To be a sport it needs an element of physical exertion.
Says who? Who made up this rule? I believe there is sport fishing and sport hunting - neither are particularly strenous. Besides, Golf does include an element of physical exertion - it's just rather small.
does imply purchasing a fuel-efficient vehicle unless you have a serious need for one
Ahhh... this is where it all breaks down. Who determines that 'serious need'? Ted Kennedy probably has a 'serious need' for that limousine so he doesn't get attacked. What is a serious need for one may not be for another. If you live in a civilized country, you probably have MANY things you don't have a 'serious need' for.
There really isn't a whole lot of debate in the scientific community that DDT causes eggshell thinning in raptors.
Fair enough, but it scientists have not been able to prove it is a carcinogen which is one of the major reasons it was outlawed. As you mentioned, it could be used effectively to combat Malaria in African countries, but due to the environmentalist outcry it has been banned.
Umm, the cause of those blackouts was much more complex than just emissions laws.
Of course, there is no simple reason for the problem, but a big factor was the emissions laws. At the time there were many powerplants available in California but they had been mothballed. New powerplant construction was restrained by emissions laws and some powerplants that were in service could only legally run for a limited number of days per year. There were other causes, but if they emissions laws hadn't been so ridiculous the crisis could have been averted.
Sounds like the environmentalists aren't the only ones with an agenda.
I think you'll find that, by far, the vast majority of the people in these anti-wind groups have never been involved in any other "environmental" movement.
I'm sure this is very true. Where I live the same types of arguments are used for 'open space'. Residents want local officials to deny building permits to developers for no better reason than we need more open space for the environment. Amazingly, the 'open space' is conveniently next to said residents houses. They jump on the environmentalist bandwagon as is convenient.
The same argument can be made for any aspect of society. I believe there are politicians in Washington now that have become very pious for the social and political clout it enables them to wield. There are other individuals in this country that have become very sensitive to issues of race to garner support for their unethical causes. Same thing. There is always a vocal minority of any group that can give that group a bad name, but many of these environmentalist groups have created an atmosphere where these kind of groundless complaints are taken seriously. Look at the DDT restrictions which have been proven unneeded, the Sierra Club's nuclear policys which haven't been updated in the last 30 years, or the emissions laws in California that caused blackouts several years ago. All these people are reaping what they've sown. Environmentalism has been twisted from a valid conservation agenda to a tool where anyone can get what they want.
Call us when you don't have power and really, really want some. Good-bye!:-P
Except it doesn't work that way. The 10 people that bitched about the environment stop the millions from getting power. Those 10 people probably moved somewhere where there was power - so they could bitch about it again, leaving the millions to suffer.
Anyone can get one, no technical or professional qualifications needed.
There are plenty of things out there that anyone can get, but don't seem as hokey as PayPal. gmail accounts, myspace accounts (in the right context), etc.. It has more to do with the kind of people that are involved in using the service. The vast majority of individuals using AOL are not regarded by the rest of us as very bright. They are either paying way too much for dial-up, or adding AOL costs to their broadband.
I think PayPal has suffered from the same problem. Outside of eBay use, the only sites that have used it have been completely unprofessional in appearance. This gives us all a collective unprofessional opinion of PayPal. I actually think that PayPal's overall reputation has improved over the last several years and you see more and more legitimate sites using them. I'm not a particular fan of PayPal (even though my buddy Shuanqun works there), but they do fill a need. Competition will be good, reduce costs of both online payments and merchant accounts and hopelly legitimatize the service.
Many things have been held to be true, that have since been proven false. That doesn't mean that the time spent on those theories and ideas was pointless or useless... if you can see it all as an evolving body of work that generally moves towards a more accurate understanding of the way things work.
In spite of my rather obvious attempt at a troll, I do agree. I just wish your ideas were more prevelent.
Where are all you anti-evolutionists that come out defending the concept of 'theorys' all the time. Exorting how just because it's called a 'theory' doesn't mean it's not a fact.
Hell, scientists were so sure this was true that they labeled it a constant, and now they find it's changed. Makes me seriously wonder about the 'theory of evolution'.
OS2 failed because of lack of consumer appeal (eye-candy), not because of lack of compatibility.
Is this true? IIRC, OS2 Warp had a ton of eye-candy if you could get it to run long enough. If IBM gave up on OS2 that easily when there were no compatability issues, it may be the poorest business decision they ever made.
but I assure you if it can be played by fat out of shape buisness executives it's not a sport.
What exactly screws up the criteria here? Is it being fat? Most NFL lineman could be considered fat. Is it out of shape? I've seen plenty of players who seem out of shape players in the Major Leagues. Maybe it's the business excutive part. That leaves out Michael Jordan, Emmit Smith and Wayne Gretzky. Guess none of them ever played a 'sport'.
Most pro golfers that I've seen aren't fat out of shape business executives. The majority are in reasonable shape, even if calling them 'atheletes' is a stretch. It irritates me when the definition of 'sport' is restricted to a game that only perfect physical specimens that are also chemically enhanced are even able to play.
Maybe there are some people who can do it safely, just like maybe there are some people who can drive well after a few drinks. But you don't get to drive a dangerous machine because "maybe" you're one of the small minority that can do it without impairing your driving.
No, you 'get to drive a dangerous machine' because you turned 16, can memorize a few facts from a pamphlet and made it all the way around the block without killing the tester. Everyone does things every day that impair their driving, listening to the radio, talking with friends, reading the newspaper, putting on makeup. Talking on a cell phone is not much different. I don't disagree that it can be distracting and result in more accidents, but lets not forget that the bar for operating a motor vehicle is REALLY low.
I too have a bike that I've been riding to work with the recent spikes in gas prices. I think the sad state of drivers, at least where I live, has little to do with talking on the cell phone. When riding a motorcycle you are both less distracted, and much more aware of how dangerous an accident will be to your health (at least I am). It's amazing the things people do that scare the hell out of me. They will start creeping through a stopsign while you are in the middle of the street and then wave you frantically by when you stop to avoid being run over. They cut you off, make left turns in front of you, don't use their turn signals, weave between lanes, hit their brakes randomly, etc... Most of the people I see aren't visibly talking on their cell phones, they just drive like morons.
It's actually a sad state of events we live in. Motorcycles are much more economical for an individual to commute to work or school. They are also not statistically exceptionally dangerous unless an automobile is involved. Most accidents on bikes are caused by other drivers in cars that are driving poorly and fail to see the bike. Reducing the number of drivers actively using cell phones may help this, but the problem is much deeper than that.
Absolutly not. Natural selection, genetic adapation and manipulation are things that easily reproduced in a laboratory and are obvious in every day things from the pets we keep to the food we eat.
The problem I do have is primarly in making the whole evolution concept into a stumbling block for our educational process. We have kids that graduate without the ability to make change, write a complete sentence or spell common words. Although the majority of our society has graduated from high school newspapers are written at a 5th grade level so people could understand, but we are worried about teaching them what amounts to a philisophical issue. Government officials are elected based on their opinions on evolution and it's teaching in our public schools. Lets put this issue behind us, agree to disagree, minimize it's impact in our schools curriculum and worry about important things.
Meanwhile, some of the less apathetic humans on this planet DO, against all rational thought, want to know where they ultimately came from.
I have no problem with research. I think it's great that we research it. Educating elementary children is NOT research. Arguing about it in the popular press, on blog sites and in the court room is NOT research.
It's a ridiculous argument and a colossal waste of time because neither side will ever be persuaded. Questions like 'where did we come from?' and 'why are we here?' are best left for philisophical discussions.
Where professionals go consumers will eventually follow. That's why everyone runs Microsoft platforms in their homes, even though when I was growing up Apple donated millions of machines to schools. The business industry wouldn't accept Apple in the workplaces, everyone wanted the same thing at home that they were used to at work, so Windows became dominant. If professionals move to Linux, eventually consumers will as well.
Where did you come up with comparison of the Uncertainty principle to ID. IIRC Heisenberg's prinicple said that observing something changes it's behavior, thus making it uncertain. I can think of many areas where this is true, but ID or evolution already happened. We can neither observe it, or change it. We are all already here. All that can be done now is attempt to prove in a laboratory that evolution is possible, which still doesn't prove that it happened.
Ultimately, I just don't understand why this is an issue. Bottom line is we are here. If we have evolved then we are uniquely suited to our environment due to millenia of nature working on us. If we are here by ID, we are uniquely suited to our environment because somebody built us that way. It's a stupid argument, and stupid area of study.
And NO, kids, it was not business as usual. This is what happens when one party takes over everything, and that party only represents moneyed interests.
Slightly OT, but how do you know that? For one thing, both parties - I daresay the vast majority of politicians primarily represent moneyed interests. What scares the hell out of me isn't what Abramoff did, but the idea that there may be hundred more like him in Washington right now.
Doubtful, since 'Linux' isn't an entity. Now Red Hat, HP, IBM or other individual contributers/copyright holders could possibly be NTP'd by Microsoft. Companies providing distributions could possibly be sued, but 'Linux' as whole doesn't really exist.
I think this is the biggest reason we haven't seen Microsoft try anything like this yet. They aren't sure who to go after. It's a little like the RIAA trying to sue individuals for downloading music. It ends up being mostly ineffective and a PR nightmare. Going after individual developers will be the same way.
That would be a good idea, although you would also have to put a time limit on the review. The Patent office review process is currently rather lengthy.
This doesn't solve the problem of parents not parenting as kids can/will turn the phone off or detach the battery if they don't want to be tracked.
Or leave it in their locker at school while they cut class, or swap phones with their friends to make their parents crazy. Some of these ideas seem to assume that kids are stupid. I know we weren't when we were kids. We, often innocently, bypassed the rules to do what we wanted. When we really wanted to buck the system it wasn't exactly hard.
OTOH, I can see some valid uses for this. Friends take the kid to a party and he wants to go home but isn't sure where she is, Mom can find her. Stuff like that.
I suppose that's why Google is simply refusing to pay for this push. They know people will still want to use Google if the connection is slow; they probably won't want to pay for high-speed, though, if Google isn't going to serve quickly anyway.
Exactly. On top of that, I wouldn't put it past Google to completely shut down a network that tries to throttle their bandwidth. How funny would it be if SBC/AT&T subscribers got a page that said
"I'm sorry, but due to unethical activities on the part of your Internet Service Provider, Google is no longer available. Please contact your ISP for more information"
How long do you think subscribers to any ISP would stand for that? How long before all of their support people got tired of getting yelled at when they suggested using Yahoo? These ISPs are walking a find line. If they lose their neutrality I think we will see many of the large websites reconfiguring their firewalls as well. Then we will have a mess.
Recently I started a blog. The primary purpose of which is to leave some kind of public record of my thoughts, attitudes and view of the world (no matter how ridiculous) to future generations. My motivation for doing this. I now have a nephew that just turned 2. Allthough I anticipate being around for a long time yet, life is always unsure. I lost my maternal grandfather when I was 8 and maternal uncle when I was in Jr. High. My grandfather was a WWII veteran that fought in both the European and Pacific theatre, as well as an all around good guy. There are so many stories of his that I'll never hear. I hope that, even if I only make it 6 more years, until my nephew is 8, I can leave something of myself behind for him and other nieces, nephews, children and grandchildren that are to come.
Now, as another precaution, I recently acquired a bank box and intend to put an archive of all my development work, passwords, etc.. in there. Probably more in case of a disaster than for an inheritance. One question I do have for anyone reading this, can I write to min cds or mini dvds with my CD/DVD writers? Where do I find media? The bank box that comes free with my account is only 4" across and a 6" CD/DVD isn't going to fit well.
Slashdot Mirror
To be a sport it needs an element of physical exertion.
Says who? Who made up this rule? I believe there is sport fishing and sport hunting - neither are particularly strenous. Besides, Golf does include an element of physical exertion - it's just rather small.
does imply purchasing a fuel-efficient vehicle unless you have a serious need for one
Ahhh... this is where it all breaks down. Who determines that 'serious need'? Ted Kennedy probably has a 'serious need' for that limousine so he doesn't get attacked. What is a serious need for one may not be for another. If you live in a civilized country, you probably have MANY things you don't have a 'serious need' for.
There really isn't a whole lot of debate in the scientific community that DDT causes eggshell thinning in raptors.
Fair enough, but it scientists have not been able to prove it is a carcinogen which is one of the major reasons it was outlawed. As you mentioned, it could be used effectively to combat Malaria in African countries, but due to the environmentalist outcry it has been banned.
Umm, the cause of those blackouts was much more complex than just emissions laws.
Of course, there is no simple reason for the problem, but a big factor was the emissions laws. At the time there were many powerplants available in California but they had been mothballed. New powerplant construction was restrained by emissions laws and some powerplants that were in service could only legally run for a limited number of days per year. There were other causes, but if they emissions laws hadn't been so ridiculous the crisis could have been averted.
Sounds like the environmentalists aren't the only ones with an agenda.
Everyone has an agenda.
I think you'll find that, by far, the vast majority of the people in these anti-wind groups have never been involved in any other "environmental" movement.
I'm sure this is very true. Where I live the same types of arguments are used for 'open space'. Residents want local officials to deny building permits to developers for no better reason than we need more open space for the environment. Amazingly, the 'open space' is conveniently next to said residents houses. They jump on the environmentalist bandwagon as is convenient.
The same argument can be made for any aspect of society. I believe there are politicians in Washington now that have become very pious for the social and political clout it enables them to wield. There are other individuals in this country that have become very sensitive to issues of race to garner support for their unethical causes. Same thing. There is always a vocal minority of any group that can give that group a bad name, but many of these environmentalist groups have created an atmosphere where these kind of groundless complaints are taken seriously. Look at the DDT restrictions which have been proven unneeded, the Sierra Club's nuclear policys which haven't been updated in the last 30 years, or the emissions laws in California that caused blackouts several years ago. All these people are reaping what they've sown. Environmentalism has been twisted from a valid conservation agenda to a tool where anyone can get what they want.
That would probably be his last act.
Call us when you don't have power and really, really want some. Good-bye! :-P
Except it doesn't work that way. The 10 people that bitched about the environment stop the millions from getting power. Those 10 people probably moved somewhere where there was power - so they could bitch about it again, leaving the millions to suffer.
Anyone can get one, no technical or professional qualifications needed.
There are plenty of things out there that anyone can get, but don't seem as hokey as PayPal. gmail accounts, myspace accounts (in the right context), etc.. It has more to do with the kind of people that are involved in using the service. The vast majority of individuals using AOL are not regarded by the rest of us as very bright. They are either paying way too much for dial-up, or adding AOL costs to their broadband.
I think PayPal has suffered from the same problem. Outside of eBay use, the only sites that have used it have been completely unprofessional in appearance. This gives us all a collective unprofessional opinion of PayPal. I actually think that PayPal's overall reputation has improved over the last several years and you see more and more legitimate sites using them. I'm not a particular fan of PayPal (even though my buddy Shuanqun works there), but they do fill a need. Competition will be good, reduce costs of both online payments and merchant accounts and hopelly legitimatize the service.
Many things have been held to be true, that have since been proven false. That doesn't mean that the time spent on those theories and ideas was pointless or useless... if you can see it all as an evolving body of work that generally moves towards a more accurate understanding of the way things work.
In spite of my rather obvious attempt at a troll, I do agree. I just wish your ideas were more prevelent.
Where are all you anti-evolutionists that come out defending the concept of 'theorys' all the time. Exorting how just because it's called a 'theory' doesn't mean it's not a fact.
Hell, scientists were so sure this was true that they labeled it a constant, and now they find it's changed. Makes me seriously wonder about the 'theory of evolution'.
OS2 failed because of lack of consumer appeal (eye-candy), not because of lack of compatibility.
Is this true? IIRC, OS2 Warp had a ton of eye-candy if you could get it to run long enough. If IBM gave up on OS2 that easily when there were no compatability issues, it may be the poorest business decision they ever made.
but I assure you if it can be played by fat out of shape buisness executives it's not a sport.
What exactly screws up the criteria here? Is it being fat? Most NFL lineman could be considered fat. Is it out of shape? I've seen plenty of players who seem out of shape players in the Major Leagues. Maybe it's the business excutive part. That leaves out Michael Jordan, Emmit Smith and Wayne Gretzky. Guess none of them ever played a 'sport'.
Most pro golfers that I've seen aren't fat out of shape business executives. The majority are in reasonable shape, even if calling them 'atheletes' is a stretch. It irritates me when the definition of 'sport' is restricted to a game that only perfect physical specimens that are also chemically enhanced are even able to play.
Maybe there are some people who can do it safely, just like maybe there are some people who can drive well after a few drinks. But you don't get to drive a dangerous machine because "maybe" you're one of the small minority that can do it without impairing your driving.
No, you 'get to drive a dangerous machine' because you turned 16, can memorize a few facts from a pamphlet and made it all the way around the block without killing the tester. Everyone does things every day that impair their driving, listening to the radio, talking with friends, reading the newspaper, putting on makeup. Talking on a cell phone is not much different. I don't disagree that it can be distracting and result in more accidents, but lets not forget that the bar for operating a motor vehicle is REALLY low.
I too have a bike that I've been riding to work with the recent spikes in gas prices. I think the sad state of drivers, at least where I live, has little to do with talking on the cell phone. When riding a motorcycle you are both less distracted, and much more aware of how dangerous an accident will be to your health (at least I am). It's amazing the things people do that scare the hell out of me. They will start creeping through a stopsign while you are in the middle of the street and then wave you frantically by when you stop to avoid being run over. They cut you off, make left turns in front of you, don't use their turn signals, weave between lanes, hit their brakes randomly, etc... Most of the people I see aren't visibly talking on their cell phones, they just drive like morons.
It's actually a sad state of events we live in. Motorcycles are much more economical for an individual to commute to work or school. They are also not statistically exceptionally dangerous unless an automobile is involved. Most accidents on bikes are caused by other drivers in cars that are driving poorly and fail to see the bike. Reducing the number of drivers actively using cell phones may help this, but the problem is much deeper than that.
You forgot the politicians.
The time is coming closer to tell my list members that if they are using AOL for email, they need to find another way if they want to use my lists.
Do it and do it now. The sooner we all cease to put up with this nonsense, the sooner it's over.
Difference is in Islam it's not a lunatic fringe.
Absolutly not. Natural selection, genetic adapation and manipulation are things that easily reproduced in a laboratory and are obvious in every day things from the pets we keep to the food we eat.
The problem I do have is primarly in making the whole evolution concept into a stumbling block for our educational process. We have kids that graduate without the ability to make change, write a complete sentence or spell common words. Although the majority of our society has graduated from high school newspapers are written at a 5th grade level so people could understand, but we are worried about teaching them what amounts to a philisophical issue. Government officials are elected based on their opinions on evolution and it's teaching in our public schools. Lets put this issue behind us, agree to disagree, minimize it's impact in our schools curriculum and worry about important things.
Meanwhile, some of the less apathetic humans on this planet DO, against all rational thought, want to know where they ultimately came from.
I have no problem with research. I think it's great that we research it. Educating elementary children is NOT research. Arguing about it in the popular press, on blog sites and in the court room is NOT research.
It's a ridiculous argument and a colossal waste of time because neither side will ever be persuaded. Questions like 'where did we come from?' and 'why are we here?' are best left for philisophical discussions.
Where professionals go consumers will eventually follow. That's why everyone runs Microsoft platforms in their homes, even though when I was growing up Apple donated millions of machines to schools. The business industry wouldn't accept Apple in the workplaces, everyone wanted the same thing at home that they were used to at work, so Windows became dominant. If professionals move to Linux, eventually consumers will as well.
Where did you come up with comparison of the Uncertainty principle to ID. IIRC Heisenberg's prinicple said that observing something changes it's behavior, thus making it uncertain. I can think of many areas where this is true, but ID or evolution already happened. We can neither observe it, or change it. We are all already here. All that can be done now is attempt to prove in a laboratory that evolution is possible, which still doesn't prove that it happened.
Ultimately, I just don't understand why this is an issue. Bottom line is we are here. If we have evolved then we are uniquely suited to our environment due to millenia of nature working on us. If we are here by ID, we are uniquely suited to our environment because somebody built us that way. It's a stupid argument, and stupid area of study.
And NO, kids, it was not business as usual. This is what happens when one party takes over everything, and that party only represents moneyed interests.
Slightly OT, but how do you know that? For one thing, both parties - I daresay the vast majority of politicians primarily represent moneyed interests. What scares the hell out of me isn't what Abramoff did, but the idea that there may be hundred more like him in Washington right now.
Doubtful, since 'Linux' isn't an entity. Now Red Hat, HP, IBM or other individual contributers/copyright holders could possibly be NTP'd by Microsoft. Companies providing distributions could possibly be sued, but 'Linux' as whole doesn't really exist.
I think this is the biggest reason we haven't seen Microsoft try anything like this yet. They aren't sure who to go after. It's a little like the RIAA trying to sue individuals for downloading music. It ends up being mostly ineffective and a PR nightmare. Going after individual developers will be the same way.
That would be a good idea, although you would also have to put a time limit on the review. The Patent office review process is currently rather lengthy.
This doesn't solve the problem of parents not parenting as kids can/will turn the phone off or detach the battery if they don't want to be tracked.
Or leave it in their locker at school while they cut class, or swap phones with their friends to make their parents crazy. Some of these ideas seem to assume that kids are stupid. I know we weren't when we were kids. We, often innocently, bypassed the rules to do what we wanted. When we really wanted to buck the system it wasn't exactly hard.
OTOH, I can see some valid uses for this. Friends take the kid to a party and he wants to go home but isn't sure where she is, Mom can find her. Stuff like that.
I suppose that's why Google is simply refusing to pay for this push. They know people will still want to use Google if the connection is slow; they probably won't want to pay for high-speed, though, if Google isn't going to serve quickly anyway.
Exactly. On top of that, I wouldn't put it past Google to completely shut down a network that tries to throttle their bandwidth. How funny would it be if SBC/AT&T subscribers got a page that said
"I'm sorry, but due to unethical activities on the part of your Internet Service Provider, Google is no longer available. Please contact your ISP for more information"
How long do you think subscribers to any ISP would stand for that? How long before all of their support people got tired of getting yelled at when they suggested using Yahoo? These ISPs are walking a find line. If they lose their neutrality I think we will see many of the large websites reconfiguring their firewalls as well. Then we will have a mess.
Recently I started a blog. The primary purpose of which is to leave some kind of public record of my thoughts, attitudes and view of the world (no matter how ridiculous) to future generations. My motivation for doing this. I now have a nephew that just turned 2. Allthough I anticipate being around for a long time yet, life is always unsure. I lost my maternal grandfather when I was 8 and maternal uncle when I was in Jr. High. My grandfather was a WWII veteran that fought in both the European and Pacific theatre, as well as an all around good guy. There are so many stories of his that I'll never hear. I hope that, even if I only make it 6 more years, until my nephew is 8, I can leave something of myself behind for him and other nieces, nephews, children and grandchildren that are to come.
Now, as another precaution, I recently acquired a bank box and intend to put an archive of all my development work, passwords, etc.. in there. Probably more in case of a disaster than for an inheritance. One question I do have for anyone reading this, can I write to min cds or mini dvds with my CD/DVD writers? Where do I find media? The bank box that comes free with my account is only 4" across and a 6" CD/DVD isn't going to fit well.