If guns are more prevalent, then chances are that you're more likely to have one yourself, so if you fly off the handle, you can use your own in the committing of the crime.
This is such a tired old argument that I'm growing weary of dispelling it. Repeat after me: Normal human beings do not "fly off the handle" and murder other human beings. If they did then we'd also have to outlaw cars (hint: it's much easier to kill someone by running them over than by shooting them), kitchen knives, etc.
Patently bullshit. I can walk up to you with a concealed gun and shoot you in the head much more easily than with a concealed car.
In fact, the entire rest of your post is so idiotic that it's not worth dissecting.
The self-evident facts are:
- Guns are specifically desinged to kill things. All except some rifles are specifically designed to kill people.
- Guns _are_ the most efficient and easiest way to kill someone. Or do you think the army should use hit-and-runs or throw knives at the Taliban in Afghanistan?
It's amazing the cognitive dissonance that otherwise rational people in the US are willing to put up with to defend their "right" to carry guns. The plain facts are that while the US has a similar crime rate to other industrialised countries in most respects, it's homicide rate is astronomical. Doesn't it tell you anything that your country has a worse homicide rate than Albania, Ethiopia, the Ivory Coast and Palestine?
Also, please have a look at these two links. They describe homicide rates in the US and in Australia (which has strong anti-gun laws) respectively. In 2003, 16% of homicides in Australia involved firearms. In the US, the figure is about 50%.
Now DVDs are pretty bad. Sometimes they force-show a movie about not copying. Hello?! If I am watching the DVD, I patently did not copy it illegally. At least, I doubt the "pirates" actually include that bit:)
This grinds my gears too! The other day I was in a fucking movie theatre, having paid about $15 to get in and they still played an anti-piracy 'advertisement' before the movie. WTF?
See, that's the thing that people just don't get about evolution. There is no "better" or "improved", because that would mean that evolution has a goal, an 'ideal' in mind - and it doesn't. It doesn't even have a mind. It is just a word which describes the way in which populations adapt to their environment.
By increasing the population's frequency of genes that code for "superb sniffer", they have also possibly increased the frequency of genes which code for allergies, cancer or chylothorax. So is that better? It doesn't sound like it to me, but then I have no idea what the future holds. That's the beauty of natural selection and genetic variation - a large variation makes it increasingly probable that a species will survive in some form in the face of a completely unpredictable future.
So if, in the future, a virus appears which kills Afghan Hounds within a month of birth unless they have a recessive gene which is associated with bad allergies, then those animals which were "worse" than the others in their population suddenly become "better".
Oh heaven forbid that someone actually uses the money they created to get better faster. Heaven forbid that some people are going to be able to afford things that others cannot. Its the same thing with health care. Because there is not an infinite supply of livers, along with an infinite supply of doctors, its true that some people might not be able to afford a liver transplant. Sure, its sad, but such is life.
Assuming the linked article in GP is true:
Why should someone be given preference on the basis of how much money / power they have? Such an idea is right at home in a country like China, but surely it flies in the face of the idea that "all men are created equal".
The fact is, by using the money you created to buy better drugs or treatment, you are not directly affecting anyone else. With a unique item like an organ, you are depriving someone of a chance at life.
It's a bit like the difference between 'pirating' a movie and 'pirating' a ship off the coast of somalia, in one case no-one is (directly) worse off and in the other, one party forcefully deprives the other of an item.
Can anyone explain to me why Windows has so many viruses? Linux has had no viruses for years (admittedly, several attempts, but never any in the wild that I've come across), and Windows has, what, 73 billion or something?! Is it really that hard to get it right?
Surely with something as important as a voting system, any private supplier should have to submit the blueprints & code to some kind of independent panel for approval / verification as a matter of course?
Who the fuck trusts a corporation to implement a something that is fair, correct and well engineered, without any oversight?
Your post sets up a straw man. This has nothing to do with the free market and everything to do with tax avoidance. Moving operations to the lowest cost location is not illegal, but channeling revenue through offshore "holding companies" should be. That's what Obama is trying to stop.
How many of Microsoft's employees currently work in Ireland? Not many. As TFA says, the work is done in the US, then all the revenue is channeled through an offshore corporation.
This means that microsoft and it's employees are both enjoying the infrastructure of the US; using the nice steady US power grid for their computers, driving on US roads, catching US buses and trains to work, and educating their kids in US public schools. Only it's the employees that are paying for it in their taxes. Microsoft the corporation is paying some tax to Ireland (less than they would have to the US), minimal tax on operational stuff in the US, and Ballmer is laughing all the way to the bank.
So if you like microsoft leeching off your public infrastructure without actually paying for it, feel free to keep defending them. Why not just write the a cheque once a year while your at it - maybe for christmas? I'm sure they'd appreciate that.
Dude, Google Gears is developed in C++! (but it could have been developed in anything - it doesn't matter) It also runs as a browser extension. Is that more 'light-weight' than a plasma widget or desktop app?
So are you saying that all my networking needs should be met through browser plugins, instead of desktop apps? I can see that working.
Because a lots of new codes have been done in digiKam for KDE4, we need to stabilize current implementations before to play with Nepomuk. Also, the new Database interface from Marcel which is already very stable need to be polished before to be interfaced with Nepomuk. So, it's something planed for 0.11.0 release.
Hilariously, Antigua is missing from either of the watch lists. Why might that be?
Could it possibly be because the WTO awarded them the right to ignore US IP restrictions due to the US failing to uphold their own free trade agreement? I guess they don't want to highlight the hypocrisy of the US's foreign policy.
Exactly. Iran is a prime example of a country which is constantly threatened by regional powers (and the US) and has built up it's defence in response.
LISTER: You want to talk? Let's talk.
SIMULANT: You have no weapon?
LISTER: No. You have no weapon?
SIMULANT: No.
They walk towards each other.
SIMULANT: Guess what? (Pulls out hunting knife.) I lied.
LISTER: Guess what? (Allows pole to slide from the arm of his jacket.)
So did I.
SIMULANT: But I lied twice. (Pulls out a handgun.)
LISTER: Smeg, I didn't think of that.
Of course, once upon a time the majority of scientists thought the earth was at the center of the universe.
No they didn't. The majority of people thought that the earth was at the centre of the universe. Of course this was before the discipline known as "science", the scientific method and all that comes with that. Most people used religion to explain the unknown and religion decreed that the earth was at the centre of the universe.
The majority of doctors and medical scientists believed that disease was caused by bad air and fought early pioneers and advocates of rigorous cleanliness in hospitals tooth and nail. The majority of cosmologists today believes that electricity plays no role whatsoever in the large-scale operation of the universe. Some of them will desperately oppose anyone who even breathes the word "electric" or "plasma" in connection with cosmology or astrophysics.
Since when has the majority had a corner on truth? Has it ever been? No? Well maybe the majority is wrong here also. When it comes to science, the stupidest thing I know of toward the validity of any scientific statement or argument is to invoke the majority.
The mistake you make here is to mistake the majority of evidence with the majority of people. In the examples you cite, scientific methods had not been devised, and so it is valid to claim them as examples of historical ignorance. In the case of global warming however, there is an enormous majority of evidence in favour of global warming, which is what climate scientists base their opinions on.
In the case of global warming, the majority is clearly wrong, once again, as usual. The Earth has cycled between warmer and cooler for ages. Where, for example, did all that carbon comes from that is stored in the fossil fuel we burn today and have yet to burn? How does the carbon, along with hydrogen become hydrocarbons? Why do we call it fossil fuel? Is that not all solar energy stored as chemical energy? What mechanisms converted and stored this chemical energy, if not photosynthesis? Today, plants get the carbon they need to grow from the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Where did the plants of long-ago which we now burn in our gas tanks and power plants get their carbon dioxide they needed for the process of photosynthesis?
If we burned every possible gram a fossil fuel, would that not return Earth's conditions to what they were before the fossil fuels were formed in the first place?
Yes it might. Prior to the evolution of photosynthesis, approximately 3.4 billion years ago, the sun was up to 1/3 dimmer than it is now, however due to the effects of greenhouse gases (much higher than at any other time in earth's history), temperatures were comparable to today. Interestingly, carbonate rocks from this period are rare, as the oceans were far more acidic than they are now. So if we were to revert to this, say goodbye to pretty much the entire oceanic food chain, and possibly your ability to breathe.
If that happened suddenly, it would be rather catastrophic, but not if it took place over many generations of humans.
Once again, the changes from those conditions to today's took place over 3.4 billion years. We are seeing changes occur due to human activity on timescales which are several orders of magnitude shorter than this.
Please go and educate yourself on these issues - not just for your own sake, but for everyone else's too because your vote is worth the same as mine.
Yeah, well I hate breaking out the calculator (or worse, actually reading TFA) to convert 126.1 mph to something non-archaic. (202.9 km/h)
From wikipedia: "The name statute mile originates from a statute of the Parliament of England in 1592 during the reign of Elizabeth I. This defined the statute mile as 5,280 ft or 1,760 yards; or 63,360 inches. Both statute and international miles are divided into eight furlongs. In turn a furlong is ten chains; a chain is 22 yards and a yard is three feet, making up 5,280 ft."
However, we are not talking record companies here. We are talking music WRITERS. Creators. People that compose the music and write lyrics, that have (in most cases) somebody else sing or play it. These people don't make money by performing the songs, or by marketing it in a clever way. In most cases, all they have is their royalties.
Then they need to get their royalties from the people who are directly using their content to make money. This includes the people that perform the songs, and the record companies.
As mentioned in a comment above, creators do not have a god-given right to get paid for absolutely everything that ever gets done with their content or anything that is derived from it.
If a performer is directly using your composition on an album or your lyrics in a song, then get that performer to pay. They are the ones making money by performing your work.
It seems to me that the only creators who are not also performers are those who write for the Britney Spears' of this world - and there are certainly people making more money with their work than google is, so go get it from them!!
Slashdot Mirror
If guns are more prevalent, then chances are that you're more likely to have one yourself, so if you fly off the handle, you can use your own in the committing of the crime.
This is such a tired old argument that I'm growing weary of dispelling it. Repeat after me: Normal human beings do not "fly off the handle" and murder other human beings. If they did then we'd also have to outlaw cars (hint: it's much easier to kill someone by running them over than by shooting them), kitchen knives, etc.
Patently bullshit. I can walk up to you with a concealed gun and shoot you in the head much more easily than with a concealed car.
In fact, the entire rest of your post is so idiotic that it's not worth dissecting. The self-evident facts are:
- Guns are specifically desinged to kill things. All except some rifles are specifically designed to kill people.
- Guns _are_ the most efficient and easiest way to kill someone. Or do you think the army should use hit-and-runs or throw knives at the Taliban in Afghanistan?
It's amazing the cognitive dissonance that otherwise rational people in the US are willing to put up with to defend their "right" to carry guns. The plain facts are that while the US has a similar crime rate to other industrialised countries in most respects, it's homicide rate is astronomical. Doesn't it tell you anything that your country has a worse homicide rate than Albania, Ethiopia, the Ivory Coast and Palestine?
Also, please have a look at these two links. They describe homicide rates in the US and in Australia (which has strong anti-gun laws) respectively. In 2003, 16% of homicides in Australia involved firearms. In the US, the figure is about 50%.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/weapons.htm http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/homicide.aspx
Please take some time to read these links and (hopefully) re-evaluate your position.
It's not stolen. It is just a "Copyright Infringing" copy. You can't go to jail for possessing a copy of a piece of software.
Now DVDs are pretty bad. Sometimes they force-show a movie about not copying. Hello?! If I am watching the DVD, I patently did not copy it illegally. At least, I doubt the "pirates" actually include that bit :)
This grinds my gears too! The other day I was in a fucking movie theatre, having paid about $15 to get in and they still played an anti-piracy 'advertisement' before the movie. WTF?
Ahahaha..That is the best analogy I've seen on slashdot in a looong time! :)
See, that's the thing that people just don't get about evolution. There is no "better" or "improved", because that would mean that evolution has a goal, an 'ideal' in mind - and it doesn't. It doesn't even have a mind. It is just a word which describes the way in which populations adapt to their environment.
By increasing the population's frequency of genes that code for "superb sniffer", they have also possibly increased the frequency of genes which code for allergies, cancer or chylothorax. So is that better? It doesn't sound like it to me, but then I have no idea what the future holds. That's the beauty of natural selection and genetic variation - a large variation makes it increasingly probable that a species will survive in some form in the face of a completely unpredictable future.
So if, in the future, a virus appears which kills Afghan Hounds within a month of birth unless they have a recessive gene which is associated with bad allergies, then those animals which were "worse" than the others in their population suddenly become "better".
Oh heaven forbid that someone actually uses the money they created to get better faster. Heaven forbid that some people are going to be able to afford things that others cannot. Its the same thing with health care. Because there is not an infinite supply of livers, along with an infinite supply of doctors, its true that some people might not be able to afford a liver transplant. Sure, its sad, but such is life.
Assuming the linked article in GP is true:
Why should someone be given preference on the basis of how much money / power they have? Such an idea is right at home in a country like China, but surely it flies in the face of the idea that "all men are created equal".
I know that in Australia / New Zealand we have a strict national transplant system which means that you can only be on the transplant list for your home state. The system is specifically designed so that "Ethnicity, gender, financial, social, celebrity or political status does not affect the allocation of organs... (and) Organs are given to the person with the greatest medical need who has the best chance of successful transplantation."
The fact is, by using the money you created to buy better drugs or treatment, you are not directly affecting anyone else. With a unique item like an organ, you are depriving someone of a chance at life.
It's a bit like the difference between 'pirating' a movie and 'pirating' a ship off the coast of somalia, in one case no-one is (directly) worse off and in the other, one party forcefully deprives the other of an item.
Anyway, I know where I'd rather get sick. :P
Can anyone explain to me why Windows has so many viruses? Linux has had no viruses for years (admittedly, several attempts, but never any in the wild that I've come across), and Windows has, what, 73 billion or something?! Is it really that hard to get it right?
Surely with something as important as a voting system, any private supplier should have to submit the blueprints & code to some kind of independent panel for approval / verification as a matter of course?
Who the fuck trusts a corporation to implement a something that is fair, correct and well engineered, without any oversight?
Your post sets up a straw man. This has nothing to do with the free market and everything to do with tax avoidance. Moving operations to the lowest cost location is not illegal, but channeling revenue through offshore "holding companies" should be. That's what Obama is trying to stop.
How many of Microsoft's employees currently work in Ireland? Not many. As TFA says, the work is done in the US, then all the revenue is channeled through an offshore corporation.
This means that microsoft and it's employees are both enjoying the infrastructure of the US; using the nice steady US power grid for their computers, driving on US roads, catching US buses and trains to work, and educating their kids in US public schools. Only it's the employees that are paying for it in their taxes. Microsoft the corporation is paying some tax to Ireland (less than they would have to the US), minimal tax on operational stuff in the US, and Ballmer is laughing all the way to the bank.
So if you like microsoft leeching off your public infrastructure without actually paying for it, feel free to keep defending them. Why not just write the a cheque once a year while your at it - maybe for christmas? I'm sure they'd appreciate that.
...Free Software Project Number 3. This is just an illustration of why alternatives are so desperately needed.
Friends don't let friends use skype.
Heh, great signature. Hours of... well, minutes of fun! :D
... in fact, thecoffedesk.com is hosted on one of these! Also: http://thecoffeedesk.com.nyud.net/news/index.php/2009/05/09/the-worlds-first-netbook/
There is a connection between acid reflux and bronchitis. I am not an expert on this topic so I encourage you to do your own research with Google.
Or he could, you know, just ask another doctor?
It's scary how people would rather trust google than a medical professional.
Dude, Google Gears is developed in C++! (but it could have been developed in anything - it doesn't matter) It also runs as a browser extension. Is that more 'light-weight' than a plasma widget or desktop app?
So are you saying that all my networking needs should be met through browser plugins, instead of desktop apps? I can see that working.
Google's done it, so everyone else should give up?
A proprietary solution is being developed so free software should give up?
I'm having trouble seeing your point.
One of the major ideas behind the Social Desktop is desktop network transparency.
Hilariously, Antigua is missing from either of the watch lists. Why might that be?
Could it possibly be because the WTO awarded them the right to ignore US IP restrictions due to the US failing to uphold their own free trade agreement? I guess they don't want to highlight the hypocrisy of the US's foreign policy.
http://foosic.org/ this is the most accurate and reliable fingerprinting algorithm I've used.
Exactly. Iran is a prime example of a country which is constantly threatened by regional powers (and the US) and has built up it's defence in response.
Before you mod me down, note that I'm not saying I sympathise with Iran, just that it's a matter of public record that a major reason Israel/US hasn't invaded Iran in the last few years is due to their retaliatory capacity. This, of course is only encouraging proliferation.
Hopefully Obama can make a break from the previous administration in this regard, but I doubt it.
LISTER: You want to talk? Let's talk.
SIMULANT: You have no weapon?
LISTER: No. You have no weapon?
SIMULANT: No.
They walk towards each other.
SIMULANT: Guess what? (Pulls out hunting knife.) I lied.
LISTER: Guess what? (Allows pole to slide from the arm of his jacket.) So did I.
SIMULANT: But I lied twice. (Pulls out a handgun.)
LISTER: Smeg, I didn't think of that.
Here's the patent. And it's pretty damn comprehensive. The patent was filed for in 1993, and granted in 1996.
As in the report here (2000), CSIRO attempted to license the tech and recieve royalties but then in 2005, big tech companies didn't want to play ball anymore.
I say, good work CSIRO - screw these guys for every penny and keep on conducting your groundbreaking research.
..a majority of the scientists...
Of course, once upon a time the majority of scientists thought the earth was at the center of the universe.
No they didn't. The majority of people thought that the earth was at the centre of the universe. Of course this was before the discipline known as "science", the scientific method and all that comes with that. Most people used religion to explain the unknown and religion decreed that the earth was at the centre of the universe.
The majority of doctors and medical scientists believed that disease was caused by bad air and fought early pioneers and advocates of rigorous cleanliness in hospitals tooth and nail. The majority of cosmologists today believes that electricity plays no role whatsoever in the large-scale operation of the universe. Some of them will desperately oppose anyone who even breathes the word "electric" or "plasma" in connection with cosmology or astrophysics.
Since when has the majority had a corner on truth? Has it ever been? No? Well maybe the majority is wrong here also. When it comes to science, the stupidest thing I know of toward the validity of any scientific statement or argument is to invoke the majority.
The mistake you make here is to mistake the majority of evidence with the majority of people . In the examples you cite, scientific methods had not been devised, and so it is valid to claim them as examples of historical ignorance. In the case of global warming however, there is an enormous majority of evidence in favour of global warming, which is what climate scientists base their opinions on.
In the case of global warming, the majority is clearly wrong, once again, as usual. The Earth has cycled between warmer and cooler for ages. Where, for example, did all that carbon comes from that is stored in the fossil fuel we burn today and have yet to burn? How does the carbon, along with hydrogen become hydrocarbons? Why do we call it fossil fuel? Is that not all solar energy stored as chemical energy? What mechanisms converted and stored this chemical energy, if not photosynthesis? Today, plants get the carbon they need to grow from the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Where did the plants of long-ago which we now burn in our gas tanks and power plants get their carbon dioxide they needed for the process of photosynthesis?
If we burned every possible gram a fossil fuel, would that not return Earth's conditions to what they were before the fossil fuels were formed in the first place?
Yes it might. Prior to the evolution of photosynthesis, approximately 3.4 billion years ago, the sun was up to 1/3 dimmer than it is now, however due to the effects of greenhouse gases (much higher than at any other time in earth's history), temperatures were comparable to today. Interestingly, carbonate rocks from this period are rare, as the oceans were far more acidic than they are now. So if we were to revert to this, say goodbye to pretty much the entire oceanic food chain, and possibly your ability to breathe.
If that happened suddenly, it would be rather catastrophic, but not if it took place over many generations of humans.
Once again, the changes from those conditions to today's took place over 3.4 billion years. We are seeing changes occur due to human activity on timescales which are several orders of magnitude shorter than this.
Please go and educate yourself on these issues - not just for your own sake, but for everyone else's too because your vote is worth the same as mine.
Yeah, well I hate breaking out the calculator (or worse, actually reading TFA) to convert 126.1 mph to something non-archaic. (202.9 km/h)
From wikipedia: "The name statute mile originates from a statute of the Parliament of England in 1592 during the reign of Elizabeth I. This defined the statute mile as 5,280 ft or 1,760 yards; or 63,360 inches. Both statute and international miles are divided into eight furlongs. In turn a furlong is ten chains; a chain is 22 yards and a yard is three feet, making up 5,280 ft."
Seriously, WTF?
However, we are not talking record companies here. We are talking music WRITERS. Creators. People that compose the music and write lyrics, that have (in most cases) somebody else sing or play it. These people don't make money by performing the songs, or by marketing it in a clever way. In most cases, all they have is their royalties.
Then they need to get their royalties from the people who are directly using their content to make money. This includes the people that perform the songs, and the record companies.
As mentioned in a comment above, creators do not have a god-given right to get paid for absolutely everything that ever gets done with their content or anything that is derived from it.
If a performer is directly using your composition on an album or your lyrics in a song, then get that performer to pay. They are the ones making money by performing your work.
It seems to me that the only creators who are not also performers are those who write for the Britney Spears' of this world - and there are certainly people making more money with their work than google is, so go get it from them!!