Slashdot Mirror
On The State of Wireless
There's a short piece on Mindjack about the state of wireless. Actually, the piece is a minireview of a piece that Nicholas Carroll produced at Hastings Research. Yes, it's a PDF, and yes, it costs money. Having read through it, it's also totally worth it, especially if you are an organization that does basically anything with wireless.
I'm not banned!!!
me no have money. two for a dolla?
Important Stuff:
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Try to reply to other people comments instead of starting new threads.
Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating
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Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about.
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FREE DEAD PENIS BIRD (Score:-1)
by gebyyznfgre on Tuesday October 30, @12:51PM (#2497677)
(User #530122 Info)FREE DEAD PENIS BIRD!!!
DEAD PENIS BIRD, A REFORMING TROLL, HAS SUFFERED UNDUE BANNING AND MENTAL ANGUISH, THANKS TO TACO AND CO.'S EXCESSIVE AND UNNECESSAY BITCHSLAPPING POLICY!
Check out this comment [slashdot.org] [slashdot.org] and that comment [slashdot.org] [slashdot.org].
This morning, when I logged in roughly 9 AM EDT, the comments were rated 5 and 4 respectively. Now they picked up a total of 6 "Overrated" mods. What's most strange about this is that NO BAN has been tripped.
This reeks of editor abuse. How a fairly old comment can pick up FOUR "Overrated" mods in such a short span can be explained in no other way.
You'd figure that Taco and Co. would love to see a troll change his ways and post some meaningful stuff. Apparently this is not the case. "Once a troll, always a troll" is their motto.
I was looking forward to the challenge of reforming a troll. But their shortsighted ways have proved otherwise. Fuck 'em with a broomstick, I say.
[ Reply to This
Parent]
- Re:FREE DEAD PENIS BIRD by gebyyznfgre (Score:-1) Tuesday October 30, @12:55PM
- Re:FREE DEAD PENIS BIRD by Fucky the troll (Score:-1) Tuesday October 30, @01:01PM
Using Commodity Hardware in CmdrTaco (Score:-1)by Trolligula on Tuesday October 30, @12:51PM (#2497681)
(User #527461 Info | http://www.clownpenis.fart/ | Last Journal: Tuesday October 23, @06:20PM)
My Story: CmdrTaco's Coming Out Experience
By Rob Malda
Part 1
On Saturday, May 21, 1997, I fell in love with Hemos at a LUG meeting. I was 24, Hemos was 25, and a
couple of days later we moved to Virginia, where we worked as programmers for the OSDN, on a website titled Slashdot.
On Wednesday, July 7, 1997, a little while after we molested our two freinds,
JonKatz and Cowboy Neal, I told Hemos to wait on inviting one of
JonKatz's gimps over to play, that we needed "to have the most
important conversation of our lives."
"CmdrTaco, what is it?" he asked. "What's going on?" "Hemos," I replied,
"I don't know how to say this so I'll just say it
simply. I need for you to know that I'm gay and I'm coming out."
How did we get from May 21, 1997 to July 7, 1997?
For one thing, it started well before 1997. Hemos and I first met each
other in the fall of 1983, when we were attending Lincoln High School
in Charleston, our mutual hometown. We were both advanced foreign language
students (I was taking Latin, Hemos was taking French) and we shared a
tawdry love affair.
Hemos was everything I ever wanted in a gay companion--pretty and smart and
sweet and very attentive. We never dated in high school, of course. I was
much too shy to ask him out and he was much too traditional to think
about doing the asking himself.
We reconnected several years later, when we were both interning for a local gay pride website, I Like my Homosexuals Flaming.com [yahoo.com]. We corresponded from
our respective schools over the fall and winter, then began dating--and
making out--that summer. Three years later we married.
Aside from a couple of one time dates, I had never had a boyfriend and I
certainly had never made out with anyone--and by the time we started doing
so I was already 21. It wasn't like I hadn't had exposure. My best friend,
JonKatz, who went to another high school, had a boyfriend, CowboyNeal, and they had
sex all the time. It was also the case that Greg was gay--and when he
wasn't having sex with CowboyNeal he was having sex with other guys.
JonKatz and CowboyNeal and I had a quirky little relationship. They were
emotionally and physically and intellectually attracted to each other; I
was emotionally and physically attracted to JonKatz, emotionally and
intellectually attracted to CowboyNeal. And, at least as far the
emotional/intellectual part was concerned, I think they were attracted
back to me.
It didn't work out, of course. CowboyNeal went off to school, JonKatz and I stayed
in Pensacola. CowboyNeal found a new boyfriend, as did JonKatz--a whole series of
them, in fact, along with a nazi-gimp or two. And at some point along
the way, probably after he had broken up with JonKatz and before I got
together with Hemos, I pointed out to JonKatz that although I didn't think I
was "a homosexual" I was pretty sure that he was the only guy with whom I
would ever want to have a physical relationship. When he said, "I can see
that, but I think it would just be too incestuous," I said, "OK," and
went home and cried for a long time, certain that no one would ever love
me if JonKatz couldn't or wouldn't.
It really is the case that at the time I didn't know whether I was gay or
straight. I thought I might be gay--certainly it was the case that from the time I was a little kid I had been fascinated with big, muscular men,
and that they formed the core of my sexual fantasy life once I reached
puberty and began the nightly masturbatory ritual of my adolescence. But
I didn't know whether my fantasizing about big, muscular men meant that I
was gay--or if it just meant I was really insecure about my own personal
appearance and physical prowess. Likewise, if it didn't know whether it
precluded my having a physical relationship with a woman. I'd never been
with anyone, either male or female, and I really d
Read the rest of this comment...
[ Reply to This|Parent
]
- Re:Using Commodity Hardware in CmdrTaco by TRoLLaXoR (Score:-1) Tuesday October 30, @01:17PM
All your first posts... (Score:-1, Offtopic)by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 30, @12:51PM (#2497684)
...are belong to us.
---lame
Fuck wires, man, daMN THEM ALL TO HELL!
Fourth post?
Linus and Ximian's Miguel came to an agreement to include Gnome inside the 2.5.x series, so once you boot the 45MB kernel you'll be ready to use your desktop, no more waits, everything runs at kernel level with the use of DirectFB.
Alas, with tihs kind of kernels security will go down the drain, making it possible for every 13 year old script kiddie to enter your system with a 5 line perl script that has already been written.
This script takes advantage of a very serious security flaw in Gnome's CORBA implementantion, where any user can execure arbitrary code on a remote machine. When asked about it, Linus just said : I don't care.
RMS on the other hand told tihs reporter that HURD doesn't have this problem since it runs all servers at user level. Of course, no one except HURD developers use it.
When told about this statement Linus said : Read my previous answer, I don't care about RMS, as I didn't care about AST back in time when I ripped off Minix (formerly known as BoumOS, Mike Bouma's OS) to build Linux (formerly known as Freax)
Sincerely, Mike Bouma
Please try to keep posts on topic.
Try to reply to other people comments instead of starting new threads.
Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said.
Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about.
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page)
Problems regarding accounts or comment posting should be sent to
CowboyNeal.
FREE DEAD PENIS BIRD (Score:-1)
by gebyyznfgre on Tuesday October 30, @12:51PM (#2497677)
(User #530122 Info)FREE DEAD PENIS BIRD!!!
DEAD PENIS BIRD, A REFORMING TROLL, HAS SUFFERED UNDUE BANNING AND MENTAL ANGUISH, THANKS TO TACO AND CO.'S EXCESSIVE AND UNNECESSAY BITCHSLAPPING POLICY!
Check out this comment [slashdot.org] [slashdot.org] and that comment [slashdot.org] [slashdot.org].
This morning, when I logged in roughly 9 AM EDT, the comments were rated 5 and 4 respectively. Now they picked up a total of 6 "Overrated" mods. What's most strange about this is that NO BAN has been tripped.
This reeks of editor abuse. How a fairly old comment can pick up FOUR "Overrated" mods in such a short span can be explained in no other way.
You'd figure that Taco and Co. would love to see a troll change his ways and post some meaningful stuff. Apparently this is not the case. "Once a troll, always a troll" is their motto.
I was looking forward to the challenge of reforming a troll. But their shortsighted ways have proved otherwise. Fuck 'em with a broomstick, I say.
[ Reply to This
Parent]
- Re:FREE DEAD PENIS BIRD by gebyyznfgre (Score:-1) Tuesday October 30, @12:55PM
- Re:FREE DEAD PENIS BIRD by Fucky the troll (Score:-1) Tuesday October 30, @01:01PM
Using Commodity Hardware in CmdrTaco (Score:-1)by Trolligula on Tuesday October 30, @12:51PM (#2497681)
(User #527461 Info | http://www.clownpenis.fart/ | Last Journal: Tuesday October 23, @06:20PM)
My Story: CmdrTaco's Coming Out Experience
By Rob Malda
Part 1
On Saturday, May 21, 1997, I fell in love with Hemos at a LUG meeting. I was 24, Hemos was 25, and a
couple of days later we moved to Virginia, where we worked as programmers for the OSDN, on a website titled Slashdot.
On Wednesday, July 7, 1997, a little while after we molested our two freinds,
JonKatz and Cowboy Neal, I told Hemos to wait on inviting one of
JonKatz's gimps over to play, that we needed "to have the most
important conversation of our lives."
"CmdrTaco, what is it?" he asked. "What's going on?" "Hemos," I replied,
"I don't know how to say this so I'll just say it
simply. I need for you to know that I'm gay and I'm coming out."
How did we get from May 21, 1997 to July 7, 1997?
For one thing, it started well before 1997. Hemos and I first met each
other in the fall of 1983, when we were attending Lincoln High School
in Charleston, our mutual hometown. We were both advanced foreign language
students (I was taking Latin, Hemos was taking French) and we shared a
tawdry love affair.
Hemos was everything I ever wanted in a gay companion--pretty and smart and
sweet and very attentive. We never dated in high school, of course. I was
much too shy to ask him out and he was much too traditional to think
about doing the asking himself.
We reconnected several years later, when we were both interning for a local gay pride website, I Like my Homosexuals Flaming.com [yahoo.com]. We corresponded from
our respective schools over the fall and winter, then began dating--and
making out--that summer. Three years later we married.
Aside from a couple of one time dates, I had never had a boyfriend and I
certainly had never made out with anyone--and by the time we started doing
so I was already 21. It wasn't like I hadn't had exposure. My best friend,
JonKatz, who went to another high school, had a boyfriend, CowboyNeal, and they had
sex all the time. It was also the case that Greg was gay--and when he
wasn't having sex with CowboyNeal he was having sex with other guys.
JonKatz and CowboyNeal and I had a quirky little relationship. They were
emotionally and physically and intellectually attracted to each other; I
was emotionally and physically attracted to JonKatz, emotionally and
intellectually attracted to CowboyNeal. And, at least as far the
emotional/intellectual part was concerned, I think they were attracted
back to me.
It didn't work out, of course. CowboyNeal went off to school, JonKatz and I stayed
in Pensacola. CowboyNeal found a new boyfriend, as did JonKatz--a whole series of
them, in fact, along with a nazi-gimp or two. And at some point along
the way, probably after he had broken up with JonKatz and before I got
together with Hemos, I pointed out to JonKatz that although I didn't think I
was "a homosexual" I was pretty sure that he was the only guy with whom I
would ever want to have a physical relationship. When he said, "I can see
that, but I think it would just be too incestuous," I said, "OK," and
went home and cried for a long time, certain that no one would ever love
me if JonKatz couldn't or wouldn't.
It really is the case that at the time I didn't know whether I was gay or
straight. I thought I might be gay--certainly it was the case that from
the time I was a little kid I had been fascinated with big, muscular men,
and that they formed the core of my sexual fantasy life once I reached
puberty and began the nightly masturbatory ritual of my adolescence. But
I didn't know whether my fantasizing about big, muscular men meant that I
was gay--or if it just meant I was really insecure about my own personal
appearance and physical prowess. Likewise, if it didn't know whether it
precluded my having a physical relationship with a woman. I'd never been
with anyone, either male or female, and I really d
Read the rest of this comment...
[ Reply to This
| Parent
]
- Re:Using Commodity Hardware in CmdrTaco by TRoLLaXoR (Score:-1) Tuesday October 30, @01:17PM
All your first posts... (Score:-1, Offtopic)by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 30, @12:51PM (#2497684)
...are belong to us.
---lame
The real problem with wireless at the moment is security. WEP notwithstanding, it is still far to easy to take an 802.11b equipped laptop outside a large corporation, and to gain acess to its network with little more effort than clicking a mouse.
The way the CIA and FBI act on encryption now could see wireless thrive, or kill it off completely. Nobody would want an insecure wireless service, but if the CIA and FBI get their way, that's all that will be on offer.
So, encryption (and governmental attitudes toward it) is the key to all this.
...... today is a slow news day....
yeah.
I bet you get $0.000000000001 for ever hit
:-P
this is worse than msnbc's 'browser lockdown'
I'm boycotting...and no, it's not just cuz I'm cheap
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
How are we supposed to comment on it, if it costs money to read?
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
Perfect timing for this article considering Cisco just announced their new Mobile IP stuff.
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
Last time I posted this, I was immediately censored. Please distribute this and other Slashdot Privacy Watch publications extensively until CmdrTaco responds satisfactorily.
I tried it, and it works!
If you're thinking wireless, and you're considering college, virginia tech. We just bought 4 OC-12's, and we're putting up wireless thru the entire campus this winter, or spring, i don't know which (i suspect spring). Its already available in some parts of campus.
sig?
Just imagined it. Eyes hurt. Head hurts. From trying to focus on small screen.
Best Slashdot Co
Of course, there's the "state-sanctioned" version of how Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda got his most peculiar nickname ("'CmdrTaco' is a reference to a Dave Barry article where he lists places not to take a date. Among them is any place called 'The Commander Taco' or something like that.") and then there's the real reason for said nickname.
In order to explain it, we'll need to hop into the time machine and step back a few years to when Mr. Malda was still but a wee pup in college. So I'd like to take you back to the early 90's.
Rob was fresh out of Catholic high school, with dozens of years of Catholic guilt impressed upon and built up inside him. He'd snored his way through high school, tinkering around with nothing more than computers. Fact of the matter is that most girls don't like geeks and he was too repressed to figure out a way to approach those of the fairer sex. For that matter, he was even afraid to touch himself. Based on what little sex ed had been taught in school, he knew better than to engage in premarital copulation or let his seed touch the ground, lest he burn in hell or suffer the fate of Onan. It wasn't the bullying and the scornful glances that were the worst torture of high school, it was waking up in the middle of the night, his genitals throbbing, gritting his teeth, and clenching his perineum to abate the oncoming rush of verboten relief (after his mom found his stained underwear once, he had learned better).
But college represented the ultimate to a scrawny kid who wasn't quite sure how to play well with others. It was the chance to meet completely new people and to completely reinvent himself, a rebirth of sorts. And what kind of rebirth would it be? The kind that meant he would (finally) get chicks. Catholic guilt be damned! He'd heard that throbbing in his loins loud and clear and it was finally time to do something about it. But how? The answer was clear: in addition to the obvious major in computer science, he'd pick up a minor in art. Women would look at him and see not only the provider instincts that comp sci implied, but a sensitive heart and a mind with a flair for aesthetics as well, a heart with art in it. What lady could possibly resist such a formidable combination?
Unfortunately, all of them. A little scribble on paper saying you know art is no replacement for the ability to clearly communicate that you love it as he was finding out. Things at college were no different than in high school. The girls were still hung up on the football players, leaving him struggling to make a saving throw vs. pathetic geekdom. He discovered the concept of alcohol, figuring that cracking a sixer and his inhibitions meant that he'd be cracking their legs, but again, he turned into nothing but an incoherent mess.
A year went by and no luck, aside from ridding himself of some Catholic guilt: the liberal nature of campus and the wonders of the nascent world wide web meant that with a little (very little) peer interaction skirting around the subject and lonely hours in the dead of night on weekends when his roommates were out presumably dipping their wicks meant that he'd finally been able to overcome his irrational fear of masturbation. And boy, did he ever.
Saying that he took to it like a fish to water was an understatement: he masturbated as if he honestly believed that if he did it enough, he'd win a prize. Unfortunately discovering Usenet, he learned all manner of deviant masturbatory practices, of course convincing himself that it was all OK and that this was just practice for when he finally met Ms. Right, etc., etc. You can justify some things to yourself, but there shouldn't be any way to rationally justify getting your penis lodged in a beaker. Stupid stupid! What was he thinking? But the guy on alt.sex.masturbation had said that the sensation of a penis displacing a beaker full of warm olive oil was the most "realistic" feeling ever, so who was he to doubt? It was a heart pounding few minutes waiting to return to his normal, pitifully small fla
Read the rest of this comment...
Reply to This
| Parent
- Re:OT: The origins of CmdrTaco's name. by Genghis Troll (Score:-1) Tuesday October 30, @10:37AM
- Re:OT: The origins of CmdrTaco's name. by Anonymous Coward (Score:-1) Tuesday October 30, @10:42AM
- Re:OT: The origins of CmdrTaco's name. by Fucky the troll (Score:-1) Tuesday October 30, @10:54AM
- Re:OT: The origins of CmdrTaco's name. by Guns n' Roses Troll (Score:-1) Tuesday October 30, @11:29AM
- Re:OT: The origins of CmdrTaco's name. by tt2k1 (Score:-1) Tuesday October 30, @12:34PM
The failure of Open Source (Score:-1, Troll)by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 30, @10:37AM (#2496929)
Here's another reason why Open Source is not a viable alternative as far as business is concerned - when you pay a group of programmers someone can make a final determination of the right way to proceed. In Open Source, two big egos can fork the code.
So what if it's free (in either sense)? Why would you risk your business when this kind of bickering can hold up everything?
Reply to This
| Parent
]
Re:The failure of Open Source (Score:5, Insightful)
by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 30, @10:43AM (#2496961)
Oh please. Have you ever worked on a commercial software project? I've seen just as much if not more ego in moronic engineering team meetings at my enterprise software company. Without a single strong technical leader OR a group of smart people who all equally respect each other's opinions, the SAME THING happens on a commercial project. I've watched a Director of Engineering call meetings almost every day for 3 weeks in a row because he didn't know how to solve exactly this sort of problem. In the end he just decided to go with what the person with the most years of experience said and to get the CEO to give him blanket license to make that technical decision, though none of the other engineers agreed with it - they were all too conflict averse to speak up and too afraid about losing there jobs just as the economy was tanking (he made a bad decision indeed and the project suffered greatly for it, getting delayed by 3-4 months and even then never delivering a large portion of the promised features because this architectural decision made them impossible). That company (mine, unfortunately) is most likely going out of business soon. So don't give me this crap that ego only adversely affects Open Source projects.
[ Reply to This
| Parent
]
Time out of whack (Score:-1, Offtopic)
by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 30, @10:37AM (#2496930)
Did you guys forget to set the clock back on the Slashdot server? Looks like it's an hour ahead of the rest of the world...
[ Reply to This
| Parent
]
Please Read! True it is? (Score:-1, Troll)
by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 30, @10:39AM (#2496940)
I got this from The Slashdot Privacy Watch [slashdot.org]. Check out their Open Letter!!!
An Open Letter to VA Linux Concerning Privacy on Slashdot
To whom it may concern,
It has come to our attention that Slashdot is building a detailed database of every visitor and user of Slashdot. This database includes, among other personal details, an address history which permanently records every IP address assosciated with every Slashdot user and comment for all time. We are concerned that this database is a signifigant Intellectual Property asset that may be abused in the event of a sale of Slashdot by VA Linux to a third party.
In addition, we feel that keeping a permanent and indelible record of every IP address used to post every Anonymous comment on Slashdot erases whatever hopes of anonymity that endangered or threatened users may have had. To name two examples, Chinese dissidents and corporate insiders can have no expectation of anonymously revealing civil rights violations and corporate abuse.
It is our hope that given these concerns, VA Linux or Slashdot may choose to provide an opt-out option to users, whereby users could choose not to be tracked and profiled if they so request. Some discussion has been made of a Slashdot subscription service; perhaps one revenue stream for Slashdot would be to sell Privacy Rights. For a low yearly fee, a user could purchase the right not to be tracked, profiled, and logged by IP address.
Whatever steps are taken, it is our hope that Slashdot will address the current privacy concerns in public to allay our fears and to promote open discussion.
Thanks again for creating one of the most popular sites on the Internet, and all the best.
-The Slashdot Privacy Watch Team.
I don't know is this true or not?!?
[ Reply to This
| Parent
]
by TrollMan 5000 on Tuesday October 30, @10:41AM (#2496944)
(User #454685 Info | http://www.propztoalldeadpenisbirds.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday October 17, @09:35AM)
FREE DEAD PENIS BIRD!! STRENGTH TO THE OPPRESSED!!
Check out this comment [slashdot.org] and that comment [slashdot.org].
This morning, when I logged in roughly 9 AM EDT, the comments were rated 5 and 4 respectively. Now they picked up a total of 6 "Overrated" mods. What's most strange about this is that NO BAN has been tripped.
This reeks of editor abuse. How a fairly old comment can pick up FOUR "Overrated" mods in such a short span can be explained in no other way.
You'd figure that Taco and Co. would love to see a troll change his ways and post some meaningful stuff. Apparently this is not the case. "Once a troll, always a troll" is their motto.
I was looking forward to the challenge of reforming a troll. But their shortsighted ways have proved otherwise. Fuck 'em with a broomstick, I say.
[ Reply to This
| Parent
]
His favorite? (Score:5, Interesting)
by LinuxGeek8 on Tuesday October 30, @10:41AM (#2496946)
(User #184023 Info | http://chaosmongers.org/)
He seems to think a lot in favor of the Andrea VM.
That's ok to me, but he might want to take notice of the fact that linus didn't accept Rik's patches a lot and that 2.4.9 still had actually the VM of 2.4.5. The -ac tree was more up to date.
So for a good comparison you'll need to compare the linus and the ac tree.
You will buy again, cause boredom creates hunger.
[ Reply to This
| Parent
---lame
Does the Slashdot Customer Profile violate my Privacy?
It is strongly reccomended that you understand Slashdot Customer Profiles [slashdot.org] before asking this question. Now that you do, let's attempt to understand the answer.
The Right to Privacy is not guaranteed by the United States Constitution, and in America whatever "right" we may have had to privacy is rapidly dissapearing. Nowhere is this more true than on the Internet. However, many Americans value their privacy, and the courts have attempted to safeguard the privacy of citizens to some degree. However, "privacy" on the Internet is a subjective and hotly contested term, so any attempt to define it objectively will most likely fail.
Does the Slashdot Customer Profile violate the OSDN Privacy Statement?
This much more focused question can be easily answered. The Slashdot Privacy Policy is linked from the toolbar in the upper left hand corner of your web browser. Slashdot is part of VA Linux Inc.'s OSD Network, and is bound by OSDN's Privacy Policy [osdn.com]. Let's examine the relevant portions of this policy:
With regard to personal information, users can view their data on their personal profile page.
This statement is empirically false. No user has ever been permitted to view his or her Slashdot Customer Profile "IP address history" field.
OSDN will track the domains from which people visit OSDN and analyze this data for trends and statistics.
This statement is empirically false. Slashdot does not track domain statistics in the aggregate, rather it profiles every customer and their IP address history [slashdot.org] for the purpose of gagging abusive content on a per-user or per-subnet basis [slashdot.org].
Subject to the provisions of this Privacy Policy, different OSDN sites may use accumulated data for different purposes, including but not limited to marketing analysis, service evaluation and planning.
This statement is true, but misleading. Tracking and gagging users by IP address is certainly a "different purpose", and it is clearly stated that use of per-customer information includes but is not limited to the stated purposes. One must wonder what the other unstated purposes are?
General: In cases where users voluntarily and publicly disclose personal information which may contain Registration Data or otherwise post personal information in conjunction with content subject to an open source license, such personal information necessarily will be disclosed subject to the terms of the applicable license.
Keep in mind that your IP address history is not a "voluntarily disclosed" piece of information: you are forced to disclose an IP address when you interact with a web site. Therefore IP address histories are not bound by this clause.
At OSDN, we intend to give you as much control as possible over your personal information, including the Registration Data
It is not possible to change, modify, or "opt out" of having your IP address history stored in your Slashdot Customer Profile. Therefore, we must understand this statement to mean "OSDN does not believe it is possible for a Slashdot user to check a box which opts them out of being profiled by IP address".
The simple answer to the question "Does the Slashdot Customer Profile violate the OSDN Privacy Statement?", therefore, is a resounding yes. The recent changes to Slashcode to profile every customer and their IP address history [slashdot.org] for the purpose of gagging abusive content on a per-user or per-subnet basis [slashdot.org] have only been made recently. It is therefore possible - nay, likely - that these changes have been made without a careful examination of the OSDN Privacy Policy.
Which brings any concerned privacy advocate to the obvious question: Should I be concerned about potential privacy violations on Slashdot? More importantly, should Slashdot users be given the option of "opting out" of being profiled? The answer is a resounding... perhaps [slashdot.org] .
Cool. Slashdot can run the next generation competitor to Passport.
What the hell is this? Slashdot linking to PDFs for sale. Anybody check to see whether or not the poster worked for the company selling the PDF?
Kind of hard for us to discuss the actual story here when we'd be required to pay for the content. So instead, I'm betting most posts are going to be similar to mine. Might as well just mark everything as offtopic.
HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 18:13:05 GMT Server: Apache/1.3.20 (Unix) mod_perl/1.25 X-Powered-By: Slash 2.001000 Connection: close Transfer-Encoding: chunked Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
OK
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator, pater@slashdot.org and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.
More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
---lame
All you motherfuckers are gonna pay, You are the ones who are the ball-lickers. We're gonna fuck your mothers
while you watch and cry like little bitches. Once we get to Hollywood and find those Miramax fucks who are making
that movie, we're gonna make 'em at our shit, then shit out our shit, then eat their shit which is made up of our shit
that we made 'em eat. Then you're all fucking next.
Love,
Jay and Silent Bob
Here are the buttons on our office microwave:
potato popcorn pizza
frozen-veg. START soup-bev.
froz.-entree more/less fresh-veg.
power-level quick-on add-30-sec.
kitchen-timer cust.-programs defrost
1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9
stop/clear 0 set-clock
I have met a wonderful man and we have had ecstatic sex together. We have not had sexual intercourse, however, because he cannot wear a condom. He is allergic to the latex in it. I will not have intercourse without a condom. I am concerned for his sexual pleasure because he does not come to a climax, even if I give him oral sex. We both want to have sexual intercourse , but under the circumstances, I am frustrated and do not know what to do. Should I just wait until a safe time of the month without him using a condom?
"People should be allowed to keep midgets as pets."
- Gov. Jesse Ventura
People keep posting this article by The Slashdot Privacy Watch. I'm going to repost it even if it gets me banned. I can't believe this is happening.
An Open Letter to VA Linux Concerning Privacy on Slashdot
To whom it may concern,
It has come to our attention that Slashdot is building a detailed database of every visitor and user of Slashdot. This database includes, among other personal details, an address history which permanently records every IP address assosciated with every Slashdot user and comment for all time. We are concerned that this database is a signifigant Intellectual Property asset that may be abused in the event of a sale of Slashdot by VA Linux to a third party.
In addition, we feel that keeping a permanent and indelible record of every IP address used to post every Anonymous comment on Slashdot erases whatever hopes of anonymity that endangered or threatened users may have had. To name two examples, Chinese dissidents and corporate insiders can have no expectation of anonymously revealing civil rights violations and corporate abuse.
It is our hope that given these concerns, VA Linux or Slashdot may choose to provide an opt-out option to users, whereby users could choose not to be tracked and profiled if they so request. Some discussion has been made of a Slashdot subscription service; perhaps one revenue stream for Slashdot would be to sell Privacy Rights. For a low yearly fee, a user could purchase the right not to be tracked, profiled, and logged by IP address.
Whatever steps are taken, it is our hope that Slashdot will address the current privacy concerns in public to allay our fears and to promote open discussion.
Thanks again for creating one of the most popular sites on the Internet, and all the best.
-The Slashdot Privacy Watch Team.
When did this happen? Why? Why didn't anyone tell us?
i'll give you that. I'm in the marching band, and as such, i love the football. I go to all the games, scream with the best of them, yell "suck it" to the other team, and "the ref beats his wife" to ... well... the ref.
I was disgusted with our game on saturday against SU. Our team thought they could stroll in to warsham field and sweep everything. We got cocky. And we sucked. We're a better football team than Syracuse, but they deserved to win, cause we didn't even bother to show up.
Plus, its complicated by the fact that Grant Noel can't run, but that you have the good QB (randall) practicing/warming up with the 2nd team, so that you are afraid to put him in when Noel isn't doing so hot. but the real deal is that we have NO offensive line. Our defense is doin great, they're one of the best, and Ben Taylor is Engelberger mach][. But we need to kick our o-line in the ass a coupla times. Noel, even though slow, should have been able to avoid going down every 2 minutes of play - he was getting no coverage. They need to light a fire under it.
Also, our recievers need to learn to hold onto the ball. We fumbled so many balls that game. Notice i'm not blaiming the ref's. There were some bad calls in that game, and might have changed the outcome, but we played an aweful game.
The consolation comes in that everyone lost on saturday, the top5 isn't recognizeable from last week's. Another thing to consider is: if miami beats syracuse, and then we pull off beating miami... who goes to the Big East BCS bowl? Oh well, at least temple is everybody's bitch.
ah well, carry on my wayward son.
~z
sig?
What the heck is this? How much does Slashdot get for posting the article? Could somebody just post a text version here?
Click Here to order my response. Cost is only $16.99, all major credit cards accepted.
Sheesh.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
One of the major reasons networks like Sprint, AT&T and MCI can't bring programs like ION(rest in piece, you were a great idea, and deserved better. My friends who have the service will fight tooth and nail to keep it even though Sprint is canceling it) to residential businesses is because the "Baby Bells" own the local loops. I know that both Sprint and AT&T are watching wireless very closely. Both have been burned trying first generation fixed wireless and have had to stop offering the service because 1G wireless is just to unreliable. I'm not sure about MCI, but I would be suprised if they're not on top of it as well.
With the next generation of wireless, we just may see some viable offerings from these companies for broadband. If, and this is a big if, it can be done before the Bells roll out DSL on a wide scale. The race is on, and the last mile is at stake.
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
FREE DEAD PENIS BIRD!!!
DEAD PENIS BIRD, A REFORMING TROLL, HAS SUFFERED UNDUE BANNING AND MENTAL ANGUISH, THANKS TO TACO AND CO.'S EXCESSIVE AND UNNECESSAY BITCHSLAPPING POLICY!
Check out this comment and that comment.
This morning, when I logged in roughly 9 AM EDT, the comments were rated 5 and 4 respectively. Now they picked up a total of 6 "Overrated" mods. What's most strange about this is that NO BAN has been tripped.
This reeks of editor abuse. How a fairly old comment can pick up FOUR "Overrated" mods in such a short span can be explained in no other way.
You'd figure that Taco and Co. would love to see a troll change his ways and post some meaningful stuff. Apparently this is not the case. "Once a troll, always a troll" is their motto.
I was looking forward to the challenge of reforming a troll. But their shortsighted ways have proved otherwise. Fuck 'em with a broomstick, I say.
I haven't read the PDF, but what information does it provide that isn't readily available on the net for $0? Seeing how there are plenty of articles and resources available for free, why should I pay $24 to download a PDF? I guess its convenient for "suits" who are not web-savvy enough to be able to research wireless from readily available and free web sources.
a Beowulf cluster of these?
Here's some more truth for ya, ReidMaynard. Enjoy!
FREE DEAD PENIS BIRD!!!
DEAD PENIS BIRD, A REFORMING TROLL, HAS SUFFERED UNDUE BANNING AND MENTAL ANGUISH, THANKS TO TACO AND CO.'S EXCESSIVE AND UNNECESSAY BITCHSLAPPING POLICY!
Check out this comment and that comment.
This morning, when I logged in roughly 9 AM EDT, the comments were rated 5 and 4 respectively. Now they picked up a total of 6 "Overrated" mods. What's most strange about this is that NO BAN has been tripped.
This reeks of editor abuse. How a fairly old comment can pick up FOUR "Overrated" mods in such a short span can be explained in no other way.
You'd figure that Taco and Co. would love to see a troll change his ways and post some meaningful stuff. Apparently this is not the case. "Once a troll, always a troll" is their motto.
I was looking forward to the challenge of reforming a troll. But their shortsighted ways have proved otherwise. Fuck 'em with a broomstick, I say.
He'd point to people and say, "Yeech! That guy's energy is severely messed up." And I'd run across the street and ask how often s/he used a cell phone.
9 for 9. Each individual canvassed reported using a cell phone for, on average, two hours every day.
Altered energy patterns were described as the following. . .
A separate, small bubble of energy now integrated into the side of the person's larger bubble at the side of the head where the cell phone 'plugs' in; weird effects on the rest of the energy pattern, especially when the phone is in use. ('Bubble', being the loose term meaning a 3D version of a pattern which somewhat resembles that seen when iron filings are sprinkled around a magnet).
My friend notes that the alteration of people's energy patterns appears to be a cumulative effect, and that people with energy patterns altered in this way seem much more prone to 'fliers' and similar.
This is a relatively new twist on my old mis-trust of wireless technology which up until recently was based purely on the disturbing and much pooh-poohed reports of weird effects to the nervous system resulting from EM radiation in the bandwidths common to Cell and PCS phones.
Of course, the above is rather far to the left of where most Slashdotters are. Nonetheless, I'd like to point out the following;
The human brain and nervous system are electrochemical in nature; this is why things like stun guns and EEG machines work. We emit EM radiation. Everybody knows this. Conversely, it is foolish to think that EM radiation when pumped through us will have absolutely no effect whatsoever. --And the straight mechanical heating of cells doesn't seem to be the issue in any of the lab reports I've read; the true issue appears to be that the functions of brain and nerve cells are in part mitigated by various electrical wave forms, and like AC and magnets, this is a two way street. That which emits EM can be affected by EM. Simple as that.
Of course, those who stand to make billions of dollars from the entrenching of wireless technology will tell you a very different story; one which sounds a great deal like the "There's no proof," thing that the cigarette companies piped at us for decades.
Okay. Enough. Do some of your own research before knee-jerking based on what you've been tricked into believing is true by Corporate media, bought & sold Governments, and school books provided by said interests.
Have fun!
-Fantastic Lad
Five or ten years ago, practically nobody had a mobile phone. Nowadays, everyone does - hell, companies are even giving them away free. They're small, they're easy to use, and what's more they're rather nifty to have.
At the moment, computers are large, expensive and difficult to use, but are getting smaller, cheaper and easier (?) all the time. They'll eventually get to the stage where, rather than shelling out a thousand dollars for a bulky desktop box, you'll be able to buy a variety of specialised portable/hand-held computers for only $100 or so - think along the lines of a PDA, but for mainstream use, not just business.
Wireless applications are an obvious follow-on from that. It would kinda defeat the purpose of a 'wireless' computer if you had to plug it into a communications socket every time you wanted to use it.
If that's too complicated for you to understand (maybe you're drunk right now, or something), imagine how utterly cool it would be if your mobile phone could do e-mail, USENET and read Slashdot.
Let's face the facts: wireless is another tool to have in the toolbox but it is not the second coming of Berners-Lee. It has its place and its reasons for use. There are applications and situations that will demand it and others will not. It will not, contrary to popular belief, revolutionize business. It will greatly improve some aspects of business but it is not going to change the way we live.
Now I'm not saying it's unimportant. On the contrary, it will be exceptionally important. This however is similar to rails--without demand for trains and things to be carried somewhere, it's useless. It may be a better way to do things but it is nothing more.
Of course we torture people, we need the information --Gen. Pinochet
Whoa... this is some smoking tech - and why pay the telco for leased lines or leased fibre - or buy your own then trench it... from a ROI standpoint, wireless is absolutely the way to go.
Check out Wi-Lan's stuff, they had a press release yesterday "Operating at an unprecedented throughput of up to 192 megabits per second per six-sector cell, Wi-LAN's BWS Series includes access points and customer premises equipment (CPE), and can be used in broadband access applications alone or in combination with wired alternatives. The BWS Series also offers an eave-height integrated antenna and outdoor unit (ODU) that allows for quick and economical installation of point-to-point and point-to-multipoint applications. Wi-LAN's broadband wireless access systems are powered by the company's patented W-OFDM technology, allowing for increased capacity, non line-of-site capability, and superior resistance to multipath, resulting in higher effective data transmission rates and a typical range of 15 kilometres."
Poundingsand.com - Tshirts, including Micropoly and DMCAEVIL. This has been a plug, and not an ad.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
As for Hastings Research : maybe you would like to see a sample of some of their other quality research. When have you ever heard a white paper draw a metaphor between market conditions and a glass being half full? But seriously they do have a six foot magnetic whiteboard to "prototype" their research. (they don't put rookies in center field either.) If you need to know they also provide a list of profitable web sites. (Look to the bottom of the page for their judicious use of "keywords" to help prop up their standing in search engine results.)
This is the worst article ever on slashdot.
My friend notes that the alteration of people's energy patterns appears to be a cumulative effect, and that people with energy patterns altered in this way seem much more prone to 'fliers' and similar.
Sounds like someone's been standing a little too close to the Resonator. Better get your pineal gland checked. And remember, they can only see you when you move so stand very, very still.
It seems to me that optical links can be spatially focussed much more than RF links.
While RF might be great for in-home networking, assuming you can surmount the security worries, optical seems like a much better bet for completing the famous Last Mile.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I'll tell you why you were immediatly "censored" (since that's what you call moderation): because it's offtopic. You may have a good point, and your claims may be right, but posting them to random articles isn't the way to get visibility, it'll just get your comments immediatly moderated down. Maybe you should try adding a link in your sig, or a Slashdot journal. But that would mean you would get tracked, so maybe you're too afraid to do it.
Yes, yes. I've worked extensively behind the scenes with 'rabbit out of the hat' professional magicians. I know the drill. I know all about 'cold reading' and similar. I've studied this stuff for years, in all liklihood, in far greater depth than you have. And I've learned two things from my studies; 1) People can indeed nearly always be fooled. 2)A creative thinker can rationalize his or her way out of ANY corner in a convincing manner regardless of actual facts.
Do you get what I'm saying here? I'm saying that it's a two-way street. I'm saying that if the genuine article came up and bit you on the nose, you could through creativity and an unbending faith in science, rationalize it into dust or swamp gas or whatever. --Which is just as moronic as True Believer syndrome.
I'm not saying that there aren't hucksters and fools aplenty. There are. But I'm not one of them. Indeed, I come from a background rooted heavily in the sciences, and I began studying the esoteric long ago in an attempt to 'debunk'. But I promised myself I would perform always in as unbiased a way as possible, and as such, I've explored, experienced and 'seen' enough on both sides of the fence to conclude that there is actually much more going on in the world than the average Western tunnel vision allows for. Clearly, you'll not believe me, so I'll ask you this: have you ever actually studied and experimented with any esoteric material to determine its validity, or are you basing your beliefs on a few convenient examples of how people can be fooled, --and on what you have been told is the 'right' thing to believe?
Sheesh... and your friend considers it rude to test him? Gosh, we wouldn't want to offend his sensibilities.
My friend has been tested and bullied by people like you since the day he was born simply because he is able to see more than you can, and because people have the arrogance to think that they have the right to demand 'proof' from anybody rather than go out and find it on their own. --Try to imagine if you were the only person whose eyes were sensitive to light; how would you feel if the blind populace constantly demanded proof of your ability, and then refused to believe you no matter what evidence you offered. Imagine even having your life threatened over it.
As he puts it: "Your faith is your problem. I don't care what you believe, but if you believe I'm full of lies, then please just go away. I won't waste my time forcing people onto the path who are not ready. It's actually wrong to do that."
BTW, you might ask your friend how the cells 'store' EM interference. If the effects are cumulative, there must be a way for cells to retain the EM interference they receive... and does it fade if you stop using a phone? If so, what's the 'half-life' of an EM interfered cell? How long does it last? How does cellular lifespan affect your total EM accumulation?
Now, don't be silly. I didn't say that cells 'store' EM interference, although I can understand why you would jump to the nearest least logical conclustion regarding my post. --You are clearly predisposed to finding hucksters and fools under every rock. But I'll explain in any case:
Living systems adapt over time to the repeated exosure of ANY strong enough stimulus, electromagnetic or otherwise. EM doesn't have to be stored; all it has to do is change the way a system functions for long enough for the system to alter its electrochemical qualities to satisfy whatever demands it percieves are being placed upon it. Like drug use; Heroine is not 'stored' in the body, but it's affect on the body accumulates nonetheless. --Or in keeping with the EM example, in a similar way it is just as ridiculous to say that hard drives 'Store' the electricity used to alter the polarity of the molecules in the magnetic substrate. Hard drives don't do this, but the net effect is still one of an altered state.
Do you see how silly this is getting? Of course, your friend would be offended by objective (read: non-believer) types, so maybe you shouldn't mention all this stuff to him...
Don't kid yourself. You are nowhere nearly as objective as you would like to believe. --It is far easier for you to believe that I am a fool who thinks that, 'cells store EM interferrence,' than face the horrifying possibility that I might actually know what I'm talking about. If I knew something which you did not, (impossible!), then that could potentially begin the unraveling of your safe little 'reality'.
As Mark Twain once put it; Denial ain't a river in Africa.
Good luck out there. You'll need it if you're ever going to grow up and wake up. --You've been so bamboozled, that even the slightest crack in the cage makes you jump into auto-pilot denial. I bet you even think that your reactions are your own, and are not the result of extensive cultural pre-conditioning. Silly rabbit.
-Fantastic Lad
There's good change and bad change, and hanging around with a shaman is certainly going to change you.
For my part, I tend to find that I feel healthier and stronger and more focused; I seem now these days to dwarf everybody around me in terms of physical and mental acumen. Everyday life gets much, much easier when you start learning how to allow the spirit to move through you; when you learn to dispense with self-centeredness and negative emotion. The only trouble, is that non-everyday challenges start popping up. Nobody gets out without breaking a sweat! --Not even a shaman.
-Fantastic Lad
Oh, man, oh man. I think we've found a winner! This is going to be funnnnn!
...I've learned two things from my studies
I've studied this stuff for years, in all liklihood, in far greater depth than you have
You've almost certainly studied fakers more than I have... it's apparently an area of expertise for you. Fair enough.
You also seem to have studied some pretty shifty ways of making a point, and as such you begin to wander into MY area of expertise; rhetoric (in the Roman sense) and legitimate constructive debate.
Here's where the problem begins:
Only two things about people? Probably not, but these are the two things you base the rest of your post on, and therefore in your context, the only things that apply. People will either believe everything they hear, or rationalize away everything they don't like.
From this, you go through Clearly, you'll not believe me..., on to tested and bullied by people like you . Now, I'm not only possessing of a blind faith in science and a desire to rationalize away everything not already in my worldview, I'm also a bully who persecutes your poor friend because he's a visionary and I'm threatened by that.
Then you perform a neat little sleight-of-argument: Try to imagine if you were the only person whose eyes were sensitive to light...
What you're really saying is: try to accept my premise out of hand and place yourself in a similar (but more acceptable to your limited worldview) situation. Then you associate me with those folks who refuse to believe even good evidence! That's twice over a neat trick, because it assumes that good evidence exists, and then condemns me by association for not believing it, while all the while purporting to be a plea for understanding. Masterful!
Next, we have a standard disconnection regarding faith. Luckily, your friend isn't of the 'believe or else' persuasion. He sounds more like the 'I cannot abide the faithless, sigh, poor benighted fools, I cannot help you if you cannot help yourself' kind of guy. Kinda sickening, but at least be won't be blowing up any buildings...
(hey, see what I did there? I made a cynical joke, and also lumped your friend in with wacko terrorists and Pentacostal religious crackpots! woo woo! not bad, eh? You're rubbing off on me)
Finally, we get to the actual EM argument! The thing is, hard drives are designed to retain their altered state until altered again. The body is permanently damaged, in a clearly detectable way, through heroin use. There is nothing I know of to suggest that EM fields have a permanent or cumulative effect on cells based on your examples. In fact, you basically compare apples to oranges with no discussion of why they might be similar, and also deride me for picking the "nearest least logical argument" while providing no proof that I did so. BTW, I'm not clearly predisposed to anything, certainly not based on your 'arguments'. Nothing at all about me has been illuminated by your series of verbal swipes.
Now, you say: Living systems adapt over time to the repeated exosure of ANY strong enough stimulus but I can think of half a dozen strong stimuli that the body does not adapt do during its lifespan. Physical trauma. Electrical shock. Vertigo. Sunlight is a perfect example. Your skin burns in a cause-effect relationship if you lie naked in the sun all day for a year. Eventually, it bakes to the point that you won't burn so badly, but you haven't "adapted". It's stimulus-response. If you go back indoors for a year, your skin returns to its normal state. For an adaptation to occur (increased melatonin) it takes thousands of generations. So, now we're back to the original question re: EM interference; if EM damage is cumulative, what cellular process does it interrupt or alter to cause the damage, and how long will the effect last? Is it permanet? Do you propose that EM radiation has an effect like sunlight, baking the cells like a turkey? Or does it have an effect like what happens to my monitor when my cell phone rings, i.e. temporary frequency disturbance that fades immediately?
BTW, most drugs ARE stored in the body for a time... LSD, for example, is practically never gone.
Finally, having derided me enough, we descend into: Don't kid yourself. You are nowhere nearly as objective as you would like to believe. --It is far easier for you to believe that I am a fool who thinks that, 'cells store EM interferrence,' than face the horrifying possibility that I might actually know what I'm talking about. If I knew something which you did not, (impossible!), then that could potentially begin the unraveling of your safe little 'reality'.
Having (in your mind) soundly browbeaten me into a state of bewilderment, and exposed me for a faithless idiot in public, you feel safe in taking undisguised pot-shots at me! Unfortunately, you've shown me exactly nothing that suggests you might actually know what you're talking about, and quite a lot to suggest that you would rather attack me or dismiss me (or both) than present an idea.
How very brash of you. Let me set the record straight. People can react in more than two ways to an occurance with no immediate explanation. I, in fact, take the path of most people who've studied the process of reasoned thought: anything that is true can be proven, and anything that can be proven is true. Your friend can see EM fields and auras, fair enough. That's a hypothesis. Design a method of demonstrating it, without moving the goalposts or resorting to any of the other nasty little debate tricks that lots of scientists AND extra-sensory proponents love so much, and I'll believe it! Willingly and without cynicism, because I'm actually objective. I have no motive and no emotional investment. Can you say the same?
It might surprise you to know that my own beliefs run probably very close to your own. I, however, retain honest, real, unbiased objectivity and expect the same level of proof from all possible invloved parties. This includes myself, and being an accomplished aikido student familiar with ki (having been on the receiving end more often than I like...) I think it's perfectly fair of me. Your friend can see auras? Fine, but picking cellphone users out of a pool with a likely 85% positive hit rate isn't proof... in fact, it lends itself to falsehood and by doing so, he casts the mantle of doubt across his own shoulders. Gimme real proof. I'd ask the same thing from a new employee who says he can r00t my firewall. Okay, you 3733t hax0r you, get some! Prove it.
What you've done in your post is nothing short of a rhetorical drive-by. When, BTW, did you lose your own objectivity? My guess is that you never had it. You were a debunker, and then you flipped. Now you're a defender. Neither one is very well equipped to make unbiased observations. I suspect your friend might like both sides equally well... I've found that those who set their goalpost at faith are likely to use the faithless as stronger proof of their belief! The more ridiculous the statement, the more faith required to accept it. The more you argue something's absurdity, the more it proves the power of faith!
Now, would you like to try again, without personal attack as a substitute for reasoned thought? Without guilt by association, comparing apples to oranges, and false (or flawed) logical connections?
Will you try again, under the scrutiny of someone who can actually see through your verbal trickery to the threadbare idea underneath?
You're an expert in charlatans... well, gosh. So am I!
Whatever happened to JonKatz?
In thinking, I realize some of the points I made may not have been completely clear.
In no particular order:
The idea of a "nearest least logical argument" is self-contradicting. I'm surprised I didn't notice it earlier. If it were the least logical argument, it would necessarily be the farthest from any logical supposition it purported to contradict. If it were the nearest argument, it would necessarily be relativaly well grounded in logical thought. I suppose you could have meant that I chose the nearest argument to your own that followed your guideline of being illogical, but wouldn't that be like saying that neither position made much sense? You can't have meant that...
On further consideration, I remembered that damn near EVERY drug stays in the body in one place or another, many for years after you're dead. That's how a medical examiner tells if you've been poisoned. Some chemicals reside in the fat cells, some in the eyes, some in the hair, etc. The effect of a drug has absolutely no resemblance to the proposed effect of EM radiation on the body.
That reminds me, I've gone and accidentally gifted you the point that EM radiation is bad, and you really haven't even demonstrated that yet. Now we have to go back an entire step before we even get to talk about your original assertion, namely that the damage might be cumulative. Luckily, this is the net, and links are acceptable if you don't feel like laying it all out for me. Beware, however, that basing a strong argument on stupid facts will get you nowhere.
By saying that I would ask someone to r00t my Linux firewall just as I would ask your friend to prove he can see EM aura disturbances, what I mean to say is: I don't let unsubstantiated claims stand. Claiming you're an elite super-hacker carries about the same burden of proof, IMHO, as claiming to be able to read EM signatures in people with your bare eyeballs. While both claims may be true, neither one can stand without substantiation. I rate your cellphone experiment at about the same level as our supposed hacker showing me the latest DoS script he downloaded as proof of his sk1llz.
I should have added the 'straw man' tactic to the litany of crap you threw at me, but I missed that one. It was part of the 'ridiculous' HD example you gave.
I missed a question of yours. Yes, I have experimented with my own ability to align and redirect 'energy' from my own body into that of my wife. She has a severe back injury and sometimes, if I can get into a particularly meditative state, it seems that I'm much more effective at fixing the bone misalignments and nerve problems than I am when I'm actually 'thinking' about it. I can't really be sure of what happens, but it's a curious thing. Also, as I mentioned, I practice Aikido and part of that training is the development of ki and its use. I have had both personal and observational proof of the existance of that particular force.
Examples of how people can be fooled are perfectly relevant, especially when it's extremely possible that they are being employed! Apply Occam's Razor as needed.
As for being told the 'right' thing to believe, well, we aren't talking about belief. We're talking about demonstrating proof. I covered this numerous times, but I don't think I made it perfectly clear. Belief and proof are sometimes at odds, and an objective thinker trains himself to distinguish between the two.
Quickly, in defense of the logical burden of proof: any logical conclusion based on a complete set of true facts must be correct. All hypotheses are required to shoulder this burden, and any that meet this standard must be accepted as fact.
By "creative thinker" you really mean "good bullshitter". I hadn't specifically pointed that out, but I think I beat that particular point into the ground in my previous post.
Man, is this starting to read like Usenet or what!
Lastly, I just couldn't pass up the chance to publicly snicker at the heroin/heroine homonym mistake you made... I laughed so much that I had to reread your whole post so I could maintain the thread in my mind. Those heroines sure do have an effect on the body...
LOL!
Whatever happened to JonKatz?
I under-estimated you. Pardon my hubris, but for every guy like you, I run across a hundred others who really are as tiresome and pre-programmed as you first appeared in your initial post. Very good!
My approach, (mostly through compunction rather than planning), tends to be one made up from acidic remarks and brow beating unfairness and even a touch of hypocrisy just to see if I can't make people stop and think along a slightly different track for a second or two. Almost trolling, I suppose. --Though in truth, I feel I am exploding with tons of amazing knowledge; things I've seen and done, a great deal of which I don't like to share because of how crazy I know it sounds. But I digress. . .
I should mention up front that I dislike debate a great deal. I find that two debaters will often jump into silly duels of hair-splitting. Many of the points you raised, while valid, like your complaint that narcotics are in fact stored in the body, are for the most part, quite beside the point. I find debaters tend to very quickly lose sight of the big picture and the purpose of their discussion in order to 'win points' from one another by dissecting the minutia. Language is not an exact science, so it's entirely possible to mis-interpret one another, (usually on purpose), indefinitely rather than look at the core of what a conversation is really about. I find debate, with its scoring mechanics, and established confrontational nature runs very much counter to the purpose of real communication. (And you'll pardon me if I open myself up like this to easy blows by attempting to take this up to the level of a discussion proper and treat it like one.)
Nonetheless, I'd like to clarify what I meant when I used the heroin (heroine? Erg.) analogy, because I think it's a useful way to describe what I'm talking about in regard to EMR and how it can affect people:
From my understanding, and very simply, when a drug enters the system, the body produces chemicals required to counter-act and neutralize the drug. When the drug is used regularly, the body responds by maintaining a level of self-produced anti-toxicant in order to maintain a balanced body chemistry. This is why it takes larger and larger doses of a given narcotic to achieve the same 'pleasurable' effects; you're trying to keep one step ahead of the body's balancing mechanism. This also explains the cravings for a regularly used drug; the natural anti-toxicant when unused against the drug, are often themselves toxic and cause the shakes and erratic emotional behavior and similar.
While there is certainly no question that measurable tissue damage is one result of regular drug use, the unbalanced body chemistry resulting in shakes and cravings and erratic moods is not the primary result of tissue damage or of quantities of the drug which have been absorbed into fat cells, but rather of the body's own response to the repeated stimulus of a foriegn agent in the system. And that's where I was trying to draw the parallel.
Phew! All that from a little hair splitting. (And my original point was. . ?) Well. . , I've had quite enough of that! I'm going to assume from now on that you will try to reach to catch my points in the future rather than play tennis with them, and that if you do single out a piece of language which can be turned on its ear and made to sound silly, that I really wasn't clear and that you really do need clarification, which I will happily offer. I will, of course, extend you the same courtesy.
Anyway. . .
Yes. I do indeed believe in what my friend can see and do. I am far beyond the point where I need to have the existence of magic proven to me. The fact of the matter is that I've seen and done some astonishing things which have no analog in the pseudo-science realm sold to us as the 'real' thing. I have held extended conversations and practiced martial arts while in dreaming, all fully verifiable when awake on the following days. I even have the limited faculty to see auras glowing an inch or so around people myself, (not just in dark rooms or with extended straining eye exercises or any of the other techniques people often use to fool themselves). This, actually, was the primary reason for my shifting from debunker to the other camp, and for seeking out people who could explain what was happening to me. I regularly experience a list of other peculiar things. (And no, I don't and never have taken drugs beyond very limited alcohol use or the rare dose of headache medicine. I am in excellent health.)
The problem is that nothing I have seen or done, while it has all served to make a massive and very positive difference in my life, can be shared with, or much less, proven to somebody who has been hammered with the scientific method since birth. "If you can't prove it, then I refuse to believe it!" And I suppose that's fair enough, but it is very frustrating to not be able to talk about this stuff. It's even worse when I see people being actively shut down and directed away from higher awareness by the harsh and pervasive constraints placed upon people by that which is Western culture.
A big hurdle is one of faith; one of the many sorcerer's contradictions. Seeing is believing, and vice versa. --Unfortunately, faith has been made into a filthy, filthy word. Sometimes I think that the world-spanning cult of Christianity has been fostered to such nauseating levels specifically to make the more sensible people knee jerk too far in the opposite direction. --This takes care of practically everybody: the fools are religious and thus blinded and controlled, and the smarter people blind themselves by throwing the baby out with the bathwater, locking themselves within the limits of incomplete scientific knowledge as it is fed to us piecemeal by institutions which place humanity's best interests very, very low on their list of priorities.
Anyway, that's a little snapshot of where I'm coming from.
Take care, and many thanks for your being interesting and for entertaining with humor my trollish behavior!
-Fantastic Lad
Wow! We get to be civilized and curteous?
Well then! Would you mind moving this over to email? It's easier for me at work to email commentary of this length... send me a quick note and I'll reply there.
And I promise, I'll can the forensic debate in favor of an actual discussion. You are right, many 'debates' do bury themselves quickly in minutia to the detriment of the actual point. Now that we've established that we're both reasonable people, we can actually talk about something!
Thanks! I'll await your note...
Whatever happened to JonKatz?