Even saying that Bin Laden basically achieved his goal. The American Economy will take 20-30 years to recover from the external and internal damage.
It won't recover. The manufacturing base that brought the original success has largely been offshored, the infrastructure is slowly crumbling away from lack of maintenance, and because the nuclear power program was halted it's questionable whether the US can even keep the lights on as the price of oil skyrockets.
Perhaps you can climb back from the bottom one day, but make no mistake: you are on your way there.
" it was so well established so long ago that freedom is superior to the alternative" unsupported. Certainly a way for Judeo Christains from a European background to live and work together and prosper. There are other successful models as shown in China for instance, which had many , many more people than live in democracies, living , working and propering, and it is not a Democracy and only has limited freedoms.
Frankly, I have a hard time imagining there's a single individual on this planet who does not want to be able to live his life as he will, which is what "freedom" means. In fact I don't think it is possible to claim otherwise in a logically coherent manner.
However, I have a very easy time imagining those sitting at the top of the pyramid using such excuses to justify oppressing those under their heel, while pseudo-intellectuals eager to show their "tolerance" do so by enthusiastically cheering for ruthless tyrants, never once noticing the irony of accepting an absurdly racist claim ("only Europeans and their descendants are fit for democracy") in the name of anti-racism.
But I'm sure those Chinese sitting in prison for demanding a freer system appreaciate you telling them it's a fool's quest since they lack the Judeo-Christian background and European genes required for such a system. In fact, let's go tell them right away that they should knock off such silliness and settle for limited freedoms, since democracy is only better for us uberme^H white christians.
Seriously, did you try to sound like a throwback from colonial times, or did you just live up to your username?
"The terrorists" are not some chaotic evil cartoon villains. They have goals and aspirations. They have a vision of the future where they've "won", however unrealistic and unlikely that vision happens to be. Those visions are not of a totalitarian state replacing the United States.
However, they do include the United States being reduced too weak to interfere with the Muslim world. And one way to do that is to trick you into wasting your resources. Which worked perfectly, judging by US national debt.
Also, given how you always go on about freedom and democracy, could it just perhaps be that someone who hates your guts would love to see you being deprived of those? Just as revenge?
Yeah, it does so by converting ambient infrared radiation - in other words, ambient heat - into work. Any waste heat released through said work is then re-absorbed by the antenna, to be used again.
In other words, this sounds like a second-order perpetual motion machine to me.
HDMI signals may be digital, so there's none of the subjective analog concerns, but it's also a real-time signal, which makes it susceptible to even small delays in transmission across the cable. This isn't a concern in a sub-20 ft cable, but becomes noticeable in the cheap longer cables.
Really? You notice the lag in a signal whose speed is measured in "percentage of speed of light" (186,282 miles per second) in a 20 feet cable? When the same cable is transferring both sound (speed 1,126 feet/second in air) and picture? Seriously?
Stop whining about cable quality and start gloating about your superhuman - and, frankly, supernatural - nervous system.
As to Bin Laden--when you have a man preaching his religion, which vilifies those who do things like watch pornography, it's a very useful tool against him to say "Hey, this jackass does exactly what he tells you not to do"...
Only if said followers have some reason to believe you. As it is, all this will do is make Osama seem like a martyr: "they killed him, and now they are spreading lies about him!"
Truth is a weapon you can wield only if you have a reputation for truthfulness, and, well, this is US Government we are talking about.
Don't his recruiters tell people that if they become suicide bombers (martyrs), that they can ignore Islamic laws, go to strip joints, hire prostitutes, etc. According to Bin Laden, as long as they blow themselves up, they get their virgins in heaven. I would expect Bin Laden to have porn, drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, etc.
But Bin Laden didn't blow himself up. He hid for 10 years doing nothing but the equivalent of posting Youtube videos encouraging other people to blow themselves up. What's his claim for martyrhood?
But to go so far as saying: its not bad at all to be sexually centered and have no self control - thats just ridiculous.
I would not feel worse after a cigarette, than after watching porn, but I dont have to accept addictive behaviour as something benevolent towards my life.
Nobody cares what you do with your own life. Except the religious, who decide something, then decide it's God's will, and soon are either burning people at stake or posting Youtube videos, depending on the era. And, of course, are utterly convinced that causing completely unnecessary grief makes them extra holy.
Or flying airplanes into buildings, to get back on topic.
Experience can be gained on non-job tasks. Quite a lot of the people who contribute to open source projects that I organise are in university. When they graduate, there's a body of code that they can point to and say 'I worked on this'.
So basically you need to work for free to qualify for getting a job in software industry? I think you just identified the heart of the problem;).
Also, it's impossible to identify "top 1%" of people, and in any case, your company is not in the top 1% of prestige or salary, so why would the top 1% be willing to work for you? Making the requirements needlessly high means you only get people who are capable and willing to bullshit themselves past them.
Seriously, settle for average, and you get average; aim for excellence without being willing to pay for it, and you get cynical conmen.
I didn't try it, but could someone who did confirm that it knows jack squat about energy?
It doesn't. As the summary says, it's a flood-fill algorithm - it works like the paint bucket in an image editor, where the flood-stop condition is "elevation >= wave height". Oh, and it only checks a few kilometers worth of land at a time.
A "5-meter" tsunami is going to go halfway up a 500-meter cliff if it retains enough energy.
No, because tsunami (like any wave) is a wave, not flow. A 5-meter tsunami is 5 meters high because it has just enough energy to pile water that high when the front starts decelerating near the shore. In a way, it already has gone up a cliff as high as it can; the back parts have piled on top of the front ones.
Here's how it works. Pick a point of 0 elevation. Check the surrounding ten by ten km square (adjusting for "wave direction"). For each 1km by 1 km square in the area, if the elevation is less than the wave height, paint it blue.
In other words, this so-called "simulation" is absolutely worthless.
I find it utterly hilarious that someone is invoking human rights in defence of Stalin. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot indeed.
Re:Dramatic effect and scientific precision
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Is Sugar Toxic?
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If a restaurant serves tap water, you'll usually have the wonders of chlorine and whatever crap is in the city water.
Given that your stomach contains hydochloric acid, which forms raw chlorine in its water solution (such as in your stomach), I highly doubt chlorinated water is going to affect your body in any way. In fact every time you're eating anything with the least bit of salt in it, as you must to stay alive, said salt will dissociate to natrium and chloride in your body.
Just because something is a "chemical" doesn't make it bad for you.
Re:Dramatic effect and scientific precision
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Is Sugar Toxic?
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· Score: 1
Instead of a spoonful of sugar in your coffee, put a potato.
Real men drink it black. All four litres of it.
However, the absolutely best-tasting addition to coffee is rum.
Fascism is defined as the simultaneous presence of authoritarianism, racism and corporatism. That's exactly what we've got here.
According to Mussolini, the inventor of modern fascism, it's actually synonymous to corporatism. Authoritarianism is already inherent to corporations, since the owners are a separate group from employees, so when you run the whole society as a corporation, you get a totalitarian dictatorship.
Racism, on the other hand, is not inherent to fascism. You could have a fascist country without racism. It's simply that when those first over-the-top fascist countries got that way, racism was fashionable and got incorporated in them. However, you could just as easily use nationality or ideology as a basis for "The Enemy" that justifies extreme means, like McCarthy did.
If you had a totalitarian socialist regime in the US, there would be people's committees deciding how much output each factory or business should produce and who should or shouldn't work there.
No no no, totalitarian socialism means that everyone gets healthcare and, if necessary, social security. Have you been neglecting your doctrinal studies?
The form of post-9/11 authoritarianism embodied by the TSA is fascism, just as a matter of dictionary definition.
No, it's just plain old authoritarianism. Mere abuse of authority isn't sufficient to qualify for fascism, even by your own definition. And while corporations nowadays hold far more political power than is healthy for the society, it's still a matter of corruption rather than an official policy specifically targeted at completely merging government and corporations.
However, the current financial crisis, the poverty it brought and the fact that its instigators got away without a scratch shows promise. Give it another decade or two, and the world will once again see real fascist countries and burn.
Modern chips are just starting to get to the point where quantum effects matter.
Actually, transistors are based on quantum mechanics. Perhaps they could be based on just experimental data without any underlaying theory, or perhaps they wouldn't be. We'll never know.
The hang-wringing in the western press about this seems to me to be largely due to an inability to fit the event into the triumphalist narrative that has endured in government and media since the end of the cold war. The idea that capitalism, specifically our version of capitalism is best always, everywhere and forever.
The true irony here is that the central idea of capitalism is that competition creates efficiency and lack of competition allows inefficiency. Thus, when capitalism no longer has any competition, it should (according to itself) become less and less efficient - which, of course, is just what has happened.
Basically, capitalism is incompatible with itself triumphing. Capitalism needs communism and preferably other competing systems around to stay competitive.
But they still would have lost in the end. It would have taken longer, but they would have lost.
Maybe. I'm not at all certain of that, actually. Germany was and is the strongest nation in Europe, and it had conquered most of Europe before going after Russians. Had it not had the Eastern Front, it could well have concentrated enough troops to win the D-Day, and had it not allied with Japan it might have avoided it entirely. And even when it did go after Russians, it still could had won the war if not for Hitler's obsession with Stalingrad.
Seriously, Nazis lost WW2, but just barely. It's scary looking just how close it was.
Many major scientific advances have occurred overseas but what America excels is in the conversion of those ideas into industries.
Indeed it does, and IMHO this warrants a study into why America excels in this.
To start with, the reason I wouldn't even try starting a business of my own is that if said business fails (as most do), I'll be in debt slavery the rest of my life. Is this different in America?
There is also the question of fighting spirit. The Soviets were determined to wipe whoever tried to do the same things the Germans did to them, out of an instinct of survival, Kruschev was in fact hardwired into that kind of thinking.
Soviet Union suffered over 20 million casualties in World War II. I'm pretty sure that anyone who caused that kind of death toll would be declared public enemy number one anywhere.
Also, I can't help but notice that Russians didn't, in fact, "wipe" the areas of Germany they controlled, but rather turned those into a semi-independent country.
When you combine that with nuclear weapons, plus America's threats to them you certainly have a very dangerous combination.
No, not really. You are talking about the ultimate hedgehog defense, which are wonderful for keeping peace - and indeed, the Cold War never erupted into World War III.
Yes, old hipsters anywhere, nuclear weapons have most likely saved orders of magnitude more lives than they've ever cost. Choke on that, you anti-nuclear bastards.
That would imply that American ballistic missile program would have also went ahead of Soviet one. Which, I suspect, would mean some glowing rubble in place of Moscow and some other major Soviet cities.
So... What you're saying is that it's a good thing the Soviets were there to keep the Americans in check?
Frankly, I think you're right, and I add that it's also good that the Americans were here to keep the Soviets in check. Things have really gone to Hell since the Cold War ended, and why shouldn't they: there's no reason for West to play nicely anymore, since there's perceived to be no alternatives to capitalism.
Of course the end result to constant economic abuse of more and more people will be that either communism makes a comeback, or some other -ism will, at which point the rich and powerful will be kicking themselves for wasting yet another chance to rule the world forever just because they got too greedy. And history will keep going and the same things will happen over and over again.
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Well, isn't he kinda doing just that, withdrawing troops from Iraq and Afghanistan?
It won't recover. The manufacturing base that brought the original success has largely been offshored, the infrastructure is slowly crumbling away from lack of maintenance, and because the nuclear power program was halted it's questionable whether the US can even keep the lights on as the price of oil skyrockets.
Perhaps you can climb back from the bottom one day, but make no mistake: you are on your way there.
Frankly, I have a hard time imagining there's a single individual on this planet who does not want to be able to live his life as he will, which is what "freedom" means. In fact I don't think it is possible to claim otherwise in a logically coherent manner.
However, I have a very easy time imagining those sitting at the top of the pyramid using such excuses to justify oppressing those under their heel, while pseudo-intellectuals eager to show their "tolerance" do so by enthusiastically cheering for ruthless tyrants, never once noticing the irony of accepting an absurdly racist claim ("only Europeans and their descendants are fit for democracy") in the name of anti-racism.
But I'm sure those Chinese sitting in prison for demanding a freer system appreaciate you telling them it's a fool's quest since they lack the Judeo-Christian background and European genes required for such a system. In fact, let's go tell them right away that they should knock off such silliness and settle for limited freedoms, since democracy is only better for us uberme^H white christians.
Seriously, did you try to sound like a throwback from colonial times, or did you just live up to your username?
However, they do include the United States being reduced too weak to interfere with the Muslim world. And one way to do that is to trick you into wasting your resources. Which worked perfectly, judging by US national debt.
Also, given how you always go on about freedom and democracy, could it just perhaps be that someone who hates your guts would love to see you being deprived of those? Just as revenge?
No, the first step is to announce you have it in your safe, then see which three-letter agency tries to steal it.
Yeah, it does so by converting ambient infrared radiation - in other words, ambient heat - into work. Any waste heat released through said work is then re-absorbed by the antenna, to be used again.
In other words, this sounds like a second-order perpetual motion machine to me.
Really? You notice the lag in a signal whose speed is measured in "percentage of speed of light" (186,282 miles per second) in a 20 feet cable? When the same cable is transferring both sound (speed 1,126 feet/second in air) and picture? Seriously?
Stop whining about cable quality and start gloating about your superhuman - and, frankly, supernatural - nervous system.
Only if said followers have some reason to believe you. As it is, all this will do is make Osama seem like a martyr: "they killed him, and now they are spreading lies about him!"
Truth is a weapon you can wield only if you have a reputation for truthfulness, and, well, this is US Government we are talking about.
But Bin Laden didn't blow himself up. He hid for 10 years doing nothing but the equivalent of posting Youtube videos encouraging other people to blow themselves up. What's his claim for martyrhood?
Nobody cares what you do with your own life. Except the religious, who decide something, then decide it's God's will, and soon are either burning people at stake or posting Youtube videos, depending on the era. And, of course, are utterly convinced that causing completely unnecessary grief makes them extra holy.
Or flying airplanes into buildings, to get back on topic.
So basically you need to work for free to qualify for getting a job in software industry? I think you just identified the heart of the problem ;).
Also, it's impossible to identify "top 1%" of people, and in any case, your company is not in the top 1% of prestige or salary, so why would the top 1% be willing to work for you? Making the requirements needlessly high means you only get people who are capable and willing to bullshit themselves past them.
Seriously, settle for average, and you get average; aim for excellence without being willing to pay for it, and you get cynical conmen.
It doesn't. As the summary says, it's a flood-fill algorithm - it works like the paint bucket in an image editor, where the flood-stop condition is "elevation >= wave height". Oh, and it only checks a few kilometers worth of land at a time.
No, because tsunami (like any wave) is a wave, not flow. A 5-meter tsunami is 5 meters high because it has just enough energy to pile water that high when the front starts decelerating near the shore. In a way, it already has gone up a cliff as high as it can; the back parts have piled on top of the front ones.
Or so I've understood, anyway.
In other words, this so-called "simulation" is absolutely worthless.
I find it utterly hilarious that someone is invoking human rights in defence of Stalin. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot indeed.
Given that your stomach contains hydochloric acid, which forms raw chlorine in its water solution (such as in your stomach), I highly doubt chlorinated water is going to affect your body in any way. In fact every time you're eating anything with the least bit of salt in it, as you must to stay alive, said salt will dissociate to natrium and chloride in your body.
Just because something is a "chemical" doesn't make it bad for you.
Real men drink it black. All four litres of it.
However, the absolutely best-tasting addition to coffee is rum.
According to Mussolini, the inventor of modern fascism, it's actually synonymous to corporatism. Authoritarianism is already inherent to corporations, since the owners are a separate group from employees, so when you run the whole society as a corporation, you get a totalitarian dictatorship.
Racism, on the other hand, is not inherent to fascism. You could have a fascist country without racism. It's simply that when those first over-the-top fascist countries got that way, racism was fashionable and got incorporated in them. However, you could just as easily use nationality or ideology as a basis for "The Enemy" that justifies extreme means, like McCarthy did.
No no no, totalitarian socialism means that everyone gets healthcare and, if necessary, social security. Have you been neglecting your doctrinal studies?
No, it's just plain old authoritarianism. Mere abuse of authority isn't sufficient to qualify for fascism, even by your own definition. And while corporations nowadays hold far more political power than is healthy for the society, it's still a matter of corruption rather than an official policy specifically targeted at completely merging government and corporations.
However, the current financial crisis, the poverty it brought and the fact that its instigators got away without a scratch shows promise. Give it another decade or two, and the world will once again see real fascist countries and burn.
What problem? That a few rich people can't lock down world's cultural heritage to become even richer?
Actually, transistors are based on quantum mechanics. Perhaps they could be based on just experimental data without any underlaying theory, or perhaps they wouldn't be. We'll never know.
The true irony here is that the central idea of capitalism is that competition creates efficiency and lack of competition allows inefficiency. Thus, when capitalism no longer has any competition, it should (according to itself) become less and less efficient - which, of course, is just what has happened.
Basically, capitalism is incompatible with itself triumphing. Capitalism needs communism and preferably other competing systems around to stay competitive.
Maybe. I'm not at all certain of that, actually. Germany was and is the strongest nation in Europe, and it had conquered most of Europe before going after Russians. Had it not had the Eastern Front, it could well have concentrated enough troops to win the D-Day, and had it not allied with Japan it might have avoided it entirely. And even when it did go after Russians, it still could had won the war if not for Hitler's obsession with Stalingrad.
Seriously, Nazis lost WW2, but just barely. It's scary looking just how close it was.
Indeed it does, and IMHO this warrants a study into why America excels in this.
To start with, the reason I wouldn't even try starting a business of my own is that if said business fails (as most do), I'll be in debt slavery the rest of my life. Is this different in America?
Which would make it a ballistic shot. The world you're looking for is "suborbital".
Soviet Union suffered over 20 million casualties in World War II. I'm pretty sure that anyone who caused that kind of death toll would be declared public enemy number one anywhere.
Also, I can't help but notice that Russians didn't, in fact, "wipe" the areas of Germany they controlled, but rather turned those into a semi-independent country.
No, not really. You are talking about the ultimate hedgehog defense, which are wonderful for keeping peace - and indeed, the Cold War never erupted into World War III.
Yes, old hipsters anywhere, nuclear weapons have most likely saved orders of magnitude more lives than they've ever cost. Choke on that, you anti-nuclear bastards.
So... What you're saying is that it's a good thing the Soviets were there to keep the Americans in check?
Frankly, I think you're right, and I add that it's also good that the Americans were here to keep the Soviets in check. Things have really gone to Hell since the Cold War ended, and why shouldn't they: there's no reason for West to play nicely anymore, since there's perceived to be no alternatives to capitalism.
Of course the end result to constant economic abuse of more and more people will be that either communism makes a comeback, or some other -ism will, at which point the rich and powerful will be kicking themselves for wasting yet another chance to rule the world forever just because they got too greedy. And history will keep going and the same things will happen over and over again.