Actually, the article I read said that he pled guilty. You can only plead guilty to criminal actions, and according to this, it was "Penal Code section 502(c)(8)," a felony. Specifically, he "knowingly introduces any computer contaminant into any computer, computer system, or computer network." According to (b) (10), "'Computer contaminant' means any set of computer instructions that are designed to modify, damage, destroy, record, or transmit information within a computer, computer system, or computer network
without the intent or permission of the owner of the information."
So the way I read that is that even if he had permission to add stuff to his profile (which clearly he did, since the changes were allowed), if the changes were not intended by the "owner of the information," then he broke this law. Pretty screwy wording, if you ask me. So basically, anytime you "modify" data in a manner not intended by the website owner, you're breaking the law (at least in California). I wonder how long before somebody uses this law to sue the RIAA for putting fake files on P2P networks?
That was Wife Swap (ack!), not Supernanny (yay!). I don't watch Wife Swap, so I didn't find out whether they bothered to mention that 12 year olds aren't supposed to even be on MySpace according to the ToS! I'll bet they didn't. ABC loves to work up the "oh noes! pedos on MySpace!!1!" angle any chance they get.
It's rediculous to think that anybody could turn a profit by melting this stuff. It takes ENERGY to do it, and that energy ain't cheap. Let's look at melting one penny:
Assume it's all Zinc. That's 0.0025 kg of Zn, with Cp = 388 J/(kg*K) and 112 kJ/kg for heat of fusion. melting point is about 400 degC over room temperature, so that's a total of 267 kJ/kg, times the mass is 668 kJ, or 0.185 kWh. Assume you only pay a dime for each kWh, that's still $0.0185 for each melted penny. For a total cost of 2.85 cents, just to get 1.12 cents of zinc. So you end up LOSING 1.73 on each penny you melt. Not to mention the cost of the equipment.
By comparison, it takes about 1.13 kWh to melt a silver half-dollar. That means you'd only pay 61.3 cents total, and net about $4!
Very well put. It reminds me of the saying, "You can't con an honest man." They're trying to get rich without doing the hard work and research that real investing requires. That's lazy at best, and immoral at worst. I wish I had mod points to give you.:)
Why is everybody upset about the fact that the bill wanted bloggers to register as lobbyists? There are bigger problems here.
Why should lobbyists have to register at all? It seems to me like the First Amendment clearly protects the rights of the people to petition the government. That is all lobbying is. People who like to think of themselves as libertarians should be against this sort of legislation. It is an affront to our civil liberty in the guise of protecting the political process.
If they really wanted to protect the process, Congress should agree to do away with earmarks and have more open accounting for where they get their campaign financing. The Bill of Rights protects the rights of the people to redress grievances, but it doesn't protect Congressmen from revealing their funding sources.
The conference you are referring to took place in mid December, and it was not just for "hate" groups. According to the NPR coverage I listened to, there were even some Jews (Satmars) in attendance, as well. They were not all claiming that the Holocaust never happened. Some were claiming that it wasn't as bad as the Jews claim. Others agreed that it happened, but they didn't believe it should have been used as justification for Israel's creation. Still others were like you, just trying to express their outrage at the supression of free speech in so-called civilized nations like France.
It seems so stupid to me to claim that these people weren't killed by the millions. Maybe that is because I have seen the ovens and the wrought iron "ARBEIT MACHT FREI" of the gates. But I still have to support the rights of people to speak freely. If what they say is false, then let us proclaim the truth and provide proof, rather than suppress others.
Of course Holocaust deniers are similar to flat-earth believers and moon landing conspiracy buffs. No matter how much evidence you throw at them, they are not convinced. This is why it's so tempting to try to legislate them into silence. Well, if the shoes, photos, ovens, camps, claw marks in the traincars, and the tatooed arms aren't enough to convince these people, let them have their little conference. Wouldn't it be better to let them meet in some western city, rather than have them scared off to Iran where their very presence will give a semblance of credibility to whackos who already have millions of followers?
BTW, NPR has the transcripts of the stories available for free, citing "intense interest."
Where does the booklet go? I just downloaded Mahler's 3rd, and I wanted to read the program notes. Is there an option you have to select, or is it automatic? It downloaded the cover art, but that wasn't terribly impressive.
That's pretty ironic. I don't think they ever saw it coming. But RIAA has a track record of making short-sighted decisions that end up being to their detriment in the long run.
Then I will take your advice and continue to set what I think is a good example.
Sorry about the "all that trouble" bit, I was trying to get something else across entirely. Looking back, it seems a bit idiotic. I might point out, however, that the basic tenet of defensive driving is not to "just worry about your own driving and let other people worry about theirs." Rather, it is to assume the worst in others.
In addition to defensive drivers, there are other times not to "just worry about your own driving and let other people worry about theirs." For example, if I am coming to a red light in the right lane, and there is nobody to my left, I will get in the left lane instead, leaving the right lane open for people who want to turn right. Sometimes it means getting behind a line of people in the left lane, but that's no bother to me. Again, that stems from my question "what would the world be like if everybody did the same thing?" I figure that a world where people can turn right when they get to a red light is a better world. Maybe I'm wrong. I know in some countries that's not even legal.
What you call "self-righteous rationalization" is considered valid justification by several people. Some call it the Golden Rule; others call it the categorical imperative. Either way, it is a reasonable ethical construct, worthy of consideration in any decision making process. I'm not saying it's the only valid means of evaluating the ethics of a course of action, but it is the one that I like to use. Rationalization, on the other hand, is "the process of constructing a logical justification for a decision that was originally arrived at through a different mental process." That simply isn't what's going on here.
In my youth, I used to cut those people off on the shoulder, too, thinking I had somehow taught them a lesson. But as I got wiser, I applied my ethical decision algorithm: "If everybody did X would the world be better?" I came up with several reasons why the world would be worse, so I stopped doing that.
Thank you for pointing out that I'm minding my own business, too. My own words ("all that trouble") not withstanding, I didn't mean to imply that this course of action is some form of difficult driving somehow out of the ordinary. I just meant to imply that some people think that slowing down is always troublesome. Clearly I should have phrased that differently.
Hey, bro. I'll elaborate on my tale a bit. Basically, after I had paid for the content, I could not "authorize" any more devices because the store was down. And I didn't just try once, but about a dozen times before I got fed up with it. I was finally able to get through last night. All in all, it wasn't too bad, but they should have known exactly how much traffic to expect. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that every single iPod and iTunes gift card ever sold in the last few months was going to be used on Christmas.
But you're right, the bigger problem is the inability to "Sync both ways" as advertised on the Apple site. That's true whether or not their servers are up. It's crippled by design. At first I blamed the RIAA, but I'll bet it is also part of keeping the iTunes-iPod-ITMS monopoly. That suspicion is supported by the ease of transferring purchased music compared to ripped music.
FYI: the cover art is included if you buy an album. I don't know if it is the same for just one song. What would be really nice is if it included all the program notes (I listen to a lot of classical music). It wouldn't be that much data, just a kB or so.
Yes, I am the one, and you can thank me for getting throught the lane closure faster.
I appreciate your sentiment, but your guilt-trip is misguided. If anybody darts in and out of traffic, I bear no responsibility for their stupidity. I bear no more responsibility than the people they cut off or the people who are doing the construction that closed the lane in the first place. I instigate nothing by driving a reasonable speed in my lane, regardless of who is behind me. Trying to impugn me based on somebody else's misdeeds is utter nonsense.
Let's talk about ethics, since you brought it up. I always ask myself the following question: "Would the world be better off if everybody did what I do?" If the answer is no, then I am wrong, and I try to change my ways. If the answer is yes, then I consider my actions ethical. In this case, if everybody did as I do. Stay in the lane at a reasonable speed until the merge gets close, then we would indeed be better off. I have seen it work. If I got into the lane early, and everybody did, we would be better off. So that course of action would also be ethical. Both options are ethical, but my way is more robust against those who would otherwise behave unethically.
By the way, in your analogy, the hitter is still in the wrong. I'm not saying the ducker is without fault, either. Of course, it has nothing to do with the merging lane situation, since defensive driving is not the same as taunting somebody. A more applicable analogy would be if I was just passively standing where the hitter wanted to be, and he took a swing at me, missed, and hit somebody else. Do I bear any responsibility in that? Of course not. Being where somebody else thinks they have a right to be is not a wrong-doing.
Don't forget the fun game they like to play in SA called "Let's stop on the entrance ramp!" Every time I visit from Houston I have to change my driving habits to accomodate this insane tradition. They do it on the service roads at the yield signs, too. (Yield != Stop) I think they're afraid of the F450 you mentioned. (I've seen that guy in Houston, too).
here's what I do: I drive in the closing lane, but only as fast as the person next to me (normally pretty slow). That way, the guy next to me doesn't think I'm "a cutter" and keep me from getting in when the time comes. Of course there's some idiot flashing his brights and honking, and doing sign language, because there's all this "open space" ahead of me. But it's only open for a quarter mile, and I'm not gonna let that idiot cut in front of all the other nice people who are trying to do the right thing. If he does, everybody will have to slam on their brakes and let him in.
Of course if everybody would just make space and bread-n-butter'd at the merge point like they're supposed to, I wouldn't have to go to all that trouble. But hey, it works. Neither me, nor neither of the people in the slow lane next to me have to come to a complete stop. And as for that honker behind me, he's only four or five cars behind where he wanted to be. What is that, like 20 seconds of travel time? Small price to pay for good flow, if you ask me.
BTW, I got the idea from watching how truckers do the same thing at a lane closure. I noticed that the fastest I ever got through the ship channel bridge was when two trucks drove side by side right up to the merge point, and then the one just hit the gas a bit and got ahead of the other. Nobody slowed down, and everybody pretty much got the point that there was no way to get around these guys. Sure we never went really fast, but we never stopped either.
Even this isn't foolproof though. Some idiot actually jumped a curb just to get around me. And you know what? When it came time for her to merge, nobody let her in until about one car ahead of me. Gee, she really got far! Idiot. And then there was another guy who was behind me, got in the merge lane, went over one more lane (causing much honking and screeching of brakes) and then got back in the merge lane where I was going to go just so he could continue giving me the finger. No bother. Just slow down a little more and take the next spot back.
Are you referring to the one that says "Truckers don't be fooled, this is still a steep grade," or something like that? It's much flatter than right near the tunnel, so you think you're level-ish.
I would like to think that a more likely scenario (since we're talking fantasy anyway) would be that 100% enforcement would lead to the passage of only desirable laws, and the repeal of shitty ones. Let's face it, the biggest problem with our legal system is the laws themselves. Not a day goes by that I don't break some law. I'll bet most/. readers are the same way.
If there were 100% enforcement, maybe the members of congress would think twice before enacting some bill that, if taken literally and enforced effectively, would end up getting themselves arrested, not to mention their children, police officers, the president, etc. Even if congress didn't wise up, and half of them (yeah right, more like all of them) ended up in jail, then the public backlash would be strong enough to instigate a change in the way laws are written.
You alluded to this in your post, too, but perhaps the sentences/fines will be diminished for some of the lesser crimes where the punishments have gotten out of hand, like stealing cable. Afterall, if there is a 100% chance that you will get caught, having any punishment at all is a substantial deterrent.
I call shenanigans. If anything, the patent system would reward a "cure" better than a non-curing treatment. Think about it: if the drug were actually a cure, then the disease would be wiped out before your competition gets the opportunity to make your drug. If your drug were just a cure, then your competitor can just manufacture it later, since all the sick people will still be sick. Instead, if you've made a "cure," they have to find some other disease to cure, or their business will fail.
PS. I find the word "incentivised" truly disturbing. That word alone makes me wonder if you're not actually a troll.
I had this problem with a USB to IDE hard drive. It works fine on my HP laptop, but not on my PowerBook. The genius bar guy said it was exactly due to that. Apparently not all USB device manufactures feel obliged to stay within spec. I found some benchmarks that show the PB actually can access data faster by using a firewire enclosure anyway (despite the nominal data rate being faster for USB2). We'll see how that works...
I wonder if this will be a problem for phone manufacturers. If they are limited to 500mA @ 5V, that may limit the speed of recharging their batteries. Also, are they going to have to have USB transformers to get down to 3V? Anybody here more familiar with chargers? Anything below 13.8kV and I start to get confused.:-)
Ah, a fellow football fan. I wonder how few of us there are on/. ?
And yes, the discussion got wildly off-topic. You are too kind by saying "bordering on absurd." I'm pretty sure anybody with less patience would have completely written me off as a whacko.:-)
Hear, hear! It is one of the best board games I have ever played. It's a little complicated if you're learning by the book (better for somebody to show you how), and it can take a while if you've got indecisive people in the group. I only wish there were a two-player version, so my wife and I could play when there's no company. My in-laws like it, my family likes it, my friends like it, and it's extendable to up to 6 people.
Do you also think being a bartender, blackjack dealer, chocolatier, or barista is morally wrong? Those jobs also profit from activities that trigger addictions. Shopping has also been shown to be addictive to some individuals. Should we thus consider all store owners to be morally bankrupt? I wish there were some easy way to define good and bad jobs, but triggering an addiction is probably not the right criterion.
What about the deep emotional center idea? Well, intense religious experiences have been shown to trigger some of the same centers as sex, chocolate, and roller coasters. Does that mean that pastors/ministers/priests are of a "lower social status"? I was paid to sing in a choir. That choir sang very touching songs that several people in the audience later said they came back to listen to again, because they had a deep emotional experience. Is that morally wrong?
On to the drug trial thing. For both drug trials that I have participated in, I had to have surgery to remove two wisdom teeth. I effectively sold part of my body in order to pay for college. Looking back, that sure seems a little creepy. Maybe I was wrong to do that. On the other side of the drug trial equation are those making money off the drugs, not the trials. There are situations like those fictionalized in The Constant Gardener, where undesired effects go on too long before the test is halted. And that sort of thing does happen in real life. It's easy for us to say, "Look there. That's an immorral thing to do." But at the time, all the people involved surely thought they were doing the right thing.
I guess all I'm trying to say is that this is a very murky area, and trying to pin down exactly why some people don't like hookers is very hard to do.
Slashdot Mirror
So the way I read that is that even if he had permission to add stuff to his profile (which clearly he did, since the changes were allowed), if the changes were not intended by the "owner of the information," then he broke this law. Pretty screwy wording, if you ask me. So basically, anytime you "modify" data in a manner not intended by the website owner, you're breaking the law (at least in California). I wonder how long before somebody uses this law to sue the RIAA for putting fake files on P2P networks?
That was Wife Swap (ack!), not Supernanny (yay!). I don't watch Wife Swap, so I didn't find out whether they bothered to mention that 12 year olds aren't supposed to even be on MySpace according to the ToS! I'll bet they didn't. ABC loves to work up the "oh noes! pedos on MySpace!!1!" angle any chance they get.
It's rediculous to think that anybody could turn a profit by melting this stuff. It takes ENERGY to do it, and that energy ain't cheap. Let's look at melting one penny:
Assume it's all Zinc. That's 0.0025 kg of Zn, with Cp = 388 J/(kg*K) and 112 kJ/kg for heat of fusion. melting point is about 400 degC over room temperature, so that's a total of 267 kJ/kg, times the mass is 668 kJ, or 0.185 kWh. Assume you only pay a dime for each kWh, that's still $0.0185 for each melted penny. For a total cost of 2.85 cents, just to get 1.12 cents of zinc. So you end up LOSING 1.73 on each penny you melt. Not to mention the cost of the equipment.
By comparison, it takes about 1.13 kWh to melt a silver half-dollar. That means you'd only pay 61.3 cents total, and net about $4!
(these numbers are from December)
Very well put. It reminds me of the saying, "You can't con an honest man." They're trying to get rich without doing the hard work and research that real investing requires. That's lazy at best, and immoral at worst. I wish I had mod points to give you. :)
Why is everybody upset about the fact that the bill wanted bloggers to register as lobbyists? There are bigger problems here.
Why should lobbyists have to register at all? It seems to me like the First Amendment clearly protects the rights of the people to petition the government. That is all lobbying is. People who like to think of themselves as libertarians should be against this sort of legislation. It is an affront to our civil liberty in the guise of protecting the political process.
If they really wanted to protect the process, Congress should agree to do away with earmarks and have more open accounting for where they get their campaign financing. The Bill of Rights protects the rights of the people to redress grievances, but it doesn't protect Congressmen from revealing their funding sources.
The conference you are referring to took place in mid December, and it was not just for "hate" groups. According to the NPR coverage I listened to, there were even some Jews (Satmars) in attendance, as well. They were not all claiming that the Holocaust never happened. Some were claiming that it wasn't as bad as the Jews claim. Others agreed that it happened, but they didn't believe it should have been used as justification for Israel's creation. Still others were like you, just trying to express their outrage at the supression of free speech in so-called civilized nations like France.
It seems so stupid to me to claim that these people weren't killed by the millions. Maybe that is because I have seen the ovens and the wrought iron "ARBEIT MACHT FREI" of the gates. But I still have to support the rights of people to speak freely. If what they say is false, then let us proclaim the truth and provide proof, rather than suppress others.
Of course Holocaust deniers are similar to flat-earth believers and moon landing conspiracy buffs. No matter how much evidence you throw at them, they are not convinced. This is why it's so tempting to try to legislate them into silence. Well, if the shoes, photos, ovens, camps, claw marks in the traincars, and the tatooed arms aren't enough to convince these people, let them have their little conference. Wouldn't it be better to let them meet in some western city, rather than have them scared off to Iran where their very presence will give a semblance of credibility to whackos who already have millions of followers?
BTW, NPR has the transcripts of the stories available for free, citing "intense interest."
Where does the booklet go? I just downloaded Mahler's 3rd, and I wanted to read the program notes. Is there an option you have to select, or is it automatic? It downloaded the cover art, but that wasn't terribly impressive.
That's pretty ironic. I don't think they ever saw it coming. But RIAA has a track record of making short-sighted decisions that end up being to their detriment in the long run.
Then I will take your advice and continue to set what I think is a good example.
Sorry about the "all that trouble" bit, I was trying to get something else across entirely. Looking back, it seems a bit idiotic. I might point out, however, that the basic tenet of defensive driving is not to "just worry about your own driving and let other people worry about theirs." Rather, it is to assume the worst in others.
In addition to defensive drivers, there are other times not to "just worry about your own driving and let other people worry about theirs." For example, if I am coming to a red light in the right lane, and there is nobody to my left, I will get in the left lane instead, leaving the right lane open for people who want to turn right. Sometimes it means getting behind a line of people in the left lane, but that's no bother to me. Again, that stems from my question "what would the world be like if everybody did the same thing?" I figure that a world where people can turn right when they get to a red light is a better world. Maybe I'm wrong. I know in some countries that's not even legal.
What you call "self-righteous rationalization" is considered valid justification by several people. Some call it the Golden Rule; others call it the categorical imperative. Either way, it is a reasonable ethical construct, worthy of consideration in any decision making process. I'm not saying it's the only valid means of evaluating the ethics of a course of action, but it is the one that I like to use. Rationalization, on the other hand, is "the process of constructing a logical justification for a decision that was originally arrived at through a different mental process." That simply isn't what's going on here.
In my youth, I used to cut those people off on the shoulder, too, thinking I had somehow taught them a lesson. But as I got wiser, I applied my ethical decision algorithm: "If everybody did X would the world be better?" I came up with several reasons why the world would be worse, so I stopped doing that.
Thank you for pointing out that I'm minding my own business, too. My own words ("all that trouble") not withstanding, I didn't mean to imply that this course of action is some form of difficult driving somehow out of the ordinary. I just meant to imply that some people think that slowing down is always troublesome. Clearly I should have phrased that differently.
But you're right, the bigger problem is the inability to "Sync both ways" as advertised on the Apple site. That's true whether or not their servers are up. It's crippled by design. At first I blamed the RIAA, but I'll bet it is also part of keeping the iTunes-iPod-ITMS monopoly. That suspicion is supported by the ease of transferring purchased music compared to ripped music.
FYI: the cover art is included if you buy an album. I don't know if it is the same for just one song. What would be really nice is if it included all the program notes (I listen to a lot of classical music). It wouldn't be that much data, just a kB or so.
I appreciate your sentiment, but your guilt-trip is misguided. If anybody darts in and out of traffic, I bear no responsibility for their stupidity. I bear no more responsibility than the people they cut off or the people who are doing the construction that closed the lane in the first place. I instigate nothing by driving a reasonable speed in my lane, regardless of who is behind me. Trying to impugn me based on somebody else's misdeeds is utter nonsense.
Let's talk about ethics, since you brought it up. I always ask myself the following question: "Would the world be better off if everybody did what I do?" If the answer is no, then I am wrong, and I try to change my ways. If the answer is yes, then I consider my actions ethical. In this case, if everybody did as I do. Stay in the lane at a reasonable speed until the merge gets close, then we would indeed be better off. I have seen it work. If I got into the lane early, and everybody did, we would be better off. So that course of action would also be ethical. Both options are ethical, but my way is more robust against those who would otherwise behave unethically.
By the way, in your analogy, the hitter is still in the wrong. I'm not saying the ducker is without fault, either. Of course, it has nothing to do with the merging lane situation, since defensive driving is not the same as taunting somebody. A more applicable analogy would be if I was just passively standing where the hitter wanted to be, and he took a swing at me, missed, and hit somebody else. Do I bear any responsibility in that? Of course not. Being where somebody else thinks they have a right to be is not a wrong-doing.
Don't forget the fun game they like to play in SA called "Let's stop on the entrance ramp!" Every time I visit from Houston I have to change my driving habits to accomodate this insane tradition. They do it on the service roads at the yield signs, too. (Yield != Stop) I think they're afraid of the F450 you mentioned. (I've seen that guy in Houston, too).
Of course if everybody would just make space and bread-n-butter'd at the merge point like they're supposed to, I wouldn't have to go to all that trouble. But hey, it works. Neither me, nor neither of the people in the slow lane next to me have to come to a complete stop. And as for that honker behind me, he's only four or five cars behind where he wanted to be. What is that, like 20 seconds of travel time? Small price to pay for good flow, if you ask me.
BTW, I got the idea from watching how truckers do the same thing at a lane closure. I noticed that the fastest I ever got through the ship channel bridge was when two trucks drove side by side right up to the merge point, and then the one just hit the gas a bit and got ahead of the other. Nobody slowed down, and everybody pretty much got the point that there was no way to get around these guys. Sure we never went really fast, but we never stopped either.
Even this isn't foolproof though. Some idiot actually jumped a curb just to get around me. And you know what? When it came time for her to merge, nobody let her in until about one car ahead of me. Gee, she really got far! Idiot. And then there was another guy who was behind me, got in the merge lane, went over one more lane (causing much honking and screeching of brakes) and then got back in the merge lane where I was going to go just so he could continue giving me the finger. No bother. Just slow down a little more and take the next spot back.
Are you referring to the one that says "Truckers don't be fooled, this is still a steep grade," or something like that? It's much flatter than right near the tunnel, so you think you're level-ish.
If there were 100% enforcement, maybe the members of congress would think twice before enacting some bill that, if taken literally and enforced effectively, would end up getting themselves arrested, not to mention their children, police officers, the president, etc. Even if congress didn't wise up, and half of them (yeah right, more like all of them) ended up in jail, then the public backlash would be strong enough to instigate a change in the way laws are written.
You alluded to this in your post, too, but perhaps the sentences/fines will be diminished for some of the lesser crimes where the punishments have gotten out of hand, like stealing cable. Afterall, if there is a 100% chance that you will get caught, having any punishment at all is a substantial deterrent.
if you have feedback for the Texas AG, he can be emailed at greg.abbott@oag.state.tx.us
I don't think the punishment was harsh enough, but you have to wonder why there were only 2 states with the balls to punish these guys.
replace "just a cure" with "not a cure". d'oh!
I call shenanigans. If anything, the patent system would reward a "cure" better than a non-curing treatment. Think about it: if the drug were actually a cure, then the disease would be wiped out before your competition gets the opportunity to make your drug. If your drug were just a cure, then your competitor can just manufacture it later, since all the sick people will still be sick. Instead, if you've made a "cure," they have to find some other disease to cure, or their business will fail.
PS. I find the word "incentivised" truly disturbing. That word alone makes me wonder if you're not actually a troll.
Thanks! That explanation makes sense. I was afraid the benchmark was just BS, so I hadn't decided to buy an enclosure yet.
I had this problem with a USB to IDE hard drive. It works fine on my HP laptop, but not on my PowerBook. The genius bar guy said it was exactly due to that. Apparently not all USB device manufactures feel obliged to stay within spec. I found some benchmarks that show the PB actually can access data faster by using a firewire enclosure anyway (despite the nominal data rate being faster for USB2). We'll see how that works...
:-)
I wonder if this will be a problem for phone manufacturers. If they are limited to 500mA @ 5V, that may limit the speed of recharging their batteries. Also, are they going to have to have USB transformers to get down to 3V? Anybody here more familiar with chargers? Anything below 13.8kV and I start to get confused.
Ah, a fellow football fan. I wonder how few of us there are on /. ?
:-)
And yes, the discussion got wildly off-topic. You are too kind by saying "bordering on absurd." I'm pretty sure anybody with less patience would have completely written me off as a whacko.
Thanks. I'll look it up. :-)
Hear, hear! It is one of the best board games I have ever played. It's a little complicated if you're learning by the book (better for somebody to show you how), and it can take a while if you've got indecisive people in the group. I only wish there were a two-player version, so my wife and I could play when there's no company. My in-laws like it, my family likes it, my friends like it, and it's extendable to up to 6 people.
What about the deep emotional center idea? Well, intense religious experiences have been shown to trigger some of the same centers as sex, chocolate, and roller coasters. Does that mean that pastors/ministers/priests are of a "lower social status"? I was paid to sing in a choir. That choir sang very touching songs that several people in the audience later said they came back to listen to again, because they had a deep emotional experience. Is that morally wrong?
On to the drug trial thing. For both drug trials that I have participated in, I had to have surgery to remove two wisdom teeth. I effectively sold part of my body in order to pay for college. Looking back, that sure seems a little creepy. Maybe I was wrong to do that. On the other side of the drug trial equation are those making money off the drugs, not the trials. There are situations like those fictionalized in The Constant Gardener, where undesired effects go on too long before the test is halted. And that sort of thing does happen in real life. It's easy for us to say, "Look there. That's an immorral thing to do." But at the time, all the people involved surely thought they were doing the right thing.
I guess all I'm trying to say is that this is a very murky area, and trying to pin down exactly why some people don't like hookers is very hard to do.