In Australia we have compulsary sufferage because we feel that having representation for those who don't feel like voting is more important than letting them spend another half hour on the lounge watching football every three years. If you want your entire electorate to be over 60 because they have nothing better to do, then enjoy what you have. The problem with this is that when you force people who do not care about politics to come out and vote, their presence (and the fact that they likely represent a huge voting bloc) has a dumbing down effect on politics:
Chapin suggests that the IQ gap between the average President and the average voter has stayed roughly the same, but the voters have changed in average intelligence level. Up through 1824, the electorate was quite smart because only elite property owners could vote. Then, politics became a kind of national spectator sport with huge turnouts, so the IQ of voters fell to the mean. Therefore, we stopped electing geniuses like Jefferson and Madison and started electing nondescript politicos like Franklin Pierce and Rutherford B. Hayes.
Then, a century ago, other forms of mass entertainment came along. Turnout dropped, especially among the dimmer elements. This allowed clever men like Nixon, Carter, Bush the Elder (Phi Beta Kappa at Yale, graduating in 2.5 years), and Clinton to win elections.
we have compulsary (sic) wearing of seatbelts etc. I know that, at least in GA, one can get a $20 ticket for driving without a seatbelt. The police department gave the program the name "Click it or Ticket." I bet a lot of other states have similar restrictions.
We have strict gun control because having a large bore semi-auto isn't as useful as knowing that muggers and bank theives (sic) don't have them. This varies by state and city. Carry Permits is almost impossible to get in NYC, for instance.
We pay other people's healthcare bills for the security of knowing that others will pay ours. The U.S. has government insurance programs called Medicare and Medicaid, which help the elderly and poor respectively. The U.S. also has an (IMO insane) ruling that emergency rooms must treat people regardless of ability to pay.
We can't have certain pets but in exchange we have a country free of certain pests. I believe the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and various federal, state, and local regulations restrict certain kinds of flora and fauna in certain places. I also know that the U.S. customs service is notoriously strict on what one can or cannot bring into the county.
Even if it was that easy to port Multix to the PC, wouldn't the programmer have to write all the device drivers to support it? That might take more than "a few weeks."
Not to be confused, presumably, with a nation whose government has a demonstrated history of violating the privacy rights of its own citizens and stating on the record that it doesn't accord any such rights at all to anyone who isn't one of its own citizens, including the vast numbers of Internet users from other nations whose traffic is all but certain to pass through systems under its jurisdiction, and within which it has repeatedly been shown that major communication providers are more than willing to provide the government with access to traffic they carry without proper authorisation anyway. As long as their are major systems in place (routers and such), that will always be the case, as it is in any country.
Now, I have never played Windwaker or Phantom Hourglass, but I have heard similar complaints about Suikoden IV. Now, I wonder if it would benefit those games to adopt the sailing system of the early Ultima series. Maybe the sea traveling section could feature a giant world map, where you could sail around, and pirates would occasionally attack you with a cannon, which weakens the structural integrity of the ship. They could also feature a ship-to-ship battle if the two ships pulled along side each other. Then, the sea section could become a thrilling battle, and also a thrilling chase. It would still suck up player's time, but it sounds like it could be very fun.
Senior Project?! At my university, Rose-Hulman, Computer Scientists, Software Engineers, and Computer Engineers take a class, Computer Architecture, in which they design a CPU, and the only prereq is ECE130: Circuits and Systems, which can be taken as a first quarter Freshman! I think this project would be a sophomore level project at most!
FUD from the most oppressive, government sponsored terrorist, warmongering country on the entire planet! An article from one (Mooney-funded) newspaper amounts to government sponsored propaganda? Wow, man!
did you know that your income tax is against your constitution and was never ratified? From Wikipedia:
Some tax protesters may cite what they believe is evidence that the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution (removing any apportionment requirement for income taxes) was never "properly ratified" or that it was properly ratified but does not permit the taxation of individual income, or particular forms of individual income. One argument is based on the contention that the legislatures of various states passed bills of ratification with different capitalization, spelling of words, or punctuation marks (e.g., semi-colons instead of commas) (see, e.g., United States v. Thomas[1]). Another argument made by some tax protesters is that because the United States Congress did not pass an official proclamation recognizing Ohio's year 1803 admission to statehood until 1953 (see Ohio Constitution), Ohio was not a state until 1953 and therefore the Sixteenth Amendment was not properly ratified (see Ivey v. United States[2] and Knoblauch v. Commissioner[3] in the referenced article). These arguments have been universally rejected by the courts. Apparently, the courts, whose job it is to interpret the Constitution, disagree with you.
remember waco don't let it be lost in history I remember Waco. What about it? I'll leave it to the Exile, a Moscow based English Language alternative newspaper, to handle this one:
Waco had a compound full of armed cultist morons who believed that David Koresh, a failed Sting-a-be rock star, was the Savior. Ruby Ridge was the site of some armed white racist pig and his shit-for-brains wife and kids. Can anyone give us one reason why they shouldn't have been shot, gassed and burned with white phosphorus? Millions, literally millions of up-in-arms Middle Americans saw Janet Reno's mercy killing of these rabid apes as a form of totalitarianism. Folks, it's time to come clean here: Janet Reno should have killed many, many thousands more of them. As it was, we appreciate the gene-pool cleansing, even if it was just a gesture. Yes, real fascist stuff here!
What are FREE SPEECH zones? Free Speech Zones are an 'innovation' in the American political system that allow an organization that books a venue for some political convention to be allowed to carry out that convention in peace while allowing any random nut to shows up to shout them down the ability to do so as well. I assume you brought up these things to decry America's "restrictions on freedom of speech", but these areas allow a group that has booked a venue to espouse a particular view to do so in peace without a bunch of loons descending on them in an attempt to stifle their first amendment rights. Not all threats to Freedom of Speech come from the government.
* "Impossible Dreams" by Tim Pratt [Asimov's July 2006]
* "How to Talk to Girls at Parties" by Neil Gaiman [Fragile Things, William Morrow 2006]
* "Eight Episodes" by Robert Reed [Asimov's June 2006]
* "Kin" by Bruce McAllister [Asimov's Feb 2006]
* "The House Beyond Your Sky" by Benjamin Rosenbaum [Strange Horizons Sep 2006]
Best Related Non-Fiction Book Funny, I didn't know Slashdotters held that much power at Worldcon
No, if the license has been terminated, the offender can still use the GPL software, but if he copies, redistributes, or modifies the software any further, he is guilty of additional copyright violations. That one-line change would be a copyright violation.
That's fine if you are hiring native-born citizens (from whatever country you live in), but importing immigrants simply to act as domestic servants seems ultimately wrong and stupid IMO.
They also get the "jobs" nobody else would want, because it's risky or so crappy paid that even the burger flipping crowd sneers at them. The funny thing is that these jobs are low-paid because of the wage lowering effects of mass immigration. (supply and demand, anyone?) This article has a very interesting paragraph about the meatpacking industry that sums up the situation nicely:
Thirty years ago, meatpacking was one of the highest-paid industrial jobs in the United States, with one of the lowest turnover rates. In the decades that followed the 1906 publication of The Jungle, labor unions had slowly gained power in the industry, winning their members good benefits, decent working conditions, and a voice in the workplace. Meatpacking jobs were dangerous and unpleasant, but provided enough income for a solid, middle-class life. There were sometimes waiting lists for these jobs. And then, starting in the early 1960s, a company called Iowa Beef Packers (IBP) began to revolutionize the industry, opening plants in rural areas far from union strongholds, recruiting immigrant workers from Mexico, introducing a new division of labor that eliminated the need for skilled butchers, and ruthlessly battling unions. By the late 1970s, meatpacking companies that wanted to compete with IBP had to adopt its business methods--or go out of business. Wages in the meatpacking industry soon fell by as much as 50 percent. Today meatpacking is one of the nation's lowest-paid industrial jobs, with one of the highest turnover rates. The typical plant now hires an entirely new workforce every year or so. There are no waiting lists at these slaughterhouses today. Staff shortages have become an industry-wide problem, making the work even more dangerous.
The fed doesn't seem to want to raid businesses for hiring illegal aliens, but they spend their time raiding businesses and homes for having mod chips. I thought this line was especially funny.
[quote]"Illicit devices like the ones targeted today are created with one purpose in mind, subverting copyright protections," Julie L. Myers, assistant secretary of Homeland Security for ICE, said in a release. "These crimes cost legitimate businesses billions of dollars annually and facilitate multiple other layers of criminality, such as smuggling, software piracy and money laundering."[/quote]
There may be a tenuous connection to smuggling (i.e. bootleg video games disks), but how in the hell do modchips facilitate money laundering. This is just laughable, if it wasn't so pathetic.
Not only was this one of the first (console) game to have more then 1 or 2 disks So? What does disk count have to do with anything? From what I have read, most of the disk space was taken up by the FMV sequences. Suikoden II was a game I enjoyed even more, and it had only one disk (although it was longer than FF VII).
It was one of the longest non repedative games made in its time I don't know about that. The other FF's would take a long time to beat, and there were some computer games (such as Ultima) that could probably match FF VII lengthwise. Plus, a lot of time in FF VII was spent leveling-up. That always felt pretty repetitive to me.
as well as having some of the best graphics, cut scenes, audio and story line. It certainly did have that.
The fact that this game wasn't even in the top 10, let alone on the list at all and the fact that only 5 games in the top 30 were not nintendo games shows these people are bias or fanboys. Since it comes from Edge magazine, this is probably a given.
There are other ways to get them to leave than deportation. We could adopt an attrition strategy: punishing employers who hire illegal aliens and denying them all but emergency medical care (and the doctors decide what an emergency is, for once). We could also spur economic development in Mexico by giving the undocumented workers land to farm. Since we have $250 BILLION in uncollected employer fines, we have quite a bit of money to use.
No, from what I have heard, if the current trends continue, whites will only become a minority in 2050. However, I heard somewhere that most births will be nonwhite by 2011.
Even though it was an unjust system, it was economically successful. Central planning can be more efficient than a free market in many situations.
Yeah, that's great, except the Soviet economy was not centrally planned.
Slashdot Mirror
My OSX installation uses UFS, and iTunes works just fine. I think it is because ZFS only has read-only support right now
We are not all right-handed, you know.
Even if it was that easy to port Multix to the PC, wouldn't the programmer have to write all the device drivers to support it? That might take more than "a few weeks."
Well, GCC has a PL/1 frontend available. Maybe, the operating system could be compiled with that, and then one could just load it into an emulator.
Now, I have never played Windwaker or Phantom Hourglass, but I have heard similar complaints about Suikoden IV. Now, I wonder if it would benefit those games to adopt the sailing system of the early Ultima series. Maybe the sea traveling section could feature a giant world map, where you could sail around, and pirates would occasionally attack you with a cannon, which weakens the structural integrity of the ship. They could also feature a ship-to-ship battle if the two ships pulled along side each other. Then, the sea section could become a thrilling battle, and also a thrilling chase. It would still suck up player's time, but it sounds like it could be very fun.
Senior Project?! At my university, Rose-Hulman, Computer Scientists, Software Engineers, and Computer Engineers take a class, Computer Architecture, in which they design a CPU, and the only prereq is ECE130: Circuits and Systems, which can be taken as a first quarter Freshman! I think this project would be a sophomore level project at most!
Automation is probably the last hope GM and Ford have to compete in the world market. Things have to move on. The world hasn't stood still.
* "Impossible Dreams" by Tim Pratt [Asimov's July 2006]
* "How to Talk to Girls at Parties" by Neil Gaiman [Fragile Things, William Morrow 2006]
* "Eight Episodes" by Robert Reed [Asimov's June 2006]
* "Kin" by Bruce McAllister [Asimov's Feb 2006]
* "The House Beyond Your Sky" by Benjamin Rosenbaum [Strange Horizons Sep 2006]
Best Related Non-Fiction Book Funny, I didn't know Slashdotters held that much power at Worldcon
No, if the license has been terminated, the offender can still use the GPL software, but if he copies, redistributes, or modifies the software any further, he is guilty of additional copyright violations. That one-line change would be a copyright violation.
That's fine if you are hiring native-born citizens (from whatever country you live in), but importing immigrants simply to act as domestic servants seems ultimately wrong and stupid IMO.
You might want to try clusty. It has a system akin to what you describe.
The fed doesn't seem to want to raid businesses for hiring illegal aliens, but they spend their time raiding businesses and homes for having mod chips. I thought this line was especially funny. [quote]"Illicit devices like the ones targeted today are created with one purpose in mind, subverting copyright protections," Julie L. Myers, assistant secretary of Homeland Security for ICE, said in a release. "These crimes cost legitimate businesses billions of dollars annually and facilitate multiple other layers of criminality, such as smuggling, software piracy and money laundering."[/quote] There may be a tenuous connection to smuggling (i.e. bootleg video games disks), but how in the hell do modchips facilitate money laundering. This is just laughable, if it wasn't so pathetic.
I HATE Archer Daniels Midland!!!!!
Seriously Zonk, are you TRYING to start a flame war?
There are other ways to get them to leave than deportation. We could adopt an attrition strategy: punishing employers who hire illegal aliens and denying them all but emergency medical care (and the doctors decide what an emergency is, for once). We could also spur economic development in Mexico by giving the undocumented workers land to farm. Since we have $250 BILLION in uncollected employer fines, we have quite a bit of money to use.
No, from what I have heard, if the current trends continue, whites will only become a minority in 2050. However, I heard somewhere that most births will be nonwhite by 2011.
Fuck Yeah!!! FUCK Y33333@@@@HHHH!!!!!
Coyoteblog had a good article a few months back on why we did not sign the Kyoto Treaty. It mentions some of the critiques of the United States.
Even though it was an unjust system, it was economically successful. Central planning can be more efficient than a free market in many situations. Yeah, that's great, except the Soviet economy was not centrally planned.
it will take more than that to keep out the Palestinians.