How do I prepare it, just drop it into a pot of boiling water or what? Grill? Barbacue?
Catching the infant by the ankles and swinging it brusquely around in tight circles usually does the trick.(And it's won't bruise the meat!) After this, it's best to oven roast at about 160 degrees centigrade until the flanks turn golden brown.(Some people use a rotating spit, but be careful to secure the limbs!). Remember to add a little oil if the child is lean.
The meat should be tender and moist when serving, and is quite filling. Serve with a light salad and cool rice. A fine Californian red is a perfect accompaniment both during and after this meal. For ambiance, the deeper sounds of the viola will aid digestion, or if they are not too shrill, the wails of the mother can be most uplifting.
The River, by Ed Hopperhttp://www.amazon.co.uk/River-Journey-Source-Penguin-Science/dp/0140283773/ has a very interesting argument that HIV-1 & HOV-2 were introduced by accident during the cultivation of Polio vaccines in Chimpanzee livers. Vaccinations and the earliest cases of HIV can be plotted on a map with amazing correlation.
Now personally, that said, I don't find the "sexual revolution"+globalisation explanation very compelling either. I'm not ready to accept that society underwent as dramatic a shift in its sexual habits during the 1960's. I simply think that people became more open about those habits.
In an age before photographers, newspapers and gossip magazines, it was probably quite easy to have a sexual lifestyle that would raise a few eyebrows even today, yet have the rest of society be completely oblivious. Anonymity was not as scarce as it is now and in addition, people simply did not publically, or even privately discuss sexual matters.
Read old greek classics. Read the Bible. Read old poetry from before the 18th century. There is some pretty scandalous stuff in there, which I think is reflective of a very "liberal" attitude to sexual relations. Read about kings and lords and bishops right up until the 19th century. Every second one had mistresses, concubines, and even catamites! Compared to the habits of ancient, and not so ancient, aristocrats , our society is positively puritan.
And what about ordinary people? We know even less about them than we do about the upper classes. But look at places like Pompeii, where there is clear evidence of not only public brothels, but of explicit imagery surrounding the worship of gods of "fertility". Does this suggest a sexual conservatism among the general populace? Are these people who would have "disapproved" of the free love of the '60s?
So in short, to say that globalisation has lead to the spread of AIDS is in my view a reasonable position. But the view that changing sexual habits are also a cause is a more dubious position. And it is dubious because no-one has ever really shown that the sexual habits our society has today are really all that more "promiscuous" than those of our ancestors.
It's not really a cop out if you can actually give the statistically biasing action.
Since they can't actually give that (whatever it is) as our universe and everything in it is only a single data point, it's a cop out.
The anthropic principle is a lot more rigorous than people give it credit for.
No, in fact, it's just the opposite. The anthropic principle is far, far, far less rigorous than our soceity is collectively giving it credit for. It represents an objective low point in the progress of science over the last 300 years. I am not being hyperbolic. Never since the days of Newton, or even before then, have so many "eminent" scientists seriously proposed so much philosophical arguments and circular logic as valid science.
The reality is that fundamental (I say fundamental mind) theoretical physics has made absolutely no progress whatsoever in the last 40 years!! Our theoretical scientific community is collectively demoralized, burned out and beaten. Rather than admit this, they have resorted to fantastic theory after fantastic theory in an effort to maintain their position as the leaders of societies great leap forward.
That the last ~20 years of this period has coincided with the rise of religious and fundamentalist thinking, is no coincidence. Society has sensed that fundamental science has made no progress, and people have collectively turned back to old ideologies, religions and subjective schools of thought. At this point, some scientists have simply stopped trying and have joined them.
I was skeptical of a great deal of modern theories the first time I ever read a modern popular science book. Initially, I was prepared to give the theoretical scientific community the benefit of the doubt on some of its more dubious proposals. But as time has gone by, and line after line has been crossed, I for one have had enough.
The anthropic principle was not, is not and never will be a scientific theory. Is is a pseudo-spiritual argument born from the minds of people raised in an Abrahamic culture, who after countless personal failures have lost confidence in their scientific methods, and who now simply have reverted to the worldview inculcated in them all those years ago. There is far more Genesis than analysis in their arguments.
The gamer in me says that games should be as fair as possible.
The gamer in me also says that games should be "fair" and that cheaters should not be allowed to ruin them.
However the responsible citizen of a free society in me, and in I hope all of us, knows that the integrity of fairness and justice in the laws of the land are more important by far than fairness and justice in the fantasy lands of my online games.
Let us be clear here, Michael Donnelly was found guilty because he was providing a way for other people to violate the private rules of a private company. Never mind about selling homemade bongs and breaking government rules. This ruling is a dangerous precedent.
Donnelly broke no law in selling the program, and the users broke no law in using it. Yet a court has found him guilty. And guilty of what? Copyright infringement? Get real. It is clear that he is de facto guilty of providing ways for third parties to break private company law. Apple says no third party software on iPhones. GM says no third party sat navs in their cars. Starbucks says no third party coffee in their cups. If I write iPhone software, sell sat navs, or offer fillers for passers by, this ruling means I'm in trouble. If I break any of the arbitrary and unregulated rules a private company decides to impose, I'm liable for large amounts of money.
This ruling is wrong. Liking World of Warcraft should not make you think otherwise. When it comes to things that are really important, you need to put down your controller and stand up for your rights.
Folks, it's a credit bubble. It's not the first and it won't be the last.
Wake up sleepy head! It's a credit crunch.
The well of easy short term credit has dried up. Financial institutions are currently experiencing a rather nasty bought of collective hysteria and as a result are grasping too tightly to what money they still have. They're not loaning any money to one another because they're afraid they and all their buddies are going to go belly up like Lehman Brothers in the very near future. They all need they all need every penny they have to pay off the loans they already took out from each other, because now they wont lend to each other because they're all afraid they'll all go under.
Confused? That's because you think that modern financiers are either rational or competent at what they do. They are neither.
It doesn't matter what the bill was about. The purpose of the bill was to act as a placebo for hysterical traders who literally have no idea what is happening and who cannot be relied upon to either calm down or trade rationally. I don't mean collectively speaking. I mean on an individual basis. That bill was a mass Valium prescription for a mass of people who are a danger to themselves and society. Taking it away was like dosing a crazy person with amphetamines, putting them in room 101, then giving them explosives and a loaded shotgun. Predictably, the traders and money men completely lost the run of themselves, and had a good old fashioned Panic Attack.
This is not getting resolved by market forces. This is not going to correct itself. This cannot be left to the whims of Wall St, unless you think its a good idea to leave the world's financial systems in the hands of people with the mentality, reasoning and emotional state of a crashing meth junkie. Wait as long as you like, there's nobody home.
No. This is going to require some good old fashioned Government Intervention. There's that taboo word. I'll say it again to drag Slashdot even further into disrepute. This Crisis Needs Government Intervention. You can deny this fact while you wait for your local junkies to start scrubbing the pavements out of civic responsibility, or you can wake up to reality and help clean up the mess that your mistaken opinions helped create.
If you want to squeeze every last penny of time out of your workers, then you had better be prepared for the drop in productivity and quality that follows. This isn't to say that you should be providing lazer tag sets and two hour lunches to use them in. But it does mean that if you create a work environment with the rules of a gulag, then can expect good workers to leave, middling workers to become poor, and poor workers to either bomb, revolt or take advantage of the situation. In effect you will be spelling the end of your business.
Just like cows, it doesn't take a lot to keep workers happy either. Friendly environment, free food, good furniture, understanding they have outside lives. These things cost you little, but deliver far more. If people like where they work and who they work with, they won't want to leave. Balance in all things of course, but at the end of the day, allowing geeks to browse Slashdot, or people to call back home will cost you far less than insisting you get back every nanosecond of the time you pay for. After all, what is it that you do at work all day?
If you want the best milk, you need the best cows, but also the best fields.
The modern media is not the fourth branch, or estate, of government. It is the First Estate. Let me explain.
The estates have classically been, in order: 1) The Church 2) The Aristocracy 3) Everybody Else
Traditionally added to this list has been
4) The Media ("Independent of church and state")
This was the rule up to one should think about 50 years ago in most countries. It's still the case today in many, especially latin american, countries. However, one should realise that the estates we not so much defined by WHO they were so much as WHAT they did. For instance, one can easily replace "aristocracy" with "very rich people", and the second estate model still fits modern society.
However, how does one replace "church" in modern society? Even in america, religious leaders wield only a small fraction of the power they once did. Do we then conclude that the model of the three estates is therefore outdated and does not apply? I would argue that this is not the case, and that the three estates model is in fact a valid model for how almost all societies operate on a basic level.
What did the first estate do? The church was closer to the people that the aristocracy. It wielded great influence over them through its sermons, traditions and omni-presence in society at large. It mostly sided with the aristocracy, to maintain the status quo. Though it would disagree with their policies when it suited its own purposes. The general idea was that the aristocrats ruled, while the church helped keep the people in line. In turn, the aristocrats would confer legal status, benefits and privileges to the church. It was a symbiotic relationship designed to keep power out of the hands of the masses.
Who replaces the church of the Ancien Régime in our 21st century society? No-one? Look beyond outward apearance and to the actual substance of the matter. Who is close to those in power and spreads their message to the masses? Who is close enough to the average citizen to influence their opinion? Who generally agrees with the government, but can disagree when it suits their purposes. Who benefits from their patronage?
The modern media, or at least the majority of it, constitutes the first estate in our modern society. I'd like to stress that I do not believe this to be the result of a conspiracy or plot. Rather, I would hold that the three estates model is a natural state towards which human societies will gravitate, without anyone ever consciously planning or realizing it.
The demise of church power in western society has left a vacuum. The Media has filled that vacuum. When people talk about the Daily Show being the only source of "real news", they are in effect pointing out the inherant difference between the "New Media" of the First estate (Bill O'Reilly), and the "Old Media" of the Fourth estate (Jon Stewart). These two model of media have always existed together, but in recent times, the First estate media has become the dominant type.
In order for idealogical to work, it needs propaganda. It needs a first estate. In order to resist ideology, we need the truth. We need a fourth estate. Right now, we have too much of the former and dangerously little of the latter.
The parent would appear to be correct. There was never mention of a 1997 date ever being in the article. GP needs to explain themselves, or retract their previous comment.
It sounds like you're unfamiliar with Wikipedia's notability guidelines. They're clearly spelled out here. If you read a deletion debate, you'll find that it's this guideline being used to judge articles.
You call those guidelines clearly spelled out? I see a list of subjective Unspeak open to liberal interpretation by whichever deletionist admin takes exception to the article in question. These guidelines are an excuse, and nothing more. A lip service paid to objections. A thought-terminating cliché.
Want an example? The wikipedia article on "Omnislashing" was deleted. I asked the person responsible to reconsider what could politely be called a Faux pas, and not so politely called a WFT?! Long story short, he brushed me off with a Reliable Sources line. Reliable sources? For Omnislashing?! Who are these people!?
I'm sure that if I pushed the point, he would have carted out notability guidelines and other WP:BLLSHT regulations designed only to stall me until I lose interest and he gets what he wants, which is that article off the site. What's the point?
As per the Great grand parent's post, the problem there is pagerank. Wikipedia is being given too much credence and influence by Google and has been for quite some time. Don't believe me? Cat, Credence, Conundrum. I'm willing to bet that a wikipedia entry makes an appearance on the first page or search results for 90%+ of Google searches.
Google has had a long standing love affair with Wikipedia, as has most of the internet. Just like when you first fall in love, you tend to overlook most if not all of the other parties faults. However, after a while the honeymoon ends, and you begin to settle down and realize that your perfect partner is indeed only human. Almost everyone has by now come across information on wikipedia which they know to be blatantly false, inaccurate or misleading. Many have experienced, first hand, the office politics and bureaucracy involved in deletionism, notability and general revisionist issues. It's safe to say that the internet's love affair with Wikipedia is over(Though we are still together).
Google on the other hand, is still smitten, and shows no signs of losing its infatuation with what is generally regarded as only an adequate source of information. Why the wikipedia article for eigenvalue should rank higher than the Mathworld one, I don't know. I was going to say that although I think the Wikipedia article is of higher quality, that does not mean that it should be ranked over the more specialized Mathworld one. But, as I went to check it, I see that the standard of the Wikipedia article has, in my opinion, gone down significantly since I last checked it. Regardless, Google still thinks Wikipedia is a better page than the alternatives, and will probably think so regardless of the quality of the eigenvalue article.
We've cut Wikipedia enough slack already. It doesn't need or deserve anymore from us, or from search engines. If wikipedia is ever going to grow up and deal with the issues that have been left to fester for years, then pressure is going to have to be applied. Pressure from users, pressure from competitors, and pressure from search engines. We have one and two, but step three is proving to be the missing link in improving user generated encyclopedias.
The idiots on Youtube? Bust em. They shouldn't be allowed near a squirtgun. But a firearm in my hands is zero danger to you.
Says who? Who decides who gets guns and who doesn't?
Those who support gun ownership frequently make the, probably critical, mistake of promoting gun rights for some, but no for others. Rights don't work that way. Either everybody has them, or everybody doesn't. If you argue for your right to own a handgun, then you must admit that that right must be given to any 18 year old street hooligan who wants one to use it in a Youtube video.
If you don't, then you're arguing for a privilege, not a right. And yes, this right should extend to convicted criminals who have served their time. You must understand that for this reason arguments about guns being restricted to "responsible" people will not hold much water with gun control advocates. A right is a right is a right, not a privilege.
Personally, I think gun ownership as a privilege is an acceptable system, as it is in England. Even America, where guns are supposedly a right, effectively implements a privilege system anyway.
Going back to the story, while gun ownership may be a right or a privilege, the right to speak about, and advocate, guns and their use is a very firm right and one which should not be denied to anyone. Of course there are those who argue that Youtube, as a private company, is free to host and remove whatever videos it pleases. These same people ignore that Youtube increasingly represents the privatization of public broadcasting, and the privatization of public censorship in the modern age. To paraphrase Agent Smith; What good is a soapbox, if you are unable to speak?
Its not that computer based voting is a bad idea...
Yes it is. Computer based voting is a bad idea. Computer based vote counting is a bad idea. I cannot fathom how any honest person who knows anything about computers and computer programming would ever condone the use of computers to count votes in elections. A lot of Slashdotters in particular need to get real on this issue. Technology is great, but sometimes it's better to keep things simple.
When it comes to elections the most important thing is that people have faith in the vote. Computers have never, and will never be able to provide this. This is true today, and it will be true a thousand years from now. A thousand years from now democratic societies will be voting and counting on paper ballots. Lip service democracies and the like will be using computers.
The cost will not come within an asses' roar of 7.7 million USD. India is cheap, but not THAT cheap. 77 million USD, maybe. Perhaps if you factor out the cost of scientists and administrative staff already employed by the ISRO, and maintenance costs of existing facilities, and basically count only the cost of the rocket and parts, then maybe you'll come up with a 7.7 million USD bill. Otherwise I think someone forgot a decimal point somewhere.
States were supposed to govern their own borders and the Constitution was there to limit a few things that states could not govern (like trade between states, or basic rights).
That's why you had a civil war. People in the southern states were keeping slaves. Now if you'd like to make some big spiel about how the Union winning the civil war lead to negative repercussions for your state's rights, then I'm simply going to point out that the previous system was far, far worse. It allowed slavery. Yes it did. So arguing for states rights to be reinstated in order to protect people's rights is not really a solid argument.
With some clever signal processing you could distinguish roughly the shape and size of the vehicle.
It would have to be some very, very clever signal processing and you would have to be content with some very, very rough estimates of anything you were looking for.
It's easier to just put RFID chips in license plates and install sensors on the side of the road. They will do this eventually.
Face it, if you want an online service you're on IPv4 and the service won't really be any different on IPv6.
Have you ever tried to play or gods forbid host multiplayer games or use bittorrent behind NAT? I want IPv6 yesterday. And no, UPnP does NOT solve these problems.
What, however, baffles me is that a self proclaimed Math Geek, doesn't want to follow "rules" even though Math pretty much is only about rules. So, breaking rules in spelling is okay, but in maths it's not. I call double standard.
Young man, if you think that the rules of english are made of the same stuff as the rules of mathematics, then you either do not know much english, or you do not know much mathematics, or both.
(My first language isn't even English, just in case you wondered.)
Slashdot Mirror
Catching the infant by the ankles and swinging it brusquely around in tight circles usually does the trick.(And it's won't bruise the meat!) After this, it's best to oven roast at about 160 degrees centigrade until the flanks turn golden brown.(Some people use a rotating spit, but be careful to secure the limbs!). Remember to add a little oil if the child is lean.
The meat should be tender and moist when serving, and is quite filling. Serve with a light salad and cool rice. A fine Californian red is a perfect accompaniment both during and after this meal. For ambiance, the deeper sounds of the viola will aid digestion, or if they are not too shrill, the wails of the mother can be most uplifting.
Compelling as it is, this hypothesis has apparently been debunked.
Now personally, that said, I don't find the "sexual revolution"+globalisation explanation very compelling either. I'm not ready to accept that society underwent as dramatic a shift in its sexual habits during the 1960's. I simply think that people became more open about those habits.
In an age before photographers, newspapers and gossip magazines, it was probably quite easy to have a sexual lifestyle that would raise a few eyebrows even today, yet have the rest of society be completely oblivious. Anonymity was not as scarce as it is now and in addition, people simply did not publically, or even privately discuss sexual matters.
Read old greek classics. Read the Bible. Read old poetry from before the 18th century. There is some pretty scandalous stuff in there, which I think is reflective of a very "liberal" attitude to sexual relations. Read about kings and lords and bishops right up until the 19th century. Every second one had mistresses, concubines, and even catamites! Compared to the habits of ancient, and not so ancient, aristocrats , our society is positively puritan.
And what about ordinary people? We know even less about them than we do about the upper classes. But look at places like Pompeii, where there is clear evidence of not only public brothels, but of explicit imagery surrounding the worship of gods of "fertility". Does this suggest a sexual conservatism among the general populace? Are these people who would have "disapproved" of the free love of the '60s?
So in short, to say that globalisation has lead to the spread of AIDS is in my view a reasonable position. But the view that changing sexual habits are also a cause is a more dubious position. And it is dubious because no-one has ever really shown that the sexual habits our society has today are really all that more "promiscuous" than those of our ancestors.
Since they can't actually give that (whatever it is) as our universe and everything in it is only a single data point, it's a cop out.
No, in fact, it's just the opposite. The anthropic principle is far, far, far less rigorous than our soceity is collectively giving it credit for. It represents an objective low point in the progress of science over the last 300 years. I am not being hyperbolic. Never since the days of Newton, or even before then, have so many "eminent" scientists seriously proposed so much philosophical arguments and circular logic as valid science.
The reality is that fundamental (I say fundamental mind) theoretical physics has made absolutely no progress whatsoever in the last 40 years!! Our theoretical scientific community is collectively demoralized, burned out and beaten. Rather than admit this, they have resorted to fantastic theory after fantastic theory in an effort to maintain their position as the leaders of societies great leap forward.
That the last ~20 years of this period has coincided with the rise of religious and fundamentalist thinking, is no coincidence. Society has sensed that fundamental science has made no progress, and people have collectively turned back to old ideologies, religions and subjective schools of thought. At this point, some scientists have simply stopped trying and have joined them.
I was skeptical of a great deal of modern theories the first time I ever read a modern popular science book. Initially, I was prepared to give the theoretical scientific community the benefit of the doubt on some of its more dubious proposals. But as time has gone by, and line after line has been crossed, I for one have had enough.
The anthropic principle was not, is not and never will be a scientific theory. Is is a pseudo-spiritual argument born from the minds of people raised in an Abrahamic culture, who after countless personal failures have lost confidence in their scientific methods, and who now simply have reverted to the worldview inculcated in them all those years ago. There is far more Genesis than analysis in their arguments.
The gamer in me also says that games should be "fair" and that cheaters should not be allowed to ruin them.
However the responsible citizen of a free society in me, and in I hope all of us, knows that the integrity of fairness and justice in the laws of the land are more important by far than fairness and justice in the fantasy lands of my online games.
Let us be clear here, Michael Donnelly was found guilty because he was providing a way for other people to violate the private rules of a private company. Never mind about selling homemade bongs and breaking government rules. This ruling is a dangerous precedent.
Donnelly broke no law in selling the program, and the users broke no law in using it. Yet a court has found him guilty. And guilty of what? Copyright infringement? Get real. It is clear that he is de facto guilty of providing ways for third parties to break private company law. Apple says no third party software on iPhones. GM says no third party sat navs in their cars. Starbucks says no third party coffee in their cups. If I write iPhone software, sell sat navs, or offer fillers for passers by, this ruling means I'm in trouble. If I break any of the arbitrary and unregulated rules a private company decides to impose, I'm liable for large amounts of money.
This ruling is wrong. Liking World of Warcraft should not make you think otherwise. When it comes to things that are really important, you need to put down your controller and stand up for your rights.
Wake up sleepy head! It's a credit crunch.
The well of easy short term credit has dried up. Financial institutions are currently experiencing a rather nasty bought of collective hysteria and as a result are grasping too tightly to what money they still have. They're not loaning any money to one another because they're afraid they and all their buddies are going to go belly up like Lehman Brothers in the very near future. They all need they all need every penny they have to pay off the loans they already took out from each other, because now they wont lend to each other because they're all afraid they'll all go under.
Confused? That's because you think that modern financiers are either rational or competent at what they do. They are neither.
It doesn't matter what the bill was about. The purpose of the bill was to act as a placebo for hysterical traders who literally have no idea what is happening and who cannot be relied upon to either calm down or trade rationally. I don't mean collectively speaking. I mean on an individual basis. That bill was a mass Valium prescription for a mass of people who are a danger to themselves and society. Taking it away was like dosing a crazy person with amphetamines, putting them in room 101, then giving them explosives and a loaded shotgun. Predictably, the traders and money men completely lost the run of themselves, and had a good old fashioned Panic Attack.
This is not getting resolved by market forces. This is not going to correct itself. This cannot be left to the whims of Wall St, unless you think its a good idea to leave the world's financial systems in the hands of people with the mentality, reasoning and emotional state of a crashing meth junkie. Wait as long as you like, there's nobody home.
No. This is going to require some good old fashioned Government Intervention. There's that taboo word. I'll say it again to drag Slashdot even further into disrepute. This Crisis Needs Government Intervention . You can deny this fact while you wait for your local junkies to start scrubbing the pavements out of civic responsibility, or you can wake up to reality and help clean up the mess that your mistaken opinions helped create.
The best milk comes from the happiest cows.
If you want to squeeze every last penny of time out of your workers, then you had better be prepared for the drop in productivity and quality that follows. This isn't to say that you should be providing lazer tag sets and two hour lunches to use them in. But it does mean that if you create a work environment with the rules of a gulag, then can expect good workers to leave, middling workers to become poor, and poor workers to either bomb, revolt or take advantage of the situation. In effect you will be spelling the end of your business.
Just like cows, it doesn't take a lot to keep workers happy either. Friendly environment, free food, good furniture, understanding they have outside lives. These things cost you little, but deliver far more. If people like where they work and who they work with, they won't want to leave. Balance in all things of course, but at the end of the day, allowing geeks to browse Slashdot, or people to call back home will cost you far less than insisting you get back every nanosecond of the time you pay for. After all, what is it that you do at work all day?
If you want the best milk, you need the best cows, but also the best fields.
The modern media is not the fourth branch, or estate, of government. It is the First Estate. Let me explain.
The estates have classically been, in order:
1) The Church
2) The Aristocracy
3) Everybody Else
Traditionally added to this list has been
4) The Media ("Independent of church and state")
This was the rule up to one should think about 50 years ago in most countries. It's still the case today in many, especially latin american, countries. However, one should realise that the estates we not so much defined by WHO they were so much as WHAT they did. For instance, one can easily replace "aristocracy" with "very rich people", and the second estate model still fits modern society.
However, how does one replace "church" in modern society? Even in america, religious leaders wield only a small fraction of the power they once did. Do we then conclude that the model of the three estates is therefore outdated and does not apply? I would argue that this is not the case, and that the three estates model is in fact a valid model for how almost all societies operate on a basic level.
What did the first estate do? The church was closer to the people that the aristocracy. It wielded great influence over them through its sermons, traditions and omni-presence in society at large. It mostly sided with the aristocracy, to maintain the status quo. Though it would disagree with their policies when it suited its own purposes. The general idea was that the aristocrats ruled, while the church helped keep the people in line. In turn, the aristocrats would confer legal status, benefits and privileges to the church. It was a symbiotic relationship designed to keep power out of the hands of the masses.
Who replaces the church of the Ancien Régime in our 21st century society? No-one? Look beyond outward apearance and to the actual substance of the matter. Who is close to those in power and spreads their message to the masses? Who is close enough to the average citizen to influence their opinion? Who generally agrees with the government, but can disagree when it suits their purposes. Who benefits from their patronage?
The modern media, or at least the majority of it, constitutes the first estate in our modern society. I'd like to stress that I do not believe this to be the result of a conspiracy or plot. Rather, I would hold that the three estates model is a natural state towards which human societies will gravitate, without anyone ever consciously planning or realizing it.
The demise of church power in western society has left a vacuum. The Media has filled that vacuum. When people talk about the Daily Show being the only source of "real news", they are in effect pointing out the inherant difference between the "New Media" of the First estate (Bill O'Reilly), and the "Old Media" of the Fourth estate (Jon Stewart). These two model of media have always existed together, but in recent times, the First estate media has become the dominant type.
In order for idealogical to work, it needs propaganda. It needs a first estate. In order to resist ideology, we need the truth. We need a fourth estate. Right now, we have too much of the former and dangerously little of the latter.
America will Never Forget.
The parent would appear to be correct. There was never mention of a 1997 date ever being in the article. GP needs to explain themselves, or retract their previous comment.
Because someone is looking for that information.
You call those guidelines clearly spelled out? I see a list of subjective Unspeak open to liberal interpretation by whichever deletionist admin takes exception to the article in question. These guidelines are an excuse, and nothing more. A lip service paid to objections. A thought-terminating cliché.
Want an example? The wikipedia article on "Omnislashing" was deleted. I asked the person responsible to reconsider what could politely be called a Faux pas, and not so politely called a WFT?! Long story short, he brushed me off with a Reliable Sources line. Reliable sources? For Omnislashing?! Who are these people!?
I'm sure that if I pushed the point, he would have carted out notability guidelines and other WP:BLLSHT regulations designed only to stall me until I lose interest and he gets what he wants, which is that article off the site. What's the point?
Wikipedia is not an entertainment product, it's an encyclopedia project. At least, I hope so.
As per the Great grand parent's post, the problem there is pagerank. Wikipedia is being given too much credence and influence by Google and has been for quite some time. Don't believe me? Cat, Credence, Conundrum. I'm willing to bet that a wikipedia entry makes an appearance on the first page or search results for 90%+ of Google searches.
Google has had a long standing love affair with Wikipedia, as has most of the internet. Just like when you first fall in love, you tend to overlook most if not all of the other parties faults. However, after a while the honeymoon ends, and you begin to settle down and realize that your perfect partner is indeed only human. Almost everyone has by now come across information on wikipedia which they know to be blatantly false, inaccurate or misleading. Many have experienced, first hand, the office politics and bureaucracy involved in deletionism, notability and general revisionist issues. It's safe to say that the internet's love affair with Wikipedia is over(Though we are still together).
Google on the other hand, is still smitten, and shows no signs of losing its infatuation with what is generally regarded as only an adequate source of information. Why the wikipedia article for eigenvalue should rank higher than the Mathworld one, I don't know. I was going to say that although I think the Wikipedia article is of higher quality, that does not mean that it should be ranked over the more specialized Mathworld one. But, as I went to check it, I see that the standard of the Wikipedia article has, in my opinion, gone down significantly since I last checked it. Regardless, Google still thinks Wikipedia is a better page than the alternatives, and will probably think so regardless of the quality of the eigenvalue article.
We've cut Wikipedia enough slack already. It doesn't need or deserve anymore from us, or from search engines. If wikipedia is ever going to grow up and deal with the issues that have been left to fester for years, then pressure is going to have to be applied. Pressure from users, pressure from competitors, and pressure from search engines. We have one and two, but step three is proving to be the missing link in improving user generated encyclopedias.
Says who? Who decides who gets guns and who doesn't?
Those who support gun ownership frequently make the, probably critical, mistake of promoting gun rights for some, but no for others. Rights don't work that way. Either everybody has them, or everybody doesn't. If you argue for your right to own a handgun, then you must admit that that right must be given to any 18 year old street hooligan who wants one to use it in a Youtube video.
If you don't, then you're arguing for a privilege, not a right. And yes, this right should extend to convicted criminals who have served their time. You must understand that for this reason arguments about guns being restricted to "responsible" people will not hold much water with gun control advocates. A right is a right is a right, not a privilege.
Personally, I think gun ownership as a privilege is an acceptable system, as it is in England. Even America, where guns are supposedly a right, effectively implements a privilege system anyway.
Going back to the story, while gun ownership may be a right or a privilege, the right to speak about, and advocate, guns and their use is a very firm right and one which should not be denied to anyone. Of course there are those who argue that Youtube, as a private company, is free to host and remove whatever videos it pleases. These same people ignore that Youtube increasingly represents the privatization of public broadcasting, and the privatization of public censorship in the modern age. To paraphrase Agent Smith; What good is a soapbox, if you are unable to speak?
Yes it is. Computer based voting is a bad idea. Computer based vote counting is a bad idea. I cannot fathom how any honest person who knows anything about computers and computer programming would ever condone the use of computers to count votes in elections. A lot of Slashdotters in particular need to get real on this issue. Technology is great, but sometimes it's better to keep things simple.
When it comes to elections the most important thing is that people have faith in the vote. Computers have never, and will never be able to provide this. This is true today, and it will be true a thousand years from now. A thousand years from now democratic societies will be voting and counting on paper ballots. Lip service democracies and the like will be using computers.
The cost will not come within an asses' roar of 7.7 million USD. India is cheap, but not THAT cheap. 77 million USD, maybe. Perhaps if you factor out the cost of scientists and administrative staff already employed by the ISRO, and maintenance costs of existing facilities, and basically count only the cost of the rocket and parts, then maybe you'll come up with a 7.7 million USD bill. Otherwise I think someone forgot a decimal point somewhere.
Fuck. The correct word is fuck. And remember to stress that fricative for best effect!
That's why you had a civil war. People in the southern states were keeping slaves. Now if you'd like to make some big spiel about how the Union winning the civil war lead to negative repercussions for your state's rights, then I'm simply going to point out that the previous system was far, far worse. It allowed slavery. Yes it did. So arguing for states rights to be reinstated in order to protect people's rights is not really a solid argument.
That's the thing. They can't!
I don't see why. The left hand controls in game movements in most setups. The right hand typically just presses the odd button or waggles the mouse.
It would have to be some very, very clever signal processing and you would have to be content with some very, very rough estimates of anything you were looking for.
It's easier to just put RFID chips in license plates and install sensors on the side of the road. They will do this eventually.
Have you ever tried to play or gods forbid host multiplayer games or use bittorrent behind NAT? I want IPv6 yesterday. And no, UPnP does NOT solve these problems.
We must Learn Our Place.
It's true. The USPTO would have to get up _early_ in the morning to become any more incompetent than it already is.
Young man, if you think that the rules of english are made of the same stuff as the rules of mathematics, then you either do not know much english, or you do not know much mathematics, or both.
Mine is.