It's disingenuous to be a proponent of free speech and then clamor to shut someone up.
Voicing displeasure != telling someone to shut up. Telling companies that you choose not to purchase their product because of their sponsorship of speech you disagree with != telling someone to shutup.
The "crazy guy" preaching all day on campus isn't having his freedom of speech violated just because nobody chooses to listen or associate with him.
What happened to the mentality of "I hate everything you stand for and have to say but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."?
I defend your right to say it, however, I will also use my freedom of speech to voice my displeasure at your comments. It is then the right of those who give you a national radio show and sponsorship to decide whether or not they want to associate with you.
Of course, as you say if black people use those words in a derogatory manner, society gives them a pass (in fact, popular black culture seems to encourage their use). Either words are ok for everyone to use or they are ok for no one to use. Double standards are bullshit, plain and simple.
As you said, whether or not something is offensive falls on intent. If you use derogatory language against your own race, you're given a pass because it's obvious the intent is not there. To paraphrase Chris rock - If you call your kid an f'ing moron it's acceptable, if someone else calls your kid that you're going to be upset.
I'm hispanic, moderate. I didn't think it was funny, I also didn't think it was offensive. Kinda a throw away remark if you listen to it in context. Taken out of context it could be seen as offensive, I guess. What's sad is how media has become so huge and competitive, they will disect every single word to try and create a story.
I recently cranked up the C64 emulator and played my favs Wizard's Crown, Eternal Dagger, and Wasteland. Still great fun after 15 years. Nowdays, there is very little to imagine. Just eye candy in 'real time'.
Note the games you decided to play, CRPG classics. 15 years ago people made the same complaint you do because the majority of games then were boring eye candy.
Pretty graphics killed gameplay long before the first "M" in "MMORPG" became practical
That argument has been used and reused since the introduction of graphics. Pretty graphics and a boring game were a problem almost 20 years ago. The landscape of games hasn't changed, there always has been 10 bad games for every great game, it's just our memories filter out the bad when we reflect on the past
"When everything is put together, Legend of Blacksilver is somewhat disappointing. The game is fine on a technical level, but on an artistic level it seems to be a rehash of a thousand other games, with nothing new or interesting for experienced players. Certainly, anyone who is bored with the old "Go Kill the Evil Magician" plot should stay away." - CGW 3/1989
Well, it should be a big deal...I've been delaying my next Mac purchase until Leopard is out, so now they will be without my money for a few more months. Gotta be a lot of people like me out there...
I'm with you. Though Santa Rosa based Macs with LED backlighting might convince many people to buy now then upgrade the OS later.
I want to bet millions of people want something VW golf-sized with batteries, and i bet they can make it for under $30000.
Yes it would be millions would, if they didn't have to give anything up in return.
There is a market, that's why there are small manufacturers making them, however, electric car limitations keep the market small. Limited range limits the car to Urban environments - 20% of people in the US live in rural (less than 2500 people) areas. Limited infrastructure makes it difficult to recharge unless you own a house - 30% of people in the US live in multi-unit housing So right there 50% of the market is gone. Electric cars would also be appealing as a secondary vehicle due to it's limited range (Most people don't want to rent a car everytime they leave town), so this eliminates many middle-class and lower-class singles. Add in people who won't buy just because it's different, and the market is not that big.
That's why the big auto makers are going to hybrids, they appeal to those wanting to use less gas, but arent hampered by the limitations of electrics.
As far as science is concerned "broken" and incomplete mean the same thing.
Then all science is "broken," since it will always be incomplete. As an engineer something isn't "broken" until it stops working. That's why we still use Newtonian physics for solving simple problems, the theory may be fundamentally "broken," but for our interests it works well enough.
thanx... but the 92000$ is over my budget, and i want a family car, not a roadster.
That's the point, you're condemning the car companies for not making something people don't want. The big auto companies aren't going to make a car you want, or one that you and your friends want; they are going to make a car that millions of people want.
And when corp B has an interest in selling its more expensive, more lucrative invention that predates this invention ?
Only foolish corporations would surpress inventions for any long period of time. Unless the company is in fundamental research, their competitors will have access to similar building blocks and can also develop the invention independently, or with people changing jobs, working with similar customers, getting drunk at trade shows - information gets leaked. To ensure competitive advantage a company will need to publish and protect.
Or what if ALL relevant companies have an interest to use the older technology - like say the oil and car companies have in petrol ?
Car companies are highly competitive, if they thought an electric car would make them more money they would build them (look what they are all doing now). It's not like car companies ignored electric, they have been investing for years on the technology, they just didn't spend the large amounts to bring it to consumers until there was a willing market.
I actually think it's one of the more inefficient consequences of a free market- where money and brains are very rarely matched together enough to bring products to market fast enough.
I wouldn't call it an inefficiency; it does stifle some innovation, at the same time it also reduces waste of capital on unworkable, or not-yet-ready ideas. Greed will always seek out brains, they have the new ideas needed to make more money. The problem is brains aren't as smart as they think they are, often not being able to fully put the idea into context - "Segway will change the face of transportation."
In fact, as time goes on and the standard of living becomes more expensive, brains and money will become MORE mismatched, not less, as many brilliant inventors are only brilliant for a 30 year window between the ages of 10 and 40 (peaking at 21) and then spend several decades struggling to get their brilliant ideas to market.
A fixed standard of living is not more expensive, though the average standard of living might be as we keep adding new things we "need." Also, the cost to get things to market has gone down significantly. Manufacturing and marketing are increasingly becoming commoditized. I can get more information, build prototypes, communicate, and even market my ideas faster and cheaper than before.
The Venture Capital (or Vulture Capital) game can short circuit this somewhat, of course, but the problem is still matching up the old money people with the young inventors when they don't even move in the same social circles.
If the dotcom era taught us anything, it was you don't have to be in the same social circles to get funding for ideas. You do, however, need to be able to put your great idea in an economic context, and sufficiently communicate it to others.
I don't think this is actually true, as it would dispute the notion that there is any reality outside that which an individual observes. It's just that we can't say anything about it, unless it is observed (which is where the xians get it wrong)...but on itself, it's not dependend on the observation of an individual. Observing' is a dual concept: for it to do so, you need an observer and something to observe. Clearly, you are (half) right: if you don't have the observer, there can't be an observation. But, clearly there has to be a reality to be observed too, because if there was nothing to observe, no observation would be possible neither.
I believe there is a greater truth, however, the limitations we have in our ability to observe and understand the universe means that it is unknowable. There is always that possibility that we are just the dream of some superior being, which cannot be proven or disproven by any means we have.
Say, in its simplest form, I see a wall. When I try to go through it, I bump my head. Does that mean the truth of the existance of that wall only exist to me, as an indivual, who observed it? If so, it would be difficult to argue how that would be the case, if all other individuals (even blindfolded) would hit that wall (which is supposed to be only there by *my* observation of it).
What is hitting your head? An electromagnetic force that gets translated into electrical signals by your nerves and processed through your brain. What if the wall was an illusion and the force was caused by something else. It doesn't deny the "truth" that you observed yourself hitting a wall, but at the same time your observation doesn't make hitting the wall true (you hit something else).
The *form* in which it is observed may vary, the explanation/interpretation of the observation may vary, the question what is the best approximation of that observable truth may vary... but the fact that there IS a 'truth out there';-) can hardly be disputed (well, unless purely philosophically).
Why stop at animal. As you say we are a series of chemical reactions; we're no better than how laundry detergent gets out stains. Which makes the whole converstaion meaningless in the grand scheme of things, all fates are predetermined since the beginning of the universe.
Technically any truth exists only to the individual. Some would say the difference is that other people corroborate your observation or truth but your awareness that others have done so and indeed the existence of the others at all is merely observation.
This could turn into a long (But interesting) philisophical discussion. I believe there is a universal truth, seperate from the "truths" of inviduals, though it is unknowable because of our limitations. Scientific method provides a structure for us to try and understand the truth, by rigorously cataloging and testing the sum "truths" of individuals.
Individually observations are trivial truths although they are the most substantial truths that exist. And indeed, they are useless (not meaningless, you base theories on the implied meaning of the observations) for anything but the formation of a theory.
I believe you have it backwards. Observations are meaningless - me dropping a bowling ball and observing it fall has no meaning. They are however useful - I can use the observation, alone or in combination with other observations to create an infinate number of theories.
Then again, theories are both meaningless and useless if they are not based upon those trivial truth observations.
All theories are based on some sort of observation, therefore are useful. Even completely fabricated conjecture is somehow based on the experience (personal observations) of the person who developed the theory. They may not shed light on the subject at hand, but they give insight into the thought process of humans.
Theories and Observations are both useless without one another.
If one were a deity tasked with creating a brand-new world? Would it make more sense to have creations that had as much reuse amoungst them? Or would it be better if everything was completely unique? I prefer to think the deity is a practical one.
It is impossible for man to know the motivations of gods. If you accept the stories, God made man in his image and also expects man to obey and worship him. To me this points to an egotistical God, so wouldn't it make sense for him to create something so improbable that it would in fact prove his existance, like the babelfish... though there's that whole faith requirement thing.
However, few other works have seen any need to be so very re-interpreted as the Bible has.
The Constitution probably has:) Changes in society, whether technological or philosophical will always require such social documents to be re-interpreted.
America continues to worry about losing its edge in the high-tech industry.
But that couldn't possibly be related to poor science education, could it?
How long does it take to lose the edge, poll numbers in 1982 were the about the same. I'm guessing more than 48% of Americans have lives where it doesn't matter if they believe in evolution or the Easter Bunny.
When religion builds an airplane, I'll buy into your figures of speech. Until then, I'm down with science. It works.
Science cannot define good and evil, only philosophy (of which religion is a subset) can do that. Things like Free speech, human rights, and privacy are philisophical ideas not scientific. I'm not religious, but I do recognize that science is not the end-all-be-all, it needs to be complimented by philosophy
The issue is that "skepticism" towards the theory of evolution is emblematic of a rejection of science itself.
The irony is a "healthy" skepticism is the heart of science. Though it would be interesting to see how the question was asked, was it loaded such that it included the evolution of man? Many people, have a desire to be special, and being the exceptional case of decending directly from a higher power fills that need. For example I know a few religious biology majors who believe in evolution in all cases but people. It doesn't stop them from being intellgent productive scientists, they just have closed their mind to a specific case.
Can you point out the definition where truth and fact can be mutually exclusive?
There are different types of "truth". The fact that I observe the sun rise then float across the sky (like a balloon) is truth, however, the "truth" is the sun isn't actually physically moving in that manner. Facts are always true, however, we don't always understand facts enough to put them in the correct context for overall truth.
Observations are trivial truths, and such truth only exists for the observing individual. They meaningless until they are incorporated (whether to prove/disprove/develop) into some sort of theory.
In monetary terms gold has value (apart from its marketability) both because it has a naturally limited supply and because its alternate uses tend to set a floor on its value.
The key value in monetary terms is wide acceptance. Trust is key in trade, when governments started making currency used gold backing to get people to trust and therefore accept it.
It remains to be seen whether the fiat system will remain now that it's no longer legally mandated; it took a few thousand years to develop the system we had before, and short of forcing everyone to switch yet again I wouldn't expect things to go back to normal in just one or two generations.
Fiat is nice because it allows the government to better manage it's currency. You don't have to worry about liquidity issues as in the late 1800's, which was why the silver standard was proposed.
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Telling companies that you choose not to purchase their product because of their sponsorship of speech you disagree with != telling someone to shutup.
The "crazy guy" preaching all day on campus isn't having his freedom of speech violated just because nobody chooses to listen or associate with him.
To paraphrase Chris rock - If you call your kid an f'ing moron it's acceptable, if someone else calls your kid that you're going to be upset.
I'm hispanic, moderate. I didn't think it was funny, I also didn't think it was offensive. Kinda a throw away remark if you listen to it in context. Taken out of context it could be seen as offensive, I guess. What's sad is how media has become so huge and competitive, they will disect every single word to try and create a story.
"When everything is put together, Legend of Blacksilver is
somewhat disappointing. The game is fine on a technical
level, but on an artistic level it seems to be a rehash of a
thousand other games, with nothing new or interesting for
experienced players. Certainly, anyone who is bored with the
old "Go Kill the Evil Magician" plot should stay away." - CGW 3/1989
There is a market, that's why there are small manufacturers making them, however, electric car limitations keep the market small.
Limited range limits the car to Urban environments - 20% of people in the US live in rural (less than 2500 people) areas.
Limited infrastructure makes it difficult to recharge unless you own a house - 30% of people in the US live in multi-unit housing
So right there 50% of the market is gone.
Electric cars would also be appealing as a secondary vehicle due to it's limited range (Most people don't want to rent a car everytime they leave town), so this eliminates many middle-class and lower-class singles. Add in people who won't buy just because it's different, and the market is not that big.
That's why the big auto makers are going to hybrids, they appeal to those wanting to use less gas, but arent hampered by the limitations of electrics.
As an engineer something isn't "broken" until it stops working. That's why we still use Newtonian physics for solving simple problems, the theory may be fundamentally "broken," but for our interests it works well enough.
The big auto companies aren't going to make a car you want, or one that you and your friends want; they are going to make a car that millions of people want.
Greed will always seek out brains, they have the new ideas needed to make more money. The problem is brains aren't as smart as they think they are, often not being able to fully put the idea into context - "Segway will change the face of transportation."
A fixed standard of living is not more expensive, though the average standard of living might be as we keep adding new things we "need."
Also, the cost to get things to market has gone down significantly. Manufacturing and marketing are increasingly becoming commoditized. I can get more information, build prototypes, communicate, and even market my ideas faster and cheaper than before.
If the dotcom era taught us anything, it was you don't have to be in the same social circles to get funding for ideas. You do, however, need to be able to put your great idea in an economic context, and sufficiently communicate it to others.
What is hitting your head? An electromagnetic force that gets translated into electrical signals by your nerves and processed through your brain. What if the wall was an illusion and the force was caused by something else. It doesn't deny the "truth" that you observed yourself hitting a wall, but at the same time your observation doesn't make hitting the wall true (you hit something else).
Truth exists only philosophically.
Which makes the whole converstaion meaningless in the grand scheme of things, all fates are predetermined since the beginning of the universe.
I believe there is a universal truth, seperate from the "truths" of inviduals, though it is unknowable because of our limitations. Scientific method provides a structure for us to try and understand the truth, by rigorously cataloging and testing the sum "truths" of individuals.
I believe you have it backwards. Observations are meaningless - me dropping a bowling ball and observing it fall has no meaning. They are however useful - I can use the observation, alone or in combination with other observations to create an infinate number of theories.
All theories are based on some sort of observation, therefore are useful. Even completely fabricated conjecture is somehow based on the experience (personal observations) of the person who developed the theory. They may not shed light on the subject at hand, but they give insight into the thought process of humans.
Agreed
If you accept the stories, God made man in his image and also expects man to obey and worship him. To me this points to an egotistical God, so wouldn't it make sense for him to create something so improbable that it would in fact prove his existance, like the babelfish... though there's that whole faith requirement thing.
I'm not religious, but I do recognize that science is not the end-all-be-all, it needs to be complimented by philosophy
The irony is a "healthy" skepticism is the heart of science. Though it would be interesting to see how the question was asked, was it loaded such that it included the evolution of man? Many people, have a desire to be special, and being the exceptional case of decending directly from a higher power fills that need. For example I know a few religious biology majors who believe in evolution in all cases but people. It doesn't stop them from being intellgent productive scientists, they just have closed their mind to a specific case.
The fact that I observe the sun rise then float across the sky (like a balloon) is truth, however, the "truth" is the sun isn't actually physically moving in that manner.
Facts are always true, however, we don't always understand facts enough to put them in the correct context for overall truth.
They meaningless until they are incorporated (whether to prove/disprove/develop) into some sort of theory.
Gives new meaning to "Less QQ More PewPew"
Fiat is nice because it allows the government to better manage it's currency. You don't have to worry about liquidity issues as in the late 1800's, which was why the silver standard was proposed.