Well, embarrassment to Henderson for her semantic gaffe, and apologies to the/. readers for perpetrating another one (the "is" of identity), and I disagree with you on Economics trying to "solve" our "major problems".
First, Economics is a Science. It does not try to "solve" anything. Economics is a Social Science concerned with discovering, describing, and predicting social behavior within a fairly narrowly-defined domain. Unfortunately, a problem with many of the Social Sciences is that we cannot experiment or reproduce our results in a laboratory, therefore we must draw our conclusions from current observation and historical data. This slows down the progress of the science, but it still progresses if the data and thinking are correct. Yes, there are areas that have not been explained completely, but these types of gaps appear in all areas of study that I know of. Have we reached the limits of knowledge in any area of study?
There exist "Economic Philosophers" who try to determine which Economic behavior is most acceptable, but they are not usually scientists.
Then, there are the "Economic Technologists" who try to impose their pet Economic Theories on the rest of us. They may have Economics degrees and research behind them, but once they "activate" instead of making objective observations they lose their Scientific Objectivity. I'm not saying that scientists shouldn't give advice; I'm saying that the advice should be objective and qualified as limited by the current state of knowledge. Unfortunately there are a lot of smart Economics majors who feel they have a franchise on the absolute truth and try to "sell" their prejudices instead of solving problems, and another group that uses their scientific knowledge for commercial purposes (thus relinquishing objectivity and new research). If you have an argument about the deficiencies of Economics as a problem-solving tool, take it up with them.
You sound angry, you sound like your mind is already made up, and your response is an argument against the site the article appears on rather than the quality of the claim. I suspect this conversation about objectivity is lost on you.
No, I meant what I said about an open mind, and you seem to lack the requisite objectivity.
Economics is a Science, willful ignorance is inexcusable.
The CATO Institute is NOT a neo-con site (Get your labels right!). It is a Libertarian think tank and opposed to totalitarianism Left or Right. I don't always agree with their views, but I try to be open-minded and objective enough to evaluate diverse opinions on the merits of the supporting arguments rather than a label generalized by the media.
A very interesting response. It fails 11 of the 83 rhetorical fallacies outlined in Damer's, "Attacking Faulty Reasoning", but it nicely brings forth the principles in Ken Keyes', "Taming the Mind" (formerly published as, "How to Develop Your Thinking Ability"). The Keyes boook is a very useful method of using the methods in Korzybski's, "Science and Sanity".
However, you should have read the reference in the link before criticizing the post. The "irrationality" of the voting for jobs is that jobs don't produce prosperity overall; productivity does. Most voters surveyed failed to comprehend the relationship. Generally, people acting in their own self-interest (in this case, voting for a specific campaign promise), would reveal an "aggregate wisdom" that would work to the best interests of everybody. However, "aggregate wisdom" requires random selection of a large number of participants, and voters (and their attitudes) lack sufficient randomness, and tend to select on the basis of fallacious assumptions about critical areas of interest. So, the author of the report (an Economics Professor who, I'm told, mostly votes Democrat), points out that Economists from both the Blue and Red sides tend to agree on the cause and effect relationships on these issues, and further points out that the voting populace as a whole tends to vote on superstitious beliefs at odds with the Economist's view. So the author seems to think that scientific study of economic events leads to a "rational" opinion, and the un-informed, popular beliefs represent an "irrational" opinion. Since politicians are acting rationally to get get elected they end up catering to the voters' irrational wants.
Read the article. My summary doesn't do it justice.
Sorry, it isn't whether the state is red or blue. The politicians are giving the voters what the voters ask for, and the voters have irrational wants. Every Democratic candidate runs on the promise of more jobs. (What would happen to the candidate who said, "Elect me and we will have the cleanest water in the world, even though it will cost us 100,000 jobs!"?) Some candidates run on "pro-business" platforms. Why? Because business brings "prosperity" (read "jobs") to the area. Same promise, different spin. All false.
My family has included professional musicians for over 100 years. This is not exactly a new procedure for the "blanket licensing" mafia. Generally, if you have music in your busainess, you pay to both the BMI and ASCAP, and that should cover your obligations. In towns like Minneapolis, Chicago and Houston, I've seen businesses shut down until they comply with the music licensing groups. If you are a musician, you want to get paid for your music. If you are a consumer, you want to listen to music with as little hassle as possible. Blanket licensing provides a means of diminishing the hassle.
On the other hand, musicians can be notorious ripoffs. When was the last time you knew a musician who paid for sheet music on a regular basis? I have a friend who was going to build some great music software, but decided not to when he found out that all the musicians he knew had pirated their software. True, making a living as a musician is difficult, especially at first, but why give up your sense of right and wrong? Hmmm. Sounds like a meeting at the crossroads.
When a tech company produces a hardware or software product that is flawed,/. readers are all over it with derisive comments, alternatives, and condemnation. Michael Moore may be the best propagandist since Joseph Goebbels, and I'm not sure/. readers are educated enough to see the flaws in his products.
There are serious deficiencies in the health care system. The shortcomings are well known, and there are some possibly criminal activities that are accepted as standard procedure in the medical industry. These should be overcome by specific exposure and proof instead of painting the whole industry with a bucket of shit.
If Google is truly suppressing access to free speech (concerning MM's propaganda), then Google is perpetrating an evil act. The opposite action would be to expose the "product" defects in a way that educates the searchers and the public at large, but Google does not do this because that is not the Google mission. Therefore, Google should provide unbiased access and allow the searching public to draw its own conclusions.
Google should not be censoring content or access, Michael Moore should not be propagandizing without integrity, and the American public should not be so gullible as to believe the propaganda, but, hey, what are we going to do?
Hehehehe. Mark Andreesen once said that the browser would replace the desktop and Microsoft buried him. Google has sneaked up on Microsoft, big time. This seems to be a pretty good tool. Works better than Windows 1.0 or 3.0 ever did.
I've been saying since 1978, that a modern business should resemble the bridge on the Starship "Enterprise". It is not the "interface" that's missing so much as the "feedback". A business has a cycle: The process of making contact with a prospect, getting an order, fulfilling the order and getting paid may actually happen pretty quickly in some instances, but it is not instantaneous. MIS can only do three things; measure compliance with the business objectives (like accounting), schedule the elements of the process, or play "what if" to make the process more efficient and profitable. Any other computers engaged in the company are probably there for "production" of some sort, helping the cycle become fulfilled. The people in the company take action to complete the cycle, but many times they don't know if they are on track and what the effect of their action is, or even if it contributes to the fulfillment of the product or service. A game/reporting interface should give nearly immediate feedback on the result of the action. This is what happens in a game. Furthermore, the system should be adaptive. The interface should adapt, the feedback should adapt, and the result should be better actions on the part of the participants.
On the "what if" side, I am reminded that the Atomic Energy Commission used the Atari game "Meltdown" to teach the basics of running a nuclear reactor through simulation. Each business "system" ought to have a simulator to enhance the process for the customers, the employees and the business.
The Walker folks have very good stats on their page. It is worth reading those to see hwo some of the/. posters should have done a little more research. Furthermore, there is a link to LiveInk To Go http://www.liveink.com/LiveInkToGoReadingOnline.ht m that will transform your text into the new format. I copied Bastiat's "The Law" http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basEss2a.ht ml into the parsing window, and it was MUCH easier to read and follow. Try it.
So what? Australians aren't guaranteed freedom of speech in their Constitution. Students wouldn't be considered enfranchised citizens if it was guaranteed, since it's perfectly legitimate to discriminate against residents by reason of age. Who wants to live in Australia?
P.S. (The USA is on the way to becoming Australia.)
First, the kid's parents should be charged with child cruelty and neglect for making the kid attend a Texas Public School. Who hates their kids so much they would send them to prison for 12 years?
Second, the School District is understandably deficient...They are, after all, politicians. And politicians in Texas are committed to the PANG (People Are No Good) philosophy, which means if you don't take total control of peoples' lives they may do something independent and creative.
Third, the penalty for not participating in Politics is to be governed by Lawyers and other inferiors. (Plato?) This is a prime example.
Soldiers have always been restricted from including certain information in their correspondence and communications. Mail has always been subject to censorship. Censors were looking for any info that could identify the soldier's mission, unit, deployment and capability. Radio communication has been monitored for strict adherence to communication security. In fact, the Army Security Agency (ASA, know affectionately as "buddy fuckers"), continuously monitors radio communications and compiles statistics about the possible deleterious effects of accumulated breaches.
It makes sense that the newer methods of communications would need monitoring for the same reasons. It is not possible to depend on the individual soldier to be discrete. Case in point: In 1967 I was a volunteer MARS operator in Nha Trang, Vietnam. During the Jewish High Holidays we were bringing in troops from the field, and some of them would come to the MARS station to make "phone patches" to the States. Amateur Radio operators like Barry Goldwater and others would take our radio connection and "patch" into the phone line for a collect call to the soldiers' desired connection. Strict rules were: No Last names, no units, no locations, no military references whatsoever. Even the soldiers had trouble remembering to say "over" in order to allow the other party to respond. One conversation, typical of the type, went like this:
Soldier: "Hi, Mom." (pause) "Over."
Mom: "Hi, Josh." (pause) "Over."
Soldier: "It's good to hear your voice. Over"
Mom: "It's good to hear you, too. Where are you? Over"
Soldier: "I'm..." (MARS operator cuts connection and warns soldier that he CANNOT tell her where he is! MARS operator crosses room to flip a switch.)
Mom: I didn't hear you. Over."
Soldier: "I said I'm in Nha Trang for the High Holidays. Over."
(At which time the call is terminated by the MARS operator (who rushes back to the set too late to cut off the restricted info), the Ham operator in the States, and the ASA issues a gig to the MARS operator for not controlling the communications.)
Really, how many times can you tell someone that this info is damaging to the mission?
I have no doubt that there are Intelligence operators from many countries sifting through the internet looking for information on the training, capabilities and especially weaknesses (remember the "too light" armor on the HumVees?) of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Ever since I was a kid I wanted one of those 300-project kits (then sold by Allied Radio, which became Radio Shack), and a couple of years ago I picked up the updated version. It's a breadboard that runs off batteries, has modular components that fit into the bb, and is really pretty cool. Of course, the projects are fairly elementary for me now, but the thing was still fun. Circuit diagrams have never been easier to learn. I have an 11-year old nephew who's becomng a whiz with this thing.
--- or more air volume. I was discussing this type of idea with an architect who wanted to build large multifamily housing of good quality in Houston, TX. His idea of having hollow walls between units (for fire protection, utility access, component upgrading and modularity and thermal cooling, plus a "wind farm" of vertical windmills at the corners, plus a large vegetation plot on the roof (similar to the Ford plant in Michigan), plus heating and cooling control by having chambers of eutectic salts around a large swimming pool, could easily be augmented by having this type of system embedded in the hollow walls.
FWIW, the economics of the housing project are not feasible at this time. Many of the components are too expensive when compared to existing technology, but I have no doubt that someday he will build a project with similar standards designed to provide quality housing for a hundred years or more.
This project may get legs. I've seen some projects developed and spread by the "Mother Earth" types in the 70's and 80's. The final product may not look quite the same, but the community may be very active and efficient because of the project's appeal. When it does look good, the Design Science License doesn't seem to prevent someone from making the product and distributing it commercially, it just prevents them from locking it up.
Yeah, the key for me is not cosmetics, but ease of use and productivity. If I take 20 hours to learn the new interface, will I gain 80 hours of productivity using the product? (I use a 4:1 investment rule. If I invest $1 in my tools, I expect to gain at least $4 back.) So, will I be able to produce spreadsheets faster?..with fewer mistakes?..with more options?..with better security? My guess is that the constraint is wetware, not software. However, I recently had to evaluate a number of CAD and 3D drawing programs (21 of them!), and I can tell you that the interface made a whale of a difference in productivity. (I settled on Alibre and SketchUP Pro for doing technical illustration, and I use PhotoShop and Gimp for final 2D rendering.) If there is as much productivity gain from the new interface for word processing and spreadsheets as I gained from abandoning AutoCAD for 3D illustration, then it might be OK.
Depressing on more than one count.
on
2006's Bill of Wrongs
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
There is a huge pool of incidents to choose from, and it's obvious that the author chose the ones that illustrated her disdain for the Bush Administration so as to continue her campaign of anti-Bush propaganda. Unfortunately, despite the obvious bias of the author, the incidents selected were mostly eligible for a list of this sort.
It is depressing to read a list of this sort and know that it is only a small example of rights being trampled. It is depressing to read this article and realize that the government doesn't serve the will of the people; that government does not have the people's consent but does what they want regardless of the Constitution. It is really depressing to realize that very few people know the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, so the majority of the US citizens couldn't evaluate these actions even if they cared.
Once, back in 1972, I did a whole semester's worth of English papers in a month using PERT/CPM. I had my task list, and always did what was on my list for that day, but no more than that. I also started early and didn't use up my "slack" by doing things that weren't on my list during the times I allocated for English. I thought I'd found the Ultimate Answer. I've used PERT/CPM for hundreds of products since then, but I didn't find the same efficiency until I applied the principles I discovered in "Critical Chain" by Eliahu Goldratt.
I am convinced that people who are very detail-oriented and picky can succeed using a method like Allen's "Getting Things Done", but most of us others can use the CC method as necessary without giving up the joys of screwing off occasionally.
Well, let me try to explain it again: The firearms are not the problem. The problem is that murders are committed or accidents happen. In this case we are discussing intentional deaths, so the problem is that murders happen. As the statistics for Brazil and Mexico show, if someone wants to commit murder, they will use tools which are handy. In the USA, guns are handy, so many murders are committed with guns.
Regarding accidental deaths: In the USA we have about two guns for every man, woman and child. If guns were the problem, our population would be decimated by now. A swimming pool in the household is 6 times more dangerous than a gun in the household. According to your view, we have a "car problem" and automobiles should be banned. Car accidents take 190 times as many lives as accidental gun deaths.
Our "right to bear arms" is a direct result of our becoming free of Britain. Our country was founded on the rights of Life (we have a natural right to live), Liberty (we have a natural right to use our life as we see fit as long as we don't infringe on anyone else's rights), and Happiness (which includes a natural right to gain and own property and pursue callings which satisfy us without limits as long as we don't infringe on other peoples' rights). Owning the means to protect these rights is an extension of these rights. These are very strong definitions. As a result of these definitions, we threw off conventions and behaviors that contradicted these principles (slavery is one example that is used too often as an irrelevant pointer to the imperfection of our Founder's, but that succumbed to the principles in the Declaration and Constitution).
Britain, even in the 20th Century, has one of the worst civil rights records of any civilized country. In the attempt to make people safe, Britain, in 1988 (for a single instance), confiscated lots of private property such as antique firearms, shotguns, hunting weapons, swords, crossbows, spears and so forth. I have friends who lost thousands of dollars worth of personal property without adequate compensation by having their collections confiscated. Britain is rapidly becoming Orwell's "1984". Cameras everywhere, mail privacy violated, personal privacy disregarded, etc.. IMO, if the British government decided to impose Martial Law tomorrow, the "subjects" wouldn't have the means or the will to resist. Incidentally, although homicides seem to have declined since the 1988 Weapons Act, violent crime is 'way up. It's like the myth of the frog in the pot; the temperature is rising and the British are getting cooked because there is no sudden indication that it is happening. Unfortunately, it is happening in the USA also, but we are probably about 30 years behind the British in depriving people of their rights, and our Constitution gives a clear standard by which to judge the actions of our government.
Lastly, I object to the "jumping to solutions" approach to problem-solving. Banning firearms implies that firearms are a "cause" of violent death. In scientific terms, a cause must be both necessary and sufficient to produce the result. It takes very little thinking ability to realize that guns by themselves do not produce violence or violent deaths, therefore banning guns cannot solve the violence problem. Our neighbor to the North, Canada, has a lower rate of gun ownership than the USA, but even then, Canada has a much lower rate of homicides per capita, and homicides with firearms are even lower on per-capita gun ownership. There is something in the Cultural makeup of Canadians that seems to inhibit violence. (I don't have any idea what it is, but the USA might benefit from a cultural infusion from Canada.) I doubt that this can be imposed on the USA through edict, but some Sociologists may have a different opinion.
A problem is usually defined two ways: First, a problem is defined as a discrepancy between the way things are and the way we want them to be. This definition is inadequate because it lacks precision. It works well for many problems when it
I'm not convinced that the article was right, but things are rapidly moving toward Mark Andreessen's prediction that the browser will be the desktop. As I look at the wealth of Internet apps, and envision the possibility of httpd being built into every NIC, with kernel functionality (microcode, anyone?) in every motherboard, and I see the traditional OS as being irrelevant. Y'know, LEGO could make a number of computer components about the size of a Linksys 5-port switch, and we could just stack our computers together at the corner of our desk...
It is interesting that Mexico and Brazil are listed right below the USA in gun-related deaths, when both of them have more restrictions on guns than the USA. Furthermore, Brazil and Mexico have the highest PER-CAPITA murder rates in the world. You came to an invalid conclusion when you declare that "Gun-licensed countries -- practically those with bans have far far lower crime. " "Crime" is actually much higher per-capita in many of these countries. It makes sense that "gun-related crime" could be a little lower. And, of course, you are always free to move from the USA to Brazil or Mexico if you think you'd be safer there.
This is a complicated argument which requires integrity and a real knowledge of statistics, and is not for the faint-hearted nor ignorant. The reason for the Second Amendment was to allow the citizenry to protect themselves from a despotic or tyrannical government, in line with the the rights defined in the Declaration of Independence that allows a citizenry to overthrow an unjust rule when reason doesn't work. No statistical analysis is sufficient to deprive us of our rights, but may point to other ways of reducing the problem of too many murders. For instance, a disproportionate number of murders here in Texas are committed by illegal aliens against illegal aliens. Maybe arresting and sending them back would reduce the problem?
I saw a cartoon recently that showed the 2nd Amendment being rewritten as: "A well-regulated Population, being necessary to the Police State, the right of the Government to Register and Ban arms shall not be infringed."
If you are hazy about the meaning of the Constitution, I recommend, "We Hold These Truths" by Mortimer Adler. If you are a US Citizen and don't know the Constitution, shame on you.
C,mon. If you are not a lawyer and I bet you $10 that you don't know the Constitution of the United States of America, or the Declaration of Independence, I have a 99+% chance of taking your money. You need two things besides ordinary reasoning ability to evaluate Justice: One is a broad introduction to Justice that can be found in any basic Philosophy text or even in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica". The other is a knowledge of the standards by which our laws are supposed to conform. If you don't know the Constitution, you don't have the second criteria. One thing that bothers me: Of the 99% who don't know the Constitution?...I bet at least 50% of those over 18 are voters.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, embarrassment to Henderson for her semantic gaffe, and apologies to the /. readers for perpetrating another one (the "is" of identity), and I disagree with you on Economics trying to "solve" our "major problems".
First, Economics is a Science. It does not try to "solve" anything. Economics is a Social Science concerned with discovering, describing, and predicting social behavior within a fairly narrowly-defined domain. Unfortunately, a problem with many of the Social Sciences is that we cannot experiment or reproduce our results in a laboratory, therefore we must draw our conclusions from current observation and historical data. This slows down the progress of the science, but it still progresses if the data and thinking are correct. Yes, there are areas that have not been explained completely, but these types of gaps appear in all areas of study that I know of. Have we reached the limits of knowledge in any area of study?
There exist "Economic Philosophers" who try to determine which Economic behavior is most acceptable, but they are not usually scientists.
Then, there are the "Economic Technologists" who try to impose their pet Economic Theories on the rest of us. They may have Economics degrees and research behind them, but once they "activate" instead of making objective observations they lose their Scientific Objectivity. I'm not saying that scientists shouldn't give advice; I'm saying that the advice should be objective and qualified as limited by the current state of knowledge. Unfortunately there are a lot of smart Economics majors who feel they have a franchise on the absolute truth and try to "sell" their prejudices instead of solving problems, and another group that uses their scientific knowledge for commercial purposes (thus relinquishing objectivity and new research). If you have an argument about the deficiencies of Economics as a problem-solving tool, take it up with them.
You sound angry, you sound like your mind is already made up, and your response is an argument against the site the article appears on rather than the quality of the claim. I suspect this conversation about objectivity is lost on you.
Good luck with the rest of your life.
Kudzu! We could do a lot for the environment by making paper, cloth and now ethanol from kudzu.
No, I meant what I said about an open mind, and you seem to lack the requisite objectivity.
Economics is a Science, willful ignorance is inexcusable.
The CATO Institute is NOT a neo-con site (Get your labels right!). It is a Libertarian think tank and opposed to totalitarianism Left or Right. I don't always agree with their views, but I try to be open-minded and objective enough to evaluate diverse opinions on the merits of the supporting arguments rather than a label generalized by the media.
A very interesting response. It fails 11 of the 83 rhetorical fallacies outlined in Damer's, "Attacking Faulty Reasoning", but it nicely brings forth the principles in Ken Keyes', "Taming the Mind" (formerly published as, "How to Develop Your Thinking Ability"). The Keyes boook is a very useful method of using the methods in Korzybski's, "Science and Sanity".
However, you should have read the reference in the link before criticizing the post. The "irrationality" of the voting for jobs is that jobs don't produce prosperity overall; productivity does. Most voters surveyed failed to comprehend the relationship. Generally, people acting in their own self-interest (in this case, voting for a specific campaign promise), would reveal an "aggregate wisdom" that would work to the best interests of everybody. However, "aggregate wisdom" requires random selection of a large number of participants, and voters (and their attitudes) lack sufficient randomness, and tend to select on the basis of fallacious assumptions about critical areas of interest. So, the author of the report (an Economics Professor who, I'm told, mostly votes Democrat), points out that Economists from both the Blue and Red sides tend to agree on the cause and effect relationships on these issues, and further points out that the voting populace as a whole tends to vote on superstitious beliefs at odds with the Economist's view. So the author seems to think that scientific study of economic events leads to a "rational" opinion, and the un-informed, popular beliefs represent an "irrational" opinion. Since politicians are acting rationally to get get elected they end up catering to the voters' irrational wants.
Read the article. My summary doesn't do it justice.
Sorry, it isn't whether the state is red or blue. The politicians are giving the voters what the voters ask for, and the voters have irrational wants. Every Democratic candidate runs on the promise of more jobs. (What would happen to the candidate who said, "Elect me and we will have the cleanest water in the world, even though it will cost us 100,000 jobs!"?) Some candidates run on "pro-business" platforms. Why? Because business brings "prosperity" (read "jobs") to the area. Same promise, different spin. All false.
a n/the-myth-of-the-rational-voter/
Here's an interesting little essay on "The Myth of the Rational Voter". WARNING!!!! Intelligence and open-mindedness required! http://www.cato-unbound.org/2006/11/06/bryan-capl
My family has included professional musicians for over 100 years. This is not exactly a new procedure for the "blanket licensing" mafia. Generally, if you have music in your busainess, you pay to both the BMI and ASCAP, and that should cover your obligations. In towns like Minneapolis, Chicago and Houston, I've seen businesses shut down until they comply with the music licensing groups. If you are a musician, you want to get paid for your music. If you are a consumer, you want to listen to music with as little hassle as possible. Blanket licensing provides a means of diminishing the hassle.
On the other hand, musicians can be notorious ripoffs. When was the last time you knew a musician who paid for sheet music on a regular basis? I have a friend who was going to build some great music software, but decided not to when he found out that all the musicians he knew had pirated their software. True, making a living as a musician is difficult, especially at first, but why give up your sense of right and wrong? Hmmm. Sounds like a meeting at the crossroads.
When a tech company produces a hardware or software product that is flawed, /. readers are all over it with derisive comments, alternatives, and condemnation. Michael Moore may be the best propagandist since Joseph Goebbels, and I'm not sure /. readers are educated enough to see the flaws in his products.
There are serious deficiencies in the health care system. The shortcomings are well known, and there are some possibly criminal activities that are accepted as standard procedure in the medical industry. These should be overcome by specific exposure and proof instead of painting the whole industry with a bucket of shit.
If Google is truly suppressing access to free speech (concerning MM's propaganda), then Google is perpetrating an evil act. The opposite action would be to expose the "product" defects in a way that educates the searchers and the public at large, but Google does not do this because that is not the Google mission. Therefore, Google should provide unbiased access and allow the searching public to draw its own conclusions.
Google should not be censoring content or access, Michael Moore should not be propagandizing without integrity, and the American public should not be so gullible as to believe the propaganda, but, hey, what are we going to do?
I found this: http://www.snopes.com/business/money/pennies.asp
I had also heard that anything below a dime could be refused for payment of debts. Nothing like finding a source, right?
Hehehehe. Mark Andreesen once said that the browser would replace the desktop and Microsoft buried him. Google has sneaked up on Microsoft, big time. This seems to be a pretty good tool. Works better than Windows 1.0 or 3.0 ever did.
This has been available in parts of Houston for about 4 months.
I've been saying since 1978, that a modern business should resemble the bridge on the Starship "Enterprise". It is not the "interface" that's missing so much as the "feedback". A business has a cycle: The process of making contact with a prospect, getting an order, fulfilling the order and getting paid may actually happen pretty quickly in some instances, but it is not instantaneous. MIS can only do three things; measure compliance with the business objectives (like accounting), schedule the elements of the process, or play "what if" to make the process more efficient and profitable. Any other computers engaged in the company are probably there for "production" of some sort, helping the cycle become fulfilled. The people in the company take action to complete the cycle, but many times they don't know if they are on track and what the effect of their action is, or even if it contributes to the fulfillment of the product or service. A game/reporting interface should give nearly immediate feedback on the result of the action. This is what happens in a game. Furthermore, the system should be adaptive. The interface should adapt, the feedback should adapt, and the result should be better actions on the part of the participants.
On the "what if" side, I am reminded that the Atomic Energy Commission used the Atari game "Meltdown" to teach the basics of running a nuclear reactor through simulation. Each business "system" ought to have a simulator to enhance the process for the customers, the employees and the business.
The Walker folks have very good stats on their page. It is worth reading those to see hwo some of the /. posters should have done a little more research. Furthermore, there is a link to LiveInk To Go http://www.liveink.com/LiveInkToGoReadingOnline.ht m that will transform your text into the new format. I copied Bastiat's "The Law" http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basEss2a.ht ml into the parsing window, and it was MUCH easier to read and follow. Try it.
So what? Australians aren't guaranteed freedom of speech in their Constitution. Students wouldn't be considered enfranchised citizens if it was guaranteed, since it's perfectly legitimate to discriminate against residents by reason of age. Who wants to live in Australia?
P.S. (The USA is on the way to becoming Australia.)
First, the kid's parents should be charged with child cruelty and neglect for making the kid attend a Texas Public School. Who hates their kids so much they would send them to prison for 12 years?
Second, the School District is understandably deficient...They are, after all, politicians. And politicians in Texas are committed to the PANG (People Are No Good) philosophy, which means if you don't take total control of peoples' lives they may do something independent and creative.
Third, the penalty for not participating in Politics is to be governed by Lawyers and other inferiors. (Plato?) This is a prime example.
Soldiers have always been restricted from including certain information in their correspondence and communications. Mail has always been subject to censorship. Censors were looking for any info that could identify the soldier's mission, unit, deployment and capability. Radio communication has been monitored for strict adherence to communication security. In fact, the Army Security Agency (ASA, know affectionately as "buddy fuckers"), continuously monitors radio communications and compiles statistics about the possible deleterious effects of accumulated breaches.
..." (MARS operator cuts connection and warns soldier that he CANNOT tell her where he is! MARS operator crosses room to flip a switch.)
It makes sense that the newer methods of communications would need monitoring for the same reasons. It is not possible to depend on the individual soldier to be discrete. Case in point: In 1967 I was a volunteer MARS operator in Nha Trang, Vietnam. During the Jewish High Holidays we were bringing in troops from the field, and some of them would come to the MARS station to make "phone patches" to the States. Amateur Radio operators like Barry Goldwater and others would take our radio connection and "patch" into the phone line for a collect call to the soldiers' desired connection. Strict rules were: No Last names, no units, no locations, no military references whatsoever. Even the soldiers had trouble remembering to say "over" in order to allow the other party to respond. One conversation, typical of the type, went like this:
Soldier: "Hi, Mom." (pause) "Over."
Mom: "Hi, Josh." (pause) "Over."
Soldier: "It's good to hear your voice. Over"
Mom: "It's good to hear you, too. Where are you? Over"
Soldier: "I'm
Mom: I didn't hear you. Over."
Soldier: "I said I'm in Nha Trang for the High Holidays. Over."
(At which time the call is terminated by the MARS operator (who rushes back to the set too late to cut off the restricted info), the Ham operator in the States, and the ASA issues a gig to the MARS operator for not controlling the communications.)
Really, how many times can you tell someone that this info is damaging to the mission?
I have no doubt that there are Intelligence operators from many countries sifting through the internet looking for information on the training, capabilities and especially weaknesses (remember the "too light" armor on the HumVees?) of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Long pork raised in sheep?
Ever since I was a kid I wanted one of those 300-project kits (then sold by Allied Radio, which became Radio Shack), and a couple of years ago I picked up the updated version. It's a breadboard that runs off batteries, has modular components that fit into the bb, and is really pretty cool. Of course, the projects are fairly elementary for me now, but the thing was still fun. Circuit diagrams have never been easier to learn. I have an 11-year old nephew who's becomng a whiz with this thing.
--- or more air volume. I was discussing this type of idea with an architect who wanted to build large multifamily housing of good quality in Houston, TX. His idea of having hollow walls between units (for fire protection, utility access, component upgrading and modularity and thermal cooling, plus a "wind farm" of vertical windmills at the corners, plus a large vegetation plot on the roof (similar to the Ford plant in Michigan), plus heating and cooling control by having chambers of eutectic salts around a large swimming pool, could easily be augmented by having this type of system embedded in the hollow walls.
FWIW, the economics of the housing project are not feasible at this time. Many of the components are too expensive when compared to existing technology, but I have no doubt that someday he will build a project with similar standards designed to provide quality housing for a hundred years or more.
This project may get legs. I've seen some projects developed and spread by the "Mother Earth" types in the 70's and 80's. The final product may not look quite the same, but the community may be very active and efficient because of the project's appeal. When it does look good, the Design Science License doesn't seem to prevent someone from making the product and distributing it commercially, it just prevents them from locking it up.
Yeah, the key for me is not cosmetics, but ease of use and productivity. If I take 20 hours to learn the new interface, will I gain 80 hours of productivity using the product? (I use a 4:1 investment rule. If I invest $1 in my tools, I expect to gain at least $4 back.) So, will I be able to produce spreadsheets faster? ..with fewer mistakes? ..with more options? ..with better security? My guess is that the constraint is wetware, not software. However, I recently had to evaluate a number of CAD and 3D drawing programs (21 of them!), and I can tell you that the interface made a whale of a difference in productivity. (I settled on Alibre and SketchUP Pro for doing technical illustration, and I use PhotoShop and Gimp for final 2D rendering.) If there is as much productivity gain from the new interface for word processing and spreadsheets as I gained from abandoning AutoCAD for 3D illustration, then it might be OK.
There is a huge pool of incidents to choose from, and it's obvious that the author chose the ones that illustrated her disdain for the Bush Administration so as to continue her campaign of anti-Bush propaganda. Unfortunately, despite the obvious bias of the author, the incidents selected were mostly eligible for a list of this sort.
It is depressing to read a list of this sort and know that it is only a small example of rights being trampled. It is depressing to read this article and realize that the government doesn't serve the will of the people; that government does not have the people's consent but does what they want regardless of the Constitution. It is really depressing to realize that very few people know the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, so the majority of the US citizens couldn't evaluate these actions even if they cared.
Once, back in 1972, I did a whole semester's worth of English papers in a month using PERT/CPM. I had my task list, and always did what was on my list for that day, but no more than that. I also started early and didn't use up my "slack" by doing things that weren't on my list during the times I allocated for English. I thought I'd found the Ultimate Answer. I've used PERT/CPM for hundreds of products since then, but I didn't find the same efficiency until I applied the principles I discovered in "Critical Chain" by Eliahu Goldratt.
I am convinced that people who are very detail-oriented and picky can succeed using a method like Allen's "Getting Things Done", but most of us others can use the CC method as necessary without giving up the joys of screwing off occasionally.
Well, let me try to explain it again: The firearms are not the problem. The problem is that murders are committed or accidents happen. In this case we are discussing intentional deaths, so the problem is that murders happen. As the statistics for Brazil and Mexico show, if someone wants to commit murder, they will use tools which are handy. In the USA, guns are handy, so many murders are committed with guns.
Regarding accidental deaths: In the USA we have about two guns for every man, woman and child. If guns were the problem, our population would be decimated by now. A swimming pool in the household is 6 times more dangerous than a gun in the household. According to your view, we have a "car problem" and automobiles should be banned. Car accidents take 190 times as many lives as accidental gun deaths.
Our "right to bear arms" is a direct result of our becoming free of Britain. Our country was founded on the rights of Life (we have a natural right to live), Liberty (we have a natural right to use our life as we see fit as long as we don't infringe on anyone else's rights), and Happiness (which includes a natural right to gain and own property and pursue callings which satisfy us without limits as long as we don't infringe on other peoples' rights). Owning the means to protect these rights is an extension of these rights. These are very strong definitions. As a result of these definitions, we threw off conventions and behaviors that contradicted these principles (slavery is one example that is used too often as an irrelevant pointer to the imperfection of our Founder's, but that succumbed to the principles in the Declaration and Constitution).
Britain, even in the 20th Century, has one of the worst civil rights records of any civilized country. In the attempt to make people safe, Britain, in 1988 (for a single instance), confiscated lots of private property such as antique firearms, shotguns, hunting weapons, swords, crossbows, spears and so forth. I have friends who lost thousands of dollars worth of personal property without adequate compensation by having their collections confiscated. Britain is rapidly becoming Orwell's "1984". Cameras everywhere, mail privacy violated, personal privacy disregarded, etc.. IMO, if the British government decided to impose Martial Law tomorrow, the "subjects" wouldn't have the means or the will to resist. Incidentally, although homicides seem to have declined since the 1988 Weapons Act, violent crime is 'way up. It's like the myth of the frog in the pot; the temperature is rising and the British are getting cooked because there is no sudden indication that it is happening. Unfortunately, it is happening in the USA also, but we are probably about 30 years behind the British in depriving people of their rights, and our Constitution gives a clear standard by which to judge the actions of our government.
Lastly, I object to the "jumping to solutions" approach to problem-solving. Banning firearms implies that firearms are a "cause" of violent death. In scientific terms, a cause must be both necessary and sufficient to produce the result. It takes very little thinking ability to realize that guns by themselves do not produce violence or violent deaths, therefore banning guns cannot solve the violence problem. Our neighbor to the North, Canada, has a lower rate of gun ownership than the USA, but even then, Canada has a much lower rate of homicides per capita, and homicides with firearms are even lower on per-capita gun ownership. There is something in the Cultural makeup of Canadians that seems to inhibit violence. (I don't have any idea what it is, but the USA might benefit from a cultural infusion from Canada.) I doubt that this can be imposed on the USA through edict, but some Sociologists may have a different opinion.
A problem is usually defined two ways: First, a problem is defined as a discrepancy between the way things are and the way we want them to be. This definition is inadequate because it lacks precision. It works well for many problems when it
I'm not convinced that the article was right, but things are rapidly moving toward Mark Andreessen's prediction that the browser will be the desktop. As I look at the wealth of Internet apps, and envision the possibility of httpd being built into every NIC, with kernel functionality (microcode, anyone?) in every motherboard, and I see the traditional OS as being irrelevant. Y'know, LEGO could make a number of computer components about the size of a Linksys 5-port switch, and we could just stack our computers together at the corner of our desk...
It is interesting that Mexico and Brazil are listed right below the USA in gun-related deaths, when both of them have more restrictions on guns than the USA. Furthermore, Brazil and Mexico have the highest PER-CAPITA murder rates in the world. You came to an invalid conclusion when you declare that "Gun-licensed countries -- practically those with bans have far far lower crime. " "Crime" is actually much higher per-capita in many of these countries. It makes sense that "gun-related crime" could be a little lower. And, of course, you are always free to move from the USA to Brazil or Mexico if you think you'd be safer there.
This is a complicated argument which requires integrity and a real knowledge of statistics, and is not for the faint-hearted nor ignorant. The reason for the Second Amendment was to allow the citizenry to protect themselves from a despotic or tyrannical government, in line with the the rights defined in the Declaration of Independence that allows a citizenry to overthrow an unjust rule when reason doesn't work. No statistical analysis is sufficient to deprive us of our rights, but may point to other ways of reducing the problem of too many murders. For instance, a disproportionate number of murders here in Texas are committed by illegal aliens against illegal aliens. Maybe arresting and sending them back would reduce the problem?
I saw a cartoon recently that showed the 2nd Amendment being rewritten as: "A well-regulated Population, being necessary to the Police State, the right of the Government to Register and Ban arms shall not be infringed."
If you are hazy about the meaning of the Constitution, I recommend, "We Hold These Truths" by Mortimer Adler. If you are a US Citizen and don't know the Constitution, shame on you.
C,mon. If you are not a lawyer and I bet you $10 that you don't know the Constitution of the United States of America, or the Declaration of Independence, I have a 99+% chance of taking your money. You need two things besides ordinary reasoning ability to evaluate Justice: One is a broad introduction to Justice that can be found in any basic Philosophy text or even in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica". The other is a knowledge of the standards by which our laws are supposed to conform. If you don't know the Constitution, you don't have the second criteria. One thing that bothers me: Of the 99% who don't know the Constitution?...I bet at least 50% of those over 18 are voters.