"Their accountants would be thrilled if they could charge 4 times for the same product."
I'm an accountant, you insensitive clod!
No way in hell the accountants will be happy when they have to track additional revenue streams with a less than adequate increase in resources (as happens with big companies constantly). It's the shareholders, and the executives with lucrative bonuses written into their contracts, who would be happy to see this. It's not gonna make one iota of a difference to their accountants.
Please don't associate accountants with corporate greed... we measure the wealth, we don't take it home with us.
"Got a couple where one earns $90K, one $80K? Single, they could both do full Roth contributions. Married? $0."
You're looking at Gross Income, not Adjusted Gross Income, which is what the limit applies to. Don't forget that married couples tend to have far more deductions than singles -- dependents, mortgage interest, etc. I think that statistically, you'd find that nearly all couples making $170k GI will have under $150k AGI.
Second of all, if you're upset that you cannot invest in a Roth IRA, and therefore will have to pay taxes on the earnings of a traditional IRA... well, I'm sorry for you. But if someone cannot save enough for retirement on $170k+ (even if they pay income tax plus capital gains tax on their investments), then they should be rethinking their spending habits.
"The truth is that most of our progress comes from necessity, and many times this necessity is a manufactured necessity rather than a real one. Sometimes it is war research, sometimes sports, sometimes other entertainment such as video games. These things merely provide opportunities for challenges to overcome." (emphasis mine)
I am in total agreement with you. I'd much rather have research funds going to how to tag pigskins than how to kill more efficiently.
Not only that, but sports produce trade. Just one more diversification in an economy.
"The chance of replicating this exact DNA sequence is one in 33 trillion, so it's virtually impossible."
I'm not saying that the chances of replicating the exact sequence are good, but you figure people involved in sport would know better than to assign odds that long.
Working from known sequences that fluoresce under laser stimulation, I bet they could narrow the odds down, to say, oh, a billion to one. Not that it matters, since what they'll be testing is not the base sequence, but instead whether laser + pig bladder = fluorescence.
So beating their test just means guessing the frequency of the laser.
I'll bet $100 on 100,000 different reproducable frequencies ($10M in bets) and I figure one of them will hit... even if they take a 5% vig, I'm still making out with 3.135 QUADRILLION dollars.
"Ms. Coulter is indeed a neoconservative (social conservative, fiscal liberal)"
That's not all there is to neoconservatism. Don't forget the hawk part -- the belief that military action is a valid part of foreign policy, particularly to force concessions or to "democratize" non-capitalist governments.
"I believe the system will prevail or there will be a revolution and government overthrow."
Does not compute... Revolution and government overthrow -- isn't that by definition a failure of the system?
If the system prevailed, then we'd just vote in the people necessary to make the desired changes.
"How long did it take for the Supreme Court to figure out that black people and women were people? A long time, but it did eventually take place."
The Supreme Court didn't figure that out. They just acknowledged what millions of other people had already figured out. Without popular pressure and a change in cultural philosophy for equal rights (including suffrage) the Supremes would never have ruled the ways they did -- which you pointed out with the 12 Monkeys quote.
"If congressman X edits a file and others are watching, the others will dominate and keep the popular opinion alive."
Congresspeople have deep pockets, as well as a nearly inexhaustable supply of interns willing to monitor Wikis and make changes. In the end, the paid supporters will win out.
You're right in saying that he's misapplied the Tragedy of the Commons. However:
"Not only do they not have any incentive to limit the number of fish that they catch, but they may actually be better off if they catch more fish before everyone else does."
That's not quite right either. They do have an incentive to limit their own catch -- the problem is that the risk of others not limiting their catch makes that incentive negligible. For sustainable sharing to not succumb to the tragedy of the commons, there needs to be a societal structure to create a disincentive for short-term selfishness.
I was making a point, I understand that the right to anonymity is not explicit and therefore is open to debate. However, the lack of explicit statement of the right does NOT mean that it doesn't exist.
What makes it a constitutional issue is whether the right you are complaining about is enumerated in the constitution or flows naturally from it. There is none of this, therefore you don't have a constitutional issue."
Not so. Without demonstration of compelling need, the government cannot take action that is not explicitly allowed for in the Constitution. Of course, compelling need in this case is debatable, and most people would agree that the requirement is satisfied.
However, the exclusion of anonymity in the Bill of Rights does not preclude anonymity as a right; nor does it make this not a constitutional issue, since the Constitution limits government activity.
"What WOULD shortcircuit the free press would be to pay (or intimidate) publishers to NOT run a competing story - or do it to enough of them that the story gets suppressed."
It happens in the US. On a daily basis. You want access to the Pentagon press conferences? You better not publish that picture of a flag-draped coffin.
"but it is a but discouraging to have individuals keep asserting "constitutional" rights which are completely illusory."
Have you read the Bill of Rights? It's not a complete listing of rights, check out Amendment IX:
"
Of course, those other rights are not enumerated... but the right to privacy and/or anonymity does not depend just on an interpretation of the fourth amendment.
It depends on whether or not those rights exist at all.
"There is no constitutional right to complete anonymity, there never was. "
Sure there is -- there is no Constitutional provision for the Federal government to deny my anonymity. Therefore, anonymity is my right, or at least, the power to deny my anonymity resides within the several states -- not with Los Federales.
Well, why can't they command more of the vote? It's not because people don't like them -- there are a ton of reasons, some of which are:
(1) The feeling of 'throwing away your vote' -- every vote for, say, Ralph Nader in the last election was a vote cast for GWB. This is fed directly by the winner-take-all system we've got.
(2) Publicity/marketing -- there is no way the Greens or other third party can compete in this area. They don't have hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on television, radio, and newspaper ads.
(3) Incumbency -- this counts for a lot, people vote against change if they feel OK with the current situation. The JGE (just good enough) vote. It's hard enough for a candidate of the opposition party to beat an incumbent, it;s impossible for a third-party cadidate.
"They choose not to."
Just laying it at the feet of the individual voter doesn't solve anything, since we know how well that's turned out. The question is, how can our election systems be improved so that it's not impossible for a third party to have a viable candidate?
Also in the Soho neighborhood of Manhattan. Or Miami, which is (in)famous for it. Or how about Victoria's Secret commercials?
It' very simple to me. You don't like the booth babes? Don't go to the conference. You don't want your kids to see the booth babes? Don't let them go to the conference.
(sigh)
Just more unwelcome intrusion into my personal life.
True, but there are laws in place to keep them off the ballot. Good luck with that write-in campaign.
One problem is that you need a critical mass to get on the ballot; without being on the ballot, it's very difficult to get that critical mass.
Another problem is the money; there is no way a third party can compete with the billions that the GOP/Dems have in their warchests. On a personal level, sure, people can and will give. But the corporate financing of political capaigns is totally predicated on chance of success. No Megacorp is going to drop cash onto a Party that (1) opposes their politics or (2) has no chance of actually beintg elected, and therefore being able to affect legislation.
So, just like getting on the ballot, you can't get financing for a party unless you're already in a position to compete; and you can't get into a position to compete without the financing.
Just voting is not the answer. Educating others about the issues is part of the answer; exposing either or both of the main parties is part of the answer; transparent and limited financing is part of the answer; grassroots organization is most of the answer.
"I thought that was kind of interesting, when linking from the main page to this article, that there were 7 of 9 comments on an article with a Star Trek subject."
And you had to go and ruin it for the rest of us... 7 of 10? No significance at all.
"Companies would certainly enforce a turn off policy if it was hitting them in the wallet."
Facetiously: It'll happen when fossil fuels are severely depleted.
Seriously: I did an analysis for my company of after-hours power costs (had the building engineer set up a recorder for the power meter, had an intern input the readings). Implemented policies to minimize non-essential power use after hours. Cost savings: $800/mo, for an office with roughly 50 PCs and 30 MACs, plus 7 servers. Not a lot of money... but $9.6k a year of easy, low-impact savings helped justify that last pay increase...
Sure, you've got legal access, as an admin. But the guy who inserted the flash drive... not at all (remember, he found it underneath a table). He's the one who committed the illegal act, according to many states.
"Really, an honest rating should either allow > 100%, or say "90% if you do everything in the best way that I can imagine. Points above that only if you found better ways to do it, and because you had a few years to work on it that's not an unrealistic expectation"."
This is where game reviewers could learn something from an established idustry that faced the same problem decades ago -- fine wines.
Robert Parker and other wine critics theoretically can assign values up to 100. But a 98 is a once-in-a-lifetime wine. A 90 is excellent (truly excellent). An 80 is fair.
Sure, most wines you'll see in the store are 85 pts & higher, but Joe BasementCask's '04 grenache isn't making it to market -- only the good, commercial stuff is.
But you know what? My wife wouldn't like a 92-pt cab, no matter how good everyone else thinks it is. Just like some people won't like CivIV, no matter how closely it approaches the ideal for that type of game.
My main point is, games should be reviewed on a bell curve -- like you say, scoring above 90 should be VERY difficult. And people need to understand that just because everyone who likes FPSs rated a game 9.2, doesn't mean they'll like the game that much, if they only play RTS games.
Slashdot Mirror
"Their accountants would be thrilled if they could charge 4 times for the same product."
I'm an accountant, you insensitive clod!
No way in hell the accountants will be happy when they have to track additional revenue streams with a less than adequate increase in resources (as happens with big companies constantly). It's the shareholders, and the executives with lucrative bonuses written into their contracts, who would be happy to see this. It's not gonna make one iota of a difference to their accountants.
Please don't associate accountants with corporate greed... we measure the wealth, we don't take it home with us.
"Got a couple where one earns $90K, one $80K? Single, they could both do full Roth contributions. Married? $0."
You're looking at Gross Income, not Adjusted Gross Income, which is what the limit applies to. Don't forget that married couples tend to have far more deductions than singles -- dependents, mortgage interest, etc. I think that statistically, you'd find that nearly all couples making $170k GI will have under $150k AGI.
Second of all, if you're upset that you cannot invest in a Roth IRA, and therefore will have to pay taxes on the earnings of a traditional IRA... well, I'm sorry for you. But if someone cannot save enough for retirement on $170k+ (even if they pay income tax plus capital gains tax on their investments), then they should be rethinking their spending habits.
"Is it guaranteed that each multi-thousand $$$ football is even used in the game once? "
No. But the unused balls aren't sold as Superbowl-used balls.
"Does the average game even have 120 plays"
Nope. Roughly 60 plays + special plays (kickoffs, punts, etc). Likely fewer in this game, since both teams have potent running games.
do they really switch them every single play?
For the first half. Then they use only(!) 12 balls for the 2nd half. It's in the article.
"The truth is that most of our progress comes from necessity, and many times this necessity is a manufactured necessity rather than a real one. Sometimes it is war research, sometimes sports, sometimes other entertainment such as video games. These things merely provide opportunities for challenges to overcome." (emphasis mine)
I am in total agreement with you. I'd much rather have research funds going to how to tag pigskins than how to kill more efficiently.
Not only that, but sports produce trade. Just one more diversification in an economy.
"The chance of replicating this exact DNA sequence is one in 33 trillion, so it's virtually impossible."
I'm not saying that the chances of replicating the exact sequence are good, but you figure people involved in sport would know better than to assign odds that long.
Working from known sequences that fluoresce under laser stimulation, I bet they could narrow the odds down, to say, oh, a billion to one. Not that it matters, since what they'll be testing is not the base sequence, but instead whether laser + pig bladder = fluorescence.
So beating their test just means guessing the frequency of the laser.
I'll bet $100 on 100,000 different reproducable frequencies ($10M in bets) and I figure one of them will hit... even if they take a 5% vig, I'm still making out with 3.135 QUADRILLION dollars.
Take that, Dr. Evil.
"I hope this doesn't lead to devices which have a volume control that only goes to 2"
Isn't that what we already have? Mine clearly says "10" on it, and last time I checked, that was two.
" So... don't turn the volume all the way up, moron?
I didn't. I only put it up to ten, and I still was damaged. (Mine goes to eleven).
"Ms. Coulter is indeed a neoconservative (social conservative, fiscal liberal)"
That's not all there is to neoconservatism. Don't forget the hawk part -- the belief that military action is a valid part of foreign policy, particularly to force concessions or to "democratize" non-capitalist governments.
"I believe the system will prevail or there will be a revolution and government overthrow."
Does not compute... Revolution and government overthrow -- isn't that by definition a failure of the system?
If the system prevailed, then we'd just vote in the people necessary to make the desired changes.
"How long did it take for the Supreme Court to figure out that black people and women were people? A long time, but it did eventually take place."
The Supreme Court didn't figure that out. They just acknowledged what millions of other people had already figured out. Without popular pressure and a change in cultural philosophy for equal rights (including suffrage) the Supremes would never have ruled the ways they did -- which you pointed out with the 12 Monkeys quote.
"If congressman X edits a file and others are watching, the others will dominate and keep the popular opinion alive."
Congresspeople have deep pockets, as well as a nearly inexhaustable supply of interns willing to monitor Wikis and make changes. In the end, the paid supporters will win out.
You're right in saying that he's misapplied the Tragedy of the Commons. However:
"Not only do they not have any incentive to limit the number of fish that they catch, but they may actually be better off if they catch more fish before everyone else does."
That's not quite right either. They do have an incentive to limit their own catch -- the problem is that the risk of others not limiting their catch makes that incentive negligible. For sustainable sharing to not succumb to the tragedy of the commons, there needs to be a societal structure to create a disincentive for short-term selfishness.
I was making a point, I understand that the right to anonymity is not explicit and therefore is open to debate. However, the lack of explicit statement of the right does NOT mean that it doesn't exist.
What makes it a constitutional issue is whether the right you are complaining about is enumerated in the constitution or flows naturally from it. There is none of this, therefore you don't have a constitutional issue."
Not so. Without demonstration of compelling need, the government cannot take action that is not explicitly allowed for in the Constitution. Of course, compelling need in this case is debatable, and most people would agree that the requirement is satisfied.
However, the exclusion of anonymity in the Bill of Rights does not preclude anonymity as a right; nor does it make this not a constitutional issue, since the Constitution limits government activity.
"From the disruption of service side, we've also been doing this for years, most recently we debated weather to knock down Al Jazeera."
Holy Crap! We have the ability to manipulate the weather? And we chose to knock down New Orleans instead of Al Jazeera?
"What WOULD shortcircuit the free press would be to pay (or intimidate) publishers to NOT run a competing story - or do it to enough of them that the story gets suppressed."
It happens in the US. On a daily basis. You want access to the Pentagon press conferences? You better not publish that picture of a flag-draped coffin.
"but it is a but discouraging to have individuals keep asserting "constitutional" rights which are completely illusory."
Have you read the Bill of Rights? It's not a complete listing of rights, check out Amendment IX:
"
Of course, those other rights are not enumerated... but the right to privacy and/or anonymity does not depend just on an interpretation of the fourth amendment. It depends on whether or not those rights exist at all.
"There is no constitutional right to complete anonymity, there never was. "
Sure there is -- there is no Constitutional provision for the Federal government to deny my anonymity. Therefore, anonymity is my right, or at least, the power to deny my anonymity resides within the several states -- not with Los Federales.
I'd settle for shortest sexually mature adults of both sexes.
Erm, that sounds kind of funny, I'm not really into that kind of fetish.
But you did bring up a good point an another interesting article on the topic.
The article you link to refers to a species where males are 7 mm long; females average 8.4mm.
The species referred to in the current article has sexually mature femals of 7.9 mm.
To fit in my ear canal and swim in a bit.
Babelfish, anyone?
Well, why can't they command more of the vote? It's not because people don't like them -- there are a ton of reasons, some of which are:
(1) The feeling of 'throwing away your vote' -- every vote for, say, Ralph Nader in the last election was a vote cast for GWB. This is fed directly by the winner-take-all system we've got.
(2) Publicity/marketing -- there is no way the Greens or other third party can compete in this area. They don't have hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on television, radio, and newspaper ads.
(3) Incumbency -- this counts for a lot, people vote against change if they feel OK with the current situation. The JGE (just good enough) vote. It's hard enough for a candidate of the opposition party to beat an incumbent, it;s impossible for a third-party cadidate.
"They choose not to."
Just laying it at the feet of the individual voter doesn't solve anything, since we know how well that's turned out. The question is, how can our election systems be improved so that it's not impossible for a third party to have a viable candidate?
Stand on the corner of Broadway and Prince on a Friday afternoon in the summer. 'Carrie Bradshaw' is tame and well-covered in comparison.
Also in the Soho neighborhood of Manhattan. Or Miami, which is (in)famous for it. Or how about Victoria's Secret commercials?
It' very simple to me. You don't like the booth babes? Don't go to the conference. You don't want your kids to see the booth babes? Don't let them go to the conference.
(sigh)
Just more unwelcome intrusion into my personal life.
"There is nothing that stops them from running."
True, but there are laws in place to keep them off the ballot. Good luck with that write-in campaign.
One problem is that you need a critical mass to get on the ballot; without being on the ballot, it's very difficult to get that critical mass.
Another problem is the money; there is no way a third party can compete with the billions that the GOP/Dems have in their warchests. On a personal level, sure, people can and will give. But the corporate financing of political capaigns is totally predicated on chance of success. No Megacorp is going to drop cash onto a Party that (1) opposes their politics or (2) has no chance of actually beintg elected, and therefore being able to affect legislation.
So, just like getting on the ballot, you can't get financing for a party unless you're already in a position to compete; and you can't get into a position to compete without the financing.
Just voting is not the answer. Educating others about the issues is part of the answer; exposing either or both of the main parties is part of the answer; transparent and limited financing is part of the answer; grassroots organization is most of the answer.
"I thought that was kind of interesting, when linking from the main page to this article, that there were 7 of 9 comments on an article with a Star Trek subject."
:)
And you had to go and ruin it for the rest of us... 7 of 10? No significance at all.
Bastard.
"Companies would certainly enforce a turn off policy if it was hitting them in the wallet."
Facetiously: It'll happen when fossil fuels are severely depleted.
Seriously: I did an analysis for my company of after-hours power costs (had the building engineer set up a recorder for the power meter, had an intern input the readings). Implemented policies to minimize non-essential power use after hours. Cost savings: $800/mo, for an office with roughly 50 PCs and 30 MACs, plus 7 servers. Not a lot of money... but $9.6k a year of easy, low-impact savings helped justify that last pay increase...
Sure, you've got legal access, as an admin. But the guy who inserted the flash drive... not at all (remember, he found it underneath a table). He's the one who committed the illegal act, according to many states.
"Really, an honest rating should either allow > 100%, or say "90% if you do everything in the best way that I can imagine. Points above that only if you found better ways to do it, and because you had a few years to work on it that's not an unrealistic expectation"."
This is where game reviewers could learn something from an established idustry that faced the same problem decades ago -- fine wines.
Robert Parker and other wine critics theoretically can assign values up to 100. But a 98 is a once-in-a-lifetime wine. A 90 is excellent (truly excellent). An 80 is fair.
Sure, most wines you'll see in the store are 85 pts & higher, but Joe BasementCask's '04 grenache isn't making it to market -- only the good, commercial stuff is.
But you know what? My wife wouldn't like a 92-pt cab, no matter how good everyone else thinks it is. Just like some people won't like CivIV, no matter how closely it approaches the ideal for that type of game.
My main point is, games should be reviewed on a bell curve -- like you say, scoring above 90 should be VERY difficult. And people need to understand that just because everyone who likes FPSs rated a game 9.2, doesn't mean they'll like the game that much, if they only play RTS games.