However, compared to the rest of the world on a quality of life basis, America does little better than some third world countries.
Wow, are you serious? Have you ever visited a third world? Your post is almost too melodramatic to respond to, but let me provide you with a little perspective.
Your measures of a high standard of living are quite interesting. You want to be able to live in the same community where you work? You know what that is in the third world? Living in a farming community. You think commuting 3 hours a day to your 8 hour job is bad? Perhaps you'd prefer to have to walk two miles up a mountain to retrieve fresh water every morning. (such was the case in a village in Honduras I visited, you had to walk up to the source because other villages along the way would pollute the stream coming down, who needs the EPA right?). Add that in to all your other daily duties. Get fresh milk from the cow, grind your morning coffee, etc and then head off to the farm. Forget such luxuries as being able to sit around (at work I presume? or before work) pondering life and responding to a post on the internet.
Having a kid a 10 years later than your father also seems to be an odd standard of life to me as well.. I suppose this is because of financial reasons, you felt you couldn't afford to have a child any earlier. It must be nice being able to choose when to have a child and still indulge in sex. Contraceptives are easy to obtain for you right? And it must be nice to be financially secure enough to be able to consider having a child. In most third worlds and in your father's time, children are more looked at as assets. You can put them to work at the early age of 10 in the field or in your shop when they're not at school (if you have that education 'luxury'). Which robs them of all that free time to play with their friends that you probably enjoyed as a kid. We do like to look enviously back to our carefree childhood don't we?
Oh and retirement, a 401k does not have to be invested in the 'gambling' stock market. Provided government doesn't usurp bondholder's rights, you should really have a percentage of your age invested in bonds (50 year old, 50% allocation) its much safer, but I'm not writing this to give financial advise. If you don't want to gamble you could have started saving early and just put it all in a FDIC insured savings account. What a luxury, FDIC insurance, you know in many countries people don't even trust putting their money in a bank savings account? Because in the past their savings have been wiped clean by either corrupt governments, local warlords, or bad banking practices. Keeping all your money in a mattress sounds like a much better idea. And retirement plans? Aside for the brief period in US history where pensions were prevalant (although as we are seeing now, it is completely unsustainable) you know what retirement plans were here and in the rest of the world? Your children! But no, you wouldn't want to put that burden on your kids.
I hope you enjoyed your 4 years in college (most do). You know in South Korea (not really a third world) military service is compusoury for all men over the age of 18? I don't know how old your father is, but I bet he had to worry about being drafted and possibly killed in a war too. I'm sure glad I don't have to worry about that.
Healthcare? Sure your father probably had more affordable health care.. but you know why? Because back then you didn't have all the life extending options we have today. Liver transplants? Chemotherapy? Dialysis? I bet your healthcare could be quite affordable if you got the same quality and services in healthcare that your father did.
I could go on and on, but the fact is, we are living with less worries and greater standard of life than anytime before in history. Stop smell the roses, and enjoy what you have, because it could be a LOT worse.
Informative? This post is no different than the microsoft page. Unsubstatiated claims. Just saying something is false does not make it so. While those claims may not be true, this is not informative in anyway seeing as it provides no details as to why this is true.
I disagree. Sure they have sheer manpower, but they aren't building the Great Wall. The US space program was built upon rocketry expertise from the US, German and other rocket scientists. North Korea I feel lacks the ability to attract quality outside talent. Granted they could throw gobs of money at some scientists but I still doubt they could assemble an equivalent knowledgable workforce as Space-X simply because anyone with rocket expertise could find a great job in many other countries, without having to worry about the oppressive NK regime. The only option is for them to develop this internally, and NK isn't really known for its high literacy rates, let alone good University system.
Granted they do have some advantages, they have seen what works and can buy/steal plans from countries that have successful rockets (China or Russia). but I still think its a stretch to say that they have a huge advantage over the private industry.
sure it is. The scarce resource in this scenario is developers willing to openly contribute their code. Feedback and bug reports are meaningless if you don't have developers willing to implement and share their code with others. Everyone benefits from using code they didn't have to write, and everyone is harmed if no one is working on the project. If this is not a tragedy of the commons, then it is at least the classic game theory freeloader problem where the end result is very similar to the tragedy of the commons.
While I agree with the mods that the parent could definitely use some tact and probably deserves the moderation. The point raised is valid. The mystery money behind Psystar will be revealed in the bankruptcy hearings as anyone that has given Psystar money would be considered a creditor. As a creditor you have a vested interest in reclaiming as you can of Psystars remaining assets in court. Their identity can only remain secret if they decide not to reclaim any of their losses and not participate in the bankruptcy hearings. Also, GPs point is invalidated in the summary, whicg indicated Apple's lawsuit will resume one bankruptcy is over. So anything that was going to be revealed from that can still be revealed.
I'm sorry but the idea that it is the government's responsibility to protect your anonymity in a public forum is ridiculous.
I don't even feel like its necessary to mention the constitution, as it is only designed to declare the responsibilities of the government, we have all sorts of rights and freedoms that aren't listed in that document.
Sure the founders of the US used to publish documents under pseudonyms.. And we are free to write things on the internet without signing our real name.
However the real analogy here is if someone sees drop off an anonymous letter and it matches your handwriting can that evidence be used in court? If someone traces the IP address back to the computer you were using at that time, can that be used against you in court? I would argue no in both cases because those are pretty much heresay, no one witnessed you writing the words in question. But this has nothing to do with anonymity. I am sure the writers of anonymous documents were careful to make sure no one could easily trace their words back to them, just as I feel whistleblowers need to be responsible for the protection of their own identity if they do not want it to be known. The whole system whistleblowing is rendered useless if there is absolutely no accountability. Because it is more important for someone who slanders to remain anonymous than someone who is providing truthful dissent.
Not that I think Microsoft would want to buy AMD but you can tell what any publicly traded company is worth by looking at its Market Cap. Investors currently believe AMD is worth 2.90 billion. Granted investors will expect you to pay a premium on that market cap. But that will get you to the right ballpark.
Racism is about the right to be treated as a human being, not a lesser creature. Rosa Parks was fighting against an unjust, racist law. These 'heroes' as you call them are fighting against a disputably unjust law. Granted perhaps we may look back at copyright laws and eventually all agree that they are unjust. But copyright law deprives you ability of what.. to make a couple extra backup copies of your software.. to save you a couple extra dollars? It doesn't deprive you of being treated like an equal human being. So the comparison you're trying to make, is still ridiculous.
I am not going to disagree that there will always be some bias in everything. However, I don't believe the bias in the media is as bad as everyone believes. Here is the most recent study I know of that tried to quantify bias in the media: http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx
The fourth most centrist outlet was "Special Report With Brit Hume" on Fox News, which often is cited by liberals as an egregious example of a right-wing outlet. While this news program proved to be right of center, the study found ABC's "World News Tonight" and NBC's "Nightly News" to be left of center. All three outlets were approximately equidistant from the center, the report found.
Sounds surprising right? The report eventually concludes to with that while most media leans left of center, they are almost all more moderate in comparison to our politicians.
And no offense but I take it you are not a reporter. The fact that you would be unable to provide an unbiased article on the DNC does not indicate that people trained in journalism would be unable to do the same. The ability to put aside personal beliefs is a skill that is stronger in some compared to others. Lawyers do it everyday for instance.
Are you serious? I really wonder if you have thought through what you said. Fuel cells are both a more complex problem and less efficient method of generating power.
Why would you want to tackle the problems of: 1. Generating electricity in a hydrogen fuel cell
2. creating hydrogen from water in an efficient process that obeys the laws of thermodynamics
3. building a hydrogen distribution network and
4. transporting the hydrogen when:
1. electricity is generated much more efficiently in power plants
2. electric from "power plant -> battery" will ALWAYS be more efficient than electric from "power plant -> electrolysis to make hydrogen -> to fuel cell -> to electricity"
3. Electricity network is already in place
4. Batteries is the only big problem electric cars still have to overcome.. they are heavy and don't store enough power. So unless you are saying that battery technology has just about peaked and fuel cells will solve the 4th problem much more effectively.. I don't know how anyone could think hydrogen is better.
Note: I understand some of my points are negated if you were talking about using hydrogen in a combustion type engine.. but i am biased against believing that to continue to power our cars on on mini-explosions is the right, efficient answer.
I think if you stop your analysis at the methods of which people kill themselves.. you are missing the bigger picture. Perhaps we read the same study because the difference in methods was mentioned as well. But the question that remains is why do women choose these less violent ways? You could make the argument that men are inherently more violent than women and as such are predisposed to more violent methods.. but I don't think it'd be convincing. But their conclusion was the difference in methods was because women wanted the attention more than they were committed to the act of dying. (It'd be pretty hard to almost kill yourself with a gun or a very long fall but it takes a surprisingly large number of painkillers to kill oneself, yet not nearly as many to harm oneself) I believe their support for this conclusion was that most the women who did end up dying chose 'violent' methods. But this argument is kind of moot because my point was that people will attempt suicide as a matter of gaining attention which is a pretty accepted view among psychologists anyways.
And I never recommended internet forums as a cure for depression or long term solution to dealing with suicidal thoughts. I mean the rest of your post after that comment is testament enough that most of what people will write on an internet forum is crap that should be ignored (which is why i won't address your later ridiculous thoughts on helping people with suicidal thoughts). That being said.. suicide support forums are usually moderated by trained professionals and/or people who have gone through and recovered themselves.. who all recommend getting actual help from a doctor at some point. The purpose of these forums is that many times people are just looking for some kind of hope that the world isn't as bad as they think it is.
Umm.. I am guessing because the GP posted this.. the 17 year old consented to the sex at the time as well. It was not the parent saying "hey come over and rape my daughter". Many states do have a rule that it is not statutory rape if you have parental consent as well.. So without knowing the state this 'crime' occurred in.. there couple be many less cynical reasons the charges were dropped. So while you are technically right that this may have been illegal.. I hardly see how this is relevant to the point he was trying to make.
I do have to say you did catch the main disagreement to be had with this essay. Everyone else (myself included) got caught up in the small details, but you are right.. the precedent in the case really wouldn't apply to the situation the author raises
Women are 3 times more likely to attempt suicide than men, HOWEVER Men are 4 times more likely to die in a suicide attempt. Is this just because men are better at killing themselves than women? Or perhaps there is a gender difference in the reasoning behind why people choose to attempt suicide.
I am not surprised by your callous view of people with suicidal tendencies as it coincides with the general public's view that these people are just irrational and stupid. I will say that in some ways suicide is the ultimate form of narcissism, that people convince themselves to believe that their problems are tremendously great and in turn don't care about how their actions will affect their loved ones around them.
But there are plenty of suicide support forums on the internet that will argue with your statement that "people will continue to think suicide is their best option"... most suicidal people are just people who feel overwhelmed and don't feel they have any options for support. Sometimes they just need someone to pay them some attention. Which is the theory most psychologists attribute to the male-female suicide statistic I gave earlier.. Women typically attempt suicide as an attempt to garner attention.. and it generally works (would you ignore someone in your family that tried to kill themself?). So while it may be a flawed assumption that getting this attention will solve their problems.. logically it is pretty sound that suicide attempt -> attention. So for you to dispute the authors claim that suicidal people are influenced by incentives.. I believe is caused by a great lack of understanding of suicidal people.
Or.. they could have just passed the cost on to the consumer.. I don't see many people being deterred from buying a 360 because it is $0.50 more expensive and won't scratch your disks...
umm have YOU ever used NetZero or Juno? Their service was terrible and they both eventually went to a pay buisness model anyways because people found it very easy to just block the ads from showing on their screen. Not to mention.. how would they make money if someone only uses their internet to play xbox online? Place an ad on 20% of your tv screen? Ad-supported internet service just doesn't make sense.
perhaps if you are just an angry windows fanboy.. however the most serious virus writers out there are more concerned with profit, not mischief.. viruses have come a long way since the 90's..
Slashdot Mirror
However, compared to the rest of the world on a quality of life basis, America does little better than some third world countries.
Wow, are you serious? Have you ever visited a third world? Your post is almost too melodramatic to respond to, but let me provide you with a little perspective.
Your measures of a high standard of living are quite interesting. You want to be able to live in the same community where you work? You know what that is in the third world? Living in a farming community. You think commuting 3 hours a day to your 8 hour job is bad? Perhaps you'd prefer to have to walk two miles up a mountain to retrieve fresh water every morning. (such was the case in a village in Honduras I visited, you had to walk up to the source because other villages along the way would pollute the stream coming down, who needs the EPA right?). Add that in to all your other daily duties. Get fresh milk from the cow, grind your morning coffee, etc and then head off to the farm. Forget such luxuries as being able to sit around (at work I presume? or before work) pondering life and responding to a post on the internet.
Having a kid a 10 years later than your father also seems to be an odd standard of life to me as well.. I suppose this is because of financial reasons, you felt you couldn't afford to have a child any earlier. It must be nice being able to choose when to have a child and still indulge in sex. Contraceptives are easy to obtain for you right? And it must be nice to be financially secure enough to be able to consider having a child. In most third worlds and in your father's time, children are more looked at as assets. You can put them to work at the early age of 10 in the field or in your shop when they're not at school (if you have that education 'luxury'). Which robs them of all that free time to play with their friends that you probably enjoyed as a kid. We do like to look enviously back to our carefree childhood don't we?
Oh and retirement, a 401k does not have to be invested in the 'gambling' stock market. Provided government doesn't usurp bondholder's rights, you should really have a percentage of your age invested in bonds (50 year old, 50% allocation) its much safer, but I'm not writing this to give financial advise. If you don't want to gamble you could have started saving early and just put it all in a FDIC insured savings account. What a luxury, FDIC insurance, you know in many countries people don't even trust putting their money in a bank savings account? Because in the past their savings have been wiped clean by either corrupt governments, local warlords, or bad banking practices. Keeping all your money in a mattress sounds like a much better idea. And retirement plans? Aside for the brief period in US history where pensions were prevalant (although as we are seeing now, it is completely unsustainable) you know what retirement plans were here and in the rest of the world? Your children! But no, you wouldn't want to put that burden on your kids.
I hope you enjoyed your 4 years in college (most do). You know in South Korea (not really a third world) military service is compusoury for all men over the age of 18? I don't know how old your father is, but I bet he had to worry about being drafted and possibly killed in a war too. I'm sure glad I don't have to worry about that.
Healthcare? Sure your father probably had more affordable health care.. but you know why? Because back then you didn't have all the life extending options we have today. Liver transplants? Chemotherapy? Dialysis? I bet your healthcare could be quite affordable if you got the same quality and services in healthcare that your father did.
I could go on and on, but the fact is, we are living with less worries and greater standard of life than anytime before in history. Stop smell the roses, and enjoy what you have, because it could be a LOT worse.
Informative? This post is no different than the microsoft page. Unsubstatiated claims. Just saying something is false does not make it so. While those claims may not be true, this is not informative in anyway seeing as it provides no details as to why this is true.
I disagree. Sure they have sheer manpower, but they aren't building the Great Wall. The US space program was built upon rocketry expertise from the US, German and other rocket scientists. North Korea I feel lacks the ability to attract quality outside talent. Granted they could throw gobs of money at some scientists but I still doubt they could assemble an equivalent knowledgable workforce as Space-X simply because anyone with rocket expertise could find a great job in many other countries, without having to worry about the oppressive NK regime. The only option is for them to develop this internally, and NK isn't really known for its high literacy rates, let alone good University system.
Granted they do have some advantages, they have seen what works and can buy/steal plans from countries that have successful rockets (China or Russia). but I still think its a stretch to say that they have a huge advantage over the private industry.
hilarious
Burst of bright light? No plane wreckage found? I think the most likely conclusion is that you are watching an episode of Lost.
sure it is. The scarce resource in this scenario is developers willing to openly contribute their code. Feedback and bug reports are meaningless if you don't have developers willing to implement and share their code with others. Everyone benefits from using code they didn't have to write, and everyone is harmed if no one is working on the project. If this is not a tragedy of the commons, then it is at least the classic game theory freeloader problem where the end result is very similar to the tragedy of the commons.
While I agree with the mods that the parent could definitely use some tact and probably deserves the moderation. The point raised is valid. The mystery money behind Psystar will be revealed in the bankruptcy hearings as anyone that has given Psystar money would be considered a creditor. As a creditor you have a vested interest in reclaiming as you can of Psystars remaining assets in court. Their identity can only remain secret if they decide not to reclaim any of their losses and not participate in the bankruptcy hearings. Also, GPs point is invalidated in the summary, whicg indicated Apple's lawsuit will resume one bankruptcy is over. So anything that was going to be revealed from that can still be revealed.
I'm sorry but the idea that it is the government's responsibility to protect your anonymity in a public forum is ridiculous.
I don't even feel like its necessary to mention the constitution, as it is only designed to declare the responsibilities of the government, we have all sorts of rights and freedoms that aren't listed in that document.
Sure the founders of the US used to publish documents under pseudonyms.. And we are free to write things on the internet without signing our real name.
However the real analogy here is if someone sees drop off an anonymous letter and it matches your handwriting can that evidence be used in court? If someone traces the IP address back to the computer you were using at that time, can that be used against you in court? I would argue no in both cases because those are pretty much heresay, no one witnessed you writing the words in question. But this has nothing to do with anonymity. I am sure the writers of anonymous documents were careful to make sure no one could easily trace their words back to them, just as I feel whistleblowers need to be responsible for the protection of their own identity if they do not want it to be known. The whole system whistleblowing is rendered useless if there is absolutely no accountability. Because it is more important for someone who slanders to remain anonymous than someone who is providing truthful dissent.
Not that I think Microsoft would want to buy AMD but you can tell what any publicly traded company is worth by looking at its Market Cap. Investors currently believe AMD is worth 2.90 billion. Granted investors will expect you to pay a premium on that market cap. But that will get you to the right ballpark.
Racism is about the right to be treated as a human being, not a lesser creature. Rosa Parks was fighting against an unjust, racist law. These 'heroes' as you call them are fighting against a disputably unjust law. Granted perhaps we may look back at copyright laws and eventually all agree that they are unjust. But copyright law deprives you ability of what.. to make a couple extra backup copies of your software.. to save you a couple extra dollars? It doesn't deprive you of being treated like an equal human being. So the comparison you're trying to make, is still ridiculous.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say racism is a bit bigger of a cause than the 'right' to make copies of things you own...
The fourth most centrist outlet was "Special Report With Brit Hume" on Fox News, which often is cited by liberals as an egregious example of a right-wing outlet. While this news program proved to be right of center, the study found ABC's "World News Tonight" and NBC's "Nightly News" to be left of center. All three outlets were approximately equidistant from the center, the report found.
Sounds surprising right? The report eventually concludes to with that while most media leans left of center, they are almost all more moderate in comparison to our politicians.
And no offense but I take it you are not a reporter. The fact that you would be unable to provide an unbiased article on the DNC does not indicate that people trained in journalism would be unable to do the same. The ability to put aside personal beliefs is a skill that is stronger in some compared to others. Lawyers do it everyday for instance.
I was now allowed to turn her off.
I am pretty sure you were able to turn off your ex-girlfriend as well
You have been reported to the NSA
i'm not sure why this was modded down.. its not post of the century.. but it does make a valid point.. alas i used all my mod points yesterday though
welcome our future zombie overlords and have already donated my brain to them.. (Sorry science!)
Are you serious? I really wonder if you have thought through what you said. Fuel cells are both a more complex problem and less efficient method of generating power.
Why would you want to tackle the problems of:
1. Generating electricity in a hydrogen fuel cell
2. creating hydrogen from water in an efficient process that obeys the laws of thermodynamics
3. building a hydrogen distribution network and
4. transporting the hydrogen
when:
1. electricity is generated much more efficiently in power plants
2. electric from "power plant -> battery" will ALWAYS be more efficient than electric from "power plant -> electrolysis to make hydrogen -> to fuel cell -> to electricity"
3. Electricity network is already in place
4. Batteries is the only big problem electric cars still have to overcome.. they are heavy and don't store enough power.
So unless you are saying that battery technology has just about peaked and fuel cells will solve the 4th problem much more effectively.. I don't know how anyone could think hydrogen is better.
Note: I understand some of my points are negated if you were talking about using hydrogen in a combustion type engine.. but i am biased against believing that to continue to power our cars on on mini-explosions is the right, efficient answer.
I think if you stop your analysis at the methods of which people kill themselves.. you are missing the bigger picture. Perhaps we read the same study because the difference in methods was mentioned as well. But the question that remains is why do women choose these less violent ways? You could make the argument that men are inherently more violent than women and as such are predisposed to more violent methods.. but I don't think it'd be convincing. But their conclusion was the difference in methods was because women wanted the attention more than they were committed to the act of dying. (It'd be pretty hard to almost kill yourself with a gun or a very long fall but it takes a surprisingly large number of painkillers to kill oneself, yet not nearly as many to harm oneself) I believe their support for this conclusion was that most the women who did end up dying chose 'violent' methods. But this argument is kind of moot because my point was that people will attempt suicide as a matter of gaining attention which is a pretty accepted view among psychologists anyways.
And I never recommended internet forums as a cure for depression or long term solution to dealing with suicidal thoughts. I mean the rest of your post after that comment is testament enough that most of what people will write on an internet forum is crap that should be ignored (which is why i won't address your later ridiculous thoughts on helping people with suicidal thoughts). That being said.. suicide support forums are usually moderated by trained professionals and/or people who have gone through and recovered themselves.. who all recommend getting actual help from a doctor at some point. The purpose of these forums is that many times people are just looking for some kind of hope that the world isn't as bad as they think it is.
Umm.. I am guessing because the GP posted this.. the 17 year old consented to the sex at the time as well. It was not the parent saying "hey come over and rape my daughter". Many states do have a rule that it is not statutory rape if you have parental consent as well.. So without knowing the state this 'crime' occurred in.. there couple be many less cynical reasons the charges were dropped. So while you are technically right that this may have been illegal.. I hardly see how this is relevant to the point he was trying to make.
i was going to make a black or white joke about michael jackson's criminal case.. but i guess OJ is more recent
I do have to say you did catch the main disagreement to be had with this essay. Everyone else (myself included) got caught up in the small details, but you are right.. the precedent in the case really wouldn't apply to the situation the author raises
I have to disagree with you. I am not a psychologist, but there is a lot of research out there that indicates not all suicidal people are the same. This wasn't my original source but it contains what I know: http://www.healthyplace.com/communities/depression/related/suicide_8.asp
Women are 3 times more likely to attempt suicide than men, HOWEVER Men are 4 times more likely to die in a suicide attempt. Is this just because men are better at killing themselves than women? Or perhaps there is a gender difference in the reasoning behind why people choose to attempt suicide.
I am not surprised by your callous view of people with suicidal tendencies as it coincides with the general public's view that these people are just irrational and stupid. I will say that in some ways suicide is the ultimate form of narcissism, that people convince themselves to believe that their problems are tremendously great and in turn don't care about how their actions will affect their loved ones around them.
But there are plenty of suicide support forums on the internet that will argue with your statement that "people will continue to think suicide is their best option"... most suicidal people are just people who feel overwhelmed and don't feel they have any options for support. Sometimes they just need someone to pay them some attention. Which is the theory most psychologists attribute to the male-female suicide statistic I gave earlier.. Women typically attempt suicide as an attempt to garner attention.. and it generally works (would you ignore someone in your family that tried to kill themself?). So while it may be a flawed assumption that getting this attention will solve their problems.. logically it is pretty sound that suicide attempt -> attention. So for you to dispute the authors claim that suicidal people are influenced by incentives.. I believe is caused by a great lack of understanding of suicidal people.
Or.. they could have just passed the cost on to the consumer.. I don't see many people being deterred from buying a 360 because it is $0.50 more expensive and won't scratch your disks...
umm have YOU ever used NetZero or Juno? Their service was terrible and they both eventually went to a pay buisness model anyways because people found it very easy to just block the ads from showing on their screen. Not to mention.. how would they make money if someone only uses their internet to play xbox online? Place an ad on 20% of your tv screen? Ad-supported internet service just doesn't make sense.
perhaps if you are just an angry windows fanboy.. however the most serious virus writers out there are more concerned with profit, not mischief.. viruses have come a long way since the 90's..