discerned, nor they stack neatly in piles for the purpose of heist-centered movies.
It's also far easier to steal a diamond than a gold brick- a terrible feature considering the security concerns involved when you're looking for something on which to base an economy.
Except that version isn't funny unless you're a Republican who has a lousy sense of humor. Switch "Democrat" and "Repblican" around and it'll be funny to Democrats with no sense of humor. Members of both parties are too arrogant to think the other has something to offer in the way of help.
To simply dismiss those who fall to scams as stupid is a gross generalization.
Your argument seems to suggest that scams are easy to detect and avoid, which is of course untrue, as successful scam artists have the required savvy to obfuscate the evidence in a torrent of hope. This is a great assumption if you have more education than a desire to improve your lot in life, which both protects you from the need to believe the scam will help you, while at the same time allowing you to evaluate it critically and recognize its nature. Sadly this is not the case for most people, which is why scams continue to exist and thrive.
I suggest that the second case's alternative is not always a valid option so long people remain vulnerable to what to you is obviously a scam. Force is applied in both cases. Sure, the physical one sucks- a broken arm, a few cracked ribs and a fat lip, the resulting medical bills and few months of pain and loss of employment. The other is psychological- an abuse of the dissatisfaction, jealousy, and even depression that come with limited purchasing power in a very materialistic nation.
I would try and allieviate this boredom by doodling, and this often got me in trouble.
My solution was to make it look like I was paying attention when they repeated the material and faked taking notes. Just look up every few seconds trying to make eye-contact; Once you do, you're set for about two minutes of "me-time" before having to get back to making the teacher feel like they're being a useful member of society. I spent classtime reading books, writing computer programs and doing homework. Great way to maximize your playtime after school. Another method useful on smarter teachers is to engage them in a way that demonstrates your understanding of the material and ability to take care of yourself. I once argued my fourth grade teacher into proving that a power of zero results in 1. When she saw I wouldn't just memorize a what she said and accept the given answer on faith alone, I was never bothered to demonstrate my understanding of future material at the chalkboard again. For other teachers, simply answering one question was enough to get them to ignore me for the rest of the period- give your history teacher a well thought-out answer and they'll let you spend the rest of class reading next week's required reading assignment.
The only time I actually got caught was with a high-school literature teacher who taught us to plagiarize (she dictated from a textbook and we were supposed to copy it into our notebooks- Hey kids! Can you say "incompetent and morally bankrupt"?) who noticed I was thinking (God forbid) instead of writing furiously like a good induhvidual. As a punishment and to make up for lost material I had to photocopy a classmate's notebook. Best five bucks I ever spent.
As previously posted- people pay for value. Your games are probably as cheap, stupid and homogeneous as your players (who obviously can't get any either).
Aren't rude unconstructive comments just great?
But seriously now. Given the mention of "sunk costs" (on developing a Facebook app- we're talking BIG venture money there </sarcasm>), advising simply for "your own infrastructure" (while perhaps appropriate to an entrepreneur) is useless to the asker in question.
You've made the assumption that advertisers don't know that Grandma buys the occasional video game for Bobby at Christmas. Don't worry- she'll get those ads too- they will just appear at a frequency appropriate to her visits to Gamestop.
What I wonder is what kind of ads they'll show my MythTv box. I suppose the equivalents of ExtenZe and Internet Millions would by bigger hard drives and air-in-a-can respectively...
And frankly, the whole "military" vs "civilian" thing is fairly specious. If we're worried about abuse of government power, the fact that the NSA is a nominally "civilian" agency doesn't really matter. They can still abuse their power just as well. What difference does it make that their CO is a "Director" rather than a "General"?
Disobeying a corrupt director won't get you hanged. Generals wield far more power and are thus far more dangerous a threat to democracy than civilian chief executives. How common is it for a coup d'état to come from a minister of interior security?
I suspect belief in Snow White is a poor analogy for Dawkins' work, but I'd argue your action was both.
If you are acceptive of common sense (which translates into social acceptance) it would be completely reasonable for you to claim that believing in fictional characters is an act of idiocy.
Looking at the situation from a purely logical perspective, you can't provide proof that the tale isn't based on a true story. Thus your accusation isn't based on anything but your belief to the contrary, which is no good for discounting someone else's belief.
Interesting point. I don't know if "improper chliche" is the best argument to point out the absurdity of this politician's crusade. Short of "Die Hard 3", I can't really think of any instance in which U.S. schools were used as a target (and in that case it was a decoy).
What that movie does teach us is that politicians trying to ram through a bad law can try to exploit this idea due to its powerful appeal to emotion, as we will put aside many concerns to protect our young. I'm a little surprised that the thinkofthechildren tag wasn't used.
And that's why beta's shouldn't be public.
That's one way of looking at it. Another is that Microsoft probably prefers to have its legions of fanboys do it for free rather than doing it internally by hiring 1400 beta-testers.
But seriously- saying you shouldn't beta test software externally doesn't make sense for many types of software where the complexity of testing makes it prohibitive (such as modern Windows deployed on a myriad of hardware and used in many different ways). If you think about open source software, the cost is an obvious benefit to getting users to testing for you, but just as important is the ability to get feedback from real users early enough in the development process to still be fixable. Remember- by the time Microsoft cuts a release candidate, there are only so many man-hours left to allocate to the feedback coming back. Most anything reported at that point has to wait for a service pack.
Based on your genetics, you simply never would have been born.
This is the oft-represented suggestion that something of value is lost in the process of abortion. I also find distasteful how it borders on fear-mongering, a favorite tactic by dictators wishing to suppress the intellectual progress of their controlled populations.
To suggest that the life of AC and their experiences and influence on the world would be destroyed is misleading, since it has the culturally-infiltrated assumption that this lost "stuff" was intended to be by God, fate, or whatever other rationale you decide to use. Unless you make a truly convincing argument for your assumption, you'll not be able to persuade those who have no trouble with a specific method of genetic engineering, abortion, et cetera of your conclusion.
The counterargument is simple: simply make a contradictory assumption. If one believes that each newborn soul is "waiting in line" for the next birth (rather than conception, as some Christians do), AC then would still be born regardless of how many embryos are not-implanted or aborted. And if genetic selection was widespread, he'd be much healthier too. So under this assumption, killing off imperfect embryos is a great thing, up to the point where the cost of performing these procedures becomes detrimental to humanity. There- your turn to prove my assumption wrong.
What I find sad about the never-ending intrusion of the Catholic and now evangelical churches and into science is that they bring assumptions that have little or no scientific merit whatsoever. The "best"* of ideas have only been derived from Jesus' teachings and those are few and far between. More often it's the case that rules were created by inferring various texts, historic political needs, and today in mistranslations (and modern political needs). Don't get me wrong- religion can be a wonderful thing, bettering individuals and communities- I recognize that and don't seek to suppress belief. But the inclusion of biased information into fields dealing with objective, testable observations cannot be forgiven. The fact that the world is round despite the Vatican's best efforts to declare it otherwise, should be sufficient to keep an honest believer from relying on faith when studying science.
* "Best" for my current purpose is something that a Christian can honestly try to claim was intended/said by God, though something I would still probably reject due to the scientific need to doubt God's existence and Jesus' divinity as well as said teachings' applicability in modern society.
More crime as the supply of wives and girlfriends dwindles
If you think that's bad, think about the effect a glut of men in the workforce combined with the surging hourly rates for prostitutes.
I see this as Microsoft trying to raise another generation of PHBs, tech users and admins who know nothing of the tech world beyond Windows.
There. Fixed that for you.
I think what's tripping up this train of thought is the idea of "easy to use". Microsoft Word, for example, fits this category nicely, and even doing the stuff taught in an "Advanced Word" courses is actually easy- at most I have to take a quick look at the manual.
These training courses (or at least each of the four Microsoft software development courses I attended at the beginning of my career) are great for people who need hand-holding. From what I can guess, this means either folks who have trouble comprehending the manual (e.g. a technophobic secretary who can't figure out how to build a table of contents into a document, even though it's trivial once you're aware of Styles and Fields) or those too lazy to locate the information themselves (i.e. find "Table of Contents" in an alphabetically arranged index, turn or click to the indicated page, and read something shorter than this post).
I don't find Microsoft products to be intentionally confusing. Poorly thought-out in many places- yup, sloppily implemented in many others- most certainly, inconsiderate of existing users' needs- for sure. But deliberately hard to use? No- I don't think many companies will stoop so low as that and risk losing sales on their primary revenue generator. The reason is stockholders don't take kindly to that, and Microsoft is driven by its shareholders, not by this despicable false claim of patriotism. I love bashing Microsoft as much as the next Slashdotter, but to be fair- they actually think they're doing right by consumers. Even the criminally heavy-handed business tactics are designed to spread what they believe is best for consumers. Microsoft needs to be committed to the corporate equivalent of an asylum, not prison.
The first thing you and your fellow nutjobs must realize is that in a democracy government is not an evil entity whose entire mission is to screw you over and take your money. When it takes your money, it's because you asked it to.
If you want smaller government and lower taxes, stop voting back the Republicans and Democrats, and keep replacing inefficient/unresponsive/corrupt/all-of-the-above politicians.
If you really want to make a difference, go work for the government. Based on your brilliant comment, it's quite clear that you're obviously superior to anyone there, so our government is sure to improve.
Interesting post- thanks.
You neglected to mention the one and only thing your audience cares about: $$$.
How much will you pay them to watch the content you will if they send it the way you like? If your reply (whether cash, or seconds of ad time, per 30... err... 18 minute show) is far less than they are bilking their subscribers, they won't listen to you. Instead, they will just keep calling you a pirate and waste everyone's money lobbying congress to send you to jail. Yes, it's stupid, but they're oblivious when it comes to modern technology and culture.
In this clip we have three given examples, which are used to suggest, but do not actually constitute a meaningful statistic. There is no sample size- how many interviews were required to obtain this clip? There's no control group- do McCain supporters respond the same way with similar replies? Where these individuals chosen randomly out of the population being studied (black Harlem residents), or were they targeted in some way to make this case? Presented in a different context, these same clips could be used to imply that the entire American population was stupid. Plenty examples of this can be found on YouTube- just search for "stupid americans" (substitute "americans" for members of any other nationality for more examples of such silliness).
The main problem I have with this clip is that it was done with insincere intent- as is often the case with Stern. There's nothing scientific or objective about tricking people into saying something contradictory. Stephen Colbert is a master at getting politicians to do that; but as much as I love watching him cause Republicans to look like idiot this sort of tactic does not invalidate their political ideology. Nor does a lousy argument made by a layman lessen it- I can be an Obama supporter and say the dumbest thing you ever heard; how can you honestly say that reflects badly on Obama? I require an honest debate involving the actual candidate to dismiss their views, and believe Stern's (and the rest of TV&radio pundits') listeners are the uneducated ones to do otherwise.