So you're saying that because Clinton signed that act, that the Republicans are the party of gay people? I don't think anyone can say that homosexuals are exclusive to one party, but I think most people would agree that democrats usually support gay rights more than republicans.
Also, that was signed just over ten years ago through a republican senate and congress (I think they were both republican at the time, but I'm not sure). Forgetting about the republican house, that was still 10 years ago when gay marriage wasn't as large an issue as it is today where everyone picks a side and usually voices it loudly. I'm not saying we shouldn't compare things that politicians did in the past, but the gay rights movement is still fairly new.
That's not really true. Solar power can be practical, and even profitable. Here's an article from wired last year that talks about a family in Illinois (not too far from you with a similar climate, I think) who paid only $3,625 after rebates and grants for their solar grid. After six years with the current energy prices, the investment will have paid for itself. I'm not sure how you want to define "practical", but that seems like a pretty good system to me, and the cost of initial investment should be lower after a year and a half.
ancient humans and neanderthals decided to make love and not war on the ancient plains of Eurasia
Nice dream, but assuming that this theory is true, it probably happened when a group of neanderthals met a group of humans, killed most of them, and then raped the women (or humans doing it to neanderthals). Romeo was not a neanderthal searching for his human Juliet.
When I wrote the line "Can I make an informed decision? I can when it comes to education: vote against him.", I knew someone would point out that knowing one side doesn't mean you know both sides. However, I didn't want to write a four page essay that covers every possible interpretation of what I was saying. As the GP pointed out, you kinda missed my point, only its more like you skipped my point and brought up a new one, which is fine.
As for your comment, you're right, I should have been more specific. I know (or believe, since you can't "know" anything for sure in politics) that Rod is bad for education. I think (notice my opinion) that education has better odds of being supported if just about anyone else was in office. With that belief, I can make an informed decision to vote against Rod for the case of education. Since it is impossible to know exactly what someone will do on any issue, I believe that that constitutes an informed decision for education.
Back to my original point, believing what will happen for one issue does not mean you will make an informed decision. If I vote solely on the fact that some politician supports abortion or is against stem cell research, then I'm not making an informed decision as a whole.
That may be technically true but it is ALMOST NEVER the case in politics.
Let's first assume that I'm in that top 15% range of intelligent people in the country you mentioned before.
I live in Illinois. I lean towards the democrats. I know Dem. Rod Blagojevich (whose name I had to look up to spell) has a lot of talk of corruption surrounding him and that he has been cutting funding for education, two things that are important to me. I know little else about him, and nothing about whoever is running against him, including his/her name. Can I make an informed decision? I can when it comes to education: vote against him. Education might be better in the long run, but what would be worse? Normally, I would vote for the dem because, as I said, I tend to lean in that direction, but in this case, I can't bring myself to do it without more information.
The answer is not to just go out and vote for the sake of voting, but to spend some time learning about your candidates for the sake of your county, state, and/or country. If you don't know enough to vote, you shouldn't just vote for the hell of it nor sit at home, you should do your civic duty and put yourself in a place to make an informed decision. The problem is that most people are too lazy to do that.
...which is why I'm sitting in my apartment alternating between a data mining programming assignment and reading slashdot.
Yes, there are plenty of other possible scenarios that would work against the timestamp idea. I still believe that the majority of the time, the timestamp system would produce better results. I'm not sure if you are saying that you disagree with that statement or just wanted to point out that nothing can work perfectly for this situation, which I think is pretty obvious to everyone.
1. There is a difference between trusting the masses and trusting a mass against another mass.
2. I didn't know there was a mass consensus that wikipedia should not be trusted.
3. "I'm not saying that anyone should trust wikipedia articles, just that I don't think there is sufficient evidence to show that wikipedia articles are any more or less trustworthy than other sources of information." I don't trust anything absolutely, nor should I or anyone else.
I lapsed for a moment and didn't quite choose my words to encompass every possible interpretation of them.
Honestly, I tried to look for a timestamp before posting, but I obviously didn't try very hard. I figured there had to be some way to do it, but it wasn't in the first few places I looked (at the top of the article, near each section of the article, or in the edit's information)
I think that it would really make a difference if sections were timestamped compared to the whole article. Long articles are constantly being updated, yet sections may remain the same for long periods of time. It would be nice if there were a way to see the smaller sections that haven't changed.
Here's an idea to make Wikipedia more reliable: show the time of the last edit for pages, or even better, for sections of pages.
Wikipedia pages are constantly viewed by people. If thousands of people see a wikipedia page and don't change it for a month, I would be inclined to trust the information presented in the page. However, if the page was edited in the last 24 hours, I might be more skeptical. Longer or shorter times would lead to more trust or skepticism.
A lot of people claim that you can't trust the masses, which I don't really believe. Why should we trust a couple experts on a subject over those same two experts along with a few thousand people, when they are trying to determine whether or not information is true? There are plenty of "experts" who look at / edit wikipedia pages. I have trouble understanding why people have such a hard time trusting wikipedia but trust other sources of news. I'm not saying that anyone should trust wikipedia articles, just that I don't think there is sufficient evidence to show that wikipedia articles are any more or less trustworthy than other sources of information. Take anything you read with a grain of salt.
With all that said, bringing some form of timestamps to wikipedia would, in my opinion, make it more trustworthy.
Rating games on a new console is even more meaningless than rating other games because there is nothing to compare it to. Some of the first games on a new console are generally rated high strictly because there is nothing better out there to get a high rating. Should games be rated against other console games? I'm not saying games shouldn't be compared to other console games, but I'm not sure that other consoles should be taken into consideration when rating. And if you do think that they should be rated against each other, which systems do you keep in the same category? Obviously it would be unfair to rate a DS game against a XBox 360 game, or even more obvious would be a GameBoy against a Wii. The rating would be unfair.
I'm in a college CS ethics class right now, and the day we talked about IP was one of the most interesting days we had. The teacher barely had to say anything, and the class took the discussion from there. I think that most CS students tend to care/know a lot about IP. If you have any slashdot readers in your class, then you're also in pretty good shape because they will probably bring up some good examples.
On the other hand, if you are just planning lecturing about the law and what defines IP for 75 minutes, then you are in for a rough ride. Give an outline of what is IP and what is not and let the class take it form there. I gave a presentation on the Professor who sold lectures which really started some good discussion regardless of what your school's policy is on the subject.
Yeah, that is slightly offtopic, especially since the parent never said anything was "good or bad" like you quoted. He said things were "good and bad", and referred to them as having both qualities. He seemed to be (I don't want to put words in his mouth) saying that they were some combination of the two, not one or the other. If white is good and black is bad, then the answer is the grey area between instead of the poles.
I understand that you then go on to explain it explain the issue as a line instead of two points, even though that is contradictory to "good or bad". Still, there isn't necessarily anything wrong with breaking an issue into simply good and bad factors. Breaking it down like this doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of ways to look at the problem, just that you are making a quantified estimate of a total value. Most people tend to add up all the good things and bad things and try to decide whether it is one or the other. This doesn't mean that the good and bad things (i.e. different points of an issue) don't exist.
At some point, you will have to fall back on the State to support you.
I'm pretty sure you meant "may" instead of "will", but that's just nitpicking.
I'll agree with you about the economics part. It's like seat belts. Seat belts laws really aren't in place to save lives; they are in place to keep car and medical insurance down.
As I'm sure you will agree, medical insurance isn't in place just for people who do not do dangerous things. Many forms of medical insurance are available for things that are risky, which is pretty much the point.
But you weren't talking about medical insurance, you were talking about welfare (basically). Although I doubt you really mean it, it sounds like you are saying that everyone who smokes pot will at some point be on welfare, having the State take care of them. I would argue that a fair number of people who smoke pot are not on welfare (and a good number who smoke and are on welfare were on welfare before they started smoking, but that's a different story as well). Should the people who take care of themselves be punished for the mistakes of others?
Also, it seems like you are talking about cigarettes more than you are talking about marijuana. The health effects of the two are very different. However, since we were initially talking about many drugs, I won't argue with your statement when it applies to things like heroin or cocaine.
There should be discussion about these things in Government. But it seems they are too concerned with blowjobs and little boys and big oil to do anything about problems affecting real people.
Damn straight, and that's what is most f'ed up about America right now.
This is getting closer to the actual point:
You shouldn't be asking "why is dope illegal". You should be asking "why isn't 60 minutes of cardio 4 times per week mandatory".
The real question is where should the government step in. Should the government step in to ensure a more productive society at the expense of the individual? because that is what it seems like you are saying. Plenty of things make people less productive. Hell, I'm a lot less productive when my OnDemand movies get updated, but I sure don't think the government should step in to regulate that.
Personally, I don't think the government should tell people what they can and can't do, but that obviously can't apply to all situations. I'd say that people should be able to do whatever they want in their own homes, but of course I don't think people who live in highly populated subdivisions should be able to build meth labs in their basement because it puts others in the area in danger. Does smoking pot in your own home really put other people in danger (I don't want to get into the driving while high issue because that's different)? If smoking pot in your own home puts others in danger, then I would argue that keeping a handgun in your home puts others around you in danger (it could go off, sending a stray bullet into your neighbors home ala Running Scared). A line has to be drawn somewhere; I just don't think the current lines have been drawn in the right places, which is what I believe the grandparent was talking about.
I thought the same thing. Thought this might be another Katrina prediction or something.
"Sensor Grid Able to Predict Imminent Flooding" would have made a lot more sense.
Your argument is flawed for this case. These "grave robbers" were caught while digging, and so had no opportunity to report their findings. By your logic, the only difference between a "tomb robber" and an "archaeologist" is the documentation of findings, which means that the "grave robbers" involved in the article were neither.
I'm not the author, but I believe that Seriously. Did anyone, including Google, not see this coming? was a rhetorical question... nice elaborate response though.
Umm, if the meteorite is buried, that means Superman is already living on Earth. If the meteor was found burning in a field, it would mean he just arrived. This is a confirmation of the existence of a baby from another planet and a cover-up by a kind-hearted farming couple, not an announcement of such. Damn, at least put a little thought into your comic book reference jokes.
Yeah, same with facebook and other social networking sites. Not only are employers using social networking cites to background check potential employees, but schools (including universities) are monitoring social networking sites and punishing students for material posted on them, but that's all old news.
At first, I thought this article was about something I have been waiting for: precedent for lawsuits against employers and schools who use MySpace and Facebook against employees and students. Anyone else see a problem with deciding whether or not to hire someone based on a picture of them drinking on MySpace? In case that question didn't lead enough, how do you prove that the prospective employee is the holder of the MySpace account, is actually the person in the picture, and that the picture is not doctored? Hopefully, this woman's fight against a fake MySpace account will let more people realize that not everything you see on MySpace, or any other social networking site, is necessarily real.
The article I referenced was about the sale of MySpace being a "scam" of sorts, because a "cofounder" of MySpace said it was sold for much less than it was worth. When I first read that MySpace was sold for almost $400M, I thought that was a lot of money. When I read the article about it being worth $20B, I thought that was a little over the top. Now that I see Google is in talks with YouTube for $1.6B, I am more inclined to believe that MySpace is worth $20B. Hence, Google talking about YouTube for $1.6B puts things in perspective, lending more credibility to the "MySpace sale was a scam" theory.
Maybe I was vague, but for future reference, try reading the article that people link to before calling them crazy; you might learn something without having it explained to you.
Slashdot Mirror
So you're saying that because Clinton signed that act, that the Republicans are the party of gay people? I don't think anyone can say that homosexuals are exclusive to one party, but I think most people would agree that democrats usually support gay rights more than republicans.
Also, that was signed just over ten years ago through a republican senate and congress (I think they were both republican at the time, but I'm not sure). Forgetting about the republican house, that was still 10 years ago when gay marriage wasn't as large an issue as it is today where everyone picks a side and usually voices it loudly. I'm not saying we shouldn't compare things that politicians did in the past, but the gay rights movement is still fairly new.
That's not really true. Solar power can be practical, and even profitable. Here's an article from wired last year that talks about a family in Illinois (not too far from you with a similar climate, I think) who paid only $3,625 after rebates and grants for their solar grid. After six years with the current energy prices, the investment will have paid for itself. I'm not sure how you want to define "practical", but that seems like a pretty good system to me, and the cost of initial investment should be lower after a year and a half.
ancient humans and neanderthals decided to make love and not war on the ancient plains of Eurasia
Nice dream, but assuming that this theory is true, it probably happened when a group of neanderthals met a group of humans, killed most of them, and then raped the women (or humans doing it to neanderthals). Romeo was not a neanderthal searching for his human Juliet.
Phrenology
Popular in the 19th century, but is now thought to be as scientific as tarot card reading (not really that bad, but close).
When I wrote the line "Can I make an informed decision? I can when it comes to education: vote against him.", I knew someone would point out that knowing one side doesn't mean you know both sides. However, I didn't want to write a four page essay that covers every possible interpretation of what I was saying. As the GP pointed out, you kinda missed my point, only its more like you skipped my point and brought up a new one, which is fine.
As for your comment, you're right, I should have been more specific. I know (or believe, since you can't "know" anything for sure in politics) that Rod is bad for education. I think (notice my opinion) that education has better odds of being supported if just about anyone else was in office. With that belief, I can make an informed decision to vote against Rod for the case of education. Since it is impossible to know exactly what someone will do on any issue, I believe that that constitutes an informed decision for education.
Back to my original point, believing what will happen for one issue does not mean you will make an informed decision. If I vote solely on the fact that some politician supports abortion or is against stem cell research, then I'm not making an informed decision as a whole.
That may be technically true but it is ALMOST NEVER the case in politics.
...which is why I'm sitting in my apartment alternating between a data mining programming assignment and reading slashdot.
Let's first assume that I'm in that top 15% range of intelligent people in the country you mentioned before.
I live in Illinois. I lean towards the democrats. I know Dem. Rod Blagojevich (whose name I had to look up to spell) has a lot of talk of corruption surrounding him and that he has been cutting funding for education, two things that are important to me. I know little else about him, and nothing about whoever is running against him, including his/her name. Can I make an informed decision? I can when it comes to education: vote against him. Education might be better in the long run, but what would be worse? Normally, I would vote for the dem because, as I said, I tend to lean in that direction, but in this case, I can't bring myself to do it without more information.
The answer is not to just go out and vote for the sake of voting, but to spend some time learning about your candidates for the sake of your county, state, and/or country. If you don't know enough to vote, you shouldn't just vote for the hell of it nor sit at home, you should do your civic duty and put yourself in a place to make an informed decision. The problem is that most people are too lazy to do that.
"by Anonymous Coward"
Yes, there are plenty of other possible scenarios that would work against the timestamp idea. I still believe that the majority of the time, the timestamp system would produce better results. I'm not sure if you are saying that you disagree with that statement or just wanted to point out that nothing can work perfectly for this situation, which I think is pretty obvious to everyone.
1. There is a difference between trusting the masses and trusting a mass against another mass. 2. I didn't know there was a mass consensus that wikipedia should not be trusted. 3. "I'm not saying that anyone should trust wikipedia articles, just that I don't think there is sufficient evidence to show that wikipedia articles are any more or less trustworthy than other sources of information." I don't trust anything absolutely, nor should I or anyone else. I lapsed for a moment and didn't quite choose my words to encompass every possible interpretation of them.
Honestly, I tried to look for a timestamp before posting, but I obviously didn't try very hard. I figured there had to be some way to do it, but it wasn't in the first few places I looked (at the top of the article, near each section of the article, or in the edit's information)
I think that it would really make a difference if sections were timestamped compared to the whole article. Long articles are constantly being updated, yet sections may remain the same for long periods of time. It would be nice if there were a way to see the smaller sections that haven't changed.
Here's an idea to make Wikipedia more reliable: show the time of the last edit for pages, or even better, for sections of pages.
Wikipedia pages are constantly viewed by people. If thousands of people see a wikipedia page and don't change it for a month, I would be inclined to trust the information presented in the page. However, if the page was edited in the last 24 hours, I might be more skeptical. Longer or shorter times would lead to more trust or skepticism.
A lot of people claim that you can't trust the masses, which I don't really believe. Why should we trust a couple experts on a subject over those same two experts along with a few thousand people, when they are trying to determine whether or not information is true? There are plenty of "experts" who look at / edit wikipedia pages. I have trouble understanding why people have such a hard time trusting wikipedia but trust other sources of news. I'm not saying that anyone should trust wikipedia articles, just that I don't think there is sufficient evidence to show that wikipedia articles are any more or less trustworthy than other sources of information. Take anything you read with a grain of salt.
With all that said, bringing some form of timestamps to wikipedia would, in my opinion, make it more trustworthy.
Rating games on a new console is even more meaningless than rating other games because there is nothing to compare it to. Some of the first games on a new console are generally rated high strictly because there is nothing better out there to get a high rating. Should games be rated against other console games? I'm not saying games shouldn't be compared to other console games, but I'm not sure that other consoles should be taken into consideration when rating. And if you do think that they should be rated against each other, which systems do you keep in the same category? Obviously it would be unfair to rate a DS game against a XBox 360 game, or even more obvious would be a GameBoy against a Wii. The rating would be unfair.
I'm in a college CS ethics class right now, and the day we talked about IP was one of the most interesting days we had. The teacher barely had to say anything, and the class took the discussion from there. I think that most CS students tend to care/know a lot about IP. If you have any slashdot readers in your class, then you're also in pretty good shape because they will probably bring up some good examples.
On the other hand, if you are just planning lecturing about the law and what defines IP for 75 minutes, then you are in for a rough ride. Give an outline of what is IP and what is not and let the class take it form there. I gave a presentation on the Professor who sold lectures which really started some good discussion regardless of what your school's policy is on the subject.
Yeah, that is slightly offtopic, especially since the parent never said anything was "good or bad" like you quoted. He said things were "good and bad", and referred to them as having both qualities. He seemed to be (I don't want to put words in his mouth) saying that they were some combination of the two, not one or the other. If white is good and black is bad, then the answer is the grey area between instead of the poles.
I understand that you then go on to explain it explain the issue as a line instead of two points, even though that is contradictory to "good or bad". Still, there isn't necessarily anything wrong with breaking an issue into simply good and bad factors. Breaking it down like this doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of ways to look at the problem, just that you are making a quantified estimate of a total value. Most people tend to add up all the good things and bad things and try to decide whether it is one or the other. This doesn't mean that the good and bad things (i.e. different points of an issue) don't exist.
At some point, you will have to fall back on the State to support you.
I'm pretty sure you meant "may" instead of "will", but that's just nitpicking.
I'll agree with you about the economics part. It's like seat belts. Seat belts laws really aren't in place to save lives; they are in place to keep car and medical insurance down.
As I'm sure you will agree, medical insurance isn't in place just for people who do not do dangerous things. Many forms of medical insurance are available for things that are risky, which is pretty much the point.
But you weren't talking about medical insurance, you were talking about welfare (basically). Although I doubt you really mean it, it sounds like you are saying that everyone who smokes pot will at some point be on welfare, having the State take care of them. I would argue that a fair number of people who smoke pot are not on welfare (and a good number who smoke and are on welfare were on welfare before they started smoking, but that's a different story as well). Should the people who take care of themselves be punished for the mistakes of others?
Also, it seems like you are talking about cigarettes more than you are talking about marijuana. The health effects of the two are very different. However, since we were initially talking about many drugs, I won't argue with your statement when it applies to things like heroin or cocaine.
There should be discussion about these things in Government. But it seems they are too concerned with blowjobs and little boys and big oil to do anything about problems affecting real people.
Damn straight, and that's what is most f'ed up about America right now.
Answer to question 2: question 1
This is getting closer to the actual point: You shouldn't be asking "why is dope illegal". You should be asking "why isn't 60 minutes of cardio 4 times per week mandatory".
The real question is where should the government step in. Should the government step in to ensure a more productive society at the expense of the individual? because that is what it seems like you are saying. Plenty of things make people less productive. Hell, I'm a lot less productive when my OnDemand movies get updated, but I sure don't think the government should step in to regulate that.
Personally, I don't think the government should tell people what they can and can't do, but that obviously can't apply to all situations. I'd say that people should be able to do whatever they want in their own homes, but of course I don't think people who live in highly populated subdivisions should be able to build meth labs in their basement because it puts others in the area in danger. Does smoking pot in your own home really put other people in danger (I don't want to get into the driving while high issue because that's different)? If smoking pot in your own home puts others in danger, then I would argue that keeping a handgun in your home puts others around you in danger (it could go off, sending a stray bullet into your neighbors home ala Running Scared). A line has to be drawn somewhere; I just don't think the current lines have been drawn in the right places, which is what I believe the grandparent was talking about.
I thought the same thing. Thought this might be another Katrina prediction or something.
"Sensor Grid Able to Predict Imminent Flooding" would have made a lot more sense.
Your argument is flawed for this case. These "grave robbers" were caught while digging, and so had no opportunity to report their findings. By your logic, the only difference between a "tomb robber" and an "archaeologist" is the documentation of findings, which means that the "grave robbers" involved in the article were neither.
I'm not the author, but I believe that Seriously. Did anyone, including Google, not see this coming? was a rhetorical question... nice elaborate response though.
Umm, if the meteorite is buried, that means Superman is already living on Earth. If the meteor was found burning in a field, it would mean he just arrived. This is a confirmation of the existence of a baby from another planet and a cover-up by a kind-hearted farming couple, not an announcement of such. Damn, at least put a little thought into your comic book reference jokes.
Yeah, same with facebook and other social networking sites. Not only are employers using social networking cites to background check potential employees, but schools (including universities) are monitoring social networking sites and punishing students for material posted on them, but that's all old news.
At first, I thought this article was about something I have been waiting for: precedent for lawsuits against employers and schools who use MySpace and Facebook against employees and students. Anyone else see a problem with deciding whether or not to hire someone based on a picture of them drinking on MySpace? In case that question didn't lead enough, how do you prove that the prospective employee is the holder of the MySpace account, is actually the person in the picture, and that the picture is not doctored? Hopefully, this woman's fight against a fake MySpace account will let more people realize that not everything you see on MySpace, or any other social networking site, is necessarily real.
The article I referenced was about the sale of MySpace being a "scam" of sorts, because a "cofounder" of MySpace said it was sold for much less than it was worth. When I first read that MySpace was sold for almost $400M, I thought that was a lot of money. When I read the article about it being worth $20B, I thought that was a little over the top. Now that I see Google is in talks with YouTube for $1.6B, I am more inclined to believe that MySpace is worth $20B. Hence, Google talking about YouTube for $1.6B puts things in perspective, lending more credibility to the "MySpace sale was a scam" theory.
Maybe I was vague, but for future reference, try reading the article that people link to before calling them crazy; you might learn something without having it explained to you.
IMO, this offer really seems to add credibility to the "myspace sale was a scam" theory.
Ever notice how the kids who drank in high school tended to be the popular kids? Or was it that the popular kids tended to drink in high school...