Is it OK to burn stuff up at whatever rate we choose just for the hell of it, because it's all about us, screw people in 200 years?
Do you honestly think we'll still be getting the majority of our energy from burning oil in 200 years? I simply don't understand how people posting on a technology focused website can make the mistake of extrapolating trends into the future without taking technological change into account.
200 years ago people pondering environmental issues in their far future would have worried about where we would dispose of all the waste from our equine powered economy. After all, the population keeps rising, therefore the world needs more horses for transportation, therefore there will be horseshit six feet deep in the streets everywhere! Environmental holocaust! The sky is falling!! Our equine dependence is simply unsustainable! Oh, won't people please think of future generations?:)
Anti-abortion ideas along with other values that are mostly based on religion can't really be debated because they are based on dogma and not on reality or reason.
Of course, the same statement applies to environmentalism and Marxism as well. Both of those are just as based on dogma as Christianity or Islam are, but we mostly don't call them religions.
The point was that the US gave up control, and is still getting shit for it. And the rest of the world wonders why we don't give a shit that we're hated.. We'll be hated in certain circles no matter what we do, so why should we even bother trying to be liked?
Result of the US giving control over the.kz domain to the government of Kazakhstan : "The US unilaterally made decisions over internet governance! They want to tell the whole world what to do!"
Result if the US had denied control over the.kz domain to the government of Kazakhstan : "The US refuses to allow a sovereign country to control their own TLD! They want to tell the whole world what to do!"
I agree, keeping the threat of terrorism in perspective is definitely important.
A single nuclear bomb detonated in downtown Manhattan could kill more people in a day than all your listed causes of death. One single bomb and arguably the most important city in the world would for all intents and purposes cease to exist.
Keeping this in mind, is the threat of terrorism overblown? Past terrorist-related fatalities have been limited not by the terrorists' intent or desire, but only by their capability.
the 3,000 who died on 9/11 from the terrorist attacks, because they were on every news screen & in everyone's mind, were much, much more important that the 2500 or so who died of heart disease the same day. Is it rational? No, but that's emotions for you.
The difference that seems to be escaping you is that heart disease doesn't desire and work towards obtaining nuclear weapons in order to set them off in a major American city destroying it completely and killing millions of people in a single day. Honestly, do you doubt that Al Qaeda would do that in a second if they had the capability?
Many people would like to pretend that we live in a world where all grievances can be discussed and all disputes can be solved non-violently if we would only listen to each other. Is it rational? No, but that's emotions for you.
MS makes a decent amount of money selling Office for the Mac; by any rational, exterior viewpoint they would be shooting themselves in the foot to cancel that.
However, good luck finding such a viewpoint in a company that big and with that much money being driven by whims of the people at the steerboard.
I heartily disagree. The one thing Microsoft is always 100% rational about is making money. The only way they'd ever cancel a money making app like Office for Mac is if they stood to make MORE money by canceling it.
I'm far from an MS fanboy, but you can't say they make stupid and irrational business decisions. They generally make pretty good business decisions*, which is how they make so much money while making such crappy software.
* Note that by "good business decisions" I mean "good for MS and their shareholders", not "good for their customers".
Yeah, I'm not saying someone who causes harm shouldn't be held accountable. Maybe I'm the one who's naive, for thinking it's still possible in the current political environment for people to give their political opponents the benefit of the doubt, when it comes to their intentions at least.
I see a lot of demonization on both sides of the political aisle, and it saddens me because I think both sides for the most part genuinely want to help people, the disagreement is in how they think we should go about doing that.
Okay, I give up. You obviously don't understand what I'm getting at.
I did see the sarcasim in your post by the way, I just didnt think it was very funny.
When people don't get a joke, and then it's pointed out to be a joke, very often they defend themselves by claiming they actually did get it, but it wasn't funny in the first place. Not that I'm saying you're doing that.;)
In result, no, it's not better. The point I was trying to make, however, is that you shouldn't allow the belief that your political opponent's policies will cause harm to turn into a belief that your political opponents intend to cause harm. See the difference?
That new sound you heard was my entire point whooshing over your head. I didn't accuse you of blaming any specific group, all I did was point out that those you disagree with don't explicitly desire to cause harm (as was your accusation), even if you think their actions will result in harm.
Well, that sound you heard was the whoosh of my joke flying over your head.:)
But seriously, I just want to say one thing in response to the last part of your reply:
Otherwise its all rhetoric from a group of people I firmly believe wish to harm my country not help it.
I think people in this country on both sides of the red/blue divide need to recognize that their political opponents, no matter how much they disagree with them, do for the most part have what they consider to be the best interests of the country in mind. The demonization of each side by the other is counterproductive and paranoid. Disagree, by all means, but don't pretend that the people you disagree with are evil and plotting the destruction of America.. it just isn't so, and your opinions will be written off as rabidly partisan and discounted by anyone you might possibly hope to convince.
No terrorist attacks since 9/11. How can anyone say it doesn't do its job?
Next step: Instituting a federal Bear Patrol to stop these constant bear attacks. I also hear there's a little girl who has a rock that keeps tigers away, this should also be investigated.
Add in the rules of Texas Hold'em and some gambling chips, and you can even be a bit edgy by running the risk of being arrested (but only in the Land Of The Free).
It's perfectly legal to play poker in the US, even for money. The only time you may run afoul of the law is if the house collects money from the players or rakes the pot. IANAL, but I do have a regular game going so I've investigated this a bit.
I think geeks who haven't tried it should try playing some Hold'em. A lot of it is calculating odds, which appeals to the geek in me, and I think I've learned a lot about reading people since I started playing frequently. Just make sure you play for money. Playing poker when there's no money on the line will teach you nothing about the game.
I wanted to get a good answer one way or another for a long time and the topic was another opportunity to test it out. I find using provocative titles gets a few more eyeballs.
I find that implying there are patent issues with an open source project in a public forum when you don't know for sure and haven't taken the basic steps like asking the project developers about it is irresponsible at best. You could have gotten a good answer by just asking the developers, like I did, rather than immediately resort to spreading rumors on Slashdot. It is amazing the amount of damage one can do just by suggesting a
patent claim, without any actual evidence.
My attempts at getting some kind of feedback from the SCC were in vain because no one called me back. Does Redhat license this? Will the patent trolls come after me if I attempt to use it in a commercial OSS way?
I asked a few questions on the SELinux mailing list and to members of the SELinux development team and the universal consensus was that these patent "issues" aren't issues at all, that this patent scare is old news that was settled years ago, and that SELinux is unencumbered and fully GPL compatible.
Red Hat has been shipping product with SELinux enabled since Feb 2005 and has neither licensed any of the above patents nor had any infringement claims made against them.
This is the second time I've seen you on/. bringing up these patent issues with regards to SELinux. Are you sure YOU'RE not the patent troll? I ask because you could have simply done what I did and asked the developers and maintainers of the project directly, rather than ominously allude to unreturned calls from SCC. Frankly, it smacks of FUD to me.
--snip--
Despite recent speculation concerning patents, we remain confident that
we had the necessary rights to release SELinux in the manner and
under the conditions in which we did and that SELinux may be used,
copied, distributed, and modified in accordance with the terms and
conditions of the GPL.
--
Peter Loscocco
SELinux Project Leader
National Security Agency
--snip--
My only experience with SELinix has been when an old reliable sysadmin procedure stopped working. I acknowledge that I need to know more. Should I pop for the (overpriced, IMO) O'Reilly book, or plow through the online stuffs?
The O'Reilly book is very outdated, most of it talks about the SELinux implementation in FC2 IIRC, and a LOT has changed since then. You'd be better off with the online stuff until that book gets revised.
<shameless plug> I wrote a series of four articles on SELinux you can find here: 1234 and the company I work for has an SELinux strict policy server distro available here. </shameless plug>
Slashdot Mirror
Do you honestly think we'll still be getting the majority of our energy from burning oil in 200 years? I simply don't understand how people posting on a technology focused website can make the mistake of extrapolating trends into the future without taking technological change into account.
200 years ago people pondering environmental issues in their far future would have worried about where we would dispose of all the waste from our equine powered economy. After all, the population keeps rising, therefore the world needs more horses for transportation, therefore there will be horseshit six feet deep in the streets everywhere! Environmental holocaust! The sky is falling!! Our equine dependence is simply unsustainable! Oh, won't people please think of future generations? :)
Of course, the same statement applies to environmentalism and Marxism as well. Both of those are just as based on dogma as Christianity or Islam are, but we mostly don't call them religions.
I think that by this point Microsoft is pretty much numbed when it comes to public embarrassment.
The point was that the US gave up control, and is still getting shit for it. And the rest of the world wonders why we don't give a shit that we're hated.. We'll be hated in certain circles no matter what we do, so why should we even bother trying to be liked?
Result if the US had denied control over the .kz domain to the government of Kazakhstan : "The US refuses to allow a sovereign country to control their own TLD! They want to tell the whole world what to do!"
Microsoft not very secure? Now you're just being silly.
A single nuclear bomb detonated in downtown Manhattan could kill more people in a day than all your listed causes of death. One single bomb and arguably the most important city in the world would for all intents and purposes cease to exist.
Keeping this in mind, is the threat of terrorism overblown? Past terrorist-related fatalities have been limited not by the terrorists' intent or desire, but only by their capability.
The difference that seems to be escaping you is that heart disease doesn't desire and work towards obtaining nuclear weapons in order to set them off in a major American city destroying it completely and killing millions of people in a single day. Honestly, do you doubt that Al Qaeda would do that in a second if they had the capability?
Many people would like to pretend that we live in a world where all grievances can be discussed and all disputes can be solved non-violently if we would only listen to each other. Is it rational? No, but that's emotions for you.
I'm shocked, shocked to see Microsoft prioritizing features over security.
</Claude Rains>
I heartily disagree. The one thing Microsoft is always 100% rational about is making money. The only way they'd ever cancel a money making app like Office for Mac is if they stood to make MORE money by canceling it.
I'm far from an MS fanboy, but you can't say they make stupid and irrational business decisions. They generally make pretty good business decisions*, which is how they make so much money while making such crappy software.
* Note that by "good business decisions" I mean "good for MS and their shareholders", not "good for their customers".
I see a lot of demonization on both sides of the political aisle, and it saddens me because I think both sides for the most part genuinely want to help people, the disagreement is in how they think we should go about doing that.
FWIW, I agree with you. I just can't resist a good Simpsons reference when one jumps out at me. :)
I did see the sarcasim in your post by the way, I just didnt think it was very funny.
When people don't get a joke, and then it's pointed out to be a joke, very often they defend themselves by claiming they actually did get it, but it wasn't funny in the first place. Not that I'm saying you're doing that. ;)
In result, no, it's not better. The point I was trying to make, however, is that you shouldn't allow the belief that your political opponent's policies will cause harm to turn into a belief that your political opponents intend to cause harm. See the difference?
That new sound you heard was my entire point whooshing over your head. I didn't accuse you of blaming any specific group, all I did was point out that those you disagree with don't explicitly desire to cause harm (as was your accusation), even if you think their actions will result in harm.
But seriously, I just want to say one thing in response to the last part of your reply:
Otherwise its all rhetoric from a group of people I firmly believe wish to harm my country not help it.
I think people in this country on both sides of the red/blue divide need to recognize that their political opponents, no matter how much they disagree with them, do for the most part have what they consider to be the best interests of the country in mind. The demonization of each side by the other is counterproductive and paranoid. Disagree, by all means, but don't pretend that the people you disagree with are evil and plotting the destruction of America.. it just isn't so, and your opinions will be written off as rabidly partisan and discounted by anyone you might possibly hope to convince.
Next step: Instituting a federal Bear Patrol to stop these constant bear attacks. I also hear there's a little girl who has a rock that keeps tigers away, this should also be investigated.
It's perfectly legal to play poker in the US, even for money. The only time you may run afoul of the law is if the house collects money from the players or rakes the pot. IANAL, but I do have a regular game going so I've investigated this a bit.
I think geeks who haven't tried it should try playing some Hold'em. A lot of it is calculating odds, which appeals to the geek in me, and I think I've learned a lot about reading people since I started playing frequently. Just make sure you play for money. Playing poker when there's no money on the line will teach you nothing about the game.
Einstein said it best: "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."
The record companies seem to think so.
OBSimpsons: Tiananmen Square plaque: On this site in 1987, nothing happened.
I find that implying there are patent issues with an open source project in a public forum when you don't know for sure and haven't taken the basic steps like asking the project developers about it is irresponsible at best. You could have gotten a good answer by just asking the developers, like I did, rather than immediately resort to spreading rumors on Slashdot. It is amazing the amount of damage one can do just by suggesting a patent claim, without any actual evidence.
I asked a few questions on the SELinux mailing list and to members of the SELinux development team and the universal consensus was that these patent "issues" aren't issues at all, that this patent scare is old news that was settled years ago, and that SELinux is unencumbered and fully GPL compatible.
Red Hat has been shipping product with SELinux enabled since Feb 2005 and has neither licensed any of the above patents nor had any infringement claims made against them.
This is the second time I've seen you on /. bringing up these patent issues with regards to SELinux. Are you sure YOU'RE not the patent troll? I ask because you could have simply done what I did and asked the developers and maintainers of the project directly, rather than ominously allude to unreturned calls from SCC. Frankly, it smacks of FUD to me.
--snip--
Despite recent speculation concerning patents, we remain confident that we had the necessary rights to release SELinux in the manner and under the conditions in which we did and that SELinux may be used, copied, distributed, and modified in accordance with the terms and conditions of the GPL.
--
Peter Loscocco
SELinux Project Leader
National Security Agency
--snip--
The O'Reilly book is very outdated, most of it talks about the SELinux implementation in FC2 IIRC, and a LOT has changed since then. You'd be better off with the online stuff until that book gets revised.
<shameless plug>
I wrote a series of four articles on SELinux you can find here: 1 2 3 4 and the company I work for has an SELinux strict policy server distro available here.
</shameless plug>