I had an extremely difficult time in public school, for many reasons. I was identified as a gifted student early on, but my school was a small-town school and didn't offer much in the way of an interesting curriculum. I came perilously close to failing and dropping out. Ironically, although my grades were borderline, my examination average was at or near 100% in all of my classes. The reason for this was that my school counted "daily work," i.e., veritable mountains of tedious, mind-numbing knowledge regurgitation worksheets, as 75% of a student's grade. I just didn't do them; I thought that they were wastes of time and I didn't really believe, when I looked inside myself, that I would ever get to go to college, anyway. What was the point?
So, things went downhill until finally I just read library books during class. I read about a book per day. The teachers didn't stop me; they didn't really know what to do with me. The kids ostracized me to greater or lesser degrees, depending on their own levels of social acceptance, but almost universally they recruited me to help them with their homework.
Many well meaning adults through those years told me that my youth, particularly high school, would be the greatest time in my life—that I would look back on the era with nostalgia. I told them that they were wrong, but they dismissed it, I suppose, because they perceived me as a rebellious youth who knew no better. I'm now a successful young software developer. Looking back with whatever objectivity a person can muster when reviewing his own subjective experiences, I can safely conclude that high school was the worst period in my life. Things have only gotten better since then.
Privately, I've decided that I won't put anyone through what I went through in public school. If I can't afford to send my child or children to a good, private school or tutor them myself, then I simply will remain childless.
The aerodynamic properties of boxes would make them most unsuitable for air travel, and I'm not sure that patdowns would really help ensure safety.
However, you are correct that reasonable people can disagree on whether TSA policies constitute reasonable actions, and I certainly would not blame anyone for disagreeing with me. While I hold that current policies are reasonable, it is the duty of the courts to address such constitutional ambiguities, not I:
In 1986, the 9th Circuit Court upheld the ruling allowing airport searches to skirt the fourth amendment with the following comment: "To judge reasonableness, it is necessary to balance the right to be free of intrusion with society's interest in safe air travel." It was this ruling that allowed passage of the Aviation Transportation and Security and Security Act, which was enacted shortly after 9/11 to establish the TSA.
I am of the opinion that since that ruling, issued in an era when air travel was associated with far fewer headaches than today, TSA policy has decidedly skewed the balance between freedom and security such that the searches are no longer reasonable and that therefore, the courts should re-examine the ruling in light of today's climate and issue a new decision.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
The protection provided by the fourth amendment does not depend on whether I'm trying to board a plane or whether I'm sitting in my living room in my pajamas whacking off to yaoi. It does not matter if I'm engaging in an optional activity or if I'm in line at the DMV renewing my license; the federal government may not unreasonably search me without probable cause, and since TSA personnel are agents of the federal government, I hold that their actions are a violation of the fourth amendment.
But let's ignore the amendment for the moment and take your logic a step further. Let's say that, for the sake of everyone's greater security, the Department of Homeland Security has decided to place a patdown station at the end of every cul-de-sac so that all suburbanites can be searched on their way to work. It seems like a gross violation of their privacy, but that's okay, right? After all, they have the right NOT to leave their houses.
Sure, this example may seem silly, but so is the argument that since flying is an optional activity, the fourth amendment somehow magically does not apply. It's a slippery slope. When in doubt, always for more personal rights; never, ever, ever opt for fewer. A narrow interpretation of our personal liberties as specified in the Bill of Rights leads to a slow, imperceptible erosion in our freedoms over time. After this erosion continues over the course of many years, those freedoms can disappear forever.
It reads:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
There's one major flaw I've noticed in the/. system: groupthink and herd mentality. Anything that perfectly fits a certain mentality will get upmodded, most things that disagree with it get downmodded. Thus, people who disagree with that thinking (or even just don't care about it) have a disincentive to post, and the site attracts people fanatical about that viewpoint, perpetuating the problem.
I agree with you about Slashdot with one exception: a distinguishing quality of the Slashdot metamind is that it's at least subconsciously aware of its own biases. Witness, for example, the fact that your post -- ostensibly critical of Slashdot's readership and moderators -- was modded up to +5. It's precisely that honest admission that the system isn't perfect, and that yes, Slashdot has its systemic biases, that keeps me satisfied with the moderation system as it stands.
I used the term "pessimism" as a generalization of cynicism; i.e., a tendency to see the worst in things. In any case, if you are arguing that a jaded, negative attitude is unhealthy and unproductive, then we are in agreement.
Optimism inspires effort, movement, and change. Cynicism inspires fear, hopelessness, and stasis. Optimism may be unrealistic, but it is exactly that unrealistic belief in the possible that motivates people to find a way to make it possible. The only good cynic was Diogenes, and he wouldn't even recognize what his philosophy has become. Cynicism is the last refuge of the lazy and weak.
You both simplify religion down to a cardboard caricature of itself. It is neither all good nor all bad.
I concede your point about my religion remark. My views on religion are significantly more complicated than what I communicated, but there is no way for you to gather that fact out of the three lines that I posted. However, just as I turned religion into a caricature of itself, so did you vastly oversimplify optimism and pessimism. For example, I can say this:
Optimism inspires laziness, complacency, and stasis. A pessimistic attitude drives increased preparation, the creation of backup plans, and fault-tolerant designs. Though a pessimist may focus on a small chance that something can go wrong, he is more likely to prepare for such a scenario than an optimist. Optimism is the last refuge of those unwilling to face negative possibilities.
Nobody can, or should, be entirely optimistic or pessimistic. A blind optimist will get burned; a blind pessimist will never try anything at all.
Cynicism is vastly overrated. If people did not want to be better than they are they would not have invented gods in order to have something better to which to aspire.
Optimism is vastly unrealistic. Primitive humanity didn't invent gods for inspiration. They prayed repeatedly and fervently for food, shelter, and life after death. Gods are the ultimate expression of man's self-centered nature.
You can see this on Slashdot too where people pounce on articles to post the established group-think for a quick '+5'
Really? And here I thought posts kvetching about how anybody who agrees with prevailing opinion is just practicing groupthink was an ideal example of Slashdot groupthink.
Whoa there, good buddy. This could get recursive faster than you can say "stack overflow."
The way I see it, the temptation of 'big data' is leading businesses to draw us closer to a transparent society. I, personally, would prefer to live in a world where every public official's voting record is on display, dating back to their first local government position, correlated with their publicly-voiced positions on the issues.
Well thank you, Taco, for calling everybody who doesn't approve of homosexuality a bigot. Have you, or any of the other homosexuality-supporters, ever considered that there are more than two sides to this? You don't have to fully 100% approve or disaprove of homosexuality, and as a Catholic I take offense when being labled as one of them.
The Catholic Church knows that there's a difference between homosexual attraction and homosexual acts, something that many people on "both" sides often forget. Homosexual attraction, like any other kind of sexual preference, is influenced by a variety of factors; most important of all of those factors is conditioning (like, allowing/encouraging yourself to think homosexual thoughts, or hanging around with homosexuals, for example). Some people can't help that they have homosexual attractions and I completely understand that, as does the Catholic Church believe it or not. The difference though with the Catholic opinion is that we believe that people who experience severe homosexual attraction are called to chastity. And no, that's not "supressing your desires" like most anti-Catholic people make it sound like. Self-control is never a bad thing, last I checked.
I don't particularly care if Catholicism disapproves of the person with whom I've happily spent years of my life. Try as I might, I simply can not feel in any way guilty that rather than live only half a life, alone and in chastity, I chose to pursue a form happiness that harms no one. I am not a Catholic; I do not subscribe to your religion's ludicrous edicts. Though you are entirely free to think whatever you want about it, your religion does not have the right to impose its arbitrary, nonsensical beliefs on me.
You see, my problem with you religious types is not what you believe. I went through hell in high school, and I can now weather the worst of social ostracism and barely bat an eye. My anger comes when you try to codify your beliefs into law, thereby mandating your religion's viewpoints with no option for recourse. I do not think you are a bigot at all. Rather, I think that you are a small mind who would simply feel more comfortable living in a monochromatic world where everyone is forced to adhere to your own standard of "morality." Just stay the hell out of my private life. It is none of your business, and I do not want you in it.
That too. If my psych-major friend ever gets online, I will ask her what part of the brain it was, because she was the one who showed me the studies they did.
You are thinking of the corpus callosum, the bridge linking the left and right hemispheres of the brain.
... has to have its witch hunt. What I find really odd about it is that some of the same people who now recoil in horror at the thought of what happened during the McCarthyism era will happily toss gasoline onto the pyre of anyone who is accused of pedophilia. Proof isn't an issue anymore; the accusation itself equals certain doom.
My understanding of biology is not exactly advanced, but won't the normal mosquito specimens live longer and thus reproduce more often than the engineered offspring with shorter lifespans? Unless whole geographic areas were populated by the genetically modified offspring, I would think that this measure would be unsuccessful in the long run.
Ah, no, not at all. I meant that Scribd seems to have removed the original document you linked. Thanks for linking that, by the way. Interesting (if depressing) stuff.
What collaboration software did you like the most? My company produces massive detailed design documents, and during the editing phase, I end up getting an e-mail thread with billions of 12MB attachments. It's unmanageable, and I'm really trying to move us away from it. The office staff refuses to even consider Google Docs, so that's not an option.
You're making IE and Safari teams dance too quickly. Turn down the bellows on the coals and let them rest, stagnate. The current state of browsers will be good for the next 50 years. Mozilla should make a kitchen recipe sorter instead.
Too late -- Honewell has had that problem licked since 1969!
You are young, and have not met the big disasters of life yet, like a divorce with children, the death of a loved one, the bad decisions with life-long consequences. At your age I liked keeping track and archives, even bank statements many years back. Not a good idea. Your past starts to grow on you, and can slow you down on your way to new pastures. So remember to build in mechanisms for forgetting all but the most essential stuff. Use Facebook and Linkedin to keep track of people, keep some nice pictures, but learn to delete and forget. You will thank me later.
Words of wisdom. I'm probably as young as the original poster, but experiences in my childhood and adolescence made me emotionally "older" in several important ways. I spent far too much time dwelling over past events that bore no further relevance on my present or my future, so I resolved to break the pattern with a decisive action. On the day I moved away for school, I tossed every object that held a memory, whether sour or sweet, into the flame. It was the most cathartic experience of my life.
Now I frequently purge obsolete emotional artifacts from my dwelling and devices. I think of the process as being similar to pruning yellowing leaves off of an ivy; you have to get rid of the dying ones to let new ones grow.
OK, how do I *not* consign myself to the TSA's procedures if I need to fly somewhere? Go ahead. Tell me. I don't like it, but what do I do? And who is doing it happily? The TSA is the butt of stand up and late night jokes by the shit ton. No one likes those turkeys.
In my haste, I was evidently unclear. I was speaking of the population as a whole rather than of individual citizens. In any case, I am not so sure that the populace is really willing to do away with airport security, even if they do make jokes at its expense. See this poll, for instance.
Meanwhile, most people don't seem to have a problem playing with their phones while doing eighty down the highway.
Yes, *MOST* people support texting and driving. I'm sure you can link to surveys and polls that measured that, right? Right?
I picked a bad example, and you're probably quite correct that more people oppose texting and driving than those who do not. The point I was attempting to illustrate is that people are often disproportionately afraid of an unlikely event's occurrence (for example, a terrorist bombing) while ignoring or downplaying the risks of a higher-probability event's occurrence, such as the possibility of having a car accident for a longtime commuter. This disproportionate fear can often lead to over-reactive, knee-jerk policies that don't really make sense when analyzed in context.
Seriously, dude, you either have a drug warped view of the world, or you just slid in a from another reality.
While I appreciate your feedback, I think you will find that it is not necessary to insult someone in order to disagree or offer objective criticism.
In fact since I am old enough for this, boarding an airliner in the US is now an experience far worse then doing so in the Soviet Union in the heyday of the USSR (and yes, I've been there so I have first hand data to contrast the two).
Human beings are strange critters, especially in numbers. They will happily consign themselves to completely unreasonable treatment by TSA goons to gain the mere perception of protection from an event that has about a 1*10^-1000 percent chance of happening in the first place. Meanwhile, most people don't seem to have a problem playing with their phones while doing eighty down the highway. This type of irrationality continually erodes personal freedom in the USA (and undoubtedly elsewhere).
I use three monitors for my development work. One of these monitors is a traditional 4:3 LCD; I use this to refer to longer documents and source code. The other two monitors are my "main" monitors and are identical 1600x1050 native resolution models. I use these for my IDE/editor and debugging panels. It's the perfect setup for me.
1. Driving while using a cellphone is genetic or otherwise hereditary and thus selectable against.
2. People doing so will be eliminated at a higher rate than people who drive sensibly (There's nothing stopping one idiot in a truckzilla from taking out a family of 7 in a minivan when they blow through a red light doing 90).
I presume nothing, other than that I clearly should include joke tags in the future.
If you text/web and drive, you are a fucking idiot and no better than the idiots who drive under the influence.
I don't care what you do in your home or on your property. I don't care what you do with any other consenting adult or adults. But when you're on the road, you are putting more people than yourself at risk with stupid behavior.
The fine should be $1,500 - no exceptions - and 150 hours of community service. Then we'll see how important it is to update your Facebook status.
I saw a guy reading a book while driving down the highway. I seriously wanted to chop off his nutsack to prevent him from spawning offspring.
Slashdot Mirror
I had an extremely difficult time in public school, for many reasons. I was identified as a gifted student early on, but my school was a small-town school and didn't offer much in the way of an interesting curriculum. I came perilously close to failing and dropping out. Ironically, although my grades were borderline, my examination average was at or near 100% in all of my classes. The reason for this was that my school counted "daily work," i.e., veritable mountains of tedious, mind-numbing knowledge regurgitation worksheets, as 75% of a student's grade. I just didn't do them; I thought that they were wastes of time and I didn't really believe, when I looked inside myself, that I would ever get to go to college, anyway. What was the point?
So, things went downhill until finally I just read library books during class. I read about a book per day. The teachers didn't stop me; they didn't really know what to do with me. The kids ostracized me to greater or lesser degrees, depending on their own levels of social acceptance, but almost universally they recruited me to help them with their homework.
Many well meaning adults through those years told me that my youth, particularly high school, would be the greatest time in my life—that I would look back on the era with nostalgia. I told them that they were wrong, but they dismissed it, I suppose, because they perceived me as a rebellious youth who knew no better. I'm now a successful young software developer. Looking back with whatever objectivity a person can muster when reviewing his own subjective experiences, I can safely conclude that high school was the worst period in my life. Things have only gotten better since then.
Privately, I've decided that I won't put anyone through what I went through in public school. If I can't afford to send my child or children to a good, private school or tutor them myself, then I simply will remain childless.
The aerodynamic properties of boxes would make them most unsuitable for air travel, and I'm not sure that patdowns would really help ensure safety.
However, you are correct that reasonable people can disagree on whether TSA policies constitute reasonable actions, and I certainly would not blame anyone for disagreeing with me. While I hold that current policies are reasonable, it is the duty of the courts to address such constitutional ambiguities, not I:
In 1986, the 9th Circuit Court upheld the ruling allowing airport searches to skirt the fourth amendment with the following comment: "To judge reasonableness, it is necessary to balance the right to be free of intrusion with society's interest in safe air travel." It was this ruling that allowed passage of the Aviation Transportation and Security and Security Act, which was enacted shortly after 9/11 to establish the TSA.
I am of the opinion that since that ruling, issued in an era when air travel was associated with far fewer headaches than today, TSA policy has decidedly skewed the balance between freedom and security such that the searches are no longer reasonable and that therefore, the courts should re-examine the ruling in light of today's climate and issue a new decision.
I am implying no such thing. To reiterate:
The protection provided by the fourth amendment does not depend on whether I'm trying to board a plane or whether I'm sitting in my living room in my pajamas whacking off to yaoi. It does not matter if I'm engaging in an optional activity or if I'm in line at the DMV renewing my license; the federal government may not unreasonably search me without probable cause, and since TSA personnel are agents of the federal government, I hold that their actions are a violation of the fourth amendment.
But let's ignore the amendment for the moment and take your logic a step further. Let's say that, for the sake of everyone's greater security, the Department of Homeland Security has decided to place a patdown station at the end of every cul-de-sac so that all suburbanites can be searched on their way to work. It seems like a gross violation of their privacy, but that's okay, right? After all, they have the right NOT to leave their houses.
Sure, this example may seem silly, but so is the argument that since flying is an optional activity, the fourth amendment somehow magically does not apply. It's a slippery slope. When in doubt, always for more personal rights; never, ever, ever opt for fewer. A narrow interpretation of our personal liberties as specified in the Bill of Rights leads to a slow, imperceptible erosion in our freedoms over time. After this erosion continues over the course of many years, those freedoms can disappear forever.
It reads: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
There's one major flaw I've noticed in the /. system: groupthink and herd mentality. Anything that perfectly fits a certain mentality will get upmodded, most things that disagree with it get downmodded. Thus, people who disagree with that thinking (or even just don't care about it) have a disincentive to post, and the site attracts people fanatical about that viewpoint, perpetuating the problem.
I agree with you about Slashdot with one exception: a distinguishing quality of the Slashdot metamind is that it's at least subconsciously aware of its own biases. Witness, for example, the fact that your post -- ostensibly critical of Slashdot's readership and moderators -- was modded up to +5. It's precisely that honest admission that the system isn't perfect, and that yes, Slashdot has its systemic biases, that keeps me satisfied with the moderation system as it stands.
I used the term "pessimism" as a generalization of cynicism; i.e., a tendency to see the worst in things. In any case, if you are arguing that a jaded, negative attitude is unhealthy and unproductive, then we are in agreement.
Optimism inspires effort, movement, and change. Cynicism inspires fear, hopelessness, and stasis. Optimism may be unrealistic, but it is exactly that unrealistic belief in the possible that motivates people to find a way to make it possible. The only good cynic was Diogenes, and he wouldn't even recognize what his philosophy has become. Cynicism is the last refuge of the lazy and weak.
You both simplify religion down to a cardboard caricature of itself. It is neither all good nor all bad.
I concede your point about my religion remark. My views on religion are significantly more complicated than what I communicated, but there is no way for you to gather that fact out of the three lines that I posted. However, just as I turned religion into a caricature of itself, so did you vastly oversimplify optimism and pessimism. For example, I can say this:
Optimism inspires laziness, complacency, and stasis. A pessimistic attitude drives increased preparation, the creation of backup plans, and fault-tolerant designs. Though a pessimist may focus on a small chance that something can go wrong, he is more likely to prepare for such a scenario than an optimist. Optimism is the last refuge of those unwilling to face negative possibilities.
Nobody can, or should, be entirely optimistic or pessimistic. A blind optimist will get burned; a blind pessimist will never try anything at all.
Cynicism is vastly overrated. If people did not want to be better than they are they would not have invented gods in order to have something better to which to aspire.
Optimism is vastly unrealistic. Primitive humanity didn't invent gods for inspiration. They prayed repeatedly and fervently for food, shelter, and life after death. Gods are the ultimate expression of man's self-centered nature.
You can see this on Slashdot too where people pounce on articles to post the established group-think for a quick '+5'
Really? And here I thought posts kvetching about how anybody who agrees with prevailing opinion is just practicing groupthink was an ideal example of Slashdot groupthink.
Whoa there, good buddy. This could get recursive faster than you can say "stack overflow."
The way I see it, the temptation of 'big data' is leading businesses to draw us closer to a transparent society. I, personally, would prefer to live in a world where every public official's voting record is on display, dating back to their first local government position, correlated with their publicly-voiced positions on the issues.
While it's not quite as comprehensive as what you suggest, see http://www.ontheissues.org/tx/ron_paul.htm
Well thank you, Taco, for calling everybody who doesn't approve of homosexuality a bigot. Have you, or any of the other homosexuality-supporters, ever considered that there are more than two sides to this? You don't have to fully 100% approve or disaprove of homosexuality, and as a Catholic I take offense when being labled as one of them.
The Catholic Church knows that there's a difference between homosexual attraction and homosexual acts, something that many people on "both" sides often forget. Homosexual attraction, like any other kind of sexual preference, is influenced by a variety of factors; most important of all of those factors is conditioning (like, allowing/encouraging yourself to think homosexual thoughts, or hanging around with homosexuals, for example). Some people can't help that they have homosexual attractions and I completely understand that, as does the Catholic Church believe it or not. The difference though with the Catholic opinion is that we believe that people who experience severe homosexual attraction are called to chastity. And no, that's not "supressing your desires" like most anti-Catholic people make it sound like. Self-control is never a bad thing, last I checked.
I don't particularly care if Catholicism disapproves of the person with whom I've happily spent years of my life. Try as I might, I simply can not feel in any way guilty that rather than live only half a life, alone and in chastity, I chose to pursue a form happiness that harms no one. I am not a Catholic; I do not subscribe to your religion's ludicrous edicts. Though you are entirely free to think whatever you want about it, your religion does not have the right to impose its arbitrary, nonsensical beliefs on me.
You see, my problem with you religious types is not what you believe. I went through hell in high school, and I can now weather the worst of social ostracism and barely bat an eye. My anger comes when you try to codify your beliefs into law, thereby mandating your religion's viewpoints with no option for recourse. I do not think you are a bigot at all. Rather, I think that you are a small mind who would simply feel more comfortable living in a monochromatic world where everyone is forced to adhere to your own standard of "morality." Just stay the hell out of my private life. It is none of your business, and I do not want you in it.
That too. If my psych-major friend ever gets online, I will ask her what part of the brain it was, because she was the one who showed me the studies they did.
You are thinking of the corpus callosum, the bridge linking the left and right hemispheres of the brain.
Interviews are two-way. If a potential employer starts asking me personal questions, they've failed my interview.
... has to have its witch hunt. What I find really odd about it is that some of the same people who now recoil in horror at the thought of what happened during the McCarthyism era will happily toss gasoline onto the pyre of anyone who is accused of pedophilia. Proof isn't an issue anymore; the accusation itself equals certain doom.
My understanding of biology is not exactly advanced, but won't the normal mosquito specimens live longer and thus reproduce more often than the engineered offspring with shorter lifespans? Unless whole geographic areas were populated by the genetically modified offspring, I would think that this measure would be unsuccessful in the long run.
Ah, no, not at all. I meant that Scribd seems to have removed the original document you linked. Thanks for linking that, by the way. Interesting (if depressing) stuff.
The link in your post is dead. This one seems to work: http://www.scribd.com/doc/6674234/Citigroup-Oct-16-2005-Plutonomy-Report-Part-1
What collaboration software did you like the most? My company produces massive detailed design documents, and during the editing phase, I end up getting an e-mail thread with billions of 12MB attachments. It's unmanageable, and I'm really trying to move us away from it. The office staff refuses to even consider Google Docs, so that's not an option.
You're making IE and Safari teams dance too quickly. Turn down the bellows on the coals and let them rest, stagnate. The current state of browsers will be good for the next 50 years. Mozilla should make a kitchen recipe sorter instead.
Too late -- Honewell has had that problem licked since 1969!
You are young, and have not met the big disasters of life yet, like a divorce with children, the death of a loved one, the bad decisions with life-long consequences. At your age I liked keeping track and archives, even bank statements many years back. Not a good idea. Your past starts to grow on you, and can slow you down on your way to new pastures. So remember to build in mechanisms for forgetting all but the most essential stuff. Use Facebook and Linkedin to keep track of people, keep some nice pictures, but learn to delete and forget. You will thank me later.
Words of wisdom. I'm probably as young as the original poster, but experiences in my childhood and adolescence made me emotionally "older" in several important ways. I spent far too much time dwelling over past events that bore no further relevance on my present or my future, so I resolved to break the pattern with a decisive action. On the day I moved away for school, I tossed every object that held a memory, whether sour or sweet, into the flame. It was the most cathartic experience of my life.
Now I frequently purge obsolete emotional artifacts from my dwelling and devices. I think of the process as being similar to pruning yellowing leaves off of an ivy; you have to get rid of the dying ones to let new ones grow.
OK, how do I *not* consign myself to the TSA's procedures if I need to fly somewhere? Go ahead. Tell me. I don't like it, but what do I do? And who is doing it happily? The TSA is the butt of stand up and late night jokes by the shit ton. No one likes those turkeys.
In my haste, I was evidently unclear. I was speaking of the population as a whole rather than of individual citizens. In any case, I am not so sure that the populace is really willing to do away with airport security, even if they do make jokes at its expense. See this poll, for instance.
Meanwhile, most people don't seem to have a problem playing with their phones while doing eighty down the highway.
Yes, *MOST* people support texting and driving. I'm sure you can link to surveys and polls that measured that, right? Right?
I picked a bad example, and you're probably quite correct that more people oppose texting and driving than those who do not. The point I was attempting to illustrate is that people are often disproportionately afraid of an unlikely event's occurrence (for example, a terrorist bombing) while ignoring or downplaying the risks of a higher-probability event's occurrence, such as the possibility of having a car accident for a longtime commuter. This disproportionate fear can often lead to over-reactive, knee-jerk policies that don't really make sense when analyzed in context.
Seriously, dude, you either have a drug warped view of the world, or you just slid in a from another reality.
While I appreciate your feedback, I think you will find that it is not necessary to insult someone in order to disagree or offer objective criticism.
In fact since I am old enough for this, boarding an airliner in the US is now an experience far worse then doing so in the Soviet Union in the heyday of the USSR (and yes, I've been there so I have first hand data to contrast the two).
Human beings are strange critters, especially in numbers. They will happily consign themselves to completely unreasonable treatment by TSA goons to gain the mere perception of protection from an event that has about a 1*10^-1000 percent chance of happening in the first place. Meanwhile, most people don't seem to have a problem playing with their phones while doing eighty down the highway. This type of irrationality continually erodes personal freedom in the USA (and undoubtedly elsewhere).
I use three monitors for my development work. One of these monitors is a traditional 4:3 LCD; I use this to refer to longer documents and source code. The other two monitors are my "main" monitors and are identical 1600x1050 native resolution models. I use these for my IDE/editor and debugging panels. It's the perfect setup for me.
You presume that:
1. Driving while using a cellphone is genetic or otherwise hereditary and thus selectable against. 2. People doing so will be eliminated at a higher rate than people who drive sensibly (There's nothing stopping one idiot in a truckzilla from taking out a family of 7 in a minivan when they blow through a red light doing 90).
I presume nothing, other than that I clearly should include joke tags in the future.
If you text/web and drive, you are a fucking idiot and no better than the idiots who drive under the influence.
I don't care what you do in your home or on your property. I don't care what you do with any other consenting adult or adults. But when you're on the road, you are putting more people than yourself at risk with stupid behavior.
The fine should be $1,500 - no exceptions - and 150 hours of community service. Then we'll see how important it is to update your Facebook status.
I saw a guy reading a book while driving down the highway. I seriously wanted to chop off his nutsack to prevent him from spawning offspring.