the pubs allow FBI to use business to spy on ALL Americans
The FBI cannot do ANYTHING without the money that the congress specifically budgets for them, often at the program level. They operate under oversight by congressional committees. All of their funds, and the makeup of all of the committee chairs, as well as the entire legislative agenda in both houses, is under the direction of Democrats. Don't like it? Ask them why they DO like it, review it and don't complain, and write checks to continue it.
What's wrong if we let new technologies to augment this ability?
Dammit man, it's not natural! There should be no technology involved, and that includes the cell phone you used to send her text message setting up your first date. And obviously, no medical science allowed. That includes the polio vaccines that allowed either of you to even exist, since it didn't kill your parents. No technology! It's not right!
There we go! There's the flamebait mod from one of the very people I'm talking about. Thanks for being so predictable! Obama is counting on that, too. Excellent work. Now, do as he says, and write a check to Hillary Clinton like he did today, since it's the right thing to do. How can you not like a guy with priorities like that? She agreed to endorse him if he agreed to get her back the money she loaned herself. Party Of Unity, man!
Because they're the ones that have done so much pandering to their constituency about rolling back security measures, etc. They're the ones that have been screaming the loudest about Teh Evil Repuglicans monitoring overseas calls into the states, etc. With so much of their connection to their closest supporters built around demonizing the administration for something that they, themselves, want to see legal (they just want the option to punish for actions before the status changed), they really look the fools for switching. It's sort a Crying Wolf situation.
Sadly, people on here seem to be ignoring that fact.
Yup, just like they're ignoring is somber promise not to use private campaign funds if McCain did the same, because the public campaign finance system was so important to support. And of course, he's completely lied about that, and is opting for big bucks from private bundlers, and has the gall to say it's really his way of supporting change ("Change We Can Believe In!" - [tm]) in the public financing system. Puh-lease. It's right up there with his often repeated assurances that he'd sit down with hostile dicatators for photo ops without any preconditions... um, not counting all of the preconditions that he's now saying would, of course, be necessary for such a thing.
It isn't just that he's a typical politician... he's far worse, because the ONLY thing he has (had) going for him, since he utterly lacks executive experience and studiously avoids exposure to the foreign policy players and issues that are so important, was his supposed pristine post-partisan ethics. He's been saying, essentially, the despite his lack of any experience, the ONE thing you should keep in mind as a reason to vote for him are his pure, unflappable convictions and character. And he's very handily been demonstrating for months that those are simply not present, or at the very least no more so than in many other politicians... and since the others DO have some experience and a more rational take on the issues about which Obama is thrashing around, you've gotta wonder what people actually think they're voting for with this guy. Other than some vague and pointless racial guilt soothing (another topic on which he's trying very hard to have it both ways).
we have all the guns of some other countries (doesn't Canada have higher gun ownership per capita?) and all the gun education of Japan (who, IIRC, completely bans them). It's that combination that I think is the problem
No, it's worse than that. We have the guns, and we have utter ignorance about the reality of using them. People are growing up with a video-game-level sense of consequence. Every kid should help haul a just-shot deer in from a pickup truck to hang in the garage (yum! venison!). Why? Because there's nothing quite like seeing a big ol' entry and exit wound right through a rib cage of a mammal that's about your size... to really bring home the violence of it. The irreversability of it. The consequence of it. Kids used to grow up with a solid sense of all of that. Now they're clueless... not just about how to safely use them and how to decide not to... but I mean they don't even understand the physics and physiological issues at hand. They like burgers, but never see the meat being harvested. They like mowing down bad guys in a game, and can't extrapolate that to reality.
I recommend junior high school target shooting classes. Start with archery. Move to pellet guns. Plink knock-down targets with.22 rifles and target pistols. Learn some trap and skeet shooting. It demystifies it, makes it real. Some will grow to love it and be responsible, and some will shrug their shoulders and walk away. But very few will play imaginary mow-down the same way. People that are damaged goods are damaged goods anyway. Two idiots like the Columbine slime are going to handle this issue themselves anyway. But we can cut down on a lot of the cartoonish over-the-top violence worship if the reality of it were just a little more... real. Besides, venison is WAY better for you than beef.
Re:It's all because John Wayne is no lonvger with
on
Terminal Chaos
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it's worth noting that the cultured, polite people of that time raised the colicky man-children of today
No, they just won WWII, and swore that their own children would have better, easier lives. They didn't anticipate the impact of the Nanny State mentality started by FDR, and gave their kids the benefit of the doubt when it came to forming their own solid world view. Turns out it really helps to have a clear picture of it when you're a little kid, rather than re-discovering it when you're 40.
Re:It's all because John Wayne is no lonvger with
on
Terminal Chaos
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I find it disturbing that someone would wax nostalgic about assault being a socially acceptable way to deal with public annoyances
So, instead, you find assault by someone ELSE to be acceptable, because they're in a bad mood? Having someone scream at you, throw things, shove people out of their way, physically harass flight attendants, etc... THAT's OK, but laying a hand on them to get them to stop? The horror! Lock those people AWAY for looking to keep civilization civilized without having to call in a public servant, who will arrive in an hour or so. Maybe.
Should I get off your lawn now?
That's your response to a description of a culture that coddles people having angry, violent fits in public? That only unreasonable old people who don't want their property vandalized would also be upset about watching a retail clerk or a flight attendant get abused?
It sounds like empathy isn't one of your strong suits
No, it sounds like YOU are the one with misplaced empathy. You have zero empathy for the 100 people that one loudmouthed, obnoxious jerk can impact when no one stops them from going on some "rage" because they're displeased with the size of their peanut bag, or can't grasp why they shouldn't talk loudly through your $10 movie.
I won't ask you to have some for the parents of said kids
Why? I imagine that some of them - while having been shamed out of ever disciplining their kids - are none the less embarassed by the little punks they've raised. I have a lot of empathy for them, since they're surrounded by teachers, preachers, shrinks, and PBS specials that seek to drown out their commons sense.
_every_ toddler in existence has freaked out in public when it it is least convenient to his/her parents
Yes, and those parents used to grab that kid and march them right out of the movie, or not buy them the ice cream they're screaming about. And where do you draw the line on your use of the word "toddler," anyway? I'm talking about kids as old as 6 or 8 or 10+.
The child is not deliberately trying to offend
No, the child is usually trying to manipulate the parent into a desired action (or cease an undesired action). And parents give in. Big time. As a result, that sense of entitlement sets in very early, and permanently. As does the Drama Queen methodology.
I have been stuck on a transatlantic flight with a colicky infant in the seat behind me
How about a boorish 18 year old loudly repeating over and over (for hours) that Virgin "like, totally SUCKS" for not making her text messaging work while somewhere over the middle of the Atlantic, and throwing a food tray into the aisle when asked if she was done with her meal? I've been stuck with her, too.
It's all because John Wayne is no lonvger with us.
on
Terminal Chaos
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· Score: 5, Insightful
barely a day goes by without an incident of air rage
That's because 40 years ago, someone who started pitching a violent and/or profane fit in close quarters where other people had paid for a service (like watching a movie or traveling for a few hours) could reasonably expect a sound thumping from someone willing to shut them up. And no jury in the world would give the person doing the thumping a hard time. Shame used to be a useful tool. There was a time when acting like an ass in public carried with it a certain stigma. Now it's celebrated in the news, and is a point of pride in many a music video. This is simply about bad manners made the norm, and a culture of victimhood-as-virtue that provides cover for every mis-step (including the deliberate variety), and which condems anyone looking to deny someone that cover as being somehow cruel. We've become a coddling culture, and this is the price we pay. It's no mystery. Every one of those screaming kids you see in the grocery store today will become the asshat in seat 30B on your flight to Chicago.
The hippies will type "amuniton" and expect a machine to fix the typo and find it.
The details don't matter. The point is that it takes a village to find the ammunition. And if it turns out that one person is clever enough to do it on their own, without being properly vetted by the village's elites, then that person must be punished in some way, so as to avoid making the other villagers feel bad that they can't do it themselves. It's not that it DOES take a village to do something, see, it's that the village will squash anyone that has the gall to demonstrate the ability to function without the village's bureacracy and permission. Hopefully the village's enemies will be so horrified by the unstoppable monster of centrally dictated collectivism, that they'll run away without a shot being fired. In fact, the village doesn't even have to HAVE an ammunition stash. They should be able to bluff their way through a few generations of rule by a their benign dictatoriship before their enemies realize what a paper tiger they actually are, or the villagers themselves realize they're being cruelly shit on by authoritarian hippies. Nah, that would never happen. I mean, not again, right?
My favorite part was where they showed the bodies of the eBay Power Sellers that had been caught trying to tunnel in. They hand them upside down on big plastic stakes outside (the original Lego Vlad The Impaler kits are very scarce, but they work great).
Or are you trying to use redneck in a different context
I'm defending the rednecks in the sense that they are frequently defined, here. To wit, "people who run farms." Or, "the guy that actually knows how to fix your transmission - which you couldn't do without years of training - but who also likes simple beer instead of Fancy Pants micro-brews." Or, "the person who made it possible for you to have dairy products this week." Or, "anyone from south of the Mason-Dixon Line," etc.
Of course, the term is most often used, here, to mean "white," and "not a Democrat," and "doesn't write software for a living."
so the area around it where the gravity would significantly bend the universe would also be quite small, making our painful (but swift) deaths rather unspectacular
I'm sorry, but you're completely forgetting about at least one mitigating factor. There's simply no way the earth can be destroyed, one side effect of which would be my untimely demise. Why? Because I've still got a balance on my Capital One visa card, and they will do anything, including changing the very fabric of space and time, in order to not miss out on that interest money. So, we're safe for a while yet.
*cue redneck throwing a firecracker into the path of the particle stream*
Right, because Yuppie Spawn never do anything foolish, and liberal arts majors are famous for their grasp on the laws of physics. I will check to be sure, but no doubt you're right that there have never been any sophisticated, urbane New Englanders who - through idiocy and a lack of understanding the consequences of how they're handling a physical object, like, say, an automobile - have every run into any trouble that way. Only 'rednecks.' Well, and Ted Kennedy, of course. But he only killed someone, and that's different.
Re:They have a gas analyser, but...
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Water Ice On Mars
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But water as a source of fuel? Even if they did have tokamak fusion reactors that worked, they have to be light enough to send to Mars. Arrgh.
Think in terms of setting up solar-powered cracking units to break out H and O2. Then you use fuel cells or combust it in other ways. Mr. Fusion is not needed.
No big deal. My main concern is that folks here - who focus on the technicalities of both how things work and of what might be possible - often lose sight of the fact that most real-life technology users are just Average Joes. It seems VERY important to me that we (the nerdocracy) err on the side of NOT seeming to ever favor habits or cultural trends that would come across to Average Joe as just simply bad manners (to say nothing of ripping them off). Why? Because they vote, and don't generally see the big picture or the future. And when they sense that smartass nerd types are just looking to pull one over on them (from their perspective), then tend to not feel so bad about supporting sometimes absurd policies that actually ARE bad for everybody. Good manners - even the point of inconveniencing nerds - make the world ultimately the sort of place where smart and nerdly people will have more sway over how things are done.
What kind of a pervert gets his kicks calling Portugal while standing in his underwear in the woods?
The point is that modern corporate-made mobile phones allow him to be in the woods while he does that, instead of at the payphone outside the beauty parlor on Main Street.
His argument wasn't against corporations or large corporations but rather against how many are run.
It was implied. My examples (medicine, transportation, communication) were specifically chosen to fit his language:
most companies don't choose to engage in those ruthless tactics... However, the most powerful companies do
He's being deliberately vague about what he means by that, but is of course saying it in the context of a conversation about big tech companies, and in an environment (slashdot) where the atmosphere is, without fail, anti-corporate (rhetorically... but not when they want WoW-friendly CPUs, cheap beer, refridgerators, powerful cancer drugs, $20 USB WiFi cards, and the rest).
anti-union methods
Yes, and even some unions serve a function without being completely tangled up in organized crime, syphoning money from workers and spending it on bribes and on political campaigns without their direct permission, extorting completely out-of-line raises for local government employees out of city and county councils, etc. Shall we go on?
There are things we expect out of modern life (say, CAT-scan machines, jet engines, cell phone networks, the computer you're looking at right now, micro-fiber textiles, a jillion other things) that can't be made by mom-and-pop shops. The prevailing (here) knee-jerk reaction against all things made, provided, shipped, serviced or otherwise touched by a group of people who incorporate to do just that is... breathtaking.
Your own example of unions - which in my experience are generally as or more corrupt than the politicians with which they are typically aligned - makes the point. It's not about how "some corporations" are run. It's about how some people run organizations of ALL types. Corrupt charities. Corrupt churches. Corrupt environmental activist organizations dealing in real estate. Corrupt lawyers. Corrupt doctors. Corrupt teachers. The implication that it's corporations, per se, that are the land of Teh Evil, even though there are some OK ones... utter crap. It's people, more specifically, that act that way. And they do it through any number of entities, offices, vehicles, venues, and causes. Choosing to play the Eeevil Corporation card in this context is, actually, a rant in just that direction.
That's right, dammit! What we should have are antibiotics made by the guy down the street, in his basement. Automotive airbags made in Ye Olde Saddle Stitchery across town. Why, if it weren't for Teh Eevil Corporations, we'd be comfortably back to better times. You know, when the guy with the big mustache and the mule-pulled wagon delivered a block to your icebox. That was quaint! And we liked it that way, dad-gummit. Who wants a $20 pre-paid mobile phone with which you can call Portugal while in your underwear out in the woods? Too corporate! It was better when it took 20 weeks for the telegraph guys to finally string up your town, and the guy on the bicycle brought you the wire telling you that your cousin died 20 hours ago... of Polio.
Or do you mean that the government should do all of the R&D and complex manufacturing? That way we could completely avoid the influence of a powerful monopoly, for sure.
No, you're trying to say using someone's wifi is stealing when in fact it isn't.
They're paying for it, you're using it, and you haven't talked to them about it. You're stealing it.
You're trying to get around that fact by splitting hairs over the evolving legal fine points regarding computer and network use when those things happen to come under scutiny in the prosecutorial sense. You're complete avoiding basic ethics because you've got some flimsy - and possibly not well applied - cover. That doesn't change the ethics, not one bit. Someone who is well educated on this subject, and sets up a residential router that they intend for you to use - they're going to lable the node "use_4_free" or something similar. That is, now, a common convention. The absence of such an announcement in the node's name isn't - in real life, be a decent human being terms - any different than the absence of a sign saying "use my water for free" on your well spigot at the end of your driveway. The practical, cultural rules of engagement should apply across the range of the services that a person has purchased for use on their property. That you're digging around for a way to avoid that is quite a mystery to me, actually.
You just can't make yourself say it, can you? Come on, repeat after me: "I should come to an understanding with my neighbor before using his stuff." Is that so hard? Can you not see how that contributes more to a civilized society than, "I should come to an understanding with my neighbor before using his stuff, except for the stuff that's new-fangled, and which it didn't occur to him to prevent me from using, because it wouldn't occur to him that I'd be a leech without asking."
Slashdot Mirror
Does France not have anything along the lines of the 'first sale' doctrine?
No, but they really should have a "first, duck!" rule. Even public displays of their government at work can be very dangerous.
the pubs allow FBI to use business to spy on ALL Americans
The FBI cannot do ANYTHING without the money that the congress specifically budgets for them, often at the program level. They operate under oversight by congressional committees. All of their funds, and the makeup of all of the committee chairs, as well as the entire legislative agenda in both houses, is under the direction of Democrats. Don't like it? Ask them why they DO like it, review it and don't complain, and write checks to continue it.
What's wrong if we let new technologies to augment this ability?
Dammit man, it's not natural! There should be no technology involved, and that includes the cell phone you used to send her text message setting up your first date. And obviously, no medical science allowed. That includes the polio vaccines that allowed either of you to even exist, since it didn't kill your parents. No technology! It's not right!
There we go! There's the flamebait mod from one of the very people I'm talking about. Thanks for being so predictable! Obama is counting on that, too. Excellent work. Now, do as he says, and write a check to Hillary Clinton like he did today, since it's the right thing to do. How can you not like a guy with priorities like that? She agreed to endorse him if he agreed to get her back the money she loaned herself. Party Of Unity, man!
Where did the ice go?
It's now all at the north pole of Mars. What, does nobody read the other articles here?
Why so hard on the Dems?
Because they're the ones that have done so much pandering to their constituency about rolling back security measures, etc. They're the ones that have been screaming the loudest about Teh Evil Repuglicans monitoring overseas calls into the states, etc. With so much of their connection to their closest supporters built around demonizing the administration for something that they, themselves, want to see legal (they just want the option to punish for actions before the status changed), they really look the fools for switching. It's sort a Crying Wolf situation.
Sadly, people on here seem to be ignoring that fact.
Yup, just like they're ignoring is somber promise not to use private campaign funds if McCain did the same, because the public campaign finance system was so important to support. And of course, he's completely lied about that, and is opting for big bucks from private bundlers, and has the gall to say it's really his way of supporting change ("Change We Can Believe In!" - [tm]) in the public financing system. Puh-lease. It's right up there with his often repeated assurances that he'd sit down with hostile dicatators for photo ops without any preconditions... um, not counting all of the preconditions that he's now saying would, of course, be necessary for such a thing.
It isn't just that he's a typical politician... he's far worse, because the ONLY thing he has (had) going for him, since he utterly lacks executive experience and studiously avoids exposure to the foreign policy players and issues that are so important, was his supposed pristine post-partisan ethics. He's been saying, essentially, the despite his lack of any experience, the ONE thing you should keep in mind as a reason to vote for him are his pure, unflappable convictions and character. And he's very handily been demonstrating for months that those are simply not present, or at the very least no more so than in many other politicians... and since the others DO have some experience and a more rational take on the issues about which Obama is thrashing around, you've gotta wonder what people actually think they're voting for with this guy. Other than some vague and pointless racial guilt soothing (another topic on which he's trying very hard to have it both ways).
we have all the guns of some other countries (doesn't Canada have higher gun ownership per capita?) and all the gun education of Japan (who, IIRC, completely bans them). It's that combination that I think is the problem
.22 rifles and target pistols. Learn some trap and skeet shooting. It demystifies it, makes it real. Some will grow to love it and be responsible, and some will shrug their shoulders and walk away. But very few will play imaginary mow-down the same way. People that are damaged goods are damaged goods anyway. Two idiots like the Columbine slime are going to handle this issue themselves anyway. But we can cut down on a lot of the cartoonish over-the-top violence worship if the reality of it were just a little more... real. Besides, venison is WAY better for you than beef.
No, it's worse than that. We have the guns, and we have utter ignorance about the reality of using them. People are growing up with a video-game-level sense of consequence. Every kid should help haul a just-shot deer in from a pickup truck to hang in the garage (yum! venison!). Why? Because there's nothing quite like seeing a big ol' entry and exit wound right through a rib cage of a mammal that's about your size... to really bring home the violence of it. The irreversability of it. The consequence of it. Kids used to grow up with a solid sense of all of that. Now they're clueless... not just about how to safely use them and how to decide not to... but I mean they don't even understand the physics and physiological issues at hand. They like burgers, but never see the meat being harvested. They like mowing down bad guys in a game, and can't extrapolate that to reality.
I recommend junior high school target shooting classes. Start with archery. Move to pellet guns. Plink knock-down targets with
it's worth noting that the cultured, polite people of that time raised the colicky man-children of today
No, they just won WWII, and swore that their own children would have better, easier lives. They didn't anticipate the impact of the Nanny State mentality started by FDR, and gave their kids the benefit of the doubt when it came to forming their own solid world view. Turns out it really helps to have a clear picture of it when you're a little kid, rather than re-discovering it when you're 40.
I find it disturbing that someone would wax nostalgic about assault being a socially acceptable way to deal with public annoyances
So, instead, you find assault by someone ELSE to be acceptable, because they're in a bad mood? Having someone scream at you, throw things, shove people out of their way, physically harass flight attendants, etc... THAT's OK, but laying a hand on them to get them to stop? The horror! Lock those people AWAY for looking to keep civilization civilized without having to call in a public servant, who will arrive in an hour or so. Maybe.
Should I get off your lawn now?
That's your response to a description of a culture that coddles people having angry, violent fits in public? That only unreasonable old people who don't want their property vandalized would also be upset about watching a retail clerk or a flight attendant get abused?
It sounds like empathy isn't one of your strong suits
No, it sounds like YOU are the one with misplaced empathy. You have zero empathy for the 100 people that one loudmouthed, obnoxious jerk can impact when no one stops them from going on some "rage" because they're displeased with the size of their peanut bag, or can't grasp why they shouldn't talk loudly through your $10 movie.
I won't ask you to have some for the parents of said kids
Why? I imagine that some of them - while having been shamed out of ever disciplining their kids - are none the less embarassed by the little punks they've raised. I have a lot of empathy for them, since they're surrounded by teachers, preachers, shrinks, and PBS specials that seek to drown out their commons sense.
_every_ toddler in existence has freaked out in public when it it is least convenient to his/her parents
Yes, and those parents used to grab that kid and march them right out of the movie, or not buy them the ice cream they're screaming about. And where do you draw the line on your use of the word "toddler," anyway? I'm talking about kids as old as 6 or 8 or 10+.
The child is not deliberately trying to offend
No, the child is usually trying to manipulate the parent into a desired action (or cease an undesired action). And parents give in. Big time. As a result, that sense of entitlement sets in very early, and permanently. As does the Drama Queen methodology.
I have been stuck on a transatlantic flight with a colicky infant in the seat behind me
How about a boorish 18 year old loudly repeating over and over (for hours) that Virgin "like, totally SUCKS" for not making her text messaging work while somewhere over the middle of the Atlantic, and throwing a food tray into the aisle when asked if she was done with her meal? I've been stuck with her, too.
barely a day goes by without an incident of air rage
That's because 40 years ago, someone who started pitching a violent and/or profane fit in close quarters where other people had paid for a service (like watching a movie or traveling for a few hours) could reasonably expect a sound thumping from someone willing to shut them up. And no jury in the world would give the person doing the thumping a hard time. Shame used to be a useful tool. There was a time when acting like an ass in public carried with it a certain stigma. Now it's celebrated in the news, and is a point of pride in many a music video. This is simply about bad manners made the norm, and a culture of victimhood-as-virtue that provides cover for every mis-step (including the deliberate variety), and which condems anyone looking to deny someone that cover as being somehow cruel. We've become a coddling culture, and this is the price we pay. It's no mystery. Every one of those screaming kids you see in the grocery store today will become the asshat in seat 30B on your flight to Chicago.
The hippies will type "amuniton" and expect a machine to fix the typo and find it.
The details don't matter. The point is that it takes a village to find the ammunition. And if it turns out that one person is clever enough to do it on their own, without being properly vetted by the village's elites, then that person must be punished in some way, so as to avoid making the other villagers feel bad that they can't do it themselves. It's not that it DOES take a village to do something, see, it's that the village will squash anyone that has the gall to demonstrate the ability to function without the village's bureacracy and permission. Hopefully the village's enemies will be so horrified by the unstoppable monster of centrally dictated collectivism, that they'll run away without a shot being fired. In fact, the village doesn't even have to HAVE an ammunition stash. They should be able to bluff their way through a few generations of rule by a their benign dictatoriship before their enemies realize what a paper tiger they actually are, or the villagers themselves realize they're being cruelly shit on by authoritarian hippies. Nah, that would never happen. I mean, not again, right?
My favorite part was where they showed the bodies of the eBay Power Sellers that had been caught trying to tunnel in. They hand them upside down on big plastic stakes outside (the original Lego Vlad The Impaler kits are very scarce, but they work great).
Or are you trying to use redneck in a different context
I'm defending the rednecks in the sense that they are frequently defined, here. To wit, "people who run farms." Or, "the guy that actually knows how to fix your transmission - which you couldn't do without years of training - but who also likes simple beer instead of Fancy Pants micro-brews." Or, "the person who made it possible for you to have dairy products this week." Or, "anyone from south of the Mason-Dixon Line," etc.
Of course, the term is most often used, here, to mean "white," and "not a Democrat," and "doesn't write software for a living."
That, or somebody said something about his pa
I am my own grandpa.
so the area around it where the gravity would significantly bend the universe would also be quite small, making our painful (but swift) deaths rather unspectacular
I'm sorry, but you're completely forgetting about at least one mitigating factor. There's simply no way the earth can be destroyed, one side effect of which would be my untimely demise. Why? Because I've still got a balance on my Capital One visa card, and they will do anything, including changing the very fabric of space and time, in order to not miss out on that interest money. So, we're safe for a while yet.
*cue redneck throwing a firecracker into the path of the particle stream*
Right, because Yuppie Spawn never do anything foolish, and liberal arts majors are famous for their grasp on the laws of physics. I will check to be sure, but no doubt you're right that there have never been any sophisticated, urbane New Englanders who - through idiocy and a lack of understanding the consequences of how they're handling a physical object, like, say, an automobile - have every run into any trouble that way. Only 'rednecks.' Well, and Ted Kennedy, of course. But he only killed someone, and that's different.
But water as a source of fuel? Even if they did have tokamak fusion reactors that worked, they have to be light enough to send to Mars. Arrgh.
Think in terms of setting up solar-powered cracking units to break out H and O2. Then you use fuel cells or combust it in other ways. Mr. Fusion is not needed.
He believed that it would not just revolutionize automaking but help bring about a wholesale reordering of modern life
It was the Segway that actually changed civilization.
It means we finally have a suitable accompaniment for Martian scotch.
Please call it by its proper name, would you?
Martch.
No big deal. My main concern is that folks here - who focus on the technicalities of both how things work and of what might be possible - often lose sight of the fact that most real-life technology users are just Average Joes. It seems VERY important to me that we (the nerdocracy) err on the side of NOT seeming to ever favor habits or cultural trends that would come across to Average Joe as just simply bad manners (to say nothing of ripping them off). Why? Because they vote, and don't generally see the big picture or the future. And when they sense that smartass nerd types are just looking to pull one over on them (from their perspective), then tend to not feel so bad about supporting sometimes absurd policies that actually ARE bad for everybody. Good manners - even the point of inconveniencing nerds - make the world ultimately the sort of place where smart and nerdly people will have more sway over how things are done.
What kind of a pervert gets his kicks calling Portugal while standing in his underwear in the woods?
The point is that modern corporate-made mobile phones allow him to be in the woods while he does that, instead of at the payphone outside the beauty parlor on Main Street.
His argument wasn't against corporations or large corporations but rather against how many are run.
... However, the most powerful companies do
... utter crap. It's people, more specifically, that act that way. And they do it through any number of entities, offices, vehicles, venues, and causes. Choosing to play the Eeevil Corporation card in this context is, actually, a rant in just that direction.
It was implied. My examples (medicine, transportation, communication) were specifically chosen to fit his language:
most companies don't choose to engage in those ruthless tactics
He's being deliberately vague about what he means by that, but is of course saying it in the context of a conversation about big tech companies, and in an environment (slashdot) where the atmosphere is, without fail, anti-corporate (rhetorically... but not when they want WoW-friendly CPUs, cheap beer, refridgerators, powerful cancer drugs, $20 USB WiFi cards, and the rest).
anti-union methods
Yes, and even some unions serve a function without being completely tangled up in organized crime, syphoning money from workers and spending it on bribes and on political campaigns without their direct permission, extorting completely out-of-line raises for local government employees out of city and county councils, etc. Shall we go on?
There are things we expect out of modern life (say, CAT-scan machines, jet engines, cell phone networks, the computer you're looking at right now, micro-fiber textiles, a jillion other things) that can't be made by mom-and-pop shops. The prevailing (here) knee-jerk reaction against all things made, provided, shipped, serviced or otherwise touched by a group of people who incorporate to do just that is... breathtaking.
Your own example of unions - which in my experience are generally as or more corrupt than the politicians with which they are typically aligned - makes the point. It's not about how "some corporations" are run. It's about how some people run organizations of ALL types. Corrupt charities. Corrupt churches. Corrupt environmental activist organizations dealing in real estate. Corrupt lawyers. Corrupt doctors. Corrupt teachers. The implication that it's corporations, per se, that are the land of Teh Evil, even though there are some OK ones
And we get what we deserve
That's right, dammit! What we should have are antibiotics made by the guy down the street, in his basement. Automotive airbags made in Ye Olde Saddle Stitchery across town. Why, if it weren't for Teh Eevil Corporations, we'd be comfortably back to better times. You know, when the guy with the big mustache and the mule-pulled wagon delivered a block to your icebox. That was quaint! And we liked it that way, dad-gummit. Who wants a $20 pre-paid mobile phone with which you can call Portugal while in your underwear out in the woods? Too corporate! It was better when it took 20 weeks for the telegraph guys to finally string up your town, and the guy on the bicycle brought you the wire telling you that your cousin died 20 hours ago... of Polio.
Or do you mean that the government should do all of the R&D and complex manufacturing? That way we could completely avoid the influence of a powerful monopoly, for sure.
No, you're trying to say using someone's wifi is stealing when in fact it isn't.
They're paying for it, you're using it, and you haven't talked to them about it. You're stealing it.
You're trying to get around that fact by splitting hairs over the evolving legal fine points regarding computer and network use when those things happen to come under scutiny in the prosecutorial sense. You're complete avoiding basic ethics because you've got some flimsy - and possibly not well applied - cover. That doesn't change the ethics, not one bit. Someone who is well educated on this subject, and sets up a residential router that they intend for you to use - they're going to lable the node "use_4_free" or something similar. That is, now, a common convention. The absence of such an announcement in the node's name isn't - in real life, be a decent human being terms - any different than the absence of a sign saying "use my water for free" on your well spigot at the end of your driveway. The practical, cultural rules of engagement should apply across the range of the services that a person has purchased for use on their property. That you're digging around for a way to avoid that is quite a mystery to me, actually.
You just can't make yourself say it, can you? Come on, repeat after me: "I should come to an understanding with my neighbor before using his stuff." Is that so hard? Can you not see how that contributes more to a civilized society than, "I should come to an understanding with my neighbor before using his stuff, except for the stuff that's new-fangled, and which it didn't occur to him to prevent me from using, because it wouldn't occur to him that I'd be a leech without asking."