First off "Terminal" showed the state, as Stanley Tucci's character, as a bumbling neurotic autocrat who could be defeated by someone who didn't know what was going on most of the time. "Catch Me if You Can" was based on a true story, and "Minority Report" showed the corruption inherent in state powers and in the police. While "Saving Private Ryan" ended with a sentinmental shot, the movie also showed, quite explicitly, the horror of war and the absolute atrocities committed by both sides.
Frankly, your post smacks of anti-semitism at worst and poor reading of films at best.
Metaphysics are usually concerned with being, so I think it works in my critique, but magic is also perfectly acceptable phrasing.
As for the Colbert Report, that show rules. That was from his first monologue I believe and I laughed the next day several times at random remembering 'truthiness."
Have you watched "Good Night and Good Luck?" If you haven't do so, you'll be blown away by some of the things Murrow said about the news and how it interacted with public life. The Media, in pretending that there are two equal sides to every issue, in pretending that equal time is equal, in pretending that entertainment and the ongoings of celebrity requires our intention, have put this democracy in mortal danger.
The real proponents of ID never believed that if scientists could figure out how bees fly then their theory was bunk. Maybe your school teacher said that, but in my (public) school we still had textbooks that mentioned the theory of recapitulation as fact, so I wouldn't take your teacher as a reliable proponent of ID.
I've never heard the 'mysterious bee-flight' as an argument of ID, but I can see how this could work within the argument. ID isn't a good theory, in part because it tries to do two things at once. First, it acts as a critique of evolution, which could be useful. But, ID typically goes further and tries to extrapolate a 'designer' who exists in the gaps of evolutionary theory. ID proponents could use bee-flight as a problem in evolution and if proven wrong would simply move to a new evolutionary problem.
What makes science useful is its testability, its reliance on observation, it's reliance on duplication of evidence. It's a good system that is flawed because, like everything else, it's a human system. But, we have advanced so far with it, we have made so many new discoveries that it has proven useful, far more so than 'faith-based' prayer to various divine orders.
ID is not religion, at least not in the same sense as say Scientology or Voodoo. So, you're last comment is a non sequitur.
And don't worry, Microsoft will be getting another flaming bag of doo just as soon as they do something else stupid, which like the current Republican party should be in the next 30 seconds or so. The Democratic party will of course fall flat on its face in a rush to do something even stupider than the Republicans.
I haven't heard this particular bon mot from ID proponents, but many in the ID community like to suppose that because we don't know something it is evidence that an Intelligent Designer exists. They often reference irreducible complexity or the lack of transitional species, but the mystery of bee-flight could easily become an ID tenant and fits well within their philosophy.
The fact remains, there's no proof or evidence of a designer, and ID is at best a collection of evolutionary theory problems duct-taped together by metaphysics.
The parent post is flamebait, because any post mentioning the one-button mouse on Apple's machines is usually flamebait. But, I'll also say that the touch-pad can be activated as a second button, negating the whole problem. Really, on a laptop, hitting cntrl and the mouse-button is very easy to boot.
Honestly, half of the population doesn't care about anything. Predicating the importance of any idea based on the slack-jawed nature of the average US citizen keeps us back. Tell them dihydride oxygen is horribly dangerous and kills hundreds every year and they'll demand its ban, tell them DRM is wonderful and they'll comply.
What I said was poorly worded, and I apologize, my point still stands, most people cannot sing or play an instrument, code, write, make movies, or take exceptional photographs. Only the rarest of the species can do more than an handful of these things. But, that also misses the point of culture, which is to enjoy the works of others. While you may be Mozart, you won't also be Shakespeare, and even if you're Newton you can't be another famous Newton. Can you?
If you don't already have it, you should get a subscription to .
The 'public good' is the belief that we are a community and that by pooling assets, ideas, and culture we make ourselves better. You apparently subscribe to the 'every man for himself' which ignores that every bit of technology came from many people working over time for a specific goal. You ignore that your food, medicine, technology, all come from a public source. The idea is that we are all a very large community working towards similar goals through cooperation and competition.
I'd agree with you that x86 architecture is poor, but frankly PPC has been falling behind such that while sloppy x86 is faster and uses less electricity and produces less heat. This is ideal for laptops and other small form-factor Macs. Apple can now be platform agnostic, and that means whenever Moto/Freescale and IBM create something better than x86 Apple can return to that platform. I wouldn't abandon Apple because of the chip since the advantages (faster chips, video cards, less heat and longer battery life) outweigh the disadvantages of this architecture. Only the future will tell us if this was a good idea, but frankly if Apple was able to increase the processor's speed by 2x with the same battery life and thermal design, I don't care if there's a squirrel in there.
Of course it's getting better, now you can be protected by the sweet loving embrace of a rootkit, enjoy the wonders of getting a cease & desist letter on those lonely days, you can be sued for publishing rumors, innuendo, and hitting the refresh button. Now, you can have someone tell you what you can do with your music rather than having all that messy free will and--oh gods alive!--imagination.
Your post is just hippy bullshit. I mean a media that didn't tattle on you, and movies without all those fine commercials. No. Fucking. Way.
A man dying of thirst will drink from a well that is tainted by camel piss, that doesn't mean the water is any good. And it certaintly doesn't mean you'll want to pay for it. DRM is bad, and iTunes is just slightly less evil and easier to deal with. DRM isn't going to protect anything, but I'm convinced over the last year that companies will use it to beat customers into business models that would otherwise be complete debacles. No customer wants DRM.
It has to do with the assumption of the 'public good.' Copyright is a limited monopoly given to authors of works to ensure they can produce more. We make the assumption that in exchange for this temporary monopoly the author will eventually give it up because they will be living off the profits of their next work. In this scheme, art moves forward as authors are forced to work and not rest on their laurels so to speak. Now, we could argue that 10 or 20 or the life of the author plus 10 would be a good way of ensuring that authors are well-paid for their work, which we consider necessary and important.
Your argument is interesting because it pretends that everyone can 'create their own stuff' but you and I both know that this isn't true for you and it certaintly isn't true for the rest of the public. A limited copyright, defined by time and by specific rights is useful, but our current copyright system is hideously broken.
Give this man a cookie. DRM is a sword hung over the head of the consumer, who must pray the blow never comes and must be ready to pay for his life. DRM is a sham, a dangerous invention by business majors to eke every last dime from consumers.
Yes, but obviously there should be a limit to what kinds of agreements or contracts one could agree to. I can't for example demand that a borrower pay me back in a literal pound of flesh can I? The US Constitution was and remains a limited document, crafted specifically to limit the federal government and enumerate some rights of the citizens.
However, we should also understand that the rights described in the Constitution were also inalienable and couldn't easily be removed from the citizen. I would take this to mean that neither the government or corporation could remove the right to liberty. A corporation is simply a legal contract among citizens and carries only limited powers that should be limited to legal liability and the necessary framework surrounding that. Making corporations a kind of quasi-nation-state is dangerous.
So for the late reply. Coal and the internal combustion engine are both 19th-century technologies, that while very refined, have possibly surpassed their usefulness. Hydro is actually far more ancient, as is geothermal to a certain degree, but those technologies have changed so much that they continue to be useful. Nuclear is not 19th-century, but rather 20th-century, so that kind of misses the point.
Lastly, you mention the inconsistency of wind and solar and you suggest we'd "huddle in the dark." I don't know if you've seen this very old technology, they're used in cars, boats, even flashlights. It's called something like...oh I don't know...a battery. Actually, that was flippant, and I'd apologize, but you're making very broad assumptions.
A good energy policy would allow grid-based systems that are designed for local environmental conditions and allow for a combination of systems depending on needs. In other words, an area of family farms and houses doesn't need the same kind of industrial capacity that say central Detroit does. The reason that coal, gas, and other systems have become so important is because we have invested massive amounts of money and time. We need to do the same thing now for nuclear, wind, solar, we need better battery technologies, and we need to invest in new cars and other transportation.
Are we really so interested in using old methods without investigating new technologies, is that really what we want to do? I don't think so, I think we can do better.
Oh come on! This has got to be astroturf. Also, subscription services suck when you realize that you will pay $60.00 a year for years. For me, it's iTunes and eMusic. eMusic offers non-DRM'ed Mp3s for $9.99 a month, and iTunes has a better store, a wider availability. Also, all of these other services are worthless because they don't work on Macs.
Think of this another way, we could put solar in the deserts, turbines in the valleys, aqua-thermal gradient plants and hydro near water and stop using gas and coal.
Your comment was actually quite intelligent until you marred it with something about tree-huggers. One technology isn't going to solve the world's energy and environmental problems, but many good technologies with the necessary R&D investment could be spectacular. We just need to be ready to spend the money and stop subsidizing late 19th-century methods.
We keep running into this same idea, every action has a reaction, the smart thing is to choose the technologies and methods that have the least negative effect. Furthermore, houses, buildings, parking lots and shopping malls waste massive acerages, if we could build solar panels on a significant number of these roofs we'd have massive energy supplies without using more land. Simple fix, if you're willing to think about it for two seconds.
I think you're conflating the richest 10% with the middle-class. There is a great range, but good tax law would protect the middle-class while charging the poor the least. The tax law would recognize that the rich can afford to avoid taxes when the poor and middle-class often cannot. Tax cuts are good, tax cuts on capital gains, tax cuts on inheritance, etc. do not help the middle-class nor the poor. Don't be confused, there are classes in America, and the most powerful one is often the most silent. The middle-class.
I actually like playing with the kids, while they're idiots, mouthy, and rediculously good, I'm smart, patient, and more attentive to details. I play a couple of rounds for 20 minutes and then turn the box off and go bother my wife. Online gaming can be fun, but only if you accept its certain limitations.
You don't know what the word average means do you?
Laptops are outselling desktops and this will continue as people generally want small unobstrusive computers and are less and less interested in raw performance.
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Yeah. Comes nothing good ever comes from research, we should just stop trying.
Frankly, your post smacks of anti-semitism at worst and poor reading of films at best.
As for the Colbert Report, that show rules. That was from his first monologue I believe and I laughed the next day several times at random remembering 'truthiness."
Have you watched "Good Night and Good Luck?" If you haven't do so, you'll be blown away by some of the things Murrow said about the news and how it interacted with public life. The Media, in pretending that there are two equal sides to every issue, in pretending that equal time is equal, in pretending that entertainment and the ongoings of celebrity requires our intention, have put this democracy in mortal danger.
I've never heard the 'mysterious bee-flight' as an argument of ID, but I can see how this could work within the argument. ID isn't a good theory, in part because it tries to do two things at once. First, it acts as a critique of evolution, which could be useful. But, ID typically goes further and tries to extrapolate a 'designer' who exists in the gaps of evolutionary theory. ID proponents could use bee-flight as a problem in evolution and if proven wrong would simply move to a new evolutionary problem.
What makes science useful is its testability, its reliance on observation, it's reliance on duplication of evidence. It's a good system that is flawed because, like everything else, it's a human system. But, we have advanced so far with it, we have made so many new discoveries that it has proven useful, far more so than 'faith-based' prayer to various divine orders.
Religious philosophies. You keep saying that. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Also, Saddam is no longer in power, so you would use the past tense.
Dummy.
And don't worry, Microsoft will be getting another flaming bag of doo just as soon as they do something else stupid, which like the current Republican party should be in the next 30 seconds or so. The Democratic party will of course fall flat on its face in a rush to do something even stupider than the Republicans.
The fact remains, there's no proof or evidence of a designer, and ID is at best a collection of evolutionary theory problems duct-taped together by metaphysics.
I think you're already there.
The parent post is flamebait, because any post mentioning the one-button mouse on Apple's machines is usually flamebait. But, I'll also say that the touch-pad can be activated as a second button, negating the whole problem. Really, on a laptop, hitting cntrl and the mouse-button is very easy to boot.
Honestly, half of the population doesn't care about anything. Predicating the importance of any idea based on the slack-jawed nature of the average US citizen keeps us back. Tell them dihydride oxygen is horribly dangerous and kills hundreds every year and they'll demand its ban, tell them DRM is wonderful and they'll comply.
If you don't already have it, you should get a subscription to .
The 'public good' is the belief that we are a community and that by pooling assets, ideas, and culture we make ourselves better. You apparently subscribe to the 'every man for himself' which ignores that every bit of technology came from many people working over time for a specific goal. You ignore that your food, medicine, technology, all come from a public source. The idea is that we are all a very large community working towards similar goals through cooperation and competition.
I'd agree with you that x86 architecture is poor, but frankly PPC has been falling behind such that while sloppy x86 is faster and uses less electricity and produces less heat. This is ideal for laptops and other small form-factor Macs. Apple can now be platform agnostic, and that means whenever Moto/Freescale and IBM create something better than x86 Apple can return to that platform. I wouldn't abandon Apple because of the chip since the advantages (faster chips, video cards, less heat and longer battery life) outweigh the disadvantages of this architecture. Only the future will tell us if this was a good idea, but frankly if Apple was able to increase the processor's speed by 2x with the same battery life and thermal design, I don't care if there's a squirrel in there.
Your post is just hippy bullshit. I mean a media that didn't tattle on you, and movies without all those fine commercials. No. Fucking. Way.
A man dying of thirst will drink from a well that is tainted by camel piss, that doesn't mean the water is any good. And it certaintly doesn't mean you'll want to pay for it. DRM is bad, and iTunes is just slightly less evil and easier to deal with. DRM isn't going to protect anything, but I'm convinced over the last year that companies will use it to beat customers into business models that would otherwise be complete debacles. No customer wants DRM.
Your argument is interesting because it pretends that everyone can 'create their own stuff' but you and I both know that this isn't true for you and it certaintly isn't true for the rest of the public. A limited copyright, defined by time and by specific rights is useful, but our current copyright system is hideously broken.
Give this man a cookie. DRM is a sword hung over the head of the consumer, who must pray the blow never comes and must be ready to pay for his life. DRM is a sham, a dangerous invention by business majors to eke every last dime from consumers.
However, we should also understand that the rights described in the Constitution were also inalienable and couldn't easily be removed from the citizen. I would take this to mean that neither the government or corporation could remove the right to liberty. A corporation is simply a legal contract among citizens and carries only limited powers that should be limited to legal liability and the necessary framework surrounding that. Making corporations a kind of quasi-nation-state is dangerous.
Lastly, you mention the inconsistency of wind and solar and you suggest we'd "huddle in the dark." I don't know if you've seen this very old technology, they're used in cars, boats, even flashlights. It's called something like...oh I don't know...a battery. Actually, that was flippant, and I'd apologize, but you're making very broad assumptions.
A good energy policy would allow grid-based systems that are designed for local environmental conditions and allow for a combination of systems depending on needs. In other words, an area of family farms and houses doesn't need the same kind of industrial capacity that say central Detroit does. The reason that coal, gas, and other systems have become so important is because we have invested massive amounts of money and time. We need to do the same thing now for nuclear, wind, solar, we need better battery technologies, and we need to invest in new cars and other transportation.
Are we really so interested in using old methods without investigating new technologies, is that really what we want to do? I don't think so, I think we can do better.
Oh come on! This has got to be astroturf. Also, subscription services suck when you realize that you will pay $60.00 a year for years. For me, it's iTunes and eMusic. eMusic offers non-DRM'ed Mp3s for $9.99 a month, and iTunes has a better store, a wider availability. Also, all of these other services are worthless because they don't work on Macs.
Your comment was actually quite intelligent until you marred it with something about tree-huggers. One technology isn't going to solve the world's energy and environmental problems, but many good technologies with the necessary R&D investment could be spectacular. We just need to be ready to spend the money and stop subsidizing late 19th-century methods.
We keep running into this same idea, every action has a reaction, the smart thing is to choose the technologies and methods that have the least negative effect. Furthermore, houses, buildings, parking lots and shopping malls waste massive acerages, if we could build solar panels on a significant number of these roofs we'd have massive energy supplies without using more land. Simple fix, if you're willing to think about it for two seconds.
I think you're conflating the richest 10% with the middle-class. There is a great range, but good tax law would protect the middle-class while charging the poor the least. The tax law would recognize that the rich can afford to avoid taxes when the poor and middle-class often cannot. Tax cuts are good, tax cuts on capital gains, tax cuts on inheritance, etc. do not help the middle-class nor the poor. Don't be confused, there are classes in America, and the most powerful one is often the most silent. The middle-class.
I actually like playing with the kids, while they're idiots, mouthy, and rediculously good, I'm smart, patient, and more attentive to details. I play a couple of rounds for 20 minutes and then turn the box off and go bother my wife. Online gaming can be fun, but only if you accept its certain limitations.
Laptops are outselling desktops and this will continue as people generally want small unobstrusive computers and are less and less interested in raw performance.