itistoday

Indeed, it is fascinating just how different eastern and western understanding of enlightenment is. Or, perhaps, how differently they express themselves. One of my favorite Taoist quotes is:

The scholar gains every day, but the Taoist loses every day.

-- Lao Tzu

The fault was completely mine, I'd miscalculated how long it would take me to get from the apartment, onto the BART and into the gate at SFO. I could see I'd miss my flight if I tried to run to BART, so I whipped out Siri and said, "Get me a cab." Within literally a minute or two, a cab arrived at my apartment and I got to SFO with time to spare.

Technology can be a great thing, when it works. ;-)

If society is showing symptoms of rot and great inequality then it is a statement about the society as a whole. It is everyone's shared failure.

Despite how things may seem, it is not at all necessary to live in the kind of society that we live in now. There is a difference between squandered opportunity and opportunity that was never there in the first place.

All children in America should have the same opportunity.

Just as an example of someone of prestige and integrity, standing up for Wikileaks and kicking ass while doing so (on national television), is Ray McGovern, "former high-ranking CIA official":

http://www.juancole.com/2010/12/former-cia-official-ray-clos...

The only thing missing is a "take action" section at the bottom.

Gurzadyan dismisses the critical analyses as "absolutely trivial", arguing that there is bound to be agreement between the standard cosmological model and the WMAP data "at some confidence level" but that a different model, such as Penrose's, might fit the data "even better" " — a point he makes in a response to the three critical papers also posted on arXiv5. However, he is not prepared to state that the circles constitute evidence of Penrose's model. "We have found some signatures that carry properties predicted by the model," he says.

My money's on Penrose.

Maybe some of them fall into this category, but many of the others are the ones pulling most of the strings.

They are responsible for millions of dollars in campaign contributions, whereby they essentially buy seats in the House and Senate and dictate much of the legislation. They influence voters through mass advertising and propaganda, they influence the representatives through lobbyists and the threat of withdrawing their financial support.

The "government" then becomes a battlefield between the ignorant, the manipulated, the enlightened, and the powerful manipulators sitting at the top.

What's interesting though, is that if they actually find evidence for microbial life on another planet far away, then it's mighty likely that said planet already has far more complex life on it (taking into account the time it takes for light to travel through space, we'd be viewing outdated information).

  "Don't mix business with pleasure"

Odd title though for this post, for where is the "everyone"? The link shows comparisons to previous versions of Firefox, not other browsers.

One thing I hope they fix before final release though is the constant CPU usage when you have many tabs open. I thought the Panorama feature was supposed to address this. It's currently idling at around 25% CPU for me, and no, unfortunately I can't blame it on Flash. :-\

The photo on the right doesn't show any buttons and the opening for the neck seems way too small for them to fit their whole body through it.

Of course it's not our place to prescribe drugs. I am not prescribing anything.

If you say you're tired and someone tells you, "Grab a cup of coffee" or "Take a nap", are they writing you a prescription? No!

This advice is given in the same spirit, and while you may think it's bad advice, that is your opinion, based, hopefully, on your personal experience. This is my opinion, it happens to differ with yours, and it is based on my personal experience, and it also happens to be grounded in sound science. [1]

No prescription necessary, just an honest suggestion that the poster is free to research for him or herself.

Yes, there are risks to be aware of, and hence my mentioning set and setting, and the importance of having a sitter. Take the advice or leave it, I'm just mentioning it, and yes, conditionally endorsing it.

  [1] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Psilocybin#2006_Johns_Hopkins_experiment

  [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_and_setting

Because that's not true... It has _tons_ of well documented medicinal benefits, and many people enjoy it recreationally.

This is not what is meant by legalization. There would not be a black market because doctors would not prescribe these drugs, you would be able to buy them at your local, licensed convenience store (with proof of ID).

Is there a black market for alcohol or caffeine? If there is it's so tiny that somehow I've never encountered or heard about it. The same would be true for heroin, cocaine, etc.

If you want to fix the alcoholic parent problem, create a society that reacts to them in a compassionate manner instead of throwing people in prison.

Decriminalization is neutered legalization. We should stop coming up with excuses for sending people to prison. Prisons don't create model citizens, they are a breeding ground for suffering and are a waste of human potential. Their existence is symptomatic of a poorly functioning society.

If someone wants to buy marijuana, then it only makes sense for there to be someone who sells it. Otherwise you still have a problem.

Legalization is combined with regulation so that you don't have the problem of major corporations funneling millions of dollars into advertising campaigns targeting children (as we learned with cigarettes).

This is a problem that most programmers should be familiar with. It's a function minimization problem. Minimize suffering(x).

> As the cops stand down, we also need the doctors to stand up.

Yes, if there were a mantra to chant, it might be: legalization, education, and rehabilitation. You have to have all of them to get the best result.

I have, and not just for meth, but for heroin, and alcohol, and nicotine, and caffeine, and all sorts of other drugs.

Have you seen first hand what it looks like when somebody takes a women and fucks her in front of her husband, then tortures her, and finally cuts her head off?

What about a man being thrown alive into an acid bath?

No? Would you like to see that? Can you imagine what it would be like to be in their shoes? Just head South of the border. Ask for the Zetas. Ask for the families of people who have been kidnapped and turned into slaves.

This is the _reality_ of drug prohibition. Entire neighborhoods living in constant fear.

Methamphetamine can cause some damage to the human body when abused. So can water. The difference between a hit of meth in your hand and a punk standing over your head with a rifle pointed at your temple should be obvious. The difference between a hit of meth in your pipe and the unrelenting human suffering that goes on in America's overflowing prisons should be obvious. It is the difference between personal choice and the consequences thereof, versus violence imposed upon you by another, completely out of your control. It is the difference between freedom and prohibition.

I could kill myself by overdosing on a number of substances right at this moment, but I don't. It's because I know better, not because there's a law against it. It is far easier, cheaper and more humane to educate a population and provide them with the healthcare and counseling that they need than it is to deal with the horrors that are going on around you today due to prohibition.

Compassion and understanding and freedom will lead to a better world.

Prisons and prohibition perpetuate suffering.

You take a substance out of the hands of professionals and place it into the hands of criminals. The quality of the substance goes down. The number of dead bodies goes up. The truth about the drugs themselves gets completely distorted with lies and propaganda instead of becoming common knowledge.

Legalization should go hand-in-hand with education and healthcare reform. If you get those elements right, you'll have a much more functioning society. Fewer drunk drivers, fewer overdoses, and no drug cartels to speak of.

All drugs should be legalized and regulated. Especially cocaine.

You will not have peace on this Earth until that happens. The drug cartels will simply move onto the next forbidden fruit. Prohibition is, as Paul and many others point out, an assault on basic human rights and freedoms, and it carries with it a tax on society. Not just in terms of dollars wasted but in lives ruined.

Education + Legalization.

Erowid and scientific fact in every classroom instead of propaganda and lies.

This is not exactly a difficult concept to grasp, and various parts of the world (like Portugal, Holland, etc.) are finally waking up to it, and their quality of life is improving because of it.

Unfortunately, years of lies, fear-mongering, brainwashing and propaganda can be hard to erase.

That sign looks like a disabled person sign

Stuff White People Like

This is perfect for people who are terrified of a little moderate exercise and don’t mind looking like a fat lazy dork with bad posture.

I particularly like the part in their promo-vid (toward the end) where the guy is riding his SBU alongside a jogger, who is going just as fast as he, but obviously the better for it. It seems to beg the question of "why doesn't he run alongside her?" (she'd probably appreciate it more too).

I would imagine that for many of the readers of this site, a little moderate exercise is not something to be terrified of, but practically a necessity. I'm thankful for every opportunity that I get to walk/run outside, as I spend most of my time indoors on the computer, and that's a very unhealthy way to spend most of one's day. I wouldn't buy one of these, only because my body has little interest in extending the amount of time it remains stationary, and legs are a pretty remarkable and versatile invention that technology has yet to top.

In fact, looking at this SBU makes me appreciate my legs more. They can, for example, go up stairs. And jump over things. They can even be used as a weapon. I don't have to worry about locking them up somewhere because they're with me all the time, and although they're not particularly fancy, they don't make me look especially uncool either. ;-)

It sounds very similar to StackOverflow.