If you can get through the "setup" without shifting your feelings you can easily pass "the test". You gotta be cool and convince yourself of your own lies; some people are really good at this.
Conversely, if during the course of the "setup" you become stressed or nervous or scared, you get a false "lie". Do they hook monitors up to the person asking the questions to see which questions are loaded. If you get subtle signs of sudden aggression from the questioner (that they may or may not be aware of) doesn't it make sense that you would have a physiological response?
I immediately thought of the RFI emissions as the culprit. Wouldn't having the precisely the same RF transmissions going through precisely the same tissue over and over again cause much greater damage over time then a varied transmission or transmitting from a varied location? I'm thinking of the damage kinda like harmonics: if you tap the same place on structure at the right frequency you get resonance, if you tap at the same frequency but randomize the location and direction of each tap you get no resonance, if you randomize the tap so there is no set frequency you get no resonance. Whatever little DNA bit that happens to be effected by the RFI emission is going to get the exact same assault over and over until it is eventually destroyed.
I know that there are mangers who ask for something from nothing in most every field. I didn't mean to imply that IT should do the impossible, but there is a big difference between "Yes, we can do that but we will need X,Y,and Z to make it happen. Here are some options that we can do with the equipment we have. " and "No. We can do that." Basically, IMHO, the job of every employee is to enhance the production and value of the companies product. Anything or anyone that doesn't contribute to that is an obstruction to be removed.
I'm hoping that it's a trick for the president to set a precedent of answering to subpoenas. Hopefully during the next administration, there will be quiet a number of neocons called to take the stand.
We have had to go to third party outfits that specialize in hosting their own web application solutions and paying them yearly sums of money to do for us what IT will not. Not a single department has a decent relationship with IT
Maybe you should fire your head of IT, and maybe NESTA should as well. IT is at it's heart a service field, existing to facilitate the the companies production. If the IT staff is getting in the way, get them out of the way permanently. The same way you would remove a secretary who refused to deliver phone messages, or a janitor who refused sweep. The flip side of that is, if your IT staff warn you that something may be a security risk or devour resources, then don't hold them responsible when they are right.
what really amazes me are people like yourself who actually believe that the CEO didn't do this himself.
Regardless of if the CEO actually did the physical work,the CEO should be held responsible. Here's how I see it, if an employee does something good and the company makes $$$, what share of that does the employee get and what share does the CEO and other upper management get? Why should the distribution of criminal guilt be any different? All of the rewards and none of the responsibility just doesn't ring true to me.
But how do you get representatives to change the system that got them their job? Ug.
It could be done, relatively peacefully, but only if a lot higher percentage of America knew and cared about the severe flaws in our voting system. If you could get the 36% of America that didn't vote in 2004 to actively express their dissatisfaction with our voting system, then it would become an issue would be addressed, eventually. But when that dissatisfaction manifests as voter apathy, well then the problems with our system are met with political apathy. As long as no politician can expect to win a Senate seat off of a campaign based in "Range Voting for a better USA" there will be no change.
"press" as defined under federal law is extremely broadly defined.
Given how influential Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" pamphlets were in spreading the movement towards the Revolution, I would think that one sided, heavy handed, idealogical rantings would be Constitutionally protected. DailyKos is the modern day equivalent of the political pamphlet, and should be protected as such. If there is going to be any kind of strong Democratic leadership/ideology to emerge places like the DailyKos are going to be important in sorting out a unified Democratic vision. Right now the only thing they have going for them is that they aren't the Republicans. That lack of cohesiveness and vision is how Kerry lost in 2004. http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/milestone s/commonsense/
The reprehensible part of Scientology is not the stories that it tells, but the illegal methods that it uses. (I do not consider e-meters to be reprehensible, even though the US at one time ruled them illegal. I consider that unconstitutional governmental intrusion into private affairs. I'm talking about threats, extortion, barratry, etc.)
And when any organization, whether they claim to be a religion or not, uses those tactics they should be prosecuted and dismantled and banned like any other criminal organization. I'm not anti-religion, I'm a Christian, but if a "claimed" Christian group uses those tactics I will be the first to call for their arrest. I wonder if the Islamic world can step-up and do the same when it comes to dealing with their militant offshoots?
If they start releasing games that have the same controls and abilities of UAVs and armed ground robots like Talon Swords, think of what they will have. Kids start training in elementary school, by the time they turn 16 they could be ridiculously skilled with the use of remote operated war machines. Heck, the upgrades for the machines could well come from the feed back from the kids playing the game. It could be very like the end of "Ender's Game" real battles could be remotely won by kids thinking of it as playing a tournament.
As someone who was a quarter mile away from Ground Zero the one day Islamofacists did blow something up you might say I have some perspective on the matter. I had plenty of time to think about these things the night I spent shoveling mud made of both human and building ash so the iron workers could begin sorting the wreckage. You don't need to remind me of the dangers involved thank you.
First some history, there have always been times throughout history where violence tries to rob people of their rights and their humanity. It's even not the first time someone has tried to blow up a financial building in NYC. Here's one from 1920: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_bombing Here's a different bombing not in NYC from 1927http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disas ter. I believe Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament in 1606. Machiavelli enumerates all sorts of underhanded ways that people try to seize power in "The Prince". I'm fairly certain that many of the Founding Fathers had read "The Prince". They knew about Guy Fawkes. They knew about the tactics of the Caribbean pirates, like when Henry Morgan burned Panama City to the ground in 1670. So no, the world is not so different today. The Founding Fathers were quite aware that there are wackos who will do horrible things to advance their cause.
Your right to be assured of your kids safety also doesn't trump the right of a "brownish shifty looking guy" to be secure in his person, papers and possessions or trump his right to Habeas Corpus. There are reasons that you equate the safety of your kid in whatever piss-ant town you live in, with massive invasive search that flaunt centuries old law. First you think that your kid qualifies as an important target, sorry no one outside of you family and friends thinks your kid is anything special. Second and probably the more important reason is that you are scared. When people are subconciously aware of their own moratlity they make very black and white emotional decisions.
the three performed similar experiments to illustrate how awareness of death could provoke worldview defense. They showed that what they now called "mortality salience" affected people's view of other races, religions, and nations. When they had students at a Christian college evaluate essays by what they were told were a Christian and a Jewish author, the group that did the mortality exercises expressed a far more negative view of the essay by the Jew- ish author than the control group did. (German psychologists would find a similar reaction among German subjects toward Turks.) They also conducted numerous experiments to show that mortality exercises evoked patriotic responses. The subjects who did the exercises took a far more negative view of an essay critical of the United States than the control group did and also expressed greater veneration for cultural icons like the flag. The three even devised an experiment to show that, after doing the mortality exercises, conser- vatives took a much harsher view of liberals, and vice versa. http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20070827&s=judis082 707
I highly recommend reading the whole linked article, it's shows the exact the Presidents insistence that "if we don't do this there will be another Sept.11th" works so well.
You only have the rights the biggest dog in the yard allows you to have, and the US is the biggest dog in the yard. I don't know why people like you hate that so much.
Perhaps we hate it because we know the meaning of "Inalienable Rights".http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inalienable_r ights But don't left those silly Founding Fathers get in the way of your jingoism.
It's surprising how similar this administration is to Reagan's.
I don't find it surprising at all, Dubya is a direct legacy of Reagan administration. I think this sort of ever growing control and privilege is a product of having a legacy. Why would we expect Dubya to have respect for the Constitution or rights of the common man, when he has been surrounded by power and privilege all of his life? He and Jeb were practically bred for the purpose of expanding power and control. All of the big decisions in his life point towards growing his power, and those decisions where without a doubt heavily influenced by his father, who was in tight with Nixon. This administration is just a continuation of a decades long, generation spanning grab for power.
But contrary to popular opinion, you don't need sex to survive.
You do need sex for your marriage to survive. The Pope also says no to oral sex and masturbation. I'm a big fan of personal responsibility, but part of personal responsibility is personal freedom. To many Catholics, the laws of the church are as binding as the laws of the state. You cannot remove their control of their sex lives without also relocating a large portion of the responsibility. That is why I hold the Pope responsible.
The Pope does not tell them to have lots of unprotected sex.
In fact that is exactly what the Pope tells them to do. They are not allowed to have safe sex, birth control is prohibited. Recently there was a secession for married couples to use condoms if one of the partners had an STD. So clearly the church expects married people to be having regular sex, yet they forbid the use of contraception. The rhythm method doesn't really work so well. I'm pretty sure oral sex is rather frowned upon by the Pope as well.
No.No.No.
I did take the SATs in 7th grade and was not allowed to enroll in the local community college because I didn't have the state required VA/US History or VA/US government classes. I couldn't take the GED because I was too young. So while I was allowed to take one or two college classes (I took a biology 101 summer class, loved it.), I still had to stay in junior high and progress through one year at a time. The school board was very very resistant to anyone skipping a grade, short of taking it to court there was little more my parents could have done. As often as I went to see the vice-principal, I think I even discussed the subject of skipping a grade with school administration once or twice. Maybe the school board is more open minded and progressive in the area where you live but in the early 80's in Virginia Beach VA USA they wanted the smart kids to stay put and get nice high test scores that they could brag about. The school system isn't a modern democratic society, it's a statistics worshiping bureaucracy and I had little choice but to suffer through it.
First and foremost that little Hitler Youth is evil because he still prohibits birth control. How much suffering in how many Catholic countries is caused by over population? That is all the fault of the Pope. Ever poor family of 12 that loses kids to starvation or the side effects of malnutrition can look to the Pope for why they couldn't just have two kids that they were able to take care of. Every treehugger that wonders why Brazil is cutting down rainforest for farm land to feed their ever expanding population can look to the Pope. I know that there are other reasons that impoverished people have large families, but that usually stops as soon as the women there have access to the pill.
Then you can ask him why he thinks that paying taxes is actually contributing to the good of the common man? Hasn't every war in history been started by either those-collecting-taxes or those-who-want-to-collect-taxes ? The Papacy is the epitome of taking power and money from the poor masses and giving it to the elite few.
On paper socialism isn't a bad system of government either, but in reality thy both have serious problems. Namely they both reduce everyone's progress to the slowest of the group. That's anti-Darwinism. There is only frustration and penalties for excelling and you cannot fail regardless of how little effort you put in. There is no reason to do well or try hard. Give up your uniqueness and become a greyman, like every other greyman around you. That is what both NCLB and socialism produce: greymen who do their rote tasks in an acceptably mediocre fashion. Maybe that works well for the least intellectually gifted and maybe it should continue to be the way that quarter of the population is taught, but the most intellectually gifted will learn to resent the repressing authority of that robs them of so much opportunity, progress and joy.
I wasn't discouraged from reading ahead, because I never asked permission to do so, I just did it. The problems came around November when I was done with the course work for the year. Could I just take all my tests and go home please? Nope. Could I read next years book and do next years tests and just skip that grade? Nope. Could I have an intelligent discussion about what we have read with the one or two other smart kids who are done? No, just sit there. Hmm, I'm bored I think I'll do something fun, like see if my teacher can still teach elementary school science without her teacher's edition. Nope. Go to the principal.
That pretty much describes 2nd through 7th grade for me.
Every business has overhead that isn't just paying the people who make the product. I have now problem with the labels taking a share, although usually they take far too much. I'm glad the big labels are realizing that their music sucks, and I'm glad they are putting someone inplace who is interested in making albums, not just hit singles. But I still don't want to give my money to Sony. The music is a problem, but so is the way the big labels have been acting. Don't think you can threaten me, sue me, rootkit me, and bankroll legislation that give private corperations the rights of a judge (DMCA takedown notices), and then just say "Oops, Sorry we just want to make good music." Fuck you Sony. Repeal the DMCA and then come tell me you're sorry.
"You could conceive of natural selection never producing consciousness "
Oddly enough, you could not conceive of anything without consciousness. Understanding is a mental, not physical process. You could however conceive of consciousness without the physical world. Indeed every culture has been doing so for all of recorded history in the form of spirit worlds, afterlife, etc.
Occam's razor can be much abused depending on how you frame your observation. "I think therefore I am." is much more straight forward than "I am incredibly complex and elaborate, therefore I think." Let's set Occam's Razor aside for this discussion, it doesn't seem to be the right tool for the job here.
If you allow yourself to view the conscious world as more fundamental than the physical world, then the observed consistency/connectedness of all physical phenomena would require some sort of governing over-consciousness that is responsible for the physical world. That of course would be a form of creationism, much reviled here on/.
I agree that there is a big difference between computerized records and online, the catch is that to not be online you have to physically unplug your storage from the internet. No off-site access, authorized or not. In the case of Monster.com, accessibility to information was what they were all about. Sure, they wanted to only allow access to paying/legit customers but the exact same could be said of most music licensing software. The same skills and sub-culture that have people unlocking the iPhone and poking holes in the Great Firewall of China is going to make remotely accessible databases only casually secure.
I came across the mother of all "that's just how we have always done it" stories the other day.
The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.
Why was that gauge used?
Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US Railroads.
Why did the English build them like that?
Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.
Why did "they" use that gauge then?
Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel! spacing.
Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.
So who built those old rutted roads?
Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.
And the ruts in the roads?
Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.
The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. And bureaucracies live forever.
So the next time you are handed a spec and told we have always done it that way and wonder what horse's ass came up with that, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses.
Now the twist to the story...
When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site.
The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.
So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a Horse's ass. http://www.manbottle.com/humor/railroads_to_space_ shuttles
Slashdot Mirror
If you can get through the "setup" without shifting your feelings you can easily pass "the test". You gotta be cool and convince yourself of your own lies; some people are really good at this.
Conversely, if during the course of the "setup" you become stressed or nervous or scared, you get a false "lie". Do they hook monitors up to the person asking the questions to see which questions are loaded. If you get subtle signs of sudden aggression from the questioner (that they may or may not be aware of) doesn't it make sense that you would have a physiological response?
I immediately thought of the RFI emissions as the culprit. Wouldn't having the precisely the same RF transmissions going through precisely the same tissue over and over again cause much greater damage over time then a varied transmission or transmitting from a varied location? I'm thinking of the damage kinda like harmonics: if you tap the same place on structure at the right frequency you get resonance, if you tap at the same frequency but randomize the location and direction of each tap you get no resonance, if you randomize the tap so there is no set frequency you get no resonance. Whatever little DNA bit that happens to be effected by the RFI emission is going to get the exact same assault over and over until it is eventually destroyed.
I know that there are mangers who ask for something from nothing in most every field. I didn't mean to imply that IT should do the impossible, but there is a big difference between "Yes, we can do that but we will need X,Y,and Z to make it happen. Here are some options that we can do with the equipment we have. " and "No. We can do that." Basically, IMHO, the job of every employee is to enhance the production and value of the companies product. Anything or anyone that doesn't contribute to that is an obstruction to be removed.
I'm hoping that it's a trick for the president to set a precedent of answering to subpoenas. Hopefully during the next administration, there will be quiet a number of neocons called to take the stand.
We have had to go to third party outfits that specialize in hosting their own web application solutions and paying them yearly sums of money to do for us what IT will not. Not a single department has a decent relationship with IT
Maybe you should fire your head of IT, and maybe NESTA should as well. IT is at it's heart a service field, existing to facilitate the the companies production. If the IT staff is getting in the way, get them out of the way permanently. The same way you would remove a secretary who refused to deliver phone messages, or a janitor who refused sweep. The flip side of that is, if your IT staff warn you that something may be a security risk or devour resources, then don't hold them responsible when they are right.
what really amazes me are people like yourself who actually believe that the CEO didn't do this himself.
Regardless of if the CEO actually did the physical work,the CEO should be held responsible. Here's how I see it, if an employee does something good and the company makes $$$, what share of that does the employee get and what share does the CEO and other upper management get? Why should the distribution of criminal guilt be any different? All of the rewards and none of the responsibility just doesn't ring true to me.
But how do you get representatives to change the system that got them their job? Ug.
It could be done, relatively peacefully, but only if a lot higher percentage of America knew and cared about the severe flaws in our voting system. If you could get the 36% of America that didn't vote in 2004 to actively express their dissatisfaction with our voting system, then it would become an issue would be addressed, eventually. But when that dissatisfaction manifests as voter apathy, well then the problems with our system are met with political apathy. As long as no politician can expect to win a Senate seat off of a campaign based in "Range Voting for a better USA" there will be no change.
"press" as defined under federal law is extremely broadly defined.
e s/commonsense/
Given how influential Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" pamphlets were in spreading the movement towards the Revolution, I would think that one sided, heavy handed, idealogical rantings would be Constitutionally protected. DailyKos is the modern day equivalent of the political pamphlet, and should be protected as such. If there is going to be any kind of strong Democratic leadership/ideology to emerge places like the DailyKos are going to be important in sorting out a unified Democratic vision. Right now the only thing they have going for them is that they aren't the Republicans. That lack of cohesiveness and vision is how Kerry lost in 2004.
http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/mileston
Are these the same ISPs who also claim that YouTube and iPlayer are clogging the bandwidth? http://techdigest.tv/2007/08/uk_isps_send_bb.html It sounds like the ISPs have promised everyone "blazing fast internet" and can't make good on that promise because they misspent $200 billion that should have been building up internet infrastructure. http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_200 70810_002683.html Now they are just making excuses instead of product.
The reprehensible part of Scientology is not the stories that it tells, but the illegal methods that it uses. (I do not consider e-meters to be reprehensible, even though the US at one time ruled them illegal. I consider that unconstitutional governmental intrusion into private affairs. I'm talking about threats, extortion, barratry, etc.)
And when any organization, whether they claim to be a religion or not, uses those tactics they should be prosecuted and dismantled and banned like any other criminal organization. I'm not anti-religion, I'm a Christian, but if a "claimed" Christian group uses those tactics I will be the first to call for their arrest. I wonder if the Islamic world can step-up and do the same when it comes to dealing with their militant offshoots?
If they start releasing games that have the same controls and abilities of UAVs and armed ground robots like Talon Swords, think of what they will have. Kids start training in elementary school, by the time they turn 16 they could be ridiculously skilled with the use of remote operated war machines. Heck, the upgrades for the machines could well come from the feed back from the kids playing the game. It could be very like the end of "Ender's Game" real battles could be remotely won by kids thinking of it as playing a tournament.
2 2
http://www.foster-miller.com/lemming.htm http://www.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?fsID=1
First some history, there have always been times throughout history where violence tries to rob people of their rights and their humanity. It's even not the first time someone has tried to blow up a financial building in NYC. Here's one from 1920: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_bombing Here's a different bombing not in NYC from 1927http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disa
Your right to be assured of your kids safety also doesn't trump the right of a "brownish shifty looking guy" to be secure in his person, papers and possessions or trump his right to Habeas Corpus. There are reasons that you equate the safety of your kid in whatever piss-ant town you live in, with massive invasive search that flaunt centuries old law. First you think that your kid qualifies as an important target, sorry no one outside of you family and friends thinks your kid is anything special. Second and probably the more important reason is that you are scared. When people are subconciously aware of their own moratlity they make very black and white emotional decisions. I highly recommend reading the whole linked article, it's shows the exact the Presidents insistence that "if we don't do this there will be another Sept.11th" works so well.
You only have the rights the biggest dog in the yard allows you to have, and the US is the biggest dog in the yard. I don't know why people like you hate that so much.
r ights But don't left those silly Founding Fathers get in the way of your jingoism.
Perhaps we hate it because we know the meaning of "Inalienable Rights".http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inalienable_
It's surprising how similar this administration is to Reagan's.
I don't find it surprising at all, Dubya is a direct legacy of Reagan administration. I think this sort of ever growing control and privilege is a product of having a legacy. Why would we expect Dubya to have respect for the Constitution or rights of the common man, when he has been surrounded by power and privilege all of his life? He and Jeb were practically bred for the purpose of expanding power and control. All of the big decisions in his life point towards growing his power, and those decisions where without a doubt heavily influenced by his father, who was in tight with Nixon. This administration is just a continuation of a decades long, generation spanning grab for power.
But contrary to popular opinion, you don't need sex to survive.
You do need sex for your marriage to survive. The Pope also says no to oral sex and masturbation. I'm a big fan of personal responsibility, but part of personal responsibility is personal freedom. To many Catholics, the laws of the church are as binding as the laws of the state. You cannot remove their control of their sex lives without also relocating a large portion of the responsibility. That is why I hold the Pope responsible.
The Pope does not tell them to have lots of unprotected sex.
In fact that is exactly what the Pope tells them to do. They are not allowed to have safe sex, birth control is prohibited. Recently there was a secession for married couples to use condoms if one of the partners had an STD. So clearly the church expects married people to be having regular sex, yet they forbid the use of contraception. The rhythm method doesn't really work so well. I'm pretty sure oral sex is rather frowned upon by the Pope as well.
No.No.No. I did take the SATs in 7th grade and was not allowed to enroll in the local community college because I didn't have the state required VA/US History or VA/US government classes. I couldn't take the GED because I was too young. So while I was allowed to take one or two college classes (I took a biology 101 summer class, loved it.), I still had to stay in junior high and progress through one year at a time. The school board was very very resistant to anyone skipping a grade, short of taking it to court there was little more my parents could have done. As often as I went to see the vice-principal, I think I even discussed the subject of skipping a grade with school administration once or twice. Maybe the school board is more open minded and progressive in the area where you live but in the early 80's in Virginia Beach VA USA they wanted the smart kids to stay put and get nice high test scores that they could brag about. The school system isn't a modern democratic society, it's a statistics worshiping bureaucracy and I had little choice but to suffer through it.
First and foremost that little Hitler Youth is evil because he still prohibits birth control. How much suffering in how many Catholic countries is caused by over population? That is all the fault of the Pope. Ever poor family of 12 that loses kids to starvation or the side effects of malnutrition can look to the Pope for why they couldn't just have two kids that they were able to take care of. Every treehugger that wonders why Brazil is cutting down rainforest for farm land to feed their ever expanding population can look to the Pope. I know that there are other reasons that impoverished people have large families, but that usually stops as soon as the women there have access to the pill.
Then you can ask him why he thinks that paying taxes is actually contributing to the good of the common man? Hasn't every war in history been started by either those-collecting-taxes or those-who-want-to-collect-taxes ? The Papacy is the epitome of taking power and money from the poor masses and giving it to the elite few.
On paper, the NCLB act isn't a bad program.
On paper socialism isn't a bad system of government either, but in reality thy both have serious problems. Namely they both reduce everyone's progress to the slowest of the group. That's anti-Darwinism. There is only frustration and penalties for excelling and you cannot fail regardless of how little effort you put in. There is no reason to do well or try hard. Give up your uniqueness and become a greyman, like every other greyman around you. That is what both NCLB and socialism produce: greymen who do their rote tasks in an acceptably mediocre fashion. Maybe that works well for the least intellectually gifted and maybe it should continue to be the way that quarter of the population is taught, but the most intellectually gifted will learn to resent the repressing authority of that robs them of so much opportunity, progress and joy.
I wasn't discouraged from reading ahead, because I never asked permission to do so, I just did it. The problems came around November when I was done with the course work for the year. Could I just take all my tests and go home please? Nope. Could I read next years book and do next years tests and just skip that grade? Nope. Could I have an intelligent discussion about what we have read with the one or two other smart kids who are done? No, just sit there. Hmm, I'm bored I think I'll do something fun, like see if my teacher can still teach elementary school science without her teacher's edition. Nope. Go to the principal.
That pretty much describes 2nd through 7th grade for me.
You mean it doesn't all go to the artist?
Every business has overhead that isn't just paying the people who make the product. I have now problem with the labels taking a share, although usually they take far too much. I'm glad the big labels are realizing that their music sucks, and I'm glad they are putting someone inplace who is interested in making albums, not just hit singles. But I still don't want to give my money to Sony. The music is a problem, but so is the way the big labels have been acting. Don't think you can threaten me, sue me, rootkit me, and bankroll legislation that give private corperations the rights of a judge (DMCA takedown notices), and then just say "Oops, Sorry we just want to make good music." Fuck you Sony. Repeal the DMCA and then come tell me you're sorry.
"You could conceive of natural selection never producing consciousness "
/.
Oddly enough, you could not conceive of anything without consciousness. Understanding is a mental, not physical process. You could however conceive of consciousness without the physical world. Indeed every culture has been doing so for all of recorded history in the form of spirit worlds, afterlife, etc.
Occam's razor can be much abused depending on how you frame your observation. "I think therefore I am." is much more straight forward than "I am incredibly complex and elaborate, therefore I think." Let's set Occam's Razor aside for this discussion, it doesn't seem to be the right tool for the job here.
If you allow yourself to view the conscious world as more fundamental than the physical world, then the observed consistency/connectedness of all physical phenomena would require some sort of governing over-consciousness that is responsible for the physical world. That of course would be a form of creationism, much reviled here on
I'm guessing you don't count "How the fuck did I get into this mess?" as introspection.
I agree that there is a big difference between computerized records and online, the catch is that to not be online you have to physically unplug your storage from the internet. No off-site access, authorized or not. In the case of Monster.com, accessibility to information was what they were all about. Sure, they wanted to only allow access to paying/legit customers but the exact same could be said of most music licensing software. The same skills and sub-culture that have people unlocking the iPhone and poking holes in the Great Firewall of China is going to make remotely accessible databases only casually secure.
I came across the mother of all "that's just how we have always done it" stories the other day.