I'm all for soaking the rich. (Well, for a sharply progressive income tax.) But a lot of the super rich have worked very, very hard and continue to do so. Even Paris Hilton, who fits in some ways the cliche of an "idle heiress," works very aggressively to build her brand and maintain her businesses.
What I think the real irony of libertarianism is that they don't see how it is the classes that they think would benefit the most from a libertarian system - the middle and upper-middle classes - who are far more aggressive about protecting the state than the lower classes are. The state doesn't exist because it gives some entitlements to the poor: it exists because it creates a stable platform for the prospering of the middle classes.
The GP - which is probably a troll - does betray the kind of thinking that has become dangerously infectious in the US today: utter partisanship. They think that you must either be a loyal defender of a thing, or its relentless enemy. We see it too often in politics (and yes, it's an American thing, at least to the extent you see in political blogs.)
MS is probably doing something dodgy here, something that should set off anti-trust alarms. It's just too convenient that their biggest rival happens to get caught in the filter. But I've been critiqued as being a Microsoft apologist for, for example, saying good things about Office.
I think we need to stop making an easy distinction between physiological and psychological addictions. Everything psychological is physiological. Especially when affect is involved: as soon as you have emotions, you're not talking about simple activation of neurons: you're talking about the endocrine system and a lot of other very not-neuronal stuff.
Oh, incidentally: heroin withdrawal, while it can be very uncomfortable, can't really kill you. Methadone withdrawal (as well as barbituare, alcohol, valium and xanax withdrawal) all can, however.
To say that "people are stupid en masse" in this case misses the point. People don't make decisions "en masse" unless organized under some form of leadership. They make decisions individually, and the aggregate effects of those decisions have the consequences you describe.
Were those individual decisions stupid? Not necessarily.
There is a lot of self-diagnosis going around in this thread. Your son is the only one I'm fairly sure really does have an autism spectrum disorder of any sort.
It really needs to be put out there: Asperger's is not a blanket diagnosis for all forms of geekiness and social dysfunction. Even though it is a high-functioning form of autism, it is still autism.
Geeky misfits who self-diagnose as AS do neither themselves nor people who really have AS any favors. It's become a trendy "disease", like so many of the past couple of decades, used to give a diagnostic twist to what really is just old-fashioned personality difference in most of the cases of self-diagnosis.
You are correct: T-Mobile supports (even if informally, and not just passively: their help desk emailed me the docs) tethering for other phones, including my ancient Nokia 6086.
I've long been a happy T-Mobile customer, because their customer service has always been helpful and relatively flexible, but this whole debacle with the G1 is ridiculous. While the G1 is still more open than the iPhone, this is still unacceptable to me. Figure out how much it will cost you to provide tethering to the market at a price-point that reflects the availability of bandwidth, and do it, people: it's not that hard.
When asked about what T-Mobile's reaction would be to users creating tethering or unlocking apps for the phone, he was surprisingly even-keeled, noting that while the company didn't encourage the practice, they wouldn't lock down the OS or update the software to break those applications. Our impression was that as long as their use was relegated to a small percentage of owners, T-Mobile likely wouldn't take action, though he did voice concerns over tethering apps and their effect on the network, with a clearly guarded eye to letting users have free reign.
While I use WiFi Tether myself, it should be noted that the above alternatives require that one get root access to the phone (equivalent to jailbreaking - in some sense, more dramatic in that you're actually installing a different build of android.) That is not a straightforward proposition for most people, and there are a couple steps involved that, if done wrong, could brick the phone.
pdaNet has its limitations, but it doesn't require root access to the phone or other radical measures.
Look, people say "Germany invaded France in 1941," "The Brazilians have won the World Cup," "the Japanese like raw fish," "Greeks dislike Turkey" etc. all the time, without batting an eye. But when someone makes a categorical claim that includes you, you have a conniption fit? Sorry, get over it. Unless they say "each and every American, bar none, criticizes fundamentalism in Muslim countries, but.." your complaint is an empty one.
It hasn't been made impossible, but it has been made harder. But not because of anything being done by the TSA.
Bruce Schneier correctly named the two post-9/11 changes that matter. The first is reinforced, locking doors to the cockpit. The second is the change in passenger behavior. These two elements make the task for a would-be terrorist all the more difficult. Everything else is theater.
A lot of the people who are in the US military - about 40,000 - aren't even US citizens. Clearly, they aren't motivated by patriotism (at least not patriotism of their home nations.) They are serving another country with the hopes of joining it, because they are desperate to become US residents.
The people who are being targeted in inner city recruitment centers consider the Army because they lack a lot of other options.
This is about the enlisted ranks: officer commissions are a different matter entirely, and US military officers are, indeed, usually very accomplished. But for the enlisted ranks, you are in denial if you think that much, even most, recruitment isn't essentially a business proposition, a quid-pro-quo, usually directed to people with few other viable choices.
Studying art (and literature and film etc.) may actually help make you interesting to people who are outside your field of specialization. Heck, I even find people in my field of specialization boring if that's all they know.
I speculate that bad every quirky asshole "genius" there's a kid who had just that experience, and whose shoulder-chip has grown into a cancerous boulder.
MS has no inherent interest in propping up IE, which is a widely disliked, cruft-heavy bit of software that provides no revenue for them but batters their public image.
I think it quite likely that the big check that was offered to Mozilla came from Microsoft - and that they're thinking of taking it. In some ways, Firefox is a better fit for Microsoft than for Google: Microsoft doesn't rely on ad revenues, so the fact that it is much easier to block ads on Firefox than on Chrome isn't an issue for them.
If and when that happens, I look forward to watching a million heads explode.
A belief can be "false" whether or not the thing believed in is true or not: the delusion involves the basis for the belief, not the belief itself.
In other words, "I believe in a supernatural entity that has had absolutely no role in any known physical process whatsover," wouldn't be delusional. What he would debunk are those beliefs in a God who may or may not exist on the basis of, for example, the existence of humans.
And let's not be disingenuous. I'm sure that the University of Oklahama has hosted several people who were rude and dismissive of the beliefs of others. This is the legislature wading into the cultural war between science and religion, not disapproving of one somewhat brusque and tactless speaker.
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I'm all for soaking the rich. (Well, for a sharply progressive income tax.) But a lot of the super rich have worked very, very hard and continue to do so. Even Paris Hilton, who fits in some ways the cliche of an "idle heiress," works very aggressively to build her brand and maintain her businesses.
What I think the real irony of libertarianism is that they don't see how it is the classes that they think would benefit the most from a libertarian system - the middle and upper-middle classes - who are far more aggressive about protecting the state than the lower classes are. The state doesn't exist because it gives some entitlements to the poor: it exists because it creates a stable platform for the prospering of the middle classes.
The GP - which is probably a troll - does betray the kind of thinking that has become dangerously infectious in the US today: utter partisanship. They think that you must either be a loyal defender of a thing, or its relentless enemy. We see it too often in politics (and yes, it's an American thing, at least to the extent you see in political blogs.)
MS is probably doing something dodgy here, something that should set off anti-trust alarms. It's just too convenient that their biggest rival happens to get caught in the filter. But I've been critiqued as being a Microsoft apologist for, for example, saying good things about Office.
I think we need to stop making an easy distinction between physiological and psychological addictions. Everything psychological is physiological. Especially when affect is involved: as soon as you have emotions, you're not talking about simple activation of neurons: you're talking about the endocrine system and a lot of other very not-neuronal stuff.
Oh, incidentally: heroin withdrawal, while it can be very uncomfortable, can't really kill you. Methadone withdrawal (as well as barbituare, alcohol, valium and xanax withdrawal) all can, however.
Not to mention Alan Turing...
To say that "people are stupid en masse" in this case misses the point. People don't make decisions "en masse" unless organized under some form of leadership. They make decisions individually, and the aggregate effects of those decisions have the consequences you describe.
Were those individual decisions stupid? Not necessarily.
They have both been "shown" to the satisfaction of general scientific consensus, and both have their de jure and de facto deniers and skeptics.
There is a lot of self-diagnosis going around in this thread. Your son is the only one I'm fairly sure really does have an autism spectrum disorder of any sort.
It really needs to be put out there: Asperger's is not a blanket diagnosis for all forms of geekiness and social dysfunction. Even though it is a high-functioning form of autism, it is still autism.
Geeky misfits who self-diagnose as AS do neither themselves nor people who really have AS any favors. It's become a trendy "disease", like so many of the past couple of decades, used to give a diagnostic twist to what really is just old-fashioned personality difference in most of the cases of self-diagnosis.
You are correct: T-Mobile supports (even if informally, and not just passively: their help desk emailed me the docs) tethering for other phones, including my ancient Nokia 6086.
I've long been a happy T-Mobile customer, because their customer service has always been helpful and relatively flexible, but this whole debacle with the G1 is ridiculous. While the G1 is still more open than the iPhone, this is still unacceptable to me. Figure out how much it will cost you to provide tethering to the market at a price-point that reflects the availability of bandwidth, and do it, people: it's not that hard.
I remembered this, but it turns out it was the CTO, and it was a little less encouraging that you characterize it:
From http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/23/t-mobiles-cto-on-g1-unlocking-and-tethering-plus-a-few-detai/:
While I use WiFi Tether myself, it should be noted that the above alternatives require that one get root access to the phone (equivalent to jailbreaking - in some sense, more dramatic in that you're actually installing a different build of android.) That is not a straightforward proposition for most people, and there are a couple steps involved that, if done wrong, could brick the phone.
pdaNet has its limitations, but it doesn't require root access to the phone or other radical measures.
Knowing the track records of gamers in the dating realm, I think that's the last thing anyone has to worry about.
Games even successfully reduce post-marital sex!
Oh, I thought the aroma of a Japanese shuttle-pilot's examination has been found to liberate one's panties.
A much bigger percentage than the number of Brazilians that actually won the World Cup, I'm pretty sure.
Isn't a transpire a male vampire who dresses like a female vampire?
Look, people say "Germany invaded France in 1941," "The Brazilians have won the World Cup," "the Japanese like raw fish," "Greeks dislike Turkey" etc. all the time, without batting an eye. But when someone makes a categorical claim that includes you, you have a conniption fit? Sorry, get over it. Unless they say "each and every American, bar none, criticizes fundamentalism in Muslim countries, but.." your complaint is an empty one.
It's true. With cloud computing, everyone will be able to see you scratch your nuts.
It hasn't been made impossible, but it has been made harder. But not because of anything being done by the TSA.
Bruce Schneier correctly named the two post-9/11 changes that matter. The first is reinforced, locking doors to the cockpit. The second is the change in passenger behavior. These two elements make the task for a would-be terrorist all the more difficult. Everything else is theater.
A lot of the people who are in the US military - about 40,000 - aren't even US citizens. Clearly, they aren't motivated by patriotism (at least not patriotism of their home nations.) They are serving another country with the hopes of joining it, because they are desperate to become US residents.
The people who are being targeted in inner city recruitment centers consider the Army because they lack a lot of other options.
This is about the enlisted ranks: officer commissions are a different matter entirely, and US military officers are, indeed, usually very accomplished. But for the enlisted ranks, you are in denial if you think that much, even most, recruitment isn't essentially a business proposition, a quid-pro-quo, usually directed to people with few other viable choices.
Studying art (and literature and film etc.) may actually help make you interesting to people who are outside your field of specialization. Heck, I even find people in my field of specialization boring if that's all they know.
I speculate that bad every quirky asshole "genius" there's a kid who had just that experience, and whose shoulder-chip has grown into a cancerous boulder.
If Microsoft gives up IE, is it still Mozilla's enemy?
MS Firefox is more likely.
MS has no inherent interest in propping up IE, which is a widely disliked, cruft-heavy bit of software that provides no revenue for them but batters their public image.
I think it quite likely that the big check that was offered to Mozilla came from Microsoft - and that they're thinking of taking it. In some ways, Firefox is a better fit for Microsoft than for Google: Microsoft doesn't rely on ad revenues, so the fact that it is much easier to block ads on Firefox than on Chrome isn't an issue for them.
If and when that happens, I look forward to watching a million heads explode.
A belief can be "false" whether or not the thing believed in is true or not: the delusion involves the basis for the belief, not the belief itself.
In other words, "I believe in a supernatural entity that has had absolutely no role in any known physical process whatsover," wouldn't be delusional. What he would debunk are those beliefs in a God who may or may not exist on the basis of, for example, the existence of humans.
And let's not be disingenuous. I'm sure that the University of Oklahama has hosted several people who were rude and dismissive of the beliefs of others. This is the legislature wading into the cultural war between science and religion, not disapproving of one somewhat brusque and tactless speaker.
Can of worms? With the Vatican, we get a Diet of Worms!
My favorite film critics seldom or never rate movies.