I'm a bit confused. Why do people that mod their vacuums reflect negatively on you? Of course it's another thing if they're breaking into the IRS or something, because most people don't distinguish crackers from hackers.
"...altered the hardware to such an extent that paranoia regarding the hardware is necessary."
What extent would that be? You're modding it yourself. Why in the world should you be scared then? Only a scriptkiddie wouldn't know what's going on inside his own "creation".
"...hackers in general become more and more externalized from society."
Right, because only a hacker can look at a Roomba that takes pictures and think "Hey, that's pretty neat."
What pranks were discussed? In the article they talk about guys that bypassed intrusive marketing schemes, put a lock on a refrigerator (a very cool one at that), and made a profit undercutting prices on drives that a company was making a killing on. Where are the sophomoric pranks (also the cams in sororities)?
... and here's why: Third world countries also get screwed over by outsourcing because we don't pay them what their work is worth. There's no need for them to industrialize then if they're getting all of these jobs simply because they're willing to work for less. Thus they're sitting there barely making a living wage, never actually advancing, but doing whatever menial work is given them by outsourcers.
Right, because we shouldn't be charging the people that use the roads to maintain them. Believe it or not, roads tend to degrade over time, as well as require more use. Our highways and byways are not fine the way they are. In Missouri, among other places, traffic is increasing so that in some places having a two or four lane road is insufficient. Also no matter where you are, you'll get potholes and cracks that need to be fixed.
I just don't see how it's regressive to tax gas. It's just like the electric company charging more than the electricity actually costs so that they can maintain the power lines and generators.
As far as voting to keep 'on the dole' goes, our system requires that there be poor people. Until large companies are willing to pay their low-level employees living wages, welfare is entirely necessary. And with the fact that there are more people than jobs, that's never going to happen because you can fire somebody who wants a raise and pick up another guy who's desperate for cash.
Not everybody can afford to get a higher education, and not everybody is going to be in demand. It's silly to assume people are being lazy if they can't find work. It's even sillier to count on local charities and neighbors with big hearts to help them out. It is the responsibility of government to take care of those citizens who are shit out of luck, as no other organization is as capable of assisting everyone that needs it.
I have a question for you: if most species' cells contain protections against miscopying dna, why do we still see mutations? Why do new strains of bacteria and viruses arise? Why are children born with down syndrome? Why will some of us get sickle cell anemia?
Mutations occur, despite the protections. Nothing is foolproof.
You may be right about this, I don't know the numbers. However, the fact that something is damn unlikely doesn't mean it can't happen. I could flip a coin a couple billion times (assuming infinite time and patience). It's really unlikely, from this side, to say that they'll all be heads. But if they actually did turn out to all be heads, I look back and call the probability that I did it "1".
Why are things not still evolving? What makes you think they're not? Predators and harsh conditions still kill off the weaker members of any given species (with the exception of humans, who've built safeguards in so that we can survive without being the "fittest" in the natural sense. Also dogs, who are now almost so dependent upon us that they could not survive very long in the wild.)
Why do you think insects need to grow bigger? Clearly this size works for them, as there's no shortage (well there may be of some, but the insect family is in no danger of dying out).
Nobody's claiming evolution explains everything. We'll either fill in the gaps as we learn more, or we'll toss it when a better theory shows itself. Just like we tossed creation for evolution.
Well really, there is a freaking huge number of planets out there. Chances are that a lot have the right conditions for life (distance from the sun, compositon, the works). So you've got a ton of planets with lots of oceans. Even with incredible odds against it in any one place, odds were probably alright that chemicals will mix just right somewhere, and that organic compounds will spontaneously form. And then maybe, against all odds, from these compounds, more chances came together and unicellular organisms formed, and reproduced and began adapting to their environment.
Seems to be what happened here.
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I'm a bit confused. Why do people that mod their vacuums reflect negatively on you? Of course it's another thing if they're breaking into the IRS or something, because most people don't distinguish crackers from hackers.
"...altered the hardware to such an extent that paranoia regarding the hardware is necessary."
What extent would that be? You're modding it yourself. Why in the world should you be scared then? Only a scriptkiddie wouldn't know what's going on inside his own "creation".
"...hackers in general become more and more externalized from society."
Right, because only a hacker can look at a Roomba that takes pictures and think "Hey, that's pretty neat."
What pranks were discussed? In the article they talk about guys that bypassed intrusive marketing schemes, put a lock on a refrigerator (a very cool one at that), and made a profit undercutting prices on drives that a company was making a killing on. Where are the sophomoric pranks (also the cams in sororities)?
... and here's why: Third world countries also get screwed over by outsourcing because we don't pay them what their work is worth. There's no need for them to industrialize then if they're getting all of these jobs simply because they're willing to work for less. Thus they're sitting there barely making a living wage, never actually advancing, but doing whatever menial work is given them by outsourcers.
Right, because we shouldn't be charging the people that use the roads to maintain them. Believe it or not, roads tend to degrade over time, as well as require more use. Our highways and byways are not fine the way they are. In Missouri, among other places, traffic is increasing so that in some places having a two or four lane road is insufficient. Also no matter where you are, you'll get potholes and cracks that need to be fixed. I just don't see how it's regressive to tax gas. It's just like the electric company charging more than the electricity actually costs so that they can maintain the power lines and generators.
As far as voting to keep 'on the dole' goes, our system requires that there be poor people. Until large companies are willing to pay their low-level employees living wages, welfare is entirely necessary. And with the fact that there are more people than jobs, that's never going to happen because you can fire somebody who wants a raise and pick up another guy who's desperate for cash.
Not everybody can afford to get a higher education, and not everybody is going to be in demand. It's silly to assume people are being lazy if they can't find work. It's even sillier to count on local charities and neighbors with big hearts to help them out. It is the responsibility of government to take care of those citizens who are shit out of luck, as no other organization is as capable of assisting everyone that needs it.
I have a question for you: if most species' cells contain protections against miscopying dna, why do we still see mutations? Why do new strains of bacteria and viruses arise? Why are children born with down syndrome? Why will some of us get sickle cell anemia? Mutations occur, despite the protections. Nothing is foolproof.
You may be right about this, I don't know the numbers. However, the fact that something is damn unlikely doesn't mean it can't happen. I could flip a coin a couple billion times (assuming infinite time and patience). It's really unlikely, from this side, to say that they'll all be heads. But if they actually did turn out to all be heads, I look back and call the probability that I did it "1".
Why are things not still evolving? What makes you think they're not? Predators and harsh conditions still kill off the weaker members of any given species (with the exception of humans, who've built safeguards in so that we can survive without being the "fittest" in the natural sense. Also dogs, who are now almost so dependent upon us that they could not survive very long in the wild.) Why do you think insects need to grow bigger? Clearly this size works for them, as there's no shortage (well there may be of some, but the insect family is in no danger of dying out). Nobody's claiming evolution explains everything. We'll either fill in the gaps as we learn more, or we'll toss it when a better theory shows itself. Just like we tossed creation for evolution.
Well really, there is a freaking huge number of planets out there. Chances are that a lot have the right conditions for life (distance from the sun, compositon, the works). So you've got a ton of planets with lots of oceans. Even with incredible odds against it in any one place, odds were probably alright that chemicals will mix just right somewhere, and that organic compounds will spontaneously form. And then maybe, against all odds, from these compounds, more chances came together and unicellular organisms formed, and reproduced and began adapting to their environment. Seems to be what happened here.