Slashdot Mirror


User: Zordak

Zordak's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
2,065
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 2,065

  1. Re:Obvious Reason on Why Women Have No Time For Wikipedia · · Score: 1

    Asking a slashdotter for his insights about women is like asking a Mormon about his favorite microbrews.

    I'm Mormon, and I'll have you know that I have very strong opinions about which local microbrew has the best root beer, you insensitive clod!

  2. Re:In other words... on FCC Warned Not To Take Actions a Republican-Led FCC Would Dislike · · Score: 1

    Please, go read even the Wikipedia article on the Tenth Amendment. You are embarrassing yourself. (And perhaps you could explain why my bar card would not be persuasive evidence in your fantasy land where somebody accuses me in court of failing law school.)

  3. Re:In other words... on FCC Warned Not To Take Actions a Republican-Led FCC Would Dislike · · Score: 1

    The Supremacy Clause does not trump Article 1, Section 8 where the powers of the federal government are specifically enumerated, or the Bill of Rights, which was passed to capture the votes of anti-federalists who feared that the new government would get too powerful if there were not explicit checks placed on its power. Seriously, just read even the Wikipedia article on the Tenth Amendment. This is not some novel, controversial issue to people who have a clue what they're talking about.

  4. Re:In other words... on FCC Warned Not To Take Actions a Republican-Led FCC Would Dislike · · Score: 1

    You have no idea what you're talking about. Yes, the Constitution was supposed to be stronger than the Articles of Confederation. That is not synonymous with unlimited and all-powerful.

  5. Re:In other words... on FCC Warned Not To Take Actions a Republican-Led FCC Would Dislike · · Score: 1

    You'd fail law school. 10th amendment is an throw away amendment that holds no legal meaning or legal standard. It's used today to galvanize the states rights / confederate base but there is no sound legal jurisprudence that has ever been accepted by the Supreme Court.

    I have a JD and a Texas bar card that say otherwise.

  6. Re:In other words... on FCC Warned Not To Take Actions a Republican-Led FCC Would Dislike · · Score: 3

    You're thinking of the Articles of Confederacy, which preceded the Constitution. Study your history.

    No, you're thinking of some government that you just made up. Go read the Constitution, especially the 10th Amendment. The states wanted to make it very clear that they were giving the federal government only specific, enumerated powers. Then FDR told the court where it could stick its Constitution (as the GP said) and told them that if they didn't back down, he would stack the court with yes-men who would give him his way. The court backed down, and the result was 75 years of the federal government encroaching into everyday life until you couldn't buy a shower head without Uncle Sam's permission, and people like you who don't even realize anymore that it was supposed to be a government of specific, enumerated powers.

  7. Mothra on Scientists Developing Remote-Control Cyborg Moths · · Score: 2

    This will obviously ultimately lead to Mothra, which will be aswesome, especially if these guys also figure out how to build Godzilla so they can have an epic battle to the death that wrecks a scale model of Tokyo.

  8. Re:Will not matter. on Selectable Ethics For Robotic Cars and the Possibility of a Robot Car Bomb · · Score: 1

    Those mistakes will lead to lawsuits. You were injured when a vehicle manufactured by "Artificially Intelligent Motors, inc (AIM, inc)" hit you by "choice". That "choice" was programmed into that vehicle at the demand of "AIM, inc" management. So no. No company would take that risk. And anyone stupid enough to try would not write perfect code and would be sued out of existence after their first patch.

    What will happen is that the manufacturers will lobby for a statutory "safe harbor." The legislature will make the ethical decisions in advance, or provide a menu of "safe" ethical options. And the manufacturer will be statutorily immune from lawsuits as long as they have followed those safe harbor guidelines. This is a good thing in theory, as it permits the technology to progress, where lawsuits would otherwise eliminate it. So don't worry about the manufacturers. What you should worry about is that those clowns in Washington, D.C.* will be selling off their "ethics" decisions under the table in exchange for cushy corner-office jobs with AIM, Inc. after they retire from public office.

    *Yes, it will inevitably be a federal law, though just as inevitably, California will have some granola-munching variant that requires autonomous cars operating in California to place a super-premium on the lives of endangered salamanders or something.

  9. Re:economy bullshit argument on Is the App Store Broken? · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Apple users are not the kind of people who drive to a different supermarket because the tomatoes are 5 cents cheaper there.

    Exactly. They're the type of people who always shop at the same supermarket, where the tomatoes cost twice as much as anywhere else and have a glossy wax coating, are all the same, approved size, and are utterly free of any flavor. In fact, they don't even know how to cook, and don't know why they're buying tomatoes in the first place, except that the reanimated corpse of Steve Jobs told them to. They buy their precious, shiny iTomatoes and dutifully display them in the crispers of their iRefrigerators. Then a week later, they toss them out and go back to the iGroceryStore and buy the new, upgraded iTomato 5S, with even more shiny and even less flavor.

  10. Re:let me correct that for you. on Experiment Shows People Exposed To East German Socialism Cheat More · · Score: 1

    You consider a world where nobody has to work as a utopia. My observation is just the opposite. If you take effort away from people, they tend to become entitled, lazy, selfish, and (ironically, with more leisure time) miserable.

    Where are you getting this from? I detect a very basic failure to either apply critical thinking or reading comprehension.

    From your constant insistence, over multiple comments, that under your proposed system nobody would "have" to work. I consider it a privilege to be able to work to provide for myself and my family, not a burden to be cast off at the first opportunity. My ideal world is one where everybody has the ability and opportunity to work for a living wage, not one where everybody gets free stuff.

  11. Re:let me correct that for you. on Experiment Shows People Exposed To East German Socialism Cheat More · · Score: 1

    As a matter of strict values, I share your vision of a world where nobody goes hungry or cold. But I strongly disagree with your path to getting there. You consider a world where nobody has to work as a utopia. My observation is just the opposite. If you take effort away from people, they tend to become entitled, lazy, selfish, and (ironically, with more leisure time) miserable. They may have enough to eat, but they lose so much of their humanity that they become less excellent as people. There is intrinsic value to hard work. In my experience, people who work hard (up to a certain limit) are happier. A society of bored people is one where crime is rampant and people are full of envy and strife (because nothing begets envy like a sense of entitlement). And that's not even to mention practical issues, like the inflation that dogs basic income economies.

    My "utopia" is one where everybody works hard when they're working. When they're not working, ideally, they're building strong nuclear and extended families, raising children with a strong work ethic, and teaching them that when they are able, they should help those whose efforts have been less fruitful than their own. That help involves, for example, helping people through tough times, or giving them a lift while they do something to improve themselves like get an education or start a business. The end goal is always for everybody to get to a point where they can support themselves by their own efforts, so that nobody is dependent on government largess (as opposed to everybody). In fact, government hardly enters into it, except for providing some basic infrastructure and emergency services.

    Perhaps that society is not possible in our present human condition, but it is an ideal I would sooner seek after than one where an over-powerful central government deals with poverty by subsidizing laziness.

  12. Re:don't drive with nobody in it? on FBI Concerned About Criminals Using Driverless Cars · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think the more eminent threat is that automated cars are going to result in lots of sex happening on the road.

    Sex is a lot more comfortable on a soft, roomy bed. And I don't want my car to smell like bodily fluids. I'm going to spend the time reading.

  13. Re:Study first, then appeal on Court Rejects Fox's Attempt to Use Aereo Ruling Against Dish's Hopper · · Score: 1

    Essentially the judge points out that a different case requires a different trial. This also means more arguments to study for appealing the Aereo ruling. If Dish's lawyers poke holes in Fox's arguments that led to the Aereo ruling, those arguments are fair game for Aereo's lawyers to use if they're applicable.

    I think you misunderstand the "Supreme" part of the "Supreme Court," and the legal doctrine of res judicata.

  14. Re:Yay big government! on Police Recording Confirms NYPD Flew At a Drone and Never Feared Crashing · · Score: 1

    You seem to make it an either/or proposition. You can have laws that prevent these kinds of abuses without having huge regulatory bodies that just end up being the lapdogs of the "regulated" industry.

  15. Re:Yay big government! on Police Recording Confirms NYPD Flew At a Drone and Never Feared Crashing · · Score: 1

    This is the other kneejerk response to any suggestion of reduced government spending that needs to die forever.

    1 - How about we cut government spending in some are other than the tiny percentage spent on protecting people against corporate abuse?

    2 - We have a system in place for this. The problem with it is not that it's underfunded, but that it's been corrupted by the very corporations it tries to regulate! Arguably, stuff like the DMCA shows that more harm than good is done in some areas, thanks to this. This is perhaps the most serious problem in internal politics in America today but it's not in any way a funding problem.

    And you just disproved your thesis. The end result of a body that regulates a business sector is always that the regulators get in bed with the people they're supposedly regulating and work together to erect barriers to entry into their cozy little oligopoly. Throwing more money at them will not fix the problem.

  16. Re:Underlying cause? on NSA Considers Linux Journal Readers, Tor (And Linux?) Users "Extremists" · · Score: 1

    Well, I didn't actually say anything about Senator McCarthy. It is true that there were communist infiltrators, and it is true that the Rosenbergs were guilty. I'm talking about J. Edgar Hoover, who had secret files on pretty much every person in power in America. Like that dangerous communist, John F. Kennedy, for example, who knew not to mess with J. Edgar because J. Edgar could prove that Jack was bedding two or three different women a week. How many current politicians know not to mess with the NSA, because they know the NSA could scuttle their careers?

  17. Re:Know your history on NSA Considers Linux Journal Readers, Tor (And Linux?) Users "Extremists" · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately, when it happens, the good things about the USA will fall with it. I admit, I enjoy being in a place where I can live on a nice suburban street with minimal immediate worries, drive a comfortable car with air conditioning, gas it up when necessary, and purchase as much food as I need at the grocery store whenever I need it. When the house of cards comes tumbling down, the WHOLE house of cards will come with it. Of course, our runaway spending will probably topple it before the iron fist of the NSA. But when it does happen, it will hardly matter what the most immediate exciting cause was.

  18. Re:Know your history on NSA Considers Linux Journal Readers, Tor (And Linux?) Users "Extremists" · · Score: 1

    One YEAR. The exact same trend is continuing. No one of power is fighting this. No one is backing down.

    No one, or almost no one, gets that high in the political machine without having some serious skeletons in the closet. And who knows where all those skeletons are hidden? Oh, yeah. The NSA. QED

  19. Re:To a coward... on NSA Considers Linux Journal Readers, Tor (And Linux?) Users "Extremists" · · Score: 3, Informative

    There is an old saying: in a democracy, people deserve the government they get.

    Actually, the saying is, "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." It was H.L. Mencken who said it.

  20. Re:Underlying cause? on NSA Considers Linux Journal Readers, Tor (And Linux?) Users "Extremists" · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So - all in all, the tremendous snooping effort is not showing much result and essentially being a flop.

    I don't know about that. I'm sure it's been about as successful as J. Edgar Hoover's mid-century communism witch hunts, which had more to do with propping up Hoover's own personal empire than with catching communists.

  21. Re:Faith in God on Site of 1976 "Atomic Man" Accident To Be Cleaned · · Score: 2

    I have yet to see a war declared where a faction says, "Science is on our side!"

    Then you need to study the history of the 20th Century, and eugenics.

  22. Re:Pivotal Decision That Went The Wrong Way... on Following EU Ruling, BBC Article Excluded From Google Searches · · Score: 1

    On one hand you have a guy who got in a bar fight when he was in college. Some drunk idiot spills beer on his girlfriend, so he confronts drunk idiot and beats him down, then gets charged with assault. On the other hand, you have this piece of shit (Stan O'Neil).

    Perhaps the answer is to remember that "information wants to be free," and therefore it's a bad idea to beat up some random guy because he spilled beer on your girlfriend if that's not the kind of reputation you want to have. In the meantime, other people can consider whether this 20-year-old assault charge is or is not relevant to their particular circumstances. If I'm looking to hire somebody where overall emotional sobriety and self control are important, I'd at least want to find out if he'd cooled his temper in the past 20 years. If I'm interested in the guy's credit before I complete a financial transaction with him, I couldn't care less about his 20 year old assault charge.

  23. Re:Discovery of self-hosted videos on Google: Indie Musicians Must Join Streaming Service Or Be Removed · · Score: 1

    1. How do you find out about the band in the first place? Fact is, YouTube is the place for a lot of indies to make it big.

    2. You haven't visited YouTube in a while, have you? Everybody has their official content there. You can even rent movies there.

  24. Re:Ummm on Google: Indie Musicians Must Join Streaming Service Or Be Removed · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Don't be evil" is the Nobel Peace Prize of corporate slogans: It started out as a sincere, non-ironic effort, and then gradually morphed into the world's best parody of itself.

  25. Re: We want driverless cars TODAY! on US Agency Aims To Regulate Map Aids In Vehicles · · Score: 1

    Bicycle?