Utterly irrelevant. All of what you said is irrelevant. The fact remains, the author of a work has the right to try to profit from that work, free of the interference of third parties. If no one buys it (because it sucks/is too expensive/whatever), I'm not gonna lose any sleep. But if people are taking his work without permission, that's blatantly unethical and deserves to be protected against.
Respect has to be earned, and to this date, creationists has done nothing to earn my respect, quite the contrary. Additionally, any demand for respect inherently lowers my respect for the demanding party. And creationists frequently demands respect. There's a difference between having respect and showing respect. Having respect has to be earned. Showing respect is the default for every man, woman, and child alive.
Creationists show no respect at all for my position, so why should I show them any respect for theirs? 1. Creationists are not one unit and should not be treated as such.
2. It's the right goddamn thing to do, that's why!
Furthermore, I see no reason to respect religion.... Where respect is supposed to come from in that context I don't know, but by all means, feel free to explain it to me. I think you're using the wrong sense of respect. Not respect as in having respect for, respect as in showing respect to. That kind of respect (the kind of respect between two friends who strongly disagree, but are willing to do so peacefully) should be extended to all people, all beliefs, by default.
Hold on. You're putting words in my mouth. I didn't say stupid. I said gullible, which is something else entirely. People can be very smart indeed, and still fall for an attractive idea, especially when fear (of death, for instance) is added to the social pressures to join the group (or conversely, to not be ostracized, a very typical religious reaction, even a formal one in some cases.)
I also didn't say that all religious people were being taken advantage of by their leaders. I said that there were legions of people around who did so; that's quite a different thing. If you want to discuss what I actually said, that's fine -- but don't rework it into something I didn't say and then try to attack me on the basis of your new constructions. Fair enough, but that's not how you made it sound.
If you make such a claim, it is your obligation to prove it. Not so, in the specific context I gave. If you wish me to believe your claim, you must prove it, as you correctly recognize. However, I hold that if I wish to insult you for your belief in your claim, the burden is now on me to disprove it. In general, yes, the burden of proof is on the one making the claim, but I believe that there are certain exceptions.
The fewer planes flying into buildings, the fewer wars between the Catholics and the Protestants, the fewer pogroms, the fewer inquisitions, the fewer witch burnings, the fewer laws against informed, consensual sexual and social behaviors, the fewer religious tax burdens on taxpayers, the fewer incursions into our schools of pathologies like creationism... the better off we'll be. I have yet to see any real convincing arguments that there is a higher amount of intolerance and craziness among the religious than the non-religious. What you want is not to get rid of religion, but to get rid of intolerance, powermongering, fanaticism, etc. Those things can (and do) exist quite independently of religion.
And we won't get there by "respecting" outlooks that do not earn our respect, but instead, harm our society directly by interfering, by policy, with others. Far better to be civil toward those we disagree with, while we fight their poor policies, in my opinion.
As soon as they bring their mythology to bear upon how I and those dear to me are expected to live our lives, they've stepped over the line and I no longer have the obligation to even tolerate them, but instead, they have entrenched themselves as an enemy of mine. Of course, this is hardly a phenomenon peculiar to religion either. I'm sure if we took the time to do so, we could come up with at least a few FOSS advocates here on/. who exhibit the behavior you describe... the pathos here is the character of the person in question, not their allegiance.
As for name-calling, or characterizing a religious person or organization in a negative way, it all bears upon the truth of the matter. I have no problem calling names as long as they are accurate. Did I say something that wasn't accurate? You've clarified your meaning sufficiently that I can't really take issue with your labels. Still, I maintain that it's always better to err on the side of showing respect. There's far too much hostility between atheists/agnostics and religion (Christianity in particular, though I'm sure other faiths are attacked by, and attack, the atheists), and it's wholly unnecessary, in my opinion. We can get along if we put our minds to it, but not if we speak disrespectfully about each other.
You mean like the way religionists and creationists bash scientists and science? So, the proper response to douchebaggery is... more douchebaggery? Wow, what a great atmosphere of mutual respect that's gonna foster in our society.
Stones and glass houses and all that. That implies that I'm a) religious, b) bashing science, neither of which is true.
For fuck's sake people, grow up. Can't we discuss a cool scientific discovery without dragging religion-bashing into it? If this changes their minds, it will do so without our mockery. If it doesn't change their minds, it will do so without our mockery. In the meantime, we will have wasted our time, and ceded any moral high ground, by lowering ourselves to the level of 5-year-old "ha ha told you so ha ha ha!" nonsense.
Anyway, it's an interesting find, but I wonder, why did they not wait until they finished their investigation of the event? It says that they're still figuring out if the change was a random, incredibly rare mutation, or the result of many small changes. Why not wait until you get the whole story to announce your discovery?
2. The Spanish Inquisition. Took place in the 19th century.
3. Jewish Blood Libel. Not sure what you mean by this.
4. Forced Conversion of Conquered Peoples. And when, pray tell, was the last time this happened?
5. Abortion Clinic Bombings/Murders of Doctors. Please. This has no more bearing on Christianity as a whole than Muslim terrorists have on Islam as a whole. The actions of a few extremists do not condemn an entire group.
Sounds to me like you're the one without a sense of scale. The things you mentioned are either a) so far in the past, they're irrelevant to the character of today's Christians, or b) the actions of a small segment of the population. By your logic, Americans are all bad people because we have a few rapists and murderers.
Nonsense. It's just accurate reporting. Religion is mythology. Stories. Using the term "mythology" has an implied derision toward whatever you're talking about. That's disrespectful, and there's no call for it. I don't believe in religion any more than (it seems) you do, but neither do I walk around putting them down.
Those stories remain in force because people are gullible, fearful, and uninformed in critical areas, and because there are legions of people around who prey on those who exhibit said vulnerabilities. ...no. Just no. If you honestly believe that only stupid/fearful people are religious, and that all religious people are being taken advantage of by their leaders, then you are an utterly unreasonable, close-minded person. If you had any significant amount of first-hand experience with people of faith (I do, for the record, most of my family and a good few of my friends are religious), you would understand that they're just normal people. Tell you what: when you can actually prove them wrong, you can run around calling them idiots if they still persist in believing in God. Until then, though, do the whole world a favor and show a little respect. We don't get anywhere by sitting and calling each other names for their beliefs.
The open-source mindset is that our code should be available to others to observe and learn from. Also, depending on who you ask, it's that you should be able to modify your software (although I personally think this isn't what open source is/should be about, but I digress). Neither of these has a damned thing to do with homosexuality or religion, though.
Dialog boxes are a misfeature. They jump in your way to tell you that something or other has occurred (or, more likely, failed to occur) and you are obligated to pay attention to them before you can continue. That's not the only kind of dialog box. There are also, for example, configuration dialogs and file-opening dialogs, both of which are extremely useful to the task at hand, and don't "jump in your way".
You, and many other people, seem to have this idea that the pinnacle of UI design is for a UI to be so simple an idiot could use it. I don't particularly think that. Mac OS is so simple an idiot could use it, but I consider it to have very poor UI design. Simplicity is one of the goals. Power is another. Going too far to either extreme is bad UI design, in my opinion. Mac OS and emacs (to be fair, I haven't used emacs, I'm just basing my judgement upon the information others have provided) are two examples of sacrificing one goal a lot, in order to reach the other goal... which then results in a crappy UI, because your program is either crippled, or unusable to anyone except an expert.
It can't be compiled using open source compilers (e.g. mingw), not even on Windows. That's hardly a flaw. It's not like you need to compile software yourself to be able to use it. And I know they distribute binaries, so it's not like they're only giving out the source or something.
BTW Visual Studio supports "industry standard languages?" Please go back to bed, Mr. Ballmer. Visual Studio supports C++ (and, if I recall correctly, C), C#, Visual Basic, and a Java-ish language, J#. If that's not "industry standard" enough for you I don't know what the hell is. The only thing more you could ask for is true Java support.
No dialog boxes... no needless barriers to what you can do with a keybinding and a Lisp with every text programming primitive you could possibly want. That doesn't sound like a very brilliant interface to me. "Excellent design of an all-keyboard program"? I can buy that. But the behavior you describe isn't a "brilliant" interface at all.
True, I guess I don't necessarily need to restrict it to English-speaking. My real criteria is that I'd like to live somewhere where I don't have to learn the language to live there. If I pick it up as I go along, great, but the main thing is that I'd like to be able to adjust to a new country without adjusting to a new language at the same time.
Given the news I read about the UK's growing police state, it doesn't seem to me to be all that far off from "V For Vendetta"-style government. That's just from reading news on/. though, it may not be an accurate portrayal.
The change of rules seems to be a pretty obvious case of security theater.... Your first (wrong) assumption is that it has a damn thing to do with security. It has to do with the TSA wanting to be able to remove "troublemakers" (ie, anyone who thinks that demanding ID is unreasonable... can't have those free thinkers able to do what they want in our society).
Fuck DHS and the TSA. Fuck them and the horse they rode in on. They're far worse (if they aren't yet, they will be, just wait) than any terrorist ever could be.
Sad part is, I'd move to another country if I knew of any better ones out there. Anyone know of a mostly English-speaking country that doesn't walk all over its citizens' rights? I know the UK is right out, and I hear Australia is pretty bad too.
That would be just as wildly inaccurate as your original phrasing. "Illiterate" means someone who can't read/write. We're reading to/posting on slashdot, obviously no one here is illiterate (or if they are, they have a very patient interpreter). Furthermore, not all Americans speak only English. Neither one of the phrases you used has a damn thing to do with being unable to understand French.
Of course, you seem hell-bent on mindlessly (and needlessly) flaming, so rock on. Your wasted time (or your employer's, heh), not mine.
Slashdot Mirror
Utterly irrelevant. All of what you said is irrelevant. The fact remains, the author of a work has the right to try to profit from that work, free of the interference of third parties. If no one buys it (because it sucks/is too expensive/whatever), I'm not gonna lose any sleep. But if people are taking his work without permission, that's blatantly unethical and deserves to be protected against.
Wikipedia said it was officially abolished in 18-something, so I figured I'd go with that as my date.
2. It's the right goddamn thing to do, that's why!
Point taken, but it's still unnecessary and juvenile. You're technically correct, but that doesn't make the action acceptable.
Anyway, it's an interesting find, but I wonder, why did they not wait until they finished their investigation of the event? It says that they're still figuring out if the change was a random, incredibly rare mutation, or the result of many small changes. Why not wait until you get the whole story to announce your discovery?
2. The Spanish Inquisition. Took place in the 19th century.
3. Jewish Blood Libel. Not sure what you mean by this.
4. Forced Conversion of Conquered Peoples. And when, pray tell, was the last time this happened?
5. Abortion Clinic Bombings/Murders of Doctors. Please. This has no more bearing on Christianity as a whole than Muslim terrorists have on Islam as a whole. The actions of a few extremists do not condemn an entire group.
Sounds to me like you're the one without a sense of scale. The things you mentioned are either a) so far in the past, they're irrelevant to the character of today's Christians, or b) the actions of a small segment of the population. By your logic, Americans are all bad people because we have a few rapists and murderers.
The open-source mindset is that our code should be available to others to observe and learn from. Also, depending on who you ask, it's that you should be able to modify your software (although I personally think this isn't what open source is/should be about, but I digress). Neither of these has a damned thing to do with homosexuality or religion, though.
2012 is the year of the next round of presidential elections. Coincidence? I THINK NOT!!
So yeah, troll more.
You're assuming his manager is competent. We don't know that to be the case.
True, I guess I don't necessarily need to restrict it to English-speaking. My real criteria is that I'd like to live somewhere where I don't have to learn the language to live there. If I pick it up as I go along, great, but the main thing is that I'd like to be able to adjust to a new country without adjusting to a new language at the same time.
Given the news I read about the UK's growing police state, it doesn't seem to me to be all that far off from "V For Vendetta"-style government. That's just from reading news on /. though, it may not be an accurate portrayal.
I'd just heard that Australia was ramping up in the surveillance and insane copyright departments. Correct me if I'm wrong, though.
And why shouldn't we? Anyone who wants to do damage on that plane has a very convincing fake set up anyway.
Fuck DHS and the TSA. Fuck them and the horse they rode in on. They're far worse (if they aren't yet, they will be, just wait) than any terrorist ever could be.
Sad part is, I'd move to another country if I knew of any better ones out there. Anyone know of a mostly English-speaking country that doesn't walk all over its citizens' rights? I know the UK is right out, and I hear Australia is pretty bad too.
Of course, you seem hell-bent on mindlessly (and needlessly) flaming, so rock on. Your wasted time (or your employer's, heh), not mine.