This is a false dilemma, pretending that I have to choose between helping the indigent and poor or the environment. Frankly, we do our best when we try to do both. If we can stop, alter, or slow global warming and the predictions are all true, then the poorest of Southeast Asia, Africa, and others will be helped because we would have stopped the coming flood waters, the subsequent diseases--including malaria--and the crop failures. Global warming is just a first world problem, but it will affect everyone. The poor in Europe, now suffering AIDS, will instead freeze, the poor in Africa will be beset by hurricanes and floods rather than malaria.
We can do both if we invest the political will and the monetary resources to do so, pretending that there's a chocie between one or the other is simply theater intended to distract us from real and solvable problems.
Re:People are Obese regarless of Income or Geograp
on
Obesity Contagious?
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· Score: 1
Do that for every meal, every day and you'll be healthy, at least until you actually spear the vendor and run away with his cart.
For some people "too much" food might be just enough to nourish them. It's not widely reported, but lots of dieting fat people die and/or suffer severe health problems from malnutrition every year. Still fat, yet starved of required nutrients.
This just shows an inherent problem in our current diet or could also be indicative of a problem with digestion. A good diet must be combined with exercise in order to be effective at all.
The problem is, as CO2 levels rise, interesting things start to happen. The problem is intertia, even if we stop putting CO2, Methane, etc. into the air, the environmental effects will continue. The other problem is there appear to be a series of tipping points wherein drastic, rapid changes can occur that are unpredictable. You're also ignoring the loss of farm lands, the flooding of major cities, the subsequent migrations of large numbers of people, as well as the species die-off.
Furthermore, if we keep doing the same thing, we run into a point where the transition from oil-driven economies to something else will have to be rapid and therefore very expensive. Right now we can R&D the solutions and start making gradual changes, enforced by economics and by governmental action, to adapt sooner.
It won't be the apocalypse, but considering how poorly we were able to react to Katrina, I can't imagine what we'll do with larger scale flooding.
I was watching CNN the other morning and they had a push for Christiane Amanpour, and at the end of the "ad" she says something along the lines of 'I think a journalist's job is to make a difference.' And that sums up what's wrong with the media.
This is an odd comment, the ability of journalism to expose wrongs to the world has been a powerful and influential tool for good. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle helped to completely change the meat-packing industry, he made a difference by being a journalist.
The media can be a clarion call for change by showing parts of the world and even our own backyards we'd never see on our own, and this often creates change. That's a good thing.
I disagree. Democrats will get hammered when they're due and when they do something that is so blantantly obvious the press notices. The Wikipedia thing is too technical, too nuanced for most of the media to cover. The same problem is happening with Abramoff, with the 'liberal' media continuously proclaiming that Democrats also took money from good old Jack, which appears to be untrue. The K Street Project was a Republican system and should be represented as such, but the media in pretending 'fairness' keeps sticking it to Democrats too.
The media isn't biased as a body, it's just stupid.
Most of the data has been collected from around the world, including such cold spots as Alaska, the North Atlantic, and Antartica. Granted we haven't been keeping records long enough, but we can use ice core samples and tree rings to see what the temperatures were and how much carbon was in the air.
Secondly, the 'Earth' as in the big ball of water and mud that spins around the Sun will be fine, what's worrysome is the possibility that our current life--living close to coastlines, building cities in deserts, farming and growing grapes in a climate that is north of Canadian tundra, will change. If the models are correct, we'll be in for a real ride that will make Katrina look like camp. The hard part is understanding where the tipping point lies between our usual climate and a future climate that will rapidly change.
Frankly, there is a benefit to getting rid of CO discharge in cities, studies are showing significant increases in asthma and birth defects that have direct correlations with the smog of major cities. And, we may have reached the peak of oil production. Now is the time to be brave and start working on alternate energy sources rather than bickering over whether the evidence is correct or not. If, in 100 years, after we transitioned to alternate energies and oil becomes a memory and the climate stays the same, we still receive important benefits. If, in 100 years, we didn't make the transition and the climate does change, we're not only going to be building massive dikes for Washington D.C., our kids will still be sick, and we're going to be engaged with China in a massive war for the last remaining oil resources.
Actually, I think the Chinese will transition faster, and we'll be the poor old uncle of the world, suffering from emphasima, choking on smog, and guarding the last Arabian oil wells like drug addict.
Let's just do it, let's lead the world in new technologies, in a sustainable environment, and stop making policy decisions that would have made sense in 1900.
If Jobs didn't exist it would have little to no impact on the unfortunate of our world...if gates never existed it would have an enormous impact. Gates (together with his wife who we can't exclude) are among the world's most effecive philianthropists and will leave a lasting impact on this world.
That is, if we ignore that Gates' fortune came because of Jobs. (Come'on its a good pun, laugh)
But, really this is another version of the usual Apple vs. Microsoft dick-size competition. Jobs is a CEO star because he's running his company well and we don't actually know what his charitable donations are. Gates has done a fantastic thing with his foundation, but the actual impact has yet to be truly felt, and there's the reality that Microsoft's profits came as the result of some very underhanded dealings.
Really, there are much more impressive people on the ground, including Melinda Gates who deserve recognition over these two.
So, wait I can only think this is a problem if it happens to me personally? I need to have my phone tapped, be on the no-fly-list, or be arrested and held in legal limbo for 3 years before I can think and state that it's wrong and grinds against the very values that our Founding Fathers tried to instill?
Man with that kind of moral clarity you can ignore everything around you, so long as it doesn't affect you personally.
But, it is my understanding that the Express 3/4 card will allow you to have multiple ports that have their own dedicated bandwidth, thereby giving you faster data with a simple extra. Granted, the need for a card is annoying, but certaintly not worth abandoning OSX and Apple.
Furthermore, this is only with--we assume--the laptops, while the pro machines may continue to have Firewire 800 for a long time, and the Powermacs (MacMacs?) will always have the expansion necessary to add Firewire 800.
Your missing one vital part of evolution, it happens over a long time with many, many generations. So, a mastadon would just suddenly go wholly and have to find another mastadon covered with fur, rather the slightly larger, hairier mastadons would survive more than smaller, regular mastadons. A proto-horse would be changing along with the rest of its species, your thinking of sudden dramatic change, which would be a mutation and is rare and often dead-ends.
First, you actually read the post, then you posted it. So, no you can't have 20 seconds of your life back. In fact, you owe me a couple of minutes. Pay up.
Well, partially that depends on the fairness or usefulness of the law. Furthermore, good laws are simple, specific, and therefore hard to get around. But, I ask you this, have you paid every instance of tax you've owed? Did you ever speed or 'hollywood' a stop sign?
The 'letter' of the law versus the 'spirit' of the law is a considerable problem in many instances, which is why we have layers of courts and lots and lots of law review.
This is really a problem of defining where copyright ends and fair use begins, and what rights does the consumer have over media they have purchased. The system, I fear, is becoming more and more feudal with copyright holders able to dictate terms so specific they moribound everything around the issue.
Are you honestly comparing the possession of Mp3s to cocaine? I mean ignoring that cocaine can be procribed in special circumstances, when did Mp3s become criminal to own? Your analogy doesn't hold water is the problem.
How is anything an industry standard when only one company sells it? Even Motorola has dropped it from their ROKR phones. Something becomes an industry standard when an entire industry adopts it, and not just because the largest current player in that market uses it.
How about Word documents? It's not a standard per se, but it's ubiquitous enough to matter. We could say the same thing about PDF documents as well. An industry standard can appear when consumers consider that standard to be necessary to the product. The fact that Motorola dropped iTunes from their ROKR is interesting and does lend to the point that Protected AACs files have yet to become such a necessity, however this could also indicate an uncomfortable relationship between Apple and Moto. Apple may be readying a better product, or they may feel that the ROKR and similar products are still so nascent a market they can successfully ignore it.
Even the claim in this article that MS should make their own MP3 player is bogus. By definition an MP3 player doesn't user FairPlay. It plays MP3 files. A FairPlay player uses FairPlay.
The iPod is therefore, by your definition, an AAC, Protected AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, Audible, Apple Lossless, WAV, AIFF, JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, PSD, PNG, H.264 video, MPEG-4 video player. Now, personally I think that's unwieldy, but I would agree that MP3-player doesn't explain the iPod adequately anymore. Suggestions?
It is true, if the only tool you have is a hammer, all your problems look like nails. You must have just the hammer since you assume that a Mac cannot be the best solution for a user. For some users Windows is perfect, it runs the software they need, but it requires a lot of care and feeding. You know it, I know it, and Bill Gates knows it. But, for other users Windows isn't necessary and therefore having to run AVG, Zone Alarm, Adware, worrying about the Sony Rootkit, etc. is far too much trouble. Furthermore, for some, Windows is worthless and the Mac offers significantly better tools.
I'm sure the previous poster feels good when he switches users and they're happier, instead of being forced to stay with a platform that is becoming more and more difficult to care for.
If you really want to serve users fix their problems, offer solutions to future problems, and put away ideological constructs.
It's also to enable 'pro' users currently produced Powerbooks because not all software has been moved to universal binaries, and a lot of pro-stuff won't run fast enough using Rosetta for these users. The PPC machines will be around for a while, just as OS9 machines were available.
I guess I think of sigs as a persistent thought, so if yours is always incendiary, then maybe your posts are the same way. I read your available history and I didn't see anything real obnoxious, so your sig seems out of place, but I was allowing for the possibility that you've been immature and were modded correctly. I also take into account that mod-bombing is inherently unfair and goes against how the system should work.
Oooooh. You're calling me "Anti-semitic". Shall I shrivel up and die now? Anybody who tries to talk objectively about Israel gets whacked with the emotionally charged "Anti-Semite" line, regardless of their actual alignment. I have nothing against the Jews. But I DO take issue with the Israeli government and the Zionist agenda, which are both patently anti-Jew, (and anti-human) as far as I can see.
You can criticize Israel all you want, my objection was for the sentence: "Either Spielberg was instructed to make his recent directorial choices, or he was showing just what a good and valuable little propagandist he can be, so please remember that when it comes time to ship off all the Jews to the new camps..." which seems to indicate either a Jewish cable, or upon rereading, a new kind of facsism. And the sentence, "Spielberg, by contrast, is just looking out for his Jewish rear-end." Both of these smack of anti-semitism.
Furthermore, your reading of "Saving Private Ryan" is mistaken. SPR was a fictional story based on a real event, it showed the horror of war, the abuse of human beings on both sides--US soldiers hit a bunker with a flamethrower and an officer orders the men to let the Nazis burn rather than simply shooting them. It humanized soldiers, but it also showed their callousness and brutality.
"Catch Me If you Can" shows the state as bumbling, but ultimately triumphant, but that's what really happened! The kid was actually caught and he did work for the FBI! Should they have spun the movie by ending the story in the middle, as the kid walks away surrounded by stewardesses? I guess, but doesn't that alter a real story to be used as a kind of anti-propaganda?
I also think you're wrong about "Terminal" which showed the incredible absurdity of the situation, the incredible inability for Tucci's character to do something right or smart or anything beyond the rules and the false constraints of his position. The movie played Tucci--a government beuracract--as a fool. However, it was even smarter, because rather than play Tucci's character as a villian, it made him human and vulnerable and allowed him to be stupid within the character. The main character got what he wanted and more because his humanity outlasted the state's confusion.
Say what you want about Speilberg, but I think your reading of films is too tied to your need to see cardboard characters to fulfill your beliefs about events and reality.
How many negative mods does it take to get one banned? It seems like a lot, and with that in mind, I would suggest that maybe your posts have been more inflammatory than insightful, more trollish than interesting. You might have been mod-bombed into oblivion, but I wonder just how many times you incited the ire you received. Your sig seems indicative of a crude way of expressing yourself at best.
As for Apple, IMHO it's become best to either be a hater or a zealot and it's being a moderate that gets one into trouble. The BSOD joke is lame, like the Russian joke, the profit joke, but contains more truth than the oftly repeated "Gore invented the internet" meme. Slashdot, you will realize, is dumb. The collective IQ, as evidenced by comments and moderation, shows a clear case for the stupidity of the average.
In this point especially, I think history dramatically disagrees with you.
Furthermore, I think you ignore the possibility that environmental degregation could become the main cause for war as dwindling resources are desparetely fought for. In the worst possible senario this could led to the exhange of nuclear weapons, say between India and Pakistan for water rights, or over oil between Russia and China. The combination of fouled air, warfare, and failing crops could cause mass migrations which would increase pressure on first world countries in such a way that the primary infastructure could fail--Katrina was a good test of showing how fast a situation can come apart even in a first world country.
A Mad Max situation may not happen, but we should be very considerate of how resources affect local and global populations.
So, scientists want grant money, I fail to see the problem in *looking* at such a system and exploring whether it *can* be an alternative, this is how we get new stuff. How long have people been working on AI? Or quantum computing? How many times has the missing link almost been found? You can't just dismiss something out of hand because previous attempts have failed.
One of these days one of these projects is going to bear fruit and you'll get to be one of the naysayers muttering to yourself: "I told them it wouldn't work."
I'm deeply confused by your statement "Bush fights terrorism by all means available to him, and he's taking away our civil liberties, even though previous administrations did the same thing." You seem to be indicating that since Clinton's administration--I'm making an assumption--may have acted poorly that Bush's administration is allowed to do the same thing? So, is Bush allowed to have an affair and get a blow job in the Oval Office because the other guy did it? I mean that seems to set up a dangerous precedent. If Bush can have a US citizen kept in custody for 4 years, will a Democratic president be able to do it for 8 or 10 years? Could the next guy just have him hanged, since he doesn't have any rights as a US citizen?
Secondly, you state that "most Americans understand that if they have no affiliation with terrorist groups, they have nothing to worry about." That's quite the statement of freedom, I mean if it doesn't affect me personally, I don't care. That's really quite brave of you.
Third, you state "[Bush] in office for less than a year when 9/11 happens, and he's to blame for it, even though previous administrations did nothing about Bin Laden for 8 years." Well, we can ignore that Reagan and Bush I had supported Bin Laden with money and material--including Stinger missiles to shoot down the Russian helicopter gunships that were decimating the mujahideen--and focus on Clinton's inability to get Bin Laden, although he did actually order a launch of cruise missiles. Realizing that Bin Laden was a rising threat, the Clinton administration gave specific information about Bin Laden, and a report released in August stated that Bin Laden wanted to use passenger aircraft to attack targets in Washington D.C. and New York. The Bush administration ignored the previous administration's warnings and we suffered an attack. However, Bush stated that this was a complete and utter surprise that no one had thought of. This was truly a lie.
Reagan, Bush, and Clinton failed us with regard to Bin Laden, and Bush continues this fine tradition. Republicans should be so proud that their guy is just as corrupt and asinine as anyone else. I salute you sir, for not only ignoring the illegal acts of 'your' guy, but to toss it away as mere piffle because someone did it before. A fine moral stance.
Slashdot Mirror
We can do both if we invest the political will and the monetary resources to do so, pretending that there's a chocie between one or the other is simply theater intended to distract us from real and solvable problems.
Do that for every meal, every day and you'll be healthy, at least until you actually spear the vendor and run away with his cart.
This just shows an inherent problem in our current diet or could also be indicative of a problem with digestion. A good diet must be combined with exercise in order to be effective at all.
Furthermore, if we keep doing the same thing, we run into a point where the transition from oil-driven economies to something else will have to be rapid and therefore very expensive. Right now we can R&D the solutions and start making gradual changes, enforced by economics and by governmental action, to adapt sooner.
It won't be the apocalypse, but considering how poorly we were able to react to Katrina, I can't imagine what we'll do with larger scale flooding.
This is an odd comment, the ability of journalism to expose wrongs to the world has been a powerful and influential tool for good. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle helped to completely change the meat-packing industry, he made a difference by being a journalist.
The media can be a clarion call for change by showing parts of the world and even our own backyards we'd never see on our own, and this often creates change. That's a good thing.
The media isn't biased as a body, it's just stupid.
Secondly, the 'Earth' as in the big ball of water and mud that spins around the Sun will be fine, what's worrysome is the possibility that our current life--living close to coastlines, building cities in deserts, farming and growing grapes in a climate that is north of Canadian tundra, will change. If the models are correct, we'll be in for a real ride that will make Katrina look like camp. The hard part is understanding where the tipping point lies between our usual climate and a future climate that will rapidly change.
Frankly, there is a benefit to getting rid of CO discharge in cities, studies are showing significant increases in asthma and birth defects that have direct correlations with the smog of major cities. And, we may have reached the peak of oil production. Now is the time to be brave and start working on alternate energy sources rather than bickering over whether the evidence is correct or not. If, in 100 years, after we transitioned to alternate energies and oil becomes a memory and the climate stays the same, we still receive important benefits. If, in 100 years, we didn't make the transition and the climate does change, we're not only going to be building massive dikes for Washington D.C., our kids will still be sick, and we're going to be engaged with China in a massive war for the last remaining oil resources.
Actually, I think the Chinese will transition faster, and we'll be the poor old uncle of the world, suffering from emphasima, choking on smog, and guarding the last Arabian oil wells like drug addict.
Let's just do it, let's lead the world in new technologies, in a sustainable environment, and stop making policy decisions that would have made sense in 1900.
That is, if we ignore that Gates' fortune came because of Jobs. (Come'on its a good pun, laugh)
But, really this is another version of the usual Apple vs. Microsoft dick-size competition. Jobs is a CEO star because he's running his company well and we don't actually know what his charitable donations are. Gates has done a fantastic thing with his foundation, but the actual impact has yet to be truly felt, and there's the reality that Microsoft's profits came as the result of some very underhanded dealings.
Really, there are much more impressive people on the ground, including Melinda Gates who deserve recognition over these two.
Ah yes, a fine political observation...
for a fucking ostrich!
It's all well and good for you to give up your civil rights, but please stop giving away mine.
Man with that kind of moral clarity you can ignore everything around you, so long as it doesn't affect you personally.
Furthermore, this is only with--we assume--the laptops, while the pro machines may continue to have Firewire 800 for a long time, and the Powermacs (MacMacs?) will always have the expansion necessary to add Firewire 800.
Your missing one vital part of evolution, it happens over a long time with many, many generations. So, a mastadon would just suddenly go wholly and have to find another mastadon covered with fur, rather the slightly larger, hairier mastadons would survive more than smaller, regular mastadons. A proto-horse would be changing along with the rest of its species, your thinking of sudden dramatic change, which would be a mutation and is rare and often dead-ends.
First, you actually read the post, then you posted it. So, no you can't have 20 seconds of your life back. In fact, you owe me a couple of minutes. Pay up.
The 'letter' of the law versus the 'spirit' of the law is a considerable problem in many instances, which is why we have layers of courts and lots and lots of law review.
This is really a problem of defining where copyright ends and fair use begins, and what rights does the consumer have over media they have purchased. The system, I fear, is becoming more and more feudal with copyright holders able to dictate terms so specific they moribound everything around the issue.
Are you honestly comparing the possession of Mp3s to cocaine? I mean ignoring that cocaine can be procribed in special circumstances, when did Mp3s become criminal to own? Your analogy doesn't hold water is the problem.
How about Word documents? It's not a standard per se, but it's ubiquitous enough to matter. We could say the same thing about PDF documents as well. An industry standard can appear when consumers consider that standard to be necessary to the product. The fact that Motorola dropped iTunes from their ROKR is interesting and does lend to the point that Protected AACs files have yet to become such a necessity, however this could also indicate an uncomfortable relationship between Apple and Moto. Apple may be readying a better product, or they may feel that the ROKR and similar products are still so nascent a market they can successfully ignore it.
Even the claim in this article that MS should make their own MP3 player is bogus. By definition an MP3 player doesn't user FairPlay. It plays MP3 files. A FairPlay player uses FairPlay.
The iPod is therefore, by your definition, an AAC, Protected AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, Audible, Apple Lossless, WAV, AIFF, JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, PSD, PNG, H.264 video, MPEG-4 video player. Now, personally I think that's unwieldy, but I would agree that MP3-player doesn't explain the iPod adequately anymore. Suggestions?
I'm sure the previous poster feels good when he switches users and they're happier, instead of being forced to stay with a platform that is becoming more and more difficult to care for.
If you really want to serve users fix their problems, offer solutions to future problems, and put away ideological constructs.
It's also to enable 'pro' users currently produced Powerbooks because not all software has been moved to universal binaries, and a lot of pro-stuff won't run fast enough using Rosetta for these users. The PPC machines will be around for a while, just as OS9 machines were available.
I guess I think of sigs as a persistent thought, so if yours is always incendiary, then maybe your posts are the same way. I read your available history and I didn't see anything real obnoxious, so your sig seems out of place, but I was allowing for the possibility that you've been immature and were modded correctly. I also take into account that mod-bombing is inherently unfair and goes against how the system should work.
You can criticize Israel all you want, my objection was for the sentence: "Either Spielberg was instructed to make his recent directorial choices, or he was showing just what a good and valuable little propagandist he can be, so please remember that when it comes time to ship off all the Jews to the new camps..." which seems to indicate either a Jewish cable, or upon rereading, a new kind of facsism. And the sentence, "Spielberg, by contrast, is just looking out for his Jewish rear-end." Both of these smack of anti-semitism.
Furthermore, your reading of "Saving Private Ryan" is mistaken. SPR was a fictional story based on a real event, it showed the horror of war, the abuse of human beings on both sides--US soldiers hit a bunker with a flamethrower and an officer orders the men to let the Nazis burn rather than simply shooting them. It humanized soldiers, but it also showed their callousness and brutality.
"Catch Me If you Can" shows the state as bumbling, but ultimately triumphant, but that's what really happened! The kid was actually caught and he did work for the FBI! Should they have spun the movie by ending the story in the middle, as the kid walks away surrounded by stewardesses? I guess, but doesn't that alter a real story to be used as a kind of anti-propaganda?
I also think you're wrong about "Terminal" which showed the incredible absurdity of the situation, the incredible inability for Tucci's character to do something right or smart or anything beyond the rules and the false constraints of his position. The movie played Tucci--a government beuracract--as a fool. However, it was even smarter, because rather than play Tucci's character as a villian, it made him human and vulnerable and allowed him to be stupid within the character. The main character got what he wanted and more because his humanity outlasted the state's confusion.
Say what you want about Speilberg, but I think your reading of films is too tied to your need to see cardboard characters to fulfill your beliefs about events and reality.
As for Apple, IMHO it's become best to either be a hater or a zealot and it's being a moderate that gets one into trouble. The BSOD joke is lame, like the Russian joke, the profit joke, but contains more truth than the oftly repeated "Gore invented the internet" meme. Slashdot, you will realize, is dumb. The collective IQ, as evidenced by comments and moderation, shows a clear case for the stupidity of the average.
Try not to take it too personally.
In this point especially, I think history dramatically disagrees with you.
Furthermore, I think you ignore the possibility that environmental degregation could become the main cause for war as dwindling resources are desparetely fought for. In the worst possible senario this could led to the exhange of nuclear weapons, say between India and Pakistan for water rights, or over oil between Russia and China. The combination of fouled air, warfare, and failing crops could cause mass migrations which would increase pressure on first world countries in such a way that the primary infastructure could fail--Katrina was a good test of showing how fast a situation can come apart even in a first world country.
A Mad Max situation may not happen, but we should be very considerate of how resources affect local and global populations.
Paris Hilton? WTF?
One of these days one of these projects is going to bear fruit and you'll get to be one of the naysayers muttering to yourself: "I told them it wouldn't work."
Stop being so damned judgemental.
Secondly, you state that "most Americans understand that if they have no affiliation with terrorist groups, they have nothing to worry about." That's quite the statement of freedom, I mean if it doesn't affect me personally, I don't care. That's really quite brave of you.
Third, you state "[Bush] in office for less than a year when 9/11 happens, and he's to blame for it, even though previous administrations did nothing about Bin Laden for 8 years." Well, we can ignore that Reagan and Bush I had supported Bin Laden with money and material--including Stinger missiles to shoot down the Russian helicopter gunships that were decimating the mujahideen--and focus on Clinton's inability to get Bin Laden, although he did actually order a launch of cruise missiles. Realizing that Bin Laden was a rising threat, the Clinton administration gave specific information about Bin Laden, and a report released in August stated that Bin Laden wanted to use passenger aircraft to attack targets in Washington D.C. and New York. The Bush administration ignored the previous administration's warnings and we suffered an attack. However, Bush stated that this was a complete and utter surprise that no one had thought of. This was truly a lie.
Reagan, Bush, and Clinton failed us with regard to Bin Laden, and Bush continues this fine tradition. Republicans should be so proud that their guy is just as corrupt and asinine as anyone else. I salute you sir, for not only ignoring the illegal acts of 'your' guy, but to toss it away as mere piffle because someone did it before. A fine moral stance.