I find that when I'm doing anything - working, reading, having a conversation, watching TV, going for a walk - I tend to concentrate to the exclusion of anything else. I will quite often be unaware of my surroundings, or my current state of hunger/discomfort.
Don't assume that just because your body lets you know when it needs something, the same will be true for everyone else.
One possible reason for ants not to develop 'culture' is that it requires a lot more brain processing ability to recognise and see the beauty of a pattern than it does to just survive, and the extra brain power corresponds to an increase in food requirements.
There's another, more interesting possibility, though. What if they do have art and we just don't recognise it? They use chemicals to communicate; but do we know that the chemicals they use always have a practical purpose? Maybe sometimes they're art.
You have missed the point of the argument. America needs people to be in those jobs. Why should the people in them have to be miserable and trying to escape from them? If they all manage to escape, America will collapse because of a lack of people to do those jobs.
Of course, it's impossible for *all* of them to escape, because there isn't enough 'up' for everybody to move to. So the problem is disguised - but it's still there.
You need those people to stay in those jobs, and you treat them with disrespect for doing so.
This argument was made in NZ recently. There was a proposal to put up a much larger wind farm than had been done before, and people were complaining that it would kill birds.
No, that's not the case, and it betrays a fundemental lack of understanding about what's really going on. Intellectual activity is not being attacked...intellectual arrogance is being attacked. There's a huge difference. People are simply tired of a relatively small subset of society going "we're smarter than you, better than you, and we know what's best for you". In fact, Americans have never been comfortable with such people. And so are Americans anti-intellectual? Of course not.
My understanding of what is going on is that a small subset of society is going "we've studied this and here's what's happening" and the rest is saying "we're not going to listen to you people just because you're 'scientists'! How come you think you're better than us?!"
That's pretty much anti-intellectualism, for my money. YMMV
My world looks a lot less bright through glasses lenses than through contact lenses (presumably because glasses lenses are thicker). Maybe it was just the levels of light you were facing - that tiny bit less meant your migraine attacks weren't triggered any more.
Alternatively, I've heard that when wearing contact lenses you don't need to correct for the same degree of astigmatism - something about wearing the lenses corrects it partly. My optometrist took advantage of this to prsecribe disposables for me that would allow me to see well enough pass the driving vision test, even though mathematically they shouldn't have. Maybe your contact lenses were making your eyes work a little harder and the extra strain was enough to trigger a migraine in combination with something else.
They're tricky little beggers, migraines. I swear they're making me paranoid - and they're doing it on purpose.
If you had RTFA, you would have discovered that actually the parrot came up with the concept of zero on its own. In fact, it had difficulty communicating to the humans that it had this new concept and was bored with the things they were still 'teaching' it.
Unless it's all a big hoax, I guess.
That's why I didn't get the question about Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. The first is obviously set in England, but while Tolkien was British, I don't see any reason why Middle Earth residents should be more British than American, Australian or anything else. In fact, it makes perfect sense that different races would have different accents.
Tolkien wrote LOTR to be an English mythology, because he felt that there wasn't one. (There was lots of Celtic stuff, but nothing that he felt was truly English.) Hence all the accents were probably all English or related to English in his mind.
A lot of the complaints from people who were sent these emails (whether fooled or not fooled) are ludicrous. I do have a little sympathy for the student whose from address was used to fool her friend, same as I do for the owners of from addresses used by spammers.
I think the study was worthwhile but could have been conducted better.
1. They might have obtained permission from the students whose identities were used in the from addresses, so that if the students who received the emails called and asked WTF the 'sender' would be able to explain and it wouldn't need to go further. I don't think that would invalidate the results.
2. They might have obtained permission from all the students involved to do an 'email usage experiment' throughout the semester. They wouldn't be given details of exactly what it would entail, but they would agree to be a part of the experiment. Later, when they complain, the experimenters can point out that they volunteered...
3. Did the people who gave up their passwords for chocolate sue? Hell no! They ate their chocolate and were happy. The experimenters should have offered chocolate, which makes all things good.
From the morality you've demonstrated in your other posts, I genuinely hope they find you unfit for service. The idea of you being in the military scares me.
I'd make them watch my soldiers rape their sisters just to make them talk and then shoot the whole lot of them afterwards.
Speaking as a sister, I'd like to declare you an idiot. I don't expect to take responsibility for all my brothers' actions.
If that's your idea of justice for those who are not part of your country, then you dishonour it. That kind of attitude is why other nations don't like or trust the US any more.
On what do you base your belief that captured enemy combatants have due process rights?
The point is that they should first be proved to BE captured enemy combatants. Then you can go ahead and deprive them of due process. Otherwise your argument is circular:
"Prove that he's an enemy combatant."
"I don't need to, because being accused of being an enemy combatant deprived him of his right to be presumed not an enemy combatant."
What you posit might be true. The problem is that is probably isn't.
It's like when the gvmt said "Trust us, we have reasons to believe that there are WMDs" and then there weren't WMDs after all. When will we hear what those good reasons were? I doubt we ever will, and most USians have lost interest anyway.
The same thing will probably happen with Gtmo. We know that at least some of the people incarcerated were innocent. What kind of guarantee do we have that the rest aren't? What kind of oversight is there? When will we find out? Probably not before most people have lost interest and no longer find it outrageous that such things could happen.
As a non-USian the only thing I can do to improve the situation is persuade USians that there's a problem, so that you can use your influence within US polictics to change things. So that's what I'll do.
BTW, your post was really hard to read due to some of the grammar you used, so a lot of people may not have understood your point.
Wouldn't 'behind enemy lines' for non US soldiers have to be somewhere in America? If you feel it doesn't have to be, then using that logic US soldiers can bypass any village, call it behind their own lines, and legimately shoot everyone therein as spies!
Also, what uniform is the other side supposed to be wearing? Bear in mind that from their perspective, they're largely civilians resisting an invasion. Why would they own uniforms?
If a woman's husband cheats on her and she responds by blowing his brains out (or in the recent Texas case running him over twenty times with her car), under your logic, why should she be imprisoned? She only attacked somebody that wronged her. If I meet her on the street she isn't a threat to me. Shouldn't she go free since by your theory prison time only exists to protect society by removing offenders? Is she a threat to society?
Yes. She is a threat to the cashier who short-changes her, or the asshole driver who cuts her off. She has demonstrated that she's not capable of an appropriate response to being wronged. Or at least, not the one that society deems appropriate.
Unfortunately, the losses due to transporting electricity more than makes up for the benefits of economies of scale. Power lines are really not very efficient - you lose a lot of the energy. Obviously the further you try to transport it, the more you lose.
That's what's so great about democracy, it gives the minority the power to shout down the majority.
?
The biggest drawback of democracy is exactly the opposite - that the majority can overrule the minority even when the minority are right*. That's the "tyranny of the majority" that you may have heard of.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't assume that just because your body lets you know when it needs something, the same will be true for everyone else.
There's another, more interesting possibility, though. What if they do have art and we just don't recognise it? They use chemicals to communicate; but do we know that the chemicals they use always have a practical purpose? Maybe sometimes they're art.
Of course, it's impossible for *all* of them to escape, because there isn't enough 'up' for everybody to move to. So the problem is disguised - but it's still there.
You need those people to stay in those jobs, and you treat them with disrespect for doing so.
The native birds of NZ are flightless.
That's pretty much anti-intellectualism, for my money. YMMV
Alternatively, I've heard that when wearing contact lenses you don't need to correct for the same degree of astigmatism - something about wearing the lenses corrects it partly. My optometrist took advantage of this to prsecribe disposables for me that would allow me to see well enough pass the driving vision test, even though mathematically they shouldn't have. Maybe your contact lenses were making your eyes work a little harder and the extra strain was enough to trigger a migraine in combination with something else.
They're tricky little beggers, migraines. I swear they're making me paranoid - and they're doing it on purpose.
The reasonable metric alternative is surely km/L, which is what we use in NZ.
I just figured out how Amway got its name...
I knew he had a map projection in icosahedra, but I haven't heard anything about a periodic table.
If you had RTFA, you would have discovered that actually the parrot came up with the concept of zero on its own. In fact, it had difficulty communicating to the humans that it had this new concept and was bored with the things they were still 'teaching' it.
Unless it's all a big hoax, I guess.
Only if you mean one's complement. Ones own personal demons shouldn't cause one to mess this up.
Yours / Mine / Hers / His / Its
See? Easy!
I think the study was worthwhile but could have been conducted better.
1. They might have obtained permission from the students whose identities were used in the from addresses, so that if the students who received the emails called and asked WTF the 'sender' would be able to explain and it wouldn't need to go further. I don't think that would invalidate the results.
2. They might have obtained permission from all the students involved to do an 'email usage experiment' throughout the semester. They wouldn't be given details of exactly what it would entail, but they would agree to be a part of the experiment. Later, when they complain, the experimenters can point out that they volunteered...
3. Did the people who gave up their passwords for chocolate sue? Hell no! They ate their chocolate and were happy. The experimenters should have offered chocolate, which makes all things good.
Now I'm hungry. Dammit.
From the morality you've demonstrated in your other posts, I genuinely hope they find you unfit for service. The idea of you being in the military scares me.
If that's your idea of justice for those who are not part of your country, then you dishonour it. That kind of attitude is why other nations don't like or trust the US any more.
"Prove that he's an enemy combatant."
"I don't need to, because being accused of being an enemy combatant deprived him of his right to be presumed not an enemy combatant."
It's like when the gvmt said "Trust us, we have reasons to believe that there are WMDs" and then there weren't WMDs after all. When will we hear what those good reasons were? I doubt we ever will, and most USians have lost interest anyway.
The same thing will probably happen with Gtmo. We know that at least some of the people incarcerated were innocent. What kind of guarantee do we have that the rest aren't? What kind of oversight is there? When will we find out? Probably not before most people have lost interest and no longer find it outrageous that such things could happen.
As a non-USian the only thing I can do to improve the situation is persuade USians that there's a problem, so that you can use your influence within US polictics to change things. So that's what I'll do.
BTW, your post was really hard to read due to some of the grammar you used, so a lot of people may not have understood your point.
Also, what uniform is the other side supposed to be wearing? Bear in mind that from their perspective, they're largely civilians resisting an invasion. Why would they own uniforms?
It's a cross between Incoherent and Rant. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
I really want a "-1, Boring". Or at least, "-1, Incoherant" for those who can't spell, punctuate or use paragraphs.
Also bluediculous and yellowdiculous.
Unfortunately, the losses due to transporting electricity more than makes up for the benefits of economies of scale. Power lines are really not very efficient - you lose a lot of the energy. Obviously the further you try to transport it, the more you lose.
?
The biggest drawback of democracy is exactly the opposite - that the majority can overrule the minority even when the minority are right*. That's the "tyranny of the majority" that you may have heard of.
* For some undeterminable value of 'right'.