For me, the most jarring Americanisms are referring to a negotiable instrument as a "check", and the words "nite", "lite", and "thru".
Illinoisian here. The "nite, lite, and thru" are very new Americanisms used only by the young and ignorant, coined by marketers (Miller Lite) and annoy me, "thru" being the worst. "I thru the ball thru the hoop"? Fucking illiteracy. Threw the ball through the hoop, damn it. Marketers are abysmally ignorant of language, I've seen "carline" in auto commercials. It's pathetic.
Not considering who he was running against. WTF were the Republicans thinking? After OWS and everyone disgussing their hate for Wall Street and especially corporate pirates who buy out companies, lay off all the staff, sell its assets and walk away richer, who do they nominate? A Wall Street corpporate raider, a pirate. Bush was an MBA and the economy collapsed under him, what kind of idiot would vote for another MBA only likely even worse?
That said, more on topic, but American (at least Illinois) schools have always been abysmal, at least for the last half century. I had three good teachers from 1st grade to college, the rest were horribly incompetent. I had a high school science teacher give me an A on a paper because it was over his head, an English teacher marking a paper down because she thought I made the word "hierarchy" up. Once I learned to read, no teacher taught me anything whatever until I reached college.
I started first grade in 1958. My kids' education was no better than mine.
And look at slashdot, we have non-native English-speaking commenters who write flawless English, and "American's who's English makes you're eyes bleed."
Since two Paneras* in a row were "unable" to connect me to the Internet for hours on end (spare me the peak hours jazz, even then you are supposed to get 1/2 hr. and I was able to connect to other nearby networks) I stick to Starbucks when I want to work away from the house.
Starbucks? Hell, I go to McDonalds, a buck for a coffee (that's before my geezer discount). OK, not really, I go to a a redneck bar in the ghetto whose motto is "Got Guts?" ($1.25 drafts) Caddycorner from an Outlaws motorcycle club headquarters. I wrote most of Nobots there (out soon, need cover art and it's done).
WiFi? I know the owner and have the password.
You guys need to learn how to stop wasting money. I need to get the password to George Ranks from them, I think I'm in range here...
The only one that's ripping me off right now is AT&T, and that's only because Comcast would screw me harder. All I'm buying from them is DSL and I'm paying $47 a month. Meanwhile on my phone I not only get unlimited internet* (with email from my 10 year old address, YouTube, Google), but a phone with long distance, voicemail, 411, roaming, all unlimited and included in the $42 I pay them. I'm not going to name them but they're not the only ones and some may even be better. I've been with them for 5 years with no problems except their website is an ugly clusterfuck, but most are these days.
Hell, even my credit card company doesn't screw me over, and I'll bet most of you the people you guys deal with don't screw you, either. But you're nerds, and we're not normal (at least I'm not). I use a small local bank, and they're damned near free. Wasting your money is stupid.
But most people? Hell, I'll tell people what I'm paying for my phone when they're paying three times that for less stuff, and they go on using the expensive carrier they're with. And switching carriers is easy; maybe expensive if you're on a contract but easy.
Why in the hell am I paying seven dollars more for internet alone than a phone WITH internet?? I guess because there's competition in the cell phone business. I wish my phone company sold internet.
* I listen to KSHE on it all day long at work, that's eight hours a day using its radio, plus when I ask it the temperature or read a novel or newspaper
Make that trillions; there isn't going to be one transistor per cell. You're going to have to simulate every single process of every single cell, plus the chemical reactions, plus all the interconnections and signals. You're going to have to represent every single molecule and maybe every atom in the brain... and the brain may have quantum effects as well. If so, you're going to have to model every subatomic particle.
A model of a nuclear explosion does produce radiation, in the model.
Exactly. It's only a model, to quote the guy from Holy Grail. A model within a model.
They use the same computers they use to model nuclear reactions that they do to model the weather, how far ahead are their forecasts accurate? A perfectly accurate model would perfectly predict the weather, but like modeling the brain there are just too many variables.
And weather is understood pretty well, unlike the brain.
You don't have to work to be a member of society. My dad's been retired for 20 years, he says he doesn't know how he ever found the time to go to work.
Look at JK Rowling -- if it weren't for the UK's generous welfare laws, there might not be any Harry Potter books; if she had to work she wouldn't have had time to write.
I don't live to work, I work to live (until I retire next year). I pity anyone who lives to work, unless their work is something they really enjoy. I like my job, but I'll be glad when it's done.
In the old Road Rash PC game, if you wrecked your bike after passing a cop, you went to jail. But if the cop tries to catch you while riding you can steal his nightstick and beat him with it.
I loved that game. I wish I had a computer that would still run it:(
You know, people do make these things called `jokes' some times.
Bad joke, offtopic, and insulting to beer drinkers. What's worse, so many people bit the troll that by now, actual discussion of the topic is done. Read the/. FAQ -- it's a troll.
As I'm teaching my boys, the point of life is to get other people to do stuff that is against their interests and in yours. All this talk of dignity, human rights, liberty &c. is, as Nietzsche pointed out, merely the pathetic cry of the weak, whom it is the right of my offspring to manipulate and exploit.
Antisocial (Dissocial) Personality Disorder is a personality disorder characterized by a pervasive pattern of disregard for, or violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood. There may be an impoverished moral sense or conscience and a history of crime, legal problems, impulsive and aggressive behavior.
You're correct; that verb was used correctly, although the verb "effect" usually isn't. "I'm going to affect this car by hitting it with a hammer, and I'm going to effect a dent." Hitting it is affecting it, the dent is the effect.
If you said "I'm going to effect this car by hitting it with a hammer" you would be saying the car was the effect of the hammer's blow, which would be absurd.
I think you vastly underestimate how big it would have to be.
If you believe that there's more to the human brain than the laws of physics acting on a bunch of matter, the onus is on you to demonstrate that.
I think thought is the result of a chemical process. I have no idea what thought actually is or how consciousness comes about, and I'm not too sure anyone else does, either. I think in a discussion like this, metaphysics can be ruled out, at least for now.
As I said earlier (not too sure who to), modeling a brain would help us understand it, but the model won't think any more than the model of a nuclear explosion produces radiation.
It may well lead sometime in the far future to our designing replicants like in Blade Runner (and I think that will likely happen, but you're not likely to see it in your lifetime), but we'll never create an electronic computer that can actually think.
Again, the Cato institute has no credibility, and the graph has no referents and no way to know what its numbers mean. That's probably deliberate on Cato's part, they're as credible in the social and economic "sciences" as a tobacco company report on the health hazards of smoking or an oil company assessment of global warming.
If you want to convince anyone but a hard right winger, you need better data.
I'm not sure why you're referring to the graphic again, I explained in text why cutting the capital gains tax, especially in light of tax law before 1997, was positive for the middle class.
The graph showed nothing at all. It was meaningless, it had no context. This graph looks nothing like yours.
I explained in text why cutting the capital gains tax, especially in light of tax law before 1997, was positive for the middle class.
And I'm telling you I lived through that history and Cato are liars.
Before 1997, if you sold your house and bought a smaller house, you had to pay capital gains tax on the sale. If you sold your house and bought a bigger house, you did not have to pay capital gains tax.
I'd charge both the tax, but if you earn a profit by downsizing, why should you NOT pay income on those earnings? Personally, if I had my way the CGT would be done completely away with and that profit taxed as income.
My point was that capital gains doesn't just affect the rich.
No, it doesn't. I wish I could pay the capital gains tax on my salary instead of the much higher income tax. There is absolutely no rational reason I've ever heard why that corporate job-killing pirate Romney should pay less than half the rate I'm paying, when I earn a fraction of what he does.
There are no referents in that graphic. Link the wikipedia article itself.
Yeah, ooh, the evil tax cutter, hurting the middle class.
I explained that in my comment. Are you trolling? I'm a bit naive about that sometimes. Again, your graphic is meaningless, it has no context or referents.
Did you know that before 1997 the capital gains on selling your house was much more limited and only applied if you used the proceeds to buy a *more expensive* house?
As it should be. Gains taxes were already lower than income taxes, if I make a profit by downsizing my house I should pay taxes on that profit, especially if I'm upsizing.
A simulation of a brain produces thought like a simulation of an atomic explosion produces radiation. Of course computers will be helpful in understanding how a brain works, but brains are chemical-analog, not binary-electrical. You're not going to produce true thought with a Turing machine. The best you'll get is a simulation.
Do you have any idea how big a computer that would take? You would have to model every subatomic particle in the entire nervous system.
And tell me, why do physicists need engineers? Thinking that physics is the only key to the human brain is a mistake; I can know everything about how transistors and capacitors and resisters and coils work, and understand the physics behind electricity, but that doesn't mean I can design an amplifier -- I have to know how an amplifier works first.
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Funny you should mention that...
For me, the most jarring Americanisms are referring to a negotiable instrument as a "check", and the words "nite", "lite", and "thru".
Illinoisian here. The "nite, lite, and thru" are very new Americanisms used only by the young and ignorant, coined by marketers (Miller Lite) and annoy me, "thru" being the worst. "I thru the ball thru the hoop"? Fucking illiteracy. Threw the ball through the hoop, damn it. Marketers are abysmally ignorant of language, I've seen "carline" in auto commercials. It's pathetic.
Not considering who he was running against. WTF were the Republicans thinking? After OWS and everyone disgussing their hate for Wall Street and especially corporate pirates who buy out companies, lay off all the staff, sell its assets and walk away richer, who do they nominate? A Wall Street corpporate raider, a pirate. Bush was an MBA and the economy collapsed under him, what kind of idiot would vote for another MBA only likely even worse?
That said, more on topic, but American (at least Illinois) schools have always been abysmal, at least for the last half century. I had three good teachers from 1st grade to college, the rest were horribly incompetent. I had a high school science teacher give me an A on a paper because it was over his head, an English teacher marking a paper down because she thought I made the word "hierarchy" up. Once I learned to read, no teacher taught me anything whatever until I reached college.
I started first grade in 1958. My kids' education was no better than mine.
And look at slashdot, we have non-native English-speaking commenters who write flawless English, and "American's who's English makes you're eyes bleed."
Our educational system is abysmal.
Since two Paneras* in a row were "unable" to connect me to the Internet for hours on end (spare me the peak hours jazz, even then you are supposed to get 1/2 hr. and I was able to connect to other nearby networks) I stick to Starbucks when I want to work away from the house.
Starbucks? Hell, I go to McDonalds, a buck for a coffee (that's before my geezer discount). OK, not really, I go to a a redneck bar in the ghetto whose motto is "Got Guts?" ($1.25 drafts) Caddycorner from an Outlaws motorcycle club headquarters. I wrote most of Nobots there (out soon, need cover art and it's done).
WiFi? I know the owner and have the password.
You guys need to learn how to stop wasting money. I need to get the password to George Ranks from them, I think I'm in range here...
This. Pretty much everything in the article just screams "the author is a clueless git" to me.
Overrated? Bullshit, that's insightful. Come on, guys, are there gits on slash... DOH!
The only one that's ripping me off right now is AT&T, and that's only because Comcast would screw me harder. All I'm buying from them is DSL and I'm paying $47 a month. Meanwhile on my phone I not only get unlimited internet* (with email from my 10 year old address, YouTube, Google), but a phone with long distance, voicemail, 411, roaming, all unlimited and included in the $42 I pay them. I'm not going to name them but they're not the only ones and some may even be better. I've been with them for 5 years with no problems except their website is an ugly clusterfuck, but most are these days.
Hell, even my credit card company doesn't screw me over, and I'll bet most of you the people you guys deal with don't screw you, either. But you're nerds, and we're not normal (at least I'm not). I use a small local bank, and they're damned near free. Wasting your money is stupid.
But most people? Hell, I'll tell people what I'm paying for my phone when they're paying three times that for less stuff, and they go on using the expensive carrier they're with. And switching carriers is easy; maybe expensive if you're on a contract but easy.
Why in the hell am I paying seven dollars more for internet alone than a phone WITH internet?? I guess because there's competition in the cell phone business. I wish my phone company sold internet.
* I listen to KSHE on it all day long at work, that's eight hours a day using its radio, plus when I ask it the temperature or read a novel or newspaper
Yep, it was the reason I upgraded from DOS. It will run on w98 but nothing later.
Okay, so let's say I'm off by a factor of 1000.
Make that trillions; there isn't going to be one transistor per cell. You're going to have to simulate every single process of every single cell, plus the chemical reactions, plus all the interconnections and signals. You're going to have to represent every single molecule and maybe every atom in the brain... and the brain may have quantum effects as well. If so, you're going to have to model every subatomic particle.
A model of a nuclear explosion does produce radiation, in the model.
Exactly. It's only a model, to quote the guy from Holy Grail. A model within a model.
They use the same computers they use to model nuclear reactions that they do to model the weather, how far ahead are their forecasts accurate? A perfectly accurate model would perfectly predict the weather, but like modeling the brain there are just too many variables.
And weather is understood pretty well, unlike the brain.
You don't have to work to be a member of society. My dad's been retired for 20 years, he says he doesn't know how he ever found the time to go to work.
Look at JK Rowling -- if it weren't for the UK's generous welfare laws, there might not be any Harry Potter books; if she had to work she wouldn't have had time to write.
I don't live to work, I work to live (until I retire next year). I pity anyone who lives to work, unless their work is something they really enjoy. I like my job, but I'll be glad when it's done.
Why is it any different if you replace cat with human?
Because the cat is acting entirely on instinct. It doesn't and can't know any better. Don't you?
In the old Road Rash PC game, if you wrecked your bike after passing a cop, you went to jail. But if the cop tries to catch you while riding you can steal his nightstick and beat him with it.
I loved that game. I wish I had a computer that would still run it :(
You know, people do make these things called `jokes' some times.
Bad joke, offtopic, and insulting to beer drinkers. What's worse, so many people bit the troll that by now, actual discussion of the topic is done. Read the /. FAQ -- it's a troll.
I've yet to see a regular military that has it's soldiers use crank in battle.
How about the United States Air Force?
BTW, "it's" is a contraction of "it is."
As I'm teaching my boys, the point of life is to get other people to do stuff that is against their interests and in yours. All this talk of dignity, human rights, liberty &c. is, as Nietzsche pointed out, merely the pathetic cry of the weak, whom it is the right of my offspring to manipulate and exploit.
And they call me a sociopath ...
With good reason.
In other words, you're one sick puppy.
Damn it, why should someone with a debilitating handicap like that HAVE to work?
You're correct; that verb was used correctly, although the verb "effect" usually isn't. "I'm going to affect this car by hitting it with a hammer, and I'm going to effect a dent." Hitting it is affecting it, the dent is the effect.
If you said "I'm going to effect this car by hitting it with a hammer" you would be saying the car was the effect of the hammer's blow, which would be absurd.
It would take a big computer.
I think you vastly underestimate how big it would have to be.
If you believe that there's more to the human brain than the laws of physics acting on a bunch of matter, the onus is on you to demonstrate that.
I think thought is the result of a chemical process. I have no idea what thought actually is or how consciousness comes about, and I'm not too sure anyone else does, either. I think in a discussion like this, metaphysics can be ruled out, at least for now.
As I said earlier (not too sure who to), modeling a brain would help us understand it, but the model won't think any more than the model of a nuclear explosion produces radiation.
It may well lead sometime in the far future to our designing replicants like in Blade Runner (and I think that will likely happen, but you're not likely to see it in your lifetime), but we'll never create an electronic computer that can actually think.
I don't know what article it's from but I know it's accurate because I've seen it before.
That's some REALLY faulty logic there.
here is another document which contains virtually the same graph: http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa261.pdf (page 6)
Again, the Cato institute has no credibility, and the graph has no referents and no way to know what its numbers mean. That's probably deliberate on Cato's part, they're as credible in the social and economic "sciences" as a tobacco company report on the health hazards of smoking or an oil company assessment of global warming.
If you want to convince anyone but a hard right winger, you need better data.
I'm not sure why you're referring to the graphic again, I explained in text why cutting the capital gains tax, especially in light of tax law before 1997, was positive for the middle class.
The graph showed nothing at all. It was meaningless, it had no context. This graph looks nothing like yours.
I explained in text why cutting the capital gains tax, especially in light of tax law before 1997, was positive for the middle class.
And I'm telling you I lived through that history and Cato are liars.
Before 1997, if you sold your house and bought a smaller house, you had to pay capital gains tax on the sale. If you sold your house and bought a bigger house, you did not have to pay capital gains tax.
I'd charge both the tax, but if you earn a profit by downsizing, why should you NOT pay income on those earnings? Personally, if I had my way the CGT would be done completely away with and that profit taxed as income.
My point was that capital gains doesn't just affect the rich.
No, it doesn't. I wish I could pay the capital gains tax on my salary instead of the much higher income tax. There is absolutely no rational reason I've ever heard why that corporate job-killing pirate Romney should pay less than half the rate I'm paying, when I earn a fraction of what he does.
Reddy Kilowatt is!
unless there is some kind of computation that we know nothing about
Worth thinking about.
Shit, you may have just given me the plot of a new sci-fi book (I'm working on "Whores In Space" right now).
And here I thought Android was just as good.
Check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Median_US_household_income.png [wikipedia.org]
There are no referents in that graphic. Link the wikipedia article itself.
Yeah, ooh, the evil tax cutter, hurting the middle class.
I explained that in my comment. Are you trolling? I'm a bit naive about that sometimes. Again, your graphic is meaningless, it has no context or referents.
Did you know that before 1997 the capital gains on selling your house was much more limited and only applied if you used the proceeds to buy a *more expensive* house?
As it should be. Gains taxes were already lower than income taxes, if I make a profit by downsizing my house I should pay taxes on that profit, especially if I'm upsizing.
A simulation of a brain produces thought like a simulation of an atomic explosion produces radiation. Of course computers will be helpful in understanding how a brain works, but brains are chemical-analog, not binary-electrical. You're not going to produce true thought with a Turing machine. The best you'll get is a simulation.
Do you have any idea how big a computer that would take? You would have to model every subatomic particle in the entire nervous system.
And tell me, why do physicists need engineers? Thinking that physics is the only key to the human brain is a mistake; I can know everything about how transistors and capacitors and resisters and coils work, and understand the physics behind electricity, but that doesn't mean I can design an amplifier -- I have to know how an amplifier works first.