I have a friend who's a marine and we had a good laugh about the mock fighter jet the Iranians put out last week. I bet I'll have them on the floor when I show them this...
The media portrays Iran as this menacing threat. People in our military however tend to look at them as that kid who kicks sand in everyone's faces. Harmless, but annoying.
Sure, but lets not pretend they are "defining what femininity" is for themselves.
Yes. Let's not let them talk about it. There's a woman here telling you that you're wrong, therefore she must be crazy and thus ignored. Listen asshat, when I say defining it, I didn't say it's easy. I didn't say that it was right. I didn't even comment about the social acceptability of it. What I said was: It's up to me to say what it means. And if I decide it means running around in a miniskirt and pom poms, well... screw you. If I decide it means putting on a burka and hiding my face and body from the world, screw you too. In fact, if I decide it means nothing at all, you guessed it: Screw you.
Your opinion, sir, is simply not relevant. If a woman has the choice, then she is free. It is when we stop having choices that there's a problem, and your attitude, expressed by putting it down to "as a society" to avoid taking responsibility for it, is what causes the capacity to choose to diminish. Women have bodies. They're not shapeless automatons, but beautifully curved, soft, and all of that. And why shouldn't they be allowed to revel in that?
It only becomes a problem when other people's sick notions of what 'normal' should be draws others into the kind of behaviors you describe. And nobody is immune to that, not even you, Mr. I-Ask-Myself-Every-Morning-Who-The-Tiger-Is. We all have to deal with our own body image issues, men, women, human. That's just how it is.
But as long as you have the freedom to choose how you face those circumstances, it's all good. When you start demanding others not have those freedoms because you feel you're "saving them from themselves", well then Sir, you are part of the problem.
Some examples of events: 'human entering restricted zone,' 'movement in the restricted zone,' 'light in the restricted zone.'"
Just tell Homeland security that some occupiers are planning a protest. They'll pay for the install and maintenance of your system. Every now and then, leave a deflated half-assembled tent in the parking lot...
Indeed -- if you invent stepping discs, or the transfer booth, or even an economical and practical flying car, you *will* get recognition.
Yes, you'll be sued into poverty and then watch as some rich bastard takes your beautiful invention and ruins it. Nobody I know who has a creative / inventive nature is doing anything in this country because they know the only recognition they'll get will be from the large companies that own this country and control its laws. They will take everything and leave you with nothing.
Anyone with a good idea is well advised to flee to somewhere the United States' and its notions about intellectual property aren't going to interfere. China is right now (literally) knocking down mountains and building cities at a breakneck pace. Their economy is driven because they copy, then improve, in an iterative process without regard for intellectual property considerations. As a result, many of the world's goods and services now flow out of China. Yes, we may have invented those things, but they took them and made them better. Why can't we do the same? Oh right... Corporations.
There's plenty of talent right here to make that next big thing. And it's gone to ground because of the flying hunter-killers with lawyer bombs on patrol, looking for them. Legal theft. Small wonder innovation's ground to a halt in this country...
Even in jest, can we not continue to perpetuate this as a good idea for tech expos. And people wonder why it's hard to get women interested in IT.
Speaking as a woman in IT, I don't mind. Girls demoing products are not even in the same league as me; They're not going back to work as network admins, programmers, etc. They're there to look good and by extension make the product look good. To me, it's no different than being a cheerleader for a sports team. Would I do it? Probably not. Am I going to judge another woman who does? No. I've met enough aggressive feminists in college that bitch and moan about the objectification of women and get angry when I point out they're just enforcing a different set of values on others. Whether it's a bikini or a burka, the message is the same: You have to conform to others' ideas about your femininity. And that's not cool. If we're a free society, then every woman should feel free to define that for themselves... and if they want to be a cheerleader for Tech Product X, I say, "you go girl." Just don't ask me to do the pom-pom thing... it's not my thing.
Having people who have terrible people skills represent your interests usually ends badly. Just ask the LAPD. Or [hated political group]. If you can't manage that, at least bring scantily-clad women to the party... nobody expects them to answer questions about the device, and as a bonus, you'll get a lot of pictures of it. This isn't rocket science...
This isn't really new art.
Sure it is! The patent says so.
No great trick given there only a dozen or so integers that produce 4 digit results
Don't rain on his story about his math teacher discussing rain, man.
There's a huge difference between "exists solely to facilitate piracy" and "can be used to facilitate piracy".
That distinction is entirely imaginary and is dependent entirely upon the intent of the end user.
You're both idiots. Let me explain by example: A nuclear bomb's purpose is to cause destruction. That doesn't mean it cannot facilitate peace. In the same way, even a tool designed solely to facilitate piracy could be used to reduce or prevent it. For example, if movies and other things now available on pirated websites were made available through an "official" site where you could get the same materials, and same quality, but it came with a time bomb that would cause it to cease being usable after a period of time. The problem with DRM is they put it on things you buy, but if they made it available for free, as a "try before you buy" product with the option to upgrade. It's been proven in case study after case study pirates buy more material outright than those who don't pirate. In other words: Your best customers are pirates.
As far as the line in the sand being dependent on intent, much of copyright law (not all!) falls under the umbrella of strict liability, which means intent doesn't have to be proven. The mens rea, or the "state of mind" of the criminal, plays no part. It is strictly the act itself which is considered. Either you did it, or you didn't. Intent is irrelevant. For example, if murder was a crime of strict liability, even if you shot a gunman who was about to mow down a bus full of children (a heroic act by most people's standards!) you'd be more of a criminal than the gunman -- he only threatened to shoot. You actually did.
This is why strict liability is so damned evil... it was created for situations where intent was unlikely to ever be proved (for example, improper toxic waste disposal... how can you prove any member of the corporation knew it was in violation? It may be impossible due to shared responsibility to identify the perpetuator of the criminal act as opposed to those who sincerely thought it was on the up and up), but expanded to include everything under the sun. It was also supposed to be a relatively lighter sentence, because there was no mens rea considered. That's also gone by the wayside.
So yeah, in short -- you're both wrong. But you both had the right idea.
I'm writing the screenplay now. You want an option on it, then?
No, just have JJ Abrams direct it. It'll be my revenge.
What do you say when an ebook distributor's anti-piracy plan involves going after app developers rather than pirate sites?
"If I were human, I believe my response would be, 'go to hell'. If I were human." -- Spock
Actually, most forms of color blindness is NOT due to a defect in the eye, but in the visual cortex. I learned about this in graphic design for my color theory class. When you look at a color for awhile, and then look at a white surface, the after-image will be a specific color. Whether you're color blind or not... that after-image coloring is the same. So red and green result in a different after-image color -- even if you're red/green colorblind.
Anyway, yes, having red/green perception does enable you to see subtle changes in skin tone, etc., but the idea of TSA agents wearing them is a bit frightening. This is the same agency that up until recently was irradiating its own clients, refusing to disclose the amount of radiation, and causing cancer to its employees. They also have been frisking children and grabbing people's balls... they're totally incompetent. I'd rather not give them special "x-ray glasses" so they can misuse those as well, saying they saw something nobody else could and that's why you're now getting a lubed finger in your private parts.
Other than that, Rock on. Good science.
A few hundred well-placed nuclear bombs ought to do it.
If the goal is a nuclear winter, sure. If you're trying to move the planet... how can I put this as succinctly as possible: If we detonated every nuke we had on one side of the planet, we'd succeed only in leaving one side of the planet uninhabitable. It wouldn't move the planet by any appreciable amount. The subsequent earthquakes would probably do more, by affecting spin. People seem to forget in orbital mechanics, to move in one direction, you have to displace an equal amount of mass x energy in the opposite direction. All a nuke would do is move the air around and leave a hole in the ground. Nothing would be ejected into space, and therefore, no movement.
I know you're trying to be funny, but after awhile, I get tired of the "a nuke is powerful enough to do anything!" thinking. I blame Bruce Willis.
Nah... we just need a planet-sized pair of Stargates.
Worst. Plot. Ever.
Every device I've had since then just seems like it's spying on me and siphoning off my personal life for someone else's gain.
A problem that would go away overnight with an open market instead of contracts and vendor lock-in. Cell phones are specifically designed to be incompatible with one another; Imagine if you could buy something like a SIM card that worked on all the networks in the United States, not just some, and all you had to do when getting a new phone is slide your SIM into it. Someone would design a secure phone that doesn't siphon off your personal life. Several have tried, but they all fail because of monopolistic practices.
"Profit, bitch. Bend over and give it up," is the American business model now... and it's wildly popular elsewhere too. You want to stop it: Stop America's perversion of capitalistic ideals. Make it a true free market.
"When the going gets tough, the tough get empirical." -- Jon Carroll
