Asperger's is a mental disability. ADD is a mental disability. Whatever your special child has is a mental disability.
You can't sugar-coat it and coddle people forever. They're disabled. A scant few of them may be very good at other things, but they're still disabled.
Just as herpes warts on your junk is a sexually-transmitted disease, not just a sexually-transmitted infection, Asperger's is a mental disability, not just a mental "difability".
There are an infinite number of strings containing a specific pattern. A computer can't know all strings that contain that pattern, but it can analyze any pattern to see whether it contains that string.
And yes, a computer CAN evaluate code without executing it. It could just execute it in a VM, simulating itself. Derp!
It is not impossible to build a secure system. You define secure behavior, and you build a system that implements it. Many digital and real-world systems are secure.
They are limited in what they do because of your definition of secure, but those limitations are desired. Saying the systems are then useless is simply retarded.
There will always be a method of attack that the computer cannot detect simply based on the fact that it's looking for malicious code (What if the authorized user is malicious. How is the computer supposed to distinguish that?).
So. Fucking. Retarded. You're asking the computer to be omniscient. A computer is a machine. You build authorization and security into it because you don't trust the user, not because you don't trust the machine. It will carry out it's security analysis and either do something or not do something based on the result of that analysis. This behavior is defined by the user, and is by definition desired. A user puts the security checks in place to protect himself from himself. The user is the grand authority on whether or not the system should do something.
Either you make the computer so weak that it cannot possibly run something malicious (and thereby making it all but useless), or you encumber the UI to the point that it requires the user to confirm everything (it's typically a combination of them).
Way to present a false choice. Man, you're retarded, and the people who wrote that drivel that you've bought into are equally retarded.
Yes, but we bought the Louisiana Territory. Texas would be the equivalent of Canadians moving into Michigan, then claiming Michigan as an independent nation, and finally taking the independent nation and joining Canada.
The United States of America would be the equivalent of Europeans moving into the 13 colonies, then claiming the 13 colonies as an independent nation, and finally the independent nation growing and wiping out the rest of the native population.
An application of Gödel's incompleteness theorem proves that in any sufficiently powerful formal system, there's always a question that can break that system (or at least break it with respect to that system). So basically the only secure computer is one that's incapable of actual computation. Once it becomes useful, there will always be a way to break it...
Bullshit.
Saying a perfect computer can't be secure because one of the things it can compute is how to break it's own security is absurd. You can simply define the computer as having limitations as to what it can do. To imply that such a computer is useless is to imply that all computers we have today are useless. All existing computers have physical and logical limitations.
Saying that this is then not a "perfect" computer is also bullshit. You can always wrap your output. You can always spit out the doomsday code instead of executing it. You can always escape your special characters.
The computer can still solve any problem you give it. It just won't execute it's own automatic suicide code. You can make one that does execute said code, but requires the user to confirm. You can make one that does execute said code, automatically. It all depends on how you want it to behave.
Defining a system that behaves in a certain way, then trying to get it to break that behavior is simply retarded. It's the nerd version of "Can God make a boulder so big he himself couldn't lift it?".
There are zero real-world implications of this "thinking" exercise, regardless or which end you look at it from, any conclusions you draw, etc.
Damn you're a moron. The "internet" exists very much in the physical world and is very much dependent on the real world. There is tons of information in physical form. People have first aid kits and medical books for a reason.
If knowledge is lost, someone will simply reacquire it, as it was acquired the first time. Such is the nature of our species.
The internet is nothing but a convenience. Water? Heat? Transportation? Necessities.
Free public Wi-Fi is one of the most important public services of the 21st century.
No.
Water, electricity, gas, roads, police, firemen, ambulances, etc.
Free public wifi is no where near the top of that list.
I know this is slashdot and you're all a bunch of fucking nerds, but there's a real world out there, and it's far more important than the fucking internet.
Downloading a file you do not have a legal right to access is illegal. Just as it is illegal to sneak into a theater even if it had unlimited open seats. It is theft. No, it does not matter that no physical object was taken.
I'm not sure where you got this. I said that in the past "It varied from around 200 ppm during ice ages to 300 ppm during interglacial periods." Those records span hundreds of thousands of years. Then i cited the value from the mid 19th century, which is the point at which the measured values started to rapidly diverge from the patterns they followed in the past.
The data behind those claims is scaremongering based on an infinitesimally small window in the 19th century and specific cherry picked time periods at points further back.
I won't dignify anything else by reading or responding to it. You're a global warming zealot who cares nothing for the actual science.
Not going to entertain any of your delusions with any further reading or response.
The VA actually does a pretty good job providing "good enough" health care for people, and on a tight budget.
Good enough? I doubt it. The quality may compare to other shitty health care that has been successful in terms of profits, but it isn't quality health care by any means.
Good enough? No. "Good enough" sure, in comparison to other shitty services. Enough? Not by a long shot.
VA hospitals are shut down all the time. Tons of people eligible for said care can't take advantage of it because there are simply no facilities within a hundred miles of them anymore. The situation is worse when you consider that the reason the VA hospitals are shut down is to save money and redirect it to improving the quality of care at other VA hospitals - the ones who can still only provide your "good enough" level of care.
No, it's not. Really. Are you being disingenuous or do you actually not get it? It's like being a geek who usually carries a Swiss Army Knife, going into a shop and buying a really nice bush knife, then complaining that it doesn't have a cork screw. The iPhone/iPad are a minimal OS with a web browser that also support limited, locked-down and fairly small applications, and the iPhone also does voice calls.
So in your analogy a PC is a swiss army knife and an iPad is a really nice bush knife? EL OH EL man.
A PC would be a workshop full of tools, and the iPad would be a dinky little Swiss Army knife.
However, I am a bit peeved at the mention of "military healthcare". Given the atrocious cuts in services for veterans who've been injured in combat, I think that is the one area where the government needs to do more.
No, no, you've got it all wrong.
When someone bitches about government-sponsored health care, you're supposed to point to Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA as amazing bastions of excellent funding and service. Mock their intelligence. Give them a false choice between: - No Medicare, Medicaid, VA, etc. - Unchecked, liberal tax-and-piss-away failnomics.
Then, when you need money, just take it from those services - even though they're already terribly run and underfunded. Start with the military. If they're overseas they can't bitch. If they're here, they're either too young to have any opinions about health care, or they're horribly maimed, burned, or otherwise disfigured - the press won't give them much camera time. The scant few who are healthy and informed? Just paint them as evil right-wing warmongers.
Then move on to the old people. Cut money from the existing programs, call it a restructuring. When they bitch, set up a new program who's cost/output is worse than the old program was. Old people bitch and vote - they've got nothing else to do. Take their pills away for a minute, let 'em bitch, then hand them half the pills in a less-efficient bottle. They'll vote for it every time.
Then draw up some legislation that takes more money from tax payers to put back into the pot you just took from, made new programs out of, etc.
If someone bitches about the new legislation, go back to the first step.
That's like saying my fridge is a cooling appliance. Except it can't cool any dairy products. And it can only cool one thing at a time. And it can only be serviced by the company that made it. And it costs more than generic, all-purpose cooling appliances. And there's a subscription on top of a higher initial price tag fee if I want to use it with the more ubiquitous 110 V line instead of the scarce 220 V lines. Etc.
Ignoring the difference would indicate we are no more intelligent or adaptable than fermenting yeast in a sealed container.
Hate to break it to you - we aren't. Life as we know it will cease to exist on this planet. We will have had nothing to do with it. We will be powerless to stop it. Life will rise again. This will repeat until the Earth's core solidifies, the magnetosphere wanes, our atmosphere is stripped, our liquid water evaporates and solidifies, the Earth becomes a barren, lifeless rock, etc.
The impact the rest of nature has is, or at least was, mostly balanced. It varied from around 200 ppm during ice ages to 300 ppm during interglacial periods. Ice cores indicate it was at about 260-280 ppm in the middle of the 19th century. It is now at 380-390 ppm and rising by 2 ppm per year, or a little over 0.5%. Over a geological timespan that is _huge_ and entirely swamps out all natural cycles we're aware of currently.
How can you bring up a "geological timespan" when you only refer to data a few hundred years back and at choice "interglacial periods"?
Not only is CO2 not the only contributor to the greenhouse effect, the accuracy of ice core samples is terrible - and still global warming nutjobs have to obfuscate and cherry pick that data.
You've drank deep of the Warm-Aid.
Your other points are just plain wrong. No, the changes are not unprecedented. Earth has been hotter or colder than you have ever seen and more so than any model predicts. Life flourished.
Political action is not biological adaptation. Economic action is not biological adaptation. Life must adapt - not your lifestyle.
If humans can't survive in a dramatically hotter or colder world, so be it. Regardless of what caused it (hint: It's not humans).
Oil companies make lots of money! They must be the ones who stand to profit from the legislation and fear mongering. Oh wait. The legislation and fear mongering is completely COUNTER to the oil companies' current practices. You talk in billions when the proposed legislation will have entire nations' economies upheaved. Trillions of dollars worth of bullshit. You post gross and net why? Just because gross is bigger and it makes your point seem scarier. Protip: Those margins are between 5 and 8%. Proposed legislation creates a false market where people simply trade numbers in a database - no actual goods or services are exchanged. Pure, adulterated, profit.
* (i) The planet is warming due to increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. A snowy winter in Washington does not alter this fact.
The planet is warming due to the sun. The planet has warmed in the past. The planet has cooled in the past. The planet's history shows that it was significantly warmer during it's most hospitable eras than it is now.
* (ii) Most of the increase in the concentration of these gases over the last century is due to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
Most of the increase, sure. But how much of the total percentage? The impact the rest of nature has astronomically outstrips the impact humans alone have.
* (iii) Natural causes always play a role in changing Earth's climate, but are now being overwhelmed by human-induced changes.
Completely false.
* (iv) Warming the planet will cause many other climatic patterns to change at speeds unprecedented in modern times, including increasing rates of sea-level rise and alterations in the hydrologic cycle. Rising concentrations of carbon dioxide are making the oceans more acidic.
These changes are only "unprecedented" if you describe "modern times" as spanning only the last few centuries. The planet has undergone more severe changes than any doomsayer has predicted - life, including human life, has done nothing but flourish. If species X suffers, so be it. If species X happens to be humans, then so be it. Life adapts or GTFOs.
* (v) The combination of these complex climate changes threatens coastal communities and cities, our food and water supplies, marine and freshwater ecosystems, forests, high mountain environments, and far more.
If by "threatens" you mean "threatens to change", then you're right. People who own expensive property might lose it. Governments who control key ports or shipping routes might lose them. The change the politicians fear is upsetting the current balance of power. They don't give a shit if people or other animals die en masse.
Most lifeforms prefer a flooded planet to one where all the water is locked in ice, anyway. If humans ever did get the ability to control the climate, who would decide what the ideal amount of ice is? Who would decide what the ideal sea level is? The ideal number of hurricanes per year? The ideal temperature?
As always, follow the money. Global warming is pure political bullshit, and the "science" behind it is a joke.
Slashdot Mirror
'Different' does not mean 'disabled'.
No, but "disabled" means "disabled".
Asperger's is a mental disability.
ADD is a mental disability.
Whatever your special child has is a mental disability.
You can't sugar-coat it and coddle people forever. They're disabled. A scant few of them may be very good at other things, but they're still disabled.
Just as herpes warts on your junk is a sexually-transmitted disease, not just a sexually-transmitted infection, Asperger's is a mental disability, not just a mental "difability".
When quoting the Simpsons, do it correctly.
Comic Book Guy: Oh, a sarcasm detector, that's a real useful invention.
The Universe is quantum.
All things are deterministic.
All things appearing to be "random" are simply not yet fully-understood.
There are an infinite number of strings containing a specific pattern. A computer can't know all strings that contain that pattern, but it can analyze any pattern to see whether it contains that string.
And yes, a computer CAN evaluate code without executing it. It could just execute it in a VM, simulating itself. Derp!
It is not impossible to build a secure system. You define secure behavior, and you build a system that implements it. Many digital and real-world systems are secure.
They are limited in what they do because of your definition of secure, but those limitations are desired. Saying the systems are then useless is simply retarded.
There will always be a method of attack that the computer cannot detect simply based on the fact that it's looking for malicious code (What if the authorized user is malicious. How is the computer supposed to distinguish that?).
So. Fucking. Retarded. You're asking the computer to be omniscient. A computer is a machine. You build authorization and security into it because you don't trust the user, not because you don't trust the machine. It will carry out it's security analysis and either do something or not do something based on the result of that analysis. This behavior is defined by the user, and is by definition desired. A user puts the security checks in place to protect himself from himself. The user is the grand authority on whether or not the system should do something.
Either you make the computer so weak that it cannot possibly run something malicious (and thereby making it all but useless), or you encumber the UI to the point that it requires the user to confirm everything (it's typically a combination of them).
Way to present a false choice.
Man, you're retarded, and the people who wrote that drivel that you've bought into are equally retarded.
Yes, but we bought the Louisiana Territory. Texas would be the equivalent of Canadians moving into Michigan, then claiming Michigan as an independent nation, and finally taking the independent nation and joining Canada.
The United States of America would be the equivalent of Europeans moving into the 13 colonies, then claiming the 13 colonies as an independent nation, and finally the independent nation growing and wiping out the rest of the native population.
Oh wait.
An application of Gödel's incompleteness theorem proves that in any sufficiently powerful formal system, there's always a question that can break that system (or at least break it with respect to that system). So basically the only secure computer is one that's incapable of actual computation. Once it becomes useful, there will always be a way to break it...
Bullshit.
Saying a perfect computer can't be secure because one of the things it can compute is how to break it's own security is absurd. You can simply define the computer as having limitations as to what it can do. To imply that such a computer is useless is to imply that all computers we have today are useless. All existing computers have physical and logical limitations.
Saying that this is then not a "perfect" computer is also bullshit. You can always wrap your output. You can always spit out the doomsday code instead of executing it. You can always escape your special characters.
The computer can still solve any problem you give it. It just won't execute it's own automatic suicide code. You can make one that does execute said code, but requires the user to confirm. You can make one that does execute said code, automatically. It all depends on how you want it to behave.
Defining a system that behaves in a certain way, then trying to get it to break that behavior is simply retarded. It's the nerd version of "Can God make a boulder so big he himself couldn't lift it?".
There are zero real-world implications of this "thinking" exercise, regardless or which end you look at it from, any conclusions you draw, etc.
Like, the algorithm is based on strong randomness and none is assured
There is no random.
-The Universe
Yet somehow, those "old" services are still in use today.
They are thus still 21st century public services.
Damn you're a moron.
The "internet" exists very much in the physical world and is very much dependent on the real world.
There is tons of information in physical form. People have first aid kits and medical books for a reason.
If knowledge is lost, someone will simply reacquire it, as it was acquired the first time. Such is the nature of our species.
The internet is nothing but a convenience.
Water? Heat? Transportation? Necessities.
Free public Wi-Fi is one of the most important public services of the 21st century.
No.
Water, electricity, gas, roads, police, firemen, ambulances, etc.
Free public wifi is no where near the top of that list.
I know this is slashdot and you're all a bunch of fucking nerds, but there's a real world out there, and it's far more important than the fucking internet.
Protip: Supreme Commander is SupCom.
SC is reserved for StarCraft.
Downloading a file you do not have a legal right to access is illegal.
Just as it is illegal to sneak into a theater even if it had unlimited open seats.
It is theft.
No, it does not matter that no physical object was taken.
Did they use DNA from women?
Of course not.
They're building logic gates.
Johnny 5 is alive.
Goose!
I'm not sure where you got this. I said that in the past "It varied from around 200 ppm during ice ages to 300 ppm during interglacial periods." Those records span hundreds of thousands of years. Then i cited the value from the mid 19th century, which is the point at which the measured values started to rapidly diverge from the patterns they followed in the past.
The data behind those claims is scaremongering based on an infinitesimally small window in the 19th century and specific cherry picked time periods at points further back.
I won't dignify anything else by reading or responding to it. You're a global warming zealot who cares nothing for the actual science.
Not going to entertain any of your delusions with any further reading or response.
The VA actually does a pretty good job providing "good enough" health care for people, and on a tight budget.
Good enough? I doubt it. The quality may compare to other shitty health care that has been successful in terms of profits, but it isn't quality health care by any means.
Good enough? No.
"Good enough" sure, in comparison to other shitty services.
Enough? Not by a long shot.
VA hospitals are shut down all the time. Tons of people eligible for said care can't take advantage of it because there are simply no facilities within a hundred miles of them anymore. The situation is worse when you consider that the reason the VA hospitals are shut down is to save money and redirect it to improving the quality of care at other VA hospitals - the ones who can still only provide your "good enough" level of care.
10 seconds? My fucking RAID controller alone takes several seconds to do it's shit.
No, it's not. Really. Are you being disingenuous or do you actually not get it? It's like being a geek who usually carries a Swiss Army Knife, going into a shop and buying a really nice bush knife, then complaining that it doesn't have a cork screw. The iPhone/iPad are a minimal OS with a web browser that also support limited, locked-down and fairly small applications, and the iPhone also does voice calls.
So in your analogy a PC is a swiss army knife and an iPad is a really nice bush knife?
EL OH EL man.
A PC would be a workshop full of tools, and the iPad would be a dinky little Swiss Army knife.
"VA hospitals are a pretty good system"
I take it you have zero experience with the VA.
However, I am a bit peeved at the mention of "military healthcare". Given the atrocious cuts in services for veterans who've been injured in combat, I think that is the one area where the government needs to do more.
No, no, you've got it all wrong.
When someone bitches about government-sponsored health care, you're supposed to point to Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA as amazing bastions of excellent funding and service. Mock their intelligence. Give them a false choice between:
- No Medicare, Medicaid, VA, etc.
- Unchecked, liberal tax-and-piss-away failnomics.
Then, when you need money, just take it from those services - even though they're already terribly run and underfunded. Start with the military. If they're overseas they can't bitch. If they're here, they're either too young to have any opinions about health care, or they're horribly maimed, burned, or otherwise disfigured - the press won't give them much camera time. The scant few who are healthy and informed? Just paint them as evil right-wing warmongers.
Then move on to the old people. Cut money from the existing programs, call it a restructuring. When they bitch, set up a new program who's cost/output is worse than the old program was. Old people bitch and vote - they've got nothing else to do. Take their pills away for a minute, let 'em bitch, then hand them half the pills in a less-efficient bottle. They'll vote for it every time.
Then draw up some legislation that takes more money from tax payers to put back into the pot you just took from, made new programs out of, etc.
If someone bitches about the new legislation, go back to the first step.
It's an Internet Appliance
That's like saying my fridge is a cooling appliance. Except it can't cool any dairy products. And it can only cool one thing at a time. And it can only be serviced by the company that made it. And it costs more than generic, all-purpose cooling appliances. And there's a subscription on top of a higher initial price tag fee if I want to use it with the more ubiquitous 110 V line instead of the scarce 220 V lines. Etc.
Ignoring the difference would indicate we are no more intelligent or adaptable than fermenting yeast in a sealed container.
Hate to break it to you - we aren't.
Life as we know it will cease to exist on this planet. We will have had nothing to do with it. We will be powerless to stop it. Life will rise again. This will repeat until the Earth's core solidifies, the magnetosphere wanes, our atmosphere is stripped, our liquid water evaporates and solidifies, the Earth becomes a barren, lifeless rock, etc.
The impact the rest of nature has is, or at least was, mostly balanced. It varied from around 200 ppm during ice ages to 300 ppm during interglacial periods. Ice cores indicate it was at about 260-280 ppm in the middle of the 19th century. It is now at 380-390 ppm and rising by 2 ppm per year, or a little over 0.5%. Over a geological timespan that is _huge_ and entirely swamps out all natural cycles we're aware of currently.
How can you bring up a "geological timespan" when you only refer to data a few hundred years back and at choice "interglacial periods"?
Not only is CO2 not the only contributor to the greenhouse effect, the accuracy of ice core samples is terrible - and still global warming nutjobs have to obfuscate and cherry pick that data.
You've drank deep of the Warm-Aid.
Your other points are just plain wrong.
No, the changes are not unprecedented. Earth has been hotter or colder than you have ever seen and more so than any model predicts. Life flourished.
Political action is not biological adaptation.
Economic action is not biological adaptation.
Life must adapt - not your lifestyle.
If humans can't survive in a dramatically hotter or colder world, so be it. Regardless of what caused it (hint: It's not humans).
Oil companies make lots of money! They must be the ones who stand to profit from the legislation and fear mongering. Oh wait. The legislation and fear mongering is completely COUNTER to the oil companies' current practices. You talk in billions when the proposed legislation will have entire nations' economies upheaved. Trillions of dollars worth of bullshit. You post gross and net why? Just because gross is bigger and it makes your point seem scarier. Protip: Those margins are between 5 and 8%. Proposed legislation creates a false market where people simply trade numbers in a database - no actual goods or services are exchanged. Pure, adulterated, profit.
* (i) The planet is warming due to increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. A snowy winter in Washington does not alter this fact.
The planet is warming due to the sun. The planet has warmed in the past. The planet has cooled in the past. The planet's history shows that it was significantly warmer during it's most hospitable eras than it is now.
* (ii) Most of the increase in the concentration of these gases over the last century is due to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
Most of the increase, sure. But how much of the total percentage? The impact the rest of nature has astronomically outstrips the impact humans alone have.
* (iii) Natural causes always play a role in changing Earth's climate, but are now being overwhelmed by human-induced changes.
Completely false.
* (iv) Warming the planet will cause many other climatic patterns to change at speeds unprecedented in modern times, including increasing rates of sea-level rise and alterations in the hydrologic cycle. Rising concentrations of carbon dioxide are making the oceans more acidic.
These changes are only "unprecedented" if you describe "modern times" as spanning only the last few centuries. The planet has undergone more severe changes than any doomsayer has predicted - life, including human life, has done nothing but flourish. If species X suffers, so be it. If species X happens to be humans, then so be it. Life adapts or GTFOs.
* (v) The combination of these complex climate changes threatens coastal communities and cities, our food and water supplies, marine and freshwater ecosystems, forests, high mountain environments, and far more.
If by "threatens" you mean "threatens to change", then you're right. People who own expensive property might lose it. Governments who control key ports or shipping routes might lose them. The change the politicians fear is upsetting the current balance of power. They don't give a shit if people or other animals die en masse.
Most lifeforms prefer a flooded planet to one where all the water is locked in ice, anyway. If humans ever did get the ability to control the climate, who would decide what the ideal amount of ice is? Who would decide what the ideal sea level is? The ideal number of hurricanes per year? The ideal temperature?
As always, follow the money. Global warming is pure political bullshit, and the "science" behind it is a joke.