This is the problem with anecdotal evidence. For every positive story those in favor of public healthcare find, their opponents find one just as negative. But when you look at WHO reports on healthcare systems worldwide, the numbers just don't add up - if we spend the most on healthcare worldwide, both as a percentage of GDP, and per capita, why are we ranked relatively low in our quality of care? Why is our life expectancy significantly lower, and our infant mortality rate significantly higher than most Western European nations?
I think the big hurdle in the US is simply to convince our people that there is a better way of doing things. We have a tendency to always think our way of doing things is the best, and doesn't need changing. But statistics show that many other countries have public healthcare systems that function well, and even better than our system does.
But at the very least they are complying with the spirit of copyright law imho.
HA! If you believe the RIAA and related organizations give a flying fuck about the spirit of copyright law, you're sadly mistaken at best. The spirit of copyright law can be found in our Constitution, Article I, Section 8, and it has suffered a number of severe blows thanks to the likes of these organizations; though to be honest, the damage was done long before the RIAA started suing P2P filesharers.
Fairness would state that the person who uses the roads the most would pay the most in taxes. No if ands or buts about it... The only thing that makes gas taxes unfair is that they unfairly penalize people who have cars with poor gas mileage.
Nonsense on both counts, if you ask me. Have we forgotten that when people drive, they affect more than simply the road they drive on - e.g., air quality? So, if someone buys a gallon and uses it up in driving 40 miles to work, they've used more of the road than the average person; on the other hand, if someone else buys a gallon and uses it up driving 10 miles to work, should they really be taxed less? Though driving less, they've most likely polluted more than the average person.
Cars with poor gas mileage should be penalized, as they are with the gas tax - and I say that as the owner of a rather inefficient vehicle. If anything, gas taxes ought to be raised - it would mean more revenue (ah, if only it were spent wisely), and more incentive to give tax breaks to those using cleaner fuels, as well as giving people cause to reduce gas consumption.
And they're right. Under copyright law, merely transcribing a song by ear (even without sending it to a website) is copyright infringement. Specifically, unauthorized creation of a derivative work. That is an illustration of how nasty and flawed the entire system of copyright is.
More and more often I find in history illustrations of the fight that is going on now: e.g., Mozart transcribing Allegri's Miserere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miserere_(Allegri)), since its reproduction was forbidden by the church. Heh, if Mozart did that today, he'd find himself the subject of a big, fat lawsuit.
They do show them here in the US, though I don't think it's done very widely. There are several 'sneak previews' offered here at my university each year. They are usually free, and from what I hear you're not allowed to bring purses/bags inside, as you might be hiding a recording device.
The big issue I see is that a corporation does not have rights.
At the risk of being redundant, a corporation definitely does have rights. See the legal idea of Corporate Personhood, or watch the documentary "The Corporation". This is why corporations can file lawsuits in their own name, etc. I think this is a very common misconception, and that if more people knew the truth, those people would begin to feel very unconfortable with the whole idea.
I think your point that you responded to was that the French don't go out and buy expensive foreign wines. They buy the local stuff, and it's good. Their "local stuff" is our "fancy imported brands."
Pretty much true. Though it was pretty funny when the French family I was staying with very proudly showed me the bottle of Californian wine they had bought for dinner one evening. They even liked it!
As for cheese, yeah, I hate the fact that I have to pay $16/lb for average Roquefort here. Oh, to be able to pick up a slice for EUR 2...
I play counterstrike all the time. I know how to handle pistols, SMGs, Rifles, even Miniguns and grenades. How does yout training plan incorporate such simulation games into the training?
It doesn't. I'm sure you don't actually think playing a game like Counterstrike somehow teaches you how to use a gun in real life. They aren't toys, and they don't behave like they do in games. In Counterstrike, an empty casing can't flip up and get stuck between your safety glasses and forehead, burning you. In real life, it can, and does.
I'm pretty sure that when violent crimes occur, those perpetrating them attack the ones who are likeliest to fight back first, be they cops, security guards at banks, or whoever. And I'd guess that carrying a gun around openly puts you into that category. You're right, the average criminal is probably almost as frightened as the guy he's mugging, and I'm sure the guy who mugged a group of 14 people at a metro station near where I live would have just waited for the next group instead of shooting one of them. On the other hand, I don't think it'd be prudent to walk around Baltimore city openly carrying a gun.
Just because someone's a psychopath doesn't mean they've lost all ability to prioritize. I also wonder about the ease of scrambling for a long gun that you may have set down, as opposed to having a pistol on your body. Or about the possibility that someone, psychopath or not, may try and force a gun from you if they can see that you have one. Just saying, there is some sense to the idea of concealed carrying, even though as they way the laws are now, it seems like the ones who carry are those who are least suited to do so.
There is no barrier to ownership here, and I'm fine with that in theory, but in practice it means a lot of people who have no business owning a gun, end up owning a gun. So compromise. Anyone can get a long gun, but you have to pass some serious tests for a pistol. We uphold the spirit of the Constitution, and maintain a little civil order as well.
Amen to that. I'd say mandatory waiting period of 90 days, a test of knowledge and proper handling skills, a psychological examination, and the ability to have your license revoked under certain circumstances.
The only thing they're good for is carrying concealed, and I don't believe in carrying concealed. If you're armed, it should be right out there in the open, none of this sneaky ass concealed crap...What possible rationale is there for carrying concealed? The point is to deter crime, right? Isn't that always the argument?
Carrying around a gun openly is a good way to get yourself shot first - they'll aim for the one who has the power to fight back. Oh, and they can quickly survey a crowd and see if there's any chance of resistance. I'd think someone would be much more reluctant to attack a group when any one of the potential victioms could be carrying a pistol.
Now, if I could just calibrate this palladium needle...
Re:What's wrong with sex/nudity
on
From Bess to Worse
·
· Score: 5, Informative
One is the correlation between the exposure to nudity/sex and increased promiscuity. That of course can lead to issues such as increased spread of STD's (which can of course be somewhat mitigated through education) and increased unintended teen pregnancies (ditto about education).
I actually recently ran across some information on this. Here's a summary quote:
In comparing the United States to similar societies, we find that American and western European adolescents become sexually active at similar ages on average; however, pregnancy, birth, and abortion rates are significantly lower among European teens, as are STI rates. (Virginity Lost, Laura M. Carpenter, NYU Press, 2005.)
The idea is that when people are more open about matters sexual (e.g. the more casual attitude taken towards nudity in Western Europe), they are also more open about the health concerns associated with them. It works the opposite way, too - young people educated in abstinence-only curricula are less likely to use/correctly use condoms when they do have sex.
I'm pretty sure you can mute individual players from within a game of CS, just by tabbing up the player list and clicking on them. Takes care of the ones who think you want to hear their music...
Some broad generalisations that I will stand behind:
* India is really a pretty xenophobic place, generally hostile to most everything non-Indian.
This is something I'll have to disagree with. Based on my experiences in India, I don't find it to be any more xenophobic than average (whatever average is). To me, it's just not notable.
* India is deeply conservative and fearful of change.
Conservative, maybe. Fearful of change, not so much. Seems to me that they are quite willing to adopt foreign business methods and technology in many sectors.
* The Indian educational system penalises innovation and creative thinking.
See the/. article from the other day. This is a problem that I don't think is limited to only India - I've been in a French university, and felt that while creativity wasn't necessarily penalized, it certainly wasn't encouraged.
And what with most ATM machines being run by a versions of Windows anyway you could guarantee they are running as Wireless Access Points.:o)
It was rather disconcerting the first time I used a BNP ATM here in France and heard a distinctive Windows "chime" being emitted from the machine. I don't know what version of Windows it's running, but I'm at a loss to understand why anything more than a simple embedded OS is necessary. Unless it's to drive that pretty ATM GUI with all those colorful flags so that (illiterate?) foreigners can select their language preference.
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This is the problem with anecdotal evidence. For every positive story those in favor of public healthcare find, their opponents find one just as negative. But when you look at WHO reports on healthcare systems worldwide, the numbers just don't add up - if we spend the most on healthcare worldwide, both as a percentage of GDP, and per capita, why are we ranked relatively low in our quality of care? Why is our life expectancy significantly lower, and our infant mortality rate significantly higher than most Western European nations?
I think the big hurdle in the US is simply to convince our people that there is a better way of doing things. We have a tendency to always think our way of doing things is the best, and doesn't need changing. But statistics show that many other countries have public healthcare systems that function well, and even better than our system does.
Speak for yourself. I'm not that desperate.
This should be modded funny, not insightful. If it's legal in the US, why should international relations be any different?
HA! If you believe the RIAA and related organizations give a flying fuck about the spirit of copyright law, you're sadly mistaken at best. The spirit of copyright law can be found in our Constitution, Article I, Section 8, and it has suffered a number of severe blows thanks to the likes of these organizations; though to be honest, the damage was done long before the RIAA started suing P2P filesharers.
Nonsense on both counts, if you ask me. Have we forgotten that when people drive, they affect more than simply the road they drive on - e.g., air quality? So, if someone buys a gallon and uses it up in driving 40 miles to work, they've used more of the road than the average person; on the other hand, if someone else buys a gallon and uses it up driving 10 miles to work, should they really be taxed less? Though driving less, they've most likely polluted more than the average person.
Cars with poor gas mileage should be penalized, as they are with the gas tax - and I say that as the owner of a rather inefficient vehicle. If anything, gas taxes ought to be raised - it would mean more revenue (ah, if only it were spent wisely), and more incentive to give tax breaks to those using cleaner fuels, as well as giving people cause to reduce gas consumption.
More and more often I find in history illustrations of the fight that is going on now: e.g., Mozart transcribing Allegri's Miserere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miserere_(Allegri)), since its reproduction was forbidden by the church. Heh, if Mozart did that today, he'd find himself the subject of a big, fat lawsuit.
Am I making this up, or was/is it illegal to tape-record baseball games in the first place? Or is that football or something?
They do show them here in the US, though I don't think it's done very widely. There are several 'sneak previews' offered here at my university each year. They are usually free, and from what I hear you're not allowed to bring purses/bags inside, as you might be hiding a recording device.
At the risk of being redundant, a corporation definitely does have rights. See the legal idea of Corporate Personhood, or watch the documentary "The Corporation". This is why corporations can file lawsuits in their own name, etc. I think this is a very common misconception, and that if more people knew the truth, those people would begin to feel very unconfortable with the whole idea.
Or, there are no 'good' or 'bad' actions - only the choice, by a person, to do an action is qualified as such.
Just FYI, Velcro wasn't invented as a result of NASA research. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velcro
Pretty much true. Though it was pretty funny when the French family I was staying with very proudly showed me the bottle of Californian wine they had bought for dinner one evening. They even liked it!
As for cheese, yeah, I hate the fact that I have to pay $16/lb for average Roquefort here. Oh, to be able to pick up a slice for EUR 2...
It doesn't. I'm sure you don't actually think playing a game like Counterstrike somehow teaches you how to use a gun in real life. They aren't toys, and they don't behave like they do in games. In Counterstrike, an empty casing can't flip up and get stuck between your safety glasses and forehead, burning you. In real life, it can, and does.
I'm pretty sure that when violent crimes occur, those perpetrating them attack the ones who are likeliest to fight back first, be they cops, security guards at banks, or whoever. And I'd guess that carrying a gun around openly puts you into that category. You're right, the average criminal is probably almost as frightened as the guy he's mugging, and I'm sure the guy who mugged a group of 14 people at a metro station near where I live would have just waited for the next group instead of shooting one of them. On the other hand, I don't think it'd be prudent to walk around Baltimore city openly carrying a gun.
Just because someone's a psychopath doesn't mean they've lost all ability to prioritize. I also wonder about the ease of scrambling for a long gun that you may have set down, as opposed to having a pistol on your body. Or about the possibility that someone, psychopath or not, may try and force a gun from you if they can see that you have one. Just saying, there is some sense to the idea of concealed carrying, even though as they way the laws are now, it seems like the ones who carry are those who are least suited to do so.
Amen to that. I'd say mandatory waiting period of 90 days, a test of knowledge and proper handling skills, a psychological examination, and the ability to have your license revoked under certain circumstances.
Yeah, yeah, "victioms"... I know.
Carrying around a gun openly is a good way to get yourself shot first - they'll aim for the one who has the power to fight back. Oh, and they can quickly survey a crowd and see if there's any chance of resistance. I'd think someone would be much more reluctant to attack a group when any one of the potential victioms could be carrying a pistol.
From the site:
"In addition it is easily possible to rise memory capacity of notebooks and desktops in a fewest time."
Now, if I could just calibrate this palladium needle...
One is the correlation between the exposure to nudity/sex and increased promiscuity. That of course can lead to issues such as increased spread of STD's (which can of course be somewhat mitigated through education) and increased unintended teen pregnancies (ditto about education).
I actually recently ran across some information on this. Here's a summary quote:
In comparing the United States to similar societies, we find that American and western European adolescents become sexually active at similar ages on average; however, pregnancy, birth, and abortion rates are significantly lower among European teens, as are STI rates. (Virginity Lost, Laura M. Carpenter, NYU Press, 2005.)The idea is that when people are more open about matters sexual (e.g. the more casual attitude taken towards nudity in Western Europe), they are also more open about the health concerns associated with them. It works the opposite way, too - young people educated in abstinence-only curricula are less likely to use/correctly use condoms when they do have sex.
I'm pretty sure you can mute individual players from within a game of CS, just by tabbing up the player list and clicking on them. Takes care of the ones who think you want to hear their music...
PS: I live in Russia.
Not for long.
Yours,
Put^H^H^HKGB^H^H^HFSB
Right. Because the KGB is reading Slashdot
Whether he's justified in his paranoia or not, I'm pretty sure the KGB isn't reading Slashdot, since it ceased to exist in 1991.
Some broad generalisations that I will stand behind:
/. article from the other day. This is a problem that I don't think is limited to only India - I've been in a French university, and felt that while creativity wasn't necessarily penalized, it certainly wasn't encouraged.
* India is really a pretty xenophobic place, generally hostile to most everything non-Indian.
This is something I'll have to disagree with. Based on my experiences in India, I don't find it to be any more xenophobic than average (whatever average is). To me, it's just not notable.
* India is deeply conservative and fearful of change.
Conservative, maybe. Fearful of change, not so much. Seems to me that they are quite willing to adopt foreign business methods and technology in many sectors.
* The Indian educational system penalises innovation and creative thinking.
See the
And what with most ATM machines being run by a versions of Windows anyway you could guarantee they are running as Wireless Access Points. :o)
It was rather disconcerting the first time I used a BNP ATM here in France and heard a distinctive Windows "chime" being emitted from the machine. I don't know what version of Windows it's running, but I'm at a loss to understand why anything more than a simple embedded OS is necessary. Unless it's to drive that pretty ATM GUI with all those colorful flags so that (illiterate?) foreigners can select their language preference.