Whether or not it is a hoax, or to what degree it is sensationalized, would impact the kinds of measures you were willing to take, however.
If for example you could create a compelling case that "unless we stop burning all coal by February 1, the world will implode", I imagine people would be willing to take pretty drastic measures, and it might even come down to armed conflict.
4.8 per 100k puts it on par with diseases that noone hears about. Yes, Norway is lower, but Norway doesnt have the same constitution we have, and Im not willing to throw caution to the wind and start ignoring our constitution for a teensy bit more peace of mind.
The question is, how willing are you to erode constitutional protections for the sake of a little peace of mind?
Once you open the door to saying "well, they didnt REALLY mean 'congress shall not'", all bets are off. "Congress may" if you are mentally ill according to a group of people. "Congress may" if it will address the topic du jour. "Congress may" if your exercise happens to offend others.
Of course, this fight has long been lost and I just refuse to accept it, poor fool that I am.
Maybe youre not familiar with the term "ad hominem" as used above. It means that rather than discussing my point, you attack me or my affiliations.
Not to mention accusing me of things simply by way of affiliation: have I committed hypocrisy here? Have you any reason to accuse me of lying? Or would you choose perhaps to NOT make that implication and perhaps tone down your rhetoric?
This all really points back to the original issue; it was claimed that geeks tend to be more tolerant and thoughtful, and here entire groups of people are essentially being called morons because of where they stand on the political spectrum. If thats "insightful", then Im a duck.
I throw the baby out with the bathwater because in my 5+ years as a consultant, Java has been necessary on maybe 5% of the machines it was on, and was probably responsible for a third of the viruses I dealt with. Rather than dealing with java autoupdate (which annoys the heck out of users when UAC is enabled since they cant actually complete the update theyre bugged to do) and ask toolbar and re-enabled plugins, yes, i get rid of the darn thing. If they need Java, they will let me know.
Except according to wikipedia this adjustment was not because "we're worse off", it was adjusted because nothing had changed and apparently a statement needed to be made:
The advice I hear most often is to suck it up, cupcake.
OK. My point was never "woe is me" though, so this is irrelevant.
Your original point was to dispute that geeks are more tolerant of gays
I dont believe I mentioned "gays" at all in my post.
Your original post made a specific point, but also a general one that geek communities tend to "focus on important stuff":
us nerds are generally less judgmental about inconsequential things like sexual orientation and focus on things that really matter, like Who Shot First, or whether SSDs have finally solved the cost/performance ratio problem.
My point was pretty clearly that thats bogus, and that "us nerds" can be just as "judgemental about inconsequential things" as anyone else. You seem to be implying that "what really matters is technical / factual" stuff rather than ideological stuff; watching posts over the last election season should indicate that "us nerds" get into stupid ideological discussions as-much-if-not-more than anyone else.
If youre reading anything more than that into my post, stop it.
"Called interesting things" means seeing posts indicating I (as a conservative) deserve to drown in a hurricane (post was clarified to indicate it was serious), that Im racist, bigoted, and quite possibly the greatest threat to world peace out there.
Is this supposed to be an indicator of tolerance and non-judgementalism? Am I being "reactionary" here for not thinking that this is the bastion of objectivity and rationalism that you seem to think it is?
Im not trying to warp facts here, Im saying what anyone who has been on slashdot, digg, or reddit for a while knows-- that Geeks like everyone else suffer from "im a genius and everyone else's values suck" syndrome.
Now I know that's a kind of intellectual fad with conservatives right now,
Case in point. Trying to have a discussion and you cant for one moment just hold off on the attacks? Is it really necessary to bust out the ad hominems?
Every group thinks theyre more insightful, wiser, and generally more intellectually mature than everyone else. I have no reason to believe-- especially after about 5 years on slashdot-- that this would be particularly true of the nerd subculture. If anything, it seems more clannish, because as people get progressively better in a niche area, they seem to progressively become closeminded and intolerant of anyone who disagrees with them.
Dont agree? Look for any article discussing Apple vs PC, or MS vs Google, or religion, or politics. As a conservative I tend to regularly get called interesting things here... "less judgemental" indeed.
Why would we? Given that Java has been a security nightmare for 5+ years, 2 years to "secure" it (ie, doesnt have a critical exploit every 2 months) doesnt seem far fetched. If anything its conservative.
Seriously, anyone want to take bets on whether in 2 years browsers will still treat java plugin as an unusual security case? (firefox / chrome auto-disable java unless its the most current version due to its massive problems).
Slashdot Mirror
Why should I be required to spend money to read?
Why should I be required to spend money to play video games?
Why should I be required to spend money to have a fancy dinner?
... and watch as they get utterly annihlated in basically every spec by the 130w CPU.
Theres a reason people dont do that, and its not simply scaling problems.
Sounds like theyve reinvented the blade.
Maybe they should consider building the stinkin death star so that people can shut up about it.
I mean here I thought we were a democracy.
Whether or not it is a hoax, or to what degree it is sensationalized, would impact the kinds of measures you were willing to take, however.
If for example you could create a compelling case that "unless we stop burning all coal by February 1, the world will implode", I imagine people would be willing to take pretty drastic measures, and it might even come down to armed conflict.
4.8 per 100k puts it on par with diseases that noone hears about. Yes, Norway is lower, but Norway doesnt have the same constitution we have, and Im not willing to throw caution to the wind and start ignoring our constitution for a teensy bit more peace of mind.
The question is, how willing are you to erode constitutional protections for the sake of a little peace of mind?
Once you open the door to saying "well, they didnt REALLY mean 'congress shall not'", all bets are off. "Congress may" if you are mentally ill according to a group of people. "Congress may" if it will address the topic du jour. "Congress may" if your exercise happens to offend others.
Of course, this fight has long been lost and I just refuse to accept it, poor fool that I am.
RSA tokens generally require you to either have the device or have near-realtime communication with a person who does have the device.
As China is 12 hrs off of the US (DC to Shanghai), that seems problematic.
You mean, except for the whole "some random dude in another country now has his RSA ID and noone was the wiser", ya sure.
As Penny Arcade put it so succinctly:
It is a very odd sort of patriot that would destroy the first amendment to protect the second.
How bout we leave it there?
Attacking someone by way of their affiliation rather than the point they make is an ad hominem.
Maybe youre not familiar with the term "ad hominem" as used above. It means that rather than discussing my point, you attack me or my affiliations.
Not to mention accusing me of things simply by way of affiliation: have I committed hypocrisy here? Have you any reason to accuse me of lying? Or would you choose perhaps to NOT make that implication and perhaps tone down your rhetoric?
This all really points back to the original issue; it was claimed that geeks tend to be more tolerant and thoughtful, and here entire groups of people are essentially being called morons because of where they stand on the political spectrum. If thats "insightful", then Im a duck.
Why should millionaires who get another few million really spend any of it?
Because if they dont their employees will find a job that actually pays them.
I throw the baby out with the bathwater because in my 5+ years as a consultant, Java has been necessary on maybe 5% of the machines it was on, and was probably responsible for a third of the viruses I dealt with. Rather than dealing with java autoupdate (which annoys the heck out of users when UAC is enabled since they cant actually complete the update theyre bugged to do) and ask toolbar and re-enabled plugins, yes, i get rid of the darn thing. If they need Java, they will let me know.
Except according to wikipedia this adjustment was not because "we're worse off", it was adjusted because nothing had changed and apparently a statement needed to be made:
Lack of global political action to address.....
So if it wasnt already clear that this is a stupid arbitrary soapbox, here you go.
The advice I hear most often is to suck it up, cupcake.
OK. My point was never "woe is me" though, so this is irrelevant.
Your original point was to dispute that geeks are more tolerant of gays
I dont believe I mentioned "gays" at all in my post.
Your original post made a specific point, but also a general one that geek communities tend to "focus on important stuff":
us nerds are generally less judgmental about inconsequential things like sexual orientation and focus on things that really matter, like Who Shot First, or whether SSDs have finally solved the cost/performance ratio problem.
My point was pretty clearly that thats bogus, and that "us nerds" can be just as "judgemental about inconsequential things" as anyone else. You seem to be implying that "what really matters is technical / factual" stuff rather than ideological stuff; watching posts over the last election season should indicate that "us nerds" get into stupid ideological discussions as-much-if-not-more than anyone else.
If youre reading anything more than that into my post, stop it.
"Called interesting things" means seeing posts indicating I (as a conservative) deserve to drown in a hurricane (post was clarified to indicate it was serious), that Im racist, bigoted, and quite possibly the greatest threat to world peace out there.
Is this supposed to be an indicator of tolerance and non-judgementalism? Am I being "reactionary" here for not thinking that this is the bastion of objectivity and rationalism that you seem to think it is?
Im not trying to warp facts here, Im saying what anyone who has been on slashdot, digg, or reddit for a while knows-- that Geeks like everyone else suffer from "im a genius and everyone else's values suck" syndrome.
Now I know that's a kind of intellectual fad with conservatives right now,
Case in point. Trying to have a discussion and you cant for one moment just hold off on the attacks? Is it really necessary to bust out the ad hominems?
I believe my post was specifically about disapproval, so perhaps simmer down a bit.
"If you dont approve of my behavior youre a bigot", is that how it is?
Would I be a bigot for example if I disapproved of seeing someone else commit adultery?
Every group thinks theyre more insightful, wiser, and generally more intellectually mature than everyone else. I have no reason to believe-- especially after about 5 years on slashdot-- that this would be particularly true of the nerd subculture. If anything, it seems more clannish, because as people get progressively better in a niche area, they seem to progressively become closeminded and intolerant of anyone who disagrees with them.
Dont agree? Look for any article discussing Apple vs PC, or MS vs Google, or religion, or politics. As a conservative I tend to regularly get called interesting things here... "less judgemental" indeed.
Living is a risk. You have to quantify and try to mitigate the bigger risks.
Java qualifies as a "bigger risk", and you mitigate it by uninstalling JRE.
and we're certainly not going to argue with him
Why would we? Given that Java has been a security nightmare for 5+ years, 2 years to "secure" it (ie, doesnt have a critical exploit every 2 months) doesnt seem far fetched. If anything its conservative.
Seriously, anyone want to take bets on whether in 2 years browsers will still treat java plugin as an unusual security case? (firefox / chrome auto-disable java unless its the most current version due to its massive problems).
Until it was the top attack vector in browsers for about 5 years running, sure. After that I think people started to go sour on it.
The cost for VMWare to create vSphere is substantially higher than that mechanic's costs, as are their salary expenditures.
FallingSandGame, Minecraft.