None of your three examples is logical. The first is what's called an aphorism, and it's misquoted. It's probably true that the needs of the many outnumber the needs of the few -- but do they necessarily *outweigh* those needs? It's debatable and not something that can be demonstrated with logic because of the subjective nature of "outweigh" in this context.
The second, while essentially true, is just a rhetorical observation, not logic. Like saying if you killed Hitler as a child, millions of holocaust victims would not have perished. Possibly, but so what of these hypotheticals? It isn't the product of a syllogism. Yeah, I could construct a syllogism that "proves" it, but one or both of the premises would be dubious.
Of course the third is rhetoric that is even more subjective than the second.
Putting all these things together, it's logical to do truly horrific things in the name of science and the betterment of humanity.
No, it isn't. You've got a pretty perverse notion of logic if you believe it is. But I suspect you know what logic is, since your argument is an obvious straw man.
The fake electric shock test, for instance, explains a lot how far people (even scientists) are willing to go if authority says it's okay (NB: authority might not be a person. It could also be a societal norm, corporate culture, political or other affiliation or religion).
You seem on the one hand to be defending authoritarian religion but then you cite this experiment as if it helps your case?
The ACLU wants voters to be able to have their votes *validated*, not *counted*, locally. If they have an invalid ballot then they would have an opportunity to fix it before it is sent for counting. The first time this story ran (yes, it's a dupe) there was mention that the system being implemented may violate state law, which would explain why this is being pursued in Ohio.
BTW I like the Oregon system. I live in California but I registered for permanent absentee voter status several years ago (at least some counties here allow you to do that). You don't have to show you'll be absent on election day to get an absentee ballot, and the polls will accept your absentee ballot if you deliver it in person (which I usually do).
As it happens, the effectiveness of intelligence against terrorists can be measured objectively by simply enumerating the terrorists caught
Sounds like the sort of thing that would give government an incentive to capture a bunch of people and lock them up without holding trials, counting them all as terrorists. Good thing we have something called habeas corpus, so that can never happen here.
Maybe they do accurately record every transaction, but they are crappy machines. My bank's old ATMs were fast, dispensing cash and receipts swiftly. Now they've recently downgraded to Diebold machines, which:
* feature a comically gigantic keypad, making it harder to conceal your PIN as you enter it
* occasionally fail to debounce button pushes
* take ten to twenty seconds to count out and dispense a couple hundred dollars in twenties
* take five to ten seconds to print a receipt
* emit loud and annoying beeping sounds every few seconds while you wait (last time I was there, someone was two machines away from me, and their ATM was emitting the same sound but in a slightly different key, and about a half-second apart from mine -- making it really, really annoying).
I normally don't respond to ACs, but you've got a crucial fact completely wrong so a correction is necessary: Nixon was never impeached. He resigned to avoid impeachment. And he certainly wasn't convicted of anything. Ford made sure of that with his pardon.
I could certainly see Bush giving a similar blanket pardon to Cheney and/or other officials just before leaving office.
GP: "It will be effectively impossible for anyone to debunk the research if it is genuinely good, because that's how science works."
Parent: No, that's how it should work.
Parent: Gathering funding and peer approbation is a vital and time consuming part of research, unless you want to perform your research in your garage living on welfare.
Er...Getting funding might be an obstacle to getting genuinely good research, but once you have genuinely good research, how would anyone give it a genuine debunking? The key here is that the EPA claims to have supporting information (so funding is not an issue) but won't show it.
What GP is saying (in the context of this discussion) is that, if the EPA has scientists with genuine research supporting their position, then making that research visible will not open it to debunking. It will open it to peer review and to public review. Apparently, the EPA fears that, if that happens, their information will be debunked, which means it was never good in the first place.
And like GP, I'm having a hard time seeing any other motive for invoking executive privilege, of all things.
Jerry: I thought the whole dream of dating a doctor was debunked. Elaine: No, it's not debunked, it's totally bunk. Jerry: Isn't bunk bad? Like, that's a lot of bunk. George: No something is bunk and then you debunk it. Jerry: What? Elaine: Huh? George: I think. (Pause as they all look down)
I'd have to go back and look at my records from the time. I know it wasn't $1000, because I never spent that much for any piece of home entertainment equipment (until I bought a widescreen TV two or three years ago). Also, I might be a little off on the time frame. I can remember buying a VA Linux computer with DVD-RAM drive at about the same time, though -- which puts it before June, 2001 (when they went out of the hardware business).
I bought one years ago, and it made sense at the time. I wanted DVR functionality but didn't want to buy into Tivo's subscription model. And, I didn't yet have even a DVD player, so this gave me both functions in one unit. This was around the year 2000, I think. I don't remember the price, except that it was well below a thousand bucks -- maybe in the $500 neighborhood.
I had no complaints about it for several years. It beat the hell out of videotape for convenience (no rewinding), and recording quality was good, too. But of course I could only record one program at a time. I structured my viewing schedule around those limitations -- I'd have to watch certain shows live. And with only a few hours recording time (I can't remember how many exactly), I'd still have to shuffle media around once the backlog exceeded the limit.
I never used it for archiving. I reused the same DVD-RAM disk maybe hundreds of times, with one or two spares to handle the excess.
For the past couple of years I've had a cable box with built-in DVR, so I can watch one recorded show while recording two others -- and I rarely watch anything live anymore except for sports events and occasional channel surfing. I don't use the recording function of my DVD recorder anymore, but I still use the same unit to watch DVDs.
So while it made sense (for me) in 2000, it would be pointless to buy one today.
Wait a second; you were responding to this comment: Even magazines doing reviews of vehicles need the permission of the maker.
Cars aren't copyrighted. The mention of a car in a review of that car has nothing to do with controlling the car's "use and dissemination".
While there is a concept of fair us in trademark law, which does apply here, you won't find it in a section of the civil code that deals with copyrights.
If I was wrong then please treat my post as if I had first told the poster that he was wrong to ascribe those things to trademark law and then gone on to tell him that he was also wrong under copyright.;-)
If I parsed that request correctly, there's no need to tell the poster that he's wrong under copyright because I can't see any way that he could have been talking about copyright. You just needed to point out that he was wrong under trademark law, because there is a distinct fair use doctrine for trademarks.
That is incorrect. Chapter 17, section 107 of the United States code clearly states that "the fair use of a copyrighted work... for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright."
Where does the term "trademark" appear in that text?
While I think there is plenty of precedent for allowing the use of trademarks in journalism and in works of art (and therefore GP is wrong), I don't think the code you cited applies here.
All federal budgets originate in the House. The President can request whatever he wants to, but the House can create a budget that has no resemblance to such requests. The only power the Constitution gives the President in this process is the veto power.
No, I understood that point entirely. I'm just saying you don't need to consider surface area at all. It might not even be helpful to do so, because it isn't merely the rate of photosynthesis that matters. In addition to photosynthesis, plants also consume oxygen and produce carbon dioxide in order to produce energy (for cell reproduction and whatever else plants do). Unless you know how much of the photosynthesis is offset by respiration, you can't conclude that greater surface area means more carbon will be sequestered. The end result, though, can be seen in the mass of the plants. So trees sequester more carbon than grasses because they are more massive, not because of surface area.
If that's true, then neither should "reinvents". They're both verbs. I don't have a style manual handy, but I think verbs should always be capitalized in titles. Besides, in the case of acronyms, people routinely choose the letters to suit their own needs, regardless of any style guidelines.
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Seems like a logical conclusion for the individual mandate crowd.
None of your three examples is logical. The first is what's called an aphorism, and it's misquoted. It's probably true that the needs of the many outnumber the needs of the few -- but do they necessarily *outweigh* those needs? It's debatable and not something that can be demonstrated with logic because of the subjective nature of "outweigh" in this context.
The second, while essentially true, is just a rhetorical observation, not logic. Like saying if you killed Hitler as a child, millions of holocaust victims would not have perished. Possibly, but so what of these hypotheticals? It isn't the product of a syllogism. Yeah, I could construct a syllogism that "proves" it, but one or both of the premises would be dubious.
Of course the third is rhetoric that is even more subjective than the second.
Putting all these things together, it's logical to do truly horrific things in the name of science and the betterment of humanity.
No, it isn't. You've got a pretty perverse notion of logic if you believe it is. But I suspect you know what logic is, since your argument is an obvious straw man.
The fake electric shock test, for instance, explains a lot how far people (even scientists) are willing to go if authority says it's okay (NB: authority might not be a person. It could also be a societal norm, corporate culture, political or other affiliation or religion).
You seem on the one hand to be defending authoritarian religion but then you cite this experiment as if it helps your case?
The ACLU wants voters to be able to have their votes *validated*, not *counted*, locally. If they have an invalid ballot then they would have an opportunity to fix it before it is sent for counting. The first time this story ran (yes, it's a dupe) there was mention that the system being implemented may violate state law, which would explain why this is being pursued in Ohio.
BTW I like the Oregon system. I live in California but I registered for permanent absentee voter status several years ago (at least some counties here allow you to do that). You don't have to show you'll be absent on election day to get an absentee ballot, and the polls will accept your absentee ballot if you deliver it in person (which I usually do).
As it happens, the effectiveness of intelligence against terrorists can be measured objectively by simply enumerating the terrorists caught
Sounds like the sort of thing that would give government an incentive to capture a bunch of people and lock them up without holding trials, counting them all as terrorists. Good thing we have something called habeas corpus, so that can never happen here.
Oh, wait...
you are reading the law ten years back: Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988
2008 - 1988 != 10
License fees are not written into patents. They are negotiated independently.
"Everything you know is wrong" -- also the title of a very funny Firesign Theatre album.
Maybe they do accurately record every transaction, but they are crappy machines. My bank's old ATMs were fast, dispensing cash and receipts swiftly. Now they've recently downgraded to Diebold machines, which:
* feature a comically gigantic keypad, making it harder to conceal your PIN as you enter it
* occasionally fail to debounce button pushes
* take ten to twenty seconds to count out and dispense a couple hundred dollars in twenties
* take five to ten seconds to print a receipt
* emit loud and annoying beeping sounds every few seconds while you wait (last time I was there, someone was two machines away from me, and their ATM was emitting the same sound but in a slightly different key, and about a half-second apart from mine -- making it really, really annoying).
OK, I'm done venting now.
I normally don't respond to ACs, but you've got a crucial fact completely wrong so a correction is necessary: Nixon was never impeached. He resigned to avoid impeachment. And he certainly wasn't convicted of anything. Ford made sure of that with his pardon.
I could certainly see Bush giving a similar blanket pardon to Cheney and/or other officials just before leaving office.
Are you sure about that?
GP: "It will be effectively impossible for anyone to debunk the research if it is genuinely good, because that's how science works."
Parent: No, that's how it should work.
Parent: Gathering funding and peer approbation is a vital and time consuming part of research, unless you want to perform your research in your garage living on welfare.
Er...Getting funding might be an obstacle to getting genuinely good research, but once you have genuinely good research, how would anyone give it a genuine debunking? The key here is that the EPA claims to have supporting information (so funding is not an issue) but won't show it.
What GP is saying (in the context of this discussion) is that, if the EPA has scientists with genuine research supporting their position, then making that research visible will not open it to debunking. It will open it to peer review and to public review. Apparently, the EPA fears that, if that happens, their information will be debunked, which means it was never good in the first place.
And like GP, I'm having a hard time seeing any other motive for invoking executive privilege, of all things.
Thus prompting an obligatory Seinfeld post:
Jerry: I thought the whole dream of dating a doctor was debunked.
Elaine: No, it's not debunked, it's totally bunk.
Jerry: Isn't bunk bad? Like, that's a lot of bunk.
George: No something is bunk and then you debunk it.
Jerry: What?
Elaine: Huh?
George: I think. (Pause as they all look down)
I'd have to go back and look at my records from the time. I know it wasn't $1000, because I never spent that much for any piece of home entertainment equipment (until I bought a widescreen TV two or three years ago). Also, I might be a little off on the time frame. I can remember buying a VA Linux computer with DVD-RAM drive at about the same time, though -- which puts it before June, 2001 (when they went out of the hardware business).
I bought one years ago, and it made sense at the time. I wanted DVR functionality but didn't want to buy into Tivo's subscription model. And, I didn't yet have even a DVD player, so this gave me both functions in one unit. This was around the year 2000, I think. I don't remember the price, except that it was well below a thousand bucks -- maybe in the $500 neighborhood.
I had no complaints about it for several years. It beat the hell out of videotape for convenience (no rewinding), and recording quality was good, too. But of course I could only record one program at a time. I structured my viewing schedule around those limitations -- I'd have to watch certain shows live. And with only a few hours recording time (I can't remember how many exactly), I'd still have to shuffle media around once the backlog exceeded the limit.
I never used it for archiving. I reused the same DVD-RAM disk maybe hundreds of times, with one or two spares to handle the excess.
For the past couple of years I've had a cable box with built-in DVR, so I can watch one recorded show while recording two others -- and I rarely watch anything live anymore except for sports events and occasional channel surfing. I don't use the recording function of my DVD recorder anymore, but I still use the same unit to watch DVDs.
So while it made sense (for me) in 2000, it would be pointless to buy one today.
GP didn't say it was a narrowband modem. Could be a cable or DSL modem. Most everybody with a computer has a modem these days.
Perhaps he means one of the 1s is used to represent the square root of -1. Maybe in some weird notation used for complex arithmetic.
Wait a second; you were responding to this comment: Even magazines doing reviews of vehicles need the permission of the maker.
;-)
Cars aren't copyrighted. The mention of a car in a review of that car has nothing to do with controlling the car's "use and dissemination".
While there is a concept of fair us in trademark law, which does apply here, you won't find it in a section of the civil code that deals with copyrights.
If I was wrong then please treat my post as if I had first told the poster that he was wrong to ascribe those things to trademark law and then gone on to tell him that he was also wrong under copyright.
If I parsed that request correctly, there's no need to tell the poster that he's wrong under copyright because I can't see any way that he could have been talking about copyright. You just needed to point out that he was wrong under trademark law, because there is a distinct fair use doctrine for trademarks.
Exactly. What press credentials get you is *access*, not the right to publish (which belongs to everybody).
That is incorrect. Chapter 17, section 107 of the United States code clearly states that "the fair use of a copyrighted work... for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright."
Where does the term "trademark" appear in that text?
While I think there is plenty of precedent for allowing the use of trademarks in journalism and in works of art (and therefore GP is wrong), I don't think the code you cited applies here.
All federal budgets originate in the House. The President can request whatever he wants to, but the House can create a budget that has no resemblance to such requests. The only power the Constitution gives the President in this process is the veto power.
Should have been evident from context that GP was talking about a Dyson vacuum cleaner, not a Dyson Sphere.
There are only three possibilities.
1. All species that exist today have always existed. This would only be compatible with a steady-state cosmology.
2. Complex species appeared suddenly (with no predecessors). Observe as long as you wish, you will never see this happen.
3. Single-celled species appeared at some point in the past, and complex species evolved from those.
Guess which option I'd put my money on.
No, I understood that point entirely. I'm just saying you don't need to consider surface area at all. It might not even be helpful to do so, because it isn't merely the rate of photosynthesis that matters. In addition to photosynthesis, plants also consume oxygen and produce carbon dioxide in order to produce energy (for cell reproduction and whatever else plants do). Unless you know how much of the photosynthesis is offset by respiration, you can't conclude that greater surface area means more carbon will be sequestered. The end result, though, can be seen in the mass of the plants. So trees sequester more carbon than grasses because they are more massive, not because of surface area.
("Is" shouldn't be capitalized...)
If that's true, then neither should "reinvents". They're both verbs. I don't have a style manual handy, but I think verbs should always be capitalized in titles. Besides, in the case of acronyms, people routinely choose the letters to suit their own needs, regardless of any style guidelines.
Then the energy stored inside the thing would have infinite mass, so we'd all be dead anyway.