Capissen

bio:Once I was the King of Spain.
website:http://www.digitalsatori.net

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Commented on Richard Metzger on Ayn Rand
I, too, was an ardent objectivist from about 15 to 22. I really do think she meant well, and I still find her ideas about individuality relevant. But the whole socioeconomic concept of objectivism is based on "rational self-interest," which,...
Commented on Sabotage on the Large Hadron Collider?
@Nixar That made my morning. Thank you....
Commented on Laura Levine photography at Brooklyn Museum exhibition of Rock & Roll photography 1955-present
I totally have a comptometer almost just like the one in that photo....
Commented on When Guantánamo came to America: "Zeitoun."
I've read pretty much everything by Eggers, and I love him and his writing style to death. But after reading What is the What, I don't know if I can read another of his books about human hardship. He doesn't...
Commented on Ashcroft may be held liable for those wrongfully detained after 9/11
Oh god yes please....
Commented on Gold farming, real money trades banned in China
Someone wrote a really great short story called "Anda's Game" about the dynamics and real-world implications of in-game economies. Now if I could just remember that author's name......
Commented on Canadian gov't: you have no expectation of privacy on the Internet
Cory, your use of the blink tag is masterfully appropriate....
Commented on Amid censorship outrage, China's state-run TV reports that "Google Porn" causes memory loss.
Anyone else catch the irony in China's state-run television being called "CCTV"? :-)...
Commented on Minifit XL: moveable Laptop Fan
Rocking a pair of TiBooks, nonetheless! G4 FTW!...
Commented on Monetizing Emma: a play that marries dumb securities with Jane Austen
The concept reminds me of my friend in high school who tried to auction the right to be his sole heir on eBay. He included his "prospectus," future plans, GPA, etc. A little crazy, maybe, but not a bad investment,...
Commented on New MacBook drive controllers slower than old ones
This...doesn't make a whole lot of sense. On modern notebooks, the controller is built into the chipset. At last glance, all nVIDIA chipsets support SATAII. I'd be willing to bet there will be a fimware or chipset microcode fix for...
Commented on On the Road with Kesey and Truman
When he's not futilely (but goodheartedly) trying to fix the Middle East, Carter pretty much *does* do this, albeit with a couple of SS folks. He's quite the man about town in Plains/Americus, GA. Sadly, I think he'll be the...
Commented on New issue of <em>h+</em> magazine now online
While I love reading this type of stuff, I always try to keep a little Patrick S. Farley comic called "The Guy I Almost Was" in the back of my mind. Required reading for futurists and singularitarians (myself included): http://web.archive.org/web/19991006032354/http://www.e-sheep.com/almostguy/...
Commented on Health insurers invest billions in tobacco stocks
Okay, maybe I'm off my rocker here, but I would assume that fewer tobacco-related deaths would net the insurance companies more money. So what's their logic here? Someone please explain this to me like I'm a five-year-old....
Commented on Kid keeping a lending library of banned books in <s>his</s> her locker
Weird. The Catcher in the Rye was required reading for me in high school. Also, I concur with #23, but would like to point out that the ACLU already offers a Youth Activist Scholarship: http://www.aclu.org/standup/misc/activists.html...
Commented on School newspaper archives go online, embarrassing student writing and shenanigans become permanent record
This is just a simple extension of the "information wants to be free" paradigm. Only now, with more archiving and the advent of better scanning and OCR technologies, old information wants to be free, as well. I'm a huge privacy...
Commented on Photos from abandoned clothing factory
Wow. Just wow. How freaking wasteful is that? If I lived by there, I'd be renting a van and hauling all of that down to the local homeless shelter (or other charity)....
Commented on HOWTO make a $300 high-speed book scanner
@ #11 My thoughts exactly! Though that scanning method involved a little less, er, preservation of the original copy, if I recall....
Commented on Ad: Honeywell's Electronic Mail
That is totally my desk!...
Commented on Boing Boing guest blogger: Maggie Koerth-Baker
Howdy there from Hopkins! Glad to see someone from the Cities get the anointed guest blogger slot....
Commented on Easter Sunday
I've been listening to "Easter Parade" by Jump, Little Children. It's a little more upbeat. But Patty Smith is pretty awesome, too. :-)...
Commented on Ayahuasca experience
An entheogen that causes vivid hallucinations, vomiting, and acts as a psychological reset button: this reminds me a lot of ibogaine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibogaine Sort of like an African version of ayahuasca, used mainly to cure alcoholism and opiate addiction. Why, again,...
Commented on Short story in spreadsheet form
Most companies I've worked for use Excel for everything- database, word processor, you name it. Why not a novel?...
Commented on Komodo dragons kill man
I remember in Cryptonomicon, Bobby Shaftoe, while stationed in the Pacific, saw a Komodo dragon basically bite a Japanese solider in half. Throughout the book, people think he's insane when he talks about it, because at the time no one...
Commented on Jasper Morello: stunning steampunk short animated film
@2,3,7 Yep, this is just the first part. I've never actually seen the second. The online store I found that sells it *only* ships within Australia (wtf?), and I can't find it on the tubes. If anyone knows of alternate...
Commented on The Sidewinder and the Snow-Motor
Snow-motor '26 Chevy: added onto my list of shit to build should I ever become independently wealthy. That thing is just cooler than words can describe....
Commented on EPA's most-wanted fugitives
This is clearly a job for Captain Planet. He's our powers magnified......
Commented on Inside the new Mac Mini
@ #4 Ha, that's hilarious. I remember when the iMac G5 first came out, we hailed it as a wonder of simplicity and ease of servicing. Then the Intel version came out, with the special "opening tool" which you had...
Commented on Inside the new Mac Mini
Of course, the burning question is: do you still have to open the darned things with putty knives? I was an Apple tech when the mini first came out, and I'll never forget having to drive to Ace Hardware to...
Commented on 15-year-old girl beaten by sheriff's deputy
Um, exactly at what point does the citizenry put its collective foot down and take back law enforcement from the thugs that currently dominate it?...

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naharnahekim commented on Richard Metzger on Ayn Rand
Admittedly I only watched about 5 minutes of the riveting "Old bald guy lecturing 15 people in the back conference room of the local library" series. A quick google search found that reisman is a fairly prominent ecomnomist,but also a Randite shill. So his point is that Nazi Germany was a socialist state. Sure, if your definition of a socialist state begins and ends at government control of industry. But I like to think that the totalitarianism thing makes the argument a little weak. Add to that the fact that the country was basically gearing up for global conquest from...
Tdawwg commented on Richard Metzger on Ayn Rand
So do the "professionals" at BoA, Goldmann Sachs, etc. produce a lot, other than fake wealth and crippling debt? Or are they thieves under your all-too-convenient definitions? Or are they tax-subsidized "bums," living (gasp!) off the public weal? And weren't many of those technological miracles you cite gubbmint-subsidized? Don't our scientists, engineers, and other budding Roarkish Galters get their educations in public institutions (and private ones getting government $$$)? And why do you treat bankers and bums as if they were more castes or permanent roles and conditions, rather than as lifestyles? Can't dentists descend to bummitude, bums ascend to...
kairo commented on Richard Metzger on Ayn Rand
"That's where I stopped reading." "Admittedly I only watched about 5 minutes..." I think you all really can (and should) do better than this. You can't really rebut an argument by simply being dismissive of it. I also don't think the ad homenem bits have a place in rational discourse, it's not exactly relevant that the guy is bald, and even if he IS lecturing in a public library, that doesn't mean his points are any less valid. Calling him a "shill" also doesn't really debunk a thing he said. This has been a recurring theme, both in the original...
Xopher commented on Richard Metzger on Ayn Rand
I think the Nazis were a lot more like Randians than like socialists. In socialism, everyone is taken care of whether they can produce or not, and no one gets more than they need no matter how much they produce. "From each according to ability, to each according to need." In contrast, in Nazism and Randism, the strong get everything and the weak are enslaved or eliminated. That's really the key to the economics of the matter; Randians just aren't as blatant about wanting everyone who can't produce dead. The Nazis claimed all those Jews died of starvation in the...
DrOct commented on Richard Metzger on Ayn Rand
I realize I'm very late to the party on this one, but I'm replying to your set of examples and questions about who is more valuable. The problem here is that you are operating under the assumption that A) Peoples occupation is their only valuable contribution to society, and B) that anyone who is not one of your vaunted professionals is that way because they choose not to work or that they have no skills whatsoever. However, your bum or person on welfare or what-have-you might actually have BEEN an engineer or some other "valuable" professional. Perhaps they had some...

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