Um, I think the point is, some people actively choose activities which are either inherently socially exclusionary or exist within a subculture that, while still suffers under its own rules of social exclusion, doesn't suffer under the social exclusion rules pushed and indoctrinated into more mainstream sources by Authoritarians. In fact, you're helping push that propaganda yourself arguing about "healthy relationships as adults". It just doesn't seem to occur to you that some people simply prefer video games as a major component of their life and don't have the same desire to propagate themself that you seem to consider normal. Well, it might not be the average or median behavior, but it might well be "healthy" in the sense that (a) the person lives a long, happy life and (b) their interactions with other people aren't particularly negative or harmful in either direction. I mean, unless you think that people must accept other people's advances in relationships and to do otherwise is particularly negative or harmful, I really don't know what any of what you said really makes any sense.

So, you know, could you actually lay out some more objective standards that don't seem to appeals to the very Authority the GP was referring to?

If you look at Ron Paul's plan to cut 990 billion dollars, that's essentially what he does. ... while the last third comes from merging departments together for greater efficiency.

So, Ron Paul thinks he can save $330 billion simply by merging departments for greater efficiency? Yeah, the only way I can see that working is if that translates into firing a lt of federal government employees. Even presuming that'd actually work, what sort of system do you think will be left? It sounds the same sort of "greater efficiency" you see when companies merger for greater "synergy", the CEO fires 30%-60% of employees, and then the company becomes a hollow shell of what it once was as the staff that are left are entirely incapable of expanding into the expected new roles--as that's outside accepted budge considerations--while being so severely understaffed to even perform anything but the most basic of expected tasks, and even then with ever growing queues and constant delays.

In short, it's a recipe to "kill the beast". Now, if you're one of the people who already think the government is a beast, that's a good thing. If you're on the fence, this will make you think of it as a beast--as now you're paying effectively for a crippled system which fails to deliver yet still costs a lot of money. And those on the opposite side will see it for what it is, either an ill-conceived plan by a person who thinks they know better and can selectively trim the government like it were a bonsai tree or an intentional attack that looks good on paper for a few years but by the time the shit hits the fan they'll be out of the system and someone else will be left to pick up the pieces.

So yea, Ron Paul is crazy. Increasing efficiency is great. But it's insane to think you can have the sort of efficiency gains proposed without some serious chopping of functionality. And if that's the plan all along, then it's just a grand lie, promising to have our cake and eat it too. I mean, as much as--a great example, I think--we spend on Medicare/Medicaid (covering the old and poor)--with private insurance being equivalent money spent for everyone else covered--and the whole point that it per capita is equivalent to a lot of socialist healthcare systems (covering everyone); yet, I think that even optimistically, if the US were to create a universal health care system that merged Medicare/Medicaid into it, it'd take a minimal of decades before the per capita figures for the new universal health care system were remotely in line with other countries And given Ron Paul can't be in office that long and there's not enough support for a long-term transition...

True, but then there are things that are organic and food and things that are organic and not food--either be indigestible or outright poison. Meanwhile, most said nano organic things are mostly contained until they enter the digestive track--something which above nano-particles are unlikely to be--and aren't inhale-able/injected--there's very few things you can direct inject--, and the body can usually safely broken down in the digestive track those organic nano-particles or they can be contained and expelled by the body before entering the blood stream--a by-product of billions of years of digestive and defensive evolution to extant, potentially lethal organic or inorganic nanoparticles. But, like I was saying, that's still far from foolproof and there's still lots of stuff that can kill us.

So, yea, I understand your pedantic point, but I'm pretty sure the discussion is on man-made nanoparticles and cutting out "man-made" is just shorthand. Meanwhile, I'm not a supporter of the idea of halting the use of man-made nanoparticles until long-term medical studies are done. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do those studies as man-made nanoparticles used, to see if they really are a threat. It's the same with just about anything radically new and innovative, really, because there's a lot of room for not only positive outcomes but pretty extensive side-effects. I mean, I don't think it likely that all the major conceived designs for man-made nanoparticles (ie, the expected foundation and components) have an inherently Achilles heel of being unsafe, but then who's to say there won't be a man-made nanoparticle version of DDT or asbestos and the component responsible is present in a large percentage of man-made nanoparticles? Such would likely mean simply reworking those man-made nanoparticles to overcome the side-effects. Still, the damage would be done. :/ But, that's just a sad truth of life, with hindsight and everything. I mean, to know if progress is harmful or not, you have to progress first. :)

Off-hand, I'd guess it'd have to do with it being generally true that the act of invading another person's privacy has nothing to do with their sexual orientation or specific sexual activities. And if one mentions their specific orientation or activities, it would seem that that statement of generally has been violated and the person in question is speaking in specific intent upon those actions, either in defense of them or against them. The only other general reason I can readily think to violate that rule has to do with trying to paint an objective picture--as in a story, police bulletin, etc--which feels compelled to mention both the common and the uncommon for an audience who may have their own bias upon what words mean and for which the author feels it necessary to be explicit to make clear what transpired. After all, if a picture is worth a thousand words and most stories aren't a thousand words, at some level the author who wishes to paint a picture has to leave out a lot or decide to put only a little bit end. What truth they choose to include says something about the author.

Windows 2000 was part of the NT line and intended/marketed for business use.

Yet Windows 2000 supported DirectX, Power Users, and just about everything you'd want for a consumer desktop line.

XP unified the consumer line with the NT line for both professional and consumer desktop use.

Figuratively, perhaps. Marketing and MS's own development process wise, sure. But what functionality did XP have that make it a "consumer desktop"? A few tweaks like a "Welcome" screen, making everyone Admin by default in the Home version (which is only mildly different than the Win2k Pro line that made everyone a Power User by default), and a new UI (as since NT4, the NT and 9x line shared the same UI) designed to make the NT line look more kiddy-like to not scare people from the more "professional" NT line?

Seriously, though, if you can think of a few features XP has over 2k that made it more the consumer desktop, I'd like to hear it. The only thing I can think of possible is better driver support. But the truth is, since 98SE, there was a unified driver model as well between NT and 9x lines and the vast majority of hardware I saw, at least, used the new model and worked in 2000 just as well as 98SE/ME. That people thought of it as the new consumer line and marketed/developed software to be XP exclusive... But, rarely before then was software before 9x exclusive.

Your second reason is the REAL 800lb elephant in the room. If your high-powered graphics card can't keep up with the inefficiently-coded Aero, there is absolutely no chance that Windows-on-ARM (I forget what they're calling it) will be able to execute Aero;

Odd. I though the 800lb elephant in the room was that all 3D composite engines were a bad idea. I mean, in the best case, it's just as efficient as a 2D composite engine where unscaled, 100% opaque 3D textures replace 2D windows each of which may contain a 3D rendered scene. In the worst case, it's a massive collection of scaled, partially transparent 2D windows distorted in all manner of fashion each of which may contain a 3D rendered scene all vying for the limited memory available which appears quite otherwise if one presumes mostly exclusive access. So, it can quickly degenerate to turtles-all-the-way-down 3D effects which, if anything, is encouraged by the idea that 3D is no longer pushed exclusively towards a single application. And quite honestly, that's precisely where most, if not all, the optimization and focus has been with 3D hardware. I mean, consider the spinning video cube of BeOS back in the 90s and compare that with the idea of a spinning 3d cube showing multiple games. Hell, consider all the serious security concerns with 3D hardware, not just in their heavily closed nature (exclusion being the comparatively dismally performing Intel hardware) and the real decided lack of security compartmentalization. It's one reason why VRML never took off and Google's 3D efforts are seemingly doomed to fail, as no one in their right mind would trust the 3D hardware itself to do the job and meanwhile doing it in software is so very crippling to most expected uses (including gaming).

Besides, I imagine Aero is about as efficiently-coded as can be imagined. But once you start to acknowledge how much 3D hardware puts some work in the software driver and inherently that translates into an extra bit of redirection every time that function is called upon, it quickly can translate that lower end hardware has degenerative behavior at seemingly random times. The only way to compensate for this is to write a lot of functionality in software and to pre-test for those conditions on various hardware to compensate, but that invariably

so MS is simply deprecating it, and hiding the fact that it's a dog, by saying "Look at our fresh new look!"

Granted to that. Still, I imagine it has more to do with the idea of "a fresh new look" inherently. I mean, there might be 101 ways to do glossy 3D. But, if you want to see something as radically new, better, you want to make it look radically different, even if it's fundamentally the same underneath. I mean, consider the relatively small difference between Windows 2000 and XP yet the rather huge shift of support behind XP. I'd say that had a lot to do with XP literally looking different. Now, whether flat is some sort of way to move people towards a new platform, I have no idea. I mean, it's been done plenty of times before (buttons/icons keep seeming to switch from some version of flat to 3D and back again). And certainly there's a psychological effect that "a simpler look must be faster", even if it's literally just changing the graphic tiles used. But as many other people have stated, the seeming MS (Ubuntu and others are on the same bandwagon) idea of unifying the look/feel/interface between tablets and desktops is probably just a bad idea. I mean, while I might have the psychological need for my underpowered (relatively to a desktop) tablet to be simple, fast, etc, I rather think the whole reasons are overpowered (relatively to general daily needs) desktops are around today is precisely my need for the opposite need for a inflated eyecandy, blazing fast, etc interface. Slapping the same face on both just means my tablet appears too slow (as for all the simple design, the desktop even with eyecandy is likely to be actually faster) and my desktop too simple (as touch and keyboard/mouse are radically different interfaces and conflating the two can be quickly frustrating for getting work done).

Overall, I'd say any sort of unified look is a wash, period. Perhaps, even, it's one reason why Linux has not been nearly the success its supporters have believed it has deserved, as associating the interface used on a Linux toaster vs a Linux high-end desktop is confusing. To that end, it's interesting to know that some people think Android is some version of Windows because they so entirely don't understand that it's Linux based.

Well, let's see... According to Wikipedia, at least, the US spends ~35% of GDP on social programs in the US, of which 21% is through government, 10% is through charitable giving, and 4% is through private organizations. In comparison, in France and Sweden it's 30% to 35% of GDP of which a larger majority is through government. To me that indicates two things: that there seems to be some sort of innate threshold of just how much people are willing to spend on social programs as a nation and that in the US it's structured that a lot more of that spending is done through individual choice. Still, if suddenly the government were to simply stop collecting taxes and spending them for social programs, I don't presume that either more people would start contributing to charity nor those already contributing would be able to fill in that 21% gap--if everyone has a $5,000 smaller tax burden yet only 50% of people contribute to charity, that implies each person already contributing would have to contribute that $5,000 currently going to taxes plus an additional $5,000 to make up the difference.

Of course, it could be argued that the money being spent is really unnecessary and wasteful, yet by all accounts the French system actually provides better health care and other services for everyone and, again, its social program spending is about the same percentage of GDP as the US. Certainly, I don't think the government has anything close to 50% overhead on most programs and simply denying a lot of people benefits because they are "unworthy" is more an excuse for a lack of funds than to accept that private charity alone isn't sustainable. But, then, it's quite possible the above figures are off as I don't know if they include things like private healthy insurance, private pensions, etc which may or may not be necessary to provide some sort of parity to the French (or other similar) systems to make a useful comparison.

What is most significant is that poor/needy people don't starve/freeze/whatever to death--certainly, not unless they go out of their way to do so. Using the government as a compulsory system clearly works and functions that "what [I] do with my money *is* [significant] to [me]", but it's also significant to me what you do with your money since there's no way I can provide welfare/healthcare/social security alone. I mean, if it were truly the case that charity was enough, then certainly it should be true that the US's social program spending would be higher, if nothing else to guarantee health care for everyone--and not just the emergency care mandated by government on hospitals. Obviously that point breaks down because the people who do contribute are too poor to contribute more--which speaks volumes about what the rich aren't doing with their money-- and/or people are oblivious to the need to contribute more--which speaks volumes about the way the situation in the US has been so twisted that politicians routinely speak as if the US health care system was the best in the world, ignoring how pragmatically its not because there's not enough spending for those in need, which tends to support the idea that charity is more a token gesture by people than a concerted effort by people to stay informed and resolve actual problems.

But, I guess it's easier to focus on who and how the money is collected than on, you know, taking to task politicians and charities to deliver results upon their mandate on the money they already have and likely will have. That'd seem to be a much bigger issue.

I'm pretty sure that's not the same thing. Apple is saying that only they have the right to build machines that can run their software, not that you can't write/sell software to run on their machines.

1. 1. Write software that runs on Apple hardware.
2. 2. Get an injunction to stop Apple from building Apple hardware as "only [I] have the right to build machines that can run [my] software."
3. 3.. Profit!

Feel free to extend the analogy by making that software wildly popular and pre-installed by virtually all retail stores. You know, totally logical.

Well, I guess the USA shouldn't have laws about murder, rape, theft, or parking hours. Because, you know, the biggest violaters will ignore whatever's being done, and the smaller violaters will simply close shop and violate even more in China. Oh, right, that's not how the world works. *Some* big violaters will ignore whatever's being done, but most will be compelled to comply, dare they be hounded by the government, journalists, etc; otherwise, you'd see a lot more flagrant violation of tons of regulations, laws, etc, above and beyond the ones that are usually about cutting corners until one gets caught. And *some* small violaters will simply close shop and violate even more in China, but most will be compelled to comply because the cost of moving the business and being away from their current local target market and/or shifting to a new local market that may already be saturated is too much of a cost and/or too much of a risk; otherwise, most would have probably left already for China as you seem to be painting it as some sort of bastion of economic freedom, lack of regulation, and prosperity, which it clearly isn't; I mean, you more or less wrote that the USA is just like China. :)

Seriously, if you believe that China and India are trying to get the US to "come to the table" on this, you're swallowing a ridiculous narrative, again put forth typically by AGW proponents who see the US as the villain here, ...

You say that as if the US isn't the villain here? For how many decades was the US the number one CO2 emitter, both per-capita and total per country?

instead of seeing things as they really are — namely, things like the fact that China is set to emit 50% more greenhouse gases than the US by 2015 [scientificamerican.com].

So...if China were set to use 50% more whale blubber than the US by 2015...we should really make sure to keep using whale blubber for the sake of no longer being number one whale blubber user in total (although still higher per-capita)?

Note: It doesn't matter that China has more people in the context of the climate change argument! If you identify some level x of greenhouse emissions as being a "bad" thing, then China emitting far more than the US is an extremely bad thing in terms of the effects that it would cause.

No doubt. That sort of makes it even more critical that the US, Europe, etc cut their greenhouse emissions if China and/or India can't or won't reduce their own emissions.

You can argue that the US may be in a position to make the most impact, but with China set to significantly outpace the US in emissions and oil consumption, I think you need to take a look at what value the US taking a disproportionate hit in emissions control

Well, let's see. The US in 2008 produced ~18% of CO2 emissions (~5.4 mmt) and China produced ~23% (~7.0 mmt)--ie, ~12.4 mmt total. If the US were to cut emissions in half alone and China were to go up to 150% of the US's 2008 figure, then China would release ~8.1 mmt and the US would release ~2.7 mmt which totals ~10.8 mmt. Ie, the total would be less than the 2008 figures. If one instead presumes that China were to go up to 150% of it's own 2008 figure, then it'd be ~10.5 mmt for China and again ~2.7 for the US, the total would be ~13.2 mmt. This figure would obviously be greater than 2008, but it'd still be better than ~15.9 mmt (assuming that the US were to simply not grow in CO2 emission production).

— and the dramatic impact that would have on our economy —

Well, now we are to the meat of the situation, I think. Your concern is the economy, not the environment*.

would actually do for climate change that would be positive.

The only "positive" change would be to either stop burning fossil fuels entirely or to start sequestering CO2 in a greater amount than the amount released. To make an analogy, it's like we are on a train headed towards a brick wall. We're still having the discussion of whether the brick wall is really there and people, like you, seem so very adamant about even *slowing down* because one of the other engines on the train may decide to speed up on its own.

Put it another way: do you think that the evidence supports that China (or India, or any other developing economies) would be a better steward of this responsibility?

Well, let's see... Relatively few countries are involved in the Kyoto Protocols (total GHG emissions covered under member countries is only ~20%). The Protocols themselves do nothing to have net zero effect on CO2 emissions but instead aim to merely cap CO2 emissions (again, equivalent to at best slowing down the train wreck, but doing nothing to actually stopping it happening). And few countries in the Kyoto Protocol, AFAIK, are actually even meeting their targets for capping CO2 (and other GHG) emissions. So, overall, I'd say it's been generally a clusterfuck when it comes to developed countries and their commitment to climate change. By that standard, by happenstance alone, China and India may do better.

*There's a specific reason I brought up whale blubber earlier. Today, it's plainly obvious to most that whale blubber is a dead end as a fuel source. Yet, relatively not long ago, it was the primary fuel for a lot of people towards their energy needs. Yet, it's precisely because of how limited it was that other fuels (coal, water wheels, etc) were often used instead. Oil, being transformable to its main versatile forms and being in much more ready abundance (at least in the sense, one can tap more of it on a yearly basis as there were millions of years to deposit it, unlike whale blubber which has a stock in the span of the lifetimes of a few species), heavily supplanted a lot of the needs of oil in whale blubber while creating whole industries directly (petrochemicals) and indirectly (more energy has meant much more uses for that energy which is one reason why the US releases so much CO2 per capita, allowing for a seemingly unmatched quality of life in that regard).

Yet, oil (like coal) has the obvious flaws: it still is of clearly limited availability at the quantities desired, it is geographically isolated which causes geopolitical instability, and even in the best of circumstances it's a noxious pollutant when burnt (for which modern technology has repeatedly striven to mitigate) and at worse is a prime agent of climate change (sequestering is, btw, I think incredibly unrealistic at the source of combustion in many cases and probably unrealistic indirectly as it's too easy to cheat and overlend carbon credits). Further, there's the very real fact that even in the relatively short term, oil (and coal) are insufficient for the energy needs of the planet. So, while you seem to bickering about the fact that China is by 2015 going to be releasing ~50% more CO2 than what the US does now, you seem to be ignoring that that means China will being burning ~50% more fossil fuels than what the US does now. And while certainly a lot of that is going to come from China's own coal deposits, a lot of it also is going to come from sources like Canada as oil from their tar sands.

This is, btw, a prime reason why gas prices are going up. Even with the potentially huge new production potential from all the new sources of oil from tar sands, shale, etc, it's not enough reasonably to meet the needs of the world and that is reflected in higher prices: the best analogy is, humans are drinking up oil through really expensive straws (oil wells, tar sand processors, etc) and even with a rapid ability to make more straws, place them at new deposits, and quickly make distribution channels available (all of which, is actually slow--in the it takes around perhaps a decade before all that becomes well established), it's not like new large deposits are being discovered all the time.

The truth is, oil is a dead end. Rising prices should be an indicator to switch now. But, switch to what? Fusion, perhaps. Certainly, fusion avoids several (although not all) of the pitfalls of oil. It also offers a relatively inexhaustible energy source. And when it comes to things like standard of living, it's the available of large quantities of "throw away" energy that is a significant indicator of who is "top" economically. Because, otherwise, it doesn't matter a lot, does it? Whether the US is "number one" in GDP or any other indicator isn't as important as its people being fed, and nothing about changing the economy to a non-oil based one (say, an agrarian one) really hinders that. But, if your whole point is to care more about the economy as a standard unto itself, then I'd say you really should consider something a lot less short-sighted than the countries nipping at the US's toes at possible reaching their level of consumption and instead thinking about exactly how the US can set a new standard upon the world. The answer is definitely not one that thinks about CO2 emissions and oil.