Are you now going to try to claim that your original question was not bait, to draw me into an argument about creationism, in the vain hope I would say something that you could then try to use to claim I supported creationism?
Go ahead and deny it if you like, but you'll never get me to believe it.
If you seriously dispute that statistically speaking, the likelihood that "NO facts of any kind support creationist arguments" has a probability close to zero (which is NOT moving the goalposts; it was the whole basis of my point), then I'd like to see a rigorous refutation. In order to win, I would only have to find one counter-example; for you to win, you would have to repudiate ALL possible examples. And I'm not even going to bother, because this is a silly thing to argue about and the likelihood that you would win also closely approaches zero.
I am confident of my statement. However, and I repeat: I do NOT claim it is evidence that evolution itself is in any way refuted or that "young earth" theory has any validity. I am pretty sure we agree that the vast preponderance of evidence is on the side of evolution and of Earth being a few billion years old, give or take.
But I will say again that it appears you have an ego-driven need to argue with me about just about everything that strikes your fancy, and I will say again -- in complete honesty -- that it appears to me to be extremely immature behavior.
"Instead of throwing barbs and running maybe suggest an alternative. The idea that medicine can have a profit motive without an ethical motive makes whatever argument you are about to make repellent."
First, I'm neither throwing barbs or running. I was pointing out that GP's argument was fallacious. Which I did successfully, without the need to point out another alternative.
But since you brought it up, what alternative would you like? There are so many! There is the free-market alternative. And the private single-payer alternative. And the insurance alternative. And the anarchist alternative. Just to name a few.
"The idea that medicine can have a profit motive without an ethical motive makes whatever argument you are about to make repellent."
Sorry, but that's YOUR idea. It sure as hell doesn't resemble anything *I* wrote.
Re-election is not what I was talking about. However, I agree that if you re-elect someone who is violating your rights, you should take a long look in the mirror before blaming anyone else.
Okay, maybe it was a bad example. I'm not going to spend a lot of time trying to find another. But the probability of ALL known facts supporting evolution is very close to zero.
Obviously that does not mean that evolution is false.
IANAL, but from what I read of this, part of this decision is not legally sound.
Convenience for government is NOT a valid reason to infringe on Constitutional rights. This is a pretty damned old principle and I see no reason why they get to ignore it here.
It is true that government has been allowed to stretch the rules when it can show a "compelling interest", but I am pretty sure that in order to establish a compelling interest here, they would have to show that these arbitrary searches are actually effective against terrorism. And I really don't think they have any way to do that, because they really haven't been catching terrorists that way.
The fact that radiometric dating relies on certain assumptions has been one of their favorite talking points.
Are those assumptions reasonable? I think so. But they ARE assumptions, and that is a fact.
Therefore, there do exist facts that can be said to support (or at least not refute) the creationists' arguments.
I did not say that I support creationism or the young-Earthers. I merely stated that not ALL facts are on one side of the argument. However, most of them certainly are.
"Next point is how to start to unravel the entrenched power."
To unravel the entrenched power, it is both necessary and sufficient to separate politics from "big money".
Some people think this is impossible, but it is not. It would be difficult to do, due to resistance from interested parties, but it would also be SIMPLE.
"Meh, firstly I'd chalk it up to the small world effect due to the networking effects of the ivy league schools. You were bound to find a link between someone close to Obama and Kevin Bacon. It would be more impressive if you showed that the White House didn't have any connections to any other federal contractors."
Bullshit. First, there are a LOT of ivy-league-school-associated software firms, right here in the U.S., not Canada. This isn't "6 degrees of fucking Kevin Bacon". Michelle Obama knew the person, personally. This was not a matter of competitive bids, either. If it had been, no sane person would have hired CGI. The sole thing it had going for it was that it had acquired other companies that had done U.S. government contracts. RESPONSIBLE and competent tech companies didn't want to touch it.
"Second, doesn't the federal procurement process involve a lot of stringent bright line tests on how to award contracts (such as this CMMI business) making it difficult for the White House to push down a pick of a contractor. "
Okay, I'll concede that the choice for contractors WAS somewhat limited... they could have chosen THIS company with a track record of failed large projects, or THAT company with a track record of failed large projects. Since the fact is that otherwise there isn't much to distinguish between them, my guess is that the Obama connection was still significant.
"However, the White House didn't have a direct hand in drafting the text of the legislation, so that doesn't play into your theory."
As a straw-man argument, this one would on its face seem well-crafted. But the key word here is "direct". You know damned well that ACA was the President's baby and main political objective from when he was first elected in 2008. Implying anything else is just plain dishonest, you dishonest person.
"Third, the reason why first ladies publicly maintain a focus on sappy social initiatives is because it's politically toxic for substantial policy to have originated from the spouse of the person who was elected president."
Hahaha! Tell that to Hillary Clinton, who drove her husband like a brain parasite with NASCAR experience. I strongly suggest you start living in the real world.
CGI was already notorious for failed large projects when it was selected for healthcare.gov. (Anybody who thinks the fact that a officer of CGI was a classmate of Michelle Obama does NOT have something to do with its selection is living in lala-land.)
GOOD software developers, and software development organizations, almost universally oppose efforts at certification. Because the only thing it measures is bureaucracy, and the extent to which someone is willing to live with it.
States (and Feds) are nowhere near competent enough to "certify" programmers. The very concept is a joke.
"My problem is that the courts are not given the option of using the "reasonable man" principle in regard to search and seizure"
But yes, they are. When determining what constitutes search and seizure. That's where they invoke "reasonable man" and "reasonable expectation of privacy".
"The government is forbidden to pursue search and seizure except as authorized in the constitution."
I think we're basically in agreement. I was just pointing out that sometimes there is a gray area regarding the decision as to whether something WAS a search or seizure, under the law.
I don't even understand why this is being considered as news. If you don't know this already, you aren't the kind of programmer I've ever worked with.
Now... there are exceptions, too. For example if you know your input will always be less than X characters, you have only one boundary condition to check (no characters). If you know it will always be exactly Y characters you have no boundary conditions. On length, that is... using the same kind of example OP was using.
".. there's so much evidence for it and so little against it that it would take something revolutionary to change my mind..."
Spoken like someone who truly does not know what he's talking about. There is LOTS of contrary evidence. You just haven't seen it, so you deny it exists. That's called "denial".
Just for example, see here, where Dr. Roy Spencer explains how the greenhouse effect is supposed to work.
Then see HERE, where this idea is soundly refuted.
I'm not going to claim to you here that the greenhouse effect is disproved, but the fact is that the scientific basis for it is actually pretty thin.
If you want to talk about the science, you have to read and talk about both sides, or you are not being honest.
"The GP posted a statement of fact, relevant to the story. Doesn't sound like a denialist to me."
Thank you for this. I am so tired of seeing just about anything that doesn't toe the AGW line being called "denial". I don't get why THEY don't get that is just denial of another kind. Let's just stick to the science, please, and cease the name-calling.
"Deniers don't base their position on facts because they don't have any facts to support their position."
Now come on, man. This is the most ridiculous statement I've seen on/. today.
Even creationists have some facts that support their position. Not enough to carry the day, but saying they don't exist is just another kind of denial.
"The 4th amendment uses the term reasonable; but the "reasonable person" idea is a sophist distortion of intent. "
Only if you interpret my statement that way.
What problem do you have with determining that electronic communications constitute "papers and effects"? Paper was how any communication that was not face-to-face was performed in those days.
But YOU are conflating here two different things. Our LEGAL SYSTEM itself (though not necessarily the Constitution) is supposed to adhere to the "reasonable person" standard. This is completely aside from the Constitution. The Reasonable Man standard was from Common Law, which predated the Constitution.
You need to remember that the Constitution does not define our rights. It DOES explicitly say that the government may not infringe certain of those rights, but we also have rights that are NOT in the Constitution.
For example, the Supreme Court has ruled that we have the RIGHT to privacy and anonymity, even though they are not mentioned in the Constitution, because without them a democratic government cannot exist for long.
"The constitution can only cover so much in modern times."
I'm not sure if this is what you meant, but I don't see this as a deficiency in the Constitution. The Constitution says that people shall be secure in their "papers, and effects". Courts have for the most part ruled that modern communications are equivalent to "papers and effects". Some exceptions were made later (like the "3rd party" rule this judge used), but those exceptions are pretty clearly obsolete today.
What is really important is the "expectation of privacy" that people have with their communications. They expect cell phone calls to be private. (And I would argue that they also expect their phone call "metadata" to be private too.) They expect emails to be private (or should).
Courts are supposed to use the "reasonable man" or "reasonable person" principle: what would a reasonable person do, or expect? Using that standard, I think it is pretty darned clear that the vast majority of people DO have an expectation of privacy. And if most people expect it, it is by definition "reasonable".
Slashdot Mirror
Are you now going to try to claim that your original question was not bait, to draw me into an argument about creationism, in the vain hope I would say something that you could then try to use to claim I supported creationism?
Go ahead and deny it if you like, but you'll never get me to believe it.
I will just say this:
If you seriously dispute that statistically speaking, the likelihood that "NO facts of any kind support creationist arguments" has a probability close to zero (which is NOT moving the goalposts; it was the whole basis of my point), then I'd like to see a rigorous refutation. In order to win, I would only have to find one counter-example; for you to win, you would have to repudiate ALL possible examples. And I'm not even going to bother, because this is a silly thing to argue about and the likelihood that you would win also closely approaches zero.
I am confident of my statement. However, and I repeat: I do NOT claim it is evidence that evolution itself is in any way refuted or that "young earth" theory has any validity. I am pretty sure we agree that the vast preponderance of evidence is on the side of evolution and of Earth being a few billion years old, give or take.
But I will say again that it appears you have an ego-driven need to argue with me about just about everything that strikes your fancy, and I will say again -- in complete honesty -- that it appears to me to be extremely immature behavior.
Oh, for fuck's sake. WILL you drop this seeming pathological Freudian need to prove me wrong about anything and everything you can?
You have been behaving like a child for a long time now, and I am very, very weary of this.
"Instead of throwing barbs and running maybe suggest an alternative. The idea that medicine can have a profit motive without an ethical motive makes whatever argument you are about to make repellent."
First, I'm neither throwing barbs or running. I was pointing out that GP's argument was fallacious. Which I did successfully, without the need to point out another alternative.
But since you brought it up, what alternative would you like? There are so many! There is the free-market alternative. And the private single-payer alternative. And the insurance alternative. And the anarchist alternative. Just to name a few.
"The idea that medicine can have a profit motive without an ethical motive makes whatever argument you are about to make repellent."
Sorry, but that's YOUR idea. It sure as hell doesn't resemble anything *I* wrote.
Well, yes. I did not mean to imply that the OS itself is doing it. But I don't understand the (apparent) claim that he needs Windows to do it.
Re-election is not what I was talking about. However, I agree that if you re-elect someone who is violating your rights, you should take a long look in the mirror before blaming anyone else.
Okay, maybe it was a bad example. I'm not going to spend a lot of time trying to find another. But the probability of ALL known facts supporting evolution is very close to zero.
Obviously that does not mean that evolution is false.
IANAL, but from what I read of this, part of this decision is not legally sound.
Convenience for government is NOT a valid reason to infringe on Constitutional rights. This is a pretty damned old principle and I see no reason why they get to ignore it here.
It is true that government has been allowed to stretch the rules when it can show a "compelling interest", but I am pretty sure that in order to establish a compelling interest here, they would have to show that these arbitrary searches are actually effective against terrorism. And I really don't think they have any way to do that, because they really haven't been catching terrorists that way.
Fundamental error in one part of OP raises serious credibility issues in all of OP.
A tanker did not just "roll downhill"!!!
From the Bakken offices in ND to Lac-Megantic QC is 1,939 miles!
Pretty big fucking hill.
Just one example:
The fact that radiometric dating relies on certain assumptions has been one of their favorite talking points.
Are those assumptions reasonable? I think so. But they ARE assumptions, and that is a fact.
Therefore, there do exist facts that can be said to support (or at least not refute) the creationists' arguments.
I did not say that I support creationism or the young-Earthers. I merely stated that not ALL facts are on one side of the argument. However, most of them certainly are.
"The alternative to the ACA was socialized medicine..."
This is a logical fallacy known as "false dichotomy".
There are many alternatives. Not only is socialized medicine not "THE" alternative, it is probably one of the least desirable alternatives.
The fact that others do it is also not much of a recommendation. Lots of people are assholes. Does that mean you should be one, too?
"Next point is how to start to unravel the entrenched power."
To unravel the entrenched power, it is both necessary and sufficient to separate politics from "big money".
Some people think this is impossible, but it is not. It would be difficult to do, due to resistance from interested parties, but it would also be SIMPLE.
"Thus spake the heretic: I could not do my job without Windows. It allows me to open many sessions into the Unix machines on which I do my work."
??? There is a mainstream desktop OS that doesn't do this???
No, it's true. Nobody game them those powers.
We elect people with the expectation that they will uphold the Constitution. Increasingly of late, they have not done so.
That is not the fault of the voters. The blame lies squarely on the shoulders of the elected politicians.
"Meh, firstly I'd chalk it up to the small world effect due to the networking effects of the ivy league schools. You were bound to find a link between someone close to Obama and Kevin Bacon. It would be more impressive if you showed that the White House didn't have any connections to any other federal contractors."
Bullshit. First, there are a LOT of ivy-league-school-associated software firms, right here in the U.S., not Canada. This isn't "6 degrees of fucking Kevin Bacon". Michelle Obama knew the person, personally. This was not a matter of competitive bids, either. If it had been, no sane person would have hired CGI. The sole thing it had going for it was that it had acquired other companies that had done U.S. government contracts. RESPONSIBLE and competent tech companies didn't want to touch it.
"Second, doesn't the federal procurement process involve a lot of stringent bright line tests on how to award contracts (such as this CMMI business) making it difficult for the White House to push down a pick of a contractor. "
Okay, I'll concede that the choice for contractors WAS somewhat limited... they could have chosen THIS company with a track record of failed large projects, or THAT company with a track record of failed large projects. Since the fact is that otherwise there isn't much to distinguish between them, my guess is that the Obama connection was still significant.
"However, the White House didn't have a direct hand in drafting the text of the legislation, so that doesn't play into your theory."
As a straw-man argument, this one would on its face seem well-crafted. But the key word here is "direct". You know damned well that ACA was the President's baby and main political objective from when he was first elected in 2008. Implying anything else is just plain dishonest, you dishonest person.
"Third, the reason why first ladies publicly maintain a focus on sappy social initiatives is because it's politically toxic for substantial policy to have originated from the spouse of the person who was elected president."
Hahaha! Tell that to Hillary Clinton, who drove her husband like a brain parasite with NASCAR experience. I strongly suggest you start living in the real world.
"Only project teams can reach it."
And NOBODY cares.
CGI was already notorious for failed large projects when it was selected for healthcare.gov. (Anybody who thinks the fact that a officer of CGI was a classmate of Michelle Obama does NOT have something to do with its selection is living in lala-land.)
GOOD software developers, and software development organizations, almost universally oppose efforts at certification. Because the only thing it measures is bureaucracy, and the extent to which someone is willing to live with it.
States (and Feds) are nowhere near competent enough to "certify" programmers. The very concept is a joke.
I hope the one in NY is close to the NYC Mayor's office.
Mod parent Z.
Seriously, default autorun was a fine idea BEFORE the advent of viruses. Ever since, Bad Idea.
"My problem is that the courts are not given the option of using the "reasonable man" principle in regard to search and seizure"
But yes, they are. When determining what constitutes search and seizure. That's where they invoke "reasonable man" and "reasonable expectation of privacy".
"The government is forbidden to pursue search and seizure except as authorized in the constitution."
I think we're basically in agreement. I was just pointing out that sometimes there is a gray area regarding the decision as to whether something WAS a search or seizure, under the law.
I don't even understand why this is being considered as news. If you don't know this already, you aren't the kind of programmer I've ever worked with.
Now... there are exceptions, too. For example if you know your input will always be less than X characters, you have only one boundary condition to check (no characters). If you know it will always be exactly Y characters you have no boundary conditions. On length, that is... using the same kind of example OP was using.
".. there's so much evidence for it and so little against it that it would take something revolutionary to change my mind..."
Spoken like someone who truly does not know what he's talking about. There is LOTS of contrary evidence. You just haven't seen it, so you deny it exists. That's called "denial".
Just for example, see here, where Dr. Roy Spencer explains how the greenhouse effect is supposed to work.
Then see HERE, where this idea is soundly refuted.
I'm not going to claim to you here that the greenhouse effect is disproved, but the fact is that the scientific basis for it is actually pretty thin.
If you want to talk about the science, you have to read and talk about both sides, or you are not being honest.
"The GP posted a statement of fact, relevant to the story. Doesn't sound like a denialist to me."
Thank you for this. I am so tired of seeing just about anything that doesn't toe the AGW line being called "denial". I don't get why THEY don't get that is just denial of another kind. Let's just stick to the science, please, and cease the name-calling.
"Deniers don't base their position on facts because they don't have any facts to support their position."
Now come on, man. This is the most ridiculous statement I've seen on /. today.
Even creationists have some facts that support their position. Not enough to carry the day, but saying they don't exist is just another kind of denial.
"The 4th amendment uses the term reasonable; but the "reasonable person" idea is a sophist distortion of intent. "
Only if you interpret my statement that way.
What problem do you have with determining that electronic communications constitute "papers and effects"? Paper was how any communication that was not face-to-face was performed in those days.
But YOU are conflating here two different things. Our LEGAL SYSTEM itself (though not necessarily the Constitution) is supposed to adhere to the "reasonable person" standard. This is completely aside from the Constitution. The Reasonable Man standard was from Common Law, which predated the Constitution.
You need to remember that the Constitution does not define our rights. It DOES explicitly say that the government may not infringe certain of those rights, but we also have rights that are NOT in the Constitution.
For example, the Supreme Court has ruled that we have the RIGHT to privacy and anonymity, even though they are not mentioned in the Constitution, because without them a democratic government cannot exist for long.
"The constitution can only cover so much in modern times."
I'm not sure if this is what you meant, but I don't see this as a deficiency in the Constitution. The Constitution says that people shall be secure in their "papers, and effects". Courts have for the most part ruled that modern communications are equivalent to "papers and effects". Some exceptions were made later (like the "3rd party" rule this judge used), but those exceptions are pretty clearly obsolete today.
What is really important is the "expectation of privacy" that people have with their communications. They expect cell phone calls to be private. (And I would argue that they also expect their phone call "metadata" to be private too.) They expect emails to be private (or should).
Courts are supposed to use the "reasonable man" or "reasonable person" principle: what would a reasonable person do, or expect? Using that standard, I think it is pretty darned clear that the vast majority of people DO have an expectation of privacy. And if most people expect it, it is by definition "reasonable".