I think taking things like Classical History [...] during my CS degree made university more fun any interesting
Were that the humanities options always that interesting. Honestly, I wouldn't mind so much if they merely didn't involve writing essays; then I would personally be much more inclined to enjoy them. (Learning to be eloquent is a virtue, yes, but that's part of what high school is for.)
not to mention meeting more people of the opposite sex.
This is exactly how the government of Taiwan works. I has 4 branches. The 3 traditional ones like the U.S. Constitution, and the Control Yuan, whose job it is to investigate the government. However, ironically, due to bickering between the Congress and the President, it has been prevented from operating since 2005.
Just some food for thought.
Kind of a tangent related to your crack at the Baptist Church...
My mom lived in Memphis before I was born.
One day, just a while after she had moved there, she was out with a group of ladies.
In the course of the conversation, she was asked by one of the ladies:
"So which Baptist church do you belong to?"
Not "What religion are you?", not "Which church do you belong to", but "Which Baptist do you belong to?".
What's more, the woman asked this very naturally and no one besides my mother found the question odd.
Lionel Hutz: Can you imagine what a world without lawyers would be like? (Thought bubble with people from different cultures dancing around merrily in a circle while holding hands) Lionel Huts: Uggggh.
I completely agree with you on the harrendous job that the government does regulating monopolies. Personally, I think that all utilities (phone/cable/gas/electricity/(water?) lines) should be run by local cooperatives owned by the customers (and possibly also by the employees). The services actually provided on these physical connections (phone service, DSL, cable TV, cable internet, etc) can then be run by various corporations free-market style, with some government oversight. You get the best of both worlds: well-kept infrastructure AND competition between service providers.
Of course, that would be deemed too socialistic to ever actually happen, but one can dream, can't one?
(Aside): Speaking as a Bay Area resident, SBC/AT&T and PG&E are both pretty damn mediocre with regards to serivce.
I'd day the only way to fix the government is to abandon statewise first-past-the-pole voting and have one of the Houses of Congress be elected via a national proportional representation method that, like the Condorcet method for single-winner elections, makes it possible to vote for 3rd parties w/o throwing one's vote away. It's the only away to avoid the extremism that plagues our country. 2 parties simply cannot encompass the entire spectrum of political views.
If that goddamed phoney Holden Caufield was placed in today's world, I'm sure he'd have written a similar document. For Chrissake, it even mentions his desire to be a child again, like that phoney Michael Jackson.
I think there is a proper, though radical, solution to this problem: Just split telcos/cablecos into 2 parts:
1. physical last-mile connection provider/maintainer consumer-owned (possibly also employee-owned) and heavily regulated co-ops. These co-ops should be prohibited from offering their own services on these lines. Taxes/user-fees fund the co-ops. This all should keep them from pulling any shit that would screw-over customers as they have no incentives besides keeping the customers (and [maybe] employees) satisfied.
2. for-profit service providers which use the last-mile connections. The split takes away these companies monopolies, thus losing their bargaining chip to pull stuff like charging Google for its ability to be accessed by me at a decent speed. Should they try and pull something, content providers can backlash and the end-user can change service providers.
This will never happen though because of the telecommunications lobby and the fact that it will seem to Joe Sixpack that the tel/cablecos are being 'robbed' by the state. The truth is that there should be no for-profit government-granted monopolies as the temptation for misconduct is too great. For-profit monopolies can only make money by (a) abusing their monopoly status, (b) lowering costs, (c) offering improved services. Since (c) without (a), and (b) are not as effective as (a), they'll choose (a) a lot. Gov-monopolies should all be regulated co-ops, which makes customer satisfaction [(c) w/o (a), and (b)] their incentive.
This solution would avoid the issues w/ just the free market and removes the necessity of regulation, and thus the possibility of overregulation.
I think there is a proper, though radical, solution to this problem: Just split telcos/cablecos into 2 parts:
1. physical last-mile connection provider/maintainer consumer-owned (possibly also employee-owned) and heavily regulated co-ops. These co-ops should be prohibited from offering their own services on these lines. Taxes/user-fees fund the co-ops. This all should keep them from pulling any shit that would screw-over customers as they have no incentives besides keeping the customers (and [maybe] employees) satisfied.
2. for-profit service providers which use the last-mile connections. The split takes away these companies monopolies, thus losing their bargaining chip to pull stuff like charging Google for its ability to be accessed by me at a decent speed. Should they try and pull something, content providers can backlash and the end-user can change service providers.
This will never happen though because of the telecommunications lobby and the fact that it will seem to Joe Sixpack that the tel/cablecos are being 'robbed' by the state. The truth is that there should be no for-profit government-granted monopolies as the temptation for misconduct is too great. For-profit monopolies can only make money by (a) abusing their monopoly status, (b) lowering costs, (c) offering improved services. Since (c) without (a), and (b) are not as effective as (a), they'll choose (a) a lot. Gov-monopolies should all be regulated co-ops, which makes customer satisfaction [(c) w/o (a), and (b)] their incentive.
This solution would avoid the issues w/ just the free market and removes the necessity of regulation, and thus the possibility of overregulation.
It should definitely be cheaper to transport and store because it's much less dense than gasoline and can be stored at great pressures. Also, it might be feasible at some point to transfer power like we do now with electircal lines except much more effeciently. Instead of power lines, where a lot of energy is lost heating the lines, we could have hydrogen conduits. However, the problem would then be how to keep the pipes from breaking and what to do in the event tha they did. I can't speak as to how effecient generating it would be, but I would hope it to be at least as good as electric power from gas/coal. However, there are serious safety concerns. For instance, I would guess the explosion/fire from a truck carrying hydrogen to a hydrogen station to be more dangerous that it is now with gasoline. [Cue paranoid terrorist fears].
On the whole, I believe that it has considerable promise.
Slashdot Mirror
Were that the humanities options always that interesting. Honestly, I wouldn't mind so much if they merely didn't involve writing essays; then I would personally be much more inclined to enjoy them. (Learning to be eloquent is a virtue, yes, but that's part of what high school is for.)
I can't argue with you there...
The standard discussion forums for a great many tech communities are still on Usenet: comp.lang.python,
Nope, it's a mailinglist far as I'm concerned: python-list
I could care less if the newsgroup counterpart went offline tomorrow; for me, it'd just mean less spam and no more invalid "From" addresses in posts.
http://xkcd.com/129/
Indeed.
This is exactly how the government of Taiwan works. I has 4 branches. The 3 traditional ones like the U.S. Constitution, and the Control Yuan, whose job it is to investigate the government. However, ironically, due to bickering between the Congress and the President, it has been prevented from operating since 2005. Just some food for thought.
My mom lived in Memphis before I was born. One day, just a while after she had moved there, she was out with a group of ladies. In the course of the conversation, she was asked by one of the ladies:
"So which Baptist church do you belong to?"
Not "What religion are you?", not "Which church do you belong to", but "Which Baptist do you belong to?". What's more, the woman asked this very naturally and no one besides my mother found the question odd.Lionel Hutz: Can you imagine what a world without lawyers would be like?
(Thought bubble with people from different cultures dancing around merrily in a circle while holding hands)
Lionel Huts: Uggggh.
I completely agree with you on the harrendous job that the government does regulating monopolies. Personally, I think that all utilities (phone/cable/gas/electricity/(water?) lines) should be run by local cooperatives owned by the customers (and possibly also by the employees). The services actually provided on these physical connections (phone service, DSL, cable TV, cable internet, etc) can then be run by various corporations free-market style, with some government oversight. You get the best of both worlds: well-kept infrastructure AND competition between service providers.
Of course, that would be deemed too socialistic to ever actually happen, but one can dream, can't one?
(Aside): Speaking as a Bay Area resident, SBC/AT&T and PG&E are both pretty damn mediocre with regards to serivce.
Bender: Forget your stupid theme park! I'm gonna make my own! With hookers! And blackjack! In fact, forget the theme park!
I welcome our new succinct overlords.
Bad Idea.
If there's a backdoor, crackers will find it and they will exploit it.
Stop the idiotic Police/Spyware.
I'd day the only way to fix the government is to abandon statewise first-past-the-pole voting and have one of the Houses of Congress be elected via a national proportional representation method that, like the Condorcet method for single-winner elections, makes it possible to vote for 3rd parties w/o throwing one's vote away. It's the only away to avoid the extremism that plagues our country. 2 parties simply cannot encompass the entire spectrum of political views.
My $.02
Found this pledge/petition agains Earthlink's SiteFinder: http://www.pledgebank.com/earthlinksucks
If enough people sign it, Earthlink might change its tune.
They've already got that. It's called the Robospamassassin!e .png
http://mirror12.escomposlinux.org/comic/ecol-205-
Fine! I'll make my own Futurama episodes! With Blackjack! And hookers!
In fact, forget the hookers and the Blackjack!
Aw, screw the whole thing.
If that goddamed phoney Holden Caufield was placed in today's world, I'm sure he'd have written a similar document.
For Chrissake, it even mentions his desire to be a child again, like that phoney Michael Jackson.
========
Ignorance is empty, meaningless bliss.
I think there is a proper, though radical, solution to this problem:
Just split telcos/cablecos into 2 parts:
1. physical last-mile connection provider/maintainer consumer-owned (possibly also employee-owned) and heavily regulated co-ops. These co-ops should be prohibited from offering their own services on these lines. Taxes/user-fees fund the co-ops. This all should keep them from pulling any shit that would screw-over customers as they have no incentives besides keeping the customers (and [maybe] employees) satisfied.
2. for-profit service providers which use the last-mile connections. The split takes away these companies monopolies, thus losing their bargaining chip to pull stuff like charging Google for its ability to be accessed by me at a decent speed. Should they try and pull something, content providers can backlash and the end-user can change service providers.
This will never happen though because of the telecommunications lobby and the fact that it will seem to Joe Sixpack that the tel/cablecos are being 'robbed' by the state. The truth is that there should be no for-profit government-granted monopolies as the temptation for misconduct is too great. For-profit monopolies can only make money by (a) abusing their monopoly status, (b) lowering costs, (c) offering improved services. Since (c) without (a), and (b) are not as effective as (a), they'll choose (a) a lot. Gov-monopolies should all be regulated co-ops, which makes customer satisfaction [(c) w/o (a), and (b)] their incentive.
This solution would avoid the issues w/ just the free market and removes the necessity of regulation, and thus the possibility of overregulation.
I can dream, can't I?
I think there is a proper, though radical, solution to this problem:
Just split telcos/cablecos into 2 parts:
1. physical last-mile connection provider/maintainer consumer-owned (possibly also employee-owned) and heavily regulated co-ops. These co-ops should be prohibited from offering their own services on these lines. Taxes/user-fees fund the co-ops. This all should keep them from pulling any shit that would screw-over customers as they have no incentives besides keeping the customers (and [maybe] employees) satisfied.
2. for-profit service providers which use the last-mile connections. The split takes away these companies monopolies, thus losing their bargaining chip to pull stuff like charging Google for its ability to be accessed by me at a decent speed. Should they try and pull something, content providers can backlash and the end-user can change service providers.
This will never happen though because of the telecommunications lobby and the fact that it will seem to Joe Sixpack that the tel/cablecos are being 'robbed' by the state. The truth is that there should be no for-profit government-granted monopolies as the temptation for misconduct is too great. For-profit monopolies can only make money by (a) abusing their monopoly status, (b) lowering costs, (c) offering improved services. Since (c) without (a), and (b) are not as effective as (a), they'll choose (a) a lot. Gov-monopolies should all be regulated co-ops, which makes customer satisfaction [(c) w/o (a), and (b)] their incentive.
This solution would avoid the issues w/ just the free market and removes the necessity of regulation, and thus the possibility of overregulation.
I can dream, can't I?
Hey, it was the grandparent poster's link, not mine.
But the spirit is the same.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Benjamin Franklin
When you don't teach people about the importance of civil liberties, it's no wonder they don't defend them. Bring back civics classes!
It should definitely be cheaper to transport and store because it's much less dense than gasoline and can be stored at great pressures. Also, it might be feasible at some point to transfer power like we do now with electircal lines except much more effeciently. Instead of power lines, where a lot of energy is lost heating the lines, we could have hydrogen conduits. However, the problem would then be how to keep the pipes from breaking and what to do in the event tha they did.
I can't speak as to how effecient generating it would be, but I would hope it to be at least as good as electric power from gas/coal.
However, there are serious safety concerns. For instance, I would guess the explosion/fire from a truck carrying hydrogen to a hydrogen station to be more dangerous that it is now with gasoline. [Cue paranoid terrorist fears].
On the whole, I believe that it has considerable promise.
Yeah, who vomited bubble gum all over the place? ...At least, I *hope* that's bubble gum.
What I find highly ironic is that this news story about bad eyesight is set to a pretty small font size.
Talk about your self-fufilling prophecy...
So when can I expect the self-fitting clothing?
(waits for someone to post a link to someone working on this)