These Marines want to tell their story, as many veterans have before them, and they want to do it in a way that they know will reach their own generation
the problem is that their generation gets to play out the story in the only way they know how:
"yo dude, I'm like, totally teabagging the corpses of your entire family of displaced persons"
... if a ridiculously large amount of money shows up unexpectedly in your bank account, rushing out to spend it wildly before the mistake can be caught is not actually the smartest of the available options. The authorities look disapprovingly on such activities.
unless of course your are the bank, in which case that is exactly what the authorities are praying you'll do.
The US government and the popular media have been spouting this nonsense that it was a "failure."
No kidding. For a more nuanced view, check out the headlines from the North Korean Times:
"NORTH KOREA SENDS ROCKET TO HABITABLE PLANET REPLETE WITH RESOURCES AND NATURAL LIFE. CONFOUNDS IDIOT CAPITALIST NAYSAYERS. PLANET TO BE NAMED AFTER DEAR LEADER."
the real amusement here is watching all the hissy fits these joke articles cause by momentarily interrupting weighty discussions on the legal implications of copyrighting a cloud pattern, or whether Steve Jobs should pop that zit on his chin.
So your argument is that a health program under which less people die of MRSA is therefore de facto more effective? OK, under my new health initiative, we put a bullet through the head of everyone over 40. I've just cured Alzheimers, most cancers, and a host of other diseases, while your country is still plagued by them.
Your argument is sloppy and does a disservice to anyone who actually wants to nationalize health care in the US.
The more change that takes place, the more something has evolved. It doesn't mean better or worse or closer to some ultimate goal.
While I agree with the basic point that any genetic adaptation is a form of evolution, variability in the absence of selective pressure is categorically different from adaptation in response to selective pressure. For example, when humans started cooking food, they lost the more powerful jaws necessary to chew raw meat (if I recall my biology). This was an adaptation to new circumstances, but it was adaptation by loss of an ability on account of entropy, and not a result of a new selective pressure. Having a big jaw would not necessarily put someone at a selective disadvantage, but over generations, by means of mutation, this trait was simply lost in the absence of selective pressure.
What we have now is diminishing of selective pressure on a much broader scale. The resulting evolution will be different as from evolution resulting from adaptation to a new set of selective pressures as white noise is different from classical music and jazz. There will be massive variation, but most of the variations will be useless. Only an exceedingly small number of these variations will have any favorable qualities, and by the time an individual develops one useful mutation, he will likely have developed a far greater number of harmful ones. This is not simply a matter of evolution continuing along its merry way, but at a faster rate.
Ah, I guess the point I'm trying to make is that by having more humans, and increasing sexual selection pressure, combined makes for a faster human evolution.
The problem with this argument is that sexual selection is itself a selected property. A woman who is lazy about whom she selects is likely to have sub-optimal children. Thus attraction to males with all the bells and whistles makes sense. However, if a woman's children will survive and reproduce even if they are sub-optimal (dumb, lazy, riddled with disease), then selective women will no longer have an advantage over non-selective women. In fact, selective women will be at a disadvantage, because less choosy women will have a larger pool of potential mates. Therefore, women are liable to get less and less selective about their mates in the future, because the less selective they are, the more likely (and more often) they will reproduce, and in the absence of environmental pressure (by means of curing disease and protecting idiots from predation and self-destruction) means that their children will reproduce regardless of any deficiency.
The summary should read: "Speculative parasite attempts to exploit frivolous issue to drive up Blockbuster's stock at the expense of greedy morons slightly stupider than he, and, if there were any justice in this world, his slimy carapace would be stomped by the hobnailed boot of the SEC into a mealy paste roughly the consistency of his fetid, thrice-damned soul."
As compared to Apple, a massive old-school defense contractor that's only recently transitioned from nuclear guidance systems to MP3 players.
"Hi, I'm a 900 megaton thermonuclear device capable of turning the entire Soviet Union into a glass parking lot at the push of a button."
"And I'm a PC!"
Pushing around smaller and less reputable colleges and students may be fine and dandy...but trying to shove your weight around against Harvard is like lil timmy firing his peashooter at the deathstar, the RIAA would be decimated and a huge precedent would be set. Better to just leav'em be.
hm, that makes me wonder.. would it be feasible to pool together a fund that would allow some two-bit independent label to mount a case against Harvard using an incompetent Lionel-Hutz type lawyer who would get destroyed, and thereby set a precedent that would screw the RIAA forever more?
I suppose there's probably a law against that kind of thing, but at least it would have comedy value.
the smart thing to do would be to leave NASA's budget alone, and simply start referring to it's missions as "Bringing Democracy to Pluto" etc., so they could dip into DoD funding.
How can anyone take seriously the statement that a person who founds and builds up a company like Ford, GM or Google doesn't create anything? Such a position clearly underrates the value of gumption, balls, brains, and greed.
If you want to argue that the rich don't pay enough taxes, or that, though they do create wealth, people who build and run companies are compensated in excess of the wealth for which they are responsible, fine. However, extremist statements about how people who build and run factories, restaurants and other businesses are nothing but parasites on the people they employ, and want to use the government as a tool to suck the blood of the working man, make you sound like you walked out of a Soviet propaganda pamphlet from 1955.
2 years and $25k! FFS! Is it me or is that totally over the top. I'm glad I live in the UK where I can enjoy online poker without risking the sort of punishment meeted out for serious crime.
if you take the exchange rate into account, it's not so bad. What's 25K US Dollars and 2 US Years in Great Britain these days? 25 pounds and 2 hours?
Slashdot Mirror
These Marines want to tell their story, as many veterans have before them, and they want to do it in a way that they know will reach their own generation
the problem is that their generation gets to play out the story in the only way they know how:
"yo dude, I'm like, totally teabagging the corpses of your entire family of displaced persons"
"goddam wallhacking AWP whore!"
... if a ridiculously large amount of money shows up unexpectedly in your bank account, rushing out to spend it wildly before the mistake can be caught is not actually the smartest of the available options. The authorities look disapprovingly on such activities.
unless of course your are the bank, in which case that is exactly what the authorities are praying you'll do.
no one else can be his daughter's father.
I thought the same until the day I learned that someone else is my daughter's father.
report the king for being an insult to himself.
The US government and the popular media have been spouting this nonsense that it was a "failure."
No kidding. For a more nuanced view, check out the headlines from the North Korean Times:
"NORTH KOREA SENDS ROCKET TO HABITABLE PLANET REPLETE WITH RESOURCES AND NATURAL LIFE. CONFOUNDS IDIOT CAPITALIST NAYSAYERS. PLANET TO BE NAMED AFTER DEAR LEADER."
"If the glove don't fit, you must acquit!"
I wonder if Johnnie Cochran got that line out of his spam folder
the real amusement here is watching all the hissy fits these joke articles cause by momentarily interrupting weighty discussions on the legal implications of copyrighting a cloud pattern, or whether Steve Jobs should pop that zit on his chin.
I do the same, but sometimes I kill the author first to save money.
So your argument is that a health program under which less people die of MRSA is therefore de facto more effective? OK, under my new health initiative, we put a bullet through the head of everyone over 40. I've just cured Alzheimers, most cancers, and a host of other diseases, while your country is still plagued by them.
Your argument is sloppy and does a disservice to anyone who actually wants to nationalize health care in the US.
While I agree with the basic point that any genetic adaptation is a form of evolution, variability in the absence of selective pressure is categorically different from adaptation in response to selective pressure. For example, when humans started cooking food, they lost the more powerful jaws necessary to chew raw meat (if I recall my biology). This was an adaptation to new circumstances, but it was adaptation by loss of an ability on account of entropy, and not a result of a new selective pressure. Having a big jaw would not necessarily put someone at a selective disadvantage, but over generations, by means of mutation, this trait was simply lost in the absence of selective pressure.
What we have now is diminishing of selective pressure on a much broader scale. The resulting evolution will be different as from evolution resulting from adaptation to a new set of selective pressures as white noise is different from classical music and jazz. There will be massive variation, but most of the variations will be useless. Only an exceedingly small number of these variations will have any favorable qualities, and by the time an individual develops one useful mutation, he will likely have developed a far greater number of harmful ones. This is not simply a matter of evolution continuing along its merry way, but at a faster rate.
The summary should read: "Speculative parasite attempts to exploit frivolous issue to drive up Blockbuster's stock at the expense of greedy morons slightly stupider than he, and, if there were any justice in this world, his slimy carapace would be stomped by the hobnailed boot of the SEC into a mealy paste roughly the consistency of his fetid, thrice-damned soul."
"And I'm a PC!"
hm.. so continuing based on your pattern, I get
6. Man destroys dinosaurs
7. Man creates God
8. God destroys Man
I guess Judgment Day is imminent after all..
the smart thing to do would be to leave NASA's budget alone, and simply start referring to it's missions as "Bringing Democracy to Pluto" etc., so they could dip into DoD funding.
How can anyone take seriously the statement that a person who founds and builds up a company like Ford, GM or Google doesn't create anything? Such a position clearly underrates the value of gumption, balls, brains, and greed.
If you want to argue that the rich don't pay enough taxes, or that, though they do create wealth, people who build and run companies are compensated in excess of the wealth for which they are responsible, fine. However, extremist statements about how people who build and run factories, restaurants and other businesses are nothing but parasites on the people they employ, and want to use the government as a tool to suck the blood of the working man, make you sound like you walked out of a Soviet propaganda pamphlet from 1955.