IMO, men do more dangerous things because they (in general/historically) don't place as much value on the survival of the family as the women have, therefore they are willing to take more of a risk than women typically are. Also, testosterone has been shown to encourage "aggressive" behavior, often resulting in people "under the influence" misunderestimating how much risk is involved with various activities. Factors like these have nothing to do with male or female inherent "survivability".
Aside from basic physical tests like how many pounds men or women can bench press, there is nothing that indicates that, given equivalent training, men are more likely to perform more dangerous actions successfully than women - only that men are more likely to perform more dangerous actions period.
Actually, there are certain studies that indicate that women tend to have higher tolerances to long-term pain & stress than men, and tend to live longer than men in a low-survival rate environment (although that might be partly due to the risk-taking nature of men reducing their survival rate).
Bah, France along with Germany and Russia opposed the war because it would interrupt their nice oil deals with Iraq.
The _companies_ of those countries might've opposed the war because of that.
The _citizens_ of those countries opposed it because they thought, like most of the world, that the Bush Administration was lying through their *ssholes about the necessity for going into Iraq.
Unfortunately, half of the U.S. public seems to be in a state of willful denial, otherwise he & his cronies would have been impeached and thrown into prison by now.
the church is probably a whole lot more qualified to interpret God's will, since two milleniums of millions of minds is probably better than a year or two of one mind.
Yeah, it's pretty sad that so much brainpower has been wasted through mankind's history on a meme which, almost by definition, can never be connected with any kind of objective reality..
About the only thing that such thought has been good for is occasionally coming up with some simple rules on how people should treat each other to try and improve the human condition, but those rules could have easily been arrived at without the need to invoke anything supernatural as motivation - just plain old common sense and an appreciation for history.
If you want my money, my hard earned money, then submit to me a full audit of your life income and expenses from today all the way back to the day you found out your lady was pregnant.
If you don't want to help pay for the public infrastructure, then please leave the country (preferably the planet). The rest of us will get along with helping each other out, and will probably be much better off without your presence.
A nice dose of 220 through your hand will teach you more about electricity then any classroom lecture.
Heh - I remember trying the "back-of-my-hand" approach to see if the wire was live, and I ended up punching myself in the head. After my vision cleared, I decided that using the volt meter wasn't such a pain after all...
Or you might be a potential benefit, in that your concealed weapon could help the other passengers resist terrorists.
Yeah, I'd feel real good knowing there might be dozens of potentially untrained gun-crazy yahoos willing to whip out a semiautomatic in a sardine can packed with people, supported by wings filled with jet fuel at 30,000 feet & start blasting away. NOT!
Hell, if I saw someone like you on a plane & recognized how dangerous you were, I'd be more inclined to join the other passengers to take YOU out before you could cause any damage rather than some hijacker with a straight-razor.
Now if you were talking some a little less lethal, like issuing all the passengers Tasers, then I might be inclined to take you seriously, but at the moment you just sound like a nut.
How are we know that you are in fact an American Citizen,to whom these rights apply,if you don't prove it?
The funny thing about the Bill of Rights, is that most of them don't require that you actually be a citizen for them to apply. Part of that "inalienable" rights thing mentioned by the Declaration of Independence.
It's pretty sad how most Americans seem to think that your "rights" are actually "allowed" by the government.
Aren't most ID proponents (like even many old-fashin creationists) keen on the idea that some evolution is possible, microevolution or maybe even some new species, but that certain changes are too big "leaps" (the human eye being a popular example)?
Most ID proponents are for any argument which will support their position in a public debate & let them get religion into science classes. They don't really care whether they believe that argument, as long as they can fool the public.
tell me again why i shouldn't remove my sys admin's access after he says he's leaving?
Do you have any common sense? If such a person really wanted to hurt you, they'd put the logic bomb in _before_ giving their notice.
Cutting off somebody's access is more appropriate when you are _firing_ somebody, but suddenly not trusting somebody who has given voluntary notice that they are leaving is an exercise in PHB logic.
The article you link to (and everything else that I have read) doesn't say that Executive Orders can be used to override Congressional laws, although some Presidents have tried to use them to do so (and when direct conflict between Congressional law & the Executive Order came about, the courts have ruled against the President).
It _does_ say (and I'd agree) that the Executive Orders use the gray areas caused by sloppy Congressional law-writing to bend/multilate/spindle the law in a way that a President wishes to interpret it, and that the courts have traditionally been pretty lenient about the scope of these gray areas.
When it comes down to it, though, the precedence is pretty straightforward: Constitution (including amendments) trumps all, then Congressional law, then Executive Orders, then agency regulations. As much as it annoys the executive branch, there is no legal way thay can overrule the power of the Constitution & Congressional statutes - it can only interpret in the bounds of any wiggle room that the Constitution & Congress sees fit to grant it.
Of course, if the Supreme Court doesn't have the cajones to call the executive branches on abuses of this law-making power-order, then it's pretty obvious that a President would have essentially the same power as a dictator - making, enforcing & passing judgement.
which are laws that carry the same weight as laws passed by congress.
Wow, you managed to get that completely and utterly wrong! I completely understand, however - who actually bothered to stay awake in their high school civics lessons on duties & powers of the 3 branches of the U.S. government anyway.
Quick question - do you also think that "regulations" which are written by various government agencies in the executive branch carry the same "weight" as laws passed by Congress? How about those "signing statements" that Dubya has been attaching to the things he's been signing, where he says something like "I'm signing this bill into law, except that I don't feel bound by it if I think I need to do something really important."
You seem to be completely misled into thinking that ideas & expressions of ideas can be treated like normal property. You're not going to be able to think rationally about the pros & cons of legally-enforced control of information until you can get that idea out of your head.
It's physically impossible for anyone to "own" an idea. If it _were_ possible to do so, then ideas could be treated like any other piece of property & we wouldn't need a whole section of special legislation devoted to "intellectual property" - normal property laws would've been good enough.
When somebody holds a copyright on some information, they are basically holding the privilege of being able to ask the government to stop someone else from copying that information (and a similar situation with patents). (I approach trademarks a little differently than with copyrights & patents, because I feel that trademarks are more of fraud issue than an attempt to create an artificial monopoly on information.)
This is an entirely artificial privilege which has been granted by legislation, and its _sole_ justification is that allowing people have this privilege somehow provides a net benefit to society. I believe that the current state of "intellectual property" laws is not meeting this justification, and is actually impeding creativity & innovation in our society.
There were some interesting speculations in the past on the possibility of orbiting many huge (1 mile square or similar size) chunks of Aerogel (see the "Stardust-collecting mission" articles for brief blurbs on what Aerogel is), which would sweep through orbit catching small crap (small bits of dust & bolts & stuff), and then eventually be deorbited & burn up in the atmosphere.
Some property is so valuable that letting its rights lapse could do irreparable harm to its owners. Obviously, the founding fathers had intended for everyone to suck it up and deal with it, but modern history has shown that there can be some real value in controlling old property.
The basic problem is that some parasites think controlling that old intellectual "property" is much more valuable to _them_ (the parasites) than the value that the overall society would derive by having that those concepts & expressions available publically.
There is no societal benefit by supporting such parasites, and you shouldn't be wasting your time & brainpower trying to figure out such ways. Even a short-term copyright is a _privilege_ granted to creators by society in the hopes that it will encourage more creativity, not a right. If it can't be demonstrated that the desired goal (of fostering creativity) is being achieved, then that privilege should be revoked.
Whatever the typical way of measuring calories of food is used (human adults usually consuming ~2000-3000 calories per day for instance). I was only trying to make a joke anyway.
What I'd like to know is when they're going to come up with something that can use the glucose in our bodies as a source of energy the same way our cells do.
Not to mention, if the glucose-using fuel cells are _really_ inefficient, you'll have to consume about 12000 calories a day just so your implants don't eat your body for energy - plus you'll probably have some cool looking heat-sinks installed all over your skin so that the internal heat being generated doesn't roast you alive:-).
No, I'm appealing to the "majority of experts" opinion. Non-experts, by definition, are not expected to have an informed opinion about the subject. From the lack of depth of analysis in your message, it seems like you definitely fall into the "non-expert" category.
While there _are_ famous/infamous cases where the majority of experts have "gotten it wrong", there many, many MORE instances where the people who disagreed with the experts turned out to be crackpots & loons. If I had to bet money on whether the experts or the crackpots were going to turn out to be right, I'd probably make a comfortable (if boring) living siding with the experts all the time.
As I stated before, just about every competent climatologist is willing to publicly state that the collective effect of mankind _is_ large enough to have an effect on the climate, over and above any kind of effect caused by natural causes. To deliberately, and without any kind of solid evidence, ignore what they are saying is simply an act of denial without reason.
The stupid patents are persued because they are usually broad enough to corner a simple but profitable idea. The risk of being thrown out is not sufficient enough to dissway IMO.
I'm talking about in the context of my "competitive selection" system. The winners aren't going to invest a lot of resources trying to win such a selection unless they're darn sure that somebody isn't going to be able to take the win away from them, through some clever or persuasive legal argument, or finding prior art.
Of course, you have to make sure that the total # of active patents is small enough to make "survival of the fittest" a meaningful part of the selection process. Right now we are essentially in the situation where there is no "competitive" pressure on patent "fitness" at all.
Slashdot Mirror
I disagree with your analysis.
IMO, men do more dangerous things because they (in general/historically) don't place as much value on the survival of the family as the women have, therefore they are willing to take more of a risk than women typically are. Also, testosterone has been shown to encourage "aggressive" behavior, often resulting in people "under the influence" misunderestimating how much risk is involved with various activities. Factors like these have nothing to do with male or female inherent "survivability".
Aside from basic physical tests like how many pounds men or women can bench press, there is nothing that indicates that, given equivalent training, men are more likely to perform more dangerous actions successfully than women - only that men are more likely to perform more dangerous actions period.
Actually, there are certain studies that indicate that women tend to have higher tolerances to long-term pain & stress than men, and tend to live longer than men in a low-survival rate environment (although that might be partly due to the risk-taking nature of men reducing their survival rate).
The _companies_ of those countries might've opposed the war because of that.
The _citizens_ of those countries opposed it because they thought, like most of the world, that the Bush Administration was lying through their *ssholes about the necessity for going into Iraq.
Unfortunately, half of the U.S. public seems to be in a state of willful denial, otherwise he & his cronies would have been impeached and thrown into prison by now.
Yeah, it's pretty sad that so much brainpower has been wasted through mankind's history on a meme which, almost by definition, can never be connected with any kind of objective reality..
About the only thing that such thought has been good for is occasionally coming up with some simple rules on how people should treat each other to try and improve the human condition, but those rules could have easily been arrived at without the need to invoke anything supernatural as motivation - just plain old common sense and an appreciation for history.
If you don't want to help pay for the public infrastructure, then please leave the country (preferably the planet). The rest of us will get along with helping each other out, and will probably be much better off without your presence.
Heh - I remember trying the "back-of-my-hand" approach to see if the wire was live, and I ended up punching myself in the head. After my vision cleared, I decided that using the volt meter wasn't such a pain after all...
From what I've read, a skilled polygraph reader can usually tell when you're trying to use such a tactic to provide false readings.
I suspect it might be more effective if you get yourself a biofeedback machine & practice something a little more subtle.
Yeah, I'd feel real good knowing there might be dozens of potentially untrained gun-crazy yahoos willing to whip out a semiautomatic in a sardine can packed with people, supported by wings filled with jet fuel at 30,000 feet & start blasting away. NOT!
Hell, if I saw someone like you on a plane & recognized how dangerous you were, I'd be more inclined to join the other passengers to take YOU out before you could cause any damage rather than some hijacker with a straight-razor.
Now if you were talking some a little less lethal, like issuing all the passengers Tasers, then I might be inclined to take you seriously, but at the moment you just sound like a nut.
The funny thing about the Bill of Rights, is that most of them don't require that you actually be a citizen for them to apply. Part of that "inalienable" rights thing mentioned by the Declaration of Independence.
It's pretty sad how most Americans seem to think that your "rights" are actually "allowed" by the government.
If your business model can't survive competition by "overseas lowball sleezes", then you don't deserve to stay in business.
Most ID proponents are for any argument which will support their position in a public debate & let them get religion into science classes. They don't really care whether they believe that argument, as long as they can fool the public.
Actually, they call it plagiarism - unless you actually stole the hardcopy containing the words that you were copying.
They might treat it as seriously as theft, but only the disingenuous or misinformed call it theft.
Do you have any common sense? If such a person really wanted to hurt you, they'd put the logic bomb in _before_ giving their notice.
Cutting off somebody's access is more appropriate when you are _firing_ somebody, but suddenly not trusting somebody who has given voluntary notice that they are leaving is an exercise in PHB logic.
Hey, a rational response - I'm impressed!
The article you link to (and everything else that I have read) doesn't say that Executive Orders can be used to override Congressional laws, although some Presidents have tried to use them to do so (and when direct conflict between Congressional law & the Executive Order came about, the courts have ruled against the President).
It _does_ say (and I'd agree) that the Executive Orders use the gray areas caused by sloppy Congressional law-writing to bend/multilate/spindle the law in a way that a President wishes to interpret it, and that the courts have traditionally been pretty lenient about the scope of these gray areas.
When it comes down to it, though, the precedence is pretty straightforward: Constitution (including amendments) trumps all, then Congressional law, then Executive Orders, then agency regulations. As much as it annoys the executive branch, there is no legal way thay can overrule the power of the Constitution & Congressional statutes - it can only interpret in the bounds of any wiggle room that the Constitution & Congress sees fit to grant it.
Of course, if the Supreme Court doesn't have the cajones to call the executive branches on abuses of this law-making power-order, then it's pretty obvious that a President would have essentially the same power as a dictator - making, enforcing & passing judgement.
You seem to think that raising the threat level has something to do with intelligence, rather than a cynical attempt at exploiting the public's fears.
Wow, you managed to get that completely and utterly wrong! I completely understand, however - who actually bothered to stay awake in their high school civics lessons on duties & powers of the 3 branches of the U.S. government anyway.
Quick question - do you also think that "regulations" which are written by various government agencies in the executive branch carry the same "weight" as laws passed by Congress? How about those "signing statements" that Dubya has been attaching to the things he's been signing, where he says something like "I'm signing this bill into law, except that I don't feel bound by it if I think I need to do something really important."
You seem to be completely misled into thinking that ideas & expressions of ideas can be treated like normal property. You're not going to be able to think rationally about the pros & cons of legally-enforced control of information until you can get that idea out of your head.
It's physically impossible for anyone to "own" an idea. If it _were_ possible to do so, then ideas could be treated like any other piece of property & we wouldn't need a whole section of special legislation devoted to "intellectual property" - normal property laws would've been good enough.
When somebody holds a copyright on some information, they are basically holding the privilege of being able to ask the government to stop someone else from copying that information (and a similar situation with patents). (I approach trademarks a little differently than with copyrights & patents, because I feel that trademarks are more of fraud issue than an attempt to create an artificial monopoly on information.)
This is an entirely artificial privilege which has been granted by legislation, and its _sole_ justification is that allowing people have this privilege somehow provides a net benefit to society. I believe that the current state of "intellectual property" laws is not meeting this justification, and is actually impeding creativity & innovation in our society.
There were some interesting speculations in the past on the possibility of orbiting many huge (1 mile square or similar size) chunks of Aerogel (see the "Stardust-collecting mission" articles for brief blurbs on what Aerogel is), which would sweep through orbit catching small crap (small bits of dust & bolts & stuff), and then eventually be deorbited & burn up in the atmosphere.
The basic problem is that some parasites think controlling that old intellectual "property" is much more valuable to _them_ (the parasites) than the value that the overall society would derive by having that those concepts & expressions available publically.
There is no societal benefit by supporting such parasites, and you shouldn't be wasting your time & brainpower trying to figure out such ways. Even a short-term copyright is a _privilege_ granted to creators by society in the hopes that it will encourage more creativity, not a right. If it can't be demonstrated that the desired goal (of fostering creativity) is being achieved, then that privilege should be revoked.
As long as there are thorough & accurate public records about what all our public officials & highly-paid executives are doing, I'm game.
Except in the case of monopolies, or in the case where corruption & cronyism are in play. In those cases, "competition" is just wishful thinking.
Well, the copper that it's made out of is probably worth more than its symbolism at this point in time.
Whatever the typical way of measuring calories of food is used (human adults usually consuming ~2000-3000 calories per day for instance). I was only trying to make a joke anyway.
Not to mention, if the glucose-using fuel cells are _really_ inefficient, you'll have to consume about 12000 calories a day just so your implants don't eat your body for energy - plus you'll probably have some cool looking heat-sinks installed all over your skin so that the internal heat being generated doesn't roast you alive :-).
No, I'm appealing to the "majority of experts" opinion. Non-experts, by definition, are not expected to have an informed opinion about the subject. From the lack of depth of analysis in your message, it seems like you definitely fall into the "non-expert" category.
While there _are_ famous/infamous cases where the majority of experts have "gotten it wrong", there many, many MORE instances where the people who disagreed with the experts turned out to be crackpots & loons. If I had to bet money on whether the experts or the crackpots were going to turn out to be right, I'd probably make a comfortable (if boring) living siding with the experts all the time.
As I stated before, just about every competent climatologist is willing to publicly state that the collective effect of mankind _is_ large enough to have an effect on the climate, over and above any kind of effect caused by natural causes. To deliberately, and without any kind of solid evidence, ignore what they are saying is simply an act of denial without reason.
I'm talking about in the context of my "competitive selection" system. The winners aren't going to invest a lot of resources trying to win such a selection unless they're darn sure that somebody isn't going to be able to take the win away from them, through some clever or persuasive legal argument, or finding prior art.
Of course, you have to make sure that the total # of active patents is small enough to make "survival of the fittest" a meaningful part of the selection process. Right now we are essentially in the situation where there is no "competitive" pressure on patent "fitness" at all.