The official state apparatus being used to harass opposition parties? In Germany? Days before an election? No, I'm not touching this one with a ten foot pole.
As I read this again and again, despite my better judgement I've become honestly curious to understand how in God's name you came to believe that the "patriot" act originates from or derives support from Progressives or their beliefs.
That's on the same level as claiming with a straight face that Abraham Lincoln supported slavery or that Dwight Eisenhower commanded Normandy's defenses.
This is basically a reprisal of the optical rectenna, and it's already been pointed out that the hardest part isn't rectifying THz radiation, which requires only nanolithiography-sized antennae, but creating the diode fast enough to turn it into DC.
The above link details the status of optical rectennas as of roughly 2002; They managed to get an efficiency of 1% in the near-infrared (100THz) - the diode just didn't exhibit the asymmetry and nonlinearity needed. I'd bet that to make anything happen efficiently at optical speeds, they'll have to somehow create a diode that's based on atomic behavior rather than the bulk electron fluid.
So how would my suggestion get past this? A key innovation would be to program in boundary conditions to the experiment. The paramount condition would be “no losers.”
Let the program find the simplest version of a refined tax code that leaves all 100 taxpayer clades unhurt. If one group loses a favorite tax dodge, the system would seek a rebalancing of others to compensate. No mere human being could accomplish this, but I have been assured by experts that a computer could do this in a snap.
Basic literacy: It helps you not look dumb in front of others!
I'd like to visit your world, where the existence of a largely free, open, safe, well-developed state like America - where you take it for granted that the lights will work, your car will probably save you in an accident, the roads will be drivable, the food is 100% safe to eat, the water is 100% safe to drink from the tap, your employer can't work you to death with impunity, and your home won't be robbed as soon as you leave - is free, and no one is "stolen from" to pay for the government that supports it all.
As a resident of the Internet, I've seen some dumb claims, but this "taxation is slavery and government theft and communism" is about as dumb as it's possible to get and still have coherent grammar. Have you literally never spent one second thinking about what makes your western life possible?
Bush
+ much better veneer of respect for rule of law
- revolting social policies
----------------
= Obama
He opposes most of the Bush administration's appalling social politics, he appears to at least not be certifiably insane regarding the economy, and he does a much better job of pretending to respect the rule of law.
It tells you how low standards have fallen that, even after looking at the things that are between bad and inexcusable (Failure to prosecute wall st. for massive fraud leading to 2008 collapse; Willfull escalation of illegal spying programs; Selling the public option down the river; Extending bush tax cuts), I still think he's doing a halfway-OK job once you account for the fact that he inherited an absolute shit-pie.
I'll tell the mining companies to keep that in mind before they turn every atom of Molybdenum in earth's crust over to the semiconductor fabs. Also, I'll ask them not to grind up old chips and dust crops with them. We good?
And this is where the theory of "you can do anything you want that doesn't harm others," given without qualifiers, falls apart.
Everything in the world interacts with everything else - somehow - so you can always identify some way in which what you're doing takes something from or harms someone else. Which leaves us only with "no one can do anything" unless we start imposing a cutoff and say "you're allowed to harm others and impose on their freedom a tiny bit." And at that point, we're right back to arguing over what's an acceptable amount of intrusion in various matters.
Now one can certainly argue in favor of setting that cutoff higher or lower. Personally, I favor a large degree of freedom for small entities (whose actions have comparatively little potential for large-scale harm) and increasing restrictions on large entities (Thank you for nearly imploding the entire world's economy, Wall St!). If you want to get high or drunk, go for it. Drive high or drunk, lose your license for a week. Do it the Nth time and lose your license for 2^N weeks; Eventually you'll either figure it out or go to jail.
Taking the engine as a metaphor for a device which functions under rational principles, I'd argue that any person who applies science and scientific principles to objective reality in order to do new Useful Stuff is an engineer of some kind. Someone who applies the scientific method to do new Interesting Stuff is a scientist. Where they intersect is the hallowed domain of Awesome.
Yet unlike idiots trusting their gut on complex societal and engineering issues, experts have a means of discerning when they are wrong and a means of correcting the errors.
The enemies of net neutrality are waging a war against the Free and Open Internet as we know it. We all know where this campaign is going.
This is what must be done to win: Fight back against their campaign of lies about net neutrality at every single turn. Make certain that you are armed with the facts:
Network neutrality is what the Internet has always had - since forever. And it's what you have right now. It only means not discriminating against traffic based on source.
You and the content providers both already paid for Internet access - why should anyone pay again?
ISPs demanding money for the same access you currently have is no different from the Mafia demanding protection money so that nice store doesn't burn down.
Invoke the Mafia image - the visceral negative reaction associated with what they're trying to do is essential. People don't react to facts, they react to feelings: the Mob is bad so anything Mob-like is bad. It doesn't matter if you think this is in poor taste or something - if the enemies of net neutrality win, it was all for nothing anyway. Every column you see written opposing network neutrality, write the author. Write in the comments section. Never let the lies go unchallenged, because then people will start to believe them! And no one who's informed with the truth regarding Network Neutrality would stand to see it taken away.
It quite puzzles me... Bush was almost everything "conservatives" claim to despise: A blue-blood, trust-fund baby, born to aristocrats, who was given everything he had. Obama is almost everything they claim to adore: A bootstrappy young boy who found Jesus, got married, had kids and got rich. Yet, here we are...
Don't ban tools because some tools can't learn to use them appropriately.
One of my classmates writes his notes into a tablet - why should he lose the ability to do that because someone can't take their eyes off of Farmville? The right course of action is in the summary - if someone's laptop is a distraction, ask them to stop the distracting program. If they refuse, bring it up with the professor either then or after class. Eventually, those who aren't completely socially maladjusted will get the picture, either by learning after being politely asked or from social pressure to not be a douche.
That would be sensible - as the dipole moment passes through 0, the higher moments dominate and that Earth's magnetic field is a tangled mess becomes apparent on the surface.
The problem was that following the "captured tech" conclusion through ultimately doomed the show.
Because with every bad guy SG-1 beats, they have to escalate with a newer badder guy (Apophis -> All the System Lords -> Anubis -> RepliCarter -> Ori) and once you get to Ori, now what? It escalated it to the point that when SG-1 ended, they were flying around in starships that can destroy the previously invincible Ori motherships in 3 shots (and along the way to getting there they'd killed off every other interesting plot thread that'd been left open) - now what? It didn't have to be that way - I mean, after the System Lords fell there were plenty of ways to go - plenty of new worlds, chaos after the power vacuum, diplomacy, the Trust, etc... but they went with Newer More Evil Baddie again and again. They sort-of managed to resist doing the same thing in SGA ("McKay, how many times are we going to manage to NOT acquire the Aurora-class battleship?") until the economic crash killed it and then went full retard in the last episode.
SGU was their attempt to escape from the exponential spiral-out that had trapped the first two series (and the production costs that doomed Atlantis). Might've worked if they hadn't turned McKay 2.0 up to 11 in the form of Dr. Rush. I mean, seriously, they screen for that kind of unstable personality before they tell you the neat stuff exists.
Asking how it is "remarkable" that an analog device works as intended. Digital, applied to physical systems, is just emulated analog (necessarily so because, of course, the world is analog).
There's only one kind of "genuine" 3D camera, and it requires very special film and one of absolute stillness or high-power pulse lasers. We call the process "holography," and if it doesn't do that it's not a real 3D "camera."
Slashdot Mirror
The official state apparatus being used to harass opposition parties? In Germany? Days before an election? No, I'm not touching this one with a ten foot pole.
As I read this again and again, despite my better judgement I've become honestly curious to understand how in God's name you came to believe that the "patriot" act originates from or derives support from Progressives or their beliefs.
That's on the same level as claiming with a straight face that Abraham Lincoln supported slavery or that Dwight Eisenhower commanded Normandy's defenses.
This is basically a reprisal of the optical rectenna, and it's already been pointed out that the hardest part isn't rectifying THz radiation, which requires only nanolithiography-sized antennae, but creating the diode fast enough to turn it into DC.
The above link details the status of optical rectennas as of roughly 2002; They managed to get an efficiency of 1% in the near-infrared (100THz) - the diode just didn't exhibit the asymmetry and nonlinearity needed. I'd bet that to make anything happen efficiently at optical speeds, they'll have to somehow create a diode that's based on atomic behavior rather than the bulk electron fluid.
Basic literacy: It helps you not look dumb in front of others!
Cool, then they can go do something that creates cultural value or wealth, rather than fiddling around with its transfer.
I'd like to visit your world, where the existence of a largely free, open, safe, well-developed state like America - where you take it for granted that the lights will work, your car will probably save you in an accident, the roads will be drivable, the food is 100% safe to eat, the water is 100% safe to drink from the tap, your employer can't work you to death with impunity, and your home won't be robbed as soon as you leave - is free, and no one is "stolen from" to pay for the government that supports it all.
As a resident of the Internet, I've seen some dumb claims, but this "taxation is slavery and government theft and communism" is about as dumb as it's possible to get and still have coherent grammar. Have you literally never spent one second thinking about what makes your western life possible?
We did get the 10 years between the fall of the spectre of Communism and the rise of the spectre of Terrorism. They were pretty good if you ask me.
Bush
+ much better veneer of respect for rule of law
- revolting social policies
----------------
= Obama
He opposes most of the Bush administration's appalling social politics, he appears to at least not be certifiably insane regarding the economy, and he does a much better job of pretending to respect the rule of law.
It tells you how low standards have fallen that, even after looking at the things that are between bad and inexcusable (Failure to prosecute wall st. for massive fraud leading to 2008 collapse; Willfull escalation of illegal spying programs; Selling the public option down the river; Extending bush tax cuts), I still think he's doing a halfway-OK job once you account for the fact that he inherited an absolute shit-pie.
I'll tell the mining companies to keep that in mind before they turn every atom of Molybdenum in earth's crust over to the semiconductor fabs. Also, I'll ask them not to grind up old chips and dust crops with them. We good?
And this is where the theory of "you can do anything you want that doesn't harm others," given without qualifiers, falls apart.
Everything in the world interacts with everything else - somehow - so you can always identify some way in which what you're doing takes something from or harms someone else. Which leaves us only with "no one can do anything" unless we start imposing a cutoff and say "you're allowed to harm others and impose on their freedom a tiny bit." And at that point, we're right back to arguing over what's an acceptable amount of intrusion in various matters.
Now one can certainly argue in favor of setting that cutoff higher or lower. Personally, I favor a large degree of freedom for small entities (whose actions have comparatively little potential for large-scale harm) and increasing restrictions on large entities (Thank you for nearly imploding the entire world's economy, Wall St!). If you want to get high or drunk, go for it. Drive high or drunk, lose your license for a week. Do it the Nth time and lose your license for 2^N weeks; Eventually you'll either figure it out or go to jail.
Taking the engine as a metaphor for a device which functions under rational principles, I'd argue that any person who applies science and scientific principles to objective reality in order to do new Useful Stuff is an engineer of some kind. Someone who applies the scientific method to do new Interesting Stuff is a scientist. Where they intersect is the hallowed domain of Awesome.
Yet unlike idiots trusting their gut on complex societal and engineering issues, experts have a means of discerning when they are wrong and a means of correcting the errors.
The enemies of net neutrality are waging a war against the Free and Open Internet as we know it. We all know where this campaign is going.
This is what must be done to win: Fight back against their campaign of lies about net neutrality at every single turn. Make certain that you are armed with the facts:
Network neutrality is what the Internet has always had - since forever. And it's what you have right now. It only means not discriminating against traffic based on source.
You and the content providers both already paid for Internet access - why should anyone pay again?
ISPs demanding money for the same access you currently have is no different from the Mafia demanding protection money so that nice store doesn't burn down.
Invoke the Mafia image - the visceral negative reaction associated with what they're trying to do is essential. People don't react to facts, they react to feelings: the Mob is bad so anything Mob-like is bad. It doesn't matter if you think this is in poor taste or something - if the enemies of net neutrality win, it was all for nothing anyway. Every column you see written opposing network neutrality, write the author. Write in the comments section. Never let the lies go unchallenged, because then people will start to believe them! And no one who's informed with the truth regarding Network Neutrality would stand to see it taken away.
Yes, the USA is the only country with ego problems that routinely behaves like a narcissistic dick.
No. Not only no, HELL NO.
Next question please.
4 people with a piss/bondage fetish and their fans weren't responsible for the murder of nearly 200 million people in the 20th century alone.
Show us your JD from Harvard.
It quite puzzles me... Bush was almost everything "conservatives" claim to despise: A blue-blood, trust-fund baby, born to aristocrats, who was given everything he had. Obama is almost everything they claim to adore: A bootstrappy young boy who found Jesus, got married, had kids and got rich. Yet, here we are...
Players with superior input devices do better. More as this story develops.
Don't ban tools because some tools can't learn to use them appropriately.
One of my classmates writes his notes into a tablet - why should he lose the ability to do that because someone can't take their eyes off of Farmville? The right course of action is in the summary - if someone's laptop is a distraction, ask them to stop the distracting program. If they refuse, bring it up with the professor either then or after class. Eventually, those who aren't completely socially maladjusted will get the picture, either by learning after being politely asked or from social pressure to not be a douche.
That would be sensible - as the dipole moment passes through 0, the higher moments dominate and that Earth's magnetic field is a tangled mess becomes apparent on the surface.
Can't or choose not to?
The entire history of Basic Research would like to have a word before it bitchslaps you into next Tuesday.
The problem was that following the "captured tech" conclusion through ultimately doomed the show.
Because with every bad guy SG-1 beats, they have to escalate with a newer badder guy (Apophis -> All the System Lords -> Anubis -> RepliCarter -> Ori) and once you get to Ori, now what? It escalated it to the point that when SG-1 ended, they were flying around in starships that can destroy the previously invincible Ori motherships in 3 shots (and along the way to getting there they'd killed off every other interesting plot thread that'd been left open) - now what? It didn't have to be that way - I mean, after the System Lords fell there were plenty of ways to go - plenty of new worlds, chaos after the power vacuum, diplomacy, the Trust, etc... but they went with Newer More Evil Baddie again and again. They sort-of managed to resist doing the same thing in SGA ("McKay, how many times are we going to manage to NOT acquire the Aurora-class battleship?") until the economic crash killed it and then went full retard in the last episode.
SGU was their attempt to escape from the exponential spiral-out that had trapped the first two series (and the production costs that doomed Atlantis). Might've worked if they hadn't turned McKay 2.0 up to 11 in the form of Dr. Rush. I mean, seriously, they screen for that kind of unstable personality before they tell you the neat stuff exists.
Asking how it is "remarkable" that an analog device works as intended. Digital, applied to physical systems, is just emulated analog (necessarily so because, of course, the world is analog).
There's only one kind of "genuine" 3D camera, and it requires very special film and one of absolute stillness or high-power pulse lasers. We call the process "holography," and if it doesn't do that it's not a real 3D "camera."
Words mean things.