A lesson to the studios:
If you want to deter pirating, make the official and legal copy MORE CONVENIENT than the pirated version.
Yes, 20 seconds isn't a lot of time. But every time someone puts in a DVD and has to watch it for the 100th time, they're going to get annoyed. And maybe next time they WON'T buy your product because they feel insulted.
We could sit here and argue all night about whether pirating a copy to spite a studio is okay morally (and I'm very, very certain that's what will happen) but at the end of the day it boils down to this, right or wrong: Annoy your customers, and they'll go someplace else, legal or not.
I wonder, though, if the only people that both buy and watch movies on physical disks (as opposed to buying+ripping/downloading or just downloading) are people who don't know how to do the latter. So the only audience that they're reaching with these messages are little kids watching Dora the Explorer on an infinite loop, old people that just discovered DVDs last year, and casual movie watchers that pop in a movie once or twice a month when they don't feel like reading a book. It's like targeting ads for roller-coasters at vertigo support groups.
One thing is for sure, I'm definitely running out to buy the latest block busters on blu-ray. I'm already sick of the convenience being able to instantly stream hi-def movies to any screen in my house (or tablet or phone while traveling) from a central repository in the closet upstairs. What I really want is to buy blu-ray players for every room in the house and a nice set of shelves to keep the disks on, but I have hesitated because blu-rays still lacked the inconvenience of un-skippable movie trailers and FBI warnings... If I were an android I think this movie studio logic would cause my electronic brain to BSoD.
Isn't this just a case of colloquial vs. technical language?
YES! I am a chemist and as in all specialized contexts we have very precise definitions for words when used in the context of scientific research. So precise, in fact, that interdisciplinary types such as myself have to learn how to speak "physicist," "engineer," and "biologist" because even scientists and engineers in other fields incorrectly use the chemical lexicon (as we often do the physical and engineering lexicons). Some trivial definitions can really muck up a conversation, or even the interpretation of an experiment. For example, dipoles in Chemistry are always drawn plus to minus by convention, but not in Physics or Engineering. Thus, sometimes it is the case that we are using the same word to describe opposite phenomena... it is literally ironic!
Lest we come up with entirely different languages for every context, there will always be overlap with informal language. What I find vexing is that, for some reason, everyone can wrap their head around the idea of "legalese." As in "I can't understand this, it is written in legalese" even though it uses no technical terms--only very specific meanings for words like "shall" or "herewith." However, when a technical field is involved, suddenly it's incomprehensible that we could use words like "theory" to mean something that more closely resembles the common definition of "fact." As in "it's the theory of evolution, not the law of evolution." (I'm not even sure biologists use the word "law," which is typically reserved for a set of formulas in Physics.) The more esoteric a subject, the more it seems to suffer from this ridiculous blight of ignorance, and Chemistry is the premier esoteric science. I frequently read articles by "science journalists" (often posted here on Slashdot) that conflate organisms and chemicals, particularly in the context of describing why something is "bad" for you--because it contains some scary-sounding word! (Pro tip: Latin names are organisms, not chemicals except when common names for chemicals are derived from an organism, which is exactly why we no longer use common names! Bad journalists, bad!).
If I may rant a bit more, the problem is rooted in the utter abandonment of science in core curricula (in the US). Everyone with a high school education has been exposed to literature and math, but not necessarily science. And the cursory science that does make it into curricula is too dumbed down to even really be called science. Every single high school graduate should have at least a vague grasp on concepts like kinematics, electricity and magnetism, the central dogma of biology, and a vague understanding of the chemical bond. At least then we wouldn't have intelligent, intellectual people like Kristof making absolute fools of themselves with their embarrassingly infantile grasp on the collective, fundamental understanding of the natural world. Modern American culture seems to take pride in their ignorance and lack of intellectual curiosity with respect to how modern technology works. It's a badge of honor for a talking head to be awestruck by some new medical procedure or to be mystified by how their iPhone works--wow, it's so thin... and shiny! Yet, at the same time, they feel qualified to grossly misinterpret a scientific paper, wade right into climate science and evolutionary biology, and throw around words like "toxicity" and "chemicals" without the slightest bit of hesitation, humility, or professional input. And from this ignorance flows a lack of a fundamental understanding of Gaussian distributions, dose-response curves, units (or orders of magnitude), or chemical kinetics. They want to boil everything down to "good vs. bad," right vs. wrong," "toxic vs. healthy," and view the qualified statements and precise language of experts as "weasel words" and a lack of conviction or confidence.
Chemophobia is just another modern incarnation of the fear of ones own ignorance. Without the slightest understanding of me
In general, I think for most people (not just geeks) fitness stuff comes down to a matter of time and practicality more than knowledge anyway. Most advertised approaches to healthy living require far more time/energy/money than the average working guy has to invest (and if they had the time, would rather spend it doing something else) or require behavior which is incompatible with current lifestyle (eating 14 small meals a day might be great for your health.. but complicates the work day).
Nonsense! It comes down to motivation and nothing else. Granted, people with more free time need less motivation, but unless you're working 36-hour shifts at a factory in China you can take three hours out of your week to exercise, which--when combined with not eating at McDonald's regularly--is plenty to keep fit. I find that more often than not, people think that they have to look like Daniel Craig or Tom Hardy to be "fit," which is an impossibly high bar unless you have the genetics for it and get paid to walk around without your shirt on. But you can pack a little spare tire and still be in great cardiovascular shape. If you can walk three flights of stairs while carrying on a conversation, then you are in better shape than most people and have cut your risk of heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, certain types of cancer, etc. significantly. My anecdote; I suffer from high diastolic blood pressure. It's genetic and will shorten my lifespan if untreated. I had two options, either take pills for the rest of my life, or try to control it through exercise. I bike a whopping 4 km to and from work and lift weights for 45 minutes, three days a week. And guess what--my blood pressure has held steady for seven years despite my love handles and daily beer consumption. And in the last city I lived in, I couldn't even bike in Winter due to snow.
Long commute to work? Park a few miles from work and bike between your car and the office. Not into biking? Take 20-30 minutes a few days a week to run 5K--during sunrise/set if you live in a picturesque city. Not into running? Get up early three days a week and go lift weights at one of the zillion gyms in your area--you might have to sacrifice a TV show or two. Not into weights? Try swimming. Not into exercising solo? Play squash, soccer, baseball, racquetball, basketball, tennis, hockey--there are pickup games, clubs, and amateur leagues in your city, guaranteed. Kids eating up your schedule? Strap them to a stroller or your back and go for a walk, when they get older go biking/swimming/hiking/lifting/running with them--it will form good habits... The only excuse for not exercising is being physically disabled.
Indeed, it is like staring into a kW bank of stadium lights from behind home plate versus placing a mW high-intensity LED directly in front of your eyeball. Not to mention that, regardless of the theoretical risks of mm-wave scanners they haven't been approved--or even tested--by the FDA or seriously scrutinized by any impartial body. But we're all supposed to be so afraid of terrorists that we just take the word of a for-profit company that stands to make millions in government contracts that "hey, they're safe, we like... tested them and stuff." No amount of math can compete with double-blind studies, clinical trials, or basic empirical observation. Look at trans fats--for decades we thought "eh, cis, trans, it's all the same--just an alkene" and then study after study linked that seemingly insignificant isomerization to heart disease. And, by the way, in the UK you can't even opt out of their X-ray back scatter machines because the EU tested them and the does is "lower compared to other sources, such as cosmic radiation." Of course, as we now know from dental X-rays, the effects are cumulative over a lifetime, but the increased risk of cancer is certainly worth making politicians look tough on terrorism!.
Defense lawyers think judges too easily allow in “junk science” from plaintiffs, citing the silicon breast implant litigation, which resulted in over $3 billion in settlements and compensation for autoimmune injuries that most scientists now agree weren’t caused by the implants.
I knew about silicone implants--the introduction of alkyl chains to a silica backbone makes a nice, jiggly material--but I had no idea we made silicon breast implants. Can you search Google by twisting a nipple?
cause that is the true question; science is $$, and, even more importantly, there are a limited number of talented people who can do science (I mean, how many guys can hit a major league fastball ?)
I would say that spending a lot on cosmology is less important then cancer, but thats my bias
You also have to keep in mind that there is a profit motive for curing cancer and thus the private sector is also hard at work on that problem. No private entity is going to cough up tens of billions of dollars to do fundamental research in high energy physics. Analogies between physical science and disease are also difficult because so much can be done through awareness and prevention; cancers are intertwined with lifestyle as well as genetics, AIDS remains a much larger problem in countries that lack effective public education and prevention, etc. Big Science requires the upfront investment of a huge pile of cash in exchange for long-term gains that are often difficult to perceive, particularly to Congress, who are up for election every two years.
As to your other point, it has been my experience (as a professional scientist) that you're spot-on; the greatest minds in a particular field are often people who are just wired to think that way. One who is naturally gifted at math and solving puzzles might make a great theoretician, but fail miserably as an experimental biochemist. But I think that countries should be competing for these minds, particularly in this globalized and connected world and in science, where passionate people will absolutely move across an ocean for the chance to take a crack at an intriguing problem. The US got lucky after WWII and basically inherited many of the world's greatest scientific minds by default; no other country was left with enough resources to support scientific research or a serious university system. And now those people are retiring and dying, and Europe and Asia are quickly rising and surpassing the US in many areas of science.
I'm only replying to empathize with you. People treat their diets like religion in that most of what they "know" to be true is based on faith and how they were raised. No amount of rational argument will convince someone who has made up their mind that anything less than eating bacon for breakfast, hamburger for lunch, and steak for dinner will starve your stupid hippie body of much needed "nutrients." I used to lift weights with a good friend of mine, who is a professor of biochemistry, and he remarked that I should enter some kind of "vegan weight lifting competition" because he was convinced that vegans couldn't ingest enough protein to build muscle. A close relative of mine is a gastroenterologist, who spends half his day treating people for diabetes and liver failure, eats red meat at almost every meal and puts away a half a fifth of scotch with dinner.
There is just something about diet that drives people to willful ignorance and to cherry-picking whatever anecdotes fit their narrative. Diet is so much more complex than "carbs, proteins, minerals, and vitamins" (i.e., "nutrients"), but you will never make someone realize how important something as seemingly trivial as regularity is until they experience colon cancer, polyps, acid-reflux, etc. for themselves.
That utopian world in which technology is a positive force for humanity and where rational thought and curiosity replace ignorance-based fear and militarism was a island of serenity in a small town full of bible-thumping, anti-intellectual fundamentalists.
You do realize it was about Star Fleet right? A military organization.
Whose flagship was on a mission is to seek out new life, and new civilizations; to go boldly where no one has gone before. The entire premise of the Star Trek universe is that humanity put aside its petty squabbles to refocus society on technology and peaceful exploration, which is the antithesis of militarism. Star Trek was conceived of in a world where a single agressive act from a nuclear-armed superpower could have ended modern civilization. It embraced the idea that humanity would eventually learn valuable lessons from that era and put aside territorial and ideological disputes once we learned that we're not alone in the universe. The fact that Starfleet is humanity's only military organization underscores that point. Compare that vision to Dr. Strangelove, which is an allegory for the consequences of militarism in the nuclear age.
While I certainly wouldn't say one person bears a large load of responsibility, don't knock the idea in general. Star Trek had some very real influence on geeks. They saw a Utopia in it that they'd like to see happened, and some worked towards it.
I'm a research scientist and I was heavily influenced by Star Trek as a kid. That utopian world in which technology is a positive force for humanity and where rational thought and curiosity replace ignorance-based fear and militarism was a island of serenity in a small town full of bible-thumping, anti-intellectual fundamentalists. I consumed a lot of science fiction and fantasy, but Star Trek made a particular impression on me. When I was finally exposed to real-world science, I fell in love with Chemistry in my first year of college with cheerful optimism that I might help move the real world slightly closer to that fictional world. I even lobbied hard to name my son Jean Luc.
I do, however, disagree with TFA; when I was in college we didn't have the Internet to tell us about every cute Nature or Science article, so we were left with our imagination and what we could photocopy in the science library. If anything, I think the danger for potential scientists now is that their opinions about what science is are being shaped too much by under-qualified "science journalists" writing pseudo-fiction about real research. It replaces the unbridled imagination and curiosity of young minds--which fiction reinforces--with an erroneous understanding of what modern science actually is. Worse, it emphasizes the unsubstantiated claims about potential future applications that have become a necessary part of the scientific literature (i.e., the chest thumping that under-funding research necessitates) which leads to disappointment when young people are exposed to actual research. This phenomenon culminates in a perception that science fiction--dystopian or otherwise--is even more realistic and fact-based than ever. I think what science fiction needs is more imagination.
Maybe if enough people were "dicks" to the TSA, the agency would not be able to hire people for "enhanced pat-downs," or they would be forced to pay such high salaries that their budget would prevent them from running the program. The willingness of TSA employees to do what they are told is what makes the scope-n-grope program possible.
Sure, but then they would hire immigrants to do it because "they do the jobs that Americans are unwilling to do." And because they work for less, there would be more of them; one TSA agent to fondle your junk, and another to grab your ass. You can't win.
Ironically, you can be arrested for getting naked at the airport (even if it isn't really against the law in Oregon) and then strip searched just for being arrested... That's American Puritanical logic for you; nudity is shameful and wrong unless it's used to humiliate you.
Another thing that can land you there: if you get laid and the chick later changes her mind and presses rape charges, even though she was totally willing at the time. Congrats, you scoring at the bar the other night might just have landed you on a sex offender list.
That happened to a friend of mine when he was 17. The girl's super-conservative fundie dad found out that she had had sex with him and multiple other guys one weekend at which point--weeks after the incident--she claimed rape. Through some bizarre legal logic they waited for him to turn 18 and then charged him with statutory rape (i.e., she was also 17 and thus too young to have consented legally). After having his face plastered all over our small-town newspaper with the word "rapist" over it, he had to rely on rides from his friends because he would be pulled over and harassed as soon as a cop spotted his car. He was publicly mocked and routinely kicked out of local establishments. Once his probation was up, he moved to another state to start a new life. The galling part was that the girl later apologized to him, saying that her dad would kill her if he found out that she had premarital sex (and he was by no means her first).
One of the most amazing things that I have seen was a shuttle launch. I was close enough to watch it from lift-off all the way until it wasn't visible in the sky anymore; basically as close as you can get without being invited to sit in the bleachers inside the Space Center. More than anything, I remember the sound and the profound feeling of national pride. I felt a connection to my father, whose face still involuntarily conveys a feeling of wonder and awe when he talks about the moon landing. Experiences like that lead me to become a scientist. I have mixed feelings now, knowing that my son will never have a chance to see it for himself, but that he may some day be able to buy a ticket to go to space himself. Let's hope he can afford business class.
This is a fascinating dichotomy. From what I gather, we have an American living in Europe and (presumably) a European living in The US. Both point to their places of origin and say "can't you see how crazy it is there! I'm glad I left" or something to that effect.
Case in point. I'm assuming you are referring to EU data retention directives in 2006 (which don't actually do what you say they do). Yawn, we've had basically the same thing in US since 1997. And that is just the program that we know about. The NSA collects all kinds of information that we don't even get know about because, when they're caught, the administration "neither confirms nor denies it." You know, national security!
I have no idea where you live in the US, but growing up in a small town I heard the phrase "ignorance of the law is not an excuse for breaking law" routinely from redneck cops that got their kicks from harassing kids and hippies. By contrast, I have been excused of countless minor infractions in many European countries for simply not knowing the rules.
Perhaps what we have here is a difference in perception. Having grown up in the US, and kept myself well informed on these matters, it is perfectly clear to me that personal liberty and privacy has eroded at an exponential rate since the 1970's. I've been harassed by all kinds of law enforcement, pushed around by bureaucrats enforcing arbitrary rules based on technicalities, paid countless fines for bullshit violations meant to entrap people to raise revenue for cash-starved municipalities, and been downright abused by giant corporations while Uncle Sam just looked at me and shrugged. I have been fighting for over ten years to get a credit card expunged from my credit report. I paid it off and canceled it in 2001, but it persisted to the point that I even won in a class action lawsuit against the bank, but my "by the people, for the people" government has written the laws so that I am powerless against this ridiculously corrupt predatory lender, so it continues to hurt my credit score by artificially increasing my total credit by $30,000. Why? Because the US government treats its citizens like chattel for corporations to bleed dry and every time we start to notice and try to do something about it, they ratchet up the terrorism nonsense and use perpetual war as an excuse to crack down on the First and Fourth Amendment.
From where I sit, it is obvious that Europe treats its citizens like adults and respects our rights of self-determination, privacy, individual liberty, and so on. But I completely understand that, situations reversed, the US would look like some kind of paragon of freedom (we do talk a good game). I freely admit that most of my opinions of Europe are based on a few years of anecdotal personal experiences.
No, Italy isn't Europe, nor is Germany, which is why sweeping generalizations about Europe being a a nanny state are silly--and I vehemently disagree that most European countries have stricter laws (and enforcement) in most of these areas. Of course, if you go around cherry-picking laws either from US states or European countries, you can paint whatever picture you want. Let me do that right now: you can, according to the SCOTUS, be strip searched for not wearing a helmet while biking in most cities in the US because, you know, you just might be biking around town with a baggie of heroin jammed up your ass just in case you get arrested. And, for every silly German or Norwegian law, the Netherlands, Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Spain, etc, etc, have three that are eminently more reasonable than their US counterparts (which still isn't a fair comparison, because state laws vary so widely). Just taking traffic laws, in many European countries (Italy is one) you have to carry a form in your car (eeek nanny state!) that you fill out and exchange with the other driver if you get into a minor accident in which the two drivers agree on how to split the responsibility (it works best when it's 50/50, obviously). In every state in the US that I have lived, you have to call the cops to get "proof" of the accident or the insurance company won't pay--and before you say anything, yes, that has happened to me. And in my case, the insurance company screwed me because--even though the other driver ran a stop sign and totaled my car--the cop didn't write something down exactly the way they wanted. To me, that sounds like a society that treats its citizens like chattel, that have to ask The Boss to oversee insignificant bullshit that responsible, independent people are perfectly capable of working out on their own.
Even though Slashdot likes to pick on Germany for being so draconian (and do I agree, Germans like rules), they also have a lot of sensible policies. For instance--and again this is true is many European countries--a passenger can drink a beer in a car. In most US states, the law sees that as too much of a temptation for the driver, who can't possibly be trusted around an open container of alcohol because responsible adults have no self-restraint. And in Bavaria, the driver can drink (or at least could--they may have changed this law recently) so long as they are under the legal limit... Really, in any situation involving drugs (including alcohol), sexuality, or something that evokes the "think of the children" argument, laws in the US are far stricter than anything Europe has to offer. Oh, and absolutely anything that can be painted with the anti-terrorism brush; air travel is an obvious example.
This whole thread started because of the disparity between most EU countries' policies on termination as compared to most US states'. You will get no argument from me; even at the EU level, there are way more protections for employees than in the US. And that does occasionally suck, because there are a lot of people that do the bare minimum of work, knowing that they can't be fired. You can chose to parse that a draconian over-reach as part of oppressive European laws that treat people like children, but you're not going to convince me that it is part of a larger trend, or that the US isn't at least as guilty.
From my own personal experience, I almost never encounter the "I'm sorry, it's the rules, my hands are tied" argument in Europe. A lot of the seemingly-silly rules aren't enforced in a silly way. For instance, a calm "I'm sorry, I wasn't aware of that rule" has gotten me out of a lot of situations that, in my experience as an American, would have been met with a fine for technical violation of a rule/law. In fact, when I first came to Europe, when I was confronted with a ridiculous rule, I would blow my stack, thinking that it was like the US where "ignorance of the law is not an excuse." Once I learned that you can talk your way out of almost anything if you have a reasonable excuse, I came to understand that there is a cultural difference in how (continental) Europe perceives the purpose of rules.
Ritter acknowledges that the new work is simply a prototype, and one for which numerous improvements are possible. For instance, the transfer of a quantum state between labs succeeded only 0.2 percent of the time, owing to various inefficiencies and technical limitations. "Everything is at the edge of what can be done," he says. "All these characteristics are good enough to do what we've done, but there are clear strategies to pursue to make them even better."
I wish I could publish a 0.2 % yield, or an experiment that worked 0.2 % of the time in Nature! Clearly I'm in the wrong field (but in all serious, getting atoms to communicate through a fiber optic cable is pretty freaking cool.)
Those who lived in Springfield/Eugene Oregon always knew.
1. Matt Groening was from Oregon.
2. They have a statute of the founder of the town(Jebediah Springfield), and Eugene has a statue of its founder Eugene Skinner.
3. Principal's name is Skinner.
4. There's a Nuclear plant nearby.
There's probably more. Actually, I always heard Matt was from Springfield.
Terwilliger, Flanders, and Lovejoy are all streets in Portland.
Krusty the Klown was named after a TV clown from Portland named Rusty Nails.
Comic Book Guy--though a stereotype--was based on a real person, who ran a comic shop in Portland.
And who can forget the Lewis and Clark spoof, when the sky turns grey and it starts raining and Carl says "we'll call this place Eugene, Oregon."
I'm sure there are many, many others, but to me the connection between the Simpsons and Oregon was as apparent as the one between South Park and Colorado.
Having long since left Oregon, I still consider myself an Oregonian (and a Duck). Many years ago at Comicon I saw Matt Groening, who was clearly on his way out and avoiding photos, but I shouted "Hey, how about a photo with a fellow Oregonian?" and he cheerfully walked over for a photo. Because I'm a giant nerd... But it's ok, this is Slashdot. I also got in a shouting match with someone that tried to tell me Animal House was filmed in Rhode Island. In retrospect, he was clearly trolling me.
Germans are nuts about rules... I was sternly warned by a helpful resident in Munich against crossing against the signal lest I be ticketed. On foot. When there were zero cars on the street. Contrast that to Italy, where the one who shouts the loudest wins, or France where the cops roll their eyes at you for boring them with your problems. Of course, nothing compares to Small Town USA, where getting pulled over and harassed by bored cops was a daily occurrence for me. They loved to search our cars and make us wait while they tested the grass that had fallen from our cleats after practice to make sure it wasn't marijuana.
Ah, I love the ignorance of dumb Europeans. They (should be "we" since I live in Europe) think that our health care system is great and that the one in the US is really, really bad. Here is some interesting news for you: The US has, by a very significant margin, the best health care system in the world if you can afford it.
Europeans thinks that because in the US one needs insurance, that people without will not get treatment. That is not true. A hospital that received a sick patent in an ER is required to treat that patient, insurance or not and then dump them in the street with no follow-up care. ERs in the US equals socialized health care except that an ambulance ride alone will set you back $1,500, it is just that nobody, Dem or Republican, will admit to that. Will they get the very best treatment, no, but they will get significantly less treatment than a European on a waiting list for an operation that may or may not come before he dies, but of course that rarely happens, just as American surgeons rarely amputate the wrong limb.
In the US, if you have insurance, which the vast majority of the employed US population actually does have, the treatment you will get is significantly better than in any country in the world, unless you're poor. This--and the enormous profits of private health insurance companies--is a major reason that the US spends significantly more per person in health care than any other country. Well, that and the absurd amount of malpractice insurance American docs need to defend against frivolous lawsuits and ambulance chasers.
Also, and very importantly, US citizens, through taxes and insurance, sponsors to a great degree health care in Europe. They do this by paying for medications developed by US companies in full, not at cut-rate prices, because European pharmaceutical companies are too busy working on cancer therapies to cure restless leg syndrome. In this way, the people in the US pays for development and testing, and advertising of often over-prescribed drugs that Europeans get access to. Europe is hardly in the forefront of perfunctory pharmaceutical development and outright abuse of patent laws to keep generics off the market.
Did you have any counter arguments or are you just trolling? I have lived and worked longer in Europe than in the US, but I have done both for more than ten years. Do you have any experience? Any comments? Any rational arguments?
Then you should know better than to lump the entire continent into one big generalization. Doesn't it annoy the hell out of you when a Frenchman says things like "wow, you're skinny for an American!" or assumes that you voted for whomever is president and therefore agree with absolutely every policy coming out of the federal government? My personal favorite is when Germans conflate the US and Canada and are want to introduce you to someone from Vancouver because you must have so much in common.
Nope. Because the US is (mostly, there are obvious and absurd exceptions) governed in a way that assumes consenting adults can engage in mutually beneficial relationships without a nanny telling them what to do as if they were five year old children. In Europe most laws are written to the point where they assume the ordinary citizenry are mentally handicapped five year olds that needs to be monitored, watched and told what to do at all times by responsible adults.
I prefer the government treat me as an adult.
That's funny, because I have found the opposite. Moving from the US to Europe for me meant no more silly laws about wearing bike helmets, picking up dog poo, drinking in public, smoking pot, constantly having to show my ID for not having quite enough grey in my beard... Where I live, they have this concept of "personal responsibility" and have no need for stupid laws about what time you can go to a public park. Oh, and traffic laws? Those are more like suggestions; no macho asshole cop pulling you over for an "illegal lane change" and then searching your car for the fun of it. In fact, for just about anything short of a violent crime, the police treat you like a rational adult and politely ask you not to do it again... They have a phrase for that... Oh, "the benefit of the doubt," but that is clearly because mentally handicapped five year olds are always acting in good faith. However, unlike the parents of small children, who can lay down arbitrary laws like "bed time," employers here can't fire you without cause. (But they can still lay you off to save money.)
Maybe you just lived in a European country populated by mentally handicapped five year olds? Was it Belgium? That would explain why everyone makes fun of them.
I was actually thinking along the lines of someone from the communist party (the real far-left) or a true socialist (not Bernie Sanders, who is an eminently reasonable Social Democrat)... But you're right, Kucinich is the Democratic equivalent of Ron Paul, isn't he? Too bad he's been redistricted out of office.
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And you've hit the nail on the head.
A lesson to the studios: If you want to deter pirating, make the official and legal copy MORE CONVENIENT than the pirated version. Yes, 20 seconds isn't a lot of time. But every time someone puts in a DVD and has to watch it for the 100th time, they're going to get annoyed. And maybe next time they WON'T buy your product because they feel insulted. We could sit here and argue all night about whether pirating a copy to spite a studio is okay morally (and I'm very, very certain that's what will happen) but at the end of the day it boils down to this, right or wrong: Annoy your customers, and they'll go someplace else, legal or not.
I wonder, though, if the only people that both buy and watch movies on physical disks (as opposed to buying+ripping/downloading or just downloading) are people who don't know how to do the latter. So the only audience that they're reaching with these messages are little kids watching Dora the Explorer on an infinite loop, old people that just discovered DVDs last year, and casual movie watchers that pop in a movie once or twice a month when they don't feel like reading a book. It's like targeting ads for roller-coasters at vertigo support groups.
One thing is for sure, I'm definitely running out to buy the latest block busters on blu-ray. I'm already sick of the convenience being able to instantly stream hi-def movies to any screen in my house (or tablet or phone while traveling) from a central repository in the closet upstairs. What I really want is to buy blu-ray players for every room in the house and a nice set of shelves to keep the disks on, but I have hesitated because blu-rays still lacked the inconvenience of un-skippable movie trailers and FBI warnings... If I were an android I think this movie studio logic would cause my electronic brain to BSoD.
I think I would die from exhaustion after one 45 km ride, let alone three per week!
Isn't this just a case of colloquial vs. technical language?
YES! I am a chemist and as in all specialized contexts we have very precise definitions for words when used in the context of scientific research. So precise, in fact, that interdisciplinary types such as myself have to learn how to speak "physicist," "engineer," and "biologist" because even scientists and engineers in other fields incorrectly use the chemical lexicon (as we often do the physical and engineering lexicons). Some trivial definitions can really muck up a conversation, or even the interpretation of an experiment. For example, dipoles in Chemistry are always drawn plus to minus by convention, but not in Physics or Engineering. Thus, sometimes it is the case that we are using the same word to describe opposite phenomena... it is literally ironic!
Lest we come up with entirely different languages for every context, there will always be overlap with informal language. What I find vexing is that, for some reason, everyone can wrap their head around the idea of "legalese." As in "I can't understand this, it is written in legalese" even though it uses no technical terms--only very specific meanings for words like "shall" or "herewith." However, when a technical field is involved, suddenly it's incomprehensible that we could use words like "theory" to mean something that more closely resembles the common definition of "fact." As in "it's the theory of evolution, not the law of evolution." (I'm not even sure biologists use the word "law," which is typically reserved for a set of formulas in Physics.) The more esoteric a subject, the more it seems to suffer from this ridiculous blight of ignorance, and Chemistry is the premier esoteric science. I frequently read articles by "science journalists" (often posted here on Slashdot) that conflate organisms and chemicals, particularly in the context of describing why something is "bad" for you--because it contains some scary-sounding word! (Pro tip: Latin names are organisms, not chemicals except when common names for chemicals are derived from an organism, which is exactly why we no longer use common names! Bad journalists, bad!).
If I may rant a bit more, the problem is rooted in the utter abandonment of science in core curricula (in the US). Everyone with a high school education has been exposed to literature and math, but not necessarily science. And the cursory science that does make it into curricula is too dumbed down to even really be called science. Every single high school graduate should have at least a vague grasp on concepts like kinematics, electricity and magnetism, the central dogma of biology, and a vague understanding of the chemical bond. At least then we wouldn't have intelligent, intellectual people like Kristof making absolute fools of themselves with their embarrassingly infantile grasp on the collective, fundamental understanding of the natural world. Modern American culture seems to take pride in their ignorance and lack of intellectual curiosity with respect to how modern technology works. It's a badge of honor for a talking head to be awestruck by some new medical procedure or to be mystified by how their iPhone works--wow, it's so thin... and shiny! Yet, at the same time, they feel qualified to grossly misinterpret a scientific paper, wade right into climate science and evolutionary biology, and throw around words like "toxicity" and "chemicals" without the slightest bit of hesitation, humility, or professional input. And from this ignorance flows a lack of a fundamental understanding of Gaussian distributions, dose-response curves, units (or orders of magnitude), or chemical kinetics. They want to boil everything down to "good vs. bad," right vs. wrong," "toxic vs. healthy," and view the qualified statements and precise language of experts as "weasel words" and a lack of conviction or confidence.
Chemophobia is just another modern incarnation of the fear of ones own ignorance. Without the slightest understanding of me
In general, I think for most people (not just geeks) fitness stuff comes down to a matter of time and practicality more than knowledge anyway. Most advertised approaches to healthy living require far more time/energy/money than the average working guy has to invest (and if they had the time, would rather spend it doing something else) or require behavior which is incompatible with current lifestyle (eating 14 small meals a day might be great for your health.. but complicates the work day).
Nonsense! It comes down to motivation and nothing else. Granted, people with more free time need less motivation, but unless you're working 36-hour shifts at a factory in China you can take three hours out of your week to exercise, which--when combined with not eating at McDonald's regularly--is plenty to keep fit. I find that more often than not, people think that they have to look like Daniel Craig or Tom Hardy to be "fit," which is an impossibly high bar unless you have the genetics for it and get paid to walk around without your shirt on. But you can pack a little spare tire and still be in great cardiovascular shape. If you can walk three flights of stairs while carrying on a conversation, then you are in better shape than most people and have cut your risk of heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, certain types of cancer, etc. significantly. My anecdote; I suffer from high diastolic blood pressure. It's genetic and will shorten my lifespan if untreated. I had two options, either take pills for the rest of my life, or try to control it through exercise. I bike a whopping 4 km to and from work and lift weights for 45 minutes, three days a week. And guess what--my blood pressure has held steady for seven years despite my love handles and daily beer consumption. And in the last city I lived in, I couldn't even bike in Winter due to snow.
Long commute to work? Park a few miles from work and bike between your car and the office. Not into biking? Take 20-30 minutes a few days a week to run 5K--during sunrise/set if you live in a picturesque city. Not into running? Get up early three days a week and go lift weights at one of the zillion gyms in your area--you might have to sacrifice a TV show or two. Not into weights? Try swimming. Not into exercising solo? Play squash, soccer, baseball, racquetball, basketball, tennis, hockey--there are pickup games, clubs, and amateur leagues in your city, guaranteed. Kids eating up your schedule? Strap them to a stroller or your back and go for a walk, when they get older go biking/swimming/hiking/lifting/running with them--it will form good habits... The only excuse for not exercising is being physically disabled.
Indeed, it is like staring into a kW bank of stadium lights from behind home plate versus placing a mW high-intensity LED directly in front of your eyeball. Not to mention that, regardless of the theoretical risks of mm-wave scanners they haven't been approved--or even tested--by the FDA or seriously scrutinized by any impartial body. But we're all supposed to be so afraid of terrorists that we just take the word of a for-profit company that stands to make millions in government contracts that "hey, they're safe, we like... tested them and stuff." No amount of math can compete with double-blind studies, clinical trials, or basic empirical observation. Look at trans fats--for decades we thought "eh, cis, trans, it's all the same--just an alkene" and then study after study linked that seemingly insignificant isomerization to heart disease. And, by the way, in the UK you can't even opt out of their X-ray back scatter machines because the EU tested them and the does is "lower compared to other sources, such as cosmic radiation." Of course, as we now know from dental X-rays, the effects are cumulative over a lifetime, but the increased risk of cancer is certainly worth making politicians look tough on terrorism!.
FTFA:
Defense lawyers think judges too easily allow in “junk science” from plaintiffs, citing the silicon breast implant litigation, which resulted in over $3 billion in settlements and compensation for autoimmune injuries that most scientists now agree weren’t caused by the implants.
I knew about silicone implants--the introduction of alkyl chains to a silica backbone makes a nice, jiggly material--but I had no idea we made silicon breast implants. Can you search Google by twisting a nipple?
cause that is the true question; science is $$, and, even more importantly, there are a limited number of talented people who can do science (I mean, how many guys can hit a major league fastball ?) I would say that spending a lot on cosmology is less important then cancer, but thats my bias
You also have to keep in mind that there is a profit motive for curing cancer and thus the private sector is also hard at work on that problem. No private entity is going to cough up tens of billions of dollars to do fundamental research in high energy physics. Analogies between physical science and disease are also difficult because so much can be done through awareness and prevention; cancers are intertwined with lifestyle as well as genetics, AIDS remains a much larger problem in countries that lack effective public education and prevention, etc. Big Science requires the upfront investment of a huge pile of cash in exchange for long-term gains that are often difficult to perceive, particularly to Congress, who are up for election every two years.
As to your other point, it has been my experience (as a professional scientist) that you're spot-on; the greatest minds in a particular field are often people who are just wired to think that way. One who is naturally gifted at math and solving puzzles might make a great theoretician, but fail miserably as an experimental biochemist. But I think that countries should be competing for these minds, particularly in this globalized and connected world and in science, where passionate people will absolutely move across an ocean for the chance to take a crack at an intriguing problem. The US got lucky after WWII and basically inherited many of the world's greatest scientific minds by default; no other country was left with enough resources to support scientific research or a serious university system. And now those people are retiring and dying, and Europe and Asia are quickly rising and surpassing the US in many areas of science.
I'm only replying to empathize with you. People treat their diets like religion in that most of what they "know" to be true is based on faith and how they were raised. No amount of rational argument will convince someone who has made up their mind that anything less than eating bacon for breakfast, hamburger for lunch, and steak for dinner will starve your stupid hippie body of much needed "nutrients." I used to lift weights with a good friend of mine, who is a professor of biochemistry, and he remarked that I should enter some kind of "vegan weight lifting competition" because he was convinced that vegans couldn't ingest enough protein to build muscle. A close relative of mine is a gastroenterologist, who spends half his day treating people for diabetes and liver failure, eats red meat at almost every meal and puts away a half a fifth of scotch with dinner.
There is just something about diet that drives people to willful ignorance and to cherry-picking whatever anecdotes fit their narrative. Diet is so much more complex than "carbs, proteins, minerals, and vitamins" (i.e., "nutrients"), but you will never make someone realize how important something as seemingly trivial as regularity is until they experience colon cancer, polyps, acid-reflux, etc. for themselves.
Don't be silly, FearOfCarpet was my cat's name.
That utopian world in which technology is a positive force for humanity and where rational thought and curiosity replace ignorance-based fear and militarism was a island of serenity in a small town full of bible-thumping, anti-intellectual fundamentalists. You do realize it was about Star Fleet right? A military organization.
Whose flagship was on a mission is to seek out new life, and new civilizations; to go boldly where no one has gone before. The entire premise of the Star Trek universe is that humanity put aside its petty squabbles to refocus society on technology and peaceful exploration, which is the antithesis of militarism. Star Trek was conceived of in a world where a single agressive act from a nuclear-armed superpower could have ended modern civilization. It embraced the idea that humanity would eventually learn valuable lessons from that era and put aside territorial and ideological disputes once we learned that we're not alone in the universe. The fact that Starfleet is humanity's only military organization underscores that point. Compare that vision to Dr. Strangelove, which is an allegory for the consequences of militarism in the nuclear age.
While I certainly wouldn't say one person bears a large load of responsibility, don't knock the idea in general. Star Trek had some very real influence on geeks. They saw a Utopia in it that they'd like to see happened, and some worked towards it.
I'm a research scientist and I was heavily influenced by Star Trek as a kid. That utopian world in which technology is a positive force for humanity and where rational thought and curiosity replace ignorance-based fear and militarism was a island of serenity in a small town full of bible-thumping, anti-intellectual fundamentalists. I consumed a lot of science fiction and fantasy, but Star Trek made a particular impression on me. When I was finally exposed to real-world science, I fell in love with Chemistry in my first year of college with cheerful optimism that I might help move the real world slightly closer to that fictional world. I even lobbied hard to name my son Jean Luc.
I do, however, disagree with TFA; when I was in college we didn't have the Internet to tell us about every cute Nature or Science article, so we were left with our imagination and what we could photocopy in the science library. If anything, I think the danger for potential scientists now is that their opinions about what science is are being shaped too much by under-qualified "science journalists" writing pseudo-fiction about real research. It replaces the unbridled imagination and curiosity of young minds--which fiction reinforces--with an erroneous understanding of what modern science actually is. Worse, it emphasizes the unsubstantiated claims about potential future applications that have become a necessary part of the scientific literature (i.e., the chest thumping that under-funding research necessitates) which leads to disappointment when young people are exposed to actual research. This phenomenon culminates in a perception that science fiction--dystopian or otherwise--is even more realistic and fact-based than ever. I think what science fiction needs is more imagination.
Maybe if enough people were "dicks" to the TSA, the agency would not be able to hire people for "enhanced pat-downs," or they would be forced to pay such high salaries that their budget would prevent them from running the program. The willingness of TSA employees to do what they are told is what makes the scope-n-grope program possible.
Sure, but then they would hire immigrants to do it because "they do the jobs that Americans are unwilling to do." And because they work for less, there would be more of them; one TSA agent to fondle your junk, and another to grab your ass. You can't win.
"Do not strip until told to strip."
Ironically, you can be arrested for getting naked at the airport (even if it isn't really against the law in Oregon) and then strip searched just for being arrested... That's American Puritanical logic for you; nudity is shameful and wrong unless it's used to humiliate you.
Another thing that can land you there: if you get laid and the chick later changes her mind and presses rape charges, even though she was totally willing at the time. Congrats, you scoring at the bar the other night might just have landed you on a sex offender list.
That happened to a friend of mine when he was 17. The girl's super-conservative fundie dad found out that she had had sex with him and multiple other guys one weekend at which point--weeks after the incident--she claimed rape. Through some bizarre legal logic they waited for him to turn 18 and then charged him with statutory rape (i.e., she was also 17 and thus too young to have consented legally). After having his face plastered all over our small-town newspaper with the word "rapist" over it, he had to rely on rides from his friends because he would be pulled over and harassed as soon as a cop spotted his car. He was publicly mocked and routinely kicked out of local establishments. Once his probation was up, he moved to another state to start a new life. The galling part was that the girl later apologized to him, saying that her dad would kill her if he found out that she had premarital sex (and he was by no means her first).
One of the most amazing things that I have seen was a shuttle launch. I was close enough to watch it from lift-off all the way until it wasn't visible in the sky anymore; basically as close as you can get without being invited to sit in the bleachers inside the Space Center. More than anything, I remember the sound and the profound feeling of national pride. I felt a connection to my father, whose face still involuntarily conveys a feeling of wonder and awe when he talks about the moon landing. Experiences like that lead me to become a scientist. I have mixed feelings now, knowing that my son will never have a chance to see it for himself, but that he may some day be able to buy a ticket to go to space himself. Let's hope he can afford business class.
This is a fascinating dichotomy. From what I gather, we have an American living in Europe and (presumably) a European living in The US. Both point to their places of origin and say "can't you see how crazy it is there! I'm glad I left" or something to that effect.
Case in point. I'm assuming you are referring to EU data retention directives in 2006 (which don't actually do what you say they do). Yawn, we've had basically the same thing in US since 1997. And that is just the program that we know about. The NSA collects all kinds of information that we don't even get know about because, when they're caught, the administration "neither confirms nor denies it." You know, national security!
I have no idea where you live in the US, but growing up in a small town I heard the phrase "ignorance of the law is not an excuse for breaking law" routinely from redneck cops that got their kicks from harassing kids and hippies. By contrast, I have been excused of countless minor infractions in many European countries for simply not knowing the rules.
Perhaps what we have here is a difference in perception. Having grown up in the US, and kept myself well informed on these matters, it is perfectly clear to me that personal liberty and privacy has eroded at an exponential rate since the 1970's. I've been harassed by all kinds of law enforcement, pushed around by bureaucrats enforcing arbitrary rules based on technicalities, paid countless fines for bullshit violations meant to entrap people to raise revenue for cash-starved municipalities, and been downright abused by giant corporations while Uncle Sam just looked at me and shrugged. I have been fighting for over ten years to get a credit card expunged from my credit report. I paid it off and canceled it in 2001, but it persisted to the point that I even won in a class action lawsuit against the bank, but my "by the people, for the people" government has written the laws so that I am powerless against this ridiculously corrupt predatory lender, so it continues to hurt my credit score by artificially increasing my total credit by $30,000. Why? Because the US government treats its citizens like chattel for corporations to bleed dry and every time we start to notice and try to do something about it, they ratchet up the terrorism nonsense and use perpetual war as an excuse to crack down on the First and Fourth Amendment.
From where I sit, it is obvious that Europe treats its citizens like adults and respects our rights of self-determination, privacy, individual liberty, and so on. But I completely understand that, situations reversed, the US would look like some kind of paragon of freedom (we do talk a good game). I freely admit that most of my opinions of Europe are based on a few years of anecdotal personal experiences.
No, Italy isn't Europe, nor is Germany, which is why sweeping generalizations about Europe being a a nanny state are silly--and I vehemently disagree that most European countries have stricter laws (and enforcement) in most of these areas. Of course, if you go around cherry-picking laws either from US states or European countries, you can paint whatever picture you want. Let me do that right now: you can, according to the SCOTUS, be strip searched for not wearing a helmet while biking in most cities in the US because, you know, you just might be biking around town with a baggie of heroin jammed up your ass just in case you get arrested. And, for every silly German or Norwegian law, the Netherlands, Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Spain, etc, etc, have three that are eminently more reasonable than their US counterparts (which still isn't a fair comparison, because state laws vary so widely). Just taking traffic laws, in many European countries (Italy is one) you have to carry a form in your car (eeek nanny state!) that you fill out and exchange with the other driver if you get into a minor accident in which the two drivers agree on how to split the responsibility (it works best when it's 50/50, obviously). In every state in the US that I have lived, you have to call the cops to get "proof" of the accident or the insurance company won't pay--and before you say anything, yes, that has happened to me. And in my case, the insurance company screwed me because--even though the other driver ran a stop sign and totaled my car--the cop didn't write something down exactly the way they wanted. To me, that sounds like a society that treats its citizens like chattel, that have to ask The Boss to oversee insignificant bullshit that responsible, independent people are perfectly capable of working out on their own.
Even though Slashdot likes to pick on Germany for being so draconian (and do I agree, Germans like rules), they also have a lot of sensible policies. For instance--and again this is true is many European countries--a passenger can drink a beer in a car. In most US states, the law sees that as too much of a temptation for the driver, who can't possibly be trusted around an open container of alcohol because responsible adults have no self-restraint. And in Bavaria, the driver can drink (or at least could--they may have changed this law recently) so long as they are under the legal limit... Really, in any situation involving drugs (including alcohol), sexuality, or something that evokes the "think of the children" argument, laws in the US are far stricter than anything Europe has to offer. Oh, and absolutely anything that can be painted with the anti-terrorism brush; air travel is an obvious example.
This whole thread started because of the disparity between most EU countries' policies on termination as compared to most US states'. You will get no argument from me; even at the EU level, there are way more protections for employees than in the US. And that does occasionally suck, because there are a lot of people that do the bare minimum of work, knowing that they can't be fired. You can chose to parse that a draconian over-reach as part of oppressive European laws that treat people like children, but you're not going to convince me that it is part of a larger trend, or that the US isn't at least as guilty.
From my own personal experience, I almost never encounter the "I'm sorry, it's the rules, my hands are tied" argument in Europe. A lot of the seemingly-silly rules aren't enforced in a silly way. For instance, a calm "I'm sorry, I wasn't aware of that rule" has gotten me out of a lot of situations that, in my experience as an American, would have been met with a fine for technical violation of a rule/law. In fact, when I first came to Europe, when I was confronted with a ridiculous rule, I would blow my stack, thinking that it was like the US where "ignorance of the law is not an excuse." Once I learned that you can talk your way out of almost anything if you have a reasonable excuse, I came to understand that there is a cultural difference in how (continental) Europe perceives the purpose of rules.
Ritter acknowledges that the new work is simply a prototype, and one for which numerous improvements are possible. For instance, the transfer of a quantum state between labs succeeded only 0.2 percent of the time, owing to various inefficiencies and technical limitations. "Everything is at the edge of what can be done," he says. "All these characteristics are good enough to do what we've done, but there are clear strategies to pursue to make them even better."
I wish I could publish a 0.2 % yield, or an experiment that worked 0.2 % of the time in Nature! Clearly I'm in the wrong field (but in all serious, getting atoms to communicate through a fiber optic cable is pretty freaking cool.)
Those who lived in Springfield/Eugene Oregon always knew. 1. Matt Groening was from Oregon. 2. They have a statute of the founder of the town(Jebediah Springfield), and Eugene has a statue of its founder Eugene Skinner. 3. Principal's name is Skinner. 4. There's a Nuclear plant nearby. There's probably more. Actually, I always heard Matt was from Springfield.
Terwilliger, Flanders, and Lovejoy are all streets in Portland.
Krusty the Klown was named after a TV clown from Portland named Rusty Nails.
Comic Book Guy--though a stereotype--was based on a real person, who ran a comic shop in Portland.
And who can forget the Lewis and Clark spoof, when the sky turns grey and it starts raining and Carl says "we'll call this place Eugene, Oregon."
I'm sure there are many, many others, but to me the connection between the Simpsons and Oregon was as apparent as the one between South Park and Colorado.
Having long since left Oregon, I still consider myself an Oregonian (and a Duck). Many years ago at Comicon I saw Matt Groening, who was clearly on his way out and avoiding photos, but I shouted "Hey, how about a photo with a fellow Oregonian?" and he cheerfully walked over for a photo. Because I'm a giant nerd... But it's ok, this is Slashdot. I also got in a shouting match with someone that tried to tell me Animal House was filmed in Rhode Island. In retrospect, he was clearly trolling me.
Germans are nuts about rules... I was sternly warned by a helpful resident in Munich against crossing against the signal lest I be ticketed. On foot. When there were zero cars on the street. Contrast that to Italy, where the one who shouts the loudest wins, or France where the cops roll their eyes at you for boring them with your problems. Of course, nothing compares to Small Town USA, where getting pulled over and harassed by bored cops was a daily occurrence for me. They loved to search our cars and make us wait while they tested the grass that had fallen from our cleats after practice to make sure it wasn't marijuana.
NL
Ah, I love the ignorance of dumb Europeans. They (should be "we" since I live in Europe) think that our health care system is great and that the one in the US is really, really bad. Here is some interesting news for you: The US has, by a very significant margin, the best health care system in the world if you can afford it.
Europeans thinks that because in the US one needs insurance, that people without will not get treatment. That is not true. A hospital that received a sick patent in an ER is required to treat that patient, insurance or not and then dump them in the street with no follow-up care. ERs in the US equals socialized health care except that an ambulance ride alone will set you back $1,500, it is just that nobody, Dem or Republican, will admit to that. Will they get the very best treatment, no, but they will get significantly less treatment than a European on a waiting list for an operation that may or may not come before he dies, but of course that rarely happens, just as American surgeons rarely amputate the wrong limb.
In the US, if you have insurance, which the vast majority of the employed US population actually does have, the treatment you will get is significantly better than in any country in the world, unless you're poor. This--and the enormous profits of private health insurance companies--is a major reason that the US spends significantly more per person in health care than any other country. Well, that and the absurd amount of malpractice insurance American docs need to defend against frivolous lawsuits and ambulance chasers.
Also, and very importantly, US citizens, through taxes and insurance, sponsors to a great degree health care in Europe. They do this by paying for medications developed by US companies in full, not at cut-rate prices, because European pharmaceutical companies are too busy working on cancer therapies to cure restless leg syndrome. In this way, the people in the US pays for development and testing, and advertising of often over-prescribed drugs that Europeans get access to. Europe is hardly in the forefront of perfunctory pharmaceutical development and outright abuse of patent laws to keep generics off the market.
FTFY
Did you have any counter arguments or are you just trolling? I have lived and worked longer in Europe than in the US, but I have done both for more than ten years. Do you have any experience? Any comments? Any rational arguments?
Then you should know better than to lump the entire continent into one big generalization. Doesn't it annoy the hell out of you when a Frenchman says things like "wow, you're skinny for an American!" or assumes that you voted for whomever is president and therefore agree with absolutely every policy coming out of the federal government? My personal favorite is when Germans conflate the US and Canada and are want to introduce you to someone from Vancouver because you must have so much in common.
Nope. Because the US is (mostly, there are obvious and absurd exceptions) governed in a way that assumes consenting adults can engage in mutually beneficial relationships without a nanny telling them what to do as if they were five year old children. In Europe most laws are written to the point where they assume the ordinary citizenry are mentally handicapped five year olds that needs to be monitored, watched and told what to do at all times by responsible adults.
I prefer the government treat me as an adult.
That's funny, because I have found the opposite. Moving from the US to Europe for me meant no more silly laws about wearing bike helmets, picking up dog poo, drinking in public, smoking pot, constantly having to show my ID for not having quite enough grey in my beard... Where I live, they have this concept of "personal responsibility" and have no need for stupid laws about what time you can go to a public park. Oh, and traffic laws? Those are more like suggestions; no macho asshole cop pulling you over for an "illegal lane change" and then searching your car for the fun of it. In fact, for just about anything short of a violent crime, the police treat you like a rational adult and politely ask you not to do it again... They have a phrase for that... Oh, "the benefit of the doubt," but that is clearly because mentally handicapped five year olds are always acting in good faith. However, unlike the parents of small children, who can lay down arbitrary laws like "bed time," employers here can't fire you without cause. (But they can still lay you off to save money.)
Maybe you just lived in a European country populated by mentally handicapped five year olds? Was it Belgium? That would explain why everyone makes fun of them.
I was actually thinking along the lines of someone from the communist party (the real far-left) or a true socialist (not Bernie Sanders, who is an eminently reasonable Social Democrat)... But you're right, Kucinich is the Democratic equivalent of Ron Paul, isn't he? Too bad he's been redistricted out of office.