This is
the definition of the kilogram.
[...]
If there's a disagreement, the copy gets adjusted, not the original. The reference lump has actually lost about 50 micrograms in the last 100 years (and no one knows why).
Ok, maybe this is a silly question, but if that's the definition of a Kg, how do they know it's lost mass? Especially if they don't know why?
Are they comparing it to copies of itself, and finding that m of n copies agree with each other, but not the original? Or what exactly?
Only by an intelligent designer, i.e., God could much of this be plausibly explained.
The real problem with this line of thinking is that you then have to ask -- how did god come about? You either have to assume an even more intelligent designer (and an even *more* intelligent designer of that entity, and so on infinitely), or at some point just say "he just is". Which is basically the approach that the bible takes -- "god is."
Well, that's not very useful, because if you're going to believe that god somehow magically came into being, why not just believe that the world itself magically came into being, and leave this idea of god (which has no empirical evidence to back it, and a lot of circumstancial empirical evidence to refute it) out of the picture?
Basically all most ID thinking does is take a situation that's as-yet difficult to plausibly explain (as you say), and slap a way-more-implausible "explanation" on top of it. Which gets us nowhere, and mostly just shows that ID proponents are merely looking for a way, any way, to continue believing in god.
I really doubt that Nintendo would give PDA/Organiser functionality to the Gameboy.
I kind of agree with you -- I don't think that's the right choice here.
Really, the way to go would be to make a sleek, upscale, "adult"-looking version of the DS, make its primary interface Palm OS, and use the DS hardware and cartridge system to turn it into a "gaming PDA".
The idea would be that it would be aimed at adults with a real or semi-real need for PDA functionality, but who would also buy Nintendo game cartridges to use with it. I know that's how I think of my Palm PDA/phone -- I bought it as a tool, but once I got it, I ended up spending countless hours playing games on it.
If this is all it takes to move into a different market segment while still following your "core competencies", it's a great idea. You license a widely-used and widely-respected PIM suite/"OS", and leverage that to sell game cartridges to many, many people who would never previously consider buying them, because they'd never buy and carry around a DS or other gaming-only handheld device. It's like new marketshare for practically free!
Well.. I realize that this could just be me failing to see through the misinformation. But.
Why should I now believe that the disks never really existed? What makes this later finding any more competent than the earlier finding that disks were missing? In either case the cause is that the recordkeeping was sloppy and/or human mistakes were made.
If this later finding is accurate, it surely sucks for those who lost their jobs over the earlier mistake. But in any case, the mistakes -- whoever is making them, and whatever they are -- need to stop.
I'm in the middle of learning to create a program on a windows CE device. Since it's going to be used to aquire data I figured it would be nice to install some form of DB on it. Sure enough there is SQL 200 CE for the ce.net devices. So Here I am thinking this is great I'll install that and away we go. 1 day later I'm still working on that install.
Sounds sucky. Unfortunately, that seems par for the course WRT PDAs and embedded devices.
I underwent a similar experience with my first attempts at developing for Palm OS. I'm a big fan of Palm but really, the getting-up-and-running process was a bitch, that first time around.
Yes, improvements are in process -- Palm OS 6 is easier to develop for, PalmSource is developing an Eclipse-based primary IDE for Palm OS to act as an alternative to prc-tools/CodeWarrior, etc. I'm sure MS has similar improvements in the pipeline.
But, given that the first vendor with a truly easy-to-use and easy-to-understand toolchain is going to really take marketshare from its competitors, I've no idea why it's taken them all this long to get moving on the issue..
But this is a classic catch-22 example: people often examiners for spending too much time on examination, and thereby contributing to the 2.5-year average pendency of patent applications.
Ok, that's a reasonable point. I'm sure it's not easy being a patent examiner these days, and all of the negative publicity probably doesn't make their jobs any easier or more rewarding, either.
But, seriously -- the system is currently broken, and millions or even billions of dollars can ride on a single important patent. With that kind of money on the line, we need a lot more examiners, so they have the time to do the right research to prevent approving spurious patent applications.
Maybe patent applications should cost more. It really hardly ever is a lone inventor working in his basement that applies for a patent -- it's mostly huge corporations anyway. Or hell, let's raise taxes to pay for a better patent office -- preventing silly patent grants is certainly within the public interest.
The key here is that I am willing to concede that patents on certain types of algorithms, whether implemented in software or not, can be a good thing. The example of RSA given above is a good one. On the other hand, examples like Amazon's OneClick or Eolas' patent on browser plugins are just stupid, and reveal that the current system is horribly broken, and *needs* to be fixed.
In fact, so many spurious patents are granted, and they are of such detriment to consumers, that I feel that those who defend software and algorithm patents (such as yourself?) should need to provide a convincing case that the patent system can be fixed if it is to be allowed to continue.
Just my $.02.. if you have ideas on how the system could be fixed, please feel free to share, as I'd be interested in hearing them.
I also have sex with other straight guys.
(for the smart arses that are going to point out that having sex with another guy is gay, i know, that doesn't count)
I like crack cocaine
(for the smart arses that are going to point out that crack is modified cocaine, i know, that doesn't count)
I smack my wife around.
(for the smart arses that are going to point out that women are people too, i know, that doesn't count)
Three excellent points! I agree completely. I just wish my ex-wife and the jury had seen things the same way you do..
Those of you who find stego interesting might enjoy reading about one person's explorations of the topic on the Code Project site.. I found the idea of reordering HTML attributes to encode information especially inspired:
Nice post. I agree wholeheartedly with every point you make.. except this:
The OSS community should get off their high horse, stop listening to freaks like RMS
The fact is, there is nothing inconsistent about taking the approach you advocate (and I agree with), and working toward the important goals RMS is concerned with.
You're advocating things like increased standardization, increasingly looking to leaders in innovation like Apple for ideas (rather than just to market leaders like MS), increasing attention to ease-of-use and ease-of-deployment concerns, etc. RMS advocates acting to preserve the freedom of infrastructure software and data-exchange components, protecting ourselves against corporate interests, limiting the damage done by IP law, and so on. There's no conflict there.
Freedom and pragmatism are, 99% of the time, not at odds with each other. They are separate goals with a common solution in Open Source.
I want my life to be simpler, smaller, and richer. Being chained to my desk, or carrying around 5 devices and a backpack-full of cables is not appealing to me.
I agree completely. Thanks for posting. You're about to get ripped to shreds, of course.. =)
I have no idea why so many slashdotters, the self-selecting technological elite, are so against integrated devices. I really would have expected it to be the other way around. Life is just full of surprises, I guess.
I've been carrying a Palm OS 4 phone for about a year and a half now, and it's been terrific. I even used the MP3 player frequently before I got my iPod (yes.. requiring another pocket. I wish it didn't have to be so). And it really has made my life simpler and (to the extent any gadget can) richer..
They seem to be making the logical fallacy of assuming a specific causal relationship between two events which are merely related.
Just because MS is often involved in market segments in which prices fall doesn't mean that MS has itself caused the prices to fall.
I think it more likely that MS generally enters markets which are new, but growing -- and that the natural pattern in such markets is that they start out as specialty niches (thus expensive), but move toward commodification (and lower costs) as they become more mainstream.
Which probably just means that MS is just good at jumping on existing market trends.
On the other hand, I do think an argument could be made that the entry of MS into an already-commodifying niche market speeds the commodification, and thus speeds the lowering of prices -- when such a widely-recognized brand name moves into a market, it validates it and possibly makes it seem safer. Which is important to a lot of consumers, especially PHB-types..
So these people simply exist. They are not inherently evil or monstrous, they simply are, like some people simply are gay. What they (and everyone else) can choose, is how they act. Resisting your primary sexual urges for the duration of your life takes some (often considerable) effort.
Wow, was that ever an unexpected counterpoint to the majority of the posts here. Made me think for a while. Thanks for taking the time to post your thoughts.
Best of luck with that (and I mean that seriously, not sarcastically..)
providing hostelling services to travelling al Queda terrorists
Dude.. I have to fund my massive pr0n addiction *somehow*, don't I?;-)
On a more serious note, it's really sad to see the conservative party taken over by the nutty fundies. While I lean toward the liberal side of the fence, the conservatives used to have something to offer, and often valid counterpoints to widely-held liberal views. But now -- it's all just fascism and silliness.:-\
What we are witnessing is a sexual disfunction elevated to the level of a social and political movement. But it's still just kink.
Hey, it's Lenny Bruce!;-) Seriously, though, I agree. While what you've just realized has been articulated a number of times before, that makes it no less accurate..
As an old gf used to say (and probably Lenny Bruce too), when considering some reactionary blue nose: "damn, that guy needs to get fucked!" =)
Adding or changing characters in a literal string seems like misquoting.
Exactly! The comma's not part of the string literal, it's part of the surrounding sentence's punctuation. =)
On the other hand, an exclamation mark usually belongs inside of the quotation, as it usually means the person speaking was excited. But not always; if, say, you're reporting with surprise what someone said, it belongs outside. Or maybe you need both.. For example, there's a (small, but real) semantic difference between these three:
When he saw me, he said "hey".
When he saw me, He said "hey!".
When he saw me, He said "hey!"!
I feel like the period should be there in the second version, although my past English teachers would disagree.. I could live without it I guess. They might also think the repeated exclamation mark in the third version was incorrect, although it does provide a way to communicate who was surprised (both of us).
Does thinking about these things (and actually forming an opinion about them) make me anal? Sure, probably.. but that's what years of talking to computers in extremely tightly constrained grammars will do to a person.;-)
I read somewhere that the punctuation-inside-the-quotes thing actually came about because of issues with line-wrapping in early typesetting systems, not for any real semantic reason. And also that in UK grammar, the punctuation usually goes outside the quotes -- maybe they had better typesetters?
It's different because it points to something useful (the tag collation page)
It's different because by sharing terms people come up wiht interesting clusters.
And.. it's *not* different because it will soon be horribly abused by people trying to sell you something rather than fit themselves nicely into categories.
IMHO, The problem with all such metadata or sematic-web-ish tech is the same: many people will be motivated to circumvent and break the system, rather than fit within it, for a cheap buck or two.
So, enjoy it while it's still working, before it becomes corrupted and spam-filled.. =)
I prefer not to have to be reachable by every human being on earth every moment of every day. I'd like to consider my time sipping a coffee and reading the paper in the local cafe on a Saturday morning as _my_ time. Nobody should ever need to reach me so urgently that I need to carry a device that would permit disruption of that.
Yeah, I feel the same way. But I've been able to manage with only a cell phone (no land line) for the last 6 or so years -- by not answering the phone when I don't feel like it.
I've heard a lot of people express the same basic reservations you have, and I'm not criticizing -- whatever works for you is fine with me, including no phone at all. =) I just don't understand why people feel like a ringing phone must be answered. That's what voicemail is for!
Thanks for the time to post.. I enjoyed reading and agree with pretty much every one of your points.
Unfortunately, everything you've just said is insightful, practical, and compassionate. Which means it will never, *ever* become part of US public policy. Especially under the Bush administration. Nice try and all, but sorry: No.
On the other hand, if you can just work something into your ideas about maverick heroism, thanking jesus, or increasing the defense budget, you may have a chance..
To configure your printer, you'd go to the URL device:printer/printername/ and if you don't know which printer queue goes to your Canon, you just search for "Queue Printer Canon" and press "I feel lucky".
I know you're joking, and I don't really want a "Google Browser" as a major part of my desktop/UI.
But.. what you've suggested is not a bad idea at all. If getting all of my linux drivers to work was as easy as a google search, I'd be a happy man. =)
I wish your point of view was accurate, because it would save me a bunch of time and money if it was. But, when working on contract implementing a site to spec (whether that involves look/design issues or just does-it-work functionality), responding to browser issues like that is just about the quickest possible way* to lose both the current contract, and future business from that client.
It would be really nice if standards were the final arbiter of correctness in web-site implementation, but actually, as with most things, it's money. The client has something they want to say and/or sell to the world, and the site needs to work in the most widely-used browsers to accomplish that goal -- even if those browsers don't implement or mis-implement a standard. Anything less is, from a business point of view, not acceptable.
You can "thrice no" until you're blue, but that's the reality. If you're making your own sites, or doing it for free, you can take your attitude, and more power to you. I wish I could, too -- but I (and others who make a living from making web sites) just can't.
*Okay, I'm sure you can think of quicker ways.. taking a dump on the meeting-room table, for example. =) But flat-out refusing to make a site work right in IE, or Safari for a Mac-based client, is right up there on the list.
In the simple form presented, the idea fails, sure. But some variation on it might be workable..
For instance, I (as US citizen) would *love* to be able to say on my taxes that I would prefer to, say, preserve Arts Endowment and Welfare funding, but cut back on Defense spending. (I don't feel that the current process -- voting for one of a few corporate-sponsored and increasingly homogenous candidates -- offers me much influence or voice.) I would still pay the same amount in taxes, presumably -- but have some more influence on where my tax dollars were being spent.
To answer your example: suppose I don't use the roads much anyway, preferring to walk or bike? I need the roads to work for shipping of goods, yeah, but I don't care as much about them as a long-distance commuter would. Conversely, you may prefer not to fund public trains as highly as I would. Overall, we (assuming you're American) could better choose how our tax dollars are spent.
Another thought: if roads (for example) were underfunded, they would deteriorate over time, presumably prompting more people to check the "road work" box on their taxes. Sort of a free-market micro-economy for tax expenditures.
At any rate, here in the US anyway, some parts of the tax system are basically broken. No harm in at least trying a little creative thinking to see if we can come up with something theoretically better. =)
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, maybe this is a silly question, but if that's the definition of a Kg, how do they know it's lost mass? Especially if they don't know why?
Are they comparing it to copies of itself, and finding that m of n copies agree with each other, but not the original? Or what exactly?
The real problem with this line of thinking is that you then have to ask -- how did god come about? You either have to assume an even more intelligent designer (and an even *more* intelligent designer of that entity, and so on infinitely), or at some point just say "he just is". Which is basically the approach that the bible takes -- "god is."
Well, that's not very useful, because if you're going to believe that god somehow magically came into being, why not just believe that the world itself magically came into being, and leave this idea of god (which has no empirical evidence to back it, and a lot of circumstancial empirical evidence to refute it) out of the picture?
Basically all most ID thinking does is take a situation that's as-yet difficult to plausibly explain (as you say), and slap a way-more-implausible "explanation" on top of it. Which gets us nowhere, and mostly just shows that ID proponents are merely looking for a way, any way, to continue believing in god.
I kind of agree with you -- I don't think that's the right choice here.
Really, the way to go would be to make a sleek, upscale, "adult"-looking version of the DS, make its primary interface Palm OS, and use the DS hardware and cartridge system to turn it into a "gaming PDA".
The idea would be that it would be aimed at adults with a real or semi-real need for PDA functionality, but who would also buy Nintendo game cartridges to use with it. I know that's how I think of my Palm PDA/phone -- I bought it as a tool, but once I got it, I ended up spending countless hours playing games on it.
If this is all it takes to move into a different market segment while still following your "core competencies", it's a great idea. You license a widely-used and widely-respected PIM suite/"OS", and leverage that to sell game cartridges to many, many people who would never previously consider buying them, because they'd never buy and carry around a DS or other gaming-only handheld device. It's like new marketshare for practically free!
Well .. I realize that this could just be me failing to see through the misinformation. But.
Why should I now believe that the disks never really existed? What makes this later finding any more competent than the earlier finding that disks were missing? In either case the cause is that the recordkeeping was sloppy and/or human mistakes were made.
If this later finding is accurate, it surely sucks for those who lost their jobs over the earlier mistake. But in any case, the mistakes -- whoever is making them, and whatever they are -- need to stop.
Sounds sucky. Unfortunately, that seems par for the course WRT PDAs and embedded devices.
I underwent a similar experience with my first attempts at developing for Palm OS. I'm a big fan of Palm but really, the getting-up-and-running process was a bitch, that first time around.
Yes, improvements are in process -- Palm OS 6 is easier to develop for, PalmSource is developing an Eclipse-based primary IDE for Palm OS to act as an alternative to prc-tools/CodeWarrior, etc. I'm sure MS has similar improvements in the pipeline.
But, given that the first vendor with a truly easy-to-use and easy-to-understand toolchain is going to really take marketshare from its competitors, I've no idea why it's taken them all this long to get moving on the issue..
Ok, that's a reasonable point. I'm sure it's not easy being a patent examiner these days, and all of the negative publicity probably doesn't make their jobs any easier or more rewarding, either.
But, seriously -- the system is currently broken, and millions or even billions of dollars can ride on a single important patent. With that kind of money on the line, we need a lot more examiners, so they have the time to do the right research to prevent approving spurious patent applications.
Maybe patent applications should cost more. It really hardly ever is a lone inventor working in his basement that applies for a patent -- it's mostly huge corporations anyway. Or hell, let's raise taxes to pay for a better patent office -- preventing silly patent grants is certainly within the public interest.
The key here is that I am willing to concede that patents on certain types of algorithms, whether implemented in software or not, can be a good thing. The example of RSA given above is a good one. On the other hand, examples like Amazon's OneClick or Eolas' patent on browser plugins are just stupid, and reveal that the current system is horribly broken, and *needs* to be fixed.
In fact, so many spurious patents are granted, and they are of such detriment to consumers, that I feel that those who defend software and algorithm patents (such as yourself?) should need to provide a convincing case that the patent system can be fixed if it is to be allowed to continue.
Just my $.02 .. if you have ideas on how the system could be fixed, please feel free to share, as I'd be interested in hearing them.
Three excellent points! I agree completely. I just wish my ex-wife and the jury had seen things the same way you do..
Heh .. I kill me. :-P
Those of you who find stego interesting might enjoy reading about one person's explorations of the topic on the Code Project site .. I found the idea of reordering HTML attributes to encode information especially inspired:
http://www.codeproject.com/csharp/steganodotnet13. asp
The same author has written a number of other stego-related articles, usually with C# code .. plus she's kinda cute. ;-)
Enjoy.
The fact is, there is nothing inconsistent about taking the approach you advocate (and I agree with), and working toward the important goals RMS is concerned with.
You're advocating things like increased standardization, increasingly looking to leaders in innovation like Apple for ideas (rather than just to market leaders like MS), increasing attention to ease-of-use and ease-of-deployment concerns, etc. RMS advocates acting to preserve the freedom of infrastructure software and data-exchange components, protecting ourselves against corporate interests, limiting the damage done by IP law, and so on. There's no conflict there.
Freedom and pragmatism are, 99% of the time, not at odds with each other. They are separate goals with a common solution in Open Source.
I agree completely. Thanks for posting. You're about to get ripped to shreds, of course.. =)
I have no idea why so many slashdotters, the self-selecting technological elite, are so against integrated devices. I really would have expected it to be the other way around. Life is just full of surprises, I guess.
I've been carrying a Palm OS 4 phone for about a year and a half now, and it's been terrific. I even used the MP3 player frequently before I got my iPod (yes .. requiring another pocket. I wish it didn't have to be so). And it really has made my life simpler and (to the extent any gadget can) richer..
They seem to be making the logical fallacy of assuming a specific causal relationship between two events which are merely related. Just because MS is often involved in market segments in which prices fall doesn't mean that MS has itself caused the prices to fall.
I think it more likely that MS generally enters markets which are new, but growing -- and that the natural pattern in such markets is that they start out as specialty niches (thus expensive), but move toward commodification (and lower costs) as they become more mainstream.
Which probably just means that MS is just good at jumping on existing market trends.
On the other hand, I do think an argument could be made that the entry of MS into an already-commodifying niche market speeds the commodification, and thus speeds the lowering of prices -- when such a widely-recognized brand name moves into a market, it validates it and possibly makes it seem safer. Which is important to a lot of consumers, especially PHB-types..
Wow, was that ever an unexpected counterpoint to the majority of the posts here. Made me think for a while. Thanks for taking the time to post your thoughts.
Best of luck with that (and I mean that seriously, not sarcastically..)
Dude .. I have to fund my massive pr0n addiction *somehow*, don't I? ;-)
On a more serious note, it's really sad to see the conservative party taken over by the nutty fundies. While I lean toward the liberal side of the fence, the conservatives used to have something to offer, and often valid counterpoints to widely-held liberal views. But now -- it's all just fascism and silliness. :-\
Hey, it's Lenny Bruce! ;-) Seriously, though, I agree. While what you've just realized has been articulated a number of times before, that makes it no less accurate..
As an old gf used to say (and probably Lenny Bruce too), when considering some reactionary blue nose: "damn, that guy needs to get fucked!" =)
Exactly! The comma's not part of the string literal, it's part of the surrounding sentence's punctuation. =)
On the other hand, an exclamation mark usually belongs inside of the quotation, as it usually means the person speaking was excited. But not always; if, say, you're reporting with surprise what someone said, it belongs outside. Or maybe you need both.. For example, there's a (small, but real) semantic difference between these three:
When he saw me, he said "hey".
When he saw me, He said "hey!".
When he saw me, He said "hey!"!
I feel like the period should be there in the second version, although my past English teachers would disagree.. I could live without it I guess. They might also think the repeated exclamation mark in the third version was incorrect, although it does provide a way to communicate who was surprised (both of us).
Does thinking about these things (and actually forming an opinion about them) make me anal? Sure, probably .. but that's what years of talking to computers in extremely tightly constrained grammars will do to a person. ;-)
I read somewhere that the punctuation-inside-the-quotes thing actually came about because of issues with line-wrapping in early typesetting systems, not for any real semantic reason. And also that in UK grammar, the punctuation usually goes outside the quotes -- maybe they had better typesetters?
Damn, that was fast.. *sigh*
And.. it's *not* different because it will soon be horribly abused by people trying to sell you something rather than fit themselves nicely into categories.
IMHO, The problem with all such metadata or sematic-web-ish tech is the same: many people will be motivated to circumvent and break the system, rather than fit within it, for a cheap buck or two.
So, enjoy it while it's still working, before it becomes corrupted and spam-filled.. =)
Yeah, I feel the same way. But I've been able to manage with only a cell phone (no land line) for the last 6 or so years -- by not answering the phone when I don't feel like it.
I've heard a lot of people express the same basic reservations you have, and I'm not criticizing -- whatever works for you is fine with me, including no phone at all. =) I just don't understand why people feel like a ringing phone must be answered. That's what voicemail is for!
Cheers,
-jason
Well, I agree with him, and his post's got 5-Insightful, so it seems like a lot of others do too.
Thanks for the time to post .. I enjoyed reading and agree with pretty much every one of your points.
Unfortunately, everything you've just said is insightful, practical, and compassionate. Which means it will never, *ever* become part of US public policy. Especially under the Bush administration. Nice try and all, but sorry: No.
On the other hand, if you can just work something into your ideas about maverick heroism, thanking jesus, or increasing the defense budget, you may have a chance..
I know you're joking, and I don't really want a "Google Browser" as a major part of my desktop/UI.
But .. what you've suggested is not a bad idea at all. If getting all of my linux drivers to work was as easy as a google search, I'd be a happy man. =)
I wish your point of view was accurate, because it would save me a bunch of time and money if it was. But, when working on contract implementing a site to spec (whether that involves look/design issues or just does-it-work functionality), responding to browser issues like that is just about the quickest possible way* to lose both the current contract, and future business from that client.
.. taking a dump on the meeting-room table, for example. =) But flat-out refusing to make a site work right in IE, or Safari for a Mac-based client, is right up there on the list.
It would be really nice if standards were the final arbiter of correctness in web-site implementation, but actually, as with most things, it's money. The client has something they want to say and/or sell to the world, and the site needs to work in the most widely-used browsers to accomplish that goal -- even if those browsers don't implement or mis-implement a standard. Anything less is, from a business point of view, not acceptable.
You can "thrice no" until you're blue, but that's the reality. If you're making your own sites, or doing it for free, you can take your attitude, and more power to you. I wish I could, too -- but I (and others who make a living from making web sites) just can't.
*Okay, I'm sure you can think of quicker ways
In the simple form presented, the idea fails, sure. But some variation on it might be workable..
For instance, I (as US citizen) would *love* to be able to say on my taxes that I would prefer to, say, preserve Arts Endowment and Welfare funding, but cut back on Defense spending. (I don't feel that the current process -- voting for one of a few corporate-sponsored and increasingly homogenous candidates -- offers me much influence or voice.) I would still pay the same amount in taxes, presumably -- but have some more influence on where my tax dollars were being spent.
To answer your example: suppose I don't use the roads much anyway, preferring to walk or bike? I need the roads to work for shipping of goods, yeah, but I don't care as much about them as a long-distance commuter would. Conversely, you may prefer not to fund public trains as highly as I would. Overall, we (assuming you're American) could better choose how our tax dollars are spent.
Another thought: if roads (for example) were underfunded, they would deteriorate over time, presumably prompting more people to check the "road work" box on their taxes. Sort of a free-market micro-economy for tax expenditures.
At any rate, here in the US anyway, some parts of the tax system are basically broken. No harm in at least trying a little creative thinking to see if we can come up with something theoretically better. =)
Why was this moderated funny? Seriously, it should have been informative/insightful.
People's choice of recreational drugs has a lot of effect on their life path (and vice versa)..