padren

It makes me wonder about the fine line between racially insensitive comments and racist comments. I can understand people getting fired for racist comments, but it really struck me as insensitive/and or ignorant comments in the Imus case. I think Rosie's comments were far closer to racist than Imus. Honestly, I think Imus more being ignorant and, in a really bad move, drew upon what he remembered from watching "Bullworth" ages ago to try and sound hip. As far as I can tell he wasn't slandering the team - he just used terminology that was racially loaded. The true difference between racist comments, and racially insenstive ones, IMHO, is if it is still disparaging even if you use less offensive terms, or the terms used are especially loaded. If he had said something like "broker than a n****r the day after pay-day" would be blatantly racist, and even if you substituted the n-word for "a person of color" it would still be blatantly racist. His comments were offensive and demonstrated great ignorance given he decided to actually use them, but I don't think they were used to try and disparage the team - he used words that he thought would make him sound 'hip' and he failed miserably.

Things get out of balance when market forces allow either labor or management to take the other for granted. The irony with automation, is that the money not going to the employees anymore, is making some decent profit over the cost of the automation equipment - it doesn't vanish. Simply laying off a few thousand employees who's efforts actually put the company in the position to be able to automate doesn't sit well with me, but I don't think they have a right to forcibly stop automation. I know someone who is a good programmer but hates it, because in school they wrote a program that was adapted and allowed one person to do the work of seven, and the six were laid off in the office it was implemented in immediately. Personally I find that abhorent (not nessesarily illegal) because the software didn't even cost anything considering students wrote it. I think it would be arguably fair to at least take 50% of the savings of those salaries and give a very healthy 1 year severence - then those people could get new jobs and still have a bit extra, and automation could have been a good experience in their lives as well as for management. When market forces favor managment over labor, it tends to treat labor unfairly. When the reverse is true, labor can at times choke the business and exploit their nessesity. It is ugly and should be stiffled, but laws are ugly when it comes to marshalling "fairness" instead of simply what actions are allowed. The simple minded "jobs are a right" mantra demogogues often pop up to exploit distastifaction due to legitimate reasons...just like the "Unions are evil in principle" crowd pop up when some unions exploit labor shortages. Management has to understand and respect that workers trust the building of their futures in them, and that workers are critical to a successful business. Likewise, workers have to respect that work is an exchange, and a business invest a lot in them and has a lot to loose if they don't pull their weight as well. And regarding the OP: You don't have a right to get a job, you have perhaps a right to compete for one amongst your peers. Who rises above in competition is freakishly subjective - you can not hire someone for being black...if they are auditioning for the role of General Lee in a Civil War movie, but to reject them simply because you think a white person may be "more reliable" would of course be racist and illegal. But you could get 100 applicants a year, 99 black and 1 white, and actually find that of those who apply, the white person in that group consistently proves to be more reliable - but what "proves" that to that manager can be freakishly subject. While you have the right to compete, its really hard to guarantee that right. I have the right to "the pursuit of happiness" but that sure doesn't guarantee the weather.

Where I am, low-end "big breweries" beers go for around $1.50 for a bottle (coors, bud, etc), but you can get a 12oz glass of PBR for 75 cents on tap at one bar here....if you don't mind the headache you get 1/2 way through. For other beers, its usually $3.00...sam adams, guiness, corona, fat tire, alaskan amber, etc, all 12oz I believe.

I can't help but to think it'll be nationalistic and largely based on flag planting. The more infrastructure that is placed by a government, the more likely they'll claim a larger area of surrounding terria- er, marrian. Corporate stakes will likely be tied to land claims of their parent country. (maybe not their 'literal' parent country, since the caymen islands don't come to mind as a leader in clout for land claims on other planets) but I could see a corporation seeking to setup an operation in a territory to be "claimed" by the US or another nation, even if that claim is only to lend stability and legitimacy to the operation. Any country that sets up a base with 5 people will be unlikely to have a claim against a larger amount of land than say, a colony with 5000, will likely be disputed and not respected. International endeavors would likely have land claims that the group agrees to, but they will still have to have the aggregate claim respected by other nations outside the group. Getting other nations to respect those claims will probably be based on the amount of infrastructure surrounding the claim, and keeping the claim "reasonable" so that its not contested outright. It just makes sense that those putting up the most of the money, will want the biggest chunks of land to protect their investments, including nearby land to expand. These claims will either be uncontested because more allied infrastructure means a greater support network on the red planet, or because the nation making the claim has enough earthly clout to dissuade interference. As far as new nations - they don't tend to appear overnight in places without any population, they emerge in populations that are already founded but seek autonomy for various reasons. Its entirely possible Mars could become home to new nations, and I would suspect it would be more in line with how Canada became a nation than how the US did. Its an interesting topic, but I don't foresee any way for it to be "planned out" in advance, because if the planet did get parcelled out now, who gets there first and places the most infrastructure first would be a throw of the dice. I am pretty sure the process will be a lot more ad hoc when the time comes.

I have mixed feelings on a "pull out date" that is in stone, but I think it has come about due to a lack of measure, reflect, and improve upon what we do while we are there. I think this is largely due to the administration's inflexibility, so a date to get out is a last ditch effort to put some sort of reins on the matter. What would be ideal, is if strategy was reviewed, had expectations, was criticized, and then its phases of success measured and failures held accountable. It wouldn't mean someone "gets fired" if their strategy idea fails, but it sure as heck would mean things need to be reexamined. The administration is so afraid of looking bad that they're afraid to criticize themselves, instead choosing to stick to a "we are doing it right, its just a tough job" approach. The issue of who was initially right or wrong about strategy is miniscule compared to the importance of doing a better job now, but the issue is still being dealt with as political instead of strategic. The irony, is that the administration, being so certain in going with what they think is right instead of pandering to public opinion (reasonably noble ideal in of itself), is now stuck unable to admit it needs to change its strategy exactly because its afraid of how that will look in the court of public opinion. Since the Administration has not allowed any serious input to date, or post mortems of their enacted strategies, really there isn't much left for the Senate to do other than try the last ditch withdrawal bill. Its just sad that its all so un-ideal, because political ramifications seem to be more important all round than the strategic ones, when decisions are finally made.

I often find I procrastinate when I have a subconcious resistance to what I have to do, or at least how I expect I need to go about it. If you don't like doing certain repetative tasks, you either accept them as nessesary, or subconciously desire a better solution, and resist doing it "the same old way" because you know doing that will put you right back where you were before. I suspect usually this sense of resistance rarely finds better solutions and ends up costing more energy than it is likely to potentially save, but its important to try to adapt in order to advance. Secondarily, it is a way of avoiding stress when you just don't want to deal with it, on the off chance you'll be in a better position to deal with the stress later. Rarely works either though, I suspect.

Which range of eps have you seen? Personally I really like the fact there are no heros - they are all very human, with strengths and flaws that often are one in the same. They've also done a decent job of staying away from clear-cut villians, although the cylons can be pretty villiany at times. The show has gotten pretty "out there" as of late, I wouldn't recommend jumping straight into season 3 without the previous eps behind you. I guess the largest reason for its appeal in my case, is that rarely do people do "the right thing" or the "wrong thing" but instead do the best with what they have and who they are, which I find quite critical in any drama that makes you think.

Are you talking about having the control node actually doing the marshalling of what gets executed, instead of kernal level threads, where it revives pseudo-threads (that exist only in the language, not kernal) based on what data it needs and what data has been manipulated? If you are talking about actual OS threads, then you pretty much have to work with the tools that the OS offers to wakeup/sleep those threads, and you could basically implement this as a framework within many existing languages. My server application in c++ for instance, uses a ThreadLock class that works with the Runnable interface, which handles all transaction locking for data objects, but its still pretty much a standard oop multi-threaded framework. If you are talking about building your own pseudo-threading system within the language, you'll need to break it out into multiple OS level threads anyway if you want to take advantage of duel core systems etc, and I think other hardware level optimizations they take advantage of. Can you clarify if you are referring to OS level threads, or compiler level pseudo-threads?

There are a lot of liberals in scientology I believe, and (personally) that group puts me off more than many christian faiths. Then you have a rather sizeable "new age" subgroup within the liberal demographic, with healing crystals and chakra therapy, and merkaba [sic] fields spinning at 1/4 the speed of light. (btw, how do you "spin" in a measure of distance over time again?) Liberals are just liable to be susceptible as conservatives to these things - its a human condition. What I think you are reacting to, most likely, is that there is a general sense that there are more liberal rationalists than conservative rationalists, if not per capita then at least in terms of political influence. This is partly because the "religious right" has managed to portray itself as the modern face of conservative america fairly successfully (at least in liberal eyes) and partly because there really is (unless I am mistaken) a lot more strongly religious people in conservative circles than in liberal ones. That said, there is no immunity in either group, and its easy to point out the "less than rational" subgroups in either camp.

I do think this constitutes much more than a "market correction" when a high demand period starts to subside. This actually has nothing to do with the marketplace demand (more about bad decisions that result in an inevitable flooding of the market with surplus), and better regulation would in all likeihood been able to prevent it. Its worth noting too that the lenders were just as "poor in the brain" as the buyers - they both only thought about what they could get right away, while ignoring the impending consquences. I think there is as much reason to regulate this market as there is to regulate pyramid schemes - which are, dispite our "buyer beware" mentality...illegal. Otherwise, people would either be duped, or see the impending collapse and figure they can make some quick money off it before it just messed up everyone else. There are only two reasons for lenders to invite such a market crash: 1) they don't know any better (and would probably have welcomed regulation in retrospect) 2) they know the damage it will do, but have a quick-buck exit strategy I don't think either reason is very well justified, personally, and as such I would welcome some well balanced regulation in that market.

When a wave gone dun start coming at you, change wer your at, and it won't be coming at you no more. Short of that, get that x-men woman with the fancy powers to stop it, she's good at that. And if you can't do that, you can always grab the ground, and yank it in the direction the wave is coming to move the earth at a similar speed to the wave - that should at least cause it to break.

It sounds like the worst possible scenario, I'd rather owe $100,000 than accept that fate. Everything I want to do simply costs way more than any normal salary could provide for, and even if I don't succeed in my various money making adventures I couldn't live without the hope that I at least have a chance. I suppose I'd become an evangelist for the ideas I want to see happen, and try to convince other people to part with their money to make themselves money by investing in them (without me getting a cent), while attempting to achieve the effects I want to see in the world that way. On the whole I'd try to direct the interests of youth towards careers that result in technological and social advancement through entertainment/education.

There's a big difference between trying to teach yourself a new language as a programming newbie and enrolling in a class at a school with a structured curriculum. A trained instructor will help you with many gotchas you'd never likely see yourself. For the self-taught approach other languages are probably a lot better to start with, imo.

I always recommend java as a good learning language. You can do lots of powerful things with it, and it teaches Object Oriented Programming practices. Also, the language is pretty clean, and the various libraries that come with it have very good documentation. While being very object oriented, it also allows for real primative datatypes, so you don't end up with a big bulky object for every boolean you create. You can get into some more complex concepts with it, such as multi-threaded programs. Once you know java really well, I think C++ is the best language there is to get into. I am yet to find any concept in a language that is not already covered in C++ (templates, pointers, references, memory management, threads, multi-inheritance, etc) that is not trivial. In other words, if you can master the concepts in C++, you can master the concepts in just about any language. (Although if you get into SQL for databases, you should learn a lot of database specific concepts for optimization for that language and relational databases in general). I wouldn't attempt C++ without a very strong background in programming already though - its not a beginner's language. Java is very similar to C++ in terms of syntax, and a very good language to start with IMO. Side note: As far as languages I've used professionally, I only really have experience in C++, java, javascript, visual basic, coldfusion, perl, php, and sql. I don't know much about ruby/python etc.

Can anyone tell me if I am reading these guys wrong or if the writers got it wrong? http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20070109/sc_space/pillarsofcreationtoppledbystellarblast The part I have trouble with is: What I don't get....if the light of the nova has hit our sky 1k-2k years ago, wouldn't the light the hubble uses to take these images build photos of that nebula 1k-2k post-explosion? If the light of the nova-event has passed us, then all light containing images of pre-nova conditions has passed by us - by a long time apparently. If we can still see the pillars even through they are gone, then the bright flash of the nova should be in the future right before they can be seen as destroyed - or did I get something really wrong?

Technically, you could theorize that since wheels slow the plane due to resistance, and that since the resistance increases with how fast the wheels spin, and that you had the ability to turn up the speed of the conveyer to a point that the resistance caused enough counter force to overcome the forward force of the plane's engine, then the conveyer would stop the plane from taking off. The technical requirements for enacting this method would be insane of course, and if there was an 80 knot headwind it would take off anyway. Old discussion on this forum about this topic here

If anything, it makes it look like a muslim that refused to maintain a religious extremist state finally had his lapses catch up with him, whereas people who adhere to extremist religious views like Bin Laden manage to slip through the hands of their enemies, almost as if they had Devine Will on their side. At least that's how it'll likely look to those religious extremists. That's really the sad part.

temporospatial classifiers is definately a term you don't hear everyday. My best guess is it would be something that classifieds data that is both spatial and temporal in nature - but its hard to find a definition even with google, and the "Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary" wants you to sign up to find out. I am not sure if "Global Workspace" is the best term. Unless my comprehension of the statement already broke down - aren't you trying to say that this occurs within a "confined workspace" more specifically? If you used the term "Global" to convey some nuance of the workplace, then describing that more fully could help. To be clear, you are basically saying that consciousness is a side effect of sensory data being passed between nodes of micro-data-handlers, which either forward on the data or pass back additional data-patterns as an automatic response, resulting in a system that has no conscious nodes but causes a sum consciousness-effect?

I think you'd go in circles if you used the bible to counter her intended parenting guidelines and skirt around the real issue: If I read it right, that is: She wants to raise the daughter you have together according to her interpretation of the bible, and you raise her according to what makes reasonable sense to you. I imagine there have been issues where she's made parenting decisions based on her interpretation of the bible in the past, but perhaps they fit in well enough to your own reasoned views that there was no major conflict. It could become a major issue down the road, should other things come up, and even if you win the day on this one by quoting back other parts of the bible (not likely to happen though) it won't prevent this stuff from coming up in the future. If it were me, I'd try to make my wife understand that the apprehension she feels at the idea of raising a daughter irregardless of the bible, I'd feel equal apprehension about raising a daughter irregardless of my own parental instincts and thought processes. Niether parent will get their way 100%, but if you discuss it and both understand its not just one own's instincts that feel threatened but both parents, that some common ground can be found. The most important thing I hear in what you are saying, is that she needs to understand that she can't say "God is on my side and we out-vote your decision 2 to 1" and have that pass automatically. At the same time, she needs to know you do respect her religious convictions and how important they are to her, so she knows you won't disregard such a conviction simply because you have another idea of how to do things.

For each part "point," South Park likes to throw in at least one or two points worth of "shock bashing" when it comes to celebrity figures. He did get off better than Tom Cruise, the Pope, Paris Hilton and Sally Struthers to name a few. They make decent points at times but its clear they enjoy finding ways to go over the top in debasing portrayals. As for the point of the Dawkins episode, its an understandable point of view that evangelical athiesm is as dangerous and liable to lead to violent contention as evangelical religions. And at least he wasn't technically "buggering a transvestite" since "she" was technically post-op. I agree it was a good response on his part though.

The way I think of this is you need to break down two different concepts: Instance, and Pattern You copy a song and its the same song, because we identify the pattern as the identifier for songs. If you copy or even transfer a song, while it may be the same song, it is definately a different instance - it exists in a different place in memory. When we talk about people - what are we? Maybe we are just the Pattern and consciousness is all illusion, or maybe we are the Instance and every instance has a unique "observer" phenomenon we call consciousness. In that way, both sides of this discussion are right - you can teleport/transfer/replicate a pattern. You can't teleport/transfer/replicate an instance. Those statements are both true. Where we are differing I think, is on whether we should define a "person" as an instance or a pattern, and that is very much in the realm of philosophy and esoteric debates about consciousness. My personal beliefs on that line are one of two possibilities: A) Consciousness is an illusion and therefore, any two Instances of a person are effectively as interchangable as any two songs in terms of their relevance . * They are still different instances of course, written in different atoms instead of different bits of memory. B) Whatever consciousness is tied to, even if it is as short lived as the life cycle of the cells in our bodies, or until we go to sleep or the whole length of our lives, is tied intransferrably to the instance and not the pattern, and if you teleport you die and a clone is created. No one would know - not even your clone - but you would die.

Actually what he did was devise the alternating current motor, until which time only DC motors existed. He also did extensive work in power transmission with AC generators and lines, including the project to utilize niagra falls to power New York. He was a brilliant conceptualist but too often wrote off mechanical obstacles as trivial. In many ways he was right - the Tesla Turbine was a great idea that gets used today, but Tesla didn't have the materials to build the machine without the metals warping with use and making it ineffective.

Its not weight so much as that liquid is denser - more mass in less space, but that should also mean more explosive power per cubic inch. I don't know much about solid chemical reactions vs liquid ones such as gunpowder's potency vs something like jet fuel or hydrogen/oxygen etc, but for some reason I suspect liquids would be more effecient. I am curious if anyone has the facts on this factor. The main advantages that I would see is a) faster chamber reloading as no casing needs to be ejected b) dial power up or down depending on need c) liquid feed to chamber allows for easy fast injection systems, leaving only the more streamlined caseless projectile to require being fed by belt d) smaller lighter munition belts as the explosive is not attached, or simply more rounds in less space for storage e) only explosive tip munitions would be dangerous to handle - since all normal rounds would be just metal. f) on platforms such as nuclear destroyers and carriers, hydrogen/oxygen could be produced from sea water (if that is a decent fuel - but it works for NASA) on-ship and not require restocking other than just munitions...which would take up a lot less space. Whether in a turret platform or made really compact for field use, I would not suggest it as a standard replacement, but a more high end weapon for specific needs, such as very high caliber at very high rates of fire. It would probably cost more but if it filled a role better than other weapons...we already try to offset our casualties by spending more on technology and on the whole it seems to be a pretty good policy. Edit: Btw, side idea for the large hand-held version: secondary chamber ahead of the main one that provides counter-thrust near the end of the barrel, fanned out at 45 degrees and tilted slightly up - basically to neutralize both recoil and barrel pitch. Would that be an effective way to counter those effects?

If I look at the rest of the white on my screen for a while and look at it...I see black. If I stare at the rectangle for a short time, I do see very dark diagonal stripes against black. I have a CRT screen.

Just on the topic of Iraq and Vietnam: I am pretty sure the weapons that insurgents use are smuggled or stolen military weapons - not Ma and Pa Iraqi polishing up the AK-47 they kept under their pillow during Saddam's reign. I don't know the stats on "citizen weaponry" when it comes to Vietnam, but I am pretty sure the vets I talk to are correct when they talk about lots of supplies getting in enemy lines. Its not fair to call those scenarios "successful armed citizenry" scenarios. Secondarily, if the US government ever hit a point where people would raise arms against it, you have to expect there would be some claim to legitimacy...and that some portion (probably substantial) would support it. Military desertion would probably be a larger deterent than an armed citizenry - how many people in the US armed forces are going to sustain a war against their own parents and neighbors? They aren't robots afterall. If the military did side with a totalitarian US state, then chances are so would a large number of the citizens - if for no other reason than the desire to "restore balance" in a manner that did not expose our borders and give our enemies the opportunities that a civil war scale rebellion would. Cities and towns that rebelled would be cut off from trade and starved out with blockades...half the people with guns would be looking to hunt down the "trouble makers" so that they could get their livihoods back. I honestly don't think that an armed polution has much to do with keeping the government in check - it is useful against an invading army...just not in a civil rebellion. If anything the idea does more damage than good because it leads to the false idealistic concept that the government will stay in check out of fear of the citizens...when the true power to keep a government in check lies in the ability to mass strike (union style not militarily) and use the tools at our disposal (such as voting) to maintain balance. PS: I actually support the ability to own firearms, I just don't think it is relevant to keeping the government in check.