I grew up on a farm, and we grew quite a lot of corn on it. I have what you might call a "practical" knowledge of ag economics, but certainly no knwoledge of theory. What do you mean by "industrial-ag model of crop production" and what do you propose to do instead?
This is an old and boring difficulty about God, originally having to do with the concept of the goodness of God. The answer is pretty simple. God is constrained by goodness and by logic not because these "laws" are more absolute than he is, but because they flow out of who he is. God is the absolute, and logic and goodness are real and absolute because they come from God.
Actually, that is the assumption in a purely capitalistic economy (which exists only in theory). The US obviously isn't a pure capitalism. We have anti-trust laws, laws to protect consumers from dangerous products, salary caps in pro-sports, etc. Those limitations and modifications are frequently "fudge factors" required because the idea you mentioned isn't perfectly true in the real world b/c of consumer ignorance and irrational behavior, market forces like advertising that compel people to buy products which are not necessarily better but are equally or more expensive than the competitor's, and so on.
So we ought to question it because experience tells us that the principle isn't 100% correct.
I am tempted to agree, because there is such an intuitive (but vague) connection between the amount we pay our teachers (and consequently their levels of education, experience, ability, etc) and the quality of education they provide. But I wonder if there is any actual evidence that suggests that the quality of education of students being taught by a teacher whose starting salary was $45,000 a year is any better than a student being taught by a teacher who first earned $23,000/a. My experience as a student tells me that there isn't a good correlation between the normal indicators of a good catch in a new employee and teaching ability. It doesn't matter if someone has had 10 years of teaching classes and holds a PhD in their field. They could still very well suck.
Also (and I am fully conscious of how ridiculous and futile this is as I write it) I wonder if we aren't in a twisted way doing our kids a favor by paying teachers so little. Anyone with a college degree who is willing to teach in a public school must really want to teach! As an engineer, I encounter technically incompetent engineers all the time who just got into the game because they were lured in by the money and the professional prestige. Do we really want schools full of highly paid teachers who are only there because the money is good?
I pay for a cable modem which is supposed to go at 2/256
I'm sure you do, but probably not in the sense that you seem to think is "reasonable." If you are like most people, you are paying for a modem which has been capped at those rates, which I'm sure you'll agree is a different thing entirely. It is "unreasonable" that you don't get 2/256 all the time only if you were guaranteed 2/256 continuously. I really doubt that you were. It is your right as a customer to use what you purchased, I agree. But it is not your right to expect service from your internet provider that they didn't agree to up front, and it sounds to me like you are griping because you didn't/don't understand what you agreed to, which really isn't anyone's fault but your own.
Shortsighted or no, it is, strictly speaking, correct. I admit that it is pedantic and unhelpful, but then again, so were the parent's ridiculous (and fallacious, I might add) attempts to "prove" that religious violence isn't terrorism. There really isn't much you can say to a person who thinks he has a point because the definition of terrorism that he dug out of who knows where doesn't explicitly mention religion.
I was being sarcastic.:) The parent was complaining that adding a trojan was as much an act of terrorism as any of the terrorism against us that we now complain about. I was just trying to make the point that there is an obvious difference between what we did and what terrorists now do, and it is probably hypocritical of the parent to imply that there isn't.
If you're referring to Christianity vs Islam, you're severely mistaken - they both worship the god of Abraham
It's difficult to argue about this, because the differences between what Muslims believe about God and what Christians believe about God are legion and easy to identify. The Muslims, for example, think that Christians commit a gross sin by being Trinitarian. Whether those differences really support the claim that they believe in truly different Beings over against what you mentioned (that historically and theologically their ideas have a common root) is another matter. This matter is, imo, itself rooted in one's ideas about who and what God is. I have heard it claimed that Muslims who convert to Christianity freqently say that they aren't in their minds believing in a different God, just clearer and better ideas about the same God.
For the sake of argument, I'll agree that they believe in the same God (although I think your charge that I am "severely" mistaken is unwarranted.) Regardless, my intention wasn't to make a theological point. Obviously a lot of terrorism is carried out because of religious differences, and if I spoke of those religious differences under the heading of believing in different gods, the point still stands, even if you disagree with that detail.
Wow, that's a great point. There is clearly no ethical difference between allowing a communist government to steal something that in turn damages them financially and detonating yourself because you don't think the people you are killing worship the right god. I wonder if you would be such a relativist if someone broke into your house and you had the oppurtunity to stop them from hurting your family by using lethal force.
For some reason, most gun owners automatically think they are being targetted by those activities.
As gun owners, we are. I haven't heard of a piece of gun legislation yet that didn't at least indirectly target owners of firearms who intend to use them only for legitimate purposes. I don't know what this has to do with my "self-image." I think you must be trying to suggest that because gun laws are intended to restrict criminal activity, I only react because I see myself as some kind of criminial. This reminds me of a similar statement made by those in support of govt attempts to restrict privacy: Why should you be concerned about your privacy if you haven't done anything wrong?
Maybe because we do think there is money to be made in licensing it? Or perhaps because a whole string of people who the company has relatively little control over (especially if they leave to go work for a competitor) know what's going on?
As a process engineer, I can tell you that you will be sinking the chemical industry with that one.
In my plant, we process some natural polymers into various kinds of chemicals - mostly for the oil field. The basics of the chemistry are common knowledge (They appeared in peer-reviewed journals decades ago). The difference between my plant and the plants belonging to the competitors are our PROCESSES, which are patented.
I did an internship in a refinery, and that's an old, mature industry. The only way you are going to stay afloat and make money is by making small process improvements. After we pour money into R&D to find (for example) a better catalyst for a particular set of reactions, or perhaps better reaction conditions for a particular catalyst, we don't particularly want the guy down the road being able to just use the same process without having to pay us a bit to license it. It's only fair; we are the ones who figured it out.
why build huge redundancies into single device when you can just manufacture two and toss 'em both at the job
I'm not sure that would be better. A rover with no redundant systems could be crippled by the failure of any of a huge number of components. Even though you've got a whole spare rover, the same thing is true of it. So basically two failures (even if they are unalike) could ruin you day. OTOH, if you build in redundant systems, several primary components could fail and you'd still have a working rover. You'd have to break the primary and all the backups for any given system to put it entirely out of commission.
Your point about having twice the data is a good one, though.
No, I think the point is, if you use someone else's trademarks or names and profit from them, that's a no-no. They've presumably spent a lot of time and money getting their name, logos, etc recognised by people, and it isn't fair that some other business can come along and use the same stuff to make money for themselves without any of the up-front expense of marketing.
Give me a freaking break. I see politicians and the like smeared from here to the moon on a routine basis because of what amount to conspiracy theories, and then someone should apologize because they have the gall to suggest the possibility that disgruntled linux users may be responsible for a DOS attack on SCO? I mean, how could they? Everyone here on/. sure seems to love SCO. There's no motive at all.
I want to preserve this one and bring it out the next time some moron starts carrying on about how the US is involved in Iraq because of some vague connection that the Bush administration has with oil companies.
Yes, it does take pretty inclement weather to truly block the signal. But if it gets very cold in your area when it rains or snows, ice can form in the dish, and that will ruin your party.
Agree. If this guy patted himself on the back for being cool, confident, and un-fake any harder, he'd probably break his damned elbow. What he doesn't understand is that the lengths he has gone to to stroke his own ego have revealed the fact that he is just as sub-human as the stereotypes he is trying to poke other people into.
That's an interesting observation, but cost of materials is only one part (and not always the most significant part) of the total cost of making something.
Slashdot Mirror
I grew up on a farm, and we grew quite a lot of corn on it. I have what you might call a "practical" knowledge of ag economics, but certainly no knwoledge of theory. What do you mean by "industrial-ag model of crop production" and what do you propose to do instead?
Notwithstanding the hideous cost of the space elevator, you are correct.
This is an old and boring difficulty about God, originally having to do with the concept of the goodness of God. The answer is pretty simple. God is constrained by goodness and by logic not because these "laws" are more absolute than he is, but because they flow out of who he is. God is the absolute, and logic and goodness are real and absolute because they come from God.
Actually, that is the assumption in a purely capitalistic economy (which exists only in theory). The US obviously isn't a pure capitalism. We have anti-trust laws, laws to protect consumers from dangerous products, salary caps in pro-sports, etc. Those limitations and modifications are frequently "fudge factors" required because the idea you mentioned isn't perfectly true in the real world b/c of consumer ignorance and irrational behavior, market forces like advertising that compel people to buy products which are not necessarily better but are equally or more expensive than the competitor's, and so on.
So we ought to question it because experience tells us that the principle isn't 100% correct.
I am tempted to agree, because there is such an intuitive (but vague) connection between the amount we pay our teachers (and consequently their levels of education, experience, ability, etc) and the quality of education they provide. But I wonder if there is any actual evidence that suggests that the quality of education of students being taught by a teacher whose starting salary was $45,000 a year is any better than a student being taught by a teacher who first earned $23,000/a. My experience as a student tells me that there isn't a good correlation between the normal indicators of a good catch in a new employee and teaching ability. It doesn't matter if someone has had 10 years of teaching classes and holds a PhD in their field. They could still very well suck.
Also (and I am fully conscious of how ridiculous and futile this is as I write it) I wonder if we aren't in a twisted way doing our kids a favor by paying teachers so little. Anyone with a college degree who is willing to teach in a public school must really want to teach! As an engineer, I encounter technically incompetent engineers all the time who just got into the game because they were lured in by the money and the professional prestige. Do we really want schools full of highly paid teachers who are only there because the money is good?
I pay for a cable modem which is supposed to go at 2/256
I'm sure you do, but probably not in the sense that you seem to think is "reasonable." If you are like most people, you are paying for a modem which has been capped at those rates, which I'm sure you'll agree is a different thing entirely. It is "unreasonable" that you don't get 2/256 all the time only if you were guaranteed 2/256 continuously. I really doubt that you were. It is your right as a customer to use what you purchased, I agree. But it is not your right to expect service from your internet provider that they didn't agree to up front, and it sounds to me like you are griping because you didn't/don't understand what you agreed to, which really isn't anyone's fault but your own.
Shortsighted or no, it is, strictly speaking, correct. I admit that it is pedantic and unhelpful, but then again, so were the parent's ridiculous (and fallacious, I might add) attempts to "prove" that religious violence isn't terrorism. There really isn't much you can say to a person who thinks he has a point because the definition of terrorism that he dug out of who knows where doesn't explicitly mention religion.
I was being sarcastic. :) The parent was complaining that adding a trojan was as much an act of terrorism as any of the terrorism against us that we now complain about. I was just trying to make the point that there is an obvious difference between what we did and what terrorists now do, and it is probably hypocritical of the parent to imply that there isn't.
If you're referring to Christianity vs Islam, you're severely mistaken - they both worship the god of Abraham
It's difficult to argue about this, because the differences between what Muslims believe about God and what Christians believe about God are legion and easy to identify. The Muslims, for example, think that Christians commit a gross sin by being Trinitarian. Whether those differences really support the claim that they believe in truly different Beings over against what you mentioned (that historically and theologically their ideas have a common root) is another matter. This matter is, imo, itself rooted in one's ideas about who and what God is. I have heard it claimed that Muslims who convert to Christianity freqently say that they aren't in their minds believing in a different God, just clearer and better ideas about the same God.
For the sake of argument, I'll agree that they believe in the same God (although I think your charge that I am "severely" mistaken is unwarranted.) Regardless, my intention wasn't to make a theological point. Obviously a lot of terrorism is carried out because of religious differences, and if I spoke of those religious differences under the heading of believing in different gods, the point still stands, even if you disagree with that detail.
In that case, he was wrong for a more simple reason. The Siberian explosion occurred in an unpopulated area and resulted in no deaths. RTFA.
Wow, that's a great point. There is clearly no ethical difference between allowing a communist government to steal something that in turn damages them financially and detonating yourself because you don't think the people you are killing worship the right god. I wonder if you would be such a relativist if someone broke into your house and you had the oppurtunity to stop them from hurting your family by using lethal force.
For some reason, most gun owners automatically think they are being targetted by those activities.
As gun owners, we are. I haven't heard of a piece of gun legislation yet that didn't at least indirectly target owners of firearms who intend to use them only for legitimate purposes. I don't know what this has to do with my "self-image." I think you must be trying to suggest that because gun laws are intended to restrict criminal activity, I only react because I see myself as some kind of criminial. This reminds me of a similar statement made by those in support of govt attempts to restrict privacy: Why should you be concerned about your privacy if you haven't done anything wrong?
Maybe because we do think there is money to be made in licensing it? Or perhaps because a whole string of people who the company has relatively little control over (especially if they leave to go work for a competitor) know what's going on?
Patents can not be on something that is a process
As a process engineer, I can tell you that you will be sinking the chemical industry with that one.
In my plant, we process some natural polymers into various kinds of chemicals - mostly for the oil field. The basics of the chemistry are common knowledge (They appeared in peer-reviewed journals decades ago). The difference between my plant and the plants belonging to the competitors are our PROCESSES, which are patented.
I did an internship in a refinery, and that's an old, mature industry. The only way you are going to stay afloat and make money is by making small process improvements. After we pour money into R&D to find (for example) a better catalyst for a particular set of reactions, or perhaps better reaction conditions for a particular catalyst, we don't particularly want the guy down the road being able to just use the same process without having to pay us a bit to license it. It's only fair; we are the ones who figured it out.
why build huge redundancies into single device when you can just manufacture two and toss 'em both at the job
I'm not sure that would be better. A rover with no redundant systems could be crippled by the failure of any of a huge number of components. Even though you've got a whole spare rover, the same thing is true of it. So basically two failures (even if they are unalike) could ruin you day. OTOH, if you build in redundant systems, several primary components could fail and you'd still have a working rover. You'd have to break the primary and all the backups for any given system to put it entirely out of commission.
Your point about having twice the data is a good one, though.
No, I think the point is, if you use someone else's trademarks or names and profit from them, that's a no-no. They've presumably spent a lot of time and money getting their name, logos, etc recognised by people, and it isn't fair that some other business can come along and use the same stuff to make money for themselves without any of the up-front expense of marketing.
Yes, but as a chemical engineer, I took around 24 hours of undergraduate level chemistry, and I pretty routinely do lab work in my job.
Obviously not. I don't think anyone is saying that it does.
Give me a freaking break. I see politicians and the like smeared from here to the moon on a routine basis because of what amount to conspiracy theories, and then someone should apologize because they have the gall to suggest the possibility that disgruntled linux users may be responsible for a DOS attack on SCO? I mean, how could they? Everyone here on /. sure seems to love SCO. There's no motive at all.
I want to preserve this one and bring it out the next time some moron starts carrying on about how the US is involved in Iraq because of some vague connection that the Bush administration has with oil companies.
a Chem E that can't cook
It amuses me that I'm not the only one who realizes this. People ask me where I learned to cook and I tell them, "undergrad chemistry lab."
Yes, it does take pretty inclement weather to truly block the signal. But if it gets very cold in your area when it rains or snows, ice can form in the dish, and that will ruin your party.
Agree. If this guy patted himself on the back for being cool, confident, and un-fake any harder, he'd probably break his damned elbow. What he doesn't understand is that the lengths he has gone to to stroke his own ego have revealed the fact that he is just as sub-human as the stereotypes he is trying to poke other people into.
That's an interesting observation, but cost of materials is only one part (and not always the most significant part) of the total cost of making something.
You didn't look at the links, did you? He was paroled a long time ago. If it's a ruse, it's a mystery as to why he is presisting in it.
Dear Moron,
Do you expect the heat or light to just create itself?
Yours sincerely,
Rostin