Fair points.
I notice that there are massive differences between turn signals between cars. Leds & halogens. Stylish and garish. Round and boxy. High or low. Wide or slim.
The government, we the people, will have to be careful to set the regulations such that innovation is not stifled.
That is all.
As Green Car Reports notes, the legislation would allow for a common set of standards, rather than than a motley crew of approaches attempted by various automakers.
Brilliant. Legislate away the possibilities for innovation before the new market has a chance to solve the problem. Is it only in America that "leaders" push science and math and the entrepreneurial spirit, and then quickly make it illegal to innovate lest anyone gets hurt? sheesh
What this country needs is a good five cent nickel.
PVP Online makes comedy out of the discomfort some people feel in the presence of a potty mouth.
Personally, my belief in free speech is strong enough that I do not care what words a person uses to express ideas. However, there are ramifications for how a person expresses those ideas; similar to how there are consequences for how society reacts to the clothes a person wears.
"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?"
Did George ever getting around to suing Blizzard for including a brightly lit and lightweight sabre in Diablo 2? Just ridiculous if he did not go after those deep pockets. He's had 10 years to sue, so I guess if he has not gotten to it by now it might not happen...
Nobody funded my college degree.
Most students get help and do not even realize it. Many States use money from the tax coffers to make higher education more affordable. Even people who beg, borrow, or steal the money to "pay their own way" through a university in these states are getting help from all tax payers.
Citation: Ohio's Office Of Budget Management Budget Highlights
Making Higher Education More Affordable
State Share of Instruction
To supplement the general operation of the state's 13 four-year universities, 24 regional branch campuses, one free standing medical college, 15 community colleges, and eight technical colleges, H.B. 119 appropriates over $3.5 billion in the fiscal years 2008-2009 biennium for unrestricted operating subsidies through the State Share of Instruction (SSI) line item.....
From Catholics in Crises
Are there any bright spots?
Yes--Africa and Asia. The African church has grown from 55 million in 1978 to 150 million today. "The church has provided, in many cases, the voice that stands on behalf of the voiceless," says the Rev. Emmanuel Katongole, a leader in the Ugandan church. In Asia, church membership increased 80 percent since 1978, while the number of priests rose 74 percent. In fact, Africa and Asia now supply priests to the rest of the world, with about 300 coming to U.S. parishes every year. But the church faces problems in the developing world, too. Evangelical Protestantism is making inroads, and many African priests live openly with wives and children, in defiance of the Vatican's celibacy requirement.
Scanning today's news turns up a lot of good examples for how the code could be simplified.
The five dumbest parts of the U.S. tax code
1) Ethanol credits increase the price of food, and give paper manufacturers more money in credits than they make from selling paper.
2) Exemption for inherited stock-gains.
3) Mortgage-interest deduction encourages people to buy as much house as they can afford, and encourages owning over renting to the detriment of other investments.
4) Exemption on employer-provided health insurance encourages employers to give more health insurance instead of wage increases, and discourages health insurers from competing on price.
5) Municipal-bond-interest exclusion gives more benefit to rich bond owners than it does to the municipalities that issue the bonds.
Congressman Wyden leads effort to simplify tax code
Taxes: There is a Better Way by U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg
The Associated Press Story is a bit more informative than the USA Today blog entry in TFA.
This is the part that boggles me...
Southworth also argued that teaching contraceptive use encourages sexual behavior among children, which equates to sexual assault because minors can't legally have sex in Wisconsin.
The arbitrary line between "minors" and "adults" having sex is strange enough. Any law forbidding consenting adults is completely ridiculous. Saying that two "minors" can't go at it truly boggles because who's going to know, who's going to care, and what punishment could be worse than NOT fulfilling the biological urge with someone else who has that urge?
I wonder if the law also intends that minors can not legally have solo-sex? Craziness...
Having my head 1 meter from a 100+ decibel turbo props for 30 minutes at a time does not sound like a good idea. Crashing in the equivalent of a flying motorcycle (human body moving fast on a structure required to hold a combustion engine) does not sound good for my health either.
This reminds me of the BIG BALL OF MUD theory by Brian Foote and Joseph Yoder at the Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Shantytowns are squalid, sprawling slums. Everyone seems to agree they are a bad idea, but forces conspire to promote their emergence anyway. What is it that they are doing right?
Shantytowns are usually built from common, inexpensive materials and simple tools. Shantytowns can be built using relatively unskilled labor. Even though the labor force is "unskilled" in the customary sense, the construction and maintenance of this sort of housing can be quite labor intensive. There is little specialization. Each housing unit is constructed and maintained primarily by its inhabitants, and each inhabitant must be a jack of all the necessary trades. There is little concern for infrastructure, since infrastructure requires coordination and capital, and specialized resources, equipment, and skills. There is little overall planning or regulation of growth. Shantytowns emerge where there is a need for housing, a surplus of unskilled labor, and a dearth of capital investment. Shantytowns fulfill an immediate, local need for housing by bringing available resources to bear on the problem. Loftier architectural goals are a luxury that has to wait.
All too many of our software systems are, architecturally, little more than shantytowns. Investment in tools and infrastructure is too often inadequate. Tools are usually primitive, and infrastructure such as libraries and frameworks, is under-capitalized. Individual portions of the system grow unchecked, and the lack of infrastructure and architecture allows problems in one part of the system to erode and pollute adjacent portions. Deadlines loom like monsoons, and architectural elegance seems unattainable.
Clicky the linky above to read the whole paper. It is full of useful insights for many disciplines besides computer science.
"Hi, my name is Werner Brandes. My voice is my passport. Verify me."
Sneakers, 1992 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105435/
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." - Bert Lantz
