I've always wondered why Republican political figures such as Bush don't just tell the bible-pounders to go pound sand. It's not as if they're going to vote Democratic just to spite the administration, right?
It's tempting to think that way, but the Perot people did a lot of damage to Bush Sr., and I don't think you can deny that Nader kept Gore out of the White House. A lot of those bible-pounders would happily vote for a third-party, Pat Robertson type of guy. For all their faults those GOP strategists are smart to view those third parties as a threat.
Before you start complaining about religious fanatics like me trying to force their beliefs on others, please observe that I am forcing nothing on you. I don't even think it is always the goverment's right to regulate or ban controversial research, but if nothing else, I think abortion should be banned on the grounds that an embryo is a human being deserving of the same rights granted to other human beings. And yes, I know I'm wasting my time posting this here, but you did ask. I would prefer to discuss these issues intelligently, rather than argue endlessly about them.
I wouldn't have asked the question if I had already decided you were a fanatic, and I'm certainly not the sort to whine about people forcing stuff on me. It seems to me you're being a little passive-aggressive here.
You're right about the uselessness of arguing about the moral status of embryonic tissue. It's extraordinarily rare that someone's mind will be changed in such an argument. My question was more to determine consistency wrt the use of embryos, if you see what I mean.
I agree, and I also feel sorry for the the countless people (or "embryos," if you prefer) who have been killed and will continue to be killed in the process of researching this stuff. The end does not justify the means.
So you're opposed to in vitro fertilization, too? Or are you just opposed to using the embryos for something useful, rather than flushing them?
I almost died from exposure less than 20 miles from home (snowstorm, -15 degrees F, freezing rain, and a flat tire), and I live in fucking Ohio, the dullest place on earth. In a major city, too, not the boonies. Fortunately, I had a heavy blanket and a good spare tire in the car. After getting it changed, I drove straight to the hospital to be treated for frostbite. Not another vehicle ever drove by; if I'd waited for a total stranger I'd likely be dead.
I live in Ohio too. Had to walk to class from off-campus once at 6am when the temperature was -25 degrees F. OSU cancelled classes the NEXT day, when the temperature was only -20. Which is all to say, I understand entirely the irony of almost getting frostbite walking down a city street. (my ears were a bit hot and swollen but otherwise I was just fine, I jogged it with my hands over my ears to keep warm)
So, anyway, I'm curious how you got hypothermia. Was there something in the terrain that made changing the tire particularly difficult, or did you have a fuel situation that prevented you from leaving the engine running? Were you not dressed warmly? Just trying to understand, since it seems like every step in the process of changing the tire can be divided down into 2 minute bundles of work, with time inside the car to warm up.
I'm not trying to diminish Jon Johanson's achievements, I'm only trying to establish how this is remotely worthy of inclusion in this forum. No doubt that's enough to get me modded down as flamebait.
If only the "woe is me, I'm going to get modded down" line were enough to get people modded down. Blah.
The point is, the UN has declared, by it's own magic spell that it can regulate speech in sovereign countries and can "arrest" and imprision people under such magical authority.
Really? When did they say that? Post a link, I'd like to read about that.
The UN has no LEGAL authority to make laws ANYWHERE ON EARTH and has no LEGAL authority to "enforce" or impose "laws" or restrictions on anyone, anywhere, under any conditions for any reason.
All that quotation and capitalization isn't going to suddenly make what you're saying true.
Moral of the story? if a company wants to help your effort... do NOT accept their help, they cant be trusted as when the changing of the leadership will assume they own you.
Bah.
The moral of the story is that the terms of any business agreement, whether for profit or not, ought to be put in writing. Which is so obvious that it shouldn't need to be said.
Can you really not muster enough concern for your fellow man to cut him a break for something that only happens (for most people) once, or maybe twice in a lifetime?
It's silly, dumb, or just plain intellectually dishonest to pretend that the "guy waiting to hear about his pregnant wife" type of extreme case is in any way representative of the "assholes who bother others with cellphones" population. And it's easy to tell that these calls are not the norm, too, since the assholes in question will invariably share the contents of their conversation with all those around them.
What happens if I'm at a movie or at school when she goes into labour? Not only would she be royally pissed off once I actually got out of the movie/class (some classes are 3 hours long), but what happens if something went wrong?
Wow! It makes you wonder how society managed to cope with pregnancies for thousands of years WITHOUT cell phones. Good point!
The great thing about PhDs is that they're typically smart enough to make their phones buzz rather than ring. Apparently it takes a PhD, which is fucking sad.
Keep in mind, under a parlimentary system you have a few advantages, since most of the incentives for gerrymandering simply don't exist.
Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't your MPs simply assigned to districts proportionally based on the nationwide vote tally? The incentives for "packing," "cracking," and "kidnapping" simply don't exist for you guys. From the article:
The Republicans in Harrisburg used venerable techniques in redistricting, like "packing," "cracking," and "kidnapping." Packing concentrates one group's voters in the fewest possible districts, so they cannot influence the outcome of races in others; cracking divides a group's voters into other districts, where they will be ineffective minorities; and kidnapping places two incumbents from the same party in the same district.
Once again, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't see any major reason why gerrymandering would be much a problem for you guys.
'You may have missed the inference I made that the companies that provide the archives in the first place have a vested interest in maintaining an index of these things, that's what their service really is.'
How do you get from there to asserting that all data will exist forever in digital storage? It's the "EVERY LAST THOUGHT ever written will be stored for the rest of time" thing that I found objectionable, since it's obviously fantasy.
I think you repeated what I said?? You may have missed the inference I made that the companies that provide the archives in the first place have a vested interest in maintaining an index of these things, that's what their service really is.
Well, no. You said "we're at a point in data capacity/cost where EVERY LAST THOUGHT ever written will be stored for the rest of time." Perhaps you meant to say "we're at a point in data capacity/cost where EVERY LAST THOUGHT ever written will be stored for the rest of time, as long as there is an obviously compelling fiscal reason to do so." The distinction is important.
I agree, except, I think we're at a point in data capacity/cost where EVERY LAST THOUGHT ever written will be stored for the rest of time. So even the seldom accessed obscure journals will be available.
That seems highly unlikely. We're at the point where we can store just about everything, if there is someone who wants to pay for storing it, and more importantly pay to maintain the index of where the information is stashed away. The storage space is (or soon will be) so cheap it can be considered free, everything else costs.
Among professionals with master's degrees or better, I feel fairly safe in saying that public librarians earn among the lowest wages (this based on what I know of public library salary structures.) And their jobs are growing more complex all the time.
Teachers are in pretty much the same situation. Of course, with education we've found a brilliant solution: require fewer master's degrees among teachers and reward those with master's degrees less. The effect this has on the constitution and overall quality of the new teacher community has been... predictable.:(
It still boggles my mind that Amazon refuses to do the Right Thing while searching for authors -- if I click on the "William Gibson" link while looking at, say, Neuromancer [amazon.com] (not an affiliate link, don't worry), I end up at a search page [amazon.com] that shows me not only books by William Gibson the sci-fi author, but Lord of the Flies [amazon.com] (which was written by by William Golding and illustrated by Ben Gibson), and books about William Shakespear written by someone with Gibson somewhere in the name, and all sorts of outrageous results that no respectable librarian would be caught dead with. But I digress.
Of course, on the bright side, Amazon's web page won't yell at you for not putting the last name first and separating them with a comma.:)
Slashdot Mirror
I hate campers, I honestly do.
Ouch. Way to miss the point!
It's tempting to think that way, but the Perot people did a lot of damage to Bush Sr., and I don't think you can deny that Nader kept Gore out of the White House. A lot of those bible-pounders would happily vote for a third-party, Pat Robertson type of guy. For all their faults those GOP strategists are smart to view those third parties as a threat.
I wouldn't have asked the question if I had already decided you were a fanatic, and I'm certainly not the sort to whine about people forcing stuff on me. It seems to me you're being a little passive-aggressive here.
You're right about the uselessness of arguing about the moral status of embryonic tissue. It's extraordinarily rare that someone's mind will be changed in such an argument. My question was more to determine consistency wrt the use of embryos, if you see what I mean.
What if the process is only used for cloning embryos for research purposes, with actual births remaining outlawed?
So you're opposed to in vitro fertilization, too? Or are you just opposed to using the embryos for something useful, rather than flushing them?
I live in Ohio too. Had to walk to class from off-campus once at 6am when the temperature was -25 degrees F. OSU cancelled classes the NEXT day, when the temperature was only -20. Which is all to say, I understand entirely the irony of almost getting frostbite walking down a city street. (my ears were a bit hot and swollen but otherwise I was just fine, I jogged it with my hands over my ears to keep warm)
So, anyway, I'm curious how you got hypothermia. Was there something in the terrain that made changing the tire particularly difficult, or did you have a fuel situation that prevented you from leaving the engine running? Were you not dressed warmly? Just trying to understand, since it seems like every step in the process of changing the tire can be divided down into 2 minute bundles of work, with time inside the car to warm up.
If only the "woe is me, I'm going to get modded down" line were enough to get people modded down. Blah.
They have their own TCP/IP network. All they would really need to do is establish their own root name servers.
ext2 has been around since early 1993:
http://web.mit.edu/tytso/www/linux/ext2int
XFS has been around on IRIX since late 1994:
http://www.ncsysadmin.org/files/xfs_linux.
Nice try, thanks for playing. Maybe you'd like a copy of our home game?
Really? When did they say that? Post a link, I'd like to read about that.
All that quotation and capitalization isn't going to suddenly make what you're saying true.
Not for as many years as ext2 has been in use.
Bah.
The moral of the story is that the terms of any business agreement, whether for profit or not, ought to be put in writing. Which is so obvious that it shouldn't need to be said.
Wow! If that's your definition of a serious poverty problem we'd better get to work fixing America, too.
It's silly, dumb, or just plain intellectually dishonest to pretend that the "guy waiting to hear about his pregnant wife" type of extreme case is in any way representative of the "assholes who bother others with cellphones" population. And it's easy to tell that these calls are not the norm, too, since the assholes in question will invariably share the contents of their conversation with all those around them.
Wow! It makes you wonder how society managed to cope with pregnancies for thousands of years WITHOUT cell phones. Good point!
The great thing about PhDs is that they're typically smart enough to make their phones buzz rather than ring. Apparently it takes a PhD, which is fucking sad.
"Professional administrators are upset about the labor involved in their Linux administration quadrupling." There, fixed that for you.
Keep in mind, under a parlimentary system you have a few advantages, since most of the incentives for gerrymandering simply don't exist.
Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't your MPs simply assigned to districts proportionally based on the nationwide vote tally? The incentives for "packing," "cracking," and "kidnapping" simply don't exist for you guys. From the article:
The Republicans in Harrisburg used venerable techniques in redistricting, like "packing," "cracking," and "kidnapping." Packing concentrates one group's voters in the fewest possible districts, so they cannot influence the outcome of races in others; cracking divides a group's voters into other districts, where they will be ineffective minorities; and kidnapping places two incumbents from the same party in the same district.
Once again, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't see any major reason why gerrymandering would be much a problem for you guys.
How do you get from there to asserting that all data will exist forever in digital storage? It's the "EVERY LAST THOUGHT ever written will be stored for the rest of time" thing that I found objectionable, since it's obviously fantasy.
"I imply, you infer, you idiot!"
Well, no. You said "we're at a point in data capacity/cost where EVERY LAST THOUGHT ever written will be stored for the rest of time." Perhaps you meant to say "we're at a point in data capacity/cost where EVERY LAST THOUGHT ever written will be stored for the rest of time, as long as there is an obviously compelling fiscal reason to do so." The distinction is important.
And their officers will be prosecuted... when?
That seems highly unlikely. We're at the point where we can store just about everything, if there is someone who wants to pay for storing it, and more importantly pay to maintain the index of where the information is stashed away. The storage space is (or soon will be) so cheap it can be considered free, everything else costs.
Teachers are in pretty much the same situation. Of course, with education we've found a brilliant solution: require fewer master's degrees among teachers and reward those with master's degrees less. The effect this has on the constitution and overall quality of the new teacher community has been... predictable.
Of course, on the bright side, Amazon's web page won't yell at you for not putting the last name first and separating them with a comma.