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Libertarians are financially conservative and socially liberal. And please give credit where credit is due: Winston Churchill said Democracy is better than the rest.

PLEASE PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPON. YOU HAVE 20 SECONDS TO COMPLY.

'The seeds of great discoveries are constantly floating around us, but they only take root in minds well prepared to receive them.'"

We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents.

- Bob Ross

You want to know the latest trends for Java-based web development? Fewer and fewer people are going to be doing Java-based web development in the future.

Fuck trends. They're wrong. Every day the industry continues to stay with its current ridiculous technologies when vastly superior ones were invented decades ago infuriates me further. If it doesn't infuriate you, you're not paying close enough attention.

My advice: read Lambda the Ultimate and Steve Yegge's blog. Endeavor to learn what the lambda calculus and referential transparency are. If you are sincerely interested in bettering yourself as a programmer and don't go find out who Alonzo Church was then so help me God I will kick you in the balls. Learn about SML and type inference. Learn about Haskell and monads. Learn about process calculi and Erlang. Learn about Lisp and code generation and domain-specific languages. Learn about Scheme and lexical closures and continuations. Learn about Smalltalk and what OO was really supposed to be. Learn about type theory and formalism and the Curry-Howard correspondence. Learn about Forth and Joy and how you can have a powerful, expressive language without even so much as a grammar. Learn about Intercal and Befunge and just how badly your choice of programming language can torture you. Learn about UML and Ruby on Rails and Seaside and agile programming and Java generics and Python generators. Learn about aspect-oriented programming, context-oriented programming and concept programming. Learn about multi-paradigm languages like OCaml or Oz. Learn about weird Lisp dialects with syntax like Rebol or Dylan.

Realize that library design is language design. Realize that asynchronous programming with callbacks and explicit state in a world where lightweight coroutines were around in the days of fucking Simula in the 60s for Christ's sake is cruel and unusual torture. (Sorry, pet programming construct.) Realize that the programming language research community, while considering systems programming a solved problem and generally not interested in talking about human factors, is doing some genuinely promising work. Did you know that there are conc

One can stick to one's principles without being a whiny little shit about it.

"If you don't ask, you don't get." -Mahatma Gandhi

Nirvana is a state of pure blissful knowledge... It has nothing to do with the individual. The ego or its separation is an illusion. Indeed in a certain sense two "I"'s are identical namely when one disregards all special contents-- their Karma. The goal of man is to preserve his Karma and to develop it further... when man dies his Karma lives and creates for itself another carrier.

In itself, the insight is not new. The earliest records, to my knowledge, date back some 2500 years or more... the recognition ATMAN = BRAHMAN (the personal self equals the omnipresent, all-comprehending eternal self) was in Indian thought considered, far from being blasphemous, to represent the quintessence of deepest insight into the happenings of the world. The striving of all the scholars of Vedanta was after having learnt to pronounce with their lips, really assimilate in their minds this grandest of all thoughts. Again, the mystics of many centuries, independently, yet in perfect harmony with each other (somewhat like the particles in an ideal gas) have described, each of them, the unique experience of his or her life in terms that can be condensed in the phrase: DEUS FACTUS SUM (I have become God). To Western ideology, the thought has remained a stranger... in spite of those true lovers who, as they look into each other's eyes, become aware that their thought and their joy are numerically one, not merely similar or identical...

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Erwin_Schrödinger

I was wondering what the former Iraqi Minister of Information was doing these days.

All you have to do is updated his quotes and replace Americans with file sharers, Iraq with the internet, and Saddam Hussein with the RIAA.

"They are not in any place. They hold no place in Iraq [the internet]. This is an illusion ... they are trying to sell to the others an illusion."

"They [illegal mp3s] are not in Baghdad [the internet]. They [file sharers] are not in control of any airport [web server]. I tell you this. It is all a lie. They lie. It is a Hollywood movie. You do not believe them."

"They are nowhere near Baghdad [the internet]. Their allegations are a cover-up for their failure."

"After Iraq [RIAA] aborts the invasion that is being carried out by the American [Piratebay] and British villains [isohunt], the USA [files sharers] will no longer be a superpower. Its deterioration will be rapid. I say to those villains who are meeting in Europe, thinking of launching psychological war and brainwashing: wait. Do not be hasty because your disappointment will be huge. You will reap nothing from this aggressive war, which you launched on Iraq [RIAA], except for disgrace and defeat."

Wait, so you're saying that because the RIAA claims to have 'crushed Indy artists' (which doesn't explain my CD case, but okay), that it's time for us to bomb a federal building, killing civilians and children in the process?

I just want to make sure that that's really what you're saying. Because that might actually be the stupidest, most misguided statement I've ever read in all of my years on the internet. I suddenly understand why the draw of 27 virgins is capable of convincing men to kill themselves in the process of bombing other people!

Actually, that might be the stupidest thing I've heard in my entire life. I... I think you're causing me to have an aneuerysm.

It would be nice to have more power strapped to my hip though.

Speaking of sex, it's nice to know that Jean-Louis Gassée hasn't strayed from his habit of making titillating comments:

"I want to see the two CEOs of RIM and [Apple CEO Steve] Jobs working together," he said. "The thought of this ménage à trois is absolutely hilarious."

Gassée is seriously one of the most quotable guys in the business...

It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.

On the competition:
"After Sony aborts the invasion that is being carried out by the Nintendo and Microsoft villains, Microsoft will no longer be a superpower. Its deterioration will be rapid. I say to those villains who are meeting in America, thinking of launching psychological war and brainwashing: wait. Do not be hasty because your disappointment will be huge. You will reap nothing from this aggressive war, which you launched on Sony, except for disgrace and defeat."
"My feelings, as usual-- we will slaughter them all."
"I now inform you that you are too far from reality."
"No. I am not scared, and neither should you be!"

On Microsoft:
"Microsoft is a very stupid company. The American people are not stupid, they are very clever. I can't understand how such clever people came to buy from such a stupid company."
"Microsoft is now in disarray."
"Don't believe anything! We will chase the Xbox360 back to Redmond!"
"Whenever we attack, they retreat. When we pound them with the Cell and the RSX, they retreat even deeper. But when we stopped pounding, they pushed to the Wal-Marts for propaganda purposes."

On Nintendo:
"They are sick in their minds. They say they brought 65 Wii into center of E3. I say to you this talk is not true. This is part of their sick mind."
"I would like to clarify a simple fact here: How can you lay siege to a whole empire? Who is really under siege now? Sony cannot be besieged. The PSP cannot be besieged. The PS3 cannot be besieged."
"We are not afraid of Nintendo. Kutaragi has condemned them. They are stupid. They are stupid -- and they are condemned."
"You think their Wii are in an endless line coming towards us? Wrong. They are only a few of them and they turn around and then return, as if to make a long snake."

And finally, we reveal the true identity of the new Sony spokesman: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Muhammad_Saeed_al-Sah haf

"You're confusing different goals for lack of education and sophistication."

Actually, things are simpler than you could possibly imagine :-)

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_J._Hanlon

Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence.
Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity

I don't understand quantum mechanics

I learn more by doing and then discovering the effects of what I had done. (Hmmm... fire does that... okay.)

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.

Just wanted to note that there was a typo in the first line... instead of "citizens of this country do see a problem ", it should be "citizens of this country don't see a problem". Sorry if there was any confusion.

For those interested, the link to the ABC blog is: http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/05/federa l_source_.html

The BF quote is from Wikiquote: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin

You know, I can't help but wonder if/when this country will ever fall from its current global position. I am reminded of a previous /. posting on a nuclear waste repository in New Mexico, and the plans on how to warn future generations of its dangers. In the article they mention that the NRC expects to have administrative control of the land for only the next 200 years. The presumption being that at some point in the relatively near future the country may not exist.

Sometimes I wonder how that fall will occur. If it will start with the slow erosion of our rights and freedoms, and transition into a some sort of repressive iron fisted govt. that falls from grace. But above all I am amazed that people don't seem to care all that much about the current situation. Where is the outrage? Where is the Press? If we did nuke Iran, would a majority in this country care? Would a majority in this country care if the govt. keeps track of and a central database listing who EVERYONE talks to and is associated with? Would a majority care if the govt. kept recordings of all our phone conversations? What about emails? Would a majority care if the government made a profile of every citizen in this country and assessed them a threat rating based off of who they talk to, their financial info, travel info, and their personal associations? What happens when a red flag goes up? Do they get renditioned by intelligence officers? Where is the line in the sand? Where is this all heading?

You don't have anything to fear if you don't have anything to hide. I guess thats how it starts.

First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.
-Martin Niemoller

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

original quote by Martin Niemöller

In the case of the phone record issue, the 63% cited have weighed the loss of privacy in this case (the government knows who you've called, when, and how many times, but not what you said) against the perceived security threat (the chances of averting a terrorist attack are improved by the government having this data).

You assume the government is 1) telling the truth that they don't know what you said and 2) not going to change its mind once this program has been in place for a year or two and everyone's forgotten about it and start scanning the contents of the phone calls. Given the administration's track record, I don't think either of those are valid assumptions.

Remember some of these quotes from Wikiquote?

We won't be proven wrong [...] I believe that we will find the truth. And the truth is, he was developing a program for weapons of mass destruction." (Responding to a question about the importance of finding WMD in Iraq, The Cross Hall, Jul. 17, 2003)

"I wasn't happy when we found out there wasn't weapons [of mass destruction in Iraq]"(2nd Presidential Debate, October 8, 2004)

Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.(Information Sharing, Patriot Act Vital to Homeland Security (20 April 2005))

There are two things about this program that really concern me. I haven't done anything for which I would need the services of a lawyer, but if I did, I would want that conversation to be private. Under this policy, it wouldn't be. It wouldn't be admissible in court, but it could give the government a lead on evidence that would be admissible. "No, Your Honor, we just happened to find that piece of evidence ... we didn't record any phone conversation that told us where to find it."

I'm also concerned that this policy will interfere with the confidentiality of conversations between members of the press and their sources who do not want to be identified. If the government can identify that you called a member of the press who broke a story about a government scandal, guess who they're going to suspect provided that reporter with the information about the scandal?

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."
-- attributed to Edsger Dijkstra

I'd say that can be extended to replace "computers" with "individual programming languages" and suggest that you need to find a better computer science program elsewhere... Computer Science is not about creating maintenance programmers.

This will likely be an unpopular opinion here, but there's a few things that irk me about the above reference. 1. Benjamin Franklin never said "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.", It was written by Richard Jackson. Benjamin Franklin himself denied writing this phrase in a letter to David Hume dated a year after the book that attributed the phrase to him. Franklin's nearest quote to the same effect holds quite a different meaning: "Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power" [1] 2. "This is the same apathy we see every year with laughingly low voter turnouts" - This statement is patently absurd [2] 3. People who frequently pen, "The majority of people in America are too stupid..." are typically intellectually insecure, obnoxiously arrogant, or both. In either regard, they presume to perform with superior judgement to the common sense, which is the antithesis of democracy. 4. "Many Americans sadly enough have no clue the NSA has been spying on Americans." There's 2.2 million webpages on the internet dedicated to reporting the NSA spying efforts. I don't have access to Lexis Nexis anymore or I would happily tell you how many front pages the story has made. The idea that people are 'unaware' of this is stupid. Unlike you, they understand the need to obtain valid intelligence information to fight a war. [3] 5. The Clinton administration claims that it can bypass the warrant clause for "national security" purposes. In July 1994 Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick told the House Select Committee on Intelligence that the president "has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches for foreign intelligence purposes." [4] What I would rather argue, is which of security or privacy are a more essential liberty, and in fact, is privacy even essential. The Constitution requires reasonable privacy, not absolute. Privacy is not essential for freedom, other than the fact it requires accountability. so you are no longer free to be unaccountable for your actions, given the times, would it be reasonable or even prudent to allow this? There's a big difference between the NSA spying, and say, Bill Clinton using illegal wiretaps to spy on Senators. How many people survived the Rose Law firm scandal by the way?

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

Has a slightly different meaning in its original form. Oh, did I say slightly? I meant a great fucking huge deal of difference, sorry.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_J._Hanlon#Hanl on.27s_Razor

Agua que no has de beber, déjala correr.

the point of public relations slogans like "Support Our Troops" is that they don't mean anything [...] that's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody is gonna be against and I suppose everybody will be for, because nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything. But its crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something, do you support our policy? And that's the one you're not allowed to talk about.

there's a wiki for great slashdot comments

interesting how little has been submitted out of billions and billions of comments

Laozi alias Lao Zi, Lao Tzu, Lao Tse, or Lao Tze.

I believe he is attributed with saying that though I cannot produce precisely from where. No one has ever questioned my sig, lol.

Whether or not he was a single individual or a group of scholars, I am not an authority to comment on that.

Whatever entity that name embodies, it sure produced some interesting literature and quotes.

Apparently, that quote ought to be attributed to Giovanni Gentile.

I can see where you're coming from, but I think that fear is the only way to get to the people who don't understand why it isn't ok to give up our rights.

For me, it is not about fear. It is about principles. This country is about freedom. It is about what is written down in the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Giving up our rights for any reason is counter to the letter and the spirit of those documents and our country. The reason we should not give up our rights is that it is just plain wrong to do so. No other reason than that is required. It is just difficult to convince some people of that.

It is our actions during the most difficult times that show our true colors. It is easy to be true to our values when the going is easy. When we're faced with a challenge, it is more difficult to hold our ground. If we forsake our ideals when it is difficult to continue to hold on to them, what good are they in the first place?

Here's one of my favorite quotes, which is often incorrectly attributed to Benjamin Franklin:

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety

the attribution of this quote to Lincoln is disputed.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln#Attri buted

"I frame no hypotheses."

One of the funniest I have read in a while. Submitted it to Wikiquote

As Theodore Roosevelt once said: "A perfectly stupid race can never rise to a very high plane; the negro, for instance, has been kept down as much by lack of intellectual development as anything else."

Dunno, my gaydar's never been very accurate. PDAs don't bother me as long as they don't frighten the horses!

Well, we've moved very far from the topic of people with social liabilities to the full-on playa's guide to bangin' chicks and getting laid. It's a whole different sphere of things.

Not completely a different sphere, just different ends of the same spectrum.

I do understand what you mean, and my point wasn't intended to be as patronizing as it came out.

The way I see it, people with Autism/Aspergers/Slashdot-fever who have problems in social situations have them because of their inability to relate. I'm assuming someone, who is otherwise very intelligent, is unable to pick up on people's facial expressions because they themselves don't associate their own facial expressions with the reactions that normally cause them.

To add to that, I think they are very painfully aware of this and are afraid of social interactions because of this. Each bit of interaction, especially with someone they've never met before, is a potential cause of failure.

This is what needs to be overcome and I'm saying fearlessness is the answer. There is absolutely nothing to be lost in any social situation, regardless of how it goes! Worst case scenario, the other people walk away thinking you're a fucking nerd with no life. They thought that before you opened your mouth anyway, it's no big deal.

I think over time you'll find other peoples opinions really don't matter. So why talk to them in the first place, right? Humans are social creatures, we all need other people for something or other. It'd be a shame to not take advantage of other people's help just because you didn't know how to approach them and ask.

I wish a playa's guide to bangin' chicks and getting laid existed, but like you said, not all strategies work for everyone, nor should they be tried by everyone. That doesn't mean a good strategy wont work for most people, and shouldn't be tried by people who have no reason not to try it.

Here's mine:

If you want to increase your social aptitude, regardless of whether it's to weild power and authority or just to bang hot bitches (not necessarily in the back of a bus) you must concentrate on one thing: dominance. You're the manliest of men, all the men want to be you, all the women want to do you.

Understandably, it may require a drastic shift in mentality. A good start would be some stuff written by some manly men:

Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal

Bastard Operator From Hell

Move on to less nerdier fare once you grow some balls, such as:

The Best Page In The Universe

After that you'll have already come to the conclusion that only fags need to learn how to be cool, and this shit was all a waste of time because you were the baddest motherfucker in the world from day one.

“640KB ought to be enough for everybody”—alleggedly said by Bill Gates, 1981

But appart from that, these are sensible questions, and the TFA doesn't say anything to answer them. There's a good /. comment further down with better information.

I thought it was common knowledge at least among Slashdot that Bill Gates never said that.

That said, there are, in my opinion, gray areas. You say that propagandists and revolutionaries who are infiltrating a nation for a hostile government can legitimately be persecuted, which sounds reasonable in the case where someone obviously falls into this camp: i.e., they are being compensated by, or taking orders directly from, the hostile government, and committing acts that are illegal in the country they operate in(wherever there are laws against treason, this last point is pretty much open to interpretation, which is not unproblematic). I'd wager, however, that there were many communists in the United States in the fifties who did actively propagandize and advocate an eventual revolution(both being rather central tenet of the dominant communist ideology at the time) - but largely on account of their own ideology. Many of these undoubtedly fell for the propaganda of the USSR, believing that Stalin had achieved what they were dreaming of, but ignorance, naïveté and blind acceptance of things that should not be accepted blindly are not crimes when counted by themselves. Thus, they did sympathize with the USSR - but sympathy for a foreign and hostile government can't be a crime on its own in a country where freedom of speech is upheld, and the persecution of these people was (in my opinion) unjust.

In conclusion: My issue with McCarthyism is that I do not believe that it was primarily a counter-intelligence operation intended to weed out Soviet spies, but rather an attempt at a political cleansing of sorts, an operation against communist sympathizers - from one angle, people who might easily be turned to be Soviet spies, or from another, people who were simply uncomfortably outspoken with their views in favour of the enemy. Though I'd like to research that more thoroughly, I simply do not have the time to do this right now. I'd call your attention, however, to a quote by McCarthy in 1950 regarding whom he intended as targets for his campaign(Source: Wikiquote, though I feel the need to warn you that the selection of quotes was obviously done from an anti-McCarthy point of view, but I assume that the quotes themselves are legitimate): "...a list of 205 names that were known [...] as being members of the Communist Party and who, nevertheless, are still working and shaping policy in the State Department."

These people are not being accused of being spies, at least not explicitly. They are being accused of being members of the Communist Party, and it is implied that, because they are members of a certain political party and subscribers to a certain ideology, they are incapable of loyalty to the state as their employer and unfit to work within the State Department.

I do know that communists in the United States enjoy freedom of speech today. But as I said, communists are hardly relevant in USA at the moment, and other groups may be threatened today the same way that communists were fifty years ago(though I am not claiming that this is happening to the same degree as in the fifties).

Furthermore, persecution of communists in democratic capitalist countries during the Cold War was not unique to the United States. To use an example from my own country: in Norway certain politicians were kept under surveillance apparently simply for being dangerously radical(ironically, the surveillance was probably done by a government which was dangerously radical by American standards) - these incidents have been heavily debated since the declassification of documents relatin

The site was hosted on Yahoo and the domain name registeres with Melbourne IT. The site is still on Yahoo's servers and can be downloaded using an IP address and an absolute URL (so their virtual server knows which website you want. By way of explanation, here is something I previously submitted as a story:

At the request of the Australian government, domain name registrar Melbourne IT has removed DNS entries for a political opponent of a ruling political party and its policies in Iraq.

Richard Neville created a parody of one of the Australian Prime Minister's speeches and posted it on a the website www.johnhowardpm.org. After a day the website mysteriously disappeared from the Internet. Melbourne IT, domain registrar for johnhowardpm.org, and Yahoo, the website host, both denied knowledge.

Tim Longhurst has been investigating. After two days two anonymous Melbourne IT technicians have come forward and told him that "johnhowardpm.org" was removed from DNS at the request of representatives from the Australian government, without the knowledge of the domain owner. Normal proceedure is for the domain owner to at least be notified.

Australian Internet users can no longer read www.johnhowardpm.org. Yahoo's DNS server (yns1.yahoo.com) still resolves johnhowardpm.org and the pages still exist on Yahoo's server (premium7.geo.vip.re4.yahoo.com = 216.39.58.74). They may be retrieved by sending a http GET request using telnet, or by setting one's HTTP proxy to 216.39.58.74 and typing "http://www.johnhowardpm.org/" into a browser address bar.

Given that the parody was not obscene, and its facts were well backed with references the only justification seems to be political censorship by Melbourne IT and the Australian government. The Internet equivalent of a political assassination to shut someone up.

If "The Net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it.", what is the future for Melbourne IT as a registrar? The High Court of Australia has also ruled that the Australian Constitution contains a right to freedom of political speech.

CAESAR (recovering his self-possession). Pardon him. Theodotus: he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.

My first thought upon reading the summary was "English, motherfucker! Do you speak it?"

Correction, he denies it because an overt confirmation could not be made

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Gates

From the sound of this article, they should add another one to the list.

This is just like Albert Abraham Michelson announcing (in 1896) that physics is dead and complete with nothing left to discover. Since then, I think there have been some shocking advancements.

I tire of articles that basically say, "Look, look, we found a person who holds an important position in the corporate world and they said something without thinking (possibly just to make shock value news)! Let's all point and laugh."

Correct - it was the Chinese mystic philosopher Lao Tzu who first said it.
 
...and playing Civ 4 pays off again! (It's the quote you get when you research the Fishing tech, naturally...)

As Bill Hicks said: "We're a virus with shoes, OK?"

It would also be funnier if it was actually issued by Nintendo rather than a comedian.

You store the fembots in the Hot Chicks Room.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Upright_Citizens_Brig ade

wikiquote has a nice list.

That was Will Rogers, in the 20's or 30's.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Will_Rogers

The more things change, the more they stay the same.