Here's my way of determining the extent of a religious person's stupidity: Does my declaration of agnosticism prompt an immediate "you're going to hell" type of response? If so, proceed to A. If not, go to B.
A. This person is functionally brain-dead, or has no ability to see outside his or her blinders for long enough to realize that the sun shines on everyone else, too.
B. Does this person accept agnosticism as the "I don't believe, but am willing should the evidence crop up" philosophy it is? If not, proceed to C. If so, go to D.
C. Does this person honestly believe that no other belief system could be handed down from God to other men? If so, go to A.
D. This person appears to have a functional mind, which can be verified with futher observation.
For the record, my primary reason for having faith in Science is not the men who have practiced it, or the writings that came from them. My reason for believing in science is that it is one of the only philosophies around that will actively admit it is wrong. Science, and the rules behind such things as the Scientific Method, assures me every day that we don't know it all, and that the wrong answers will eventually be sorted out... assuming that we don't have religious/political resistance to actually finding the truth. (Which, sadly, happens a lot.)
I think the problem comes when they already suspect you are printing illegal shit. Then they can raid you, take your gear, and say: "Your honor, we can prove that this subversive communo-anarchist hate tract was printed on this printer...which we found in the !!guilty!! defendant's house. The state rests."
The whole idea of the paper receipt is that it gets dropped in the box as a backup measure. If the machine tells you that your vote was for A, and the receipt says A, when the box gets audited they will see that you voted for A but the vote got misallocated. This is why people agitate for paper receipts, so that recounts can uncover such fraud with a *verifiable paper trail*.
NASA's timeframe is about as worthless as anyone else's. See...
Law of accelerating returns
The observation that technological progress, feeding back into itself, provides an ever-increasing rate of technological progress.
Singularity Vinge said that our model of the future breaks down when we extrapolate it past the point where it predicts the rise of transhuman intelligence... In fact technology feeds back upon itself such that even the rate of accleration is accelerating. If the rate of technological change is shown on a graph, the curve becomes nearly vertical sometime within the next few decades. At that point and beyond, prediction by extrapolation is meaningless.Source Material
This means that no one, not me or you or anyone who might be involved in such a project, can have any clue whatsoever about how long something like this might take... on the grounds that the earth-shattering technologies that would make these things feasible might be right around the corner.
It is a logical fallacy to state that our national budget deficit's size is proof of our undertaxed nature. If your statement were correct, then a politician could ensure that the People are constantly undertaxed by simply spending more.
A rational debate would be much easier if you would state clearly what would constitute "too high" in your view. Is that number 30%? 50%? Where do we begin to believe that we are taxed too much?
I can assure you that through the complexity of our tax code... over 50% of the cost of any given item is tax money, in one form or another. This can be easily and objectively verified.
For an example, let's pretend that during the course of a year you purchase $1,000 worth of Gasoline. In order to have saved that $1,000... you would need almost exactly $1,500 in original income:
$1,500 x 8% = 120 (State Income), $1,500 x 18%= 270 (Minimum Federal rate), $1,500 x 7.5% = 112.50 (SS & Medicare, employee portion)...the total of these three taxes? $502.50. This is because most taxes are "tax ignorant"... that is, they apply to total income (or total purchase price), and do not take into account any other taxes which might apply.
So far I've demonstrated using only three specific taxes a level that is close to 50%. Add the gasoline-specific tax, which in my state (combining state and federal tax) is 42.5 cents per gallon... your $1,000 will buy you roughly 500 gallons of gas in IL. That's another $236 in taxes you paid without realizing it.
Don't forget to assume another 15-20% of that cost of gasoline being profit taxes paid by the companies who pumped that gas, delivered it, and sold it to you. I could go on and on about how many different little factors add a penny here or there... and easily, with 10 minutes' effort, demonstrate an effective tax rate over 50%. So where exactly is the line between overtaxed and not overtaxed?
Hey asshole... the difference is that they can currently 'allow' themselves a raise... period. To say that they only get a raise every two years is disingenuous at best. There are rules in place that trigger automatic pay raises, EVERY YEAR.
Under my system, the voters get the chance to say no, directly, to the whole of Congress. Not some bullshit situation where whoever gets elected gets paid more, whether or not the people actually wanted to pay more for that job.
Not to belittle the plight of our English brethren... but yes I think we're overtaxed here. To start, we've got a flat 7.5% Social Security/Medicare tax, (where I live) 8% state income tax, 18-33(?)% income tax rates federally, taxes on interest if we save money, taxes on goods if we spend money, taxes on gas and alcohol and cigarettes and all sorts of special tax targets, taxes on corporate income (who do you suppose ultimately pays those, maybe... the consumer?), property taxes, vehicle taxes, taxes on phone service, taxes on utilities, and we even pay taxes when we fucking die!
So yeah, I'd say we're overtaxed. We're drowning in little nibblets of taxation.
This will probably hose my free site at... but if anyone wants to take a look, I wrote a couple pdf docs as part of a petition (one's the actual petition and one's a persuasion-to-sign doc).
I want a Constitutional amendment that says Congress can't give itself pay raises. Instead, I think we the People should get to vote on that, as part of the election process. The framework is already there, ready to be used.
Feel free to grab copies and spread 'em around. Redistribution isn't just allowed, it's highly encouraged!
I think you hit the nail on the head. If realtime on demand streaming of movies is ever possible, then the movie studios will be able to cut the middlemen and deal directly with consumers. Imagine a world where you can watch any movie you want, whenever you want, for $1. On opening day. Imagine how many billions of dollars would be used for that type of purchase in a world where Inet2 is as ubiquitous as TV is now. The future could be really cool, after all.*
And the reason this couldn't be properly researched on Internet1 would be...?
Seriously, what works for content delivery at 1.5mbps will still work for content delivery at 4, 5, or 100 mbps. This is not always true in reverse, as a client might not be able to buffer effectively if speeds are below standard... but assuming you're going to a faster network, the underlying data transfer shouldn't make much difference. It's the fundamentals of their delivery method they want to research, and that could be done on any modern network. They don't need Inet2 access to do that.
In fact, they would best do their research over the network that 99.99999999% of their potential consumer base uses.
Actually, I was referring to the fact that Evil Dead 2 was a remake of Evil Dead... and it couldn't be called 3, since that spot is taken. Since it doesn't carry the story forward, it can't be 4. So 2-1/2 was the logical choice.
As to the rest of that rant, I was directing it more at the fact that the next flick wasn't a continuation of the story in some fashion. It's just a rehash of a rehash of a rehash. Pure money as the motivator. Or did you guys think that Spiderman proves Raimi didn't sell out?
And how the hell is it that the original comment provoked so many responses and isn't interesting or even funny?/:)
Seriously... This is just more proof that even the coolest of people can be corrupted by money. I'll bet he claims that the original simply didn't live up to his vision, owing to budget and studio pressures. Then he'll scamper back behind his curtain at Skywalker Ranch.
I got another one for you... not everyone who hunts is as economically endowed as the average computer geek. Most of the guys I know who hunt, save massive amounts on their grocery bills. You say "buy it at the store!"... you know what venison (or any other meat) goes for by the pound? You know how many pounds of meat can be had for the price of a bullet and a hunting tag?
Repeat after me: In many (but not all) cases, hunting is an economic affair.
Wtf, Grammar Nazi? The rule of thumb best used is thus: when criticizing one's grammar or spelling, always double-check your own criticism lest you expose your foolishness.
I call bullshit. There are so many forms of art and so many artistic wonders that *never made the artist a dime* that you could choke on a list of them. Art is one of the core parts of being human. We will not walk away from it simply because there is no profit in it.
Yes, there will be less crap. But there will be a corresponding rise in the integrity of artists, and a drop in the amount of money the consumerist masses waste on entertainment. Maybe some of the leeches we call entertainers would figure out that they're not really that important after all.
Oh, yeah, it's a huge problem. Earth shaking importance aside, it's a minor glitch. For anyone to get bent out of shape over such an insignificant problem (as compared to the other hundreds or thousands of firefox bugs being worked on) is kinda ridiculous. Remote crash exploits are big problems. Privacy intrusion is a big problem. Rendering Slashdot incorrectly (from 10-100% of the time, makes no difference) is kinda small in comparison.
Alright, I'll bite. 1.4Mbps down, 484k up, ADSL. I get the bug all the time. At work, 512k down, 256k up cable... I still get the bug. Anyone claiming it is related to low speed connections is blowing smoke out his ass.:|
Meanwhile, however, I have to listen to thousands of sheep bleating about how Wikipedia is the latter-day Savior Of The Information Age
Meanwhile, however, I choose to listen to thousands of sheep bleating about how Wikipedia is the latter-day Savior Of The Information Age [First Revision].
You know, that sounds really cool... at first I was with you, but then I saw the apocalyptic potentiality... What happens if someone writes a virus that sets this 'copy on write' thing into motion by creating a 10MB file, and creates 20,000 empty copies... and then starts adding just one byte to each? You wouldn't be clued in on the heavy usage until it was waaaaaay too late. Boom, your partition (or your hard drive under certain OSes) is now totally packed.
For bonus points, the virus should spread these copies evenly throughout every folder structure it can touch, so as to cause maximum headache in attempting to clean up afterward.
What pisses me off about this whole thread is that anyone griping about "labels" probably wouldn't have had such a complaint if google had simply called them "custom keywords". As in, look, you can put your own custom keywords on this mail!"
I'd click on that little thingy at the top of the page that says "search mail" and I'd plug in "Jim, meet me at" "X" (where X is the first/last/nick name of the contact I was trying to remember about).
That's what it's for, isn't it? No need to expand/search expand/search... just drop google a couple of hints about which words were used... and instant success. I've had no problems yet, but that isn't to say that I think the service is perfect. I just think some of the complaints about the service come from the lesser-educated or the lesser-motivated (take your pick).
I have a few invites to give. Send a good joke (any MPAA rating, I'm not shy) and I will send an invite in return (or add you to the list if the number of jokes I receive exceeds my number of invites).
Slashdot Mirror
A. This person is functionally brain-dead, or has no ability to see outside his or her blinders for long enough to realize that the sun shines on everyone else, too.
B. Does this person accept agnosticism as the "I don't believe, but am willing should the evidence crop up" philosophy it is? If not, proceed to C. If so, go to D.
C. Does this person honestly believe that no other belief system could be handed down from God to other men? If so, go to A.
D. This person appears to have a functional mind, which can be verified with futher observation.
For the record, my primary reason for having faith in Science is not the men who have practiced it, or the writings that came from them. My reason for believing in science is that it is one of the only philosophies around that will actively admit it is wrong. Science, and the rules behind such things as the Scientific Method, assures me every day that we don't know it all, and that the wrong answers will eventually be sorted out... assuming that we don't have religious/political resistance to actually finding the truth. (Which, sadly, happens a lot.)
"There are over 1000 chemicals reported in a cup of coffee. Only 26 have been tested in animal cancer tests and more than half are rodent carcinogens; there are still a thousand chemicals left to test."
I think the problem comes when they already suspect you are printing illegal shit. Then they can raid you, take your gear, and say: "Your honor, we can prove that this subversive communo-anarchist hate tract was printed on this printer...which we found in the !!guilty!! defendant's house. The state rests."
The whole idea of the paper receipt is that it gets dropped in the box as a backup measure. If the machine tells you that your vote was for A, and the receipt says A, when the box gets audited they will see that you voted for A but the vote got misallocated. This is why people agitate for paper receipts, so that recounts can uncover such fraud with a *verifiable paper trail*.
Law of accelerating returns
The observation that technological progress, feeding back into itself, provides an ever-increasing rate of technological progress.
Singularity ... In fact technology feeds back upon itself such that even the rate of accleration is accelerating. If the rate of technological change is shown on a graph, the curve becomes nearly vertical sometime within the next few decades. At that point and beyond, prediction by extrapolation is meaningless.
Source Material
Vinge said that our model of the future breaks down when we extrapolate it past the point where it predicts the rise of transhuman intelligence
This means that no one, not me or you or anyone who might be involved in such a project, can have any clue whatsoever about how long something like this might take... on the grounds that the earth-shattering technologies that would make these things feasible might be right around the corner.
A rational debate would be much easier if you would state clearly what would constitute "too high" in your view. Is that number 30%? 50%? Where do we begin to believe that we are taxed too much?
I can assure you that through the complexity of our tax code... over 50% of the cost of any given item is tax money, in one form or another. This can be easily and objectively verified.
For an example, let's pretend that during the course of a year you purchase $1,000 worth of Gasoline. In order to have saved that $1,000... you would need almost exactly $1,500 in original income:
$1,500 x 8% = 120 (State Income), $1,500 x 18%= 270 (Minimum Federal rate), $1,500 x 7.5% = 112.50 (SS & Medicare, employee portion) ...the total of these three taxes? $502.50. This is because most taxes are "tax ignorant"... that is, they apply to total income (or total purchase price), and do not take into account any other taxes which might apply.
So far I've demonstrated using only three specific taxes a level that is close to 50%. Add the gasoline-specific tax, which in my state (combining state and federal tax) is 42.5 cents per gallon... your $1,000 will buy you roughly 500 gallons of gas in IL. That's another $236 in taxes you paid without realizing it.
Don't forget to assume another 15-20% of that cost of gasoline being profit taxes paid by the companies who pumped that gas, delivered it, and sold it to you. I could go on and on about how many different little factors add a penny here or there... and easily, with 10 minutes' effort, demonstrate an effective tax rate over 50%. So where exactly is the line between overtaxed and not overtaxed?
Under my system, the voters get the chance to say no, directly, to the whole of Congress. Not some bullshit situation where whoever gets elected gets paid more, whether or not the people actually wanted to pay more for that job.
So fuck you, do your homework.
So yeah, I'd say we're overtaxed. We're drowning in little nibblets of taxation.
I want a Constitutional amendment that says Congress can't give itself pay raises. Instead, I think we the People should get to vote on that, as part of the election process. The framework is already there, ready to be used.
Feel free to grab copies and spread 'em around. Redistribution isn't just allowed, it's highly encouraged!
*It might suck, so don't take my word for it.
Seriously, what works for content delivery at 1.5mbps will still work for content delivery at 4, 5, or 100 mbps. This is not always true in reverse, as a client might not be able to buffer effectively if speeds are below standard... but assuming you're going to a faster network, the underlying data transfer shouldn't make much difference. It's the fundamentals of their delivery method they want to research, and that could be done on any modern network. They don't need Inet2 access to do that.
In fact, they would best do their research over the network that 99.99999999% of their potential consumer base uses.
As to the rest of that rant, I was directing it more at the fact that the next flick wasn't a continuation of the story in some fashion. It's just a rehash of a rehash of a rehash. Pure money as the motivator. Or did you guys think that Spiderman proves Raimi didn't sell out?
And how the hell is it that the original comment provoked so many responses and isn't interesting or even funny? /:)
Seriously... This is just more proof that even the coolest of people can be corrupted by money. I'll bet he claims that the original simply didn't live up to his vision, owing to budget and studio pressures. Then he'll scamper back behind his curtain at Skywalker Ranch.
Repeat after me: In many (but not all) cases, hunting is an economic affair.
Wtf, Grammar Nazi? The rule of thumb best used is thus: when criticizing one's grammar or spelling, always double-check your own criticism lest you expose your foolishness.
Yes, there will be less crap. But there will be a corresponding rise in the integrity of artists, and a drop in the amount of money the consumerist masses waste on entertainment. Maybe some of the leeches we call entertainers would figure out that they're not really that important after all.
Oh, yeah, it's a huge problem. Earth shaking importance aside, it's a minor glitch. For anyone to get bent out of shape over such an insignificant problem (as compared to the other hundreds or thousands of firefox bugs being worked on) is kinda ridiculous. Remote crash exploits are big problems. Privacy intrusion is a big problem. Rendering Slashdot incorrectly (from 10-100% of the time, makes no difference) is kinda small in comparison.
Alright, I'll bite. 1.4Mbps down, 484k up, ADSL. I get the bug all the time. At work, 512k down, 256k up cable... I still get the bug. Anyone claiming it is related to low speed connections is blowing smoke out his ass. :|
Meanwhile, however, I choose to listen to thousands of sheep bleating about how Wikipedia is the latter-day Savior Of The Information Age [First Revision].
Because google is using the same calculations as Hard Drive manufacturers, who have been fucking us for years.
For bonus points, the virus should spread these copies evenly throughout every folder structure it can touch, so as to cause maximum headache in attempting to clean up afterward.
What pisses me off about this whole thread is that anyone griping about "labels" probably wouldn't have had such a complaint if google had simply called them "custom keywords". As in, look, you can put your own custom keywords on this mail!"
That's what it's for, isn't it? No need to expand/search expand/search... just drop google a couple of hints about which words were used... and instant success. I've had no problems yet, but that isn't to say that I think the service is perfect. I just think some of the complaints about the service come from the lesser-educated or the lesser-motivated (take your pick).
I have a few invites to give. Send a good joke (any MPAA rating, I'm not shy) and I will send an invite in return (or add you to the list if the number of jokes I receive exceeds my number of invites).
First Google Result
It worked for me. Funny, that.