What does this means? That we must make a full backup a robots memory before disassembling it, and restore it to a similar or superior functioning body before 'n' days, or be charged for roboticide?
I'm also trying Ubuntu Linux on my desktop. I'm liking it a lot, although I didn't remove Windows yet. This is my 3rd install (1st one got wiped when my previous HD crashed, 2nd one I managed to destroy by running Nautilus sudoed and making all the files owned by root.root), and after some tweaking with Automatix and Automatix Bleeder, and uninstalling the older OpenOffice available in Edgy and installing the newer 2.1.0 one, everything so far is working well.
What I really miss in Ubuntu is a good and simple file manager. Nautilus is okay, but doesn't work in the intuitive way Windows Explorer works. Some annoying usability problems I have with it:
a) The tree view on the left panel doesn't answer to keyboard commands that work on folders and files in the right panel, such as pressing Del to delete a folder. Windows Explorer is consistent in this regards.
b) It doesn't get updated properly if I use a bookmarked folder to jump to a folder, I must press the Reload button for the tree structure to appear correctly. The same feature in Windows Explorer works as intended, with the tree instantaneously opening to where I jumped.
c) When I delete a folder I'm inside by right-clicking it in the tree folder and choosing Remove, it moves both the folder and the fact I'm inside it to the trash, thus making me lose the position I were in the tree. Windows Explorer deletes the folder and put me in the folder directly below the one that was deleted.
d) I can't move a file or folder with the mouse right-button. Windows Explorer allows this by showing me a context-sensitive menu when I release the button, offering options such as move, delete, create link, and other features integrated into the shell.
e) Lastly, even though Nautilus recognize some oddly named text files as such, double clicking them is an exercise in guessing: sometimes it will offer me a window asking me whether I want to run it (when it doesn't have the executable attribute set) or open it, other times it'll simply open it in GEdit, and others still it won't allow me to open them in GEdit, forcing me to right-click and choose the "Open with Text Editor" option. Windows Explorer, on the other hand, allows me easily select a default action for files with this or that extension, and it simply works.
If someone knows of a Linux file manager that works in intuitive ways, if possible a Windows Explorer clone with Gnome integration, please tell me. I'll start using it right away.
PS.: Interestingly enough, I play World of Warcraft, and while it started breaking in my Windows XP installation, showing latencies of up to 15000ms and disconnecting, in Ubuntu with Wine it works almost flawlessly. One more reason to keep Ubuntu running.:)
What humans have is the ability to perceive infinity and eternity. Meaning: the ability to think on what's happening here and now, or what happened there and then, or what will happen somewhere and when, or even what's the meaning of everything during every time, without being limited by neither our surrounding environment nor current historical shapes. This ability to go beyond the ever changing immediate facts and sensations takes lots of forms. Religions and their myths are just one of these forms.
So, the moment you find the reason why humans can ask what they're made of, then discover DNA, then ask what genetics means, then interpret natural history through the lens of genetics, then human history too, etc., is the moment you find the reason why humans believe in gods. Both things have the same exact source: our ability to look further than whatever limit is placed there.
Do you realize that, by this being published in Slashdot, the guy got more publicity than if he had simply been allowed to publish his ads on the three ad networks?
This is a fallacy. A rough estimate gives about 10 thousand dollars per person. https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/prin t/xx.html I live with about that amount of money (+/- 5%) and it'd be preposterous to say that I am in a bad shape.
Hmm... yes, taken as a direct amount of money it wouldn't be that bad. But you forget that two things must be deducted from it: taxes, around 40% by current standards, what leaves $6k (probably way less, since such a broad redistribution effort would require a lot more bureaucracy, thus tons of additional costs); and money for investment, so that there's some way to produce more money for the next year, an amount I don't know how to quantify.
Anyway, I was wrong in saying "simple math". It's actually far from simple.
Correct me if I'm mistaken, but isn't less government interference that exactly what the industrialist lobby is pushing? As far as I know, more liberal economic policies has always been the lobby's main goal be.
It actually depends. Big industrial capitalists have one interest: personal profit. In some cases, higher profits come from less government interference, thus they'll favor this. In other cases, higher profits come from more government interference, thus that's what they'll favor. It all comes from the specifics of each case.
Anti-government idealists, on the other hand, favor less government interference no matter if it'll cause this specific corporation higher profits or that specific corporation lower profits. They have a number of arguments on the line that a less interference, when generalized, causes in the long run increased prosperity for the whole nation, including for its poorer members.
The adverse effects of said liberalism ranged from an ever-increasing gap between the haves and the have-nots to abject destruction of the environment (extinctions of species, deforestation, early signs of climate change...)
It also depends. Nations who want to reach a higher standard of living very fast are usually very hard on their own environment, at least until they reach that goal. But once they get there and the population doesn't have to worry that much anymore about food and shelter, they start thinking about quality of life (what includes living in a better environment), thus proceeding into these secondary goals.
Such new goals end up having, now and then, far reaching consequences. For example, due to the fact that in Europe a lot of people are more inclined to purchase all things green, even if these cost more, a lot of wood producers here in Brazil began getting green certification by following the standards set forth by their European customers (not the European governments, mind you), which are way more strict than what's required by the Brazilian law. They do so simply because it's more profitable to do so, and it's more profitable because Europeans have the surplus money to spend on ecologically-friendly goods.
The bottom line is that, once the entire world reached "1st World" status, the same entire world would be acting in a hugely more ecologically-minded way than what it will ever be by way of alternative solutions. But for this to work, it would mean that in the short term things should be allowed to become worse, what, I agree, is very counterintuitive, so no surprise that environmentalists don't buy on the idea. But a careful study on economics can show that this indeed works as explained, so maybe all these people should look into this direction, if not to adopt it, at least to understand it better and then incorporate it, at some level and in some way, into their own political agendas.
And regarding the gap between the haves and have-nots, I personally don't see this as a problem, provided the "have-nots" aren't literally such, but have enough for a fairly good standard of living. For the rich to be astoundingly rich (meaning a huge gap) isn't a problem if the poorer are living well. The problem is for the poorer to be living badly. If diminishing the gap meant ipso facto improving living conditions for the poorer, then I would be all for it, but the case is that the two things are unrelated. You can have a huge gap but with good living for the poor, and a small gap, or even no gap at all, with everyone living very bad.
No gap and everyone living very well is something that never happened, and I think it's actually not feasible. Why? Because either you: a) take "everyone" as meaning the entire whole world, and in this case the simple math shows you that the world's gross product per capita is very small and everyone would be in a very bad shape, with the poorer getting only a slightly, almost unnoticeable boost, or b) take it as meaning the people of a single nation, and in this
Yet, the political power you're refering to is an incentive for both sides.
Three sides actually: a) the side that wants the government supporting the industrialist lobby, b) the side that wants the government supporting the environmentalist lobby, and c) the side that wants the government not supporting anyone because neither economy nor ecology should be matters of state policy.
Sides 'a' and 'b' see it as an incentive. Side 'c' sees it as an disincentive, something that must be fought against.
What's those "alarmist fear-mongering" people gotta win by promoting their side of the story? I can sure see why an industrialist lobby would wanna dismiss global warming.
Basically, they win political power, which can then be used for other, secondary purposes. Actually, any subject where the practical options are either imposed state control, on one hand, or laissez-faire, on the other, are prone to this kind of manipulation. Climate change is a big fish because, no matter if its true or not, it being believed as true means government getting carte blanche to mess around into tons of fields previously out of its reach. Now, it's obvious that those potentially affected by this, as well as all anti-government activists, align themselves in opposition to this, the first due to their self interest, the later for actual idealism.
Climate-change skeptics doubt the government when it says climate change is happening precisely because it's in the best interest of government itself that it be changing. Except for when said government receives tons of money from the industrial lobby, in which case this role reverses. What all this causes is that whatever the government says on the subject, either pro or against, ends up being doubtful. Whenever politics gets into something, the field becomes a mess.
This happened with the special lower-priced (R$25 Brazilian Reais at the time, no idea how much this was in US dollars) upgrade version from Windows 98 to Windows 98 Second Edition that you purchased directly from Microsoft and received by mail. You couldn't use that W98SE CD to install from scratch, you had to first install W98, then upgrade the installation to W98SE. My, that was annoying!
Interestingly enough, a little later Microsoft released on stores a higher priced (R$100 Brazilian Reais) W98SE upgrade version that did allow you to install it from scratch. So, now and then, the message from Microsoft is clear:
"Wanna spend little (kinda of anyway) on upgrading? Sure! Just don't mind your computer technician complaining about double work when you call him. What? You're a power user who will be doing lots and lots of reinstalls yourself? No problem! We have this Ultimate Edition here that costs A LOT more, but it'll make your life easier! Oh? You are the technician the first guy calls? My, oh my! Well, look, why don't you suggest your customer to upgrade to the Ultimate Edition too? This way everyone will be happy, won't we?"
I'm completely against DRM in each, every, and all forms. But I must say that the Norwegian reasoning is bogus. That musics purchased from iTunes cannot be directly played on any portable device other than an iPod is of course true, but that it cannot be played on other devices at all isn't true. For instance, it can be played on most, if not all, PCs and Macs, from servers to desktops to notebooks to tablet ones. There are millions and millions and millions of "devices" out there able to play iTunes purchased music. It's of course bulkier than an iPod, but it's by no means an "ZOMG, there's no alternative!!!1!!11ONE!!" situation. Not to mention the fact that by doing some clicks the iTunes software will also allow you to hear this music on millions and millions and millions of additional devices, namely: HD/BD/DVD players, video-game consoles, and vehicle / portable / desktop / couch / whatever standard CD players.
Where this law not dumb enough for these reasons alone, it goes further still, because by prohibiting the iTunes Music Store they're ipso facto forbidding all Norwegian iPod owners from accessing their main source of music, effectively doing for them, on its own, what it says Apple is doing for them. Talk about irony.
Well, according to the Wikipedia entry previously mentioned the argument revolved around fetuses being viable outside the womb, about the amount of privacy right a citizen has, and so on and so forth. The argument might not be as I exposed, for I was of course being sarcastic, but what I exposed isn't that far from reality. To be viable is to be a person, thus to have rights as a citizen, to not be viable is to not be a citizen etc. etc. Quoting:
When weighing the competing interests, the Court also noted that if the fetus was defined as a person for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment then the fetus would have a specific right to life under that Amendment. However, the Court determined that the original intent of the Constitution up to the enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 did not include the unborn. The Court's determination of whether a fetus can enjoy Constitutional protection was separate from the notion of when life begins . ..
But I agree with you that your Constitution doesn't protects fetuses. It actually allows the States to take care of the issue, for they were historically doing so and for more than a century no one bothered saying to them they shouldn't. The judges saying it was a Federal matter after all that time is twisting the issue hard, no matter from what angle you look at it.
Another twist I know about and makes me wonder what the hell is going on in the USA was the case where the Native American Church was prohibited by the State from following their religious practices. The reason alleged by the Supreme Court? Because separation between Religion and State, the very reason d'etre of the very first pioneers that did go to the USA, was secondary to Federal laws on drug control (including peyote). A law that, by the way, your Federal government can only enact due to a twisting of an amendment that talks about the Federal government regulating trade between States. So, twist a twist and there you have the result: no more separation between State and Religion, but subordination of Religion to the will of the State.
I'm sad for the situation of your legal framework. It's becoming more and more irrational as time passes...
These methods for measuring the value of money, or the value of anything, or for comparing values, although interesting and in many ways useful, have a fundamental logical flaw that render them unreliable.
The flaw is that the monetary (numerical) values involved in any transaction are a middle point between what both parties consider more and less valuable in that transaction.
Example: A has a given amount of 'coins'. B has a given amount of 'goods'. If A feels 'goods' is more important for him than 'coins', and if B feels 'coins' is more important for him than 'goods', then an exchange happens. From the point of view of A, A had 'profit'. From the point of view of B, B had 'profit'. If, on the other hand, both A and B feel that 'coins' and 'goods' have the same exact value, no exchange happens, because the act of exchanging is work, and working is cost for both parties.
No measuring method is able to measure valuations. You'll never know by "how much" A valued 'goods' more than 'coins', nor by "how much" B valued 'coins' more than 'goods'. The only thing the measurement shows you is that when the exchange happened, it happened at with this or that proportion. And that's it.
It seems neo-conservatives are learning to interpret laws in the same twisted way radical liberals do it.
If you disagree, tell me: how is this different from Roe v. Wade, where the 14th Amendment was reinterpreted as meaning this:
a) That non-USA citizens have no right to life on USA soil; b) That fetuses are not citizens; c) Thus that fetuses have no right to life on USA soil; d) But that for some mysterious reason non-fetuses have indeed a right to life on USA soil; e) And thus that only fetuses have no right to life on USA soil?
Gonzales "reasoning" works in a similar way: if the plain reading of what the law says doesn't support your political agenda, read it in another way, no matter how outrageously absurd it is, and bet your success on having enough people wishing to go with you.
What you Americans are lacking is, IMHO, a political party whose focus is "Constitutional Conservatism", something that would strongly reject any kind of unhistorical reading or reinterpretation of the fundamental law of the land, only accepting changes by way of due constitutional amendments.
The way your country is doing things these days, with lawyers and judges being able to alter the meaning of the text in such as way that it ends saying the contrary of what it was meant to say, without any of this having to go through actual established legislative procedures (the Congress for standard laws and State ratifications for Constitutional changes), is wreaking havoc on your rights. If you don't try to change this, in the end you'll have laws that mean nothing, and thus no rights at all.
This guy is suggesting that piracy actually hurts content producers and copyright owners.
No, actually I am not. What I'm saying is that content producers and copyright owners, at least in the console gaming industry (the PC games one is way more rational, although not much more) work in a very wrong way in Brazil, and the incredible high level of piracy we end up having here comes as a result of this mismanagement.
For example, if content producers sold the top and newest games for $20 here, not the $100 they currently ask, they would sell maybe 100 times more, thus making a higher profit on the volume sales than what they get on the small number of overprices sales they make.
The official DVD movie industry does this. They sell the newest double-disk blockbusters for $21 and the single-disk version for $17. After a short period of time the price of the single-disk version drops to $13, and when the movie enters the bargain bin it's being sold for something around $8. These are affordable prices for the Brazilian market, and as a result most people who own DVD player prefer to purchase official disks, not pirated ones. Of course piracy still exists and you'll find plenty of DVD-Rs for $2 and VCDs for $1. But it's nevertheless way less widespread (in proportional terms) than what happens in the game market, whose producers for some reason seem to not grasp the concept that they should have price points adapted to the purchasing power of the majority of the population.
It's business stupidity on a whole new level. Don't try to understand it.;)
Dude, your map needs an update. Sweden hasn't had those services you mention for about 10 years now. There are some private company shells acting as place holders, but those will be sold off soon, too. It's not the sociological, economic, or technological powerhouse it was in the 70's. All that stopped when they stumbled (or hopped) from the "middle path": somethings work best private, others public. That's how it is and trying to shoehorn everything into one extreme ideology or another doesn't work and drive a country under. That was known before and is being re-learned the hard way again now.
The sad thing is that not, I'm not comparing the Brazil of today to the Sweden of the '70s. I'm comparing it to the Sweden of today. We have 10% of your current public services, if that much.
Not that I'm for public services. I think private ones are better. But, hey! If we are paying outrageous taxes, the public service these taxes buy might damn well be good! The saddest thing is to pay for something you know you won't get...
Well, many factors cause this. The main reason are Brazilian taxes themselves. We have taxes almost as high as Sweden, but 10% of the public services Swedes enjoy. Most of this money is lost somewhere in the corruption machine and no one manages to solve the problem, no matter how much they attempt.
The 2nd reason, I guess, is that since there's a lot of game piracy here, console manufactures who do sell here want to get, with the hardware, at least part of the profit they would get in the games themselves if people actually purchased those.
And the 3rd reason, also a guess of mine, is that manufactures and sellers, knowing that most people who actually buy official hardware is rich (the poor can't afford the taxes and go with smugglers anyway), don't mind asking outrageously high prices on them, for the rich guys will pay it anyway.
Computers are a relatively different matter because they're far more necessary than game consoles, thus the competition becomes very big and the prices competitive. In any case however, a "good" computer by Brazilian standards is what Americans and Europeans would see as the lowest end of the "budget" category. Our "budget" category comprises computers that are so low end that you in the 1st world wouldn't probably be able to purchase them locally even if you wanted to. No American computer shop would sells such parts.:)
Anyway, a good price comparison can be made with Apple computers, who also sell here (way lower market share than USA though). Here're current model prices available in an online shop I just checked. Compare them to the same models available at Amazon:
Mac Pro MA356LL/A: $4,800.00 (Amazon: $2,500.00)
Mac Mini MA607LL/A: $1,080.00 (Amazon: $600.00)
MacBook Pro MA092LL/A: $4,900.00 (Amazon: $2,500.00)
MacBook MA254LL/A: $2,000.00 (Amazon: $970.00)
I've heard that once Steve Jobs found these prices outrageous, and asked Apple Brazil to explain what was going on. Apple Brazil answered by sending him a groups of Brazilian accountants to explain him how messed the Brazilian tax system was. I don't know if he understood the explanation, but I guess not. So, don't even try. It's not worth the effort. Just know it sucks big time.:(
You guys are complaining about nothing. Here're the official Brazilian price points for current generation consoles, in US dollars, if you want to avoid smugglers and prefer sticking to the letter of the law:
PS3 60GB: $2,300.00
PS3 20GB: $2,050.00
XBox360: $1,250.00
XBox360 Core: $700.00
Wii: $1,000.00
PSP: $400.00
DS: $300.00
Sadly, none of the above are typos. And it's even more maddening when you consider most Brazilians earn half USA's minimum wage...:(
One might argue, maybe, that lack of interbreeding alone isn't enough for the characterization of what a "species" is, but the article is nevertheless interesting in that it adds a lot of weight to the evolutionary framework. I'll keep it for future reference.
Which is a huge problem, very nearly a logical contradiction, since macroevolution procedes by exactly the same processes as microevolution, albeit under rarer circumstances (founder events and what-have-you.)
What they question is precisely the assertion that both things are the same. Until a case of an actual speciation happens in a way we can observe and measure each and every step of the process, there's no way to know if macroevolution happens due to the same mechanisms involved in microevolution, or if they are unrelated processes working under different and maybe independent mechanisms. To affirm one or the other is to jump to conclusions.
That's assuming macroevolution actually happens. If it doesn't, then we won't know, because we might wait centuries to see something like this to happen, get nothing, but keep waiting, since proving the inexistence of anything is logically impossible. Besides, it not happening anymore doesn't prove it didn't happen in the past. What if the macroevolutionary mechanism is gone or disappeared or ended? We might never come to know what it actually was.
Both evolutionism and anti-evolutionism have some serious logical problems to overcome. I myself prefer to not take sides on the discussion. Pointing the problems in both sides is easier and more intellectually rigorous.;)
Creationists don't deny changes inside a species, such as developing resistances to pesticides and the like. What they deny is that one species can change so much that it becomes another species. In technical terms, what they refuse is the notion of macroevolution. That of microevolution isn't a problem for them.
And in regards to genetic engineering, they also don't see new mixed species, or even entirely new ones created by men from scratch, as a problem either, since these can be thought about as species that in themselves always existed, but just hadn't appeared in any concrete form yet. Men, in this case, didn't "create" them, they just "expressed" them in reality.
It might not be a mainstream interpretation of nature, but it isn't illogical by any means.
He probably forgot. But we shouldn't forget that the URSS was the greatest ally of Germany from way before the war, by reaming Germany, and for a great part of the war itself, when Hitler and Stalin delimited the countries and borders each would control.
Stalin only turned Hitler's worst enemy when Hitler betrayed him by violating the Ribbentrop-Molotov non-aggression pact and invading URSS-owned territories and then Russia itself. Weren't for this and Stalin wouldn't have opposed him in the slightest.
I'm myself have none. I'm waiting for George Lucas to die so that I can then buy the definitely definite final forever unchangeable version, in a box including all of them, which the company will surely release some time after the fact.
Also, I have no version of LotR, since the extended edition wasn't released here in Brazil. We had single, double and box editions, but no extended. So, I'm holding my money until it's released.
The same goes for the original Superman tetralogy. I'll only buy them when it's released as such, not as a trilogy.
Wrong. They're neither science nor philosophy. They're art. Art is the expression of a possibility. Science is the process of discriminating which possibilities are correct and which aren't. Philosophy determines what "possibility" itself is. Philosophy, thus, is the basis from which Science gets all the tools, from logical principles to methodology definitions, that it then uses to test hypothesis.
So, you inverted. It's not philosophy that is a "just" in comparison to science. The sciences are all of them "justs" in comparison to philosophy. Science lives inside philosophy, not the other way around, and not as a separate entity.
Slashdot Mirror
What does this means? That we must make a full backup a robots memory before disassembling it, and restore it to a similar or superior functioning body before 'n' days, or be charged for roboticide?
I'm also trying Ubuntu Linux on my desktop. I'm liking it a lot, although I didn't remove Windows yet. This is my 3rd install (1st one got wiped when my previous HD crashed, 2nd one I managed to destroy by running Nautilus sudoed and making all the files owned by root.root), and after some tweaking with Automatix and Automatix Bleeder, and uninstalling the older OpenOffice available in Edgy and installing the newer 2.1.0 one, everything so far is working well.
:)
What I really miss in Ubuntu is a good and simple file manager. Nautilus is okay, but doesn't work in the intuitive way Windows Explorer works. Some annoying usability problems I have with it:
a) The tree view on the left panel doesn't answer to keyboard commands that work on folders and files in the right panel, such as pressing Del to delete a folder. Windows Explorer is consistent in this regards.
b) It doesn't get updated properly if I use a bookmarked folder to jump to a folder, I must press the Reload button for the tree structure to appear correctly. The same feature in Windows Explorer works as intended, with the tree instantaneously opening to where I jumped.
c) When I delete a folder I'm inside by right-clicking it in the tree folder and choosing Remove, it moves both the folder and the fact I'm inside it to the trash, thus making me lose the position I were in the tree. Windows Explorer deletes the folder and put me in the folder directly below the one that was deleted.
d) I can't move a file or folder with the mouse right-button. Windows Explorer allows this by showing me a context-sensitive menu when I release the button, offering options such as move, delete, create link, and other features integrated into the shell.
e) Lastly, even though Nautilus recognize some oddly named text files as such, double clicking them is an exercise in guessing: sometimes it will offer me a window asking me whether I want to run it (when it doesn't have the executable attribute set) or open it, other times it'll simply open it in GEdit, and others still it won't allow me to open them in GEdit, forcing me to right-click and choose the "Open with Text Editor" option. Windows Explorer, on the other hand, allows me easily select a default action for files with this or that extension, and it simply works.
If someone knows of a Linux file manager that works in intuitive ways, if possible a Windows Explorer clone with Gnome integration, please tell me. I'll start using it right away.
PS.: Interestingly enough, I play World of Warcraft, and while it started breaking in my Windows XP installation, showing latencies of up to 15000ms and disconnecting, in Ubuntu with Wine it works almost flawlessly. One more reason to keep Ubuntu running.
What humans have is the ability to perceive infinity and eternity. Meaning: the ability to think on what's happening here and now, or what happened there and then, or what will happen somewhere and when, or even what's the meaning of everything during every time, without being limited by neither our surrounding environment nor current historical shapes. This ability to go beyond the ever changing immediate facts and sensations takes lots of forms. Religions and their myths are just one of these forms.
So, the moment you find the reason why humans can ask what they're made of, then discover DNA, then ask what genetics means, then interpret natural history through the lens of genetics, then human history too, etc., is the moment you find the reason why humans believe in gods. Both things have the same exact source: our ability to look further than whatever limit is placed there.
Do you realize that, by this being published in Slashdot, the guy got more publicity than if he had simply been allowed to publish his ads on the three ad networks?
I guess nothing short from full 3D video will do the trick. And after that, only 3D with solid objects (read "holodecks"). Then it ends. :)
Anyway, I was wrong in saying "simple math". It's actually far from simple.
It actually depends. Big industrial capitalists have one interest: personal profit. In some cases, higher profits come from less government interference, thus they'll favor this. In other cases, higher profits come from more government interference, thus that's what they'll favor. It all comes from the specifics of each case.
Anti-government idealists, on the other hand, favor less government interference no matter if it'll cause this specific corporation higher profits or that specific corporation lower profits. They have a number of arguments on the line that a less interference, when generalized, causes in the long run increased prosperity for the whole nation, including for its poorer members.
It also depends. Nations who want to reach a higher standard of living very fast are usually very hard on their own environment, at least until they reach that goal. But once they get there and the population doesn't have to worry that much anymore about food and shelter, they start thinking about quality of life (what includes living in a better environment), thus proceeding into these secondary goals.
Such new goals end up having, now and then, far reaching consequences. For example, due to the fact that in Europe a lot of people are more inclined to purchase all things green, even if these cost more, a lot of wood producers here in Brazil began getting green certification by following the standards set forth by their European customers (not the European governments, mind you), which are way more strict than what's required by the Brazilian law. They do so simply because it's more profitable to do so, and it's more profitable because Europeans have the surplus money to spend on ecologically-friendly goods.
The bottom line is that, once the entire world reached "1st World" status, the same entire world would be acting in a hugely more ecologically-minded way than what it will ever be by way of alternative solutions. But for this to work, it would mean that in the short term things should be allowed to become worse, what, I agree, is very counterintuitive, so no surprise that environmentalists don't buy on the idea. But a careful study on economics can show that this indeed works as explained, so maybe all these people should look into this direction, if not to adopt it, at least to understand it better and then incorporate it, at some level and in some way, into their own political agendas.
And regarding the gap between the haves and have-nots, I personally don't see this as a problem, provided the "have-nots" aren't literally such, but have enough for a fairly good standard of living. For the rich to be astoundingly rich (meaning a huge gap) isn't a problem if the poorer are living well. The problem is for the poorer to be living badly. If diminishing the gap meant ipso facto improving living conditions for the poorer, then I would be all for it, but the case is that the two things are unrelated. You can have a huge gap but with good living for the poor, and a small gap, or even no gap at all, with everyone living very bad.
No gap and everyone living very well is something that never happened, and I think it's actually not feasible. Why? Because either you: a) take "everyone" as meaning the entire whole world, and in this case the simple math shows you that the world's gross product per capita is very small and everyone would be in a very bad shape, with the poorer getting only a slightly, almost unnoticeable boost, or b) take it as meaning the people of a single nation, and in this
Sides 'a' and 'b' see it as an incentive. Side 'c' sees it as an disincentive, something that must be fought against.
Climate-change skeptics doubt the government when it says climate change is happening precisely because it's in the best interest of government itself that it be changing. Except for when said government receives tons of money from the industrial lobby, in which case this role reverses. What all this causes is that whatever the government says on the subject, either pro or against, ends up being doubtful. Whenever politics gets into something, the field becomes a mess.
Sure! Because a world where China is the sole superpower is undoubtedly A Better Place(tm).
This happened with the special lower-priced (R$25 Brazilian Reais at the time, no idea how much this was in US dollars) upgrade version from Windows 98 to Windows 98 Second Edition that you purchased directly from Microsoft and received by mail. You couldn't use that W98SE CD to install from scratch, you had to first install W98, then upgrade the installation to W98SE. My, that was annoying!
Interestingly enough, a little later Microsoft released on stores a higher priced (R$100 Brazilian Reais) W98SE upgrade version that did allow you to install it from scratch. So, now and then, the message from Microsoft is clear:
"Wanna spend little (kinda of anyway) on upgrading? Sure! Just don't mind your computer technician complaining about double work when you call him. What? You're a power user who will be doing lots and lots of reinstalls yourself? No problem! We have this Ultimate Edition here that costs A LOT more, but it'll make your life easier! Oh? You are the technician the first guy calls? My, oh my! Well, look, why don't you suggest your customer to upgrade to the Ultimate Edition too? This way everyone will be happy, won't we?"
Smart. Sick, but smart nevertheless.
I'm completely against DRM in each, every, and all forms. But I must say that the Norwegian reasoning is bogus. That musics purchased from iTunes cannot be directly played on any portable device other than an iPod is of course true, but that it cannot be played on other devices at all isn't true. For instance, it can be played on most, if not all, PCs and Macs, from servers to desktops to notebooks to tablet ones. There are millions and millions and millions of "devices" out there able to play iTunes purchased music. It's of course bulkier than an iPod, but it's by no means an "ZOMG, there's no alternative!!!1!!11ONE!!" situation. Not to mention the fact that by doing some clicks the iTunes software will also allow you to hear this music on millions and millions and millions of additional devices, namely: HD/BD/DVD players, video-game consoles, and vehicle / portable / desktop / couch / whatever standard CD players.
Where this law not dumb enough for these reasons alone, it goes further still, because by prohibiting the iTunes Music Store they're ipso facto forbidding all Norwegian iPod owners from accessing their main source of music, effectively doing for them, on its own, what it says Apple is doing for them. Talk about irony.
But I agree with you that your Constitution doesn't protects fetuses. It actually allows the States to take care of the issue, for they were historically doing so and for more than a century no one bothered saying to them they shouldn't. The judges saying it was a Federal matter after all that time is twisting the issue hard, no matter from what angle you look at it.
Another twist I know about and makes me wonder what the hell is going on in the USA was the case where the Native American Church was prohibited by the State from following their religious practices. The reason alleged by the Supreme Court? Because separation between Religion and State, the very reason d'etre of the very first pioneers that did go to the USA, was secondary to Federal laws on drug control (including peyote). A law that, by the way, your Federal government can only enact due to a twisting of an amendment that talks about the Federal government regulating trade between States. So, twist a twist and there you have the result: no more separation between State and Religion, but subordination of Religion to the will of the State.
I'm sad for the situation of your legal framework. It's becoming more and more irrational as time passes...
These methods for measuring the value of money, or the value of anything, or for comparing values, although interesting and in many ways useful, have a fundamental logical flaw that render them unreliable.
The flaw is that the monetary (numerical) values involved in any transaction are a middle point between what both parties consider more and less valuable in that transaction.
Example: A has a given amount of 'coins'. B has a given amount of 'goods'. If A feels 'goods' is more important for him than 'coins', and if B feels 'coins' is more important for him than 'goods', then an exchange happens. From the point of view of A, A had 'profit'. From the point of view of B, B had 'profit'. If, on the other hand, both A and B feel that 'coins' and 'goods' have the same exact value, no exchange happens, because the act of exchanging is work, and working is cost for both parties.
No measuring method is able to measure valuations. You'll never know by "how much" A valued 'goods' more than 'coins', nor by "how much" B valued 'coins' more than 'goods'. The only thing the measurement shows you is that when the exchange happened, it happened at with this or that proportion. And that's it.
It seems neo-conservatives are learning to interpret laws in the same twisted way radical liberals do it.
If you disagree, tell me: how is this different from Roe v. Wade, where the 14th Amendment was reinterpreted as meaning this:
a) That non-USA citizens have no right to life on USA soil;
b) That fetuses are not citizens;
c) Thus that fetuses have no right to life on USA soil;
d) But that for some mysterious reason non-fetuses have indeed a right to life on USA soil;
e) And thus that only fetuses have no right to life on USA soil?
It's so illogical that even more reasonable liberal law scholars that are pro-choice still can't agree with the thing.
Gonzales "reasoning" works in a similar way: if the plain reading of what the law says doesn't support your political agenda, read it in another way, no matter how outrageously absurd it is, and bet your success on having enough people wishing to go with you.
What you Americans are lacking is, IMHO, a political party whose focus is "Constitutional Conservatism", something that would strongly reject any kind of unhistorical reading or reinterpretation of the fundamental law of the land, only accepting changes by way of due constitutional amendments.
The way your country is doing things these days, with lawyers and judges being able to alter the meaning of the text in such as way that it ends saying the contrary of what it was meant to say, without any of this having to go through actual established legislative procedures (the Congress for standard laws and State ratifications for Constitutional changes), is wreaking havoc on your rights. If you don't try to change this, in the end you'll have laws that mean nothing, and thus no rights at all.
For example, if content producers sold the top and newest games for $20 here, not the $100 they currently ask, they would sell maybe 100 times more, thus making a higher profit on the volume sales than what they get on the small number of overprices sales they make.
The official DVD movie industry does this. They sell the newest double-disk blockbusters for $21 and the single-disk version for $17. After a short period of time the price of the single-disk version drops to $13, and when the movie enters the bargain bin it's being sold for something around $8. These are affordable prices for the Brazilian market, and as a result most people who own DVD player prefer to purchase official disks, not pirated ones. Of course piracy still exists and you'll find plenty of DVD-Rs for $2 and VCDs for $1. But it's nevertheless way less widespread (in proportional terms) than what happens in the game market, whose producers for some reason seem to not grasp the concept that they should have price points adapted to the purchasing power of the majority of the population.
It's business stupidity on a whole new level. Don't try to understand it.
Not that I'm for public services. I think private ones are better. But, hey! If we are paying outrageous taxes, the public service these taxes buy might damn well be good! The saddest thing is to pay for something you know you won't get...
Well, many factors cause this. The main reason are Brazilian taxes themselves. We have taxes almost as high as Sweden, but 10% of the public services Swedes enjoy. Most of this money is lost somewhere in the corruption machine and no one manages to solve the problem, no matter how much they attempt.
The 2nd reason, I guess, is that since there's a lot of game piracy here, console manufactures who do sell here want to get, with the hardware, at least part of the profit they would get in the games themselves if people actually purchased those.
And the 3rd reason, also a guess of mine, is that manufactures and sellers, knowing that most people who actually buy official hardware is rich (the poor can't afford the taxes and go with smugglers anyway), don't mind asking outrageously high prices on them, for the rich guys will pay it anyway.
Computers are a relatively different matter because they're far more necessary than game consoles, thus the competition becomes very big and the prices competitive. In any case however, a "good" computer by Brazilian standards is what Americans and Europeans would see as the lowest end of the "budget" category. Our "budget" category comprises computers that are so low end that you in the 1st world wouldn't probably be able to purchase them locally even if you wanted to. No American computer shop would sells such parts. :)
Anyway, a good price comparison can be made with Apple computers, who also sell here (way lower market share than USA though). Here're current model prices available in an online shop I just checked. Compare them to the same models available at Amazon:
I've heard that once Steve Jobs found these prices outrageous, and asked Apple Brazil to explain what was going on. Apple Brazil answered by sending him a groups of Brazilian accountants to explain him how messed the Brazilian tax system was. I don't know if he understood the explanation, but I guess not. So, don't even try. It's not worth the effort. Just know it sucks big time. :(
You guys are complaining about nothing. Here're the official Brazilian price points for current generation consoles, in US dollars, if you want to avoid smugglers and prefer sticking to the letter of the law:
Sadly, none of the above are typos. And it's even more maddening when you consider most Brazilians earn half USA's minimum wage... :(
Oh, this is very nice to know! Thanks!
One might argue, maybe, that lack of interbreeding alone isn't enough for the characterization of what a "species" is, but the article is nevertheless interesting in that it adds a lot of weight to the evolutionary framework. I'll keep it for future reference.
That's assuming macroevolution actually happens. If it doesn't, then we won't know, because we might wait centuries to see something like this to happen, get nothing, but keep waiting, since proving the inexistence of anything is logically impossible. Besides, it not happening anymore doesn't prove it didn't happen in the past. What if the macroevolutionary mechanism is gone or disappeared or ended? We might never come to know what it actually was.
Both evolutionism and anti-evolutionism have some serious logical problems to overcome. I myself prefer to not take sides on the discussion. Pointing the problems in both sides is easier and more intellectually rigorous.
Creationists don't deny changes inside a species, such as developing resistances to pesticides and the like. What they deny is that one species can change so much that it becomes another species. In technical terms, what they refuse is the notion of macroevolution. That of microevolution isn't a problem for them.
And in regards to genetic engineering, they also don't see new mixed species, or even entirely new ones created by men from scratch, as a problem either, since these can be thought about as species that in themselves always existed, but just hadn't appeared in any concrete form yet. Men, in this case, didn't "create" them, they just "expressed" them in reality.
It might not be a mainstream interpretation of nature, but it isn't illogical by any means.
He probably forgot. But we shouldn't forget that the URSS was the greatest ally of Germany from way before the war, by reaming Germany, and for a great part of the war itself, when Hitler and Stalin delimited the countries and borders each would control.
Stalin only turned Hitler's worst enemy when Hitler betrayed him by violating the Ribbentrop-Molotov non-aggression pact and invading URSS-owned territories and then Russia itself. Weren't for this and Stalin wouldn't have opposed him in the slightest.
I'm myself have none. I'm waiting for George Lucas to die so that I can then buy the definitely definite final forever unchangeable version, in a box including all of them, which the company will surely release some time after the fact.
:)
Also, I have no version of LotR, since the extended edition wasn't released here in Brazil. We had single, double and box editions, but no extended. So, I'm holding my money until it's released.
The same goes for the original Superman tetralogy. I'll only buy them when it's released as such, not as a trilogy.
And so on and so forth.
Wrong. They're neither science nor philosophy. They're art. Art is the expression of a possibility. Science is the process of discriminating which possibilities are correct and which aren't. Philosophy determines what "possibility" itself is. Philosophy, thus, is the basis from which Science gets all the tools, from logical principles to methodology definitions, that it then uses to test hypothesis.
So, you inverted. It's not philosophy that is a "just" in comparison to science. The sciences are all of them "justs" in comparison to philosophy. Science lives inside philosophy, not the other way around, and not as a separate entity.