I have a theory about why it's a big deal. The story is coming from Fox News, the same organisation that is owned by Rupert Murdoch who just made a big walloping donation to the GOP, has kicked up a stink about a so-called "ground zero mosque" that they actually supported nearly a year ago when the story first broke, and are now approaching mid-term elections with the smell of Democrat blood in their nostrils. Anything that helps to build up a picture of "Americans losing their freedoms" is just part of a broader campaign to portray everything that's happening in the world as bad ever since that black dude got elected. So "School implements technology to comply with laws combating the obesity epidemic" becomes "Big brother in Iowa" with the requisite question mark on the end to fool the impressionable reader into thinking that this piece of commentary is actually an NPOV news story.
Meta-moderators, please pay attention on this one. This is neither a troll nor flamebait, it's a valid comment. As the OP says, there is no -1 disagree option.
Whatever happened to the days when there were no choices for lunch at school. You ate the slop they served or you went hungry. Worked just fine when I was a kid (~30 yrs ago). The food wasn't even that bad and we got all milk refills we wanted (was served from cafeteria-style dispensers not tiny cartons).
There were no kosher menus, no vegetarian menus, no alternates if kids didn't like something, no alacarte line, and no salad bars. Kids with food allergies had to bag it when they couldn't eat that day's lunch (menus were posted monthly so parents could keep track). The only food served other than that day's menu was PB&J (with milk and some sort of fruit), which was always available, even for kids who couldn't pay and weren't on free lunch program.
A simple menu would be cheaper to serve, both in terms of food costs and labor (kitchen and serving), and easier to track who ate what: (a) school lunch, (b) bag lunch, or (c) PB&J.
It was the same in my day too. I particularly liked Thursdays, they always had the best food and the nicest desserts on a Thursday.
Which would you prefer? A school that let your kids eat whatever crap they wanted or made some effort to make sure they were eating their vegetables? We're talking about kids here, not adult "consumers". We're talking about getting the little shits to do what they're told, never mind their "feelings" or their "self esteem" or any of that crap.
Maybe it's training them for air travel - bizarre and excessive punishments for simple infractions.
At my secondary school some low income pupils qualified for subsidised meals and got a meal ticket in the morning which they would hand in at the canteen. There used to be a system where if you lost your ticket you could put your name in "the book" and get your meal. They later found that people were appearing in "the book" on a daily basis. They were selling their tickets and claiming to have lost them while going on to claim their free meal. The school closed that loophole and made a rule that if you lost your ticket, you didn't get your meal.
So yes, I'd imagine that they either don't eat or else use some sort of PIN retrieval system (like asking the school to look it up for them).
The all electric Cri-Cri, jointly developed by EADS Innovation Works, Aero Composites Saintonge and the Green Cri-Cri Association has made its official maiden flight at Le Bourget airport near Paris on Thursday. This Cri-Cri is the first-ever four-engined all-electric aerobatic plane. The event has been supported by the French Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace.
The plane became airborne at 11:12 CET. Take-off and climb were smooth, no vibrations could be felt and manoeuvrability was excellent. All systems performed well and the plane returned safely after 7 minutes.
“This aircraft flies very smoothly, much more quietly than a plane with conventional propulsion”, said Didier Esteyne, who piloted the all-electric Cri-Cri. “But we are still at the beginning and have a lot to learn. We are allowed to start aerobatic manoeuvres only after five hours of flight and 15 landings.”
“The Cri-Cri is a low-cost test bed for system integration of electrical technologies in support of projects like our hybrid propulsion concept for helicopters,” stated Jean Botti, EADS’s Chief Technical Officer. “We hope to get a lot of useful information out of this project.” In the near future batteries will not able to propel larger aircraft.
The aerobatic plane incorporates numerous innovative technologies such as lightweight composite structures that reduce the weight of the airframe and compensate for the additional weight of the batteries, four brushless electric motors with counter-rotating propellers which deliver propulsion without CO2 emissions and significantly lower noise compared to thermal propulsion, and high energy-density Lithium batteries.
The combined utilisation of these environment-friendly technical innovations enables the Cri-Cri to deliver novel performance values: 30 minutes of autonomous cruise flight at 110 km/h, 15 minutes of autonomous aerobatics at speeds reaching up to 250 km/h, and a climb rate of approximately 5.3 m/sec.
With research projects on algae based biofuel, a helicopter hybrid propulsion system combining electrical power with piston engines and the all electric Cri-Cri, EADS is exploring technologies for environmentally friendly air travel.
Really? Count the number of times John Stewart makes direct fun of a Republican, then rewatch an episode and count the number of times he makes fun of a Democrat. Each episode is HEAVILY weighted to make fun of conservatives. (Colbert is a little more middle but still ridicules Republicans more.)
Comedy Central is just as left-leaning as CNN and MSNBC.
1 - Who can blame Comedy Central if it's the Republicans who provide most of the satire-friendly material? That's like complaining about the media playing more negative stories about McCain than Obama during the election - which was kind of inevitable since McCain dutifully provided more negative material than Obama during the campaign.
2 - Comedy Central isn't a news network and doesn't even pretend to be "Fair and Balanced", unlike a certain propaganda channel that packages itself as real news. I mean, The Daily Show's website says in big letters "fake news".
He's publicly stated a belief in an invisible sky wizard, improper use of "who" and "whom" is the least of bit of evidence pointing to a lack of intelligence.
Here's an honest question, I ask of you as a fellow atheist:
Why do so many atheists feel the need to be smug assholes? What the fuck does it matter to you if he believes in 'an invisible sky wizard'? Why can't you just let people believe what they will, why must you impose your beliefs on other people?
Religion has infiltrated or taken over the education system of many countries, secured public funding from people including those who do not adhere to its doctrines, and in some religions (such as Christianity) there is an imperative to convert people to that faith. In other religions (such as the more violent flavours of Islam) there is an imperative to kill infidels and apostates. Preachers stand at street corners yelling into megaphones at people going about their business telling them that they're all going to burn in hell for all eternity.
But yeah, it's really the atheists who are "smug assholes" and are "trying to impose their beliefs on other people."
How you got an "insightful" mod rather than a "troll" is beyond me.
How about not replacingdemocraticgovernments with dictators, fixing our excessive consumption of hydrocarbons, and eliminating the need to fight wars to keep the hydrocarbons flowing? Might be a better investment than concocting stupid toys like this. Just sayin'.
What is gained by comparing the force to a transporter or light saber to cloaking fields?
It provokes a discussion that might lead to a related discussion in which people might actually learn something about real physics. For example, in this thread there are comments that make it clear that a spherical body will explode in three dimensions rather than two, and people are making fun of the idea of spaceships flying like they're in an atmosphere. Some younger readers may see this and go "Oh yes, I hadn't thought of that," and they become better educated as a result, one little piece of information at a time. Just like you did.
On the other hand, if you're not interested in the thread, maybe you just shouldn't read it. I can't say I've ever figured out the minds of people who go out of their way to post a comment in a discussion saying that they're not interested in the discussion.
ST and SW are of such a high calibre of entertainment that I can forgive the bad physics, or at least tolerate them. But BSG (new) and B5 prove that you can have a good story AND still get the physics right without it "turning into a class" as you put it.
Spot on. What drives me insane is the bookstore owners who lump Sci-Fi and Fantasy together in the same section. I'm always on the lookout for an inspirational good Sci Fi story and find myself having to wade through all sorts of nonsense about wizards, dragons and trolls and goodness knows what. How can anyone possibly confuse the two genres? Okay, there might be a bit of occasional overlap, but there's no reason at all to put Lord of the Rings on a bookshelf between Foundation's Edge and Rendezvous With Rama.
I think I see what you're saying - even the rich people in Liverpool speak with the same accent as the poor people.
If they're from Liverpool, yes the accent will be largely the same (in terms of the vowel sounds and general inflections), but the diction will be a bit better the higher up the ladder you go and the regional quirks of the accent will be toned down to the point where you'd need a trained ear to spot it.
I'd say region would be the biggest deciding factor in determining accents, followed by socio-economic status. But ethnic group would have little or no impact unless you're talking about first generation immigrants.
Yeah, but do the Welsh? I read something recently that having a Welsh accent in the UK gets you something like 10-20% less money over a career, but having an American one gets you more than most Brits.
You might be right, I remember seeing studies suggesting that strong regional accents can be a disadvantage, although it depends on the accent. A Scottish accent will probably do no harm at all, for example.
I'd imagine the Welsh would be better educated though, considering so many of them are bilingual.
It's not a black/white thing - it's a subculture thing. In the UK, don't you guys have regions where they speak in thick accents....Cockney? I'm not sure exactly what street slang and subcultures exist in the UK, but I would assume they do, even if they aren't aligned the same way as in the US.
Accents vary from city to city and town to town, sometimes 30 miles seeing a huge change in dialect, particularly near coastal cities where there were outside influences historically. For example (and this is my theory) Newcastle's accent is heavily influenced by Scandinavia since that part of what is now England was once ruled by the Danes.
The point I'm making is that accents in the UK vary by region, not by ethnic group. A black person living in Newcastle will have the same 'geordie' accent as whites in the same city. I black man living in Liverpool will have a 'scouse' accent just like a white scouser.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't really see the huge deal here.
I have a theory about why it's a big deal. The story is coming from Fox News, the same organisation that is owned by Rupert Murdoch who just made a big walloping donation to the GOP, has kicked up a stink about a so-called "ground zero mosque" that they actually supported nearly a year ago when the story first broke, and are now approaching mid-term elections with the smell of Democrat blood in their nostrils. Anything that helps to build up a picture of "Americans losing their freedoms" is just part of a broader campaign to portray everything that's happening in the world as bad ever since that black dude got elected. So "School implements technology to comply with laws combating the obesity epidemic" becomes "Big brother in Iowa" with the requisite question mark on the end to fool the impressionable reader into thinking that this piece of commentary is actually an NPOV news story.
Meta-moderators, please pay attention on this one. This is neither a troll nor flamebait, it's a valid comment. As the OP says, there is no -1 disagree option.
Whatever happened to the days when there were no choices for lunch at school. You ate the slop they served or you went hungry. Worked just fine when I was a kid (~30 yrs ago). The food wasn't even that bad and we got all milk refills we wanted (was served from cafeteria-style dispensers not tiny cartons).
There were no kosher menus, no vegetarian menus, no alternates if kids didn't like something, no alacarte line, and no salad bars. Kids with food allergies had to bag it when they couldn't eat that day's lunch (menus were posted monthly so parents could keep track). The only food served other than that day's menu was PB&J (with milk and some sort of fruit), which was always available, even for kids who couldn't pay and weren't on free lunch program.
A simple menu would be cheaper to serve, both in terms of food costs and labor (kitchen and serving), and easier to track who ate what: (a) school lunch, (b) bag lunch, or (c) PB&J.
It was the same in my day too. I particularly liked Thursdays, they always had the best food and the nicest desserts on a Thursday.
Check out the source of the story, folks. It says at the top of the page that it's coming from an organisation called "Fox News, Fair and Balanced".
Just thought you should know.
Protest by having all the kids use the same PIN.
Sorry, the system is one step ahead of you. Quoth TFA:
"The PIN pulls up the child's picture for validation"
1984 here we come! This is absolutely outrageous.
Which would you prefer? A school that let your kids eat whatever crap they wanted or made some effort to make sure they were eating their vegetables? We're talking about kids here, not adult "consumers". We're talking about getting the little shits to do what they're told, never mind their "feelings" or their "self esteem" or any of that crap.
Does this mean they don't eat?
Maybe it's training them for air travel - bizarre and excessive punishments for simple infractions.
At my secondary school some low income pupils qualified for subsidised meals and got a meal ticket in the morning which they would hand in at the canteen. There used to be a system where if you lost your ticket you could put your name in "the book" and get your meal. They later found that people were appearing in "the book" on a daily basis. They were selling their tickets and claiming to have lost them while going on to claim their free meal. The school closed that loophole and made a rule that if you lost your ticket, you didn't get your meal.
So yes, I'd imagine that they either don't eat or else use some sort of PIN retrieval system (like asking the school to look it up for them).
By who's definition of healthy? Low fat? Low carb? Vegetarian? Vegan? Kosher? How about we just serve what we all can agree on; Nothing.
Who's definition? The local education authority, I would imagine.
I'm pretty sure we can all agree that carbonated sugar drinks containing 100% the recommended daily sugar intake are unhealthy, no?
I can't quite tell from the summary.
4. I can tell from TFA:
The all electric Cri-Cri, jointly developed by EADS Innovation Works, Aero Composites Saintonge and the Green Cri-Cri Association has made its official maiden flight at Le Bourget airport near Paris on Thursday. This Cri-Cri is the first-ever four-engined all-electric aerobatic plane. The event has been supported by the French Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace.
The plane became airborne at 11:12 CET. Take-off and climb were smooth, no vibrations could be felt and manoeuvrability was excellent. All systems performed well and the plane returned safely after 7 minutes.
“This aircraft flies very smoothly, much more quietly than a plane with conventional propulsion”, said Didier Esteyne, who piloted the all-electric Cri-Cri. “But we are still at the beginning and have a lot to learn. We are allowed to start aerobatic manoeuvres only after five hours of flight and 15 landings.”
“The Cri-Cri is a low-cost test bed for system integration of electrical technologies in support of projects like our hybrid propulsion concept for helicopters,” stated Jean Botti, EADS’s Chief Technical Officer. “We hope to get a lot of useful information out of this project.” In the near future batteries will not able to propel larger aircraft.
The aerobatic plane incorporates numerous innovative technologies such as lightweight composite structures that reduce the weight of the airframe and compensate for the additional weight of the batteries, four brushless electric motors with counter-rotating propellers which deliver propulsion without CO2 emissions and significantly lower noise compared to thermal propulsion, and high energy-density Lithium batteries.
The combined utilisation of these environment-friendly technical innovations enables the Cri-Cri to deliver novel performance values: 30 minutes of autonomous cruise flight at 110 km/h, 15 minutes of autonomous aerobatics at speeds reaching up to 250 km/h, and a climb rate of approximately 5.3 m/sec.
With research projects on algae based biofuel, a helicopter hybrid propulsion system combining electrical power with piston engines and the all electric Cri-Cri, EADS is exploring technologies for environmentally friendly air travel.
Really? Count the number of times John Stewart makes direct fun of a Republican, then rewatch an episode and count the number of times he makes fun of a Democrat. Each episode is HEAVILY weighted to make fun of conservatives. (Colbert is a little more middle but still ridicules Republicans more.)
Comedy Central is just as left-leaning as CNN and MSNBC.
1 - Who can blame Comedy Central if it's the Republicans who provide most of the satire-friendly material? That's like complaining about the media playing more negative stories about McCain than Obama during the election - which was kind of inevitable since McCain dutifully provided more negative material than Obama during the campaign.
2 - Comedy Central isn't a news network and doesn't even pretend to be "Fair and Balanced", unlike a certain propaganda channel that packages itself as real news. I mean, The Daily Show's website says in big letters "fake news".
He's publicly stated a belief in an invisible sky wizard, improper use of "who" and "whom" is the least of bit of evidence pointing to a lack of intelligence.
Here's an honest question, I ask of you as a fellow atheist:
Why do so many atheists feel the need to be smug assholes? What the fuck does it matter to you if he believes in 'an invisible sky wizard'? Why can't you just let people believe what they will, why must you impose your beliefs on other people?
Religion has infiltrated or taken over the education system of many countries, secured public funding from people including those who do not adhere to its doctrines, and in some religions (such as Christianity) there is an imperative to convert people to that faith. In other religions (such as the more violent flavours of Islam) there is an imperative to kill infidels and apostates. Preachers stand at street corners yelling into megaphones at people going about their business telling them that they're all going to burn in hell for all eternity.
But yeah, it's really the atheists who are "smug assholes" and are "trying to impose their beliefs on other people."
How you got an "insightful" mod rather than a "troll" is beyond me.
Scientifically, philosophically and theologically "the beginning" is just something we can't figure out. Perhaps our brains are too small.
Only royalty can use "we" in that sense.
The Nazis took great leaps forward in science and medicine, but look who they experimented on in the process. I'm just saying...
Scientific research != being a Nazi.
Just sayin'.
$40 million bucks is not a lot for a military project.
You're absolutely right. Horrifyingly so.
How about not replacing democratic governments with dictators, fixing our excessive consumption of hydrocarbons, and eliminating the need to fight wars to keep the hydrocarbons flowing? Might be a better investment than concocting stupid toys like this. Just sayin'.
What? Wizards use technology rather than some supernatural abilities?
And no, the ring was never sold as a sentient supercomputer, it was portrayed as simply magical.
Sorry, but if you can't tell the difference between magic and plausible future science then there's no hope for you. ~
- An entire planet existing as a city? This makes no sense from a material logistics point of view, at all. There is nothing like this in Star Trek.
Coruscant was based on Trantor, the city-planet that was the capital of the old galactic empire in the Foundation series.
What is gained by comparing the force to a transporter or light saber to cloaking fields?
It provokes a discussion that might lead to a related discussion in which people might actually learn something about real physics. For example, in this thread there are comments that make it clear that a spherical body will explode in three dimensions rather than two, and people are making fun of the idea of spaceships flying like they're in an atmosphere. Some younger readers may see this and go "Oh yes, I hadn't thought of that," and they become better educated as a result, one little piece of information at a time. Just like you did.
On the other hand, if you're not interested in the thread, maybe you just shouldn't read it. I can't say I've ever figured out the minds of people who go out of their way to post a comment in a discussion saying that they're not interested in the discussion.
ST and SW are of such a high calibre of entertainment that I can forgive the bad physics, or at least tolerate them. But BSG (new) and B5 prove that you can have a good story AND still get the physics right without it "turning into a class" as you put it.
Which Enterprise? And who's piloting it?
If Deanna Troi is piloting then the Enterprise is screwed. Every time she got her hands on the controls she crashed the damn ship.
Yup, it was him. I remember him saying that or something very similar on TV once.
Spot on. What drives me insane is the bookstore owners who lump Sci-Fi and Fantasy together in the same section. I'm always on the lookout for an inspirational good Sci Fi story and find myself having to wade through all sorts of nonsense about wizards, dragons and trolls and goodness knows what. How can anyone possibly confuse the two genres? Okay, there might be a bit of occasional overlap, but there's no reason at all to put Lord of the Rings on a bookshelf between Foundation's Edge and Rendezvous With Rama.
I think I see what you're saying - even the rich people in Liverpool speak with the same accent as the poor people.
If they're from Liverpool, yes the accent will be largely the same (in terms of the vowel sounds and general inflections), but the diction will be a bit better the higher up the ladder you go and the regional quirks of the accent will be toned down to the point where you'd need a trained ear to spot it.
I'd say region would be the biggest deciding factor in determining accents, followed by socio-economic status. But ethnic group would have little or no impact unless you're talking about first generation immigrants.
Yeah, but do the Welsh? I read something recently that having a Welsh accent in the UK gets you something like 10-20% less money over a career, but having an American one gets you more than most Brits.
You might be right, I remember seeing studies suggesting that strong regional accents can be a disadvantage, although it depends on the accent. A Scottish accent will probably do no harm at all, for example.
I'd imagine the Welsh would be better educated though, considering so many of them are bilingual.
It's not a black/white thing - it's a subculture thing. In the UK, don't you guys have regions where they speak in thick accents....Cockney? I'm not sure exactly what street slang and subcultures exist in the UK, but I would assume they do, even if they aren't aligned the same way as in the US.
Accents vary from city to city and town to town, sometimes 30 miles seeing a huge change in dialect, particularly near coastal cities where there were outside influences historically. For example (and this is my theory) Newcastle's accent is heavily influenced by Scandinavia since that part of what is now England was once ruled by the Danes.
The point I'm making is that accents in the UK vary by region, not by ethnic group. A black person living in Newcastle will have the same 'geordie' accent as whites in the same city. I black man living in Liverpool will have a 'scouse' accent just like a white scouser.
Anyone who really listens can understand it - its just a butchering of southern USA english.
Au contraire, I watched a movie called American Pimp, much of which was in Ebonics, and I could barely understand a word of it.
Just because you can understand it doesn't mean everyone else can.