I think this is the most important but overlooked is Increasing importance placed on personal luxury and materialistic acquisitions.
Americans and people in most other western nations have so many distractions, that they don't take an interest in politics. I think this has to do more with culture than wealth. The vast majority of westerners are so distracted by entertainments that they are easily persuaded by emotion and rhetoric. And that is why we have so many non-representative people in office- the people that are good at putting on a big show.
Since it is hard to change culture, I think we need to adapt to it. What would be ideal is if there was an independent watchdog for every single law that it passed in the country, and reported it... both the actual law, and an interpretation of it. It can even be biased, it doesn't really matter I think, as long as new laws are made PUBLIC in a prominent way. People can see through bias and make their own informed decisions. This would actually be a worthwhile use of a slashdot style blog! Every new law that is made gets an entry open for commentary. Sure, they may not be able to change the law, BUT they at least know about it, which opens up many future possibilities
Yes, the parent poster is absolutely right. Knowing what kind of threats/situations are likely to come up helps to plan. Theoretically it would save money too. But there's too many special interest military projects that congress votes for to much cancel out any savings.
There are a couple things I think some companies are doing right. One is the concept of a 9/80 schedule, in which you work 80 hours total every 2 weeks, but only 9 of the 10 normal days. So you work 9 hours M-Th, and only work every other Friday. I have done that and liked it. If you go to work at 7 and leave at 4 you not only avoid major traffic and unless you live way up north, you'll probably be getting home when it's still light out, even in the winter.
The thing I think works even better is having core hours that employees must be there... say from 9 to 3, and then anything before or after that is up to the employee to decide. That way, meetings can take place when everyone is there, and one only needs to come in early or late if they need extra time to do whatever they need. If you can get done with everything in that block of time, well there's your 30 hour workweek. I have also worked a job like that and loved it.
Very good points on all counts. Atlantis though, I'm really glad the Wraith aren't there every episode. It makes it more compelling to keep seeing things that allude to them, but don't actually feature them as the main part of the story. I think it will help to make it a successful series, a la Star Trek TNG. Sure the Borg were a huge enemy but they only had them on a handful of times. Later ST series made a mess by beating that dead horse. Novel stories, or old stories told in a new, different, or better way (like the BG miniseries) are what make a successful series I think.
And speaking of Enterprise, yes B&B have royally messed it up by dumping too much 'future' technology into it. They've got shields, transporters, the whole bit. The show is practically indistinguishable from the other Star Trek series. They could have been out repairing every hole in the ship, shooting projectile weapons, having to use a shuttlecraft or physical means of transport, and made some great novel stories. The only things I think that series has done right are that Vulcan story arc, and featuring the Andorians. I'd love to see them really piss off the Klingons as well, and I'd love to see them make some huge earth-shattering mistakes... but alas, I'm afraid we're gonna keep seeing the same old sanitized version of the future.
Probably the same reason as every other independent company/person. They don't want to have to answer to anyone. Sure, they still have to follow any laws, and presumably the wishes of the major investor(s). But they don't have to be bogged down by middle management, million dollar concept studies... so in essence, they can avoid impedance from the corporate culture.
You know, this is an excellent idea. If they opened up the review process to let anyone find instances of prior art, like you just did, we could stop a lot of these before they became patents. And then, if there was no instance of prior art, at least the patent and author would get more publicity, which is a good thing IMO
One need not be a "homophobe" in order to feel that a two-parent, heterosexaul household provides children with the best opportunity of developing positive relationships with men AND women
Why? If there is only one Gender present does that mean the kid will never have any interaction with the "other" sex?
I wanted to comment on this issue about Sex and Gender and the well being of kids.
Believe it or not, there have been many, many psychological studies on this topic. And for the most part all of them conclude that a 2 gender parental enviroment is absolutely essential for 'normal, healthy, well adjusted' kids. And not for any religious reasons; I'll explain...
Notice how I say gender rather than sex; this is the key difference. Before the age of 12, kids need a 'Mom' figure in their life. They need someone to uncondionally love, nuture, and respond more with emotion than reason. It has been shown that babies recognize and respond more to their mother than father. Up until about the age of twelve, kids generally feel closer to their mother. Why? Because most women exhibit these traits. After the age of 12, this is when the 'father' role becomes essential. Someone who evokes a sense of trust, respect, independence, the ability to handle the world and deal with problems. At this point, both girls and boys start to respond and emulate their father figure until adulthood.
The stereotype 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus' really holds true. The vast majority of women fit the 'mom' psychological profile, and the vast majority of men fit the 'dad' role. There are fundamental hormonal diferences in the two sexes that prevent this for the most part. There are exceptions of course, but they are rare.
So for a gay parenting enviroment can work sucessfully, one or both of the parents need to exhibit enough traits of the opposite sex, to provide this necessary emotional resource for kids. In families that don't... both heterosexual and homosexual, children tend to grow up socially awkward and have many more problems in life.
An interesting idea, but that probably wouldn't be feasable. Part of the big problem with the whole experiment is the balance of species in such a small environment really didn't work out well. So if you were trying to recreate a certain biome specific to an endangered species, they'll probably end up doing worse than they would adapting in their native habitat. If you were just creating managed isolated living for certain animals, well, you might as well just build sealed containers in a regular zoo.
The only type of animal I think would do well in there would be a mix of bird species. It's certainly big and tall enough to give them lots of room to fly around. The structure just looks like a big aviary on the inside. The problem maintaining the balance of insects for them to feed on (or to pollinate plants). The glass naturally blocks UV light, the lack of which orginally killed all the bees in the experiments there. If you were able to figure out a way around that, I think they might be small enough to do well in a biome like that with minimal intervention. But again, if you're going for the zoo sanctuary rather than recreating a biome, it'd probably be easier and cheaper to build your own
An interesting bit of trivia; from the beginning Ed Bass and the management were accused of being part of a survivalist cult inspired by John Allen (interview), who ran a theater commune in the southwest. Alegedly, this cult was running the show along with the 'official' management; accused of caring more about colonizing mars and putting on a good show, than running a serious study. One aspect of this was in the design, that tower contained a library, at the top because learning is the highest and most noble pursuit of man. During the experiments, when oxygen levels started falling, none of the air-starved and overworked biospherians apparently had the energy to climb up there. Tensions rose, the group split into factions, became tight-lipped and defensive... later ending up suing Space Biosphere Ventures.
So in a sense, it's already been a cult headquarters of sorts. I don't suppose a 'cult' of today could do any worse... who knows, they might actually improve the place, try to use it for it's orignal purpose again, rather than a mishmash of mini research projects.
The location is great for a cult. Right next to the mountains, outside a small town, by open pit mines. With all the researcher housing, the hotel and the visitor centers, if they decided to close it off, they'd have everything they needed to run a small town
I was fortunate enough to get to do research there in 2001. The place is absolutely amazing. We didn't actually live inside the Biosphere, there's a trailer/kit house village down past the lungs. The researchers there are literally from all over the globe.
As for the areas you didn't see on the tour, there isn't much to see in the coastal desert, and all of it is visible if you walk around the outside. The agricultural biome was partitioned off into 3 managed forests, since they are not needed for food production. At the time I was there they were ramping up each to different levels of CO2 to see what effect that had (which I guess simulates what would happen if CO2 levels rose significantly on the earth).
The tropical rainforest is sealed off from the tour areas, since that's where the bulk of the 'research' takes place. At the time, we were only allowed to go in twice to check on our experiment, which was a good thing IMO. There's a 'mountain' inside with fans at the top to help air circulate, and yes, the vegetation is very dense, so it is hard to see from the outside. I don't think any significantly sized animals live there anymore. In fact, when they had the first experiment there they had a problem with these primates (I believe they were galagos?) that would climb up the scaffolding in the rainforest biome, slip, and fall to their deaths right next to the outside windows. Of course, the PR people and the tour groups were not impressed when they would see all these dead 'monkeys' pressed up against the glass. So they had to go. I think the only larger animals that did remarkably well were in the oceans.
The AC is right when they say this was a very large "learning experiment" rather than a failed one. Even though they had many problems, they were handled in a controlled way and accounted for in the experiment and the data they took. If anything, the problems helped them learn more, since those are the types of unexpected things colonists in space will deal with.
This site has some good photos of the different biomes and the living/mechanical areas. If anyone has any questions or wants to know more of the 'unofficial history' let me know and I'll try to field them
My thoughts exactly... you'd have "cool" colors like blue, purple, green... "warm" colors like orange, red and yellow. White could be hot, black could be ice cold.
The great thing about using temperature is it is since most objects are at whatever the ambient temp is anyway, you're not taking away from some more variable tactile sense, such as texture, if you chose to implement that somehow.
It seems like this idea could also be used for Webcams or Video-phone calls. Use a tilted piece of glass setup so that someone could look directly into the camera instead of away from the lens. I really think that's one of the big reasons why video conferencing hasn't caught on... the fact that everyone is always looking away from the camera.
I've been thinking that people in western societies (ie. Europe and America) should learn basic survival skills in school or at home. Not just the "what to do if you're stranded in the middle of nowhere" stuff, but also the kind of knowlege people in America had 100 years ago. When and how to plant crops, how to card and spin wool, build an oven, extract metals from ore, etc...
Even though one can argue that most people will never need this sort of information, these things really are the foundation of our lives. People learn science, but I don't think too many have an idea of how to turn basic chemistry, biology or physics information into practical knowlege. I think we'd be better off as a society if more people knew these fundamentals. If a disease wiped out 99.9999% of the population, the only ones who knew this sort of information are going to survive long.
For instance, in its fiscal year ending on June 30, 2002, the American National Red Cross spent $1.16 billion on employee salaries. Spending on actual disaster relief assistance for individuals was only $608 million. Of that, $479 million was for Sept. 11 assistance. This spending occurred only after the media put loads of heat on the organization. During the preceding fiscal year (the one ending on June 30, 2001), the Red Cross spent $1.04 billion on employee salaries and only $149 million on actual assistance for individuals.
Despite all this seemingly damning evidence, Charity Navigators gives the Red Cross a four-star rating, largely because of the organization's financial strength (which after a point, becomes more of a negative than a positive in my view). This is why I think doing your own research is highly advisable, especially if you're contemplating major gifts.
Personally, if you wanted to help through the Red Cross, I'd suggest giving blood instead.
Really, I don't think that's a liability at all keeping all those old updates and whatnot.
I can hardly begin to count the number of times I've had to revert back to an older version of software because the "update" didn't function properly, or had some other annoyance. It's helpful too if you have friends or family with older hardware that can't run newer stuff. I've also seen free software with useful features get turned into ad-ridden commercial software later down the line, with the old one no where to be found.
Really with storage so cheap and getting even cheaper, there's not many good reasons not to keep old software backed up somewhere. You never know when it'll be useful. Burn it to disc and forget about it!
Yes, by denying matching government funds to say, any party that got more than say 30% of the vote in the last election. The republicans and democrats have enough money in their coffers, why are my tax dollars going to perpetuate them?
Ah, but the advantage of a jacket or trenchcoat is you can take it off to run through the x-ray scanner, rather than having to fumble around and empty out pockets.
As if government policy had more than a small effect on the economy. Consumers and their changing demands in the world are what ultimately drives an economy, not policy. Any economics professor will tell you the same. The government makes changes (such as interest rate hikes or reductions) based on where the economy is already going. Policy is more often reactionary than not.
I think it's more interesting that no matter who is at the helm.. Democrat or Republican, we have still run a deficit every year. Maybe it's time to have a third party candidate, rather than the two who spend all their time and money blaming each other for the problems in the world
Slashdot Mirror
I think this is the most important but overlooked is Increasing importance placed on personal luxury and materialistic acquisitions.
Americans and people in most other western nations have so many distractions, that they don't take an interest in politics. I think this has to do more with culture than wealth. The vast majority of westerners are so distracted by entertainments that they are easily persuaded by emotion and rhetoric. And that is why we have so many non-representative people in office- the people that are good at putting on a big show.
Since it is hard to change culture, I think we need to adapt to it. What would be ideal is if there was an independent watchdog for every single law that it passed in the country, and reported it... both the actual law, and an interpretation of it. It can even be biased, it doesn't really matter I think, as long as new laws are made PUBLIC in a prominent way. People can see through bias and make their own informed decisions. This would actually be a worthwhile use of a slashdot style blog! Every new law that is made gets an entry open for commentary. Sure, they may not be able to change the law, BUT they at least know about it, which opens up many future possibilities
Yes, the parent poster is absolutely right. Knowing what kind of threats/situations are likely to come up helps to plan. Theoretically it would save money too. But there's too many special interest military projects that congress votes for to much cancel out any savings.
The thing I think works even better is having core hours that employees must be there... say from 9 to 3, and then anything before or after that is up to the employee to decide. That way, meetings can take place when everyone is there, and one only needs to come in early or late if they need extra time to do whatever they need. If you can get done with everything in that block of time, well there's your 30 hour workweek. I have also worked a job like that and loved it.
And speaking of Enterprise, yes B&B have royally messed it up by dumping too much 'future' technology into it. They've got shields, transporters, the whole bit. The show is practically indistinguishable from the other Star Trek series. They could have been out repairing every hole in the ship, shooting projectile weapons, having to use a shuttlecraft or physical means of transport, and made some great novel stories. The only things I think that series has done right are that Vulcan story arc, and featuring the Andorians. I'd love to see them really piss off the Klingons as well, and I'd love to see them make some huge earth-shattering mistakes... but alas, I'm afraid we're gonna keep seeing the same old sanitized version of the future.
Probably the same reason as every other independent company/person. They don't want to have to answer to anyone. Sure, they still have to follow any laws, and presumably the wishes of the major investor(s). But they don't have to be bogged down by middle management, million dollar concept studies... so in essence, they can avoid impedance from the corporate culture.
You know, this is an excellent idea. If they opened up the review process to let anyone find instances of prior art, like you just did, we could stop a lot of these before they became patents. And then, if there was no instance of prior art, at least the patent and author would get more publicity, which is a good thing IMO
Hippo!
Why? If there is only one Gender present does that mean the kid will never have any interaction with the "other" sex?
I wanted to comment on this issue about Sex and Gender and the well being of kids.
Believe it or not, there have been many, many psychological studies on this topic. And for the most part all of them conclude that a 2 gender parental enviroment is absolutely essential for 'normal, healthy, well adjusted' kids. And not for any religious reasons; I'll explain...
Notice how I say gender rather than sex; this is the key difference. Before the age of 12, kids need a 'Mom' figure in their life. They need someone to uncondionally love, nuture, and respond more with emotion than reason. It has been shown that babies recognize and respond more to their mother than father. Up until about the age of twelve, kids generally feel closer to their mother. Why? Because most women exhibit these traits. After the age of 12, this is when the 'father' role becomes essential. Someone who evokes a sense of trust, respect, independence, the ability to handle the world and deal with problems. At this point, both girls and boys start to respond and emulate their father figure until adulthood.
The stereotype 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus' really holds true. The vast majority of women fit the 'mom' psychological profile, and the vast majority of men fit the 'dad' role. There are fundamental hormonal diferences in the two sexes that prevent this for the most part. There are exceptions of course, but they are rare.
So for a gay parenting enviroment can work sucessfully, one or both of the parents need to exhibit enough traits of the opposite sex, to provide this necessary emotional resource for kids. In families that don't... both heterosexual and homosexual, children tend to grow up socially awkward and have many more problems in life.
The only type of animal I think would do well in there would be a mix of bird species. It's certainly big and tall enough to give them lots of room to fly around. The structure just looks like a big aviary on the inside. The problem maintaining the balance of insects for them to feed on (or to pollinate plants). The glass naturally blocks UV light, the lack of which orginally killed all the bees in the experiments there. If you were able to figure out a way around that, I think they might be small enough to do well in a biome like that with minimal intervention. But again, if you're going for the zoo sanctuary rather than recreating a biome, it'd probably be easier and cheaper to build your own
So in a sense, it's already been a cult headquarters of sorts. I don't suppose a 'cult' of today could do any worse... who knows, they might actually improve the place, try to use it for it's orignal purpose again, rather than a mishmash of mini research projects.
The location is great for a cult. Right next to the mountains, outside a small town, by open pit mines. With all the researcher housing, the hotel and the visitor centers, if they decided to close it off, they'd have everything they needed to run a small town
I was fortunate enough to get to do research there in 2001. The place is absolutely amazing. We didn't actually live inside the Biosphere, there's a trailer/kit house village down past the lungs. The researchers there are literally from all over the globe.
As for the areas you didn't see on the tour, there isn't much to see in the coastal desert, and all of it is visible if you walk around the outside. The agricultural biome was partitioned off into 3 managed forests, since they are not needed for food production. At the time I was there they were ramping up each to different levels of CO2 to see what effect that had (which I guess simulates what would happen if CO2 levels rose significantly on the earth).
The tropical rainforest is sealed off from the tour areas, since that's where the bulk of the 'research' takes place. At the time, we were only allowed to go in twice to check on our experiment, which was a good thing IMO. There's a 'mountain' inside with fans at the top to help air circulate, and yes, the vegetation is very dense, so it is hard to see from the outside. I don't think any significantly sized animals live there anymore. In fact, when they had the first experiment there they had a problem with these primates (I believe they were galagos?) that would climb up the scaffolding in the rainforest biome, slip, and fall to their deaths right next to the outside windows. Of course, the PR people and the tour groups were not impressed when they would see all these dead 'monkeys' pressed up against the glass. So they had to go. I think the only larger animals that did remarkably well were in the oceans.
The AC is right when they say this was a very large "learning experiment" rather than a failed one. Even though they had many problems, they were handled in a controlled way and accounted for in the experiment and the data they took. If anything, the problems helped them learn more, since those are the types of unexpected things colonists in space will deal with.
This site has some good photos of the different biomes and the living/mechanical areas. If anyone has any questions or wants to know more of the 'unofficial history' let me know and I'll try to field them
It sounds like we need to have more launches into space!
Better yet, park the darn thing next to the station and make the station a little bigger
My thoughts exactly... you'd have "cool" colors like blue, purple, green... "warm" colors like orange, red and yellow. White could be hot, black could be ice cold.
The great thing about using temperature is it is since most objects are at whatever the ambient temp is anyway, you're not taking away from some more variable tactile sense, such as texture, if you chose to implement that somehow.
Traffic Map
It seems like this idea could also be used for Webcams or Video-phone calls. Use a tilted piece of glass setup so that someone could look directly into the camera instead of away from the lens. I really think that's one of the big reasons why video conferencing hasn't caught on... the fact that everyone is always looking away from the camera.
I've been thinking that people in western societies (ie. Europe and America) should learn basic survival skills in school or at home. Not just the "what to do if you're stranded in the middle of nowhere" stuff, but also the kind of knowlege people in America had 100 years ago. When and how to plant crops, how to card and spin wool, build an oven, extract metals from ore, etc...
Even though one can argue that most people will never need this sort of information, these things really are the foundation of our lives. People learn science, but I don't think too many have an idea of how to turn basic chemistry, biology or physics information into practical knowlege. I think we'd be better off as a society if more people knew these fundamentals. If a disease wiped out 99.9999% of the population, the only ones who knew this sort of information are going to survive long.
And that is exactly what the wikipedia article should say IMO.
Article
For instance, in its fiscal year ending on June 30, 2002, the American National Red Cross spent $1.16 billion on employee salaries. Spending on actual disaster relief assistance for individuals was only $608 million. Of that, $479 million was for Sept. 11 assistance. This spending occurred only after the media put loads of heat on the organization. During the preceding fiscal year (the one ending on June 30, 2001), the Red Cross spent $1.04 billion on employee salaries and only $149 million on actual assistance for individuals.
Despite all this seemingly damning evidence, Charity Navigators gives the Red Cross a four-star rating, largely because of the organization's financial strength (which after a point, becomes more of a negative than a positive in my view). This is why I think doing your own research is highly advisable, especially if you're contemplating major gifts.
Personally, if you wanted to help through the Red Cross, I'd suggest giving blood instead.
I can hardly begin to count the number of times I've had to revert back to an older version of software because the "update" didn't function properly, or had some other annoyance. It's helpful too if you have friends or family with older hardware that can't run newer stuff. I've also seen free software with useful features get turned into ad-ridden commercial software later down the line, with the old one no where to be found.
Really with storage so cheap and getting even cheaper, there's not many good reasons not to keep old software backed up somewhere. You never know when it'll be useful. Burn it to disc and forget about it!
Anyone else having firefox crash when you try to open the link?
Yes, by denying matching government funds to say, any party that got more than say 30% of the vote in the last election. The republicans and democrats have enough money in their coffers, why are my tax dollars going to perpetuate them?
Ah, but the advantage of a jacket or trenchcoat is you can take it off to run through the x-ray scanner, rather than having to fumble around and empty out pockets.
As if government policy had more than a small effect on the economy. Consumers and their changing demands in the world are what ultimately drives an economy, not policy. Any economics professor will tell you the same. The government makes changes (such as interest rate hikes or reductions) based on where the economy is already going. Policy is more often reactionary than not.
I think it's more interesting that no matter who is at the helm.. Democrat or Republican, we have still run a deficit every year. Maybe it's time to have a third party candidate, rather than the two who spend all their time and money blaming each other for the problems in the world
I actually tried that on 2k and ended up crashing the computer every time I plugged it in... any ideas?