Samsung and HTC are trying to fragment the ecosystem.
They consider the "skin" they put over android to be a differentiating feature, and break things with it to replace good stock android features with their own clunky implementations. The Google Play Editions of their flagship devices were so warmly received because they got rid of the bloatware and the fragmentation that came with the hardware.
You've quoted the GP as saying: [QUOTE]So you have a 5-6 year old widget that is no longer supported, big whoop.[/QUOTE]
Then you cite DVD/Bluray players. Which work fine with no internet connection, no patching. TV, again, they work fine with no internet connection, no patching. Cameras, again, they still work just fine.
I have a "5-6 year old widget" too that is no longer supported. It's the first-gen ipod touch that GP is referencing. I still use it for it's intended purpose and it works just fine. It can't make use of any of the new shinies in the itunes store, but I don't really expect to still be adding new features onto this 5-6 year old device with no problem.
Hey I've got a PC too. I've upgraded the internals as far as it can go. Every 2-4 years, new features are coming out that aren't supported on my hardware, and I accept that. If I want those new features, I need to buy the new GPU, which often needs to be paired with new CPU, which needs to be paired with a new motherboard, and new RAM. Hell, in my last upgrade, I found that even my computer CASE doesn't support the "new" SSD dimensions. I didn't bother upgrading the case so I just propped the stupid thing up and left it loose inside the case.
Yet all of these things continue to work just fine with their original functionality, it's just that they don't always work with new functionality. That's a risk of tech products, you gotta buy them for what they provide today, and you can't place all your bets on what they/might/ provide in the future.
And FWIW, the ipod touch is the only apple device I have, the other 2 tablets and 2 phones I bought this year are android devices. Up until this week I was using an HTC droid incredible on android 2.3. It's about 3 years old and was still working fine in terms of the software I'd loaded on it when it was still new. Just because subsequent development left it behind doesn't mean it stopped working at the end of it's product life. I just kept using it and I would still be using it if I hadn't decided to switch carriers.
Full price on T-mobile with no contract is $650, same for Google Play.
I mean, there's some dumbass trying to sell one for $1300, but that's just wishful thinking, not a market price. $650 is the standard price, anything below is a discount, anything above is scalping.
I'm fairly sure that the GP was making a reference to the sci-fi novel "The Legacy of Heorot" by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Steven Barnes. Specifically, the life cycle of "Grendels".
He's probably just having the knee-jerk reaction that the editors want, and hasn't read the article. Given that it's only about a paragraph or two of actual text, here's all the relevant information:
" Amidst the blacked-out redactions, this turned up on the watch list, page 13:
Open Source Software
These organizations are requesting either 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(6) exemption in order to collaboratively develop new software. The members of these organizations are usually the for-profit business or for-profit support technicians of the software.
There is no specific guidance at this point. If you see a case, elevate it to your manager.
I would guess that the IRS was suspicious of Open Source Software because it figured that it was primarily a profit-driven project. Perhaps they had had some applications that clearly benefited only a single profit-making sponsor, or perhaps they simply hadnâ(TM)t understood the dynamics of open source.
By February 8, 2012, they had added âoeThe software is provided for free, however, fees are charged for support by the for-profit,â and specified a contact for the cases."
Taking a step back to think about what non-IT people think of an organization comprised of for profit businesses and their employees, requesting non-profit treatment...it's not at all surprising for additional investigation to take place. It makes sense for them to want to take time to understand exactly what the organization is doing to avoid approving an organization that may not be for the advancement for the public good, but rather a simple tax-dodge for underlying businesses.
I mean, who would prefer that the IRS hand out tax-exemptions willy-nilly without any judgement?
I'm a gaming enthusiast, but I'm not going to prop up gaming on a pedestal as a particularly virtuous use of my time (though no less than the vast majority of hobbies).
Games are designed to reward players with hooks to provide constant entertainment triggers. Real life simply is not designed to reward you as frequently and consistently as games. Many of the real-world achievements that we respect involve long arduous stretches of little or no return for time invested.
The key lesson for young gamers is that they should learn to value internal achievement, i.e taking pride in the journey to mastery of a difficult subject without needing external validation. An important corollary to this is that life isn't just about being happy. If a person's goal is to chase your own happiness till the day you die, theycould just as easily accomplish this by drugging yourself out of this world. I'll go out on a limb here and say that what a person does with their life is more important than how "happy" they are while doing it. Besides, in time they may find that happiness sacrificed in the near-time results in much greater long-term satisfaction.
How people "think" isn't really a useful foundation for scientific testing. The window is only open for anecdotal subjective opinions.
That said, if there are differences I would guess that gamers have been trained to see systems. After playing through so many disparate scenarios governed by different rulesets, gamers have developed a habit of looking at a scenario, feeling out the borders, and identifying avenues for incremental optimizations in order to "beat" the game.
Whether this means finding that the ROI on crafting deerskin into skullcaps is higher than woodwork, or that holding crosshairs at head-level constantly leads to fast/easy headshots in FPS games, gamers are always looking for an edge. They enjoy the dopamine jolts of each little discovery in quick sucession that have formed the basis for their primary hobby. It'd hardly be surprising for them to take a similar approach elsewhere.
I suspect that the younger generations will generally have a higher level of systemic learning ability as they are being trained to adapt to rapid technological changes. While our generation commonly laments being IT support to their parents who still to this day struggle to grasp simple PC usage, today's kids regularly encounter new devices and changes in interface. Their first reaction to an unknown interface isn't to just ask someone else for instructions on how to use them, they've learned to just figure it out or go look up the answer. This allows them to adapt and learn new systems at a much faster rate. The older generations simply had different challenges that did not include needing to learn dramatically different interfaces and technologies every few years.
I don't think that the way in which you meet a person matter nearly as much as how the two people choose to behave towards each other. It's a long series of compromises on one side or the other or ideally on both sides.
A lot of people hunger to meet that "perfect" mate, but that mindset is a little silly, how could anyone personify such a fantasy? The "perfect" mate is a caricature, not a person, because real people have flaws. Good relationships can work on problems or work around problems, but if the people involved are holding out for perfection they don't work as hard at it.
I completely agree that differences aren't necessarily a bad thing, differences between people can add additional perspective to the relationship. If they learn to appreciate each other's differences, the couple can gain as a whole.
You're not a curmudgeon, I'm 28 and I thought ST:ID was terrible as a star trek film. It was terrific as an action movie in space, but it didn't put any effort into bringing any of the thoughtfulness that made Star Trek special.
Star Trek is packed with campiness, plot holes, and hand-wavy science, but the shows are brave enough to tackle the weighty ethical questions that make for great sci-fi.
I still enjoyed both of JJ's Star Trek movies. The first had the novelty of reimagining the original trek, and I gave it a pass for being an origin story.I had hoped the follow-up would be more substantial, but it turned out to just be an action movie. The premise for the 3rd movie sounds like it might better lend itself to the kind of trek plot I like to see. Twice burned, but I'm still optimistic, and no matter how the new movies turn out, it doesn't impact the quality of the prior material, I can only stand to benefit from another movie.
Sorry, but I have to disagree. I'm only 28, and had only really dived into the franchise about 3 years ago, so I'm hardly an obstinate old-timer. Heck, I enjoyed the 2009 re-imagining of the TOS because of the novelty in it's portrayal. I forgave the limited scope of topics covered because it was an origin story, and there's only so much time to allocate in a single movie.
ST:ID was a terrific action film and I had a lot of fun watching it. But at the same time, I was disappointed as a trek fan. They'd finished telling the origin story, this was their first opportunity to throw me some red meat, but instead I just got what was fundamentally a action movie in space. This movie's drama was character-driven, which is typically a good thing in story-telling, but at the same time, the higher intellectual dilemmas were scoped out of the movie. Losing the forest for the trees.
I don't even care about consistency with the universe's lore, or even plot holes. For me, good sci-fi is about taking humanity(or it's equivalent) out of this world and into another, so that the fundamental human experience common to both the real world and the constructed fictional world, can be drawn into stark contrast. I don't care about the science behind Data, he's just a plot device through which to muse over what it is to be human. I don't care about the differences between human and Vulcan biology(though it's mildly interesting), they have always been a juxtaposition between cold intellect and (relatively) raw emotion.
In this new star trek movie: 1) The potential effects of interfering with an early-stage civilization. (Prime Directive 101) - They didn't really raise any commentary on the ethics of interference here. They simply lived in the moment, with Spock raising the question of whether it was right or not, then Kirk making his decision. The results were shown. There wasn't really any evaluation of the pros vs. cons of the two decision laid out from an ethical perspective. Ultimately this scene was driven by the characters rather than higher moral principles, with the choices spelled out as "This is what _____ would do in this situation". The prime directive has been covered more than once in Trek lore and much better. I think this scene was mainly here to make an explosive intro, show that the crew has had several missions under it's belt, and make an inside-joke to old fans to say "Hahaha, the new Kirk doesn't give a damn about the Prime Directive either", rather than to look at the dilemma in a way that enlightens the audience about contemporary conduct.
2) The needs of the many and the one. - Again, this problem happened in the movie, but it wasn't actually discussed. It really only comes up in the intro scene. If they wanted this to be an important theme it could have been discussed in several other events in the movie, but it wasn't.
3) Xenophobia and the militaristic response to it. - I don't think this was part of this movie. There was indeed an increase in militaristic sentiment, but it was in response to a clear danger raised in this universe where the Federation has all the same enemies, but virtually no Vulcans. Plenty of aliens were already part of the Federation at this point, Xenophobia within the Federation was an issue for Captain Archer's time, not Captain Kirk's.
4) The relative nature of ethical decisions. - I'm not sure which decision you're referring to here. If you mean the analysis of how different characters would decide in a given situation, I concede that this was indeed covered.
5) The fragility of the utopian Federation image. - Super interesting as a point of lore, and I was super excited when I heard what organization the antagonist had been operating under for the past year. (for the last 4 years with no TV trek series, I'd believed that a new trek series revolving around this organization would have been ideal as the darker tone of their mission would play very well with today's more cynical audiences who have been tuning into shows like 24, or BSG, with anti-h
Ok, the "wierd_w" guy you're responding to has clearly shut himself off to rational discourse here. He's not listening to the reasonable arguments being put out by the bronies on this article.
If it helps at all, you guys have at least changed my mind about Bronies. It appears that for most of you it's just a harmless hobby/interest. I can understand how light-heartedness in a show can have a certain appeal in today's culture which is so heavily burdened with sarcasm and cynicism. I for one happen to enjoy the blissful naivete of Star Trek depicting a hopeful future where mankind (at least most of them) have advanced beyond many of today's problems. (DS9 being an obvious thematic exception, but cool for other reasons).
The IRS has a responsibility to target these political groups. If they want tax-exempt status, they cannot be primarily organized for political purposes. The point of this review process is to spot the obviously political ones.
What they did WRONG, was highlighting only conservative names as flags for increased scrutiny, because the vast majority of the applications for inappropriate tax-exempt status are conservative./If the name of your group states a political goal, while your group is claiming to be non-political, it is not crazy to take a look/.
What they should have done, is balance out their watchlist with words that suggest a group may be from the extreme left, like "Communist", or "Socialist"...not exactly popular groups in the past 60-70 years, but even if the vast majority are right-leaning applicants, they have an obligation to be politically neutral.
Also, nobody cares about Benghazi but Republicans. Do you know how many Americans have died on foreign soil in the past 10 years? It's not that dead Americans don't matter, it's that there are so many dead that the public has become jaded. Unless they have friends and family over there, they've stopped paying attention. Ask the average Joe what went wrong in Benghazi and they wouldn't even know because all they heard was just one more attack in a long series of attacks that are still happening everyday. Not a good "scandal" to hang your political machine's hat on.
The Justice dept. intrusion has legs in my opinion. This is a broad extension of gov't power that should piss off voters in both parties, and looks much more like actual wrongdoing right from the get-go. Very interested in seeing where this one goes.
Are you sure you're not thinking of vegetarians? Vegans are a different category with a whole lot more restrictions than a vegetarian, and for different reasons.
If they don't taste good, or if you can't gin up appealing recipes for them, nobody'll eat'em. Aside from countries that are already eating these insects, convincing other countries to cast aside cultural taboos on insect consumption will be difficult. Even if you price them cheaply, there is still a price floor from costs of transportation to bring them to market.
I wonder how you'd market this product? What kind of pitch do you make? Talk up how it's all-natural, earth-friendly, or high in nutrition? One way or another, somewhere on the product you'll have to cop to the fact that you're selling bugs as food, which is a massive hurdle in western countries. The easiest way would probably be to just blend them up, and batterfry them or cover'em in chocolate to get people to ease into the idea of eating them.
I can get over the visuals of eating bugs if you can make it taste good. Escargot doesn't look all that different from some bugs. Ate fried mealworm too (and it was TERRIBLE, like eating pure flour).
Do workers typically get stuff dropped on their head often enough to scratch up the hardhat such that veterans are easily distinguished from newbies by the amount of hardhat damage? Or do they use the hardhat as an adhoc tool for certain situations, resulting in hardhat scratches? Do veterans just slam the hardhat around on some concrete to make it look more worn down to blend in with the rest of the crew?
The guns serve as a narrative vehicle that embodies the function of the tool. It's harder to build a dramatic story around an epic paintball fight around the globe, with clashing armies, with armored support, air support, etc. Just handing the player a gun lets them understand exactly what's going on here.
Realistic violence kind of misses the point with gamers. Fundamentally, most of these FPS games are variations on something as non-violent as paintball. Nobody is looking for the thrill of killing a father in a far-off land so that his daughter will grow up without him. Really, all they want to do is score points on each other, or advance a storyline, or get an upgrade. It's like dunking a basketball on the other team. No malice, just sport. What allows me to enjoy blowing my best friend's head off is knowing I'm not hurting him. I don't even do light boxing with him anymore because I keep pulling my punches short of his face because I don't want to risk hurting him (he's a much lower weight class).
SoF was a curiosity, the violence was interesting only as a showcase to look at, but not really something to engage with. It's the same reason the news like to focus on stories of immense personal tragedy(with absolutely no direct relevance to any of the viewers). Ultimately, the gamers lose interest in violence and are really just there to play the underlying game. Non-gamers just see violence because they can't see the game.
They do have the resources. You just use computers.
Accounting firms already exist with numerous experts in every state, (Typically referred to as their "SALT" or State and Local Tax department). You find a change, interpret, push into the database with the associated effective date. Next week's update rolls out to every subscriber.
Off the top of my head I can name 5 accounting companies that already have/ are continuing to interpret law changes in every state. (I can think of several more possible companies, but not sure if they operate in every state). All they need to do is sell it. When that many companies (plus any that decide to join the competition) are selling identical products, you end up with price competition and commoditization of the product. In the end, you end up with the equivalent of TurboTax for internet sales.
If businesses can skip sales taxes by going online and only selling to the other 49 states, they have an unfair advantage over the local business. You end up incentivizing a ridiculous result where people in State A are pushed to buy&ship from State B, and vice versa, rather than just buying local. Internet sales tax loopholes just help people dodge their taxes owed, and harm local businesses.
More importantly, the bottom line is that the government needs tax revenues. If you want the gov't to cut spending, that is a totally different topic. If you allow the government to exist in any way/shape/form, it needs money, and if they can't get sales tax, they will just increase your real estate taxes instead until they can cover the difference, or any number of alternative tax revenue avenues. Heck, abolish state sales taxes entirely for all I care, it's a regressive tax anyway, just make sure that whatever tax is raised in its place is applied fairly. One way or another, they will collect tax. If you don't like it, then fight spending until they don't have to collect tax. But wanting all the spending, while denying the necessary tax revenues is fiscally irresponsible.
I would agree that Chinese culture places a very low emphasis on individual ethics.
But more to the point on the discussion of the military threat that China poses, I don't think military war is on their agenda. They don't have a history of foreign conquest or empire building, but they've shown a pattern of aggressive economic policies which have worked out very well.
US invades Iraq, blows hundreds of billions of dollars (not to mention trillions(!) in missed opportunity cost over time), but the end result is that China is the biggest winner of of the new Iraq oilfields (followed by Russia), without having to burn money and political capital by waging a war. Pretty clear who "won" the war in Iraq.
If China conquers the world, it will be through finances not fighter jets.
The example you're responding to was Michael Dorner, you can't really claim the police were trying to "negotiate with, and try to capture, the individuals". They opened fire on random vehicles (not one, but 2) to try to kill whoever was inside before even checking to see if he happened to be in the vehicle. When they actually did find him, they tried to burn him alive. Not saying he didn't deserve what he got, but they were obviously intent on killing him from the start.
"Cesarean delivery is the most common surgery in the United States, performed on 1.67 million women each year. Cesarean rates increased from 20.7 percent in 1996 to 32.8 percent in 2011, according to the Minnesota researchers."
You can recover relatively quickly after normal birth, but after getting a big honking hole cut in you, you can barely move for days, and it's about 2 weeks to go move around normally.
Of course, before civilization, mothers all recovered quickly after normal birth, because all the ones with complications which would prompt a c-section would just die. Thus, all that's left are the mothers who can walk around shortly after birth (unless they die in subsequent child births).
Why should I hire a woman who will eventually demand 3 months of free pay while saddling me with an empty job position, when I can just hire a man instead? I definitely don't want her promoted into an important position if she might take off for maternity leave. Maybe she'll have more than 1 kid.
Nobody could prove gender discrimination in my hiring/promotion practices. I'll just say that they made a bad impression in the interview, or they weren't a good fit for the job.
Equality in parental leave is beneficial for BOTH men and women. When men get equal parental leave, you remove an incentive for gender discrimination.
Then why not just not hire women because they'll end up claiming 3 months of free salary from you eventually? Maybe even more than once. You'll need to give all their work to someone else anyway. You DEFINITELY don't want to promote a woman into an important role if you might end up having them taking maternity leave on you. Just hire a man instead and you don't have these issues.
Oh? It's illegal to discriminate based on gender? Hmmm, I guess I'll just say that the female candidate didn't have the right experience or made a bad impression in the interview, how can they come up with any proof that I'm discriminating based on their uterus?
Having equality in parental leave for both moms and dads benefits BOTH the moms and the dads. If dads get the same parental leave, moms get less discrimination.
The concern with Peak Oil is that it can cause a shock to the global economy if oil costs skyrocket with no viable alternative.
However, if oil costs increase, but at a slower rate, incentives for private investment in alternative energies increase proportionately. Non-oil based energy is more valuable when oil-based energy is expensive.
So long as we don't suddenly fall off a cliff of oil supply, the world will get by. Furthermore, there is a lot of oil that is not being drawn up (oil shale for instance) because the cost of getting at that oil is too high. If oil prices are high, then there is profit, and then that oil will be drawn out. In other words, this provides a buffer oil supply against a sudden "cliff" in oil prices, providing for a more reasonable "hill", during which alternative energy research can ramp up. Regular ole' capitalistic human greed will give us alternative energy technologies eventually.
Obviously, having alternative energy options earlier is still preferable environmentally, politically, and defensively. But financially, the value proposition is much harder to make and that's why private investment in alt. energy is relatively weak. In order to fix this and smooth the transition(and enjoy the other benefits mentioned above), a reasonable approach is to simply eliminate tax breaks for the already insanely profitable oil companies. No tax deduction for oil exploration costs for instance: http://investments-and-acquisitions.com/oil-and-gas-drilling-advantages-in-us-tax-code/
This would level the field between oil and alternative energy. Further, we need oil, there are oil-based products we can't make without oil. Energy storage is a key issue, because having power near windfarms, sunbelts, rivers, nuclear plants, etc. is good, you'd still need to connect everything to the grid, and that includes remote last-mile areas. Battery storage just sucks, there have been only modest improvements over decades, and it's a major technological chokepoint. In lieu of revolutionary technology on par with the invention of the internet in battery tech, we still need oil. The sheer immensity of global energy demands are such that no single alternative energy tech can cover our needs. Bottom line, the world needs a balanced portfolio of energy sources for efficient and practical coverage of energy needs.
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Samsung and HTC are trying to fragment the ecosystem.
They consider the "skin" they put over android to be a differentiating feature, and break things with it to replace good stock android features with their own clunky implementations. The Google Play Editions of their flagship devices were so warmly received because they got rid of the bloatware and the fragmentation that came with the hardware.
Your post isn't making sense.
You've quoted the GP as saying:
[QUOTE]So you have a 5-6 year old widget that is no longer supported, big whoop.[/QUOTE]
Then you cite DVD/Bluray players. Which work fine with no internet connection, no patching.
TV, again, they work fine with no internet connection, no patching.
Cameras, again, they still work just fine.
I have a "5-6 year old widget" too that is no longer supported. It's the first-gen ipod touch that GP is referencing. I still use it for it's intended purpose and it works just fine. It can't make use of any of the new shinies in the itunes store, but I don't really expect to still be adding new features onto this 5-6 year old device with no problem.
Hey I've got a PC too. I've upgraded the internals as far as it can go. Every 2-4 years, new features are coming out that aren't supported on my hardware, and I accept that. If I want those new features, I need to buy the new GPU, which often needs to be paired with new CPU, which needs to be paired with a new motherboard, and new RAM. Hell, in my last upgrade, I found that even my computer CASE doesn't support the "new" SSD dimensions. I didn't bother upgrading the case so I just propped the stupid thing up and left it loose inside the case.
Yet all of these things continue to work just fine with their original functionality, it's just that they don't always work with new functionality. That's a risk of tech products, you gotta buy them for what they provide today, and you can't place all your bets on what they /might/ provide in the future.
And FWIW, the ipod touch is the only apple device I have, the other 2 tablets and 2 phones I bought this year are android devices. Up until this week I was using an HTC droid incredible on android 2.3. It's about 3 years old and was still working fine in terms of the software I'd loaded on it when it was still new. Just because subsequent development left it behind doesn't mean it stopped working at the end of it's product life. I just kept using it and I would still be using it if I hadn't decided to switch carriers.
When I search for samsung galaxy s4 on amazon I get 3 offers:
$613.49
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Galaxy-I9505-white-16GB/dp/B00BTCE734/ref=sr_1_1?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1373549604&sr=1-1&keywords=samsung+galaxy+s4
$605
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-i337-GALAXY-Phone-16GB/dp/B00CRO6QFA/ref=sr_1_2?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1373549604&sr=1-2&keywords=samsung+galaxy+s4
$619
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-i337-GALAXY-Phone-16GB/dp/B00CRNTDII/ref=sr_1_3?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1373549604&sr=1-3&keywords=samsung+galaxy+s4
Full price on T-mobile with no contract is $650, same for Google Play.
I mean, there's some dumbass trying to sell one for $1300, but that's just wishful thinking, not a market price. $650 is the standard price, anything below is a discount, anything above is scalping.
I'm fairly sure that the GP was making a reference to the sci-fi novel "The Legacy of Heorot" by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Steven Barnes. Specifically, the life cycle of "Grendels".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legacy_of_Heorot
He's probably just having the knee-jerk reaction that the editors want, and hasn't read the article. Given that it's only about a paragraph or two of actual text, here's all the relevant information:
" Amidst the blacked-out redactions, this turned up on the watch list, page 13:
Open Source Software
These organizations are requesting either 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(6) exemption in order to collaboratively develop new software. The members of these organizations are usually the for-profit business or for-profit support technicians of the software.
There is no specific guidance at this point. If you see a case, elevate it to your manager.
I would guess that the IRS was suspicious of Open Source Software because it figured that it was primarily a profit-driven project. Perhaps they had had some applications that clearly benefited only a single profit-making sponsor, or perhaps they simply hadnâ(TM)t understood the dynamics of open source.
By February 8, 2012, they had added âoeThe software is provided for free, however, fees are charged for support by the for-profit,â and specified a contact for the cases."
Taking a step back to think about what non-IT people think of an organization comprised of for profit businesses and their employees, requesting non-profit treatment...it's not at all surprising for additional investigation to take place. It makes sense for them to want to take time to understand exactly what the organization is doing to avoid approving an organization that may not be for the advancement for the public good, but rather a simple tax-dodge for underlying businesses.
I mean, who would prefer that the IRS hand out tax-exemptions willy-nilly without any judgement?
I'm a gaming enthusiast, but I'm not going to prop up gaming on a pedestal as a particularly virtuous use of my time (though no less than the vast majority of hobbies).
Games are designed to reward players with hooks to provide constant entertainment triggers. Real life simply is not designed to reward you as frequently and consistently as games. Many of the real-world achievements that we respect involve long arduous stretches of little or no return for time invested.
The key lesson for young gamers is that they should learn to value internal achievement, i.e taking pride in the journey to mastery of a difficult subject without needing external validation. An important corollary to this is that life isn't just about being happy. If a person's goal is to chase your own happiness till the day you die, theycould just as easily accomplish this by drugging yourself out of this world. I'll go out on a limb here and say that what a person does with their life is more important than how "happy" they are while doing it. Besides, in time they may find that happiness sacrificed in the near-time results in much greater long-term satisfaction.
How people "think" isn't really a useful foundation for scientific testing. The window is only open for anecdotal subjective opinions.
That said, if there are differences I would guess that gamers have been trained to see systems. After playing through so many disparate scenarios governed by different rulesets, gamers have developed a habit of looking at a scenario, feeling out the borders, and identifying avenues for incremental optimizations in order to "beat" the game.
Whether this means finding that the ROI on crafting deerskin into skullcaps is higher than woodwork, or that holding crosshairs at head-level constantly leads to fast/easy headshots in FPS games, gamers are always looking for an edge. They enjoy the dopamine jolts of each little discovery in quick sucession that have formed the basis for their primary hobby. It'd hardly be surprising for them to take a similar approach elsewhere.
I suspect that the younger generations will generally have a higher level of systemic learning ability as they are being trained to adapt to rapid technological changes. While our generation commonly laments being IT support to their parents who still to this day struggle to grasp simple PC usage, today's kids regularly encounter new devices and changes in interface. Their first reaction to an unknown interface isn't to just ask someone else for instructions on how to use them, they've learned to just figure it out or go look up the answer. This allows them to adapt and learn new systems at a much faster rate. The older generations simply had different challenges that did not include needing to learn dramatically different interfaces and technologies every few years.
I don't think that the way in which you meet a person matter nearly as much as how the two people choose to behave towards each other. It's a long series of compromises on one side or the other or ideally on both sides.
A lot of people hunger to meet that "perfect" mate, but that mindset is a little silly, how could anyone personify such a fantasy? The "perfect" mate is a caricature, not a person, because real people have flaws. Good relationships can work on problems or work around problems, but if the people involved are holding out for perfection they don't work as hard at it.
I completely agree that differences aren't necessarily a bad thing, differences between people can add additional perspective to the relationship. If they learn to appreciate each other's differences, the couple can gain as a whole.
You're not a curmudgeon, I'm 28 and I thought ST:ID was terrible as a star trek film. It was terrific as an action movie in space, but it didn't put any effort into bringing any of the thoughtfulness that made Star Trek special.
Star Trek is packed with campiness, plot holes, and hand-wavy science, but the shows are brave enough to tackle the weighty ethical questions that make for great sci-fi.
I still enjoyed both of JJ's Star Trek movies. The first had the novelty of reimagining the original trek, and I gave it a pass for being an origin story.I had hoped the follow-up would be more substantial, but it turned out to just be an action movie. The premise for the 3rd movie sounds like it might better lend itself to the kind of trek plot I like to see. Twice burned, but I'm still optimistic, and no matter how the new movies turn out, it doesn't impact the quality of the prior material, I can only stand to benefit from another movie.
Sorry, but I have to disagree. I'm only 28, and had only really dived into the franchise about 3 years ago, so I'm hardly an obstinate old-timer. Heck, I enjoyed the 2009 re-imagining of the TOS because of the novelty in it's portrayal. I forgave the limited scope of topics covered because it was an origin story, and there's only so much time to allocate in a single movie.
ST:ID was a terrific action film and I had a lot of fun watching it. But at the same time, I was disappointed as a trek fan. They'd finished telling the origin story, this was their first opportunity to throw me some red meat, but instead I just got what was fundamentally a action movie in space. This movie's drama was character-driven, which is typically a good thing in story-telling, but at the same time, the higher intellectual dilemmas were scoped out of the movie. Losing the forest for the trees.
I don't even care about consistency with the universe's lore, or even plot holes. For me, good sci-fi is about taking humanity(or it's equivalent) out of this world and into another, so that the fundamental human experience common to both the real world and the constructed fictional world, can be drawn into stark contrast. I don't care about the science behind Data, he's just a plot device through which to muse over what it is to be human. I don't care about the differences between human and Vulcan biology(though it's mildly interesting), they have always been a juxtaposition between cold intellect and (relatively) raw emotion.
In this new star trek movie:
1) The potential effects of interfering with an early-stage civilization. (Prime Directive 101) - They didn't really raise any commentary on the ethics of interference here. They simply lived in the moment, with Spock raising the question of whether it was right or not, then Kirk making his decision. The results were shown. There wasn't really any evaluation of the pros vs. cons of the two decision laid out from an ethical perspective. Ultimately this scene was driven by the characters rather than higher moral principles, with the choices spelled out as "This is what _____ would do in this situation". The prime directive has been covered more than once in Trek lore and much better. I think this scene was mainly here to make an explosive intro, show that the crew has had several missions under it's belt, and make an inside-joke to old fans to say "Hahaha, the new Kirk doesn't give a damn about the Prime Directive either", rather than to look at the dilemma in a way that enlightens the audience about contemporary conduct.
2) The needs of the many and the one. - Again, this problem happened in the movie, but it wasn't actually discussed. It really only comes up in the intro scene. If they wanted this to be an important theme it could have been discussed in several other events in the movie, but it wasn't.
3) Xenophobia and the militaristic response to it. - I don't think this was part of this movie. There was indeed an increase in militaristic sentiment, but it was in response to a clear danger raised in this universe where the Federation has all the same enemies, but virtually no Vulcans. Plenty of aliens were already part of the Federation at this point, Xenophobia within the Federation was an issue for Captain Archer's time, not Captain Kirk's.
4) The relative nature of ethical decisions. - I'm not sure which decision you're referring to here. If you mean the analysis of how different characters would decide in a given situation, I concede that this was indeed covered.
5) The fragility of the utopian Federation image. - Super interesting as a point of lore, and I was super excited when I heard what organization the antagonist had been operating under for the past year. (for the last 4 years with no TV trek series, I'd believed that a new trek series revolving around this organization would have been ideal as the darker tone of their mission would play very well with today's more cynical audiences who have been tuning into shows like 24, or BSG, with anti-h
Ok, the "wierd_w" guy you're responding to has clearly shut himself off to rational discourse here. He's not listening to the reasonable arguments being put out by the bronies on this article.
If it helps at all, you guys have at least changed my mind about Bronies. It appears that for most of you it's just a harmless hobby/interest. I can understand how light-heartedness in a show can have a certain appeal in today's culture which is so heavily burdened with sarcasm and cynicism. I for one happen to enjoy the blissful naivete of Star Trek depicting a hopeful future where mankind (at least most of them) have advanced beyond many of today's problems. (DS9 being an obvious thematic exception, but cool for other reasons).
The IRS has a responsibility to target these political groups. If they want tax-exempt status, they cannot be primarily organized for political purposes. The point of this review process is to spot the obviously political ones.
What they did WRONG, was highlighting only conservative names as flags for increased scrutiny, because the vast majority of the applications for inappropriate tax-exempt status are conservative. /If the name of your group states a political goal, while your group is claiming to be non-political, it is not crazy to take a look/.
What they should have done, is balance out their watchlist with words that suggest a group may be from the extreme left, like "Communist", or "Socialist"...not exactly popular groups in the past 60-70 years, but even if the vast majority are right-leaning applicants, they have an obligation to be politically neutral.
Also, nobody cares about Benghazi but Republicans. Do you know how many Americans have died on foreign soil in the past 10 years? It's not that dead Americans don't matter, it's that there are so many dead that the public has become jaded. Unless they have friends and family over there, they've stopped paying attention. Ask the average Joe what went wrong in Benghazi and they wouldn't even know because all they heard was just one more attack in a long series of attacks that are still happening everyday. Not a good "scandal" to hang your political machine's hat on.
The Justice dept. intrusion has legs in my opinion. This is a broad extension of gov't power that should piss off voters in both parties, and looks much more like actual wrongdoing right from the get-go. Very interested in seeing where this one goes.
Are you sure you're not thinking of vegetarians? Vegans are a different category with a whole lot more restrictions than a vegetarian, and for different reasons.
If they don't taste good, or if you can't gin up appealing recipes for them, nobody'll eat'em. Aside from countries that are already eating these insects, convincing other countries to cast aside cultural taboos on insect consumption will be difficult. Even if you price them cheaply, there is still a price floor from costs of transportation to bring them to market.
I wonder how you'd market this product? What kind of pitch do you make? Talk up how it's all-natural, earth-friendly, or high in nutrition? One way or another, somewhere on the product you'll have to cop to the fact that you're selling bugs as food, which is a massive hurdle in western countries. The easiest way would probably be to just blend them up, and batterfry them or cover'em in chocolate to get people to ease into the idea of eating them.
I can get over the visuals of eating bugs if you can make it taste good. Escargot doesn't look all that different from some bugs. Ate fried mealworm too (and it was TERRIBLE, like eating pure flour).
I'm curious now, why is this the case?
Do workers typically get stuff dropped on their head often enough to scratch up the hardhat such that veterans are easily distinguished from newbies by the amount of hardhat damage? Or do they use the hardhat as an adhoc tool for certain situations, resulting in hardhat scratches? Do veterans just slam the hardhat around on some concrete to make it look more worn down to blend in with the rest of the crew?
The guns serve as a narrative vehicle that embodies the function of the tool. It's harder to build a dramatic story around an epic paintball fight around the globe, with clashing armies, with armored support, air support, etc. Just handing the player a gun lets them understand exactly what's going on here.
Realistic violence kind of misses the point with gamers. Fundamentally, most of these FPS games are variations on something as non-violent as paintball. Nobody is looking for the thrill of killing a father in a far-off land so that his daughter will grow up without him. Really, all they want to do is score points on each other, or advance a storyline, or get an upgrade. It's like dunking a basketball on the other team. No malice, just sport. What allows me to enjoy blowing my best friend's head off is knowing I'm not hurting him. I don't even do light boxing with him anymore because I keep pulling my punches short of his face because I don't want to risk hurting him (he's a much lower weight class).
SoF was a curiosity, the violence was interesting only as a showcase to look at, but not really something to engage with. It's the same reason the news like to focus on stories of immense personal tragedy(with absolutely no direct relevance to any of the viewers). Ultimately, the gamers lose interest in violence and are really just there to play the underlying game. Non-gamers just see violence because they can't see the game.
They do have the resources. You just use computers.
Accounting firms already exist with numerous experts in every state, (Typically referred to as their "SALT" or State and Local Tax department). You find a change, interpret, push into the database with the associated effective date. Next week's update rolls out to every subscriber.
Off the top of my head I can name 5 accounting companies that already have/ are continuing to interpret law changes in every state. (I can think of several more possible companies, but not sure if they operate in every state). All they need to do is sell it. When that many companies (plus any that decide to join the competition) are selling identical products, you end up with price competition and commoditization of the product. In the end, you end up with the equivalent of TurboTax for internet sales.
If businesses can skip sales taxes by going online and only selling to the other 49 states, they have an unfair advantage over the local business. You end up incentivizing a ridiculous result where people in State A are pushed to buy&ship from State B, and vice versa, rather than just buying local. Internet sales tax loopholes just help people dodge their taxes owed, and harm local businesses.
More importantly, the bottom line is that the government needs tax revenues. If you want the gov't to cut spending, that is a totally different topic. If you allow the government to exist in any way/shape/form, it needs money, and if they can't get sales tax, they will just increase your real estate taxes instead until they can cover the difference, or any number of alternative tax revenue avenues. Heck, abolish state sales taxes entirely for all I care, it's a regressive tax anyway, just make sure that whatever tax is raised in its place is applied fairly. One way or another, they will collect tax. If you don't like it, then fight spending until they don't have to collect tax. But wanting all the spending, while denying the necessary tax revenues is fiscally irresponsible.
I would agree that Chinese culture places a very low emphasis on individual ethics.
But more to the point on the discussion of the military threat that China poses, I don't think military war is on their agenda. They don't have a history of foreign conquest or empire building, but they've shown a pattern of aggressive economic policies which have worked out very well.
US invades Iraq, blows hundreds of billions of dollars (not to mention trillions(!) in missed opportunity cost over time), but the end result is that China is the biggest winner of of the new Iraq oilfields (followed by Russia), without having to burn money and political capital by waging a war. Pretty clear who "won" the war in Iraq.
If China conquers the world, it will be through finances not fighter jets.
The example you're responding to was Michael Dorner, you can't really claim the police were trying to "negotiate with, and try to capture, the individuals". They opened fire on random vehicles (not one, but 2) to try to kill whoever was inside before even checking to see if he happened to be in the vehicle. When they actually did find him, they tried to burn him alive. Not saying he didn't deserve what he got, but they were obviously intent on killing him from the start.
http://www.webmd.com/baby/news/20130304/c-section-rates-vary-widely-at-us-hospitals
"Cesarean delivery is the most common surgery in the United States, performed on 1.67 million women each year. Cesarean rates increased from 20.7 percent in 1996 to 32.8 percent in 2011, according to the Minnesota researchers."
You can recover relatively quickly after normal birth, but after getting a big honking hole cut in you, you can barely move for days, and it's about 2 weeks to go move around normally.
Of course, before civilization, mothers all recovered quickly after normal birth, because all the ones with complications which would prompt a c-section would just die. Thus, all that's left are the mothers who can walk around shortly after birth (unless they die in subsequent child births).
Why should I hire a woman who will eventually demand 3 months of free pay while saddling me with an empty job position, when I can just hire a man instead? I definitely don't want her promoted into an important position if she might take off for maternity leave. Maybe she'll have more than 1 kid.
Nobody could prove gender discrimination in my hiring/promotion practices. I'll just say that they made a bad impression in the interview, or they weren't a good fit for the job.
Equality in parental leave is beneficial for BOTH men and women. When men get equal parental leave, you remove an incentive for gender discrimination.
Then why not just not hire women because they'll end up claiming 3 months of free salary from you eventually? Maybe even more than once. You'll need to give all their work to someone else anyway. You DEFINITELY don't want to promote a woman into an important role if you might end up having them taking maternity leave on you. Just hire a man instead and you don't have these issues.
Oh? It's illegal to discriminate based on gender? Hmmm, I guess I'll just say that the female candidate didn't have the right experience or made a bad impression in the interview, how can they come up with any proof that I'm discriminating based on their uterus?
Having equality in parental leave for both moms and dads benefits BOTH the moms and the dads. If dads get the same parental leave, moms get less discrimination.
The concern with Peak Oil is that it can cause a shock to the global economy if oil costs skyrocket with no viable alternative.
However, if oil costs increase, but at a slower rate, incentives for private investment in alternative energies increase proportionately. Non-oil based energy is more valuable when oil-based energy is expensive.
So long as we don't suddenly fall off a cliff of oil supply, the world will get by. Furthermore, there is a lot of oil that is not being drawn up (oil shale for instance) because the cost of getting at that oil is too high. If oil prices are high, then there is profit, and then that oil will be drawn out. In other words, this provides a buffer oil supply against a sudden "cliff" in oil prices, providing for a more reasonable "hill", during which alternative energy research can ramp up. Regular ole' capitalistic human greed will give us alternative energy technologies eventually.
Obviously, having alternative energy options earlier is still preferable environmentally, politically, and defensively. But financially, the value proposition is much harder to make and that's why private investment in alt. energy is relatively weak. In order to fix this and smooth the transition(and enjoy the other benefits mentioned above), a reasonable approach is to simply eliminate tax breaks for the already insanely profitable oil companies. No tax deduction for oil exploration costs for instance: http://investments-and-acquisitions.com/oil-and-gas-drilling-advantages-in-us-tax-code/
This would level the field between oil and alternative energy. Further, we need oil, there are oil-based products we can't make without oil. Energy storage is a key issue, because having power near windfarms, sunbelts, rivers, nuclear plants, etc. is good, you'd still need to connect everything to the grid, and that includes remote last-mile areas. Battery storage just sucks, there have been only modest improvements over decades, and it's a major technological chokepoint. In lieu of revolutionary technology on par with the invention of the internet in battery tech, we still need oil. The sheer immensity of global energy demands are such that no single alternative energy tech can cover our needs. Bottom line, the world needs a balanced portfolio of energy sources for efficient and practical coverage of energy needs.
Dark Souls and Demon Souls were successful games.
Seems like there's a significant niche of gamers who really enjoy self-inflicted pain.