I don't think GP meant that letting small infractions slide is what distinguishes nice cops from the assholes.
The point I believe he was making was that cops who enforce with overzealousness the black letter of the law to the point where adherence is impossible are being unfair. The choice is that the law has to either stay well clear of the actual boundaries and allow for leniency, or go right up to them and enforce them rigorously.
Take speed limits. Do we want cops armed with super accurate speed detectors (assume they have such devices) trailing a car for 100 miles while it traveled under the limit, only to pull it over for breaking the limit by 0.5mph for a few seconds as it went down a steep hill? Personally, that's a small infraction that I think society as a whole would be better off letting slide because it would engender resentment towards law enforcement and, also, remember that issuing fines and the admin overhead of enforcement is a net cost to society. Having thousands of such cops on the streets means police resources are no longer used to track down real crime.
The specific principles of the Rule of Law as conceived in a modern society must take into account the reasonableness of expecting compliance, and to what degree compliance is possible. To put it bluntly, sufficiently small infractions can, and should, be let slide.
It's so obvious that maybe I should apply for a grant to show how the sun is in the sky only during daylight hours.
I represent a consortium of investors who are interested in your proposed research. Please can you give us more information, such as how soon your research would yield commercialisable results.
We would also be interested in patenting the outcomes of your research, so please can you tell us how long it would take to fully write up a patent application for a method of comprehensively determining the presence or absence of the Sun during certain times of the solar cycle.
Has that meme gotten to the point where it gets associated with any article that has words like "beam" that can conceivably be related to lasers in it?
Because if so, I'm breeding sharks with frikkin' two by fours on their heads!
RAND corporation, however, a sickening organization that profiteers by preparing "research papers" that deliberately misrepresents facts for the purpose of twisting social and economic policy to serve the agendas of big lobby groups, is the worst kind of organized crime; the kind that has government backing.
None of those childish finger point "you're just as bad" quips come close to matching:
1. Running around the world like a rogue state starting wars of aggression in the name of geopolitical one upsmanship.
2. Starting a meaningless "war on terror" and railroading other countries into that same paranoid delusion resulting in the destruction of the last half millennium of democratic development in the Anglo-American world.
3. Arbitrarily toppling democratically elected leaders (before you go off refuting this, read up on the US interventions in South America such as Chile).
4. Reality television.
So yea, clean up your fucking country, esp point 4.
What, an article on the games industry is out of place on http://games.slashdot.org/ ? Personally, I think you're out of place anywhere that's not an institution for the handicapped.
Because western society has degenerated to a democratic show where the public are convinced they are free because they get to choose between two essentially identical political rulers with the exact same hidden agendas.
And we have the arrogance to think we have the right to go around "liberating" other nations. Oh, the irony.
The Butterfly Effect refers to chaos theory, which states that, at a macroscopic level, large changes can be brought about in a system by factors that are relatively very small. This is often illustrated by relating the flapping of a butterfly's wings on one side of the Earth to the follow on effects leading to a hurricane on the other side of the planet.
I don't think it was the parent that referred to the effect wrongly, but the initial post where it was used to explain that smaller objects would be affected more than large objects. While this is true, it is not, in my view, really an appropriate use of the principle.
The idea is that it will increase the total level of research and development that gets done, making up for some of the loss in the lead that America had over the rest of the world for the majority of the second half of the twentieth century.
However, personally, I believe that the US's comparative advantage in this area was due to the enormous talent tapped by draining Germany after the second world war, and other countries as well due to the far higher per-capita income available in the US as well as the "American Image" that was so shiny and desirable.
Now, however, those German scientists are old and dying, and the US no longer offers the same image it once did. Professionals and intellectuals are realizing that the up and coming economies of China and India can offer as good opportunities, if you're positioned to take advantage of them, and many are also realizing that the abrasive, raw capitalist society that America has become is no longer conducive to comfortable and stable lifestyles.
The result? The "brain drain" that the US is now suffering. Sure, we can blame Chinese technological advances on their willingness to steal from US research bodies, but let's be honest here; post WWII US science and technology is pretty much all thanks to the German scientists that were whisked away in the post war reorganization. You think any of the brilliant minds ended up on the Nuremberg gallows? No, they ended up heading US DoD projects.
No need. The reaction results in the aluminium being reverted to aluminium ore, otherwise known as bauxite. Turning it back into aluminium is the same as refining newly mined aluminium ore.
Aluminium can be recycled if it is not re-oxidized, but that is not the case here.
Unless there is a ready supply of refined Aluminium, recycling the reactor elements will consumer more energy than it can generate. Lisa, in this house we obey... bah that's the third time I've made that joke in this thread.
Slashdot Mirror
South Africa had banned VoIP technology until recently. There's lots of information in this 2001 article:
http://www.itweb.co.za/sections/telecoms/2001/0103271307.asp?A=VPN&S=VPN&T=Section&O=SBR
I don't think GP meant that letting small infractions slide is what distinguishes nice cops from the assholes.
The point I believe he was making was that cops who enforce with overzealousness the black letter of the law to the point where adherence is impossible are being unfair. The choice is that the law has to either stay well clear of the actual boundaries and allow for leniency, or go right up to them and enforce them rigorously.
Take speed limits. Do we want cops armed with super accurate speed detectors (assume they have such devices) trailing a car for 100 miles while it traveled under the limit, only to pull it over for breaking the limit by 0.5mph for a few seconds as it went down a steep hill? Personally, that's a small infraction that I think society as a whole would be better off letting slide because it would engender resentment towards law enforcement and, also, remember that issuing fines and the admin overhead of enforcement is a net cost to society. Having thousands of such cops on the streets means police resources are no longer used to track down real crime.
The specific principles of the Rule of Law as conceived in a modern society must take into account the reasonableness of expecting compliance, and to what degree compliance is possible. To put it bluntly, sufficiently small infractions can, and should, be let slide.
I represent a consortium of investors who are interested in your proposed research. Please can you give us more information, such as how soon your research would yield commercialisable results.
We would also be interested in patenting the outcomes of your research, so please can you tell us how long it would take to fully write up a patent application for a method of comprehensively determining the presence or absence of the Sun during certain times of the solar cycle.
We look forward to funding your novel research.
You buried your pets and houseplants?
Sick bastard.
Has that meme gotten to the point where it gets associated with any article that has words like "beam" that can conceivably be related to lasers in it?
Because if so, I'm breeding sharks with frikkin' two by fours on their heads!
No, their research team is full.
No, the MPAA are a bunch of thugs.
RAND corporation, however, a sickening organization that profiteers by preparing "research papers" that deliberately misrepresents facts for the purpose of twisting social and economic policy to serve the agendas of big lobby groups, is the worst kind of organized crime; the kind that has government backing.
When he walks over it, will his HUD have this line?
Found: 1 box AA batteries
Oh, and I'm not white.
I'm from South Africa.
Seems pretty easily understandable to me. Not everyone speaks English as a first language, you know. Some people are Mexican.
None of those childish finger point "you're just as bad" quips come close to matching:
1. Running around the world like a rogue state starting wars of aggression in the name of geopolitical one upsmanship.
2. Starting a meaningless "war on terror" and railroading other countries into that same paranoid delusion resulting in the destruction of the last half millennium of democratic development in the Anglo-American world.
3. Arbitrarily toppling democratically elected leaders (before you go off refuting this, read up on the US interventions in South America such as Chile).
4. Reality television.
So yea, clean up your fucking country, esp point 4.
What, an article on the games industry is out of place on http://games.slashdot.org/ ? Personally, I think you're out of place anywhere that's not an institution for the handicapped.
"what architecture was fashionable that week"
Yea, because CPU architectures come into and go out of fashion all the time.
Yea, it'll be just like the last time the government destroyed civil liberties and people then voted for the other party and it was all reversed.
Because western society has degenerated to a democratic show where the public are convinced they are free because they get to choose between two essentially identical political rulers with the exact same hidden agendas.
And we have the arrogance to think we have the right to go around "liberating" other nations. Oh, the irony.
The Butterfly Effect refers to chaos theory, which states that, at a macroscopic level, large changes can be brought about in a system by factors that are relatively very small. This is often illustrated by relating the flapping of a butterfly's wings on one side of the Earth to the follow on effects leading to a hurricane on the other side of the planet.
I don't think it was the parent that referred to the effect wrongly, but the initial post where it was used to explain that smaller objects would be affected more than large objects. While this is true, it is not, in my view, really an appropriate use of the principle.
So you're saying that a spanner is better than a power geared pneumatic torque wrench if all you're doing is tightening a bolt?
No shit, Sherlock.
The idea is that it will increase the total level of research and development that gets done, making up for some of the loss in the lead that America had over the rest of the world for the majority of the second half of the twentieth century.
However, personally, I believe that the US's comparative advantage in this area was due to the enormous talent tapped by draining Germany after the second world war, and other countries as well due to the far higher per-capita income available in the US as well as the "American Image" that was so shiny and desirable.
Now, however, those German scientists are old and dying, and the US no longer offers the same image it once did. Professionals and intellectuals are realizing that the up and coming economies of China and India can offer as good opportunities, if you're positioned to take advantage of them, and many are also realizing that the abrasive, raw capitalist society that America has become is no longer conducive to comfortable and stable lifestyles.
The result? The "brain drain" that the US is now suffering. Sure, we can blame Chinese technological advances on their willingness to steal from US research bodies, but let's be honest here; post WWII US science and technology is pretty much all thanks to the German scientists that were whisked away in the post war reorganization. You think any of the brilliant minds ended up on the Nuremberg gallows? No, they ended up heading US DoD projects.
Err... sorry for rambling.
Next I bet you'll tell me that mamograms for men are useless. I'd counter by saying that you haven't seen many Slashdotters with their tops off.
Indeed! How dare that poster impugn the talent of artistic greats like the Pussycat Dolls!?
No need. The reaction results in the aluminium being reverted to aluminium ore, otherwise known as bauxite. Turning it back into aluminium is the same as refining newly mined aluminium ore.
Aluminium can be recycled if it is not re-oxidized, but that is not the case here.
Unless there is a ready supply of refined Aluminium, recycling the reactor elements will consumer more energy than it can generate. Lisa, in this house we obey... bah that's the third time I've made that joke in this thread.
Lisa, in this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!
I think what you meant to say was "Lisa, in this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"