Only someone who knows nothing about our legal tradition, as well as a childish world view would think that something not having a law against it means that it's a good thing to do, that it's condoned by anyone.
Someone disagrees with your bizarre, puritan view of the world? Should we perhaps mandate that all alcohol drunk should be distilled in homemade stills so that everyone that wants to drink ethanol also has to drink methanol as well?
It's not about whether meth users burn themselves out is whether as a society we want to put resources into MAKING them burn out. Remember, it costs resources to enforce drug laws. It requires no resources to not have a law. It's YOU who should be defending your position, not him.
That's a nice theory but it doesn't correspond to the reality of the American Drug War. Also, since acetaminophen and aspirin are so toxic it would make sense to give out mild opiates at first and then add in a NSAID if needed, not vice versa. That is unless the government wasn't irrational scared that someone, somewhere might be having a good time.
Of course YOU don't think drug legalization is the answer. A doctor's(I'm assuming you're one, or you're some nurse with delusions of grandeur) livelihood's are based on them being the only people in society which can legally sell certain types of drugs(in conjunction with pharmacists and drug companys.) All most doctors do these days is look at what the most superficial symptoms a patient has in about 10 minutes then write a prescription. Something that could just as easily be done by a lay person for much less cost. Like for example: I KNOW I have GERD, I KNOW if I go into a doctor I can get a prescription for a very effective acid blocker, so why do I have to go back every 2 months and pay him $100 so I can get a prescription refill? I can't afford that and it's just plain inefficient. Since I, like 1/3 of all americans, don't have health insurance I'm going to keep taking over-the-counter medicines at high doses since I can't afford the surgery to(temporarily) repair my hiatal hernia. I'm an intelligent, mature, responsible adult. Why do you doctors have to treat me like I'm some little kid who's going to eat his whole bag of M&Ms if they aren't doled out to me one at a time?
And before you say it, no, just because you're a doctor doesn't mean you actually care about helping people. If doctors as a whole cared about helping people then they would as a whole be trying to transform the medical system so that all people can get health care. You're nothing but a bunch of greedy SOBs who would enjoy seeing someone go to prison with the high potential for physical and sexual abuse, have their life destroyed, just because that person *dared* to try to get access to your magic(prescription drugs.) "Do no harm" my ass.
If drugs were legalized then people wouldn't be coming into "your" ER to get drugs which they "aren't" supposed to have. But the most important reason, the only REAL reason, that all drugs should be legal and unregulated is that this is America and we have something(existing right now only as an ideal) called individual rights as codified in the Declaration of Independence, the bill of rights and the US constitution. Why is it that doctors are so smart that they can get through medical school yet they can't even absorb one of the simplest lessons from 3rd grade civics?
The guy got busted because he was selling drugs to people that were not "authorized" to get them, not because he was spamming. Spam may be annoying, but what exactly is wrong with providing people with a product(drugs) that they want?
This is only "universally" seen as a good thing to people who are so brain washed by the government that they don't think they are responsible enough to determine what goes into their own bodies.
If voluntary associations had so much to do with the creation of the Nation then why did it fight a brutal and bloody civil war 70 years later to enforce an INvoluntary association? (the union)
Here are all the different "official" standards documents of English that have been listed in all these responses:
Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary the dictionary(any of them?) Elements of style (Strunk & White) Chicago Manual of Style Oxford English Dictionary Little Brown Book M. Swan: Practical English Usage The Oxford English Grammar The Webster's New World English Grammar Handbook any book found when searching for "english grammar" on amazon.com The AP Stylebook The Practical Stylist The Complete Stylist
How can they all be official?
"If you have a sticky bit of usage to untangle, having multiple points of reference often lets you make the best informed decision."
If figuring out usage is such a complicated, non-deterministic affair then there is no standard.
Anyone that says that 99% of people are idiots isn't that smart themselves. The "intelligence" of a member of a species is defined in relation to the other members. Inorder to make the judgement that nearly all humans are idiots you'd have to be comparing them with a more intelligent species. Most people are of AVERAGE intelligence, or at least fall close to that. As far as we know, in the ways that we can measure, human intelligence distribution follows the normal distribution--the bell curve. You could say that the 99% of the people that are less intelligent than the smartest 1% are idiots but then how useful would that be? Is there a meaningful separation in terms of accomplishments and intellect between the 99 and the 1 or was "99%" just chosen because it sounds good? I don't doubt that there are some smart people out there that for reasons of pride like to look down on people that are less able in the particular way s that they are able, HOWEVER the most intelligent people recognize the value and worth of a great range of people.
Also, if it's true that modern life dumbs people down, then wouldn't this be the fault of the 1% innovators and thinkers since they're the ones who are in control of everything?
"The solution to common errors should not be to dumb down the language but to educate the people. Of course it requires money (and willingness to risk having better educated constituents) from the government, a lot of patience and hard work from the teachers and, sadly, effort and an interest in being educated from the students."
Is our language a better language because it's more complicated than other languages? How exactly does having all these words which are spelled using different, contradictory rules make english better? Shouldn't the purpose of language be efficient communication?
You really don't know that much about language. Written language is a new invention and there is no requirement that a human be able to write like there is a requirement that a human be able to talk. There is no written language part of the mind as there is a a spoken language part. These "mistakes" in writing are either someone writing like they would talk or simply errors in transcription. None of these things is an indication of low intelligence.
I do question the intelligence of people who place so much focus on writing in a language that is different from the vernacular. What exactly is the purpose of your writing? Are you writing in order to communicate or are you writing to show off? Should people that haven't spent years and years perfecting their arbitrary spelling and grammar not be allowed to communicate on the same level as those who did even when the communication is clear? Should the bible never have been translated into english? Maybe we should use tens of thousands of pictograms to represent our written ideas so no unauthorized writers, i.e. not having completed 15+ years of formal school, will write anything?
Also, the OED is not the official dictionary of English. Why should Americans care what someone in oxford thinks is right or wrong? English is spoken all over the planet and your attempts to centralize and standardize it just show a very parochial and unintellectual way of thinking.
You seem to think that you are more grammatical than other people. No one is more grammatical than anyone else. All languages have consistent grammars. You're just complaining about people not spelling or speaking like you do.
This bullshit hyper focus on the one true grammar and the one true spelling is a new thing. Look at writing from the 18th and 19th century.
Your ability to form perfect "english" sentences doesn't make you smarter or better than anyone else, it's only a way for uppity middle class and upper class people to look down on other people. Get off your high horse.
"Research needs funding. If the military wasn't funding autonomous sensors, who else would?
And what does having military funding for some projects have to do with the "atrophy" of other non military projects?"
Hmmmm...maybe because if we didn't spend half our federal budget on the military we'd have money for other things? There are plenty of people that want to do other things, beautiful, fun, happy things they just don't have the guns to make you and I pay for it.
Yes, humans can be brutal, selfish and ugly and the US military proves that. Is that a good reason to fund them? I find it odd that your argument(which I think we've all heard countless times) is used as a justification for giving MORE power, MORE money, MORE leeway to the most violent and militaristic among us. What makes you trust our generals and technocrats so much? Aren't they human too? Despite my humanity I don't spend all my time trying to come up with better ways to kill my fellow humans, I would hope that you and the rest of the readers don't either. So why are we so willing to allow greater centralization of power into the hands of certain people who you according to you aren't trustworthy? Why not spend our money(it is our money isn't it?) to develop defense technologies which allow for decentralized defense of our country by it's own citizens? We should do this while still retain the pretense of having a government of, by, for the people. I don't think Mexico or Canada will attack us while we rework our defenses.
There's no point to this. If he invented a piece of software that decided on it's own that it wanted to write poetry then THAT would be something worth patenting.
Slashdot Mirror
There's another critique of mainframes which is that their only used by giant mega corporations which some people think are bad.
You're a corporate whore, stfu.
Only someone who knows nothing about our legal tradition, as well as a childish world view would think that something not having a law against it means that it's a good thing to do, that it's condoned by anyone.
Someone disagrees with your bizarre, puritan view of the world? Should we perhaps mandate that all alcohol drunk should be distilled in homemade stills so that everyone that wants to drink ethanol also has to drink methanol as well?
It's not about whether meth users burn themselves out is whether as a society we want to put resources into MAKING them burn out. Remember, it costs resources to enforce drug laws. It requires no resources to not have a law. It's YOU who should be defending your position, not him.
That's a nice theory but it doesn't correspond to the reality of the American Drug War. Also, since acetaminophen and aspirin are so toxic it would make sense to give out mild opiates at first and then add in a NSAID if needed, not vice versa. That is unless the government wasn't irrational scared that someone, somewhere might be having a good time.
Reality is your friend.
Of course YOU don't think drug legalization is the answer. A doctor's(I'm assuming you're one, or you're some nurse with delusions of grandeur) livelihood's are based on them being the only people in society which can legally sell certain types of drugs(in conjunction with pharmacists and drug companys.) All most doctors do these days is look at what the most superficial symptoms a patient has in about 10 minutes then write a prescription. Something that could just as easily be done by a lay person for much less cost. Like for example: I KNOW I have GERD, I KNOW if I go into a doctor I can get a prescription for a very effective acid blocker, so why do I have to go back every 2 months and pay him $100 so I can get a prescription refill? I can't afford that and it's just plain inefficient. Since I, like 1/3 of all americans, don't have health insurance I'm going to keep taking over-the-counter medicines at high doses since I can't afford the surgery to(temporarily) repair my hiatal hernia. I'm an intelligent, mature, responsible adult. Why do you doctors have to treat me like I'm some little kid who's going to eat his whole bag of M&Ms if they aren't doled out to me one at a time?
And before you say it, no, just because you're a doctor doesn't mean you actually care about helping people. If doctors as a whole cared about helping people then they would as a whole be trying to transform the medical system so that all people can get health care. You're nothing but a bunch of greedy SOBs who would enjoy seeing someone go to prison with the high potential for physical and sexual abuse, have their life destroyed, just because that person *dared* to try to get access to your magic(prescription drugs.) "Do no harm" my ass.
If drugs were legalized then people wouldn't be coming into "your" ER to get drugs which they "aren't" supposed to have. But the most important reason, the only REAL reason, that all drugs should be legal and unregulated is that this is America and we have something(existing right now only as an ideal) called individual rights as codified in the Declaration of Independence, the bill of rights and the US constitution. Why is it that doctors are so smart that they can get through medical school yet they can't even absorb one of the simplest lessons from 3rd grade civics?
Right on! Why is it that un-american fascists like the guy you responded to get modded up so much?
Opiates are used by people as analgesics as well. Not everyone who doesn't go through the big brother-approved prescription system is a junkie.
The guy got busted because he was selling drugs to people that were not "authorized" to get them, not because he was spamming. Spam may be annoying, but what exactly is wrong with providing people with a product(drugs) that they want?
This is only "universally" seen as a good thing to people who are so brain washed by the government that they don't think they are responsible enough to determine what goes into their own bodies.
If voluntary associations had so much to do with the creation of the Nation then why did it fight a brutal and bloody civil war 70 years later to enforce an INvoluntary association? (the union)
Actually, the FCC uses the US marshals when it needs some "muscle."
Here are all the different "official" standards documents of English that have been listed in all these responses:
Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary
the dictionary(any of them?)
Elements of style (Strunk & White)
Chicago Manual of Style
Oxford English Dictionary
Little Brown Book
M. Swan: Practical English Usage
The Oxford English Grammar
The Webster's New World English Grammar Handbook
any book found when searching for "english grammar" on amazon.com
The AP Stylebook
The Practical Stylist
The Complete Stylist
How can they all be official?
"If you have a sticky bit of usage to untangle, having multiple points of reference often lets you make the best informed decision."
If figuring out usage is such a complicated, non-deterministic affair then there is no standard.
Anyone that says that 99% of people are idiots isn't that smart themselves. The "intelligence" of a member of a species is defined in relation to the other members. Inorder to make the judgement that nearly all humans are idiots you'd have to be comparing them with a more intelligent species. Most people are of AVERAGE intelligence, or at least fall close to that. As far as we know, in the ways that we can measure, human intelligence distribution follows the normal distribution--the bell curve. You could say that the 99% of the people that are less intelligent than the smartest 1% are idiots but then how useful would that be? Is there a meaningful separation in terms of accomplishments and intellect between the 99 and the 1 or was "99%" just chosen because it sounds good? I don't doubt that there are some smart people out there that for reasons of pride like to look down on people that are less able in the particular way s that they are able, HOWEVER the most intelligent people recognize the value and worth of a great range of people.
Also, if it's true that modern life dumbs people down, then wouldn't this be the fault of the 1% innovators and thinkers since they're the ones who are in control of everything?
We're too busy economically, culturally, and militarily dominating your country in order to bother learning "a little grammar", you stupid wetback.
"The solution to common errors should not be to dumb down the language but to educate the people. Of course it requires money (and willingness to risk having better educated constituents) from the government, a lot of patience and hard work from the teachers and, sadly, effort and an interest in being educated from the students."
Is our language a better language because it's more complicated than other languages? How exactly does having all these words which are spelled using different, contradictory rules make english better? Shouldn't the purpose of language be efficient communication?
You really don't know that much about language. Written language is a new invention and there is no requirement that a human be able to write like there is a requirement that a human be able to talk. There is no written language part of the mind as there is a a spoken language part. These "mistakes" in writing are either someone writing like they would talk or simply errors in transcription. None of these things is an indication of low intelligence.
I do question the intelligence of people who place so much focus on writing in a language that is different from the vernacular. What exactly is the purpose of your writing? Are you writing in order to communicate or are you writing to show off? Should people that haven't spent years and years perfecting their arbitrary spelling and grammar not be allowed to communicate on the same level as those who did even when the communication is clear? Should the bible never have been translated into english? Maybe we should use tens of thousands of pictograms to represent our written ideas so no unauthorized writers, i.e. not having completed 15+ years of formal school, will write anything?
Also, the OED is not the official dictionary of English. Why should Americans care what someone in oxford thinks is right or wrong? English is spoken all over the planet and your attempts to centralize and standardize it just show a very parochial and unintellectual way of thinking.
You seem to think that you are more grammatical than other people. No one is more grammatical than anyone else. All languages have consistent grammars. You're just complaining about people not spelling or speaking like you do.
This bullshit hyper focus on the one true grammar and the one true spelling is a new thing. Look at writing from the 18th and 19th century.
Your ability to form perfect "english" sentences doesn't make you smarter or better than anyone else, it's only a way for uppity middle class and upper class people to look down on other people. Get off your high horse.
wow, people in cincinatti sound retarded.
Isn't there a value in meeting new people that you can trust? That's what it's all about: establishing trust with minimal overhead.
Why don't you try some old fashioned parenting instead of looking for quick fixes?
"Research needs funding.
If the military wasn't funding autonomous sensors, who else would?
And what does having military funding for some projects have to do with the "atrophy" of other non military projects?"
Hmmmm...maybe because if we didn't spend half our federal budget on the military we'd have money for other things? There are plenty of people that want to do other things, beautiful, fun, happy things they just don't have the guns to make you and I pay for it.
Yes, humans can be brutal, selfish and ugly and the US military proves that. Is that a good reason to fund them? I find it odd that your argument(which I think we've all heard countless times) is used as a justification for giving MORE power, MORE money, MORE leeway to the most violent and militaristic among us. What makes you trust our generals and technocrats so much? Aren't they human too? Despite my humanity I don't spend all my time trying to come up with better ways to kill my fellow humans, I would hope that you and the rest of the readers don't either. So why are we so willing to allow greater centralization of power into the hands of certain people who you according to you aren't trustworthy? Why not spend our money(it is our money isn't it?) to develop defense technologies which allow for decentralized defense of our country by it's own citizens? We should do this while still retain the pretense of having a government of, by, for the people. I don't think Mexico or Canada will attack us while we rework our defenses.
Come on! The best hangover cure is BONG HITS.
There's no point to this. If he invented a piece of software that decided on it's own that it wanted to write poetry then THAT would be something worth patenting.
One word: COINTELPRO
No they don't.