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"I'm not sure it's more logical to say that the universe created itself than it was created by someone, but to each his own, I guess."

"The universe created itself" is a creationist caricature of science, not an actual scientific theory. If a reaction occurs because of increased density and thus temperature, the reaction was because of the properties of the matter involved. No chemist or physicist explains it as "it caused itself."

Based on the particular phrasing in TFS, it may not have been a computer(except in some embedded sense) at all.

"'It would just turn blue,' he said. 'You’d have no data coming through.'"

Everybody uses computers these days, and knows that they "crash"(they may not be able to distinguish between hangs and crashes; but the word is in common consciousness). "Turn blue", though, sounds much more like what most analog video hardware does when it isn't receiving an input...

Obviously, in any modern system of any complexity, there is a computer or more in the loop somewhere; but "You'd have no data coming through" and "it would just turn blue" sounds like a description of a video monitor suddenly losing its video source(presumably from a robotic camera somewhere, possibly with a bunch of vital stats being overlaid on it by an embedded video processor device).

Only a caricature of an utter n00b would describe a computer blue-screening in those terms.

There seems to be a growing group who would prefer that the sum total role of government would be to issue all newborns with a bible and a gun, then vanish for all eternity.

Similarly, there seems to be a growing group who would prefer to enlist kids in government-run daycare as soon as they can babble, teach them the True Path to socialized utopia where government services are plentiful (and don't have to be funded), then offer them guaranteed lifetime employment when they graduate from high school - which is good as they'll be unable to read because the teachers' union thought it would be too much work and some of its members aren't up to it.

I caricature, of course. Not all democrats are this far gone. Unfortunately, It's getting hard to find any vocal examples who are not.

Unfortunately, it seems like both sides are reacting to the caricatures of the other party, which in turn pushes them toward becoming the bogeymen that the other party is warning about.

Oh yes, they believe that people will swallow them. I'm making a kind of personal anthropological study of the changes to the US right (which, to most of the Western world, is becoming the "far right", or possibly "So far right, it's in danger of wrap around"). These people truly seem believe that *any* kind of government is an evil threat to liberty (how these people can draw a salary as a government employee is an excellent example of living with cognitive dissonance - *my* government job is OK, *my* farm subsidy is an exception to the rule of free markets). There seems to be a growing group who would prefer that the sum total role of government would be to issue all newborns with a bible and a gun, then vanish for all eternity.

I caricature, of course. Not all republicans are this far gone. Unfortunately, It's getting hard to find any vocal examples who are not.

"What on Earth are you talking about? Scotland is part of the UK. David Cameron is the UK Prime Minister. And you're telling me he has no grounds to interfere? I must seriously be missing something here."

Does the US President get to interfere with US Supreme Court decisions? Or in extraditions decisions?

Do you expect to have one rule for the US, and another for the rest of the world?

"Well, let it be known that you may think I'm some dumb yank from the states..."

I actually thought from your previous posts you were an intelligent guy. This time you come across as the caricature of a self-centred, vindictive, don't-give-a-toss-about-anyone-else American.

Though I know there are no girls on Slashdot, here's a tip: if I can tell you're wearing makeup, you have already failed.

Hah, I'm sure girlintraining will respond to this tidbit.

That said, you're wrong; for instance, things like lipstick, eyeshadow etc. will pretty much always be obvious as being makeup, not natural. The key is just to not overdo it and become a living caricature.

That said, there is a kernel of truth in what you say, too, although you seem a bit confused about what it is: makeup should enhance a face and draw attention to it rather than draw attention to itself. If the first thing you see is the makeup, then it's indeed overdone. In a way, good makeup is like a good butler - it stays in the background.

It costs a good deal of money to get good coverage of the news

There is no "good coverage" of the news. At least, not in the USA. Our news sources are pitiful on their best days. When wars are going on, we hear about Paris Hilton's lack of panties. When congress has an important vote, Fox treats us to a bewildered mash-up of buffoonery. When we need information, we get opinion. When the supreme court and congress stomp all over the constitution, the news rarely even covers it, although it is literally causing the erosion of our republic. When science or medicine makes it to the news, as often as not, some crackpot idea with absolutely no rational claim to legitimacy will be presented with a completely straight face as if it was a legitimate counterpoint. Religion is still treated as if it were reality based, instead of the superstitious, objective-fact free collection of myths it actually consists of.

And all of this is painted with a broad brush of political correctness. You rarely see the Muslims described accurately as a highly insular community with book that straight-forwardly encourages them to violence; the over-emphasis and misuse of "terrorism" and "save the children" are just as prevalent in the news as they are in political speech and action; reading the news is like a caricature of what it is supposed to be: Information without bias, which we, the readers, then form opinions about. Opinions used to be limited to the editorial page, clearly set off and firewalled, as it were, from the actual news. Now, you can hardly read a story without feeling the bias bleeding all over it.

So, at least in my case, there is zero willingness to pay for this pap. If they want my money, they're going to have to remember who they are, what they are there for, and see to it they stick to that. A paywall might as well be a brick wall until they climb up from the depths they've sunken to.

Clearly you know your stuff about Windows and there's no real excuse for posting without reading the article properly.

However, having read several of your responses, your arrogant tone with people sucks & you've become the caricature that people paint of "IT know-it-alls" who they hate calling when they have a problem with their PCs.

Having been in telecoms/IT support myself for some 30 years now, I've discovered the secret to a happy life is to treat others respectfully for them to respect you back - if you make a career of talking down to people, it's you, not them, that becomes the idiot.

I shall follow you postings closely in future and look forward to a time when I can correct you if you make any incorrect statements about UNIX or Linux...

Arrogant means "I'm better than you". If I were arrogant I would never expect him or most others to get anything right, since only someone "as great as me" (or however an arrogant person would say it) could do anything right. I'd expect others to egregiously fail instead of seeing it as something out-of-order that needs to be called out.

No, instead I expect better, especially from someone with a writing style indicating he has a mind and knows how to use it. Such a person is more than capable of reading the summary. He failed, so I called him on it. I refuse to apologize for that, particularly to someone who wants to tell me how one should live a happy life.

I'll correct one erroneous assumption you made there. My work or my career is not in IT at all. It's strictly something I do because I trly enjoy it as a hobby, an intellectual pursuit, and a way to challenge myself.

I'll correct a second erroneous assumption you made there. If you need to think I'm some terrible person for pointing out that I know my own experience better than you do, so be it. What might really drive you crazy is that I don't need your approval and don't care in the slightest about how judgmental you can be of me. Now, on to that correction: I have been using Linux exclusively on my personal computers for well over ten years now. If I am going to make a mistake, it is much more likely I will make a mistake concerning Windows since I don't personally use it. It is absolutely possible, but comparatively much less likely, that I will make a technical error concerning Linux.

So you, sir, have this backwards because you speak of me while knowing nothing about me. If that isn't the very arrogance you are accusing me of, then I could not tell you what would be. You still want to play this game with me? Are you sure? There would be no shame in backing out now. If you don't, you are a fool. I am having to be extremely direct with you because you leave me no other option.

The reason you failed to figure this out on your own is because I was able to read the summary and comprehend the information it contained prior to saying anything at all about Windows. So you assumed, in knee-jerk emotional fashion, that I am a Windows guy. That's the same thing the GGP did with his failure to read and comprehend at least the summary prior to posting a comment. It is no wonder you rise up to defend him. Birds of a feather and all of that.

Also, if you can correct me on something you will be doing me a favor. I won't feel inferior no matter how much your petty nature would take pleasure in such a thing. Instead, I will feel gratitude, for a genuine correction will fix a misperception I may not have noticed otherwise. So please, do bring it on. Do your worst, I implore you. Do you imagine I am afraid of that? It's a shame if you have nothing better to do than track my posts based on some kind of personal "gotcha!" game, but I can make constructive use of that no matter what you intend.

The next time you want to do this, be very sure you know with whom you are dealing. I am no one special and claim no special status whatsoever, yet it is for that very reason that I am not such an easy target for the type of games you want to play.

And don't even begin about smugness, because Americans are the worst of all... Thinking they are the greatest, and this the United Planet of America. We see those dumbasses on TV all the time saying "USA is the greatest most free-est place on earth. I've never even been abroad because all other countries suck. Whooo USA!". Fuck, you don't even know what freedom is.

Actually, most Americans don't think this, but go ahead & caricature if it helps you feel right.

Clearly you know your stuff about Windows and there's no real excuse for posting without reading the article properly.

However, having read several of your responses, your arrogant tone with people sucks & you've become the caricature that people paint of "IT know-it-alls" who they hate calling when they have a problem with their PCs.

Having been in telecoms/IT support myself for some 30 years now, I've discovered the secret to a happy life is to treat others respectfully for them to respect you back - if you make a career of talking down to people, it's you, not them, that becomes the idiot.

I shall follow you postings closely in future and look forward to a time when I can correct you if you make any incorrect statements about UNIX or Linux...

Wrong on both accounts. EPA, DOT, the US Coast Guard, and a host of other governmental agencies all require very detailed contingency plans be developed before construction even begins on any petroleum wells, pipes, or processing plants in the US. Not only are companies required to have contingency plans, the responding agencies themselves all have their own contingency plans.
Here is EPA's region 6 regional response team contingency plan website.
http://www.epa.gov/earth1r6/6sf/respprev/rrt/rrt_contingency_plans.htm

I've seen the Integrated Contingency Plan BP had for this well, but it's been awhile now and I didn't bookmark it. Lots of good planning info in there though.

Secondly, it's not so much that blow out presenters won't fail, as they are designed to continue to work after failing. Electronic actuators fail? Use the hydraulics, if that fails use a ROV to manually active the shears. Wired communication/control system fails? Use the acoustical backup, or an ROV. Shear hits a weld/join in the pipe it can't cut through? Design the BOP with multiple rams and space them far enough that no weld can at any time block all the rams all at once. On top of that there are industry standard practices to ensure everything below the BOP/Christmas tree stays within engineered limits.

NASA safety engineers have been pushing this idea for the last 40 years that catastrophic failure can only happen when multiple events all line up all at the same time in just the right order. If any one causal factor is out of sync or doesn't trigger, you just get a small incident or a near miss. Near misses are happening all the time, everywhere around you, you just don't find out about them because media outlets can't be bothered to report on anything other than sensational headlines.

Why people insist on believing BP is the evil caricature twirling his mustache over a metaphorical tied up lady on some train tracks is astonishing to me. BP has to push for increased productivity with decreased costs, they have to strive to run as efficiently and safely (accidents cost the bottom line) as possible. They have to do this because we insist on going to the gas station with gas that is 2 cents cheaper per gallon across the street.

First, people try to divide up games into "educational" and "entertainment." That means "educational" games cannot have gore, cuss words, or anything that promotes that "edgy" feel that attracts a lot of gamers.

why? I've never understood this. Some of my favorite movies are marketed to families and generally target children - heck, Star Wars targeted children. There were no cuss words or gore in Star Wars, so obviously it must have been bad. Songs are obviously better when they are littered with cuss words thrown in randomly, too, right? So movies and video games must be better with them - the more the merrier. Sarcasm aside, I see no reason to ever cuss in a movie or game unless it is to make a point. Sometimes that point is to make a caricature character, like Tarantino does, and I'm fine with that, but honestly, if someone is saying fuck every 5 seconds for no reason, I don't really feel much power in the word when they use it for anything in context (like oh, fuck man, I just got shot).

voice chat - is pretty meaningless. People learn quite well when they work with others - as long as they are paying attention and trying to work through a puzzle together, all should learn from it. Also voice chat in games actually appeals more to boys than girls (seriously - there was a study on this - girls tend to prefer single player games and depend on it less for social interaction than boys), so you would expect girls to excel if voice chat was the reason.

Most ratings systems are broken as far as I can tell. Nudity that could pass a G rating on TV (i.e. topless African tribeswomen) get an automatic AO by the ESRB. I'm not kidding. Sex can be depicted under the sheets and you can get an M rating, but 1/2 second of tit is an automatic AO - how fucked up is that? I'm not talking Johnsons or Vaggies here, I'm talking 1/2 second of African Tribeswomen tit, or breastfeeding mother - automatic AO. The kind of thing that is so ungodly indecent that no 17 year old should ever see such an unholy thing depicted in polygons, but watching it when they are 6 on TV or in a movie is OK. The ONLY reason why there is an M and AO is because WalMart and other "moral" stores wanted it so they could ban AO games - if the ESRB would stop sucking up to them, a sane ratings system could be put in place. I can understand an AO rating, but it needs to be sane - it should be like getting an X for movies, and it currently is like getting a PG-13.

I'm more reputable than you are, oh ye who would fail to provide *ANY* credentials at all while simultaneously trying to discredit others.

Actually, no you aren't and you haven't. Even if I knew your story is 100% true, it doesn't tell me anything useful. You apparently didn't try very hard and the Coast Guard doesn't control who gets to travel to the coast (there are different authorities for the land side). Bureaucracy, especially in emergency situations, is notorious for the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. There's no indication to me that these sorts of problems are an attempt to suppress knowledge about the cleanup. Instead, they appear to be a somewhat ill-coordinated attempt to keep people out of the way of a large scale cleanup effort. In scientific terms, the evidence doesn't distinguish between the hypothesis of "It's a cover up!" and "We think you'd just get in the way, so we're keeping you out."

As to my "attempt" to discredit dKos, here's my opinion in more detail. He has worked as a political consultant (and other political activities such as funding raising for candidates) while continuing to blog on political matters (nothing illegal in that, but that sort of conflict of interest, even though disclosed, isn't what I look for in a news source), hired fraudulent pollsters to tell him what he wanted to hear (my take on the Research 2000 pollster scandal), and IMHO provides a biased viewpoint that's even more cartoonish than Fox News. As far as I'm concerned, the dKos people are sufficiently credentialed to discuss politics, potential stifling of the media, or any other thing they wish to discuss. But they show a considerable bias to the point of caricature.

And credentials aren't everything. For example, I ended up in a long winded argument about NASA's space flight program with some guy that pulled out the credential card as well. He kept harping on my lack of credentials and experience while hiding his own credentials. Eventually, he resorted to claiming that there was no reason for people who knew the inner workings of NASA to speak to those who didn't. Turns out (he revealed this later to a discussion group we were part of) he was a manager for a NASA contractor who even got a chance to testify in front of Congress. Those are respectable credentials. Problem is that what we were disagreeing about was pretty much the value of his labor. So even though he had the credentials, he also had a huge personal stake in the argument going his way. I disagree about the usefulness of credentials in that case. The problems that we were discussing were apparent to knowledgeable external observers not just experienced insiders. I didn't need a few years at NASA to see them. While I paint a negative picture here, I think he was sincere in his beliefs.

Finally, what sort of credentials do I need to have an opinion on Fox News or dKos (or posters who can't be bothered to find a more reputable source than dKos as was the case for the poster I originally replied to)? As I see it, being a poster on Slashdot is good enough for that.

And the atheists have formed their own religion.

No: if you group people by what they *don't* believe in, then that's the only common factor. They may very well believe in non-religious supernatural claims like all the paranormal mumbo-jumbo. A religion formed on that basis would be very fragile at best.

Like all religions it makes its members feel good by telling them they're better than everyone else.

It's much easier to think in simplistic caricatures, huh?

Actually, this world might be a better place if Islam was actually dragged BACK to the 11th century.
This is not a joke: islamic worldview actually used to be very progressive at about that time, or little bit later (12th and 13th centuries).
Scholars of that era would consider many current fundamentalist priests to be a disgrace, non-intellectual caricatures of earlier spiritual leaders.

True.

I wonder how many Slashdot regulars who get their jollies busting on Christianity* simply don't want to realize Islam is literally irrational.

* - and never bothered to actually READ the Catholic Church's postition on, say, evolution [cue ignorant exploding heads...]

Another giant step backwards for mankind. If these people want to be taken seriously, they need to join the 21st century. If you want to live and work alongside the rest of the world, you'll need to toughen up a bit, and not get offended every time someone draws a caricature of Muhammad, or calls him a clown.

Actually, this world might be a better place if Islam was actually dragged BACK to the 11th century. This is not a joke: islamic worldview actually used to be very progressive at about that time, or little bit later (12th and 13th centuries). Scholars of that era would consider many current fundamentalist priests to be a disgrace, non-intellectual caricatures of earlier spiritual leaders.

I love Futurama, but not just for the intellectual side. How many comedy cartoons have had really good tear-jerker moments? Fry's dog, the story of his five-leaf clover, Leela's parents, etc. That's a damned rare thing for me, and like most guys pretty hard to admit, but Futurama's been able to pull it off more than a couple times.

Indeed. They were able to do the same thing during the golden years of The Simpsons, and it was magical: "And Maggie Makes Three...", "Marge Be Not Proud", "Lost Our Lisa"... The Simpsons was great when the characters weren't simply caricatures, a spirit that went to live on in Futurama.

Civilized Behavior. Violence is only appropriate as an unfortunately necessary response to violence.

and you believe it would be hypocritical and ignorant to suggest otherwise, yes?

Yes.

and no violence has yet taken place, yes?

WHAT?!?!

At least about 58 people, believed to be Christians were killed in an outbreak of deadly protest by Muslims in Maiduguri, Borno State, at the weekend, angered by the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed in a Danish and other European publications.

The Danish embassies in Syria, Lebanon, and Iran were all set on fire, as well as the Norwegian embassy in Syria, resulting in at least one death.

There have been a multitude of death threats and public offers of cash rewards of up to Rs 51 crore (US$11 million) to kill cartoonists.

Police in Berlin overwhelmed Amer Cheema, a student from Pakistan, as he entered the office building of Die Welt newspaper, armed with a large knife. Cheema admitted to trying to kill editor Roger Köppel for reprinting the Mohammad cartoons in the newspaper.

Two suitcase bombs were discovered in trains near the German cities of Dortmund and Koblenz, undetonated due to an assembly error. Video footage from Cologne train station, where the bombs were put on the trains, led to the arrest of two Lebanese students in Germany, Youssef el-Hajdib and Jihad Hamad, and subsequently of three suspected co-conspirators in Lebanon.[80] On 1 September 2006, Jörg Ziercke, head of the Bundeskriminalamt (Federal Police), reports that the suspects saw the Muhammad cartoons as an "assault by the West on Islam" and the "initial spark" for the attack

during the ongoing trial of four terror suspects arrested in Denmark, known as the Vollsmose case, one of the accused testified that Jyllands-Posten culture editor Flemming Rose was the target of a terror bombing the group had planned. According to the suspect, they were considering sending a remote-controlled car packed with explosives into the private residence of the editor.

A 28-year-old Somali Islamist used an ax to break down the front door of one of the cartoonists and attempted kill him. He then turned and attacked the police who arrived, and had to be shot twice to subdue him for arrest. And in a lovely touch, the cartoonist's five year old granddaughter was there while this man attempted to slaughter her grandfather.

If fact there have been multiple additional arrests of people planning or attempting to assassinate Muhammad cartoonists.

I can't even begin to list additional violent protests across the world over the images. Just going by the ones I skimmed over in a Google search I see cumulative death toll of over 200. Who knows what the complete total would be.

what if someone fires a bullet in your direction, and then puts down their arms and surrenders. is violence still unfortunately necessary?

Then you put them in prison.
I think it would be awesome if more criminals would surrender peacefully.

you are NOTHING

You appear to have a peculiar fixation on people being "nothing".
Did your father, or perhaps the women in your life, leave you with feelings of inadequacy?

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The argument is not that international treaties override the Constitution. The argument is that the way in which this promotes Progress of Science and Useful Arts is that getting sanctioned by international organizations for failing to live up to treaty obligations will inhibit the progress of science and useful arts, and therefore this falls under Congressional power. The international treaty is not "overriding" the Constitution, the international treaties are triggering Constitutional powers granted to Congress, which is quite a different thing.

If you want to convince people that their positions are wrong, you really need to understand the actual positions of your opponents, not how you want to caricature them. Opponents which, I would say again, do not include me. I'd just as soon tell the international treaties to take a hike and think international organizations are pretty toothless on the whole anyhow. The fact that your counterarguments aren't even convincing me should be taken as a sign.