My favorite was when he went asking people how many Supreme Court justices there were. Almost nobody got it right. However, everyone got the followup question: How many Spice Girls are there?
Actually, whether or not you've broken the law if you yell "fire!" in a crowded theatre depends on what ensues afterwards: If everyone just tells you to sit down and shut up, then you have not broken any law. If a riot breaks out, then your speech is no longer protected and you are liable and can be prosecuted.
If speech in poor taste was illegal, then we would not need a first amendment. Popular speech does not need protecting. Also if speech in poor taste is not protected, then whose "taste" do we use to determine if a law has been broken? I guess we would not have Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh, Mariyln Manson, Lenny Bruce, South Park, etc. Maybe we would all have to listen to Regis and Kathy Lee and Kenny G.
As far as intimidation goes, there is nothing illegal about it unless there is a face to face confrontation that is likely to create an immediate breach of the peace (a.k.a. "fighting words") or if you are a captive audience. This does not apply in a discussion group because you don't *have* to read the posts and the other guy is generally not going to come to your house and try and exact vengeance (If they do, they have broken the law). So just about anything said is protected. There are some exceptions such as threatening the President or compromising national security (Like posting troop positions during a war), but they are few.
You need not even go online to find this behavior. I see it all the time on the the highways manifesting itself as "road rage." I think it is almost like the other person in the discussion group or in the other cars becomes some nebulous "them", losing all human characteristics, and therefore deserving no empathy or compassion.
I think there are a lot of miserable people out there. And misery loves company.
I don't know if anyone has brought this up yet, but this presidential election is perhaps more crucial than others because whoever is elected will mostly likely appoint one or more Supreme Court justices. We can thank the present court for stopping idiotic legislation in its tracks such as the CDA. If we have GWB or McCain as President, then we might see the likes of nominees like Bork, Scalia and Thomas...and with the Republicans controlling the Senate, they might just get confirmed quite easily. This is what scares me anyhow...
BTW, I am *really* stoned out of my gourd right now, so I apologize in advance if this is stupid or wrong in some way.
If Linux is so lame, why don't you try this test: Let's see if you can write and compile a parallel Finite Element CFD code for computing 3D flows on unstructured grids. Then run it on a grid with 10 million+ tetrahedral elements for over a week. I would venture a guess that Microsoft software is not even close to being able to do this. I routinely do accomplish runs like this on our Beowulf cluster at NASA. And yes, I do have a social life, a girlfriend and I ride my bicycle 20 miles a day (I don't drive my car unless I have to).
I would have to say that you would be wrong in many cases. I am on several Microsoft dominated lists, and I have seen steady progression of frustration even among the most ardent Microsoft supporters with their products. I am not saying that the home user neccessarily needs to run some flavor of Unix, but (to point out the obvious) the dominant OS, win9x, is severely broken. People are *not* happy with it. Just walk down the isles of any computer store and you'll see all the software needed to live with win9x, like uninstallers, virus checkers, crash guards, etc. Clearly there is something wrong here. I have always wondered what would happen to all these products like Norton Utilities and McAffee AV, etc. if something like Linux did take over the desktop, since they would become uneccessary.
2) I read the article and the student had only traces of the drug. That usally means "crashing" in the local street dialog. I am not a doctor, but I bet the side effect of such a condition is depression, which he was also treated for in the past.
I used cocaine in my youth. Coming down is indeed really awful.
3&4) You are right. And the US government likes it that way. Keeps the police in business.
Yeah, and our jails filled to the brim.
all the rest) Here in the US most, if not all, of the children who shot up their schools were or had been treated for mental disorders of some kind. The media lets that little bit of information take the back seat of their, "promote gun bans, point the accusing finger at anything except the social engineering failure of the liberals", quote is mine. Don't think the games are getting off easy here, they are on probation until the congress gets conservative and now longer needs the money from the game industry. That my be a long time. -d
I don't profess to know the answer to the violence we are always hearing about. It could only be a function of the media looking for as much blood as they can to fill the 6:00PM news, since all studies I've read recently say violent crime is down. That aside, recent so-called conservative legislation is just as idiotic. Their solution to many issues is to legislate morality, religion and patriotism. Draconain drug laws, prayer in school, keeping kids ignorant about sexual functionality, banning flag burning, teaching creationism as if it were a science, etc. are some examples. Like I said, I don't have the answers, but I would be willing to bet that none of the above is a solution to any of the US's current ills.
Another has gotten involved with a fine young man with only a "slight" over-protectiveness problem. You know, just minor things like calling her every 1/2 hour to check up on her, checking the caller ID every night when he gets home, and being very suspicious of any other men who dare to speak to her. And he certainly doesn't like any of us:). The sad part is, we barely ever get to see her anymore -- he's absorbed her almost completely and doesn't let her out to play very often:(.
My ex-girlfriend and best friend ran into one of these. It turned out to be tragic. After she broke up with him, he began stalking her and he ended up breaking into his house and killing her and then himself with a shotgun. Previously, all her friends and I could see the warning signs. Eventually she did too, but by then it was too late. It is difficult to stop someone who is not afraid to die. If you want to learn more about Susan, I put something here for her.
Slashdot Mirror
My favorite was when he went asking people how many Supreme Court justices there were. Almost nobody got it right. However, everyone got the followup question: How many Spice Girls are there?
Actually, whether or not you've broken the law if you yell "fire!" in a crowded theatre depends on what ensues afterwards: If everyone just tells you to sit down and shut up, then you have not broken any law. If a riot breaks out, then your speech is no longer protected and you are liable and can be prosecuted.
If speech in poor taste was illegal, then we would not need a first amendment. Popular speech does not need protecting. Also if speech in poor taste is not protected, then whose "taste" do we use to determine if a law has been broken? I guess we would not have Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh, Mariyln Manson, Lenny Bruce, South Park, etc. Maybe we would all have to listen to Regis and Kathy Lee and Kenny G.
As far as intimidation goes, there is nothing illegal about it unless there is a face to face confrontation that is likely to create an immediate breach of the peace (a.k.a. "fighting words") or if you are a captive audience. This does not apply in a discussion group because you don't *have* to read the posts and the other guy is generally not going to come to your house and try and exact vengeance (If they do, they have broken the law). So just about anything said is protected. There are some exceptions such as threatening the President or compromising national security (Like posting troop positions during a war), but they are few.
You need not even go online to find this behavior. I see it all the time on the the highways manifesting itself as "road rage." I think it is almost like the other person in the discussion group or in the other cars becomes some nebulous "them", losing all human characteristics, and therefore deserving no empathy or compassion.
I think there are a lot of miserable people out there. And misery loves company.
I don't know if anyone has brought this up yet, but this presidential election is perhaps more crucial than others because whoever is elected will mostly likely appoint one or more Supreme Court justices. We can thank the present court for stopping idiotic legislation in its tracks such as the CDA. If we have GWB or McCain as President, then we might see the likes of nominees like Bork, Scalia and Thomas...and with the Republicans controlling the Senate, they might just get confirmed quite easily. This is what scares me anyhow...
BTW, I am *really* stoned out of my gourd right now, so I apologize in advance if this is stupid or wrong in some way.
http://www.redhat.com/supp ort/errata/RHBA1999061-01.html
If Linux is so lame, why don't you try this test: Let's see if you can write and compile a parallel Finite Element CFD code for computing 3D flows on unstructured grids. Then run it on a grid with 10 million+ tetrahedral elements for over a week. I would venture a guess that Microsoft software is not even close to being able to do this. I routinely do accomplish runs like this on our Beowulf cluster at NASA. And yes, I do have a social life, a girlfriend and I ride my bicycle 20 miles a day (I don't drive my car unless I have to).
I would have to say that you would be wrong in many cases. I am on several Microsoft dominated lists, and I have seen steady progression of frustration even among the most ardent Microsoft supporters with their products. I am not saying that the home user neccessarily needs to run some flavor of Unix, but (to point out the obvious) the dominant OS, win9x, is severely broken. People are *not* happy with it. Just walk down the isles of any computer store and you'll see all the software needed to live with win9x, like uninstallers, virus checkers, crash guards, etc. Clearly there is something wrong here. I have always wondered what would happen to all these products like Norton Utilities and McAffee AV, etc. if something like Linux did take over the desktop, since they would become uneccessary.
Yeah, that guy was Alex Chiu. His website is really funny: www.alexchiu.com
I used cocaine in my youth. Coming down is indeed really awful.
3&4) You are right. And the US government likes it that way. Keeps the police in business.
Yeah, and our jails filled to the brim.
all the rest) Here in the US most, if not all, of the children who shot up their schools were or had been treated for mental disorders of some kind. The media lets that little bit of information take the back seat of their, "promote gun bans, point the accusing finger at anything except the social engineering failure of the liberals", quote is mine. Don't think the games are getting off easy here, they are on probation until the congress gets conservative and now longer needs the money from the game industry. That my be a long time. -d
I don't profess to know the answer to the violence we are always hearing about. It could only be a function of the media looking for as much blood as they can to fill the 6:00PM news, since all studies I've read recently say violent crime is down. That aside, recent so-called conservative legislation is just as idiotic. Their solution to many issues is to legislate morality, religion and patriotism. Draconain drug laws, prayer in school, keeping kids ignorant about sexual functionality, banning flag burning, teaching creationism as if it were a science, etc. are some examples. Like I said, I don't have the answers, but I would be willing to bet that none of the above is a solution to any of the US's current ills.
Another has gotten involved with a fine young man with only a "slight" over-protectiveness problem. You know, just minor things like calling her every 1/2 hour to check up on her, checking the caller ID every night when he gets home, and being very suspicious of any other men who dare to speak to her. And he certainly doesn't like any of us :). The sad part is, we barely ever get to see her anymore -- he's absorbed her almost completely and doesn't let her out to play very often :(.
My ex-girlfriend and best friend ran into one of these. It turned out to be tragic. After she broke up with him, he began stalking her and he ended up breaking into his house and killing her and then himself with a shotgun. Previously, all her friends and I could see the warning signs. Eventually she did too, but by then it was too late. It is difficult to stop someone who is not afraid to die. If you want to learn more about Susan, I put something here for her.