Those qualities will be long gone by the time when armed resistance is necessary. Would you sit comfortably in front of the wall to wall TV screen and chew sweet chewables if your son, father or mother have been arrested or killed for just demanding their constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms?
not much smart money will be on the pasty-face keyboard warrior, even if he's got some fancy firearm
Urban combat is paradise for snipers. A pasty-faced keyboard warrior probably spent half his life training in various games, from Doom to Resistance and Halo and Far Cry. He probably knows more about tactics than an average grunt. Nothing stops him from taking a pot shot from half a mile away, from a roof of a building or wherever. If he leaves the weapon and just walks out, nobody can associate him with the shot - and there are enough deer rifles in the country for all personnel in the US Army, a hundred times over. (The weapon can be quickly hidden and recovered a few days later, when the hubbub dies down.)
A pasty-faced keyboard warrior would be useless if he and hundreds of his friends have to run a mile over the forbidding terrain, under enemy fire, and shoot accurately as they run. But this will not be the scenario. Keyboard warriors are not in any hurry, and there are very many of them. If we say there are 10 million people in the country who are willing to fight, they will have to hold a lottery because there aren't enough enemy soldiers for all of them (the rate is about one to ten.)
I have a small 12V compressor. Bought it a decade ago, and it is still as good as new. The price was $30 or $40, I don't remember. If you need compressed air often then it would be a good investment.
I'm pretty sure merely having insufficient funds on hand to pay a tax assessment isn't a criminal offense in California
No, you will not be incarcerated for that. However the state will seize and sell your house, your car, and everything else that you own (like your personal business.) It's called a lien. Your only remedy is to sell everything that you can't take with you, and leave the state.
even if it was, it would be an offense that occurred after the assessment.
That's not how FTB is treating this. They say it's a violation that occurred back in 2008, and you owe not only the tax but also the interest and penalties - even though nobody could have known about this ahead of time. That's why it's bizarre - it creates a punishment for no fault. But I guess robbing the rich is the SOP in this state.
But even if we say that FTB reneges and only wants that tax right now at the latest - where would an investor find this money? It's already invested elsewhere, often into something not very liquid, like a startup. You cannot take your investment back once you made it. If you have known about this tax in time you'd plan for it; but you didn't, and nobody did. This can create very painful situation for many people. Imagine that you bought a multi-year CD in 2012. What do you do now? You'd have to sell that CD at a huge loss, if you are lucky. If not - if, for example, the money is invested into an illiquid asset, like product development - you will be on the lam, lest you are content with being impoverished for no fault of yours.
Except unity isn't a mistake in their eyes or the people that like it, myself included. It's a much better UI then Gnome ever was in my eyes.
That's exactly why when you install the latest Ubuntu it asks you what desktop you want - GNOME, KDE, Unity, or a few other. Different systems require different software, of course, and Ubuntu people understand it well.
What you are saying? They don't ask you anything? Hmm. It's a bug then. Open Source is not about cramming stuff down the customers' throats regardless of customers' needs. Even the majority of sane commercial ISVs can't afford that - they respect their customers. Unfortunately, a few operators in F/OSS like to say "you paid nothing, you are not entitled to an opinion, take it as is or leave it, I don't care." For some reason I prefer vendors who care and try to solve my need - even if it costs me some money. I will be better off in the end. Money comes and goes, but if you install a badly designed product you will be suffering for a long, long time.
If the resulting semi-human is self aware, what rights will it/he/she have?
Same rights as any other human.
Will it/he/she be a cage animal? Will it be sterilized or allowed to reproduce? And if so, with which other species or semi-species?
Why would a sentient being with considerable IQ be subjected to these violations?
Will it/he/she be allowed to vote?
Can't be any worse than we have these days.
To own property? Be allowed or required to work? To choose a field of education? To be free of staring, poking prodding?
Those are the usual human rights and privileges that would of course be extended to another human race, even though that race wasn't around for 30,000 years.
Even so, if the universe is a simulation one would expect to see alert messages such as "Please wait... Loading level 2
If I were developing such a simulator I would mask loading of the next level by forcing the character to cease being receptive to external simuli for a few hours - say, while the simulated star is on the other side of the planet.
or "Undefined pointer at 0xa0123ebf6a78ca2a@20010db8:00000000:0000ff00:00428329"
I would have a term for that malfunction: a sudden illness that may or may not be recoverable from. The simulated characters would be just thinking that they got sick for some reason, whereas on the higher level of reality their code simply has defects and crashes periodically.
A thought experiment is much cheaper. Take that Z-thing and imagine welding an infinitely rigid bar between the hub and the pedal. All other pieces are also infinitely rigid. It becomes a triangle. Nothing changes, right? OK.
Now make a thin cut through the Z portion. Since the new welded part is also infinitely rigid, there is no difference in how the crank performs (otherwise you'd have to explain why the cut in the Z thing would contract and expand) - and you have the classical crank now. Take the cut pieces and sell them as scrap. Profit!
This style of invention is not unique, however. Gold-plated cables for digital data don't improve the sound; but they do improve the self-esteem of the purchaser. Another example is the "I'm rich" application for iPhone.
Except that most guns aren't manufactured in people homes and most people neither have the tools nor the knowledge to build a gun.
Most people don't have tools and knowledge to crack software and DVDs. Nevertheless, the Internet is full of cracked software and movies. This is because one talented worker can supply the goods to thousands of less talented consumers. Oh, by the way, that's how the world works since people emerged from the caves.
Guns are manufactured for hundreds of years, even though blacksmiths of the time had no decent tools or machines. Can you imagine at what rate a modern CNC would be producing gun parts, all on its own? British Sten was designed for production in a bicycle repair shop of 1940's - and it was even silenced! Agent Blazkowicz of OSA went through the whole war with his trusty Sten in hands.
Also this is nothing special to guns, you can build bombs a lot easier then guns, yet those are already outlawed and nobody complains.
Nobody complains because there is nothing that one can do. Complaints would be not productive. That's why complaints are only directed at soft targets.
The same as with 2D printers. Just because you have one, doesn't mean you are allowed to print money with it.
Not allowed... hmm, that's indeed the reason why nobody prints fake money on a printer. It would be illegal! No self-respecting criminal would stoop so low as to break a law. I got it now:-)
Where are we going to stop? -- At guns.
No; guns are just the necessary step for taking more from you. What that would be? Your money, your labor, your freedom, your life. You are already working 30% of your time for the government. Are you free? Can you, say, not pay your federal taxes? Can you own a home and land but pay no property taxes? Now take that and multiply by ten. You will end up with the financial model of USSR, but that's perhaps what it all rolls down to. There are plenty of countries in the world that nicely illustrate the devolution of the society. Some European examples from the middle of 20th century are particularly informative.
Still, I am not sure people really need semi-automatic rifles.
If you want to go down that way, people really need only basic food and shelter. "Welcome to North Korea, comrade, and help yourself to that rat leg, it looks delicious."
I personally do not hunt with semi-auto rifles simply because I don't want to litter the land with empty brass. However do not underestimate the value of a follow-up shot. If the animal is wounded the hunter is required to track it down; an agile animal can take you on a very long chase, and you may not be legally or even physically able to follow. A quick follow-up shot from a semi-auto would have stopped the chase before it even started; but instead you took time to cycle the bolt, and when you aimed again the game was already far away in the bushes. Can you run faster than a deer, being at 300 yards of disadvantage to begin with? If you cannot catch up you will be an unethical hunter.
In a defensive situation the semi-auto is the only way to go. Bolt action is excellent for a sniper, but if an attacker is 30 feet from you there is simply no time to cycle the action by hand. In this aspect wheel guns are unmatched.
And I think that people ought to have a gun safe and keep their guns locked up in that.
Most gun owners keep their firearms locked up, just because they cost a lot of money. Also it would be criminal negligence if a child got hold of your firearm.
That's why I think that ultimately the problem of violence in schools can only be solved through better access to mental health and programs that identify kids that are at risk of going postal and intervening.
I agree. The public school devolved into a prison where everyone is forced to spend a good 30% of their childhood. Children are merciless and vicious by nature, but some are even worse. It is necessary to separate those who wants to study from those who does not want to study - and the latter should not be allowed into the same school. It is popular among parents and teachers to think that children dislike certain education just because they are not understanding how good it is for them. (They are unknowingly quoting Quran, by the way.) The truth is somewhere else. Some areas of human knowledge are alien to a given child just due to the structure of his mind, and they will remain alien forever. (I can easily think of a few myself, like poetry [non-Vogon, of course; the latter is great.]) Other areas are not alien, but they are presented too early for a given individual (14 y/o boys had to study love life of a wife of a rich merchant. You can't pay me enough to be interested in that #% even today. Let girls cry over those things.) Schools ignore all these details and cram everything into every student's throat - and when the students reject the knowledge the teachers simply lower the standards.
I think a lot of reaction to school shootings has been to make school more stressful to students by cracking down on problems like kids bringing cough drops and cold medicine to school.
I cannot even imagine myself studying in such a school. Good that I don't have to; but I pity those who do it today. A prisoner has more rights than those students.
You think anyone in our government fears a mob with guns?
The government does fear the citizens - as it should.
Recall, this is the government that has a fleet of robots that roam the skies looking for people to bomb without ever risking a life.
I'm not quite sure, are you suggesting that the government will go for a full extermination of all citizenry? Because there is no way to tell a grandma from a rebel from the height of a thousand feet; and there is even less visibility into vehicles. The government cannot control the USA by force; the government stands only because the citizens are content. The population of the country outnumbers the active army 300 to 1, and every rebel would be armed to the teeth. Soldiers of the government - those that haven't quietly deserted, that is - will be sitting ducks in their tin cans at intersections. If the government ever goes against the population in a bad way, the government will have no chance. All that the people need to do to throw the bums out is to stop working and stay at home.
The gun might think of them as a kid, so a midget on a shooting rampage might do even more damage
As if kids haven't gone on a rampage before. Perhaps those kids who are not yet insane shouldn't be drugged into becoming crazy. Those who are already insane should remain locked up, because otherwise they *will* kill innocents. I never understood why in the USA, the country that claims to be the richest in the world, they release complete lunatics into the streets. It would be more humane to euthanize the hopeless rather than allow them to suffer - and to terrorize normal people around them.
sometimes even loads documents that Office chokes on
Sarcasm aside, it is preferrable that the incompatible document is NOT opened at all. The reason is that when OOO opens a partially corrupted file you do not know what was lost and what was added. You then add your own work on top of those uncontrolled changes and send it on. By the time everyone modified the document these losses or additions would be hard to recover from. Would you like to sign a legal document that your lawyer sent you if you are not sure that the document is intact? I'm not talking about digital signatures (which would indeed be a good assurance) - but just the simple fact that Word opens it and doesn't complain is a good test for many. Fiddling with the document in alternative software is a good fallback when you cannot request the new copy; but in business you usually can contact the author and deal with the incompatibility in the proper way. In my own experience, though, I never had a Word document that Word could not open. I don't claim that MS Word 6 from 1990's cannot produce a file that MS Office 2012 will fail on. I just never had such a situation myself, and I believe this is a contrived scenario.
And how many of those would choose Windows in the first place?
Quite a few, if you count how many F/OSS applications are available on Windows. Majority of customers are not even in control of what OS they are running. If GIMP or Dia or OpenOffice are not available on Windows then it's like they are not available at all. Developers generally care about their customers, even though they may express no joy about the need to compile their product using a not quite compatible toolkit. It's always simpler to publish a tarball with sources and call it done. But that's not how most people install the software.
Imagine being able to stream content from your home to any number of people without the need for a costly connection.
You'd have to do the imagining from within the prison cell:-) A copyright crime is worse than murder because when a peasant kills another peasant nobody cares; but when a peasant steals content from a corporation then the sirens start wailing, and no punishment is too high for such a crime.
The Internet remains the Internet only for highly technical people. Everyone else is a consumer; and corporations do not want consumers to run servers and stream anything. If they want to do that they can always pay some small fee to a Corporation that will do this work for them, legally and with no effort. Consumers should only buy services. The majority of consumers are not even aware of those possibilities because they are not the specialists. More and more consumers switch away from general purpose computers (that could, in principle, do such things) to phones and tablets that aren't designed for advanced networking, and it would cost you way too much to stream over a wireless data connection. Those phones and tablets are often a walled garden anyway.
In other words, the IP version is not a significant factor in development of new commerce over the Internet. Skype works fine over IPv4 as it is, and the browser works. That's all that the common man cares about.
Second, while I commend them on offering IPv6, they only give you 3 addresses???
Commerce only exists because of scarcity. ISPs would love to charge you $5 per year for each IPv6 address allocated. It makes no difference that these addresses are free to them. You are not the owner of the IP block, they are -- and they can dictate the terms.
LOL I will personally give you $1000 if the government starts confiscating pistols and rifles and shotguns, because it is not going to happen and you're just rabidly paranoid
Those who do not learn their history are doomed to repeat it:
There are, however, numerous examples of similar government programs that later were used to confiscate weapons, including:
In the mid-1960s the City of New York started a registry of rifles and shotguns. Officials promised throughout the registration process that the information would never be used to disarm law-abiding citizens. Despite those assurances, the city banned and began confiscating many of the registered weapons in 1991.
California also banned certain semi-automatic weapons in 1989, but allowed guns owned prior to the ban to be retained, as long as they were registered with the state. After a 1999 court ruling invalidating the exception, the California Department of Justice notified the registered owners of those guns that they must be surrendered, without compensation, within 90 days.
A letter from Doug Smith, then chief of the California Bureau of Criminal Information and Analysis, detailed the consequences for failure to comply.
"Once the 90-day window of opportunity for turning in such assault weapons concludes, we will send each sheriff and police chief a listing of the [firearms' owners]," Smith wrote.
I wouldn't be so reckless to make promises on behalf of the government. It can change its mind at any time, and what power do you have to influence it? I will save your promise, though, because I can always use a $1K - even if by that time it is only good enough to buy a pack of a chewing gum.
That is the problem with representative government though, the mob rules, even on budgetary issues, and the mob wants bread and circuses.
I fully agree. A benevolent dictator would be better than the mob rule. Unfortunately dictators rarely come in benevolent form; that's why democracy is a safer way to live your life these days.
If I were the dictator I would definitely give you all the money you need to fly to the Moon and live there. That would be bad news for the entitled crowd (modulo geniunely sick and crippled) - they would be either working (for you, as matter of fact) or being not concerned with the earthly affairs anymore. Flying to other planets is not going to benefit anyone specifically - but it is a long term benefit for everyone. This goal cannot be even seen in the 4-year election cycle of most democracies. What politician will want to invest treasure into something that will not bear fruit for a decade or two? Or it may even fail. A dictator wouldn't be concerned, he is not up for a reelection, he can work on things that matter. Some things are simply not available to a democracy; if you are a bad diver and must come to the surface every 4 seconds to gasp for air you cannot dive so deep that you will be without air for 30 or 40 seconds. Those depths are denied to you.
Maybe my glasses have too much rose tint in them, but it does look like the Chinese Communist Party is acting as such a benevolent dictator these days. Want democracy? Here are the tanks. Want to steal? Here is your bullet, fresh out of the cartridge. Want to bring jobs and money to the homeland? Everything is allowed and you are welcome. The country needs to fly to the LEO and to the Moon? No money will be spared. All this happens while the "first world" bickers about division of the few remaining morsels of food and money, and is debating political correctness. It is already very obvious what country will be the leader of the world in a few decades (if not even right now.) USSR arose from ashes of 1920's and had the fastest growing economy in 20th century because it was a dictatorship - a largely benevolent one, unless you wanted to challenge it. USSR launched the Sputnik and later sent the man to space not because the masses voted for that. The masses would not even comprehend what the words mean. The space program was driven by the [collective] dictator because he reviewed the situation and decided that the investment would be wise.
Sure, like they wouldn't shoot Americans at Kent State? Or mace calmly sitting protesters
It is easy to be a JBT when the the most powerful government in the world stands behind you. But it is much more difficult to do when the government hides behind your back and will gladly throw you under the bus when it becomes convenient. It is even more difficult to act as a JBT when you know that you may not make it home after your shift. Or you may not find your home where you left it. This makes JBT'ing a risky business. During Katrina police quietly disappeared. I expect the same to happen during more severe disturbances. Where the LEO is needed the most? With his family, of course. And they won't be acting stupid - a police officer with a family in tow and without his radio cannot oppose an armed gang.
even soviet started out as a democratic institution [...] There hasn't really been any cases that an armed citizenry has defeated tyranny
Since the USSR started as a democracy, what do you think they used to win the country from the Czarist armies? A hint: it was not lollipops. The Red Army was 100% armed citizenry, and they were fighting professional troops (virtually all officers were aristocrats, and they fought for the White Army.) The armed peasants won.
The USSR later devolved into a tyranny, but it's hardly uncommon, and it's completely unrelated to the way it gained power.
Just because a group of thugs calls themselves a "government" does not grant them some magical rights apart from those possessed by the citizens who consent to be ruled by that government.
The consent is not a factor here. Most governments on the planet operate without consent of the governed. Mao was correct: the power comes from the barrel of the gun. The government can shoot you and get away with murder. You cannot. That's how it works.
Are you suggesting that might makes right? That if you can get 50.1% of a group to agree with you, then anything you and your representatives do is legitimate?
I don't like it, but that's exactly how the world works. As soon as a group has enough power to do what it wants, it goes ahead and does it. The 50.1% is often not a requirement; you could have 30% and rule over others - as long as those "other" are three distinct groups with 23% each. USSR was ruled by the educated elite who did not number more than 10% of the population. That was more than enough to keep the rest scared or imprisoned. As a recent example of the USA shows, 50.1% of voters can force their choice of the President onto the remaining 49.9% (I'm omitting the comparison of candidates here, it would be depressing in itself.)
To me, that sounds more like hell on Earth than civilization.
Welcome to the club. Machiavelli and de Montesquieu were not contemporaries, but someone put together their dialogs when they met in Hell. The enlightened de Montesquieu was unable to come up with a model of the society that would work any better than the tyranny postulated by Machiavelli. Here is the formula:
bad dictator < democracy < good dictator
Democracy is just an insurance against the bad dictator. But the premiums are killing you. It's mediocrity forever, as opposed to highs and lows of monarchies and dictatorships. In Deus Ex merging with Helios is the wisest ending because the two other endings (giving power to humans) will only result in recurrence of the struggle.
Unless you redefine "right" to mean anything one group can do to another with minimal fear of reprisal due to greater number and/or better armaments,
That's exactly how ZANU-PF komissars understand the word. They are not alone in this interpretation - victors are usually merciless. In the USA the victorious left is already laying claim on your income and your guns - the stuff that separates a free man from an indigent.
There were many ways to die, and I'm sure that their families back in Cleveland and Paris wondered, "What is the purpose?"
I'm sure your ancestors did have a purpose. Perhaps they wanted to get away from the old way of life and religious persecution in Europe; perhaps they wanted to get their own land and set up a ranch or a farm; perhaps they had other reasons - but the important part here is that they did have a reason. Only drunken men wander around without reason; everyone else's actions are driven by one motive or another.
Your ancestors certainly discussed those reasons amongst themselves before crossing the ocean or braving the bears, Indians and wolves. There were reasons to go and there were reasons to stay. The reasons to go were deemed to be better, and so they went.
The families back in Cleveland and Paris were right to ask "what's the purpose?" If they don't understand the purpose themselves (which is likely, since they stayed back) then at least those who go could enlighten them. Those reasons are sometimes personal, and an external observer may not realize that a certain man cannot live in a town where his old flame married his worst enemy (as an example.) There were reasons flimsier than that too. It is a valid question to ask. There are no stupid questions to ask anyway.
In this case of a colony on the Moon the question of purpose is stronger than ever because we are not talking about a group of 100 settlers who load their wagons and disappear toward the west one day. That would be their personal business, and while we would be left wondering what drives them, we ourselves (who remain) would have nothing to do with their departure, and we would have no need to question their motives.
If you want to build your personal Moon rocket and fly there on your own dime, be my guest. I will not stand in your way. I may ask politely, if you don't mind, what makes you go there, but you don't have to answer if you don't want to. It's your money and your life, and you are the master of them both.
But this is not the case. The 100 colonists want 100 million people who remain to finance their trip. Otherwise they cannot come up with money and machinery to get there safely and to stay there. But this is a HUGE demand on other people's labor and treasure. That's when these 100 million want to know all the minute reasons for and against the trip. If they pay for your trip they order the music. You'd better be very convincing in your appeal for public funds. There are many other uses of money (think of the [hungry] children!1!) and your project is so far out there, you need to be another incarnation of JFK to convince the citizenry to pay for your Moon flight.
But here you are, vaguely referring to the spirit of the frontier. This won't work. You know that the spirit of the frontier is dead and buried? People all over the country are scared of guns in hands of honest citizens, their neighbors! Is this the spirit of the frontier? Of course not; it's the spirit of a kindergarten. That's what you have here, and that's the clientele that you need to convince. This means that you need to tell half the country that their social security payments will be cut 30% for the nearest 10 years. A lead balloon has a better chance of flying than that proposal. I can think of only one argument that buys you the Moon ticket - if you promise immediate immortality to everyone who finances your project. Nothing less will suffice.
The (b) is not going to change because Metro/Modern UI does not give anyone any advantages, but creates problems. For example, I tried the free Metro application called FlightAware. It was supposed to plot routes of airplanes. The application is unusable. It has several operating modes, but no help, and nowhere it is clear what it is doing or how I got there and where do I go next. This application needs a classical menu with a way to open saved trackers (the position, at least) and a way to copy and paste details, and a way to track specific flights, and a way to find those flights in the first place... but instead it is just a map with airplane symbols. It does not even remember what you were looking at a moment ago... and that I thought would be the best example of a full-screen application.
The whole fascination with full screen is stupid (outside of Ballmer's motives.) Every application can be maximized already. Nothing is needed beyond that. Most applications do not need to be maximized, and they usually aren't. Do you want your IM chat window to be maximized? Seriously? But I may want to have several chat windows on the screen, arranged to my liking. Win8 Metro does not provide that because the whole idea of the tablet UI is to dumb it down so that it can be operated on a small screen using your fingers. This may be called for on a real phone or a tablet, but cramming this approach down desktop users' throats is an abuse of trust.
Slashdot Mirror
A person used to luxury, comfort and abundance...
Those qualities will be long gone by the time when armed resistance is necessary. Would you sit comfortably in front of the wall to wall TV screen and chew sweet chewables if your son, father or mother have been arrested or killed for just demanding their constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms?
not much smart money will be on the pasty-face keyboard warrior, even if he's got some fancy firearm
Urban combat is paradise for snipers. A pasty-faced keyboard warrior probably spent half his life training in various games, from Doom to Resistance and Halo and Far Cry. He probably knows more about tactics than an average grunt. Nothing stops him from taking a pot shot from half a mile away, from a roof of a building or wherever. If he leaves the weapon and just walks out, nobody can associate him with the shot - and there are enough deer rifles in the country for all personnel in the US Army, a hundred times over. (The weapon can be quickly hidden and recovered a few days later, when the hubbub dies down.)
A pasty-faced keyboard warrior would be useless if he and hundreds of his friends have to run a mile over the forbidding terrain, under enemy fire, and shoot accurately as they run. But this will not be the scenario. Keyboard warriors are not in any hurry, and there are very many of them. If we say there are 10 million people in the country who are willing to fight, they will have to hold a lottery because there aren't enough enemy soldiers for all of them (the rate is about one to ten.)
I have a small 12V compressor. Bought it a decade ago, and it is still as good as new. The price was $30 or $40, I don't remember. If you need compressed air often then it would be a good investment.
I'm pretty sure merely having insufficient funds on hand to pay a tax assessment isn't a criminal offense in California
No, you will not be incarcerated for that. However the state will seize and sell your house, your car, and everything else that you own (like your personal business.) It's called a lien. Your only remedy is to sell everything that you can't take with you, and leave the state.
even if it was, it would be an offense that occurred after the assessment.
That's not how FTB is treating this. They say it's a violation that occurred back in 2008, and you owe not only the tax but also the interest and penalties - even though nobody could have known about this ahead of time. That's why it's bizarre - it creates a punishment for no fault. But I guess robbing the rich is the SOP in this state.
But even if we say that FTB reneges and only wants that tax right now at the latest - where would an investor find this money? It's already invested elsewhere, often into something not very liquid, like a startup. You cannot take your investment back once you made it. If you have known about this tax in time you'd plan for it; but you didn't, and nobody did. This can create very painful situation for many people. Imagine that you bought a multi-year CD in 2012. What do you do now? You'd have to sell that CD at a huge loss, if you are lucky. If not - if, for example, the money is invested into an illiquid asset, like product development - you will be on the lam, lest you are content with being impoverished for no fault of yours.
Except unity isn't a mistake in their eyes or the people that like it, myself included. It's a much better UI then Gnome ever was in my eyes.
That's exactly why when you install the latest Ubuntu it asks you what desktop you want - GNOME, KDE, Unity, or a few other. Different systems require different software, of course, and Ubuntu people understand it well.
What you are saying? They don't ask you anything? Hmm. It's a bug then. Open Source is not about cramming stuff down the customers' throats regardless of customers' needs. Even the majority of sane commercial ISVs can't afford that - they respect their customers. Unfortunately, a few operators in F/OSS like to say "you paid nothing, you are not entitled to an opinion, take it as is or leave it, I don't care." For some reason I prefer vendors who care and try to solve my need - even if it costs me some money. I will be better off in the end. Money comes and goes, but if you install a badly designed product you will be suffering for a long, long time.
If the resulting semi-human is self aware, what rights will it/he/she have?
Same rights as any other human.
Will it/he/she be a cage animal? Will it be sterilized or allowed to reproduce? And if so, with which other species or semi-species?
Why would a sentient being with considerable IQ be subjected to these violations?
Will it/he/she be allowed to vote?
Can't be any worse than we have these days.
To own property? Be allowed or required to work? To choose a field of education? To be free of staring, poking prodding?
Those are the usual human rights and privileges that would of course be extended to another human race, even though that race wasn't around for 30,000 years.
Even so, if the universe is a simulation one would expect to see alert messages such as "Please wait... Loading level 2
If I were developing such a simulator I would mask loading of the next level by forcing the character to cease being receptive to external simuli for a few hours - say, while the simulated star is on the other side of the planet.
or "Undefined pointer at 0xa0123ebf6a78ca2a@20010db8:00000000:0000ff00:00428329"
I would have a term for that malfunction: a sudden illness that may or may not be recoverable from. The simulated characters would be just thinking that they got sick for some reason, whereas on the higher level of reality their code simply has defects and crashes periodically.
How can I protect myself from tyranny without my own personal nuclear weapon?
Why your method would be any different from the one used between members of the nuclear club? Why the repercussions would be any different?
YouTube link
A thought experiment is much cheaper. Take that Z-thing and imagine welding an infinitely rigid bar between the hub and the pedal. All other pieces are also infinitely rigid. It becomes a triangle. Nothing changes, right? OK.
Now make a thin cut through the Z portion. Since the new welded part is also infinitely rigid, there is no difference in how the crank performs (otherwise you'd have to explain why the cut in the Z thing would contract and expand) - and you have the classical crank now. Take the cut pieces and sell them as scrap. Profit!
This style of invention is not unique, however. Gold-plated cables for digital data don't improve the sound; but they do improve the self-esteem of the purchaser. Another example is the "I'm rich" application for iPhone.
Except that most guns aren't manufactured in people homes and most people neither have the tools nor the knowledge to build a gun.
Most people don't have tools and knowledge to crack software and DVDs. Nevertheless, the Internet is full of cracked software and movies. This is because one talented worker can supply the goods to thousands of less talented consumers. Oh, by the way, that's how the world works since people emerged from the caves.
Guns are manufactured for hundreds of years, even though blacksmiths of the time had no decent tools or machines. Can you imagine at what rate a modern CNC would be producing gun parts, all on its own? British Sten was designed for production in a bicycle repair shop of 1940's - and it was even silenced! Agent Blazkowicz of OSA went through the whole war with his trusty Sten in hands.
Also this is nothing special to guns, you can build bombs a lot easier then guns, yet those are already outlawed and nobody complains.
Nobody complains because there is nothing that one can do. Complaints would be not productive. That's why complaints are only directed at soft targets.
The same as with 2D printers. Just because you have one, doesn't mean you are allowed to print money with it.
Not allowed ... hmm, that's indeed the reason why nobody prints fake money on a printer. It would be illegal! No self-respecting criminal would stoop so low as to break a law. I got it now :-)
Where are we going to stop? -- At guns.
No; guns are just the necessary step for taking more from you. What that would be? Your money, your labor, your freedom, your life. You are already working 30% of your time for the government. Are you free? Can you, say, not pay your federal taxes? Can you own a home and land but pay no property taxes? Now take that and multiply by ten. You will end up with the financial model of USSR, but that's perhaps what it all rolls down to. There are plenty of countries in the world that nicely illustrate the devolution of the society. Some European examples from the middle of 20th century are particularly informative.
Still, I am not sure people really need semi-automatic rifles.
If you want to go down that way, people really need only basic food and shelter. "Welcome to North Korea, comrade, and help yourself to that rat leg, it looks delicious."
I personally do not hunt with semi-auto rifles simply because I don't want to litter the land with empty brass. However do not underestimate the value of a follow-up shot. If the animal is wounded the hunter is required to track it down; an agile animal can take you on a very long chase, and you may not be legally or even physically able to follow. A quick follow-up shot from a semi-auto would have stopped the chase before it even started; but instead you took time to cycle the bolt, and when you aimed again the game was already far away in the bushes. Can you run faster than a deer, being at 300 yards of disadvantage to begin with? If you cannot catch up you will be an unethical hunter.
In a defensive situation the semi-auto is the only way to go. Bolt action is excellent for a sniper, but if an attacker is 30 feet from you there is simply no time to cycle the action by hand. In this aspect wheel guns are unmatched.
And I think that people ought to have a gun safe and keep their guns locked up in that.
Most gun owners keep their firearms locked up, just because they cost a lot of money. Also it would be criminal negligence if a child got hold of your firearm.
That's why I think that ultimately the problem of violence in schools can only be solved through better access to mental health and programs that identify kids that are at risk of going postal and intervening.
I agree. The public school devolved into a prison where everyone is forced to spend a good 30% of their childhood. Children are merciless and vicious by nature, but some are even worse. It is necessary to separate those who wants to study from those who does not want to study - and the latter should not be allowed into the same school. It is popular among parents and teachers to think that children dislike certain education just because they are not understanding how good it is for them. (They are unknowingly quoting Quran, by the way.) The truth is somewhere else. Some areas of human knowledge are alien to a given child just due to the structure of his mind, and they will remain alien forever. (I can easily think of a few myself, like poetry [non-Vogon, of course; the latter is great.]) Other areas are not alien, but they are presented too early for a given individual (14 y/o boys had to study love life of a wife of a rich merchant. You can't pay me enough to be interested in that #% even today. Let girls cry over those things.) Schools ignore all these details and cram everything into every student's throat - and when the students reject the knowledge the teachers simply lower the standards.
I think a lot of reaction to school shootings has been to make school more stressful to students by cracking down on problems like kids bringing cough drops and cold medicine to school.
I cannot even imagine myself studying in such a school. Good that I don't have to; but I pity those who do it today. A prisoner has more rights than those students.
You think anyone in our government fears a mob with guns?
The government does fear the citizens - as it should.
Recall, this is the government that has a fleet of robots that roam the skies looking for people to bomb without ever risking a life.
I'm not quite sure, are you suggesting that the government will go for a full extermination of all citizenry? Because there is no way to tell a grandma from a rebel from the height of a thousand feet; and there is even less visibility into vehicles. The government cannot control the USA by force; the government stands only because the citizens are content. The population of the country outnumbers the active army 300 to 1, and every rebel would be armed to the teeth. Soldiers of the government - those that haven't quietly deserted, that is - will be sitting ducks in their tin cans at intersections. If the government ever goes against the population in a bad way, the government will have no chance. All that the people need to do to throw the bums out is to stop working and stay at home.
The gun might think of them as a kid, so a midget on a shooting rampage might do even more damage
As if kids haven't gone on a rampage before. Perhaps those kids who are not yet insane shouldn't be drugged into becoming crazy. Those who are already insane should remain locked up, because otherwise they *will* kill innocents. I never understood why in the USA, the country that claims to be the richest in the world, they release complete lunatics into the streets. It would be more humane to euthanize the hopeless rather than allow them to suffer - and to terrorize normal people around them.
sometimes even loads documents that Office chokes on
Sarcasm aside, it is preferrable that the incompatible document is NOT opened at all. The reason is that when OOO opens a partially corrupted file you do not know what was lost and what was added. You then add your own work on top of those uncontrolled changes and send it on. By the time everyone modified the document these losses or additions would be hard to recover from. Would you like to sign a legal document that your lawyer sent you if you are not sure that the document is intact? I'm not talking about digital signatures (which would indeed be a good assurance) - but just the simple fact that Word opens it and doesn't complain is a good test for many. Fiddling with the document in alternative software is a good fallback when you cannot request the new copy; but in business you usually can contact the author and deal with the incompatibility in the proper way. In my own experience, though, I never had a Word document that Word could not open. I don't claim that MS Word 6 from 1990's cannot produce a file that MS Office 2012 will fail on. I just never had such a situation myself, and I believe this is a contrived scenario.
And how many of those would choose Windows in the first place?
Quite a few, if you count how many F/OSS applications are available on Windows. Majority of customers are not even in control of what OS they are running. If GIMP or Dia or OpenOffice are not available on Windows then it's like they are not available at all. Developers generally care about their customers, even though they may express no joy about the need to compile their product using a not quite compatible toolkit. It's always simpler to publish a tarball with sources and call it done. But that's not how most people install the software.
Imagine being able to stream content from your home to any number of people without the need for a costly connection.
You'd have to do the imagining from within the prison cell :-) A copyright crime is worse than murder because when a peasant kills another peasant nobody cares; but when a peasant steals content from a corporation then the sirens start wailing, and no punishment is too high for such a crime.
The Internet remains the Internet only for highly technical people. Everyone else is a consumer; and corporations do not want consumers to run servers and stream anything. If they want to do that they can always pay some small fee to a Corporation that will do this work for them, legally and with no effort. Consumers should only buy services. The majority of consumers are not even aware of those possibilities because they are not the specialists. More and more consumers switch away from general purpose computers (that could, in principle, do such things) to phones and tablets that aren't designed for advanced networking, and it would cost you way too much to stream over a wireless data connection. Those phones and tablets are often a walled garden anyway.
In other words, the IP version is not a significant factor in development of new commerce over the Internet. Skype works fine over IPv4 as it is, and the browser works. That's all that the common man cares about.
Second, while I commend them on offering IPv6, they only give you 3 addresses???
Commerce only exists because of scarcity. ISPs would love to charge you $5 per year for each IPv6 address allocated. It makes no difference that these addresses are free to them. You are not the owner of the IP block, they are -- and they can dictate the terms.
LOL I will personally give you $1000 if the government starts confiscating pistols and rifles and shotguns, because it is not going to happen and you're just rabidly paranoid
Those who do not learn their history are doomed to repeat it:
(link)
I wouldn't be so reckless to make promises on behalf of the government. It can change its mind at any time, and what power do you have to influence it? I will save your promise, though, because I can always use a $1K - even if by that time it is only good enough to buy a pack of a chewing gum.
Hey, I refused to compare Obama and Romney for a good reason :-)
That is the problem with representative government though, the mob rules, even on budgetary issues, and the mob wants bread and circuses.
I fully agree. A benevolent dictator would be better than the mob rule. Unfortunately dictators rarely come in benevolent form; that's why democracy is a safer way to live your life these days.
If I were the dictator I would definitely give you all the money you need to fly to the Moon and live there. That would be bad news for the entitled crowd (modulo geniunely sick and crippled) - they would be either working (for you, as matter of fact) or being not concerned with the earthly affairs anymore. Flying to other planets is not going to benefit anyone specifically - but it is a long term benefit for everyone. This goal cannot be even seen in the 4-year election cycle of most democracies. What politician will want to invest treasure into something that will not bear fruit for a decade or two? Or it may even fail. A dictator wouldn't be concerned, he is not up for a reelection, he can work on things that matter. Some things are simply not available to a democracy; if you are a bad diver and must come to the surface every 4 seconds to gasp for air you cannot dive so deep that you will be without air for 30 or 40 seconds. Those depths are denied to you.
Maybe my glasses have too much rose tint in them, but it does look like the Chinese Communist Party is acting as such a benevolent dictator these days. Want democracy? Here are the tanks. Want to steal? Here is your bullet, fresh out of the cartridge. Want to bring jobs and money to the homeland? Everything is allowed and you are welcome. The country needs to fly to the LEO and to the Moon? No money will be spared. All this happens while the "first world" bickers about division of the few remaining morsels of food and money, and is debating political correctness. It is already very obvious what country will be the leader of the world in a few decades (if not even right now.) USSR arose from ashes of 1920's and had the fastest growing economy in 20th century because it was a dictatorship - a largely benevolent one, unless you wanted to challenge it. USSR launched the Sputnik and later sent the man to space not because the masses voted for that. The masses would not even comprehend what the words mean. The space program was driven by the [collective] dictator because he reviewed the situation and decided that the investment would be wise.
Sure, like they wouldn't shoot Americans at Kent State? Or mace calmly sitting protesters
It is easy to be a JBT when the the most powerful government in the world stands behind you. But it is much more difficult to do when the government hides behind your back and will gladly throw you under the bus when it becomes convenient. It is even more difficult to act as a JBT when you know that you may not make it home after your shift. Or you may not find your home where you left it. This makes JBT'ing a risky business. During Katrina police quietly disappeared. I expect the same to happen during more severe disturbances. Where the LEO is needed the most? With his family, of course. And they won't be acting stupid - a police officer with a family in tow and without his radio cannot oppose an armed gang.
You are contradicting yourself:
even soviet started out as a democratic institution [...] There hasn't really been any cases that an armed citizenry has defeated tyranny
Since the USSR started as a democracy, what do you think they used to win the country from the Czarist armies? A hint: it was not lollipops. The Red Army was 100% armed citizenry, and they were fighting professional troops (virtually all officers were aristocrats, and they fought for the White Army.) The armed peasants won.
The USSR later devolved into a tyranny, but it's hardly uncommon, and it's completely unrelated to the way it gained power.
Just because a group of thugs calls themselves a "government" does not grant them some magical rights apart from those possessed by the citizens who consent to be ruled by that government.
The consent is not a factor here. Most governments on the planet operate without consent of the governed. Mao was correct: the power comes from the barrel of the gun. The government can shoot you and get away with murder. You cannot. That's how it works.
Are you suggesting that might makes right? That if you can get 50.1% of a group to agree with you, then anything you and your representatives do is legitimate?
I don't like it, but that's exactly how the world works. As soon as a group has enough power to do what it wants, it goes ahead and does it. The 50.1% is often not a requirement; you could have 30% and rule over others - as long as those "other" are three distinct groups with 23% each. USSR was ruled by the educated elite who did not number more than 10% of the population. That was more than enough to keep the rest scared or imprisoned. As a recent example of the USA shows, 50.1% of voters can force their choice of the President onto the remaining 49.9% (I'm omitting the comparison of candidates here, it would be depressing in itself.)
To me, that sounds more like hell on Earth than civilization.
Welcome to the club. Machiavelli and de Montesquieu were not contemporaries, but someone put together their dialogs when they met in Hell. The enlightened de Montesquieu was unable to come up with a model of the society that would work any better than the tyranny postulated by Machiavelli. Here is the formula:
bad dictator < democracy < good dictator
Democracy is just an insurance against the bad dictator. But the premiums are killing you. It's mediocrity forever, as opposed to highs and lows of monarchies and dictatorships. In Deus Ex merging with Helios is the wisest ending because the two other endings (giving power to humans) will only result in recurrence of the struggle.
Unless you redefine "right" to mean anything one group can do to another with minimal fear of reprisal due to greater number and/or better armaments,
That's exactly how ZANU-PF komissars understand the word. They are not alone in this interpretation - victors are usually merciless. In the USA the victorious left is already laying claim on your income and your guns - the stuff that separates a free man from an indigent.
There were many ways to die, and I'm sure that their families back in Cleveland and Paris wondered, "What is the purpose?"
I'm sure your ancestors did have a purpose. Perhaps they wanted to get away from the old way of life and religious persecution in Europe; perhaps they wanted to get their own land and set up a ranch or a farm; perhaps they had other reasons - but the important part here is that they did have a reason. Only drunken men wander around without reason; everyone else's actions are driven by one motive or another.
Your ancestors certainly discussed those reasons amongst themselves before crossing the ocean or braving the bears, Indians and wolves. There were reasons to go and there were reasons to stay. The reasons to go were deemed to be better, and so they went.
The families back in Cleveland and Paris were right to ask "what's the purpose?" If they don't understand the purpose themselves (which is likely, since they stayed back) then at least those who go could enlighten them. Those reasons are sometimes personal, and an external observer may not realize that a certain man cannot live in a town where his old flame married his worst enemy (as an example.) There were reasons flimsier than that too. It is a valid question to ask. There are no stupid questions to ask anyway.
In this case of a colony on the Moon the question of purpose is stronger than ever because we are not talking about a group of 100 settlers who load their wagons and disappear toward the west one day. That would be their personal business, and while we would be left wondering what drives them, we ourselves (who remain) would have nothing to do with their departure, and we would have no need to question their motives.
If you want to build your personal Moon rocket and fly there on your own dime, be my guest. I will not stand in your way. I may ask politely, if you don't mind, what makes you go there, but you don't have to answer if you don't want to. It's your money and your life, and you are the master of them both.
But this is not the case. The 100 colonists want 100 million people who remain to finance their trip. Otherwise they cannot come up with money and machinery to get there safely and to stay there. But this is a HUGE demand on other people's labor and treasure. That's when these 100 million want to know all the minute reasons for and against the trip. If they pay for your trip they order the music. You'd better be very convincing in your appeal for public funds. There are many other uses of money (think of the [hungry] children!1!) and your project is so far out there, you need to be another incarnation of JFK to convince the citizenry to pay for your Moon flight.
But here you are, vaguely referring to the spirit of the frontier. This won't work. You know that the spirit of the frontier is dead and buried? People all over the country are scared of guns in hands of honest citizens, their neighbors! Is this the spirit of the frontier? Of course not; it's the spirit of a kindergarten. That's what you have here, and that's the clientele that you need to convince. This means that you need to tell half the country that their social security payments will be cut 30% for the nearest 10 years. A lead balloon has a better chance of flying than that proposal. I can think of only one argument that buys you the Moon ticket - if you promise immediate immortality to everyone who finances your project. Nothing less will suffice.
The (b) is not going to change because Metro/Modern UI does not give anyone any advantages, but creates problems. For example, I tried the free Metro application called FlightAware. It was supposed to plot routes of airplanes. The application is unusable. It has several operating modes, but no help, and nowhere it is clear what it is doing or how I got there and where do I go next. This application needs a classical menu with a way to open saved trackers (the position, at least) and a way to copy and paste details, and a way to track specific flights, and a way to find those flights in the first place... but instead it is just a map with airplane symbols. It does not even remember what you were looking at a moment ago... and that I thought would be the best example of a full-screen application.
The whole fascination with full screen is stupid (outside of Ballmer's motives.) Every application can be maximized already. Nothing is needed beyond that. Most applications do not need to be maximized, and they usually aren't. Do you want your IM chat window to be maximized? Seriously? But I may want to have several chat windows on the screen, arranged to my liking. Win8 Metro does not provide that because the whole idea of the tablet UI is to dumb it down so that it can be operated on a small screen using your fingers. This may be called for on a real phone or a tablet, but cramming this approach down desktop users' throats is an abuse of trust.