You know... even though I don't smoke it, I've always been a proponent of legalizing marijuana. I always thought it was silly to ban an activity which cannot be effectively policed, and which doesn't really harm anyone. But then I see comments like yours.... and I have to stop and re-think my position. Clearly it's got some rather severe long-term effects, so how can I support it's decriminalization with a clear conscience?
When you talk about enforcing "ideology" you are talking about political/religious control of a particular territory and consequently all the resouces within it.
What you're doing there is rephrasing the question in such a way that your argument becomes the only answer which fits. You're saying "since the winners of a conflict control all resources, resources must be the cause of the conflict". Using the same logic we could say that sweating is the primary reason for sex, since everyone involved in the activity ends up sweating a lot. Or alternately, we could argue that cheese is the prime reason for all wars, since whoever wins the war always ends up with control of all the cheese.
You're taking one of the results of an action, ignoring all other results, and then claiming that the one result you picked must be why the action occurred. It's a silly way to argue, and it's not at all logical.
Of course, if you break down motivations far enough, you'll always end up being able to justify every human action as a desire to control resources. That's because "resources" are anything and everything that we use or could possibly use in order to survive and prosper. You could say that eating, breathing, and breeding are all directly related to a desire to control resources, and you'd be completely right. In that sense, sure, wars are about resources... but what isn't?
Aww... aren't you precious! Like Gizmo's kids, after the change... really cute, in a messed up and evil sort of way...
I always wonder whether people who come up with such twisted fantasies are able to imagine them because they have vivid imaginations... or because, given enough power, they themselves would act in that manner. Either way, I'm glad that people like you never seem to amass any real power within our societies.
Don't be a troll. If I were drawing crappy pictures of the moon, I wouldn't expect to get any credit. The fact of the matter is that someone DID do a better job - Galileo. Using your "logic", we would never be able to criticize anyone who happens to be a bit better than us at something. That would take ALL the fun out of sports, entertainment, and politics.
Yours is the most informative comment so far. Thank you. It certainly seems as if the law-enforcement officials in this case are overstepping their bounds. If this had happened in the US, I doubt a single person here would be defending the actions of the government.
To be criticized for going off-thread when my comment was about and contained an embedded quote drawn from the thread itself is unique in my experience.
After all of these years on the web and the BBS systems before them, I find some value in uniqueness. Not a lot, but some.
Uniqueness is fun! I like things that are unique! They're, like, almost one of a kind! OOOOHH, and BBS systems! I remember those! They were cool! With fun little ANSI characters and TradeWars 2000! Whee!
The point is that the buoyancy allowed it to float up a bit, causing water to flow over the propulsion surfaces. That flow, however slight, moved the sub forward. That's actually rather impressive, considering most subs sink like a freaking rock or bob like a log (depending on their buoyancy) instead of moving forward while bobbing slightly.
Except that's not what happened. They're talking about just the propulsion mechanism / fin, which has already been marketed as a separate product - the Lunocet.
What... you think the rest of the world hates the U.S. just because it's trendy ?
Yes. For every complaint made about the US, there are about a dozen countries which do the same or worse. Global opinions are like a large-scale version of your highschool social dynamics - it's not so much what you do that matters, as what your reputation currently happens to be.
I know that at this point, "RTFA" has become a running joke... but you're the first person I've seen who hasn't even bothered to read the comment which he's replying to! Way to set a new bar for other slashdotters to meet...
They give actual numbers as to how many people have been killed by this "overly cautious" bureaucracy trying to protect them---30,000 in the case of a drug called propranolol, as just one example. Ever heard of a bad drug killing 30,000 people?
Well there's a clever line of reasoning! It doesn't matter whether we have good, solid, scientific evidence that a substance is effective, safe, and side-effect free. All we need is some guy claiming it works! To hell with proper testing!
I propose we overhaul the FDA: just have them grant approval to every quack who comes along with a new idea. Start with Homeopathy - it should be INSTANTLY certified since it's guaranteed not to have any side-effects whatsoever.
Hey, that reminds me, did you know that battery acid cures the common cold? It's true! You should try it, next time you get sick. No need to wait for the FDA to check it, just trust me on this one! Once we finish overhauling the FDA, I'll have no problem getting approved.
I've given it a lot more thought than he has. You can't have much of a "long term" if your "short term" results in the destruction or enslavement of the jews.
As for his "reasonable tone"... sorry, it's not enough. Moon-hoax proponents generally maintain a reasonable tone, too, while stating all kinds of unreasonable assertions. So do holocaust deniers, for that matter. The content of your statements is much more important than their tone.
Right. That's like saying that blacks and whites coexisted peacefully in the pre-civil-war United States. Technically correct, but entirely irrelevant.
Despite the rhetoric, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is about land, not religion/ideology
Remember what I said earlier about you living in upside-down-land? Yah. I think we're done here. As long as you're being willfully blind, there's nothing I or anyone else can say to help you.
Why is it that I can't see that thing mentioned without immediately thinking that it will someday go horribly wrong by firing at the wrong time?
Because you're being a silly bugger?
Do you have the same fantasies about ejection-seat systems? Or aircraft fire-suppression systems?
If I were you I'd be more worried about your airbag going off in your face while you're booting along at 90mph, shaving, and drinking a coffee all at the same time.
You're comparing apples and oranges. South Africa was a single nation of mixed people, not two distinct nations. Ditto for the US. Besides which, South Africa is, currently, a shithole. That's primarily because as soon as blacks took over they immediately started treating whites as badly as they themselves have been treated. They had an opportunity to build something better, and instead threw it away due to their own ignorance and bigotry. Luckily they didn't also have crazy-ass preachers telling them it was their duty to kill the white man, or South Africa would have turned out even worse than it has.
What you're essentially saying is that you want 7 millions Israelis to form a democratic state with 15 million palestinians who have been calling for their extermination for about 50 years now. If you're truly convinced that that's a viable solution, then you're either ignorant or an idiot. Sorry, but there's no two ways about it. You may as well be saying that all the Jewish problems of WW2 could have been solved if they'd just found a single-state solution with Germany. It's idiotic.
You know, I'm truly amazed that people like you can function on a day-to-day basis. It's like you're inhabiting some sort of upside-down-world, where up is down and black is white. I'm surprised you haven't managed to kill yourself yet by taking a bath in the fireplace.
I should have said "virtual Zionists" instead of "virtual Jews" since a lot of Jews, including Israeli ones, have courageously condemned Israel's actions.
It's true - being Jewish doesn't seem to exempt them from also being morons. I'm not sure why you felt the need to point that out, though.
but it isn't clear to an amatuer like me how the current safety issues of the Shuttle would be avoided. I guess maybe because there is no Shuttle for falling foam to hit, for one ?
That's part of it. Having the capsule mounted on top of the fuel tanks also tends to add extra safety. And because of the relatively low weight of these capsules, you can afford to stick extra safety equipment on them. The DIRECT folks are even talking about possibly putting a tank of water between the fuel tank and the crew module, in order to absorb blast and fragmentation. That has the added benefit of providing a lot more water for use in space than the crews would normally have.
The DIRECT system is estimated to have a Loss-of-Crew rate of 1 in 1100-ish, which is something like 10 times better than the shuttle fleet. It seems like a really good idea, but then IANARS, so don't quote me.
Yes, I know, I work on them for a living:) I wouldn't exactly call them "simpler", though. The basic concept is simple enough, but large jet-turbine engines are anything but simple.
And yes, the fuel is considerably cheaper. There's no point spending extra money in processing the fuel when your engines can handle a high level of impurity. Basic economics.
I didn't say anything "didn't exist", and you linked to DDR3 which is completely different. This is what I was talking about. Or maybe this, for the american consumers. $33.99 and free shipping seems like a pretty sweet deal. You can get ram with even lower latency for the same price, but it'll be a lower rated speed.
I've never had problems with OCZ. I've built 4 different systems in the last year, all using OCZ RAM. They all run perfectly. My personal comp even has the memory overclocked by about 30%. Haven't had any issues at all.
I think in the near future air travel will once again cease to be a mode of mass transit and return to the exclusive realm of the super-rich.
Care to place a wager on that, Nostradamus?
Air travel back in the 70's was quite a bit more expensive (as a percentage of average income) than it is today. There didn't seem to be a dearth in air travel back then. So maybe the price rises a bit in the future due to increasing fuel costs - so what? Maybe your all-inclusive week long vacation to Cuba will cost $1,200 instead of $800. Oh darn. Only the super-rich could afford something like that!
Incidentally, have you ever smelled NORMAL jet fuel, or better yet, the EXHAUST from an engine running on it? Jets typically run on a naptha/kerosene blend...
Actually, they tend to avoid blending it with naphtha these days - it's a bit dangerous. The fuel itself doesn't smell particularly bad, although the exhaust usually does. That's primarily because aircraft fuel - contrary to popular belief - is much "dirtier" than the fuel you'd put in your car. Jet-turbine engines can burn just about anything, so they can tolerate a much higher level of impurity than your typical piston engine.
Yeah, that was the first thing that caught my eye. In one sentence they're basically saying "we know next to nothing about these things, and have only managed to capture one" and then a couple sentences later they're telling us that not only are these creatures endangered, but we know exactly why.
Right.
In other news, I've figured out why alien abductions are on the decrease: clearly our excessive CO2 output is impacting the ability of space-aliens to exist in our atmosphere. I'd provide evidence, but I don't want to exceed the BBC's standards for news coverage.
Last I checked, OCZ didn't qualify as "value ram". During boxing day they had 4 gigs of PC2-6400 going for $20 after rebate - and that's in Canadian dollars. Now that the holidays are over, the price has gone up to $36.99. The same store is also offering 4 gigs of OCZ PC2-8000 for $44.99. I'm sure you can find it for much cheaper in the US, though.
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You know ... even though I don't smoke it, I've always been a proponent of legalizing marijuana. I always thought it was silly to ban an activity which cannot be effectively policed, and which doesn't really harm anyone. But then I see comments like yours .... and I have to stop and re-think my position. Clearly it's got some rather severe long-term effects, so how can I support it's decriminalization with a clear conscience?
It really is a tough call ...
What you're doing there is rephrasing the question in such a way that your argument becomes the only answer which fits. You're saying "since the winners of a conflict control all resources, resources must be the cause of the conflict". Using the same logic we could say that sweating is the primary reason for sex, since everyone involved in the activity ends up sweating a lot. Or alternately, we could argue that cheese is the prime reason for all wars, since whoever wins the war always ends up with control of all the cheese.
You're taking one of the results of an action, ignoring all other results, and then claiming that the one result you picked must be why the action occurred. It's a silly way to argue, and it's not at all logical.
Of course, if you break down motivations far enough, you'll always end up being able to justify every human action as a desire to control resources. That's because "resources" are anything and everything that we use or could possibly use in order to survive and prosper. You could say that eating, breathing, and breeding are all directly related to a desire to control resources, and you'd be completely right. In that sense, sure, wars are about resources ... but what isn't?
Aww ... aren't you precious! Like Gizmo's kids, after the change ... really cute, in a messed up and evil sort of way ...
I always wonder whether people who come up with such twisted fantasies are able to imagine them because they have vivid imaginations ... or because, given enough power, they themselves would act in that manner. Either way, I'm glad that people like you never seem to amass any real power within our societies.
Don't be a troll. If I were drawing crappy pictures of the moon, I wouldn't expect to get any credit. The fact of the matter is that someone DID do a better job - Galileo. Using your "logic", we would never be able to criticize anyone who happens to be a bit better than us at something. That would take ALL the fun out of sports, entertainment, and politics.
Yours is the most informative comment so far. Thank you. It certainly seems as if the law-enforcement officials in this case are overstepping their bounds. If this had happened in the US, I doubt a single person here would be defending the actions of the government.
Uniqueness is fun! I like things that are unique! They're, like, almost one of a kind! OOOOHH, and BBS systems! I remember those! They were cool! With fun little ANSI characters and TradeWars 2000! Whee!
Am I still on topic?
Except that's not what happened. They're talking about just the propulsion mechanism / fin, which has already been marketed as a separate product - the Lunocet.
Yes. For every complaint made about the US, there are about a dozen countries which do the same or worse. Global opinions are like a large-scale version of your highschool social dynamics - it's not so much what you do that matters, as what your reputation currently happens to be.
I know that at this point, "RTFA" has become a running joke ... but you're the first person I've seen who hasn't even bothered to read the comment which he's replying to! Way to set a new bar for other slashdotters to meet ...
So you're saying condoms are the tools of the Devil?
Well there's a clever line of reasoning! It doesn't matter whether we have good, solid, scientific evidence that a substance is effective, safe, and side-effect free. All we need is some guy claiming it works! To hell with proper testing!
I propose we overhaul the FDA: just have them grant approval to every quack who comes along with a new idea. Start with Homeopathy - it should be INSTANTLY certified since it's guaranteed not to have any side-effects whatsoever.
Hey, that reminds me, did you know that battery acid cures the common cold? It's true! You should try it, next time you get sick. No need to wait for the FDA to check it, just trust me on this one! Once we finish overhauling the FDA, I'll have no problem getting approved.
I've given it a lot more thought than he has. You can't have much of a "long term" if your "short term" results in the destruction or enslavement of the jews.
As for his "reasonable tone" ... sorry, it's not enough. Moon-hoax proponents generally maintain a reasonable tone, too, while stating all kinds of unreasonable assertions. So do holocaust deniers, for that matter. The content of your statements is much more important than their tone.
Right. That's like saying that blacks and whites coexisted peacefully in the pre-civil-war United States. Technically correct, but entirely irrelevant.
Remember what I said earlier about you living in upside-down-land? Yah. I think we're done here. As long as you're being willfully blind, there's nothing I or anyone else can say to help you.
Because you're being a silly bugger?
Do you have the same fantasies about ejection-seat systems? Or aircraft fire-suppression systems?
If I were you I'd be more worried about your airbag going off in your face while you're booting along at 90mph, shaving, and drinking a coffee all at the same time.
You're comparing apples and oranges. South Africa was a single nation of mixed people, not two distinct nations. Ditto for the US. Besides which, South Africa is, currently, a shithole. That's primarily because as soon as blacks took over they immediately started treating whites as badly as they themselves have been treated. They had an opportunity to build something better, and instead threw it away due to their own ignorance and bigotry. Luckily they didn't also have crazy-ass preachers telling them it was their duty to kill the white man, or South Africa would have turned out even worse than it has.
What you're essentially saying is that you want 7 millions Israelis to form a democratic state with 15 million palestinians who have been calling for their extermination for about 50 years now. If you're truly convinced that that's a viable solution, then you're either ignorant or an idiot. Sorry, but there's no two ways about it. You may as well be saying that all the Jewish problems of WW2 could have been solved if they'd just found a single-state solution with Germany. It's idiotic.
Oh yeah! What could possibly go wrong?
You know, I'm truly amazed that people like you can function on a day-to-day basis. It's like you're inhabiting some sort of upside-down-world, where up is down and black is white. I'm surprised you haven't managed to kill yourself yet by taking a bath in the fireplace.
It's true - being Jewish doesn't seem to exempt them from also being morons. I'm not sure why you felt the need to point that out, though.
That's part of it. Having the capsule mounted on top of the fuel tanks also tends to add extra safety. And because of the relatively low weight of these capsules, you can afford to stick extra safety equipment on them. The DIRECT folks are even talking about possibly putting a tank of water between the fuel tank and the crew module, in order to absorb blast and fragmentation. That has the added benefit of providing a lot more water for use in space than the crews would normally have.
The DIRECT system is estimated to have a Loss-of-Crew rate of 1 in 1100-ish, which is something like 10 times better than the shuttle fleet. It seems like a really good idea, but then IANARS, so don't quote me.
Yes, I know, I work on them for a living :) I wouldn't exactly call them "simpler", though. The basic concept is simple enough, but large jet-turbine engines are anything but simple.
And yes, the fuel is considerably cheaper. There's no point spending extra money in processing the fuel when your engines can handle a high level of impurity. Basic economics.
I didn't say anything "didn't exist", and you linked to DDR3 which is completely different. This is what I was talking about. Or maybe this, for the american consumers. $33.99 and free shipping seems like a pretty sweet deal. You can get ram with even lower latency for the same price, but it'll be a lower rated speed.
I've never had problems with OCZ. I've built 4 different systems in the last year, all using OCZ RAM. They all run perfectly. My personal comp even has the memory overclocked by about 30%. Haven't had any issues at all.
Care to place a wager on that, Nostradamus?
Air travel back in the 70's was quite a bit more expensive (as a percentage of average income) than it is today. There didn't seem to be a dearth in air travel back then. So maybe the price rises a bit in the future due to increasing fuel costs - so what? Maybe your all-inclusive week long vacation to Cuba will cost $1,200 instead of $800. Oh darn. Only the super-rich could afford something like that!
Actually, they tend to avoid blending it with naphtha these days - it's a bit dangerous. The fuel itself doesn't smell particularly bad, although the exhaust usually does. That's primarily because aircraft fuel - contrary to popular belief - is much "dirtier" than the fuel you'd put in your car. Jet-turbine engines can burn just about anything, so they can tolerate a much higher level of impurity than your typical piston engine.
Yeah, that was the first thing that caught my eye. In one sentence they're basically saying "we know next to nothing about these things, and have only managed to capture one" and then a couple sentences later they're telling us that not only are these creatures endangered, but we know exactly why.
Right.
In other news, I've figured out why alien abductions are on the decrease: clearly our excessive CO2 output is impacting the ability of space-aliens to exist in our atmosphere. I'd provide evidence, but I don't want to exceed the BBC's standards for news coverage.
Last I checked, OCZ didn't qualify as "value ram". During boxing day they had 4 gigs of PC2-6400 going for $20 after rebate - and that's in Canadian dollars. Now that the holidays are over, the price has gone up to $36.99. The same store is also offering 4 gigs of OCZ PC2-8000 for $44.99. I'm sure you can find it for much cheaper in the US, though.