Eliminate all waste? In this economic paradigm which sole purpose is to encourage waste [money-goods-money-goods, as fast as we can because we take a slice at every transaction right?]?
I think you worry too soon. It's like worrying that the Sun will go out one day...
Just tried it - indeed no blockade [UPC customer]. Not that it was difficult to circumvent it...
What an amazing day - first at work great results after years of struggle [you know how it is in R&D], now this. Today is a good day for democracy
Fancy! I am still playing extremely heavily modded Oblivion. I don't think Skyrim will run smoothly on my PC anyway. Also - I am hesitant to play "coded for console, rushed for PC" kind of thing. I mean Oblivion is unplayable on PC without modding; after modding it's one of the best games ever. I lesson to us all, perhaps?
Also - golden oldies like Alpha centauri, Rome total war [extremely heavily modded], Painkiller [when I feel like shooting something], GTA 3 [use it as a substitute to recreational driving - put my MP3 collection on the radio and just drive/float/fly]. I do have an old console - PS2 and use it to play the one and only game that warrants, in my opinion, purchasing a console - Gran Turismo. My wheel gear is twice as pricy compared to the console...
It changes lives. Literally. It raises awareness.
My decision to come and work in the Netherlands is entirely based on Cosmos. "travelers in time ans space" was the episode - it talks exclusively about the Dutch golden age. Saw it behind the Iron Curtain at an age of 12 or something. When I realized that this is a society where you could say "The world is my country, science is my religion" [quote Christian Huygens] in the times when Galileo was prosecuted in South Europe and threaten with death I though "this is it, I'm going there".
Of course, this famous Dutch spirit has been under attack recently as "non-profitable" - exactly the same decline in rational thought that we see much more pronounced in the US. So the Dutch also need new Cosmos, to remind them that it is because of that spirit they had the golden age. The moment they loose it, they've lost everything, since this country has nothing else [no resources, nor territory].
Health considerations and efficiency. At the end everyone wins if the workers are treated well - the company, the worker and society as a whole. There is nothing "left", "right" or anything remotely political in this. It's solid, scientific facts. And you know the thing about science, right - it works!
Where I work we are obliged to take minimum 15 days per year. That's working days, mind you, in essence it's 3 calendar weeks. My total vacation days are 28 working days [5 calendar weeks and a bit] + the option to buy 5 extra days. I always do it. Money is nothing compared to spare time...substituting 1 tablet per year for 1 full week rest - that's cheap!
Oh, and in case you are wondering - I work in a fully [high-tech] private company, shareholders and all, and we are bloody good in what we do.
In the larger picture - when the assholes say these worker protections are not profitable what they mean is that it's not profitable for THEM. But if you look over the whole society you will see the [enormous] profit everywhere. When the assholes get their way, they [as an example] force people to poverty and sub-standard lifestyles which results in increased health costs and increased crime rates but those are not paid by THEM, so society covers for their profits. Get it? This is going on in Europe [the assholes pushing hard against science and reason for personal profit] at the moment and if we are so stupid to succumb to these [imported] lies our societies will degrade....
Democratic control means state control?
That's a lie, perpetuated by both capitalist and the former "communists". I fail to see where is the state in "the means of production belong to the creators of the wealth".
man, if you wanna be a good troll you gotta read a bit more. Your attempted insult is applicable for the Chinese and Koreans.
Do you hear a lot of silverware crashing noise in the names Myamoto Musashi, Oda Nobunaga, Tkeshi Kitano just to name a few....
Trolls these days....what do they teach them in school?
I've got nothing of this. Nothing. No Facebook, no tweeter, no nothing. Not even a picture of me on the public Internet can be found.
Now, do you think that the contacts from my phone are not pulled hundred times already by everyone and their dog? Do you think that I have no file somewhere based only on my
After the Iron Curtain fell I saw my file. I was 16 years old when the system collapsed and I did have a file. WTF, I was just a youngster in high school! Everyone did have a file apparently. You want to tell me that today it is any different? If anything it is easier to realize and the paranoia of the western powers is just as large as the one of the communists with the added "bonus" that now both the government and the businesses are fucking us...
Slightly tangential, but your post would be just as correct if you replace "manager" with "politician". Career politicians are the death of our society.
On topic - I am a lucky bastard - at my work all the managers are nerds who either founded the company or arose from the file and rank. It's not that they don't make mistakes but 1. they know the work and 2. being nerds you can have a logical discussion based on facts with them.
Terry Pratchett is on our side too. When his hero-con master Moist looks for a printing company for his stamps it says [approximately] "Moist liked companies where you can go inside and actually speak with the person whose name is above the door. It means it's probably not run by crooks".
Sorry, I disagree on your last point. I am not boycotting
I get too many mod points. When spending the last one if I just reload
However, the modding itself became much more "group think". Sarcasm is not detected as such. Political correctness [auto censorship] is on the rise. Obvious humorous posts are modded troll.
Saner? No way, just the opposite. Unless you call "sane" the official party line [group think, pol. correctness, ect.]
If I have to put my tinfoil hat I'd say that
I have always thought that freedom of speech is OK as long as you don't matter. If you do, one way or another you will be stopped...I know it sounds batshit crazy but can anyone give me an alternative reason? Why do the owners of the site do this? Obviously they try to replace the community with another one. Obviously the new community is moving towards the middle of the distribution and becoming increasingly mainstream. Why?
I have seen this before, more than once. Vibrant forums are deliberately destroyed and are now just another site full with idiots and bigots. Not nearly as big as
I cannot imagine what is at stake in an empire like the US and the lengths to which the powers to be will [or their deluded supporting sheep] will go to stifle critical thought or any thought. Even such "trivialities" as deleting 2 pages from the English translation of this book [www.amazon.com/Homo-Zapiens-Victor-Pelevin/dp/0142001813/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1392319501&sr=8-2&keywords=victor+pelevin] simply because it talks about Coca-Cola and Pepsi [in an extremely humorous and witty manner] - they pay attention even to that!!!!! How many people will read that book anyway [100 times less than the number of
It does not have to be directed by Obama, it does not have to be orchestrated by some secret cabal or 3 letter organization. It is just the Zeitgeist and we are all somehow part of the conspiracy - some of us doing big evils daily, some doing little evils daily that amount to big ones, some conforming to the inhuman socioeconomic system and deluded human mythology [in an insane world the sane are labeled crazy and who wants to be labeled like that] and adding small evils too, some of us through indifference or bigotry. We are all guilty. The system snowballs on the shoulders of the conforming, the scared, the indifferent and it only appears that there is a conspiracy, but there isn't...or there are numerous small ones acting in accord...again it's just the Zeitgeist
Just look at your post for crying out loud. Part of it is off-topic but you are at +4, whereas every negative opinion about Beta is at -1 across the site [even the jokes]. Meditate on this you should...
As much as I would like your argument to be correct I don't think it is. Who needs biology? The banker, the accountant, the politician, the driver, the sport star or the computer geek? No-one.
Yet, some years ago I claimed here, in front t of this audience that biology is the most relevant science for the layman to understand.
What biology is important for , is that it stands against the suicidal mythology of Homo Sapiens expressed succinctly by the statement "The Earth was build for/belongs to man and man's destiny is to rule it" [notice that this applies to religious or non-religious people equally]
Biology teaches us what is our real position in the community of life. It teaches us the most important survival lessons. If we disregard those lessons we will go extinct. The dangers for humanity coming from "physics" are few and far between [meteor strike, super nova, black holes ect]. The dangers rooted in biology are much more immediate and much more likely to happen.
So although I find biology to be absolutely essential for the survival of humanity we can still go along without it pretending we are living in a dream untul we wake up in the nightmare. Not gonna be the first time either, but the stakes are very high now...
Phew, that's a tough one!
Here are some thoughts on the matter.
If you point to stars with a laser [one of the advertized uses of those devices and the only use I would care about if I had one] it might be a tad difficult not to hit a plane by accident from time to time [move your arm by an inch and you cover many miles up there]. Also, the amount of planes these days is ridiculous. Maybe we should accept this minor evil and equip the planes with some filters or something. I don't know, maybe that would be too impractical or pricey. Tough.
Another thought - this ridiculous increase as the article calls it, is maybe partially due to the fact that they are looking for it. Like doctors that define some new condition and suddenly almost every one on the street has it!
On the other hand I fully admit that there are [way too] many morons out there. Just the other day a kid was shining a laser on me while I was cycling in Amsterdam. I saw him from afar and was prepared but so many people would not be.
Sometimes, it's about the right approach indeed
A few winters back it was popular in the Netherlands among the youngsters to throw snowballs on cars, buses ect. and cyclists. I think on few occasions some citizens lost their nerves and I think a Russian guy once did something pretty harsh but I don't remember what it was. Anyway, I am coming home with some food from the restaurant, it's very slippery and I barely manage to stay on the bicycle. A group of 4-5 teens hits me with snowballs. I stop, they prepare to run but I told them I just want to talk.
So I tried to explain that in such conditions one hit like this and some elderly chap but also anyone else can fall and badly injure themselves [I've dislocated a shoulder falling from a bicycle and that was the least fun I had in my life so far in terms of pain - it was horrible!]. At the beginning they were listening [or pretending] but once they realized I was not threatening in any way [big mistake] they became arrogant and eventually one of them asked me with a kind of a black American accent, imitating some gangsta persona I guess "So, bro, where are you coming from" [we spoke in English]. I was pissed by their arrogance and foolishness and saw an opportunity. I said with carefully nonchalant tone "Oh, I am just coming from Chechnya; I am a Russian soldier and just finished my service there. In the special forces." Utter silence! Their expressions - priceless! I could almost hear the deflation of their egos. That was a few days after that accident I mentioned above and I do have Slavonic features and can speak Russian if called on my bluff. I hope that at least for a few days they were less idiotic.
In this case it was the parents and the police that were too soft on those idiots. But I don't blame the police. They catch them, report their behavior to the parents and tell them not to do it. We cannot and should not ask anything more from them because on the other hand we know what happens when the police gets to care for your children, don't we?
Or mod points. I cannot see if I have some, how many ect.
Sorry but I tried it and found it unworkable in 10 minutes. If it takes longer than that to find the functionality they are doing it wrong...
I cannot help but feel somewhat satisfied about this news. As a smoker, I have no issue with the reasonable demands of non-smokers [I hated smoking on the working place or in trains even though I smoke, for instance].
But the hysterical propaganda that still rages on, the ever increasing "financial incentives" to quit [ever higher taxes and license fees - do you notice they always do it to things we are "addicted" too , like energy, housing, food, drinks...treats to increase medical premiums....] has left me bitterly disappointed by the gullibility of the human race and its pettiness. The lies about secondary smoking, the "cost" of smokers to society [all damn lies, but let's not digress] all these hatred [remember, it made enough impression so that Rockstar to include in GTA 4 an "interview" on the chat radio with hysterical mom that was advocating shooting smokers on site] - I felt and still feel very upset...
And all the time when having discussions with those people I was saying "Beware, next they'd come after you - for your beer, for your food, for your car, for your sex life, for your opinions [if they make difference - freedom of speech applies as long as the speech has no detectable political impact]"
Enjoy now, idiots!
No, I disagree. Best comment on the subject ever was done by my better half. Picture : we are eating a breakfast and BBC World is on the TV. Some man in the studio was just talking about Russian oligarchs and Putin and bla bla and in the end with pathetic aplomb he says "In short: Russia is a Mafia state"!
My wife looks up briefly and says "Of course it is a Mafia state. So is the West only here it is legal, so they don't call it Mafia".
'nuf said..
Waste not, get your budget cut next year.
