Taken at face value there's a lot to be said for having police officers wear camera's.
They're Officers of the Law after all, so it's only right and proper that everyone goes *on record* each and every time they appear within a police officer's sight, yes?
Only... what about a guarantee that we can have free access to the (unedited !) footage in case of a dispute? It doesn't say so anywhere, so it's not guaranteed.
And what about retention times of that footage? Will footage of person X being drunk and disorderly as a teen suddenly surface when said person runs for public office fifteen years later? Or footage showing him/her in a brawl? Or footage of them being less than civil when receiving a traffic citation? Or answering the door at 11 PM after a complaint about noise? Or kissing someone outside a disco? And err might their religious beliefs, political affiliation, race, ZIP code, or sexual inclination perhaps affect the probability of that happening?
And what's to stop police officers from automatically evaluating the tapes afterwards record everyone's faces, ID everyone in sight, and store contact reports on every single member of the public they meet? It's a logical next step, right? And it's bound to please Homeland Security into the bargain. So how would you like it if police departments everywhere could save a bundle by getting federal subsidies on body camera's in exchange for footage and contact reports?
And what about members of the public? Doesn't this mean they're at liberty to film each and every encounter involving a police officer too, e..g. wearing Google Glass'es? Think police departments will be happy about that? And what about wearing Google Glass all the time when you go outside? There's bound to be interest in all that footage from someone... so you can perhaps make it pay for itself.
Secondly... what about sound? Supposing the officer (or member of the public) said something really, really offensive that the camera didn't catch. And then you pound on the footage of what ensues. Nice way to introduce bias, no?
Thirdly... how will police officers like it when they're on the monitor every minute of their shift? It's great when you want to find cause to fire someone and are looking for a suitable pretext. Just have someone sift through all the footage of a month, find the one or two instances said person goofs off, and take a "principled stance" condemning those particular instances and you're done.
All reasonable and obvious considerations I'd like to see addressed before I'd start "liking" a gizmo like this.
Let's not delude ourselves here: Amazon isn't "building a better mousetrap" at all and nobody needs Amazon to sell e-books.
What's happening Instead is that Amazon is using its marketing clout and its "brand recognition" to carve out a monopoly for itself.
Face it: anyone who can set up a website can sell e-books. You don't need a warehouse, you don't need fulfillment services. You just need a web-server and an e-shop.
You also need customers however, and that's where Amazon's added value is. It has a big catalog of paper books and lots of customers who'll turn to Amazon *first* if they're looking for a book. Any book. And yes, that makes it easier to sell e-books too.
In all other respects Amazon's added value is practically zero here, and it takes a lot of chutzpah to propose to charge 30% of the book price for that.
What Amazon noticed however is that *their* turnover is highly price-elastic and that they're well positioned to make money at high turnover rates. Needless to say that their turnover is an *aggregate* of sales of lots and lots of different titles. That doesn't mean that each separate title has the same price elasticity, or that its profit is maximised by adopting their uniform price.
Amazon simply wishes to grow its business by throttling direct sales and specialised retail channels and would like more or less uniform prices (like any other supermarket).
Nothing wrong with that of course, but it's 100% self-serving.
Those bastards at Apple probably refused to give them the source code and also won't put all trace-and-track functionality at the disposal of Chinese Intelligence services.
Too frickin right it's a National Intelligence Risk.
Separation between Church and State means that you get to hold whatever "religious" belief you want in private
Nope. It doesn't. If the state required citizens to abondon their religious beliefs in public then that would be a clear violation of the separation of church and state. Have you read the constitution? It says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"
I think you're turning the whole issue upside down and cherry-pick a quote from the constitution to support your argument. As I understand the constitution, free exercise of your "religion" can never allow *you* to encroach on other people's rights. No matter how strongly held your "beliefs" are.
you don't get to impose those religious views (or values) on others.
I agree with you. Nobody has the right to impose on the owners of Hobby Lobby their religious views.
Good you agree with me on the first point. I'd say the second point, about Hobby Lobby, isn't about forbidding them to hold whatever belief they like. It's about forbidding Hobby Lobby to force their belief onto their employees by riffling through their employees medical expenses and selectively disallow certain types of treatment with an appeal to their "beliefs". I really don't see how you can parlay that into curtailing Hobby Lobby's owners religious freedom.
Nobody is getting fired for buying supplemental insurance, buying their own contraception, etc... Just as you wouldn't want to be forced to buy your employees Bibles, the owners of Hobby Lobby do not want to buy what they consider abortion pills. It's that simple.
If abortion pills come with a presciption, they're legitimate medical expense. Permitting hobby Lobby to selectively exempt them from their medical benefits package is tantamount to allowing Hobby Lobby to impose its religious views on its employees. Not the other way round. And yes, you show that it's possible to dream up even more obnoxious abuse on part of employers (like firing employees who don't conform to their employers' religious views), but that doesn't mean this bit of abuse is justified.
Then work somewhere else. I don't agree with everything my employer does, but I choose to work there anyway.
The age-old co-out for all and any abuse of power that stops short of actually forcing people to do something at gunpoint. "Oh but you choose to work at ABC, so yes you expose yourself to XYZ and you have no right to complain. Don't like it? Then go work someplace else!"
Taken to extremes (for which there are lots of real-world examples, both historical and contemporary) it would allow employers to dispense with e.g. health and safety rules, working hours rules, medical leave, minimum wages etc. etc.
Most advances in this area had to be legislated because employers wouldn't voluntarily adhere to any such rules (either because they callously decided it wasn't worth the money to them, or because they'd be driven out of the market by unscrupulous competitors). Your argument is an extremely tendentious one which can only be justified by an appeal to "the market" coming up with an acceptable solution. Unfortunately history and current affairs show that this isn't always the case. Hence the need for legislation.
It's beside point whether you do or do not agree with *everything* your employer does. The point is: does this employer encroach on one of your vital interests.
I don't think plan B is a medical treatment. It's elective. A baby is not a disease. I would argue that liposuction comes closer to a treatment.
And I think that's something between doctor and patient, and not open to an employer's arbitrary views.
There is no legitimate reason to ask for researchers' emails. Such emails are only useful when you're trying to make things _personal_ instead of businesslike.
You need people's emails when you're digging for something (anything really) you can use to discredit someone personally (apart from any scientific merit). Besides which, some of those emails are personal.
The Virginia court ruled that filing a lawsuit just to get those emails constitutes harassment, which in turn is a frivolous use of the court's time. A sensible conclusion in my opinion.
And yes, there do seem to be consequences for filing frivolous lawsuits.
Apart from the fact that I never contended that the Supremes legislate on this case, I think the point is irrelevant.
Separation between Church and State means that you get to hold whatever "religious" belief you want in private, only that you don't get to impose those religious views (or values) on others. Not even people who just happen to be in a position of financial dependence to you.
What people call "freedom" here is the freedom to impose your arbitrary views (here "religion") onto others (employees) by cavilling over what they consider "appropriate" medical care.
What this ruling does is empower employers to meddle in what medical care their employers can spend their medical benefits, and that's wrong.
The separation between church and state held the provision that e.g. employers couldn't use their power to meddle in the (privileged) docter-patient relationship, and that protection has just been lifted.
The question of whether Hobby-Lobby employees can make do in other ways is irrelevant. I think they shouldn't have to have to circumnavigate this particular obstacle in the first place.
I get the distinct impression that people fail to see how dangerous it is to lift this protection because it's touted as "Christian". For better or worse, Hindu, Muslim, Satanist, and Scientologist "religions" just got the same rights.
Your analogy about the "Hindu refusing to buy me [...]" is beside the point I think, because that's a case of an employer refusing you discretionary spending. Medical treatment is not discretionary, and although the employer ultimately foots the bill it's not something he would ordinarily have any say in (apart from this "religious" thing now). It's medical benefits, not some gift!
What I'm calling for is a state in which nobody can construe their their religious "rights" in ways that allow them to impose their religious views on others.
It's the judiciary (an important part of the state apparatus) that granted companies the power to discriminate their employees based on the flimsy excuse of "religion" on part the ones who own those companies.
This in itself gives "religion" powers in purely secular matters. Since it's an integral part of society now, it acts just like in the Middle Ages.
The separation between church and state doesn't just cover acts by the state itself, it also covers the privileges the state accords to those who invoke "religion" in secular matters.
I know both SAS and R, and I think that for people who've never programmed, the GUI-based version of SAS wins on end-user usability because end-users can click together (simple and limited) analyses on really big datasets. This has far-reaching consequences for the learning curve.
For R there exist attempts at GUI's (like e.g. R-commander) that offer point-and-click functionality but they're more sketchy.
I think that giving non-programmers access to R will result in a flood of help requests because they really do need some notion of programming to use the R language. With SAS that's more in the background because the GUI tool is relatively well done, and use of the butt-ugly, antiquated and clumsy mainframe-style SAS language can usually be avoided.
In addition I don't know of any (reliable and working) alternative to the SAS Enterprise Guide. which lets you click together elementary data-procesing steps in a network that shows the structure and the results of your work.
I think that statisticians, real analysts and data-scientists will soon feel constrained by SAS and will prefer to use SAS to prepare a dataset for analysis, and then carry out any actual analysis in R.
Last but not least, R is still an in-memory analysis program, which practically limits analyses to what you can be fit in core. There are packages that try to extend R in this direction, but I consider them to be poor quality and cumbersome.
Python on the other hand is aimed squarely at programmers, and nobody else.
The separation between church and state marked the end of the Middle Ages and the onset of the Renaissance.
Only in the US can its reversal be touted as a "win for freedom".
Last time I checked abortions were recognised medical procedures, so who the hick are those company owners to object to them? What's next? Refusal to pay for vaccinations? Treatment of aids? Psychiatric treatment?
And what if the owners are Muslims? Do they get to pick and choose what kind of treatment they "object to" as well? And followers of Wicca? And Satanists? And how about Scientologists (who are a recognised religion (for taxation purposes) in the US).
If I understand this judgment correctly, every man jack gets to pick a "religion" and gets to limit medical coverage of their employees on basis of whatever religious dogma they subscribe to.
They're both very volatile and cannot be counted upon to meet base-load demand.
Therein, as the "Watts Up With That?" commenters point out, lies the problem. You can *only* achieve that kind of ROI if you're connected to a power grid that will pay you fixed rates for your excess power when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining, and guarantee availability of power in other circumstances (against base rates).
Power plants have a nasty habit of costing money every second while they're being kept in readiness, let alone when they're on standby or acting as spinning reserves. Money their operators can't recoup by selling power when there is a glut due to solar and wind generators.
As soon as you factor that cost in, the picture for alternative energy sources becomes a lot less rosy.
Not that we shouldn't try to maximise the fraction of wind and solar power, but let's be realistic and factor in the cost of keeping (conventional) power plants on standby instead of treating the power grid as a giant zero-cost battery!
It's their preferred modus operandi, for two reasons:
Planned obsolescence and a huge vested interest in current technology.
By keeping change gradual, Detroit can make consumers pay for every step along the way by selling them model after model that's just different enough to generate sales and yet not different enough to require big investments in new technology (manufacturing or otherwise). In doing so they make sure they can write off any investments in existing technology after they have been recouped. This is known as planned obsolescence.
With revolutionary changes however, Detroit's car makers will have no chance to slip a line of intermediate models and, say, a 10 year transition period, between the current model and the future one. So they leave money on the table. Big money.
And of course they won't do that if they have anything to say in it.
Google on the other hand has no vested interest in existing car technology and is only looking to monetise their current, developing, tech. Of course they want to see it implemented asap, with as little intermediate models as possible.
Given those two positions, can anyone be surprised they didn't hit it off?
Intense research indicates that the sun doesn't usually shine at night in Germany and that solar cells operate at greatly reduced power levels in the dark. In other news, electricity production varies significantly from one day to the next, due to strange weather conditions such as clouds.
The upshot is that during some hours and on sunny days there is a glut of electric power which drives the spot-market price to zero.
This of course is bad news for companies that operate coal, gas, or oil-fired power plants because such plants are expensive to build and maintain and can't compete during the hours of abundant sunlight leaving insufficient hours during which to make enough to service debts and recoup investments.
Dirty old base-load plants powered by coal can usually continue to compete on price. Expensive modern gas-powered peak-demand plants on the other hand will operate at a loss.
Having caused a volatile energy form to gain prominence, the next thing for the Germans to do is to shift their subsidies from solar cells to storage capacity. They're already doing that, but in the mean time their conventional power plants will bleed red ink.
I'm happy to watch their experiments from afar and eager to learn how they will solve this particular problem, aren't you?
Tthe point is to incorporate costs that are caused by air pollution (like the pollination issue mentioned in the article), that are only felt by parties other than the ones who buy the product that causes the problem.
Costs that aren't reflected in the price of causing air pollution (caused e.g. by car-driving), but devolve on other parties, are known as "external costs".
External costs can however be included in the price of the product (in this case driving an internal combustion vehicle) by means of a tax, and that is often the only way for external costs.
The market that determines the demand for fuel combustion can do its work only if the "true" cost of driving is felt by the ones who actually buy that particular product, instead of other parties further down the line.
Just calculate the marginal cost of a kilogram of combusted fuel due to pollination problems and, add it to the fuel tax, and spend it on research to drive down the cost of more fuel-efficient cars and hydrogen vehicles.
It would be better to wait for good solid facts. At the very least I'd expect a press-conference by Mr. Putin himself stating that it is his policy to keep Europe from lessening their energy dependence on Russia by sponsoring anti-fracking groups.
To be quite sure we'd best wait for a signed, hand-delivered letter from Russia's government confirming the statements of the press-conference in writing.
Don't get me wrong, until a few months ago I was prepared to believe that Russia was simply out for revenue in jacking up the gas price (and why not: it's their damn gas and they're selling to the Ukraina at below market price). What changed my mind was the way they acted in the Crimea and the Ukrainian border provinces. Apparently they wish for a sphere of influence (read hegemony) around their borders in which the rights and interests of the surrounding states and their peoples is a secondary consideration.
They may have stopped short of outright invasion, but they do seem to use classical special-forces handiwork (like setting up and aiding groups that advocate secession, undercover operations by special forces) to great effect. After all... they really really want their navy base at Sevastopol back. Well, we've seen worse. Really. Even old Gorbachev spoke out to the effect that merging the Crimea with the Ukraina was a mistake (from Russia's point of view).
Again, I don't blame them and I'm certainly not trying to demonize them, but if that's what they want, that's what they want. I'm simply saying we should take note, give due consideration to what their apparent goals are, and adjust our views and policies accordingly.
As always there are other considerations apart from purely economical ones. In Germany they are given weight while in the US their weight is often set at zero until there is a crisis.
There's a big difference between the US and Germany: the US has an awful lot of territory, so it can afford to waste and pollute large tracts of it (which it still does on a regular basis), yet have sufficient clean land for other purposes. Germany is a lot smaller and more densely populated, and it has to exercise a lot more caution with its environment than the US
Besides which, Europe as a whole seems to import 33% of its oil and 48% of its gas from Russia. Now consider that Russia seems to be sponsoring environmental groups in Europe that oppose fracking. Why would that be, you think?
Given Russia's showdown with the Ukraina (annexing the Crimea and turning the screws on by jacking up the price of natural gas) and Putin's determination to err... restore Russia's political clout and former "glory", wouldn't you do your level best to try and worm your way out of energy dependence on Russia? The Germans seem to be doing exactly that.
In other news... China is busily overtaking the US as largest economy, and it has no oil, no gas, but loads of coal. It's also the world's manufacturing hub. And then there's India growing steadily. Population growth in Asia is still massive (in absolute terms) and its prosperity is steadily rising. With that inevitably comes an increased energy footprint.
I believe than in the coming 10-20 years energy prices will be determined by what happens in Asia, not in the US or Europe. And the only way I see oil prices go in that period is up. Way up. Solar seems to be a pretty solid investment from that point of view.
So on balance I'd say that Germany's investment in solar energy is not a stupid move and should probably continue.
Your average GOP voter greatly values his privacy where the Government is involved. We all know that.
When it comes to private corporations however, your average GOP voter doesn't seem to worry overmuch. Even better, he/she tends to hold little sympathy towards attempts to restrict corporations in any way whatsoever.
As such, he/she takes a positively hostile position versus people who propose to regulate what data corporations can collect on you (and what they can do with it). Because that smacks of "expanding government". The number one red-flag issue for them.
So err does that mean that GOP voters will refrain from protesting as long as it's only honest for-profit corporations doing the data-mining? If only because for-profit corporations will be just as happy to profile/target the other side? Thereby evening the playing field as it were.
Of course GOP voters won't like the idea of being profiled with the express purpose of countering the political position they wish to see adopted any more than anybody else.
The rub is: what do they propose to do about it? Somehow I feel that they won't necessarily endorse additional legislation to that effect. Let alone government enforcement of the same. And by banning such practices, they would deprive themselves of the opportunity to use the same techniques.
What I think will happen is that GOP voters will ask themselves: will we benefit more from this technique than the opposition? If so, they'll oppose it only insofar and for as long as they feel they are currently lagging the opposition, and endorse it in every other respect.
You have a point, although I certainly wouldn't know about "every" reply.
What I do know is that I got exasperated at yet another stupid conspiracy-theory post when an obvious answer is so close to hand, especially when it's rated above '1'.
Without a shred of or thought, Oracle and Cisco are lumped together. Throw in the mention of Satan separating them at birth and I lost my patience.
So for that reason I used the header "Conspiracy-theory rubbish...". I stand by this particular choice of words. I think they are appropriate to the context and the parent post, and will use them again.
You're probably right I should have omitted the sneer about the author of the parent post being arithmetically challenged. I'll think more carefully before including such designations in future.
Before you lose yourself in flights of fancy, consider this. Cisco sells network gear, i.e. the stuff you need to implement multiple tiers of traffic. Only the more advanced, expensive, and high-margin gear will do that of course. Think: deep-packet inspection.
And you were actually wondering why Cisco is in favour of an Internet that needs advanced kit and against an Internet that doesn't need special gear to implement multiple tiers?
I propose a simple but elegant solution to this conundrum. In case of people with multiple personalities you proceed as follows:
(1) Establish how many personalities can be distinguished within the defendant's mind.
(2) Try to identify the personality who was in charge at the time, and do him/her for pointing the laser.
(3) Prosecute all the other personalities for being accessory and/or accomplice to the act of pointing the laser.
(4) Depending on how tightly the personalities are linked, you may optionally prosecute each of them for conspiracy to commit a crime, or even taking part in a criminal organisation.
(5) Add all sentences together. This is how long the body pointing the laser should go behind bars.
I suspect that the defense of "multiple personalities" will lose its popularity very quickly.
I see a lot of people stating their opinions and arbitrarily deciding that people who use 'swear words' are bad at communicating, have weaknesses, or are lazy, but I've yet to see anything objective.
And I think that you've yet to start looking. And I don't mean on Slashdot.
It will surprise you to know that there is a branch of science dealing with questions like: "what makes people better or worse at being listened to and influencing others?". It's called Psychology, and it's about objective study of the human mind. Including personal effectiveness.
Now something tells me that you aren't about to read (much less absorb) anything about Psychology. So I won't bother you with references to the literature (you may use Google if you want to contend that you do).
So I'll try to couch my argument in terms that may be inside your personal sphere of experience. We'll start with advertising. Advertisements are there to make people buy something. They're worth big money because they *work*. Now... how many swearwords (directed squarely at the viewer) do you see in advertising? And in sales pitches?
That's right: none at all. Reason: they don't work. People would use them if they did... but they don't.
The same holds for lawyer's briefs, politician's speeches,
If in addition the plain fact that you won't hear any successful managers, professors, lawyers, salespeople, or politicians swear in their official capacity isn't "objective" enough for you, what is?
I would choose the one that's best at the job at hand. At random, if need be. This would be on principle.
You might be getting there. Now lets focus on what you mean by "best at the job", shall we?
There seems to be some romantic notion floating about of the "irksome in manners but super-competent maverick". Most jobs (apart from code monkey or assembly-line worker or data-entry professional) require some measure of interaction. With colleagues. With management. With clients. With prospects. With the public. Being able to do that without needlessly antagonizing people is part of being good at your job.
The vast majority of people I've met professionally (in academe and business) were both extremely good at their work and quite articulate, if not eloquent. I almost never spotted someone with a clear trade-off.
And I also never spotted anyone who was such a prize (professionally speaking) that we had to put up with him/her being a pain to listen to (there was always someone who could do the job just about as well without the theatrics).
So whoever told you that being good at some job correlates with being a potty-mouth? Less fanciful romantic assumptions on your part, and more real-world experience please.
Not using 'swear words' is simply a way of being eloquent, articulate, and effective at influencing people.
All things considered, using crude language (and especially swearwords) is typically a sign of weakness in people. As in: being unable to get their point across without being vulgar and being frustrated at their own inability to do so. Or simply being too lazy to care.
Suppose you're in charge of hiring engineers and you can get someone who (being equally competent on the engineering side) has the added benefit of polishing their shoes, not looking like some bum from the slums, and being able to convince people to adopt their views (as in collaborating with e.g. customers, prospects, colleagues) and to get their thinking across clearly, effectively, and without needlessly antagonising their audience (as in making presentations to e.g. management, prospects, competitors).
Would you choose someone who comes across as a potty-mouth, a bum, a Neanderthaler or someone more sophisticated?
I suppose it depends. If you want a small corporate cog that you'll never have to worry about reaching management levels himself (and perhaps turning into competition), by all means: go for the one lacking polish (or even the potty-mouth). Your only worry will be to pay said cog market value (for their technical competence only: they have no other qualities) and keep them fully booked.
If, on the other hand, you're looking for someone who might be suitable to represent your company externally (after you verified that their head is screwed on right of course) and who's promotable in due time, go for the one with a few extra qualities. Such as politeness and articulateness. You'll find yourself paying extra for such people. They're scarcer and more in demand because they're more useful.
There is nothing "magical" or even "special" about being able to code.It's usually a very shallow trick based on being able to decompose a problem into smaller (easier) ones, and then putting the solution to the smaller problems together to solve the original problem.
Children would be much better served by teaching them concentration, a systematic approach to problem-solving, a good command of language (natural language) and teaching them how to solve problems that require a focused effort or even a team effort.
And yes, programming can be so much fun that you might succeed in getting children so absorbed in the problem at hand that they actually focus and make an effort. But I see it as a means. not an end.
Teaching children about programming in secondary school is plenty good enough, provided they aren't semi-illiterates (as is so often the case), can actually formulate their thoughts in a way that makes sense (instead of the usual incoherent rambling), and know what it means to make an effort.
Unfortunately, any competent author of a nuisance lawsuit will be prepared to appeal and will (in this case) aim for a jury trial. Meanwhile he would signal being open to an out of court settlement to the tune of half a million plus legal costs.
With that in mind, would you bet against his ability to manoeuver for a jury that will be swayed by rethoric about the ickiness of drinking pee?
I'm afraid the grandparent post has nailed it: it's cheaper to waste a few million gallons of perfectly good drinking water than to risk a lawsuit.
Slashdot Mirror
They're Officers of the Law after all, so it's only right and proper that everyone goes *on record* each and every time they appear within a police officer's sight, yes?
Only ... what about a guarantee that we can have free access to the (unedited !) footage in case of a dispute? It doesn't say so anywhere, so it's not guaranteed.
And what about retention times of that footage? Will footage of person X being drunk and disorderly as a teen suddenly surface when said person runs for public office fifteen years later? Or footage showing him/her in a brawl? Or footage of them being less than civil when receiving a traffic citation? Or answering the door at 11 PM after a complaint about noise? Or kissing someone outside a disco? And err might their religious beliefs, political affiliation, race, ZIP code, or sexual inclination perhaps affect the probability of that happening?
And what's to stop police officers from automatically evaluating the tapes afterwards record everyone's faces, ID everyone in sight, and store contact reports on every single member of the public they meet? It's a logical next step, right? And it's bound to please Homeland Security into the bargain. So how would you like it if police departments everywhere could save a bundle by getting federal subsidies on body camera's in exchange for footage and contact reports?
And what about members of the public? Doesn't this mean they're at liberty to film each and every encounter involving a police officer too, e..g. wearing Google Glass'es? Think police departments will be happy about that? And what about wearing Google Glass all the time when you go outside? There's bound to be interest in all that footage from someone ... so you can perhaps make it pay for itself.
Secondly ... what about sound? Supposing the officer (or member of the public) said something really, really offensive that the camera didn't catch. And then you pound on the footage of what ensues. Nice way to introduce bias, no?
Thirdly ... how will police officers like it when they're on the monitor every minute of their shift? It's great when you want to find cause to fire someone and are looking for a suitable pretext. Just have someone sift through all the footage of a month, find the one or two instances said person goofs off, and take a "principled stance" condemning those particular instances and you're done.
All reasonable and obvious considerations I'd like to see addressed before I'd start "liking" a gizmo like this.
Not if you're responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of large production systems.
What's happening Instead is that Amazon is using its marketing clout and its "brand recognition" to carve out a monopoly for itself.
Face it: anyone who can set up a website can sell e-books. You don't need a warehouse, you don't need fulfillment services. You just need a web-server and an e-shop.
You also need customers however, and that's where Amazon's added value is. It has a big catalog of paper books and lots of customers who'll turn to Amazon *first* if they're looking for a book. Any book. And yes, that makes it easier to sell e-books too.
In all other respects Amazon's added value is practically zero here, and it takes a lot of chutzpah to propose to charge 30% of the book price for that.
What Amazon noticed however is that *their* turnover is highly price-elastic and that they're well positioned to make money at high turnover rates. Needless to say that their turnover is an *aggregate* of sales of lots and lots of different titles. That doesn't mean that each separate title has the same price elasticity, or that its profit is maximised by adopting their uniform price.
Amazon simply wishes to grow its business by throttling direct sales and specialised retail channels and would like more or less uniform prices (like any other supermarket).
Nothing wrong with that of course, but it's 100% self-serving.
Too frickin right it's a National Intelligence Risk.
I think you're turning the whole issue upside down and cherry-pick a quote from the constitution to support your argument. As I understand the constitution, free exercise of your "religion" can never allow *you* to encroach on other people's rights. No matter how strongly held your "beliefs" are.
Good you agree with me on the first point. I'd say the second point, about Hobby Lobby, isn't about forbidding them to hold whatever belief they like. It's about forbidding Hobby Lobby to force their belief onto their employees by riffling through their employees medical expenses and selectively disallow certain types of treatment with an appeal to their "beliefs". I really don't see how you can parlay that into curtailing Hobby Lobby's owners religious freedom.
If abortion pills come with a presciption, they're legitimate medical expense. Permitting hobby Lobby to selectively exempt them from their medical benefits package is tantamount to allowing Hobby Lobby to impose its religious views on its employees. Not the other way round. And yes, you show that it's possible to dream up even more obnoxious abuse on part of employers (like firing employees who don't conform to their employers' religious views), but that doesn't mean this bit of abuse is justified.
The age-old co-out for all and any abuse of power that stops short of actually forcing people to do something at gunpoint. "Oh but you choose to work at ABC, so yes you expose yourself to XYZ and you have no right to complain. Don't like it? Then go work someplace else!" Taken to extremes (for which there are lots of real-world examples, both historical and contemporary) it would allow employers to dispense with e.g. health and safety rules, working hours rules, medical leave, minimum wages etc. etc.
Most advances in this area had to be legislated because employers wouldn't voluntarily adhere to any such rules (either because they callously decided it wasn't worth the money to them, or because they'd be driven out of the market by unscrupulous competitors). Your argument is an extremely tendentious one which can only be justified by an appeal to "the market" coming up with an acceptable solution. Unfortunately history and current affairs show that this isn't always the case. Hence the need for legislation.
It's beside point whether you do or do not agree with *everything* your employer does. The point is: does this employer encroach on one of your vital interests.
And I think that's something between doctor and patient, and not open to an employer's arbitrary views.
You need people's emails when you're digging for something (anything really) you can use to discredit someone personally (apart from any scientific merit). Besides which, some of those emails are personal.
The Virginia court ruled that filing a lawsuit just to get those emails constitutes harassment, which in turn is a frivolous use of the court's time. A sensible conclusion in my opinion.
And yes, there do seem to be consequences for filing frivolous lawsuits.
Separation between Church and State means that you get to hold whatever "religious" belief you want in private, only that you don't get to impose those religious views (or values) on others. Not even people who just happen to be in a position of financial dependence to you.
What people call "freedom" here is the freedom to impose your arbitrary views (here "religion") onto others (employees) by cavilling over what they consider "appropriate" medical care. What this ruling does is empower employers to meddle in what medical care their employers can spend their medical benefits, and that's wrong. The separation between church and state held the provision that e.g. employers couldn't use their power to meddle in the (privileged) docter-patient relationship, and that protection has just been lifted.
The question of whether Hobby-Lobby employees can make do in other ways is irrelevant. I think they shouldn't have to have to circumnavigate this particular obstacle in the first place.
I get the distinct impression that people fail to see how dangerous it is to lift this protection because it's touted as "Christian". For better or worse, Hindu, Muslim, Satanist, and Scientologist "religions" just got the same rights.
Your analogy about the "Hindu refusing to buy me [...]" is beside the point I think, because that's a case of an employer refusing you discretionary spending. Medical treatment is not discretionary, and although the employer ultimately foots the bill it's not something he would ordinarily have any say in (apart from this "religious" thing now). It's medical benefits, not some gift!
What I'm calling for is a state in which nobody can construe their their religious "rights" in ways that allow them to impose their religious views on others.
This in itself gives "religion" powers in purely secular matters. Since it's an integral part of society now, it acts just like in the Middle Ages.
The separation between church and state doesn't just cover acts by the state itself, it also covers the privileges the state accords to those who invoke "religion" in secular matters.
For R there exist attempts at GUI's (like e.g. R-commander) that offer point-and-click functionality but they're more sketchy.
I think that giving non-programmers access to R will result in a flood of help requests because they really do need some notion of programming to use the R language. With SAS that's more in the background because the GUI tool is relatively well done, and use of the butt-ugly, antiquated and clumsy mainframe-style SAS language can usually be avoided.
In addition I don't know of any (reliable and working) alternative to the SAS Enterprise Guide. which lets you click together elementary data-procesing steps in a network that shows the structure and the results of your work.
I think that statisticians, real analysts and data-scientists will soon feel constrained by SAS and will prefer to use SAS to prepare a dataset for analysis, and then carry out any actual analysis in R.
Last but not least, R is still an in-memory analysis program, which practically limits analyses to what you can be fit in core. There are packages that try to extend R in this direction, but I consider them to be poor quality and cumbersome.
Python on the other hand is aimed squarely at programmers, and nobody else.
The separation between church and state marked the end of the Middle Ages and the onset of the Renaissance.
Only in the US can its reversal be touted as a "win for freedom".
Last time I checked abortions were recognised medical procedures, so who the hick are those company owners to object to them? What's next? Refusal to pay for vaccinations? Treatment of aids? Psychiatric treatment?
And what if the owners are Muslims? Do they get to pick and choose what kind of treatment they "object to" as well? And followers of Wicca? And Satanists? And how about Scientologists (who are a recognised religion (for taxation purposes) in the US).
If I understand this judgment correctly, every man jack gets to pick a "religion" and gets to limit medical coverage of their employees on basis of whatever religious dogma they subscribe to.
There's your "freedom" boy. Enjoy it.
Therein, as the "Watts Up With That?" commenters point out, lies the problem. You can *only* achieve that kind of ROI if you're connected to a power grid that will pay you fixed rates for your excess power when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining, and guarantee availability of power in other circumstances (against base rates).
Power plants have a nasty habit of costing money every second while they're being kept in readiness, let alone when they're on standby or acting as spinning reserves. Money their operators can't recoup by selling power when there is a glut due to solar and wind generators.
As soon as you factor that cost in, the picture for alternative energy sources becomes a lot less rosy.
Not that we shouldn't try to maximise the fraction of wind and solar power, but let's be realistic and factor in the cost of keeping (conventional) power plants on standby instead of treating the power grid as a giant zero-cost battery!
Planned obsolescence and a huge vested interest in current technology.
By keeping change gradual, Detroit can make consumers pay for every step along the way by selling them model after model that's just different enough to generate sales and yet not different enough to require big investments in new technology (manufacturing or otherwise). In doing so they make sure they can write off any investments in existing technology after they have been recouped. This is known as planned obsolescence.
With revolutionary changes however, Detroit's car makers will have no chance to slip a line of intermediate models and, say, a 10 year transition period, between the current model and the future one. So they leave money on the table. Big money.
And of course they won't do that if they have anything to say in it.
Google on the other hand has no vested interest in existing car technology and is only looking to monetise their current, developing, tech. Of course they want to see it implemented asap, with as little intermediate models as possible.
Given those two positions, can anyone be surprised they didn't hit it off?
Intense research indicates that the sun doesn't usually shine at night in Germany and that solar cells operate at greatly reduced power levels in the dark. In other news, electricity production varies significantly from one day to the next, due to strange weather conditions such as clouds.
The upshot is that during some hours and on sunny days there is a glut of electric power which drives the spot-market price to zero.
This of course is bad news for companies that operate coal, gas, or oil-fired power plants because such plants are expensive to build and maintain and can't compete during the hours of abundant sunlight leaving insufficient hours during which to make enough to service debts and recoup investments.
Dirty old base-load plants powered by coal can usually continue to compete on price. Expensive modern gas-powered peak-demand plants on the other hand will operate at a loss.
Having caused a volatile energy form to gain prominence, the next thing for the Germans to do is to shift their subsidies from solar cells to storage capacity. They're already doing that, but in the mean time their conventional power plants will bleed red ink.
I'm happy to watch their experiments from afar and eager to learn how they will solve this particular problem, aren't you?
Costs that aren't reflected in the price of causing air pollution (caused e.g. by car-driving), but devolve on other parties, are known as "external costs".
External costs can however be included in the price of the product (in this case driving an internal combustion vehicle) by means of a tax, and that is often the only way for external costs.
The market that determines the demand for fuel combustion can do its work only if the "true" cost of driving is felt by the ones who actually buy that particular product, instead of other parties further down the line.
Just calculate the marginal cost of a kilogram of combusted fuel due to pollination problems and, add it to the fuel tax, and spend it on research to drive down the cost of more fuel-efficient cars and hydrogen vehicles.
It would be better to wait for good solid facts. At the very least I'd expect a press-conference by Mr. Putin himself stating that it is his policy to keep Europe from lessening their energy dependence on Russia by sponsoring anti-fracking groups.
To be quite sure we'd best wait for a signed, hand-delivered letter from Russia's government confirming the statements of the press-conference in writing.
Don't get me wrong, until a few months ago I was prepared to believe that Russia was simply out for revenue in jacking up the gas price (and why not: it's their damn gas and they're selling to the Ukraina at below market price). What changed my mind was the way they acted in the Crimea and the Ukrainian border provinces. Apparently they wish for a sphere of influence (read hegemony) around their borders in which the rights and interests of the surrounding states and their peoples is a secondary consideration.
They may have stopped short of outright invasion, but they do seem to use classical special-forces handiwork (like setting up and aiding groups that advocate secession, undercover operations by special forces) to great effect. After all ... they really really want their navy base at Sevastopol back. Well, we've seen worse. Really. Even old Gorbachev spoke out to the effect that merging the Crimea with the Ukraina was a mistake (from Russia's point of view).
Again, I don't blame them and I'm certainly not trying to demonize them, but if that's what they want, that's what they want. I'm simply saying we should take note, give due consideration to what their apparent goals are, and adjust our views and policies accordingly.
There's a big difference between the US and Germany: the US has an awful lot of territory, so it can afford to waste and pollute large tracts of it (which it still does on a regular basis), yet have sufficient clean land for other purposes. Germany is a lot smaller and more densely populated, and it has to exercise a lot more caution with its environment than the US
Besides which, Europe as a whole seems to import 33% of its oil and 48% of its gas from Russia. Now consider that Russia seems to be sponsoring environmental groups in Europe that oppose fracking. Why would that be, you think?
Given Russia's showdown with the Ukraina (annexing the Crimea and turning the screws on by jacking up the price of natural gas) and Putin's determination to err ... restore Russia's political clout and former "glory", wouldn't you do your level best to try and worm your way out of energy dependence on Russia? The Germans seem to be doing exactly that.
In other news ... China is busily overtaking the US as largest economy, and it has no oil, no gas, but loads of coal. It's also the world's manufacturing hub. And then there's India growing steadily. Population growth in Asia is still massive (in absolute terms) and its prosperity is steadily rising. With that inevitably comes an increased energy footprint.
I believe than in the coming 10-20 years energy prices will be determined by what happens in Asia, not in the US or Europe. And the only way I see oil prices go in that period is up. Way up. Solar seems to be a pretty solid investment from that point of view.
So on balance I'd say that Germany's investment in solar energy is not a stupid move and should probably continue.
Your average GOP voter greatly values his privacy where the Government is involved. We all know that.
When it comes to private corporations however, your average GOP voter doesn't seem to worry overmuch. Even better, he/she tends to hold little sympathy towards attempts to restrict corporations in any way whatsoever.
As such, he/she takes a positively hostile position versus people who propose to regulate what data corporations can collect on you (and what they can do with it). Because that smacks of "expanding government". The number one red-flag issue for them.
So err does that mean that GOP voters will refrain from protesting as long as it's only honest for-profit corporations doing the data-mining? If only because for-profit corporations will be just as happy to profile/target the other side? Thereby evening the playing field as it were.
Of course GOP voters won't like the idea of being profiled with the express purpose of countering the political position they wish to see adopted any more than anybody else.
The rub is: what do they propose to do about it? Somehow I feel that they won't necessarily endorse additional legislation to that effect. Let alone government enforcement of the same. And by banning such practices, they would deprive themselves of the opportunity to use the same techniques.
What I think will happen is that GOP voters will ask themselves: will we benefit more from this technique than the opposition? If so, they'll oppose it only insofar and for as long as they feel they are currently lagging the opposition, and endorse it in every other respect.
What I do know is that I got exasperated at yet another stupid conspiracy-theory post when an obvious answer is so close to hand, especially when it's rated above '1'.
Without a shred of or thought, Oracle and Cisco are lumped together. Throw in the mention of Satan separating them at birth and I lost my patience.
So for that reason I used the header "Conspiracy-theory rubbish ...". I stand by this particular choice of words. I think they are appropriate to the context and the parent post, and will use them again.
You're probably right I should have omitted the sneer about the author of the parent post being arithmetically challenged. I'll think more carefully before including such designations in future.
Before you lose yourself in flights of fancy, consider this. Cisco sells network gear, i.e. the stuff you need to implement multiple tiers of traffic. Only the more advanced, expensive, and high-margin gear will do that of course. Think: deep-packet inspection.
And you were actually wondering why Cisco is in favour of an Internet that needs advanced kit and against an Internet that doesn't need special gear to implement multiple tiers?
A bit slow at arithmetic, are you?.
(1) Establish how many personalities can be distinguished within the defendant's mind.
(2) Try to identify the personality who was in charge at the time, and do him/her for pointing the laser.
(3) Prosecute all the other personalities for being accessory and/or accomplice to the act of pointing the laser.
(4) Depending on how tightly the personalities are linked, you may optionally prosecute each of them for conspiracy to commit a crime, or even taking part in a criminal organisation.
(5) Add all sentences together. This is how long the body pointing the laser should go behind bars.
I suspect that the defense of "multiple personalities" will lose its popularity very quickly.
And I think that you've yet to start looking. And I don't mean on Slashdot.
It will surprise you to know that there is a branch of science dealing with questions like: "what makes people better or worse at being listened to and influencing others?". It's called Psychology, and it's about objective study of the human mind. Including personal effectiveness.
Now something tells me that you aren't about to read (much less absorb) anything about Psychology. So I won't bother you with references to the literature (you may use Google if you want to contend that you do).
So I'll try to couch my argument in terms that may be inside your personal sphere of experience. We'll start with advertising. Advertisements are there to make people buy something. They're worth big money because they *work*. Now ... how many swearwords (directed squarely at the viewer) do you see in advertising? And in sales pitches?
That's right: none at all. Reason: they don't work. People would use them if they did ... but they don't.
The same holds for lawyer's briefs, politician's speeches,
If in addition the plain fact that you won't hear any successful managers, professors, lawyers, salespeople, or politicians swear in their official capacity isn't "objective" enough for you, what is?
You might be getting there. Now lets focus on what you mean by "best at the job", shall we?
There seems to be some romantic notion floating about of the "irksome in manners but super-competent maverick". Most jobs (apart from code monkey or assembly-line worker or data-entry professional) require some measure of interaction. With colleagues. With management. With clients. With prospects. With the public. Being able to do that without needlessly antagonizing people is part of being good at your job.
The vast majority of people I've met professionally (in academe and business) were both extremely good at their work and quite articulate, if not eloquent. I almost never spotted someone with a clear trade-off.
And I also never spotted anyone who was such a prize (professionally speaking) that we had to put up with him/her being a pain to listen to (there was always someone who could do the job just about as well without the theatrics).
So whoever told you that being good at some job correlates with being a potty-mouth? Less fanciful romantic assumptions on your part, and more real-world experience please.
All things considered, using crude language (and especially swearwords) is typically a sign of weakness in people. As in: being unable to get their point across without being vulgar and being frustrated at their own inability to do so. Or simply being too lazy to care.
Suppose you're in charge of hiring engineers and you can get someone who (being equally competent on the engineering side) has the added benefit of polishing their shoes, not looking like some bum from the slums, and being able to convince people to adopt their views (as in collaborating with e.g. customers, prospects, colleagues) and to get their thinking across clearly, effectively, and without needlessly antagonising their audience (as in making presentations to e.g. management, prospects, competitors).
Would you choose someone who comes across as a potty-mouth, a bum, a Neanderthaler or someone more sophisticated?
I suppose it depends. If you want a small corporate cog that you'll never have to worry about reaching management levels himself (and perhaps turning into competition), by all means: go for the one lacking polish (or even the potty-mouth). Your only worry will be to pay said cog market value (for their technical competence only: they have no other qualities) and keep them fully booked.
If, on the other hand, you're looking for someone who might be suitable to represent your company externally (after you verified that their head is screwed on right of course) and who's promotable in due time, go for the one with a few extra qualities. Such as politeness and articulateness. You'll find yourself paying extra for such people. They're scarcer and more in demand because they're more useful.
Children would be much better served by teaching them concentration, a systematic approach to problem-solving, a good command of language (natural language) and teaching them how to solve problems that require a focused effort or even a team effort.
And yes, programming can be so much fun that you might succeed in getting children so absorbed in the problem at hand that they actually focus and make an effort. But I see it as a means. not an end.
Teaching children about programming in secondary school is plenty good enough, provided they aren't semi-illiterates (as is so often the case), can actually formulate their thoughts in a way that makes sense (instead of the usual incoherent rambling), and know what it means to make an effort.
With that in mind, would you bet against his ability to manoeuver for a jury that will be swayed by rethoric about the ickiness of drinking pee?
I'm afraid the grandparent post has nailed it: it's cheaper to waste a few million gallons of perfectly good drinking water than to risk a lawsuit.