look - space exploration has always been about politics.
why did the US start the space race? to beat the soviet union to it.
why did the US want to hit the moon by 1970? to beat the soviet union to it.
much of the technology used in ICBMs was converted to NASA gear, and vice versa.
don't fool yourself - no country explores space for the joy of exploration. they do it because it has tangible payoffs in the economic, political, and military worlds.
what are you saying here? that depleted uranium shells are somehow as dangerous to bystanders as nuclear weapons? unused depleted uranium shells can't hurt you unless you eat them.
and just a side note, the question is not whether bush or saddam is a better guy. the question is whether more countries should be allowed to get nuclear weapons. we know bush has them. should we let saddam get them too?
the "contradiction" is a necessary feature of our system of government. that was EXACTLY how the system was designed. it was also designed for the express purpose of accomplishing large things quickly, so that in case of perceived emergencies, the legislature could act as fast as necessary.
the "contradiction" is actually not as big as some here would like to make it. the key point with library and school "censorship" is that those organizations are educational (or quasi-educational) institutions, and therefore the requirements of free speech do not apply. the government is not making internet-based pornography and hate speech illegal. they're just saying that viewers of it cannot view it on tax dollars.
again, NO ONE is stopping people from viewing what they want (save for child pornography) at home. it's a question of what constitutes acceptable use of public funds. just as you can be fired for surfing porn at a government job (even off the clock), you are not allowed to surf government-funded computers for porn.
no big deal. some room for debate, but it's not nearly the colossal hypocrisy that some seem to think.
when i've had to change IP addresses, i've had to edit two files:/etc/hosts and/etc/netmasks. the latter is necessary when you're switching subnets. but that's about it.
princeton university gives only need-based gifts, although they do allow third parties to give non-need-based scholarships.
of course, all this talk of "need-based" and non-"need-based" scholarships gets pretty flexible with athletics. sometimes alumni give money for need-based scholarships applying to "an outstanding lacrosse player from Connecticut with size 10 feet whose last name is Duffy-Cockthorpe."
Re:Smart Move...
on
Cyber-Attacks?
·
· Score: 4, Informative
i'm not so sure that this is the case. i've been following washingtonpost.com's cyber-attack stories for quite some time (very much pre-september-11), and just about every story they do has a slightly sensationalist bent. this one, ironically, is the most fact-based story i've seen them do since i started reading them.
oh yes, i'd agree that it's not a *good* thing to (in the words of the supremes) "excessively entangle" government and religion. but there are no laws prohibiting religions from trying to influence, or even control, public policy. it might be bad for religions to successfully take that control, but the law is clear: there is only one direction of influence that is restricted, from the state to religion.
most of our laws, at base, are not Christian or Jewish. 1) laws can't really be "Christian" because Christianity never really put forward any normative political statements, unlike Judaism. laws can be compatible with Christianity, but cannot be "Christian" laws in any material sense. 2) if our criminal justice system were based on Jewish law, it would require a great deal more focus on restitution for crimes, rather than just punishment. torah requires that villains pay back their victims several times over what they offended, whereas our system has no official mechanism to deal with that sort of punishment/restitution system.****
jon
**** unless you count the "double-jeopardy" situation where you can sue someone for "wrongful death" or something silly like that.
again, this is comparing apples to oranges. remember that back then there were few, if any, methods that made copyright relevant. heck, the printing press had barely been invented. it took an enourmous amount of work to duplicate *anything*, even the scraps of paper in da vinci's underwear. so imagine how hard it would be to plagiarize michaelangelo's "david", or the ceiling of the sistine chapel.
if someone had figured out to make copies of paintings or sculptures en masse, you can be sure that somebody would have invented copyright earlier than 1700. i think the most important thing that spurred creativity professionals to seek copyright protection in the first place was the increasing ease of of duplication.
jon
p.s. mozart probably played the harpsichord for accompaniment, like the piano in cheesy high school musicals.
*OFFTOPIC* i almost missed the sarcasm in this statement...
most of our legal system is not "Christian" at all, but is based on the roman and greek legal systems.
lest we forget, we actually have a legally binding bill of rights that prevents congress from screwing with religion, though not the reverse. and there's nothing inherently wrong with religion screwing with the state, so long as everybody gets to vote for whom they want.
solaris. if you need high-availability, but have close-to-failing hardware, the machine will crash with increasing frequency until you fix the hardware. unfortunately, not all of us can run apache on an old 486 with debian, have a load average of 0.01 and still pay the bills. so if the hardware is failing, you have to schedule a proper time to replace it, but you can't do this during business hours. or the business hours of anyone else in your company, if it's a worldwide joint.
one problem with this approach is reboot convenience. for example, if you need your webserver to be able to do automated reboots or unattended startup cycles, then this won't work (unless you're willing to plug in the token every time the machine crashes or reboots). if you have older or failing hardware this is more of an issue than you'd think.
you wrote: 'Have a global convention (we'll see if Geneva is booked) where we 're-initalize warfare'. Something like "So do we all agree that from now on we'll only use bow-and-arrows?. Is that okay with everyone?"'
Nah...the National Guard would probably shoot us.:)
what are you saying here? that the army national guard would come to the supreme court to monitor a protest? the DC police are well equipped to handle protests there, as they usually do, even when the rambunctions pro/anti-abortion protesters face off.
if you're making a reference to kent state, which i am certain you are doing, remember that, while the national guard was in error for firing on unarmed protestors, they did so because they felt threatened by the increasingly-violent mob. it was a grievous error in following the rules of engagement, not a willful attempt by the government to stanch debate.
not anti-Christian openly (who knows what he thinks -- heck, i hardly know what my roommates think!) but certainly non-Christian. like most people in the world. i recall that he's got the california-new-age-thing going on.
that amount of money probably includes sales tax, which goes to fund state government goods/services. the rest of it goes to microsoft. but it doesn't stop there: microsoft has to pay its marginal costs (let's assume that all the fixed capital costs are covered already). they pay their workers, and they pay their shareholders (in theory), or they invest the leftover cash. the workers and shareholders either reinvest the money, improving future earnings potential for the rest of the economy, or they spend it, sending the money back into the system but redistributing it away from themselves. or maybe they save it, increasing th money supply (which has a stimulative effect).
anyway, after this money is distributed, microsoft reckons its tax liabilities, which recently have been 0. if they ever pay taxes, then, they will be sending money back to the government, where it has more opportunity to cycle back through the economy.
the quote in question sounded more like an insult to me than anything resembling slander or libel. but then again, IANAL. the key distinction, as performer guy mentioned, is that you can be held liable for slander or libel if you make untrue factual claims about the plaintiff. in such cases the defendant would have to show that the statement was NOT meant as a factual statement, but rather as an insult.
ah yes, milk taxes. i actually grew up in illinois, which most definitely taxes milk. as you can imagine, it's too much trouble to calculate whether or not i'm being taxed on milk now that i'm in jersey.:) but my assumption was that i was still in illinois, which is patently untrue.
so is there really a storage-media tax these days, or is it just the hard drive manufacturers adding a surcharge to compensate for lawsuits? or something else entirely?
Slashdot Mirror
hold it right there, bud.
MSFT had never paid a dividend until this year. and even then, it was a miniscule fraction of their actual profits, despite the accounting-foo.
jon
Isn't web browsing innovation dead?
jon
You, sir, have already won.
But seriously, folks, it just means that developers might be a little more careful about what they commit and from whom.
Jon
it was frum. he's funny.
jon
look - space exploration has always been about politics.
why did the US start the space race? to beat the soviet union to it.
why did the US want to hit the moon by 1970? to beat the soviet union to it.
much of the technology used in ICBMs was converted to NASA gear, and vice versa.
don't fool yourself - no country explores space for the joy of exploration. they do it because it has tangible payoffs in the economic, political, and military worlds.
jon
what are you saying here? that depleted uranium shells are somehow as dangerous to bystanders as nuclear weapons? unused depleted uranium shells can't hurt you unless you eat them.
and just a side note, the question is not whether bush or saddam is a better guy. the question is whether more countries should be allowed to get nuclear weapons. we know bush has them. should we let saddam get them too?
jon
the "contradiction" is a necessary feature of our system of government. that was EXACTLY how the system was designed. it was also designed for the express purpose of accomplishing large things quickly, so that in case of perceived emergencies, the legislature could act as fast as necessary.
the "contradiction" is actually not as big as some here would like to make it. the key point with library and school "censorship" is that those organizations are educational (or quasi-educational) institutions, and therefore the requirements of free speech do not apply. the government is not making internet-based pornography and hate speech illegal. they're just saying that viewers of it cannot view it on tax dollars.
again, NO ONE is stopping people from viewing what they want (save for child pornography) at home. it's a question of what constitutes acceptable use of public funds. just as you can be fired for surfing porn at a government job (even off the clock), you are not allowed to surf government-funded computers for porn.
no big deal. some room for debate, but it's not nearly the colossal hypocrisy that some seem to think.
jon
when i've had to change IP addresses, i've had to edit two files: /etc/hosts and /etc/netmasks. the latter is necessary when you're switching subnets. but that's about it.
jon
princeton university gives only need-based gifts, although they do allow third parties to give non-need-based scholarships.
of course, all this talk of "need-based" and non-"need-based" scholarships gets pretty flexible with athletics. sometimes alumni give money for need-based scholarships applying to "an outstanding lacrosse player from Connecticut with size 10 feet whose last name is Duffy-Cockthorpe."
jon
MIT isn't an ivy league school.
jon
i'm not so sure that this is the case. i've been following washingtonpost.com's cyber-attack stories for quite some time (very much pre-september-11), and just about every story they do has a slightly sensationalist bent. this one, ironically, is the most fact-based story i've seen them do since i started reading them.
jon
amen to that... we should give mad props to the nevadans for not trying to secede and join canada.
jon
oh yes, i'd agree that it's not a *good* thing to (in the words of the supremes) "excessively entangle" government and religion. but there are no laws prohibiting religions from trying to influence, or even control, public policy. it might be bad for religions to successfully take that control, but the law is clear: there is only one direction of influence that is restricted, from the state to religion.
most of our laws, at base, are not Christian or Jewish.
1) laws can't really be "Christian" because Christianity never really put forward any normative political statements, unlike Judaism. laws can be compatible with Christianity, but cannot be "Christian" laws in any material sense.
2) if our criminal justice system were based on Jewish law, it would require a great deal more focus on restitution for crimes, rather than just punishment. torah requires that villains pay back their victims several times over what they offended, whereas our system has no official mechanism to deal with that sort of punishment/restitution system.****
jon
**** unless you count the "double-jeopardy" situation where you can sue someone for "wrongful death" or something silly like that.
again, this is comparing apples to oranges. remember that back then there were few, if any, methods that made copyright relevant. heck, the printing press had barely been invented. it took an enourmous amount of work to duplicate *anything*, even the scraps of paper in da vinci's underwear. so imagine how hard it would be to plagiarize michaelangelo's "david", or the ceiling of the sistine chapel.
if someone had figured out to make copies of paintings or sculptures en masse, you can be sure that somebody would have invented copyright earlier than 1700. i think the most important thing that spurred creativity professionals to seek copyright protection in the first place was the increasing ease of of duplication.
jon
p.s. mozart probably played the harpsichord for accompaniment, like the piano in cheesy high school musicals.
*OFFTOPIC*
i almost missed the sarcasm in this statement...
most of our legal system is not "Christian" at all, but is based on the roman and greek legal systems.
lest we forget, we actually have a legally binding bill of rights that prevents congress from screwing with religion, though not the reverse. and there's nothing inherently wrong with religion screwing with the state, so long as everybody gets to vote for whom they want.
jon
solaris. if you need high-availability, but have close-to-failing hardware, the machine will crash with increasing frequency until you fix the hardware. unfortunately, not all of us can run apache on an old 486 with debian, have a load average of 0.01 and still pay the bills. so if the hardware is failing, you have to schedule a proper time to replace it, but you can't do this during business hours. or the business hours of anyone else in your company, if it's a worldwide joint.
jon
one problem with this approach is reboot convenience. for example, if you need your webserver to be able to do automated reboots or unattended startup cycles, then this won't work (unless you're willing to plug in the token every time the machine crashes or reboots). if you have older or failing hardware this is more of an issue than you'd think.
jon
you wrote: 'Have a global convention (we'll see if Geneva is booked) where we 're-initalize warfare'. Something like "So do we all agree that from now on we'll only use bow-and-arrows?. Is that okay with everyone?"'
:)
sounds good. you first.
jon
Nah...the National Guard would probably shoot us. :)
what are you saying here? that the army national guard would come to the supreme court to monitor a protest? the DC police are well equipped to handle protests there, as they usually do, even when the rambunctions pro/anti-abortion protesters face off.
if you're making a reference to kent state, which i am certain you are doing, remember that, while the national guard was in error for firing on unarmed protestors, they did so because they felt threatened by the increasingly-violent mob. it was a grievous error in following the rules of engagement, not a willful attempt by the government to stanch debate.
jon
poor little clams, snap snap snap
:)
fun assumption. i guess i'm an exception.
jon
not anti-Christian openly (who knows what he thinks -- heck, i hardly know what my roommates think!) but certainly non-Christian. like most people in the world. i recall that he's got the california-new-age-thing going on.
jon
some would say that wars do exactly that... WWII brought the US out of the great depression, not the New Deal.
jon
"6 million of your tax dollars gone, *poof*."
no, not poof.
that amount of money probably includes sales tax, which goes to fund state government goods/services. the rest of it goes to microsoft. but it doesn't stop there: microsoft has to pay its marginal costs (let's assume that all the fixed capital costs are covered already). they pay their workers, and they pay their shareholders (in theory), or they invest the leftover cash. the workers and shareholders either reinvest the money, improving future earnings potential for the rest of the economy, or they spend it, sending the money back into the system but redistributing it away from themselves. or maybe they save it, increasing th money supply (which has a stimulative effect).
anyway, after this money is distributed, microsoft reckons its tax liabilities, which recently have been 0. if they ever pay taxes, then, they will be sending money back to the government, where it has more opportunity to cycle back through the economy.
the circular flow: econ 101.
jon
the quote in question sounded more like an insult to me than anything resembling slander or libel. but then again, IANAL. the key distinction, as performer guy mentioned, is that you can be held liable for slander or libel if you make untrue factual claims about the plaintiff. in such cases the defendant would have to show that the statement was NOT meant as a factual statement, but rather as an insult.
jon
ah yes, milk taxes. i actually grew up in illinois, which most definitely taxes milk. as you can imagine, it's too much trouble to calculate whether or not i'm being taxed on milk now that i'm in jersey. :) but my assumption was that i was still in illinois, which is patently untrue.
so is there really a storage-media tax these days, or is it just the hard drive manufacturers adding a surcharge to compensate for lawsuits? or something else entirely?
jon