There is no timetable on which the poles reverse, and it doesn't happen at regular intervals. Yes, I believe the time since the last reversal is longer than the mean time between pole reversals, but the term 'overdue' does not apply here.
A degree alone won't neccessarily get you a good job. Most employers like to look for real world experience in internships and co-ops. I wouldn't recommend rushing through college to get your degree in time if it means sacrifcing experiences like those. Either switch to a new major that will encapsulate the old program (should one exist) or transfer to a new university (I'm sure you won't be the only one doing so).
"It seems likely, for example, that given any group of 300 people, one could find a gene variant correlated with higher (or lower) IQ *in those 300 people*."
Actually, that didn't happen here. They had to introduce a new factor (gender) to get that correlation. Now if there was some justification to consider gender (for instance if this gene appears on a sex chromosome or if empirical evidence suggests daughters are less likely to inherit their parent's IQs), that would be fine. But I see no evidence that either is the case.
"There are smart people and not so smart people. Why couldn't this be dictated by genetic makeup?"
It can. But this study doesn't prove it is caused by this particular gene.
"I ask why you use 300 as a number?"
Uh, he knows how to read? That number was mentioned in the FA.
"It is pretty clear, according to the most modern research, that intelligence is solely determined by genetic makeup. "
No, actually, many studies have shown that envirommental factors in early development are important as well (which only makes sense, that is when the brain grows).
"This is a striking example of how dumb the "popular=good" meme is. When I buy music, or anything else, I don't care what it's worth to other people; I care what it's worth to me, whether I'm one of a hundred, a thousand, a million, or a billion."
Well thats great for you, but what about for the other half of the equation? What about the artists and labels who produce music that only appeals to a few people? Those bands could increase their fanbase if they didn't have to compete at the same price as pop groups who already get played 24/7 on the radio. Remember the basic laws of supply and demand, those products for which there is greater demand should be expected to cost more. Otherwise they get an unbreakable hold on the market.
Of course its all a moot point, for the cost of 5 songs a month I can legally download everything I want from services like yahoo (and play the music on a device vastly superior to an iPod).
"Frankly it sounds like a payoff to me and could be interpreted as illegal except that their careful wording limits the ability to prove it."
Are you implying that it is illegal for someone to disagree with a policy that the government implements? Or for someone to be less that fully cooperative in the giving of donations to someone they are angry at? Besides, cities enact policies all the time in attempts to please businesses, in fact that was the justification for the free Wi-fi in the first place.
"It IS fairly clear that they want to trade a damaged building to the city in exchange for the city not doing what's best for the residents (who vote and pay taxes)."
What's best for the residents of New Orleans? Are you kidding me? I think most residents would greatly prefer that money and those resources to be spent in other areas, such as the construction of a decent set of levies, rebuilding basic infrastructure, and the hiring of a police force that won't go AWOL the moment disaster hits. Not drowning, having a place to live, and protection against criminals is going to be much higher priorities than the ability to surf the net outside while drinking a mocha latte. Please don't kid yourself, this is not a policy designed to help the poor homeless residents of New Orleans. It is a policy whose stated purpose (this is no unfounded conspiracy theory) is to attract new businesses to the city.
"Perhaps the city council should inform BellSouth that the damaged building needs a 'safety inspection' and if they own it when condemmned, they will have to pay for demolition."
You are not the first I've seen to suggest this. Please think about what it is you are suggestion. Do you really want the government to threaten fines against companies and/or individuals unless they "donate" their private resources to the government?
"New Orleans didn't have the money to totally bankroll a project like this before the storm, and they certainly don't have it now. This whole project is being made possible because of donations."
Do you have a source for this? Aside from the fact that the charitable donations were made to rebuild the city's basic infrastructure as opposed to new luxury services, I believe New Orleans was thinking about this move before the storm. If they wanted to fund it using charity money all along, that would have to mean they knew about the storm.
"The phone companies, and most of the other privately owned utilities have basically functioned as government sponsored monopolies for decades."
Not anymore. You now have plenty of alternatives available.
"Well, a company's PR department will say a lot of things to cover up for something stupid that an exec or marketing decided to do/say. I'm willing to believe that someone did suddenly change his mind about the building in a fit of anger, but the PR about it is going to cause them to quickly backtrack on that."
Considering recent events, I'm not exactly in the mood to believe anything the NOPD has to say.
If I started a rumor that {insert name of any company here} just {insert heinous act here}, would you be willing to believe it? If so I have a bridge to sell you for cheap. Show me the actual letter the guy wrote first, then maybe I'll believe that their interpretation of events is the accurate one.
"The city is getting a pretty sweet deal, basically a truckload of free Wifi equipment, should they really just ignore that opportunity, just so Bellsouth can continue to have an environment pretty much free of competition?"
No, thats not what is happening. The government is planning on using taxpayer revenue that it forces citizens to give them to create a competitor to the phone company. Thats not exactly free market economics.
Quid pro quo requires the other guy to have actually done something to you. That has not happened yet. BellSouth (despite the headline, but I'm sure you know to not trust everything you read on/., right?) has not yet withdrawn their offer to donate the building.
So what you are basically suggesting is to hold out police resources in an attempt to force a company to "voluntarily" give their private property to the state. Thats a tad bit scary of a concept. Think where it would lead. "Whats that Mr. Jones? You don't feel like giving $20 to the policeman's ball? Well thats ok. Oh, you know what? I just remembered I can't help you report that guy who just mugged you, I have to help someone else who would donate his $20. Good luck if he comes back again, maybe you can fight him off with a stick."
Well that sort of assumes BellSouth would sell the building, which would be a strange move considering they are in the process of donating it to charity (don't rely on just the headline and RTFA, the offer is still on the table).
"That's possibly the coldest, worst thing that I've ever heard a company to do. "
I'm sure there are many companies that never donated that amount of their company property in the first place. Does that make them any less cold than BellSouth?
BTW, if you RTFA (I know, its/., almost no one gets past the sensationalist headlines), they did not say they would not donate the building, merely that they would have to "continue to work through issues regarding the building" after the city decided to create a monopoly (that gets its income from forced taxation) to compete with BellSouth's services. Thats a bit different from strangling puppies in front of orphans.
" What are the chances that Condoleezza Rice actually has any clue what the "authoritative root zone file" is?"
What are the chances Rice wrote this in the first place? It was only cosigned by her (along with Guiterrez), and I believe writing this type of thing is almost always delegated down to someone with expert knowledge in whatever field is being discussed. Her signature just means she supports the position outlined. The article just said it was from Condoleezza Rice because she is a well known member of the Bush administration and the article writer was obviously just trying to make the Bush administration look like a bunch of bullies (why else would he claim this is an example of "strong language" and is "pretty stern" when if you are to actually read it, it is nothing of the sort).
"I think China's Great Firewall is an excellent example of what happens when one government has too much control."
Well then you must be really happy that ICANN (a private non-for-profit corporation) is in control.
How? They would be unable to survive in a world in which they are constatnly surrounded with danger if they are unable to react to fear. If the mouse walked through the open forest as opposed to hiding it would be eaten within the hour. There is a reason animals evolved the ability to fear.
This article wasn't about methamphetamines, it was about a new treatment that made mice "fearless". What exactly are the great "military applications" that you and the submitter are worrying about?
Obviously it can't involve using the treatment on our own soldiers as that would be incredibly counterproductive. You want your soldiers to have a quick and instinctive reaction to things that could harm them in the battlefield, not a slow one. Assuming you are able to control it, fear is your friend in situations where your life is in danger (and if you can't control it, I don't think a job as a soldier was a good career choice in the first place).
Would it involve somehow feeding this drug to enemy soldiers? That would make them more likely to become suicide bombers and take out your own soldiers.
The only thing I can think of would be to reverse this process and make enemy soldiers more afraid and thus easier to force into a surrender (notice I could be making a joke about the French here but I am controlling myself). But if you have enough access to the enemies to sneak the drug into their system, why not just kill or capture them outright?
Well I didn't see a link to her website in the article, and when I tried googling it it appeared to be down so I can't comment on the photos themselves, but pictures of "unlocked" oil storage tanks (are they really good enough photos that you can see the locking mechanism?) do not necessarily mean there were oil spills, it just means that at some point in time there were some tanks that were not locked. They could have been empty, they could have been in use, they could have been completely unrelated to the company she was complaining about.
The fact is, it shouldn't be that difficult to tell if oil was leaked into the environment as the previous poster mentioned. Thus it doesn't seem all that likely that they would file this lawsuit if the accusations were true and easily tested.
Re:Sensationalist Journalism?
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A Flu Pandemic?
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"On the other hand, with the Artic melting along with various glaciers at other locales, the possibility of ancient bacterium and viruses does loom on the horizon."
I thought the biggest danger of new deadly diseases came from humans moving into the rainforests which are known to contain lots of really nasty stuff. Don't tell me even human intrusion into the rainforests has taken a backseat to the global warming hysteria?
Seriously, if something were to come out of the Artic, it would A) be very hardy to survive that long in such an inhospitable environment, B) be very rare as it has not yet been revealed during the melting of the artic ice that has been occuring for the past several thousand years, and C) have to find something to infect before the permafrost around it thaws and it dies. Currently it pretty much has a choice between caribou and lemmings, and it will take some time for new ecosystems to move in.
"
So, it appears she is stating on the website that they have been spilling oil, etc., even possibly as a one-liner somewhere, and not documenting with photographs. If I were her, I'd find some law firm to take the case on pro-bono and spend my money getting GreenPeace out there to do soil/water testing to _prove_ that there has been oil spilled.
Voila, case won, and probably legislation started about this corporate behaviour too, so good for Mom.
"
Unless of course she were making it all up, in which case her reputation goes down the shitter and she has to pay up.
"Actually, the reason we don't see an Ebola epidemic is because ebola is spread by contact with blood and/or secretions of an infected person. I'm sure you're aware that flus spread easier than that. "
Actually, ebola has been transmitted through the air, in both monkey outbreaks and in research conditions. The fact that it hasn't done so with humans (or at least we haven't been able to prove that it has done so with humans) doesn't make me want to take any risks.
"Other than that, it's not much more virulent than AIDS."
But HIV was able to break out into an epidemic due to the fact that it takes a long time to kill or even for the infected person to start showing symptoms.
"So, the Black Death was killing its hosts and doing it quickly, but that didn't stop it from wiping out a third of europe's population within a few years. In many cities, it wiped out 50-60% of the population. So, the Black Death had the attributes (according to you) would've caused it to burn itself out too quickly to be a real problem. Yet, it killed 1/3rd of europe's population. "
And it attacked a heavily trading society with virtually no knowledge of medicine. You don't suppose that might have contributed to it's ability to kill?
So you are telling me that at that second, instead shouting "Happy New Year" like everyone else, you are going to run around your house updating all your clocks? Man, I still have two clocks still on daylight savings time.
I think the gp's point was that a leap second or two will not realistically affect home users as very few of us need to have their clocks that precise.
They are actually not yet teaching "Intelligent Design", they are still at the point where they are teaching criticism of evolution. Even if you are able to conclusively disprove the entire concept of evolution, you still have yet to establish that some magical force "intelligently designed" life.
I am surprised by the scientific response to these movements. Intelligent design advocates are pushing to treat their religion as science, so scientists are pushing to treat their science as religion that cannot be questioned? Instead of pouting about how ID advocates are a bunch of inbred hicks who don't know a thing about science, they could be embracing this opportunity to teach schoolkids one of the most important principles of science, that you should have an open mind and be willing to be skeptical of anything. Yes, that may raise a doubt or two about evolution as it (like any scientific theory) still has a kink or two to work out. But if you honestly believe that after an objective and critical analysis ID will come out well, I have to question your credentials as a man of science. Teaching kids to have an open mind and to question what they are taught will do more to support evolution than any old video of some professor droning on about fossils.
51% of the population reject evolution entirely, and only 15% believe evolution takes sole credit for our development. That shows you how the status quo of teaching evolution has been doing.
" As an American, I am appalled at the very idea of the government spending *any* money on developing a "safer cigarette". "
Well in that case, good news! This was developed by a private company.
"While that move might treat the physical effects of smoking and make it a safer alternative than traditional cigarettes, it does nothing to address the fact that smokers are *addicts* with a psychological dependence on a drug. "
It makes that addiction safer to the people who use it. Generally speaking, making something safer is a good thing. Many people have addictions to caffeine, should we lace coffee with cyanide to get people to reduce their caffeine intake? Should we make computers shoot out deadly radiation to combat Internet addiciton?
"Why not put money where it's really needed: addiction recovery. Develop drugs that are more effective at helping smokers quit, put more money into social campaigns against smoking (school, television, etc)?"
So private companies should not invest in products that help prevent a common form of cancer, but taxpayers should be forced to pay for completely ineffective attempts to brainwash schoolkids? Smokers chose their habit knowing the risks, there is no reason why Joe Taxpayer should be forced to help him quit.
"It amazes me sometimes how we Americans will find ways to make bad things acceptable and safer if it makes us money instead of just putting a stop to its use."
And it amazes me sometimes how some Americans will find any excuse to tell other people how they should live their own lives.
Being "fair and balanced" is not the same as being unbiased. Unbiased implies there are no opinions influencing what is said and done. That is either true and false, and is going to be false for virtually every media outlet. Fair and balanced implies opinions from one side are cancelled out by opinions on the other side. That is going to be relative to a particular viewpoint.
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There is no timetable on which the poles reverse, and it doesn't happen at regular intervals. Yes, I believe the time since the last reversal is longer than the mean time between pole reversals, but the term 'overdue' does not apply here.
A degree alone won't neccessarily get you a good job. Most employers like to look for real world experience in internships and co-ops. I wouldn't recommend rushing through college to get your degree in time if it means sacrifcing experiences like those. Either switch to a new major that will encapsulate the old program (should one exist) or transfer to a new university (I'm sure you won't be the only one doing so).
Actually, that didn't happen here. They had to introduce a new factor (gender) to get that correlation. Now if there was some justification to consider gender (for instance if this gene appears on a sex chromosome or if empirical evidence suggests daughters are less likely to inherit their parent's IQs), that would be fine. But I see no evidence that either is the case.
It can. But this study doesn't prove it is caused by this particular gene.
"I ask why you use 300 as a number?"
Uh, he knows how to read? That number was mentioned in the FA.
"It is pretty clear, according to the most modern research, that intelligence is solely determined by genetic makeup. "
No, actually, many studies have shown that envirommental factors in early development are important as well (which only makes sense, that is when the brain grows).
Well thats great for you, but what about for the other half of the equation? What about the artists and labels who produce music that only appeals to a few people? Those bands could increase their fanbase if they didn't have to compete at the same price as pop groups who already get played 24/7 on the radio. Remember the basic laws of supply and demand, those products for which there is greater demand should be expected to cost more. Otherwise they get an unbreakable hold on the market.
Of course its all a moot point, for the cost of 5 songs a month I can legally download everything I want from services like yahoo (and play the music on a device vastly superior to an iPod).
Are you implying that it is illegal for someone to disagree with a policy that the government implements? Or for someone to be less that fully cooperative in the giving of donations to someone they are angry at? Besides, cities enact policies all the time in attempts to please businesses, in fact that was the justification for the free Wi-fi in the first place.
"It IS fairly clear that they want to trade a damaged building to the city in exchange for the city not doing what's best for the residents (who vote and pay taxes)."
What's best for the residents of New Orleans? Are you kidding me? I think most residents would greatly prefer that money and those resources to be spent in other areas, such as the construction of a decent set of levies, rebuilding basic infrastructure, and the hiring of a police force that won't go AWOL the moment disaster hits. Not drowning, having a place to live, and protection against criminals is going to be much higher priorities than the ability to surf the net outside while drinking a mocha latte. Please don't kid yourself, this is not a policy designed to help the poor homeless residents of New Orleans. It is a policy whose stated purpose (this is no unfounded conspiracy theory) is to attract new businesses to the city.
"Perhaps the city council should inform BellSouth that the damaged building needs a 'safety inspection' and if they own it when condemmned, they will have to pay for demolition."
You are not the first I've seen to suggest this. Please think about what it is you are suggestion. Do you really want the government to threaten fines against companies and/or individuals unless they "donate" their private resources to the government?
Do you have a source for this? Aside from the fact that the charitable donations were made to rebuild the city's basic infrastructure as opposed to new luxury services, I believe New Orleans was thinking about this move before the storm. If they wanted to fund it using charity money all along, that would have to mean they knew about the storm.
"The phone companies, and most of the other privately owned utilities have basically functioned as government sponsored monopolies for decades."
Not anymore. You now have plenty of alternatives available.
Not unless the voting population of your state consists solely of yourself.
"Which is more than you can say for a telephone monopoly - outside of government control (which you oppose), monopolies are completely unaccountable."
Except for of course cell phones, digital phones, cable, etc.
Not even close. You are under a legal contract with your employer. There was no such contract here.
Considering recent events, I'm not exactly in the mood to believe anything the NOPD has to say.
If I started a rumor that {insert name of any company here} just {insert heinous act here}, would you be willing to believe it? If so I have a bridge to sell you for cheap. Show me the actual letter the guy wrote first, then maybe I'll believe that their interpretation of events is the accurate one.
"The city is getting a pretty sweet deal, basically a truckload of free Wifi equipment, should they really just ignore that opportunity, just so Bellsouth can continue to have an environment pretty much free of competition?"
No, thats not what is happening. The government is planning on using taxpayer revenue that it forces citizens to give them to create a competitor to the phone company. Thats not exactly free market economics.
So what you are basically suggesting is to hold out police resources in an attempt to force a company to "voluntarily" give their private property to the state. Thats a tad bit scary of a concept. Think where it would lead. "Whats that Mr. Jones? You don't feel like giving $20 to the policeman's ball? Well thats ok. Oh, you know what? I just remembered I can't help you report that guy who just mugged you, I have to help someone else who would donate his $20. Good luck if he comes back again, maybe you can fight him off with a stick."
Well that sort of assumes BellSouth would sell the building, which would be a strange move considering they are in the process of donating it to charity (don't rely on just the headline and RTFA, the offer is still on the table).
I'm sure there are many companies that never donated that amount of their company property in the first place. Does that make them any less cold than BellSouth?
BTW, if you RTFA (I know, its /., almost no one gets past the sensationalist headlines), they did not say they would not donate the building, merely that they would have to "continue to work through issues regarding the building" after the city decided to create a monopoly (that gets its income from forced taxation) to compete with BellSouth's services. Thats a bit different from strangling puppies in front of orphans.
What are the chances Rice wrote this in the first place? It was only cosigned by her (along with Guiterrez), and I believe writing this type of thing is almost always delegated down to someone with expert knowledge in whatever field is being discussed. Her signature just means she supports the position outlined. The article just said it was from Condoleezza Rice because she is a well known member of the Bush administration and the article writer was obviously just trying to make the Bush administration look like a bunch of bullies (why else would he claim this is an example of "strong language" and is "pretty stern" when if you are to actually read it, it is nothing of the sort).
"I think China's Great Firewall is an excellent example of what happens when one government has too much control."
Well then you must be really happy that ICANN (a private non-for-profit corporation) is in control.
Great, he builds things and has opinions on current events. What does that have to do with the fact that he is an introvert?
How? They would be unable to survive in a world in which they are constatnly surrounded with danger if they are unable to react to fear. If the mouse walked through the open forest as opposed to hiding it would be eaten within the hour. There is a reason animals evolved the ability to fear.
Obviously it can't involve using the treatment on our own soldiers as that would be incredibly counterproductive. You want your soldiers to have a quick and instinctive reaction to things that could harm them in the battlefield, not a slow one. Assuming you are able to control it, fear is your friend in situations where your life is in danger (and if you can't control it, I don't think a job as a soldier was a good career choice in the first place).
Would it involve somehow feeding this drug to enemy soldiers? That would make them more likely to become suicide bombers and take out your own soldiers.
The only thing I can think of would be to reverse this process and make enemy soldiers more afraid and thus easier to force into a surrender (notice I could be making a joke about the French here but I am controlling myself). But if you have enough access to the enemies to sneak the drug into their system, why not just kill or capture them outright?
The fact is, it shouldn't be that difficult to tell if oil was leaked into the environment as the previous poster mentioned. Thus it doesn't seem all that likely that they would file this lawsuit if the accusations were true and easily tested.
I thought the biggest danger of new deadly diseases came from humans moving into the rainforests which are known to contain lots of really nasty stuff. Don't tell me even human intrusion into the rainforests has taken a backseat to the global warming hysteria?
Seriously, if something were to come out of the Artic, it would A) be very hardy to survive that long in such an inhospitable environment, B) be very rare as it has not yet been revealed during the melting of the artic ice that has been occuring for the past several thousand years, and C) have to find something to infect before the permafrost around it thaws and it dies. Currently it pretty much has a choice between caribou and lemmings, and it will take some time for new ecosystems to move in.
Unless of course she were making it all up, in which case her reputation goes down the shitter and she has to pay up.
Actually, ebola has been transmitted through the air, in both monkey outbreaks and in research conditions. The fact that it hasn't done so with humans (or at least we haven't been able to prove that it has done so with humans) doesn't make me want to take any risks.
"Other than that, it's not much more virulent than AIDS."
But HIV was able to break out into an epidemic due to the fact that it takes a long time to kill or even for the infected person to start showing symptoms.
"So, the Black Death was killing its hosts and doing it quickly, but that didn't stop it from wiping out a third of europe's population within a few years. In many cities, it wiped out 50-60% of the population. So, the Black Death had the attributes (according to you) would've caused it to burn itself out too quickly to be a real problem. Yet, it killed 1/3rd of europe's population. "
And it attacked a heavily trading society with virtually no knowledge of medicine. You don't suppose that might have contributed to it's ability to kill?
I think the gp's point was that a leap second or two will not realistically affect home users as very few of us need to have their clocks that precise.
I am surprised by the scientific response to these movements. Intelligent design advocates are pushing to treat their religion as science, so scientists are pushing to treat their science as religion that cannot be questioned? Instead of pouting about how ID advocates are a bunch of inbred hicks who don't know a thing about science, they could be embracing this opportunity to teach schoolkids one of the most important principles of science, that you should have an open mind and be willing to be skeptical of anything. Yes, that may raise a doubt or two about evolution as it (like any scientific theory) still has a kink or two to work out. But if you honestly believe that after an objective and critical analysis ID will come out well, I have to question your credentials as a man of science. Teaching kids to have an open mind and to question what they are taught will do more to support evolution than any old video of some professor droning on about fossils.
51% of the population reject evolution entirely, and only 15% believe evolution takes sole credit for our development. That shows you how the status quo of teaching evolution has been doing.
Well in that case, good news! This was developed by a private company.
"While that move might treat the physical effects of smoking and make it a safer alternative than traditional cigarettes, it does nothing to address the fact that smokers are *addicts* with a psychological dependence on a drug. "
It makes that addiction safer to the people who use it. Generally speaking, making something safer is a good thing. Many people have addictions to caffeine, should we lace coffee with cyanide to get people to reduce their caffeine intake? Should we make computers shoot out deadly radiation to combat Internet addiciton?
"Why not put money where it's really needed: addiction recovery. Develop drugs that are more effective at helping smokers quit, put more money into social campaigns against smoking (school, television, etc)?"
So private companies should not invest in products that help prevent a common form of cancer, but taxpayers should be forced to pay for completely ineffective attempts to brainwash schoolkids? Smokers chose their habit knowing the risks, there is no reason why Joe Taxpayer should be forced to help him quit.
"It amazes me sometimes how we Americans will find ways to make bad things acceptable and safer if it makes us money instead of just putting a stop to its use."
And it amazes me sometimes how some Americans will find any excuse to tell other people how they should live their own lives.
Being "fair and balanced" is not the same as being unbiased. Unbiased implies there are no opinions influencing what is said and done. That is either true and false, and is going to be false for virtually every media outlet. Fair and balanced implies opinions from one side are cancelled out by opinions on the other side. That is going to be relative to a particular viewpoint.