You wonder why the world is in such turmoil right now?
...implying that the world is in more turmoil now than in the past. Which is not true, which is what I pointed out. I was saying nothing about the rest of your post. It looks like you fell over the same "stumbling block" you seem to enjoy ranting about everyone else making. As if you're the only person here who has the ability to think critically? Do you really think ad hominem attacks make you more right?
Nothing I said implies that the rest of your post is invalid; I was just addressing that particular "things are worse now" meme that you (probably unconsciously) repeated.
You wonder why the world is in such turmoil right now?
Anyone who wonders this is ignorant of history; the world has been in such "turmoil" since the beginning of recorded history. There have been small pockets of relative peace and prosperity in one place or another over time, but the general history of the world is one of war, oppression, and chaos.
That's not to say we couldn't construct a society that is generally peaceful -- the fact that there hasn't been military action in as populated an area as the continental U.S. in the last 140 years, for example, is quite remarkable in a historical sense -- but let's not delude ourselves and think that things are actually worse now overall than they've been in the past.
The statistical debate is clear, 1:5 is an inaccurate because it is too close to the indivisible unit of the problem, i.e, one person.
...what in the nine hells are you talking about? The 1:5 figure is an approximation of the 19% figure given by the study. It has nothing to do with being "close to the indivisible unit of the problem." That doesn't even mean anything.
The real problem is how they described what happened to those 19%, not the numerical representation thereof.
Bender: [murmuring in his sleep] Kill all humans, kill all humans, must kill all... Fry: Bender, wake up! Bender: I was having the most wonderful dream. I think you were in it. Fry: Uh...listen Bender, uh, where's your bathroom? Bender: Bathwhat? Fry: Bathroom. Bender: What room? Fry: Bathroom! Bender: What what? Fry: Ah, never mind. [Bender dozes off immediately] Bender: [murmuring in his sleep] Hey, baby... wanna kill all humans?
Our top two petroleum importing countries are... Canada and Mexico!
That's where we get the oil that we actually, physically use; but the oil market is global, and things that happen in the Middle East can affect the price of oil that we get from Canada and Mexico. Just because the gas your car burns wasn't dug out of the ground in Saudi Arabia doesn't mean we don't care what happens there.
I'm totally on board with stopping the practice of installing dictators and propping up horrible theocracies in the Middle East just to try and keep oil cheap, though.
The fundamental point that people like you miss is that if we don't jump the hell out of every bad thing the government does, eventually they'll slide into doing worse things. It's a slippery-slope argument, and an entirely valid one.
Just because Bush doesn't have his political opponents exiled or executed doesn't mean it's okay when someone minor like Padilla has his rights violated. There is literally no excuse, ever, for any American citizen to be secretly detained like that. Not even contrived bullshit Jack Bauer "the nuke goes off in ten minutes" situations.
Every cellphone I've ever used lets you enter some letters, and then it only shows people whose entry name begins with those letters... and this is going back to 1999, so it ain't exactly new tech. You just need a better phone:)
I'm opposed to him because, by still holding those beliefs, he's demonstrated a lack of judgment and reason.
This is a really bad principle to hold. Someone can be quite rational and demonstrate good reasoning ability and judgment in most areas, but have a blind spot when it comes to one in particular -- this does not mean the person's judgment is generally faulty and they are not to be trusted. Nobody's perfect and if you're going to look for someone who has excellent judgment at all times, you're never ever going to find a candidate you'll accept.
I'm an atheist and don't think the Mormon golden-tablet stuff is much different from any other religious hogwash (and there are other reasons I wouldn't vote for Romney in particular) but you're being quite unreasonable in assuming someone's general reasoning ability is inherently faulty because of religious beliefs, of all things.
McCain should hang his head in shame and drop out right now. 2% better than the dark horse candidate? That's pathetic.
He should drop out because of ONE state's primary results? Are you crazy? I'm not a Republican and even if I were I wouldn't be voting for McCain, but what the hell kind of logic is "show poorly in one primary, decide to drop out"?
What bonehead tagged this "whatcouldpossiblygowrong"? That tag is for describing situations where some kind of decision could easily have unforeseen consequences affecting numerous people. What could possibly go wrong here is that this guy could, at worst, die. This one guy.
Definition error: The government exists to coerce people into doing the things that the people have agreed that the government is allowed to coerce them into (whoa, confusing); but one of the things the government is NOT allowed to coerce people into doing is accepting laws that a small number of people in the government have decided are a good idea.
In other words, they can make you follow the rules, but they aren't supposed to try to make you agree that the rules should be what they say.
He didn't say Jon Bon Jovi, he just said "Bon Jovi". He was referring to the well-known Italian architect, Dr. Giuseppi Bon Jovi of the Milan Institute of Design.
I mean, duh. Of course, I have no idea why an architect is bloviating about music, but who can understand Italians?[1]
The Supreme Court also indicated that the whole thing was dumb in Eldred v. Ashcroft, but basicly came to the conclusion there was nothing in the Constitution that prevents Congress from doing dumb things.
As I understand it, the main problem with Lessig's argument was that he argued that by having repeatedly extended copyright, and making it so long, Congress had effectively made it unlimited. SCOTUS rightly rejected this argument -- even a 150-year term is still finite.
However, the argument he should have made is that these long terms in no way "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", which is pretty unarguably true (especially retroactive copyright extension; how exactly the hell is extending the copyright on something a dead person wrote going to encourage that person to write more?). There is no evidence of any kind to demonstrate that Progress is better served by 150-year copyright terms than by 20-year copyright terms.
Well, clearly the best game console of all time is the Playstation 7. Since we'll reach the limit of Moore's Law right around then, all subsequent consoles will just be cheap imitations.
"While some lawmakers and civil-rights advocates are unhappy with shooting this toddler in the face, one alternative that was considered and rejected -- feeding the toddler to the Sarlacc -- might have been worse."
Just because it could have been worse doesn't mean it wasn't a bad outcome the way it is now.
Funnily enough, I'd known how evil Scientology was for years, and then I happened across the Skeptic's Dictionary which has entries on est and the Landmark Forum. I'd read them in about 1999, and a couple of years later a friend of mine invited me to audit (heh) a Landmark Forum workshop. I'd forgotten about what I'd read, so I checked it out, and it seemed vaguely interesting... and familiar. Then I realized that I knew where I'd heard of it before, and I sent the SkepDic links to my friend.
He stopped participating in the Landmark Forum shortly thereafter.:)
If there's no mass transit anywhere near where you live, then there's not enough of a tax base to support one, and therefore not enough traffic congestion for demand pricing to be of any use.
I don't have any statistical data on how many people are bothered by ShakyCam(tm), but neither I nor any of the five people I saw it with had any problem with it. (I'm essentially immune to motion sickness, personally; never once been sick on a boat, plane, roller coaster, Bourne movie, etc.)
What, are you saying that us, the cable company, should come into your home and force people to install our choice of software or bugger off?
...no, all I'm saying is that the solution the GGP proposed about surprise overage charges was stupid. I never said anything like "force people to install software to solve problem".
You don't go out and buy a car if you don't know how to drive safely, you don't go out and buy an electric generator without learning how to use one safely, and you not buy and use the internet without learning and at least attempting to use it safely.
Ugh... there are physical safety issues with cars and generators that do not exist with Internet usage. Those analogies fail and I wish you people would stop using them.
And you, like virtually everyone else who replied to me, blithely assume that because I don't like the "surprise overage charge" idea, that therefore I don't think we should do anything at all. There are other solutions besides huge overage fees and cutting people off completely.
Slashdot Mirror
Nothing I said implies that the rest of your post is invalid; I was just addressing that particular "things are worse now" meme that you (probably unconsciously) repeated.
That's not to say we couldn't construct a society that is generally peaceful -- the fact that there hasn't been military action in as populated an area as the continental U.S. in the last 140 years, for example, is quite remarkable in a historical sense -- but let's not delude ourselves and think that things are actually worse now overall than they've been in the past.
The real problem is how they described what happened to those 19%, not the numerical representation thereof.
The whole thing:
Bender: [murmuring in his sleep] Kill all humans, kill all humans, must kill all...
Fry: Bender, wake up!
Bender: I was having the most wonderful dream. I think you were in it.
Fry: Uh...listen Bender, uh, where's your bathroom?
Bender: Bathwhat?
Fry: Bathroom.
Bender: What room?
Fry: Bathroom!
Bender: What what?
Fry: Ah, never mind.
[Bender dozes off immediately]
Bender: [murmuring in his sleep] Hey, baby... wanna kill all humans?
Ah, yes, the dreaded Death Shark, the Empire's most feared weapon...
I'm totally on board with stopping the practice of installing dictators and propping up horrible theocracies in the Middle East just to try and keep oil cheap, though.
The fundamental point that people like you miss is that if we don't jump the hell out of every bad thing the government does, eventually they'll slide into doing worse things. It's a slippery-slope argument, and an entirely valid one.
Just because Bush doesn't have his political opponents exiled or executed doesn't mean it's okay when someone minor like Padilla has his rights violated. There is literally no excuse, ever, for any American citizen to be secretly detained like that. Not even contrived bullshit Jack Bauer "the nuke goes off in ten minutes" situations.
Every cellphone I've ever used lets you enter some letters, and then it only shows people whose entry name begins with those letters... and this is going back to 1999, so it ain't exactly new tech. You just need a better phone :)
I'm an atheist and don't think the Mormon golden-tablet stuff is much different from any other religious hogwash (and there are other reasons I wouldn't vote for Romney in particular) but you're being quite unreasonable in assuming someone's general reasoning ability is inherently faulty because of religious beliefs, of all things.
What bonehead tagged this "whatcouldpossiblygowrong"? That tag is for describing situations where some kind of decision could easily have unforeseen consequences affecting numerous people. What could possibly go wrong here is that this guy could, at worst, die. This one guy.
Stop overusing that tag! </rant>
In other words, they can make you follow the rules, but they aren't supposed to try to make you agree that the rules should be what they say.
Nooo! Iz MAI lectron shell. I no share lectrons wit u.
He didn't say Jon Bon Jovi, he just said "Bon Jovi". He was referring to the well-known Italian architect, Dr. Giuseppi Bon Jovi of the Milan Institute of Design.
I mean, duh. Of course, I have no idea why an architect is bloviating about music, but who can understand Italians?[1]
[1] No one, not even other Italians.
However, the argument he should have made is that these long terms in no way "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", which is pretty unarguably true (especially retroactive copyright extension; how exactly the hell is extending the copyright on something a dead person wrote going to encourage that person to write more?). There is no evidence of any kind to demonstrate that Progress is better served by 150-year copyright terms than by 20-year copyright terms.
Well, clearly the best game console of all time is the Playstation 7. Since we'll reach the limit of Moore's Law right around then, all subsequent consoles will just be cheap imitations.
...but perhaps I've said too much.
"While some lawmakers and civil-rights advocates are unhappy with shooting this toddler in the face, one alternative that was considered and rejected -- feeding the toddler to the Sarlacc -- might have been worse."
Just because it could have been worse doesn't mean it wasn't a bad outcome the way it is now.
That's some ill communication right there.
Funnily enough, I'd known how evil Scientology was for years, and then I happened across the Skeptic's Dictionary which has entries on est and the Landmark Forum. I'd read them in about 1999, and a couple of years later a friend of mine invited me to audit (heh) a Landmark Forum workshop. I'd forgotten about what I'd read, so I checked it out, and it seemed vaguely interesting... and familiar. Then I realized that I knew where I'd heard of it before, and I sent the SkepDic links to my friend.
:)
He stopped participating in the Landmark Forum shortly thereafter.
If there's no mass transit anywhere near where you live, then there's not enough of a tax base to support one, and therefore not enough traffic congestion for demand pricing to be of any use.
The other day my wife said she wants there to be Google Bank. They'd certainly get the online banking thing done right...
I don't have any statistical data on how many people are bothered by ShakyCam(tm), but neither I nor any of the five people I saw it with had any problem with it. (I'm essentially immune to motion sickness, personally; never once been sick on a boat, plane, roller coaster, Bourne movie, etc.)
And you, like virtually everyone else who replied to me, blithely assume that because I don't like the "surprise overage charge" idea, that therefore I don't think we should do anything at all. There are other solutions besides huge overage fees and cutting people off completely.