I might be of the opinion that wearing green hats causes your head to explode, but that would be nonsense. Just like the opinion that abortion is murder. People who hold this opinion are simply WRONG and do not understand how human reproduction works. Bullshit! No matter where you draw the line of where we consider life to begin, it's an arbitrary line. I draw it at conception because that's the simplest, although the line would probably truly be somewhere mid-pregnancy (when the fetus could be supported outside the womb). There is no way to "prove" that abortion is or isn't murder, because it depends on our definitions of when life begins, and we should start valuing that life. It's not science.
That is simply not true. Research "feature requests" in open source projects and come back once you are educated in the matter. My point is that I'm still at the mercy of other programmers to implement the feature. Thus, the control is not in my hands. I'm perfectly well aware of how it works, but in both open- and closed-source software, the control of new features is not in my hands (unless I want to do it myself).
I never claimed to never use Steam. I have CS:S, and Portal. I also said that it's my understanding that you can run games without a network connection. I haven't actually tried.
If you go to a liberal arts school, perhaps. The school I went to, Lawrence University, offers only BA degrees (well, also a B. Music for those who are in the conservatory), no matter what you study. I assure you that the math curriculum involves no asking how it makes you feel, and is good, solid, old-fashioned math.;)
Hell NO, it isn't. I have Portal. I love it. But given its short length, it's barely worth the $20 I paid for it off Steam (I don't want anything to do with the other games in the orange box). There's no way that a game so short is worth $50. Hell, if it had been much shorter, I'd have never bought it for $20, because even as it is, it's almost at the rip-off level. I'd like to see the game for $15 or so.
Responsible parents get themselves tested to avoid genetic illnesses to begin with, get prenatal testing to determine if their child is developing with significant birth defects, and then abort them if they are. People have to understand that making a child is like making a cake, if it gets screwed up too bad you might have to toss it and restart. You can whine about this being cruel or immoral, but this is how our bodies work. No amount of denial will change it. So the answer to wrongs that other people might commit is to commit more wrongs ourselves. By your logic (taken to a bit of an extreme), all children who get tormented by bullies at school should be killed so that they don't have to suffer. No, the answer is to get people to not do those wrong things as best we can. A responsible parent who was at risk of bringing forth a child with a disability would abstain from having children, perhaps, but once the deed is done, I am of the opinion that killing them is absolutely not an option, no matter when it's done. Not as an abortion, not as infanticide, never.
"Slippery slope" is a classic fallacy in argumentation. Allowing a D&C on a terminal fetus will not lead to death camps for kids with disabilities. I admit it, I have precious little faith in the human race. Although I know many nice, upstanding individuals, I think that as a whole, we're pretty damn worthless. I honestly believe that there's nothing that, given enough time (after all, pretty much anything can be accepted gradually, cliche though it may be), we wouldn't be capable of, so we need to not even inch towards it.
And why does it make sense to force women (and especially girls) to cross state lines to get abortions? Whose interest does that serve? "Granularity" would mean allowing individuals to make their own decisions. In an ideal world, perhaps. But the whole point of the abortion debate is that abortion critics are of the opinion that abortion is murder. Thus, while what you're saying is an attractive idea, it doesn't really work because it's essentially like asking people to make their own choices or not about conventional murder, and just letting that work itself out. No one would accept that, after all, the murders can't be allowed to happen on the basis of individual choice.
The funny thing about the abortion debate is that it boils, imo, down to one simple issue: do we consider, morally at least, an unborn child to be a living person? If so, then there is no extra law required, murder laws already in place will do. If not, then there's no problem with abortion. The line of where life begins is completely arbitrary, there's just disagreement on where the arbitrary line should be placed.
You can't. You can actually play Steam games without an internet connection, though, you just have to have one at some point, to activate the game. After the game is activated, my understanding is that you never need an internet connection to play that game again.
So... it's bad that when a company adds new features to a product, they want to be compensated for it? I dunno, I feel like their time implementing and testing that new feature is generally worth something. If I don't think it's worth the money they ask, I don't pay for it, it's simple.
Hell, I have the same amount of control over the features in open-source software, because I'm usually pretty uninclined to add something in myself, so again, I'm at the mercy of someone else to put in a feature I want... except they happen to be giving their work away for free. Free is nice, but I still have the same amount of control, whether the cost is $50 or $0.
Get off it. I own countless pieces of software which are closed-source, and not one of them (well, except Windows, I'll grant you that one, but we don't judge most companies by Microsoft's actions) can be taken away from me at a moment's notice. Not only are many EULA's supposedly unenforcable (I am neither a lawyer, nor caring enough to research properly, so this is just repeating slashdot hearsay), but they would have to PHYSICALLY COME TO MY HOUSE AND REMOVE THE PROGRAM. If they can do that with impunity, then I hate to point out to you that there are far bigger problems in the world than the open or closed-ness of the software.
In short, closed source does not fucking mean that you're going to get bent over by every company that makes a program, stop pretending it does.
If you mean "idk, my bff Jill", that's Cingular. I kid you not, this is the reason I don't have a Cingular phone, because my brain hurts so much whenever I see one of their commercials on TV.
...is why I didn't like the idea of Steam the first time I heard of it (not this specifically, but the idea of things like this happening). If I bought the game, it's mine, jackasses. They have no right to be disabling people's games after taking their money.
No it isn't. Saying you want to leave it to the states to decide is a decent way of recognizing that there's such a divided view on an issue, that it should be decided by the state governments, for better granularity. I'm firmly against abortion, but I don't believe in forcing that down the throats of all those who support abortion, at once, across the nation. I feel that referring the decision to the states is the reasonable course of action here.
THE EXACT SAME INDIVIDUALS THAT SUPPORTED SEGREGATION ALSO OPPOSE ABORTION RIGHTS, using the exact same arguments. a) Explain these arguments that are apparently being used.
b) It's not true that the individuals are the same. I abhor segregation, but I equally abhor abortion.
c) Abortion is not a right. Whether it'll ever be universally accepted by our culture remains to be seen, but it will NEVER be a right, it's just not fundamental enough to start calling it a "right".
Non-hypothetical scenario, because it HAS happened: We have a fetus that is developing perfectly normally, with one exception: the lungs are developing outside the chest cavity. Surgery cannot correct this. The child cannot survive outside the womb. The fetus WILL survive until birth, whereupon the lungs will be ripped off and the child will die in incredible agony suffocating outside the womb.
What do you do? If we just consider the immediate situation, then the answer is obviously to abort the pregnancy. Since the child is guaranteed to die no matter what, it would be best for him to die in the least painful way possible. However, the problem is that things don't happen in a vacuum. How long would it be before some parent wanted to kill their child with Down's Syndrome, because his/her life would be full of suffering and hardship as a result of the disease?
I'm extremely leery of starting down that path, because I have very little faith that it won't be carried to extremes, given enough time.
If a 12 year old girl conceived from being raped by her double-digit IQ Uncle, should she be forcedto carry the fetus to term? the answer would be yes the government coerces her, or they will charge her with murder. Yes. It's horrible, but it's an unavoidable consequence of another person's depraved actions. We have no right to answer one wrong (rape) with another wrong (murdering a child).
Ectopic Pregnancy (from WebMD):In about 2% of pregnancies, however, the fertilized egg attaches to an area outside of the uterus, which results in an ectopic pregnancy (also known as a tubal pregnancy or an extrauterine pregnancy).
Nearly all ectopic pregnancies develop in a fallopian tube; the rest occur in an ovary, the cervix, or the abdomen. An ectopic pregnancy cannot support the life of a fetus for very long. If left untreated, a tubal ectopic pregnancy can cause fallopian tube damage and life-threatening blood loss. Therefore, unless the pregnancy is miscarrying on its own, medicine is used to stop the pregnancy from growing, or surgery is used to remove it. Of course it should be terminated. The pregnancy is, otherwise, going to kill both the mother and the child... only the most blind would say that an abortion shouldn't be carried out when that results in no one living.
What about Anencephaly, or even other cephalic disorders Are you seriously suggesting that we get involved in the amazingly slippery slope of aborting pregnancies because of deformities? You're mad if so.
I believe that all pregnancies should be carried to term unless the mother is going to die as a result of the pregnancy. We should always endeavor to preserve both lives, but in the event we can't, I then feel we should preserve the more established life. However, I also believe that, until enough people can accept this view, that it's not something which should be forced down on them, certainly not at the federal level. What that threshold for acceptance is, I don't know, but it's certainly not 100% (after all, 100% of the country doesn't think murder is wrong, yet we would generally agree that having a law against murder is just).
Are you saying that people don't want to play DNF? I, for one, will be the first in line to buy that game if it ever comes out (which I doubt). A game like that has pretty decent odds of being amazing (it was in development for 10 years, it must be good!) or hilariously bad. Either way, it'll be a fun part of gaming history.
...not that I actually expect it to ever get done. The world will probably come to an end, and DNF will still be in development.
Where is the boundary? At your brain, at your fingers, at the barrel of the gun you are holding? Exactly. All boundaries are arbitrary, what makes mine worse than anyone else's?
So just let others care without bitching about it. I wasn't bitching about it. All I did was point out that for free software to succeed, it needs to be better than (whether actually better or just perceived to be better) its competition. I only got off on this morality tangent when someone called me a whore for that, which I feel is a highly unjust accusation. I feel that pointing out that free software needs to be good to succeed, and defending myself against unjust accusations, are not bitching in the least.
Provide one, please. Let's assume an extreme example of a corrupt corporation, Microsoft (I like their software, but they can be real bastards). By using their software, I don't harm anyone else. I'm not using Microsoft software to kill people or anything like that. I don't buy the argument that I'm doing wrong by supporting Microsoft. In my opinion, moral responsibility ends at your actions. If Microsoft does wrong, then they are the ones doing wrong, not me by proxy.
Not to mention that usually when people talk about free software and the moral benefits thereof, they talk about in terms of the ability to use your software for free, and be able to modify it whenever/however you like... which, in my not-quite-humble opinion, is related in no way to morality.
Re:Software freedom is better.
on
GIMP 2.4 Released
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· Score: 1, Insightful
Some folks are noble, some are whores. I know where you stand. ...wanting my software to do what I want it to, and in a manner convenient to me, makes me a whore? I'm sorry, but computers are merely a tool, and there's nothing wrong with wanting to use them in the way most effective to you. The stupidity in suggesting that someone is a "whore" for wanting that is profound.
Isn't this world great that we can both stand here and bitch about the same stuff every time there's a GIMP story? It'd be something to celebrate, if it weren't so pathetically dorky. I don't generally think that people who post enough on slashdot to have a karma bonus have a right to criticize debates for being dorky.
Best of all, the Gimp is Free Software. You're guaranteed to be able to get at the source code and change the program. And to the average user, this means nothing. Even though I'm a programmer, I have no desire whatsoever to work on most of the programs I use. Some, maybe. Most, no. And I'm the sort of person who's supposed to care about having access to the source! To the vast majority of people, GIMP must appeal to them on features alone (price may or may not be a feature, depending on a person's willingness to yarr-harr). Bringing up the "free software" line in a discussion on said features is pretty meaningless.
Re:Software freedom is better.
on
GIMP 2.4 Released
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· Score: 2, Insightful
That's great that you value your ideology that highly, but most of us, on the other hand, want whatever gets the job done best, most easily, or some combination of those two. In many cases, this software will be proprietary software, so your fight, if you really want to continue your fight, should be to get the development teams to make their stuff better. Until the free alternative is better, easier, or some combination than the normal, proprietary product, you are engaged in a hopeless battle.
It renders things properly. As I said, I'm led to believe that FF renders sites properly now, but when I tried FF 1.0, it did a horrible job of rendering various sites I used, and did so slowly at that. Even if the rendering is fine now, FF is still said to have become bloated over time, so it STILL hasn't become better than IE. Plugins and rearrangement of menu items is pure fluff. IE7 does the core things well, FF didn't. That's all it comes down to.
Slashdot Mirror
I never claimed to never use Steam. I have CS:S, and Portal. I also said that it's my understanding that you can run games without a network connection. I haven't actually tried.
If you go to a liberal arts school, perhaps. The school I went to, Lawrence University, offers only BA degrees (well, also a B. Music for those who are in the conservatory), no matter what you study. I assure you that the math curriculum involves no asking how it makes you feel, and is good, solid, old-fashioned math. ;)
Hell NO, it isn't. I have Portal. I love it. But given its short length, it's barely worth the $20 I paid for it off Steam (I don't want anything to do with the other games in the orange box). There's no way that a game so short is worth $50. Hell, if it had been much shorter, I'd have never bought it for $20, because even as it is, it's almost at the rip-off level. I'd like to see the game for $15 or so.
The funny thing about the abortion debate is that it boils, imo, down to one simple issue: do we consider, morally at least, an unborn child to be a living person? If so, then there is no extra law required, murder laws already in place will do. If not, then there's no problem with abortion. The line of where life begins is completely arbitrary, there's just disagreement on where the arbitrary line should be placed.
You can't. You can actually play Steam games without an internet connection, though, you just have to have one at some point, to activate the game. After the game is activated, my understanding is that you never need an internet connection to play that game again.
Hell, I have the same amount of control over the features in open-source software, because I'm usually pretty uninclined to add something in myself, so again, I'm at the mercy of someone else to put in a feature I want... except they happen to be giving their work away for free. Free is nice, but I still have the same amount of control, whether the cost is $50 or $0.
In short, closed source does not fucking mean that you're going to get bent over by every company that makes a program, stop pretending it does.
If you mean "idk, my bff Jill", that's Cingular. I kid you not, this is the reason I don't have a Cingular phone, because my brain hurts so much whenever I see one of their commercials on TV.
...is why I didn't like the idea of Steam the first time I heard of it (not this specifically, but the idea of things like this happening). If I bought the game, it's mine, jackasses. They have no right to be disabling people's games after taking their money.
b) It's not true that the individuals are the same. I abhor segregation, but I equally abhor abortion.
c) Abortion is not a right. Whether it'll ever be universally accepted by our culture remains to be seen, but it will NEVER be a right, it's just not fundamental enough to start calling it a "right".
I'm extremely leery of starting down that path, because I have very little faith that it won't be carried to extremes, given enough time.
I believe that all pregnancies should be carried to term unless the mother is going to die as a result of the pregnancy. We should always endeavor to preserve both lives, but in the event we can't, I then feel we should preserve the more established life. However, I also believe that, until enough people can accept this view, that it's not something which should be forced down on them, certainly not at the federal level. What that threshold for acceptance is, I don't know, but it's certainly not 100% (after all, 100% of the country doesn't think murder is wrong, yet we would generally agree that having a law against murder is just).
Not to mention that usually when people talk about free software and the moral benefits thereof, they talk about in terms of the ability to use your software for free, and be able to modify it whenever/however you like... which, in my not-quite-humble opinion, is related in no way to morality.
Perhaps, but the person asking what the GIMP who can do for him is obviously not a GIMP user.
That's great that you value your ideology that highly, but most of us, on the other hand, want whatever gets the job done best, most easily, or some combination of those two. In many cases, this software will be proprietary software, so your fight, if you really want to continue your fight, should be to get the development teams to make their stuff better. Until the free alternative is better, easier, or some combination than the normal, proprietary product, you are engaged in a hopeless battle.
It renders things properly. As I said, I'm led to believe that FF renders sites properly now, but when I tried FF 1.0, it did a horrible job of rendering various sites I used, and did so slowly at that. Even if the rendering is fine now, FF is still said to have become bloated over time, so it STILL hasn't become better than IE. Plugins and rearrangement of menu items is pure fluff. IE7 does the core things well, FF didn't. That's all it comes down to.
*where not long = the time it takes to construct bases on Phobos/Deimos
Yeah, there is, but that domain is just a redirect to slashdot.org.