Yes there is.

Yes, I have. Jedi mind tricks no longer work on me.

No, they don't.

I see your media is about as accurate about the USA as the US media is about the rest of the world.

You might want to do some personal research, including talking to real people in the areas you intend to visit. Yes, there are some areas in certain cities which are not safe, regardless of the presence of guns. A gang can beat you to death in any country, without using any guns. (though a friend carrying might be able to save you...)

But living in Seattle, I'm not concerned about guns. Violence, in certain areas after dark. Guns are not necessary for violence. People have been finding ways to kill and maim each other since the the first jawbone of an ass. If I was really worried I would pack a gun and keep the odds more even, but it's a lot better idea to just avoid conflict entirely.

What removing guns from the responsible adult does is merely to make the balance of power completely in favor of the government.

Hard to argue with our police tending toward the trigger happy, though they have some justification in that they may well be facing a real firearm.

I notice that even when shooting someone for carrying a table leg in a plastic bag the UK officers get off free. That "our police can do no wrong" attitude seems the same the world over...

On the other hand, the total number of shooting deaths from police in the US are something like one per day, in a country of over 300 million. (http://social.jrank.org/pages/1333/Law-Enforcement-Police-Shootings.html) It seems quite likely to me that one person out of more than 300 million might actually need to have deadly force used on them, and that the officers are truly facing imminent death themselves. (though I don't for a second believe that is always the case, or that police don't abuse their power, as they tend to do all over the world)

With our police it is quite likely that it is not a table leg, but a real shotgun... That might seem to argue for just getting rid of guns altogether, but we don't trust unlimited power in the hands of the few. History shows that has gone wrong many, many times.

A de-armed populace is a vulnerable populace, to a great many possible dangers, both from within and from without. You might be getting away with it now, but time will tell... The world may not always be as it is today, and someday you might wish a sizable portion of your populace could quickly get to firearms, and have the life long training in how to use them.

While I tend to agree that some people are seemingly incapable of creative thought, I also have had the "opportunity" to have some brain-dead jobs early in my life, and those jobs caused my brain to wither. I swear I lost 30 IQ points by being in brain-dead jobs.

I've talked to other people who have experienced the same thing. The brain is like a muscle, use it or it wastes away and gets flabby. But start exercising it again, even if "forced labor" and it gets back and in shape and become stronger and more efficient.

Putting people in jobs supposedly above them might cause them to complain for a while, but they might well start using their minds more. And that is good for everyone, as then they are better able to make intelligent decisions at the polls.

Very well said. Those that scream "conspiracy theorist" seem to miss the simple facts about how some (most?) human beings behave when they have a lot of power and get rewarded for a given behavior. Even more so in a large organization.

And some people ARE sociopaths! In fact, that may well be the case with high level executives, which set the tone for their companies and make key decisions:

http://willblogforfood.typepad.com/will_blog_for_food/2009/07/are-ceos-sociopaths.html

http://electromagnetichealth.org/quotes-from-experts/

Also, worth carefully reading the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_radiation_and_health

From the Wikipedia article:

So there is SOME kind of an effect, and we don't understand it yet. Those that scoff at any biological effect at all are fools. Wise men don't scoff, they watch carefully and reserve final judgment. Take a close look at quantum physics if you don't think we live in a mysterious universe...

Since there IS some kind of biological effect, and it is not well understood, I would err on the side of caution. I would most especially not want to chance affecting the DNA of a women's eggs (which already exist her whole life) and/or conceiving children in that environment. Maybe the chance of problems is low because the signal "should" be low inside the building, but why take the chance when experts are disagreeing and the trend is toward more caution? (cue the inevitable joke about a real woman there... sigh...)

I've watched "alternative" medicine at close range for about 30 years, as well as main stream medicine. There are some ethically challenged companies/people in the alternative supplement field, and some who are simply deluded by what are essentially religious beliefs and/or a lack of critical thinking skills.

However, that doesn't not automatically mean "alternative" medicine is somehow suspect itself. Many states have full Naturopathic Medicine schools, and licenses. The time required to get a degree is exactly the same as a MD, including clinical internship. Still need to take the same pre-med. Just that the focus of the main training is different. Rather than a focus on crisis medicine, the focus is on keeping people well, and treating chronic disease. Working with the nature of the system, rather than trying to beat it into submission. When their skills are not appropriate, they will refer to a surgeon, etc.

These doctors are lucky to ever make as much money as an engineer. They are not in it for the money. And yes, I know a number of them personally. This is not made up.

Also, the ones I know are quite scientific, use standard medical testing, sending blood and urine samples to the same labs as MDs use. They check the results of the treatment based on both symptoms and further objective tests. They read every study published on the effects of the supplements they use, and have far far more training in how food and other factors affect our health than MDs. There is only so much time during training and one has to focus somewhere...

Despite what the propaganda says, there is an authentic and scientific medical paradigm, which is more suited for many of the chronic diseases affecting our society.

To lump them in with people selling snake oil is not fair, and doesn't help anyone. They are often effective with chronic disease when "conventional" (crisis) medicine fails. The reason the industry is growing is because people are realizing that, as you said, "the body is a horribly complex biochemical system" and the current mainstream medical paradigm simply can't cope. They make a lot of money trying and tell us all great stories. But really, they are in over their head. Micro-managing the body's systems works no better than micromanaging you and I.

But they have a very powerful propaganda machine, and MANY lobbyists to keep the laws on their side. Much of what "everyone knows" about medicine in today's society is simply not backed up with the facts. But all someone has to do it put on a white coat and appear on TV and the masses (often including the otherwise well educated masses) fall for it. Because to find the truth takes some digging, and an understanding of what many humans will do for large amounts of money, so as to even try to do the digging. Unfortunately, many well meaning slashdotters see a couple references to a study and assume the man in the white coat must be telling the full and complete truth.

Funny thing is, if you read the "alternative" journals, you'll also see many references to peer reviewed studies. And some alternative medicine bashing sites, like quackwatch, are extremely selective about the studies they choose, and write very well, thus giving the impression that what they say is beyond reproach and "scientifically proven." Yet, a little digging shows many conflicting studies. And from my own research I have found many studies which are paid for by the drug industry, and have bizzare conclusions given the actual results of the studies. So reading the summary can easily give the wrong impression.

All is not as it appears...

As for the money to buy a congressman...

You quoted $2 Billion in practitioner channel supplements. I happen to have been involved in that market to a degree years ago, and have been a patient purchasing those supplements. You may want to understand that those are high grade Food Supplements. They are not patented drugs, thus the profit on those supplements is limited by the competition among companies who are able to offer the exact same formula.

Point being that they are not high margin like drugs. Also, the numbers are not even close in terms of sales, let alone profits. Let's look at the Big Pharm sales: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_industry#Industry_revenues In 2008, just in the top ten companies, I see about $600 Billlion in revenue. And more than $75 Billion in PROFITs. Given the margins for supplements, I'm guessing their profit is much less than $200 Milllion, total among all the companies. That buys a whole lot fewer lobbyists, senators and congressmen...

The real point is this: Do we, the people, have the right to choose our own health care? I don't give a flying fuck what the FDA or some groups of senators elected from Big Pharma money say about it. It's my body, and I'll do my own research and make my own decisions, thank you very much. It's about freedom.

In spite of the hysteria often raised by those who try to look like they are being objective, but actually funded by Big Pharma, most of what is called "alternative" care is just common sense, and a hell of a lot less dangerous than those drugs. Ever listen to those side effects?! Ever have a family member crippled from those side-effects? Many of us have.

Most of health is simply lifestyle choices. Healthy food, from healthy animals and plants raised the same way they were raised for thousands of years before industrial farming started. Exercise, fresh air, good sleep. But that quality of food is hard to come by.

Since many of us are deficient in essential nutrients our bodies evolved to need, various supplements may be very useful or essential. Yet, these same 'experts' over and over again try to regulate food supplements like drugs, so you have to go to the doctor to get a concentrated food. Seriously, this has happened over and over and over again. Only a whole lot of individual citizens raising a stink has prevented it.

Yes, some claim the latest fad herb will allow you to live forever. And the TV is full of ads for prescription drugs I'd be stupid to take. The difference is that most food supplements, and many herbs, will not do any permanent damage if overdosed. That is not true with most drugs, and many are mixed by physicians with unknown effects.

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=9728&page=27

How many deaths have EVER been attributed to food supplements, or even herbs (which can be dangerous if seriously/stupidly abused)? If there is ever even a couple of deaths you hear about it, and then it is used as an excuse to take away our freedom of choice.

Yet thousands of people die every year from prescription drug errors, and many more are crippled in some way. Again, read or listen to the known and proven side effects from drugs. They actually are not so safe, and the real answer for many health problems is in smart behavior, healthy food (hard to find and relatively expensive), self-awareness, and avoiding well-meaning but dangerous MDs. :)

Obviously, if my body has been damaged in an accident, I want a good surgeon and well equipped hospital. But for most other things, it's the wrong tool for the job...

Other messages have pointed out that grass-fed beef brings a premium price, just as many organic vegetables and fruits do. So it's not entirely either/or when it comes to economics and grass-fed...

The other issue, which someone pointed out as well, is that there is a large difference in the fatty acid profile of the beef. Purely grass-fed beef has a ration similar to fish. (Corn feed makes the worse ratio, as it is almost entirely omega-6 oils.) Omega-6 oils out of balance with Omega-3s are now being clearly shown to create the inflammatory response at the root cause of arthritis, arteriosclerosis, and other common diseases. (at least a part of the issue, sugar being the other...)

So from a human health ethical standpoint, it is an advantage to people to eat grass-fed (and finished) beef. Not saying there it no additional cost, but healthcare costs are on a runaway spiral, and the effects of how we grow our food is rarely discussed.

From a total system perspective, we could well come out way ahead to focus on healthy food (and education). Exactly how to pull that off, especially when elections are financed by Big Pharma, Big Medicine, Big Agro, etc. is another matter altogether...

Still, your approach seems like a start, and I hope your small farm and others like it don't disappear...

I would bet those are shotguns, which inherently don't travel far, and not rifles. I've never known anyone to hunt waterfowl with rifles.

Which 8-bit micro didn't need the crystal oscillator to stabilize first? Well, you can execute instructions, but for instance a serial port baud rate won't be accurate for at least a few milliseconds. Though something like a MSP430 runs off the 32KHz with a PLL, and can start up very quickly indeed.

Still, I agree that if you really want to start quick, you don't load a few hundred K of kernel code...

Intel Atom's are already getting quite down in power consumption, now that they have truly integrated everything in one chip. The additional chip took 3x the power of the processor before. The new N450 is quoted at 5 Watts at 1.6GHz, while a Cortext A8 based OMAP 3530 at 720 MHz at 2 Watts. Both with GPUs.

Also, Intel can push the edge on process technology and thus drive the power down further. All the while, the ARM chips are reaching into the GHz range, and so are using more power. Not that they are equivalent processor architectures, but Intel can push the power down quite a bit yet with the same or better performance.

Intel is late to the mobile market, and they are stuck with the x86/AMD64 instruction set, but there seems to be a niche for them to run Windows and off the shelf apps. Should be interesting...

Perhaps some of this is an outgrowth of a misunderstanding of Agile Development, or at least a miscalculation of the relative costs of investing a little something for the future.

While I'm completely on-board with the Agile Development concepts in general, many developers do seem to use it as an excuse to put zero investment into making the code base understandable to future developers. (including themselves months or years from later)

The large percentage of development being web-based, and moving very fast, probably has something to do with it as well. If the code, and the company, doesn't stay around very long, then perhaps the comments don't matter. But if the company is successful and that code sticks around for a few years and turns into a million lines of code, then that missing contextual information will become a huge problem.

And the problem is there whether management or the original developers recognize it or not.

All that said, really good TDD probably helps quite a bit, where the tests become the documentation. (though I don't think it can entirely replace well-placed comment blocks, by people who can step outside their own headspace once in a while)

Thanks for responding for me. That was perfect, and probably better than I would have done.

The point is not to comment already clear code. The point is be explicit about the context in which that code lives.

Information that is in my head at the moment, but will be gone 3 months later; and someone else new to the code never had at all.

Oh come on, you can't possibly be implying that DHH is self-centered... :)

Ah, you're assuming I'm a typical "intellect as religion" geek. I'm not. Not by a very, very long ways...

My comment wasn't to imply what you thought. It was a response to the idea of resistance through blunting the senses. I didn't try to communicate what you're saying though. I don't try that sort of thing very often here. Non-resistance is one thing. Actively seeking out abuse is something else entirely... :)