Or, you could just require everyone to make up some unique handle like you have to do on Slashdot and many other sites. So, if Zordak were already taken, I would be out of luck and have to choose a different name. It could be fun to see stuffed suits at formal meetings introducing each other as 1337_h4X0r_2297 and such.
*WHY* would a government agency, who primary concern is nation al security (supposedly only outside of American soil), mess with a 'grass roots' OS, modify its kernel, then *RELEASE* it to the public?
Because that's their job. Computer security is part of their mission. If we're always touting the benefits of the open-source development model here on slashdot, why should it bother us so much that a government agency has seen the light and wants to use that model. The NSA realizes that lots of eyes means better security -- which is what we've been saying all along. This is a good thing. Better security means that we have better control over classified information. That's what this is about. It has nothing to do with the NSA spying on you. It would be stupid for them to try to do it this way, because they have absolutely no control over who installs it where. They would have to track down the computers running the patched kernel, and then hope that one of those computers belongs to somebody they hope to spy on. That would be a tremendous waste of time and resources. If they want to spy on somebody, they will find a way to target that person, not release a patch and pray that he just happens to install it.
Re: your example of the IT worker who got nailed by the FBI -- I have a hard time feeling like that was a tremendous breach of privacy. Depending on what you mean by "classified" (do you mean the real definition of government classified, or do you mean company proprietary), he was guilty of either espionage or at very least industrial espionage. Those are the kind of people I want the government to spy on. Like I said, they don't care about you if you don't give them a reason to. And let's pretend they do. Say they spy on me. What are they going to see? Nothing. I don't have anything to hide. The most incriminating thing they might find is e-mails to my wife. Big deal. If you're not doing anything wrong, even if they do see something of yours, they will ignore you until you do something wrong. I personally just think you saw Enemy of the State one too many times.
I'm not sure if you're trolling, or just karma whoring, hoping some 13-year-old with mod points will mod you up as "informative" or "insightful" because you're bashing a 'gummint' agency, and I probably shouldn't bother, but I'll go ahead and bite.
Those disclaimers are the exact same disclaimers, almost word for word, that you will find on MANY MANY pieces of software (especially Open Source types). Just because the big, scary government likes to cover their butts the same as everyone else, that doesn't mean that they're out to spy on your computer. You flatter yourself to think that the NSA even cares about the half-naked Brittney Spears pictures you are downloading. They don't. The source code that is being patched into your kernel is right there in front of you. If you have concerns about it, read it. I'm sure that many people will, just to make sure there are no back doors. If you find a back door, fix it. They can't patch something into your kernel without your interaction. Now go back to playing your video games, and let the educated people see if they can do something useful with this patch.
P.S. I only speak in condescending tones to those who sound like children.
I agree that there are bad teachers. I've known many of them. There are also bad Physicists and bad anything else. That doesn't mean that most teachers are bad teachers. My point was that the solution to better teachers is not to require all of them to be Ph.D.'s in Physics. Many of the teachers start out pretty good and just get so sick of all the crap that they turn into grumpy old farts. Leave them alone and let them teach, and maybe that won't happen as much. Of course it would also help if the parents taught the kids some manners, but I digress.
This guy is just a pompous jackass. I agree that teachers deserve to be paid more, but he implies that because they are paid little, they are of lesser quality than, to be precise, him. I'll have to take issue with him on that. My wife is an elementary school teacher. She did not choose to teach becauase she hated science (I know of at least two science classes she had to take to graduate), or because she hated math (she took Calculus even before she went to college). She became a teacher because she wanted to teach children. Lots of people do that. What's more screwed up is the infrastructure that does not allow teachers to teach science. They just end up teaching to standardized tests, and so the students don't learn anything. Yes, pay the teachers more. But also leave them alone and let them teach. Get rid of some of the crap in the system, and free up their time to devote to teaching.
My other bone to pick is that not everyone needs to be a Ph.D. in science (I say this being a student of electrical engineering). I started out as a Physics major. I switched to engineering because it's more commercially viable. Certainly pure sciences are valuable (I'm considering getting my Masters in Physics), but we don't need everyone in the world to be a Physicist going around with an elitist attitude. In fact, I'm glad that there are carpenters and plumbers and landscapers and other people with little or no science education. A lot of those people don't want science degrees because it doesn't interest them. Just like professional carpentry or plumbing or landscaping don't interest me. Diversity is not a bad thing.
make people pay for the priviledge of owning a piece of the trash.
Actually, the people no longer have the privilege of owning a piece of the trash. They get to pay (preferrably by giving Redmond their credit card number and a Carte Blanche on its use) for the privilege of licensing a copy (they don't even own the copy, mind you) of the trash that is hard-wired to a particular garbage can. Later, when TrashSOL is released, they will be automatically billed for the upgrade and it will be downloaded to their garbage can without their knowledge or consent. If you upgrade to a new garbage can, be prepared to license a new copy of the trash.
Actually, I have used both vi and emacs quite a bit in windows. There are ports available. I use vim for Windows when I have to use Windows because it's a lot more powerful and usable than that WordPad (or whatever that lame text editor is called).
I still maintain, however, that it was (and should be) her choice in the end.
I'll have to jump into the discussion here. I believe that the power to choose is one of the most fundamental principles of humanity, and should not be taken from anybody. However, the power to choose does not necessarily imply the power to right to choose indiscriminately. Choices have consequences, good or bad. If you cannot live with the consequences of one choice, the responsible thing to do is to choose an alternative. In short, I think the woman has the right to choose in the beginning, but that does not absolve her (or her partner) of responsibility for their actions. If pregnancy is a choice you and your partner cannot live with, then DON'T HAVE SEX. It is reckless and irresponsible to make a human life, even in its earliest stages of development, bear the consequences of your irresponsible decisions. Then, you will argue, what about victims of rape? The victim of rape never made a choice to have sex, so she cannot be held responsible for its consequences. In that case I agree with you that it is solely her decision what to do with the pregnancy. But I do not think that rape victims form a bulk of the cases of abortion. I think the largest percentage of abortions is people seeking to avoid the natural consequence of an action (in this case, unwanted pregnancy as a result of illicit sex)
Abortion wouldn't be nearly as big an issue (nor would AIDS and many other problems) as it is if people could just learn to keep it in their pants. It's not that difficult. Yes, it takes some effort, but it can be done (I did not have sex until I got married, at which point my wife and I were both prepared to live with the consequences of sex, which at that point were quite positive). If you think you can't, then you've already made your choice, and by making the choice, you have also chosen the consequences.
I'm going to have to spar with you again. I haven't read the proposed bill, but it appears from the post that it's aimed solely at congressmen/women. You would still be free to jump in bed with whomever you please (consensually, and over 18 at least), which is what you're really concerned about, no doubt. If you're married, I pity your spouse for your attitude. If not, then you're just blowing smoke about something that has nothing to do with you anyway.
What a repulsively illogical retort. The fact that somebody believes that it is wrong for all of the congressmen to be screwing their interns, and you believe otherwise means that he has never left the little town he grew up in? Yes, I believe in freedom, but not in anarchy. There will always be bounds set on behavior. It is then up to the people to decide what bounds are acceptable. Some are pretty widely accepted (like we don't let people kill each other). Others spawn debate, and the freedom to discuss those and make decisions is what makes us a free state. What was proposed in this bill and what you are deriding as closed minded is not a terribly radical idea. Regardless of your stance on the morality of breaking marital vows (apparently you think it's healthy, although if you want, I can find reliable research that indicates differently), there is precedent for prohibiting leaders from fraternizing with inferiors, and this is certainly an extreme form of fraternization (try becoming a military officer and having an illicit affair with a private and see how well it's looked upon). Your argument that mistresses have been around for a long time, therefore are good, is simply ridiculous. If you believe the Biblical account, murder predates even adultery. Do you care to defend it on those grounds?
As our government officials are supposed to be representatives of the people, they should be held to the highest moral standards as that would help us feel more comfortable about why they make certain decisions. Perhaps if congress was held to a higher moral standard, we wouldn't have to worry about the corporations owning them as so many people complain about here. Unfortunately, it's usually the other way around. For some reason, holding public office makes them exempt from having to exercise even common decency.
Just for the record, I have travelled outside of my city, state and country, I have actually lived in a foreign country (not in the military, either), and I do speak its language. I have also studied as much as possible other cultures and customs to at least be familiar with them. So I don't think I'm looking at the world through a tiny pin hole.
I think it sounds kind of like fraternizing with the enemy. Who has that cool.sig about nobody ever winning the battle of the sexes because there's too much fraternization with the enemy? I think this is the perfect word for that, ala
Nobody will ever win the war of the sexes because there is too much commingling.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e
No, you've got it all wrong. It shouldn't ask you what you want to do. It should tell you what to do. You have to realize, that users are totally clueless and they don't know what they want. They have to be pulled around the desktop and told what they want. Here is a much better scenario:
Hello, you want to login as MsBob, right?: msbob You're going to enter your password now: ******** Welcome to Windows 2004! Do you want to see the list of Microsoft-approved websites, or use the latest beta of.NET?: Netscape I'm sorry, 'Netscape' is not an approved program. By requesting this forbidden operation, your lease on the operating system has been accelerated 7 months.
WARNING: Your lease on this Operating System has EXPIRED, but you are still using it. This behavior is undemocratic and illegal. The MS piracy police will be visiting you shortly.
[computer starts smoking and monitor melts...]
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e
This will probably get everybody all up in arms, but Nuclear Weapons are probably even more misunderstood than nuclear power. You say nuke and everyone thinks about those Japanese cities that we completely leveled (we didn't) with those two bombs and mushroom clouds and one bomb will wipe out an entire city and the radiation will contaminate the whole earth for 500 years. None of that is true. The deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki comprised somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of the total Japanese deaths from American bombing raids. Hiroshima was hammered, but certainly not leveled (the firestorm did much more damage than the actual blast). For Nagasaki, which got hit in a hilly area, the area of really heavy destruction was somewhere around a mile and a half, and most of the people that were killed were not killed by the initial blast.
It is true that the nuclear testing done in the 50's and 60's was careless by modern standards, but that was mostly because we had a beast on our hands that we did not completely understand, but that we had to keep developing for the sake of our survival. The defense nuclear weapons industry of the 21st century is not the industry of the mid 20th century. The sad truth is that since nuclear weapons have been invented, people have them, and that means we have to have them. Even at that, the trend of recent history has been towards smaller and fewer. Our total number of warheads is a small fraction of what it used to be in the heyday of the 60's. Our big, scary Peacekeeper ICBM's carry smaller warheads (about 300 kT) than the Titans of yesteryear and are much more accurate (we can basically hit a football field with them). They are optimized for hard target kills (taking out the enemies weapons), not for wiping out whole cities. They are terribly destructive, but not the way people envision them. We really are not out to depopulate the whole earth, and I would tell any green freak to his face two things. One, that the only reason he is able to stand around protesting things he doesn't understand is because we have these weapons, and two, the people who work with those weapons and actually understand them are a lot less anxious to see them fired than he is.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e
My wife has wanted a house since about the day we got married. She spent about two years searching the internet and wishing we could afford the homes she saw on realtor.com (I'm still in school, so our budget is pretty tight). All of the ones in our price range were dumps. After we had given up the prospect of finding a house before I graduate, we got a reference for a good realtor. The first house he showed us was a nice little one that was exactly the price we had been searching for. He was able to get to know us a little, and found us something that fit our needs. The bottom line is, no computer algorithm has the reasoning power of an intelligent person. Also, since we are first time home buyers, he was a good point of contact for all of the little things we had to get done. We're closing on the place next week. For almost anything else, I'd just as soon shop online, but for a purchase that big, it was good to have a human interface. Just my $0.02.
This is a bad thing? If some rich drunken moron in a huge SUV ran me down, I'd be ecstatic to hear that his overpriced toy was what allowed the cops to nail him. The On-Star gadget tracking his movements would not have turned out to be a problem if he had not been driving drunk. Please, show me an example where this thing harmed someone who was not doing something stupid and illegal, and it might sway me.
I would think that many companies coding for the government would intentionally make their code poorly documented or use obscure methods so as to eliminate the potential for your example (competeing companies would have to place a higher bid to cover the cost of researching the coding methods before modifying it).
Intentional or not, the code I am upgrading is poorly written (full of global variables, nested macros and the stupid DOS GUI was interlocked with even the lowest-level modules). I couldn't use more than about 4 functions "as-is." Most of the stuff I just had to rewrite using the old source code as a guide. You're right in that, if there is a follow-on for an upgrade, the government is not required to give it to us, but probably would because nobody knows that code as well as I do. However, government contracts usually require a ream of documentation to be delivered with them, so yes, you can write bad code, but usually somebody else can figure it out.
Are you saying the government buys a unique compiler for each program it contracts?
No, but in this case it was specified in the contract. Part of the development price was the purchase of an IDE. I think a government shift to Linux would actually help Borland tremendously now that they have Kylix and are moving towards a C++ release of the same. I would love to have a reason to tell our customer that we absolutely have to get a copy of Kylix:-)
The one problem would be porting proprietary windows programs written for gov use. Unfortunately I'd imagine most of the developers would charge an arm and a leg for porting it. With something like Wine though, this would be less of an issue.
I write Windows programs for the government (Air Force) and I know WINE won't run my app. However, the porting problem is not as great as you imply. You are thinking the contractor has proprietary ownership of code written for the government. This is only true if the government buys commercially available software, for which there are always competitors. When I write code for the government, they pay me to write it, so they own that code. At the end of the project, I deliver all of the source code to them, and in this case even the Compiler/IDE (C++ Builder) because they paid for that too. In fact, the program I am ready to sell off is an upgrade of a program written by one of our big competitors. The upgrade contract was given to us. If the goverment decided to move to *NIX, they would probably go competitive with most of the ports, so if we asked for too much money, they would just award the contract to another contractor. Personally, I would love to see them move to a standardized *NIX solution. I think they are entirely too dependent on MS right now.
Have you personally been convicted of DWI based solely on your refusal to take a test? Has someone you personally know? Have you even heard of a specific instance of this happening? Or are you just shouting nonsense for its sensationalist, anti-establishment rhetorical value? For all of Slashdot's posts from people crying about how terrible the US has become and how their constitutional rights have been crushed under the tremendous weight of corporate America, I don't see a huge exodus to parts elsewhere. Honestly, I agree that in many cases the original intent of the constitution has been overwhelmed by interpretations favorable to some special interest or another, and usually those are special interests that are able to gather lots of funds. But even conceding that, there is a reason there are a lot more people breaking their necks to get into this country than to get out of it. This is still a great place to be. If you ever think differently, go check out the political climate in Korea. Ask some old people how their relatives in the North live. Talk to the guys in South Korea (i.e. The Republic of Korea) who are forced to spend two of the best years of their lives in mandatory active military service, and several more years in the reserve. Ask about what they have to do to make sure their government can keep tabs on them if they move. It's a beautiful place, but I promise you that there are lots more Koreans emigrating to the US than the other way around, and it's the same throughout much of the rest of the world. I think Americans need to stop worrying so much about their rights and start thinking about their responsibilities. I think one would follow the other.
Nobody is forcing anybody to install filters. The mandate is that if you accept government money to build your computer network, you play by the government's rules, which include filters. If some outfit wants an uncensored internet, then they don't have to take government money for it. It's that simple.
Do you really think that censorware will cripple our children's education? Is it really so important that they can look at pictures of naked women at school? I personally did quite well in school without access to pornography, and you probably did too, since most school libraries do not have a subscription to Playboy.
Let the (poorly spelled and logically flawed) flames roll...
>>The Shouptronic is a closed system that isn't open for inspection. Several groups argue that it has been used to fix the vote in elections. This is a good argument to use an open system for election counting.
Of course!!! The Shouptronic is made by a corporation, all corporations are all about money, so they are pro-Republican. That's why the Republicans win every office in every election!!!
Yeah, vote Nader so we can legalize drugs and come up with more brilliant ideas like this while we're all stoned off our arses.
I agree with you on most points. It is the parents' job to raise children, and parents who do not intend to raise their children have no business having them. I'm about to have a daughter in a very few weeks, and the last entity I want raising her is the federal government. It's important enough that my wife recently left her job so that she could be home to take care of her. This is not an issue I am shaky on. I am also a huge proponent of individual responsibility, and I agree that it is something that is often lacking among our populace. As I said before, I believe this law would give parents another tool to help them out. You obviously disagree with me on this, and I respect your right to your opinion. It was at least more intelligent than some of the other responses I got.
Please reduce your crack intake which hopefully would reduce your hyperbolic waste output.
My original comment:
While it is true that you cannot trace the increasingly brazen violence going on to a single source (such as video games), there is a definite trend towards violence in our society
I did not mention "crime rates". I mentioned "brazen violence," specifically thinking of the disturbing and abundant examples of mass shootings in various public places. I really do believe that people are becoming desensitized to violence. If you have an intelligent argument to offer against this, please offer it. Comments on crack usage do not tend to sway my political opinions.
Say that in the privacy of your home, and nobody will care. Try publicly threatening the president, or try writing him a note informing him that you intend to kill him (which you should sign so as to better make your point about "free" speech, something you neglected to do with your post), and see how far your supposed rights will take you.
>> You can also incite rebellion against the gov't. That is a right specifically delineated in the Constitution!
For your convenience, I have printed below Article III, Section 3 in its entirety. Please point out to me the section that specifically protects rebellion against the government.
>>Treason against the United States, shall consist
only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment
of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.
>>Why is it reasonable to tell a teenager, "If you play a violent video game, I will lock you in a cell with criminals!" That seems like a terrible thing to me. Why do you want that? Even if violent games really are a bad influence, isn't prison a worse one?
I have not read the full text of the law, but I supposed it to be intended to prevent teenagers from purchasing video games without parental consent. I doubt it contains a provision to throw the kids in jail if they play such video games. If it does contain such a provision, then I stand with you in disagreeing with that position.
>>Hitler decided that Jews were not to be caught breathing. Is that a limitation or a ban? What the hell is the difference?
Neither. If you check your trusty dictionary, I believe you will find that under "genocide." Limiting video game purchases without parental consent is not even close to genocide. It is a limitation.
The declaration of independence is not the constitution. They are totally separate documents that were written at different times for different reasons. The Declaration of Independence is a great document, but it is a break from a government, not an establishment of a new one. The Constitution is the document that should govern our laws (though, mostly, it doesn't anymore, which is sad).
The editors may also try to learn a little bit about the constitution they cry about every time someone "infringes" on one of their "rights". The right to free speech, included in an amendment to the constitution, is not an all-sweeping, all-inclusive right. For example, I am not "free" to make threats against the president, I am not "free" to incite rebellion against the government, I am not "free" to aid or comfort foreign powers considered to be enemies of the goverment, and furthermore, "obscenities" were never intended to be protected under this right. Of course, the "obscene" classification has become almost non-existant by this time, but it seems reasonable to at least restrict teenagers (under 18, i.e. not a legal adult) from obtaining this kind of trash without their parents' knowledge. While it is true that you cannot trace the increasingly brazen violence going on to a single source (such as video games), there is a definite trend towards violence in our society, and I don't think it's unreasonable to give parents a little help in keeping tabs on what's going on in their homes. Perhaps you could check your vocabulary and realize there is a difference between a limitation and a "ban."
I used to enjoy reading slashdot, but that was because I thought it was supposed to be a tech forum, not a propoganda page for inflammatory pseudo-polotics. Go back to reporting tech news. Leave political misinformation to the politicians.
Slashdot Mirror
Or, you could just require everyone to make up some unique handle like you have to do on Slashdot and many other sites. So, if Zordak were already taken, I would be out of luck and have to choose a different name. It could be fun to see stuffed suits at formal meetings introducing each other as 1337_h4X0r_2297 and such.
Because that's their job. Computer security is part of their mission. If we're always touting the benefits of the open-source development model here on slashdot, why should it bother us so much that a government agency has seen the light and wants to use that model. The NSA realizes that lots of eyes means better security -- which is what we've been saying all along. This is a good thing. Better security means that we have better control over classified information. That's what this is about. It has nothing to do with the NSA spying on you. It would be stupid for them to try to do it this way, because they have absolutely no control over who installs it where. They would have to track down the computers running the patched kernel, and then hope that one of those computers belongs to somebody they hope to spy on. That would be a tremendous waste of time and resources. If they want to spy on somebody, they will find a way to target that person, not release a patch and pray that he just happens to install it.
Re: your example of the IT worker who got nailed by the FBI -- I have a hard time feeling like that was a tremendous breach of privacy. Depending on what you mean by "classified" (do you mean the real definition of government classified, or do you mean company proprietary), he was guilty of either espionage or at very least industrial espionage. Those are the kind of people I want the government to spy on. Like I said, they don't care about you if you don't give them a reason to. And let's pretend they do. Say they spy on me. What are they going to see? Nothing. I don't have anything to hide. The most incriminating thing they might find is e-mails to my wife. Big deal. If you're not doing anything wrong, even if they do see something of yours, they will ignore you until you do something wrong. I personally just think you saw Enemy of the State one too many times.
Those disclaimers are the exact same disclaimers, almost word for word, that you will find on MANY MANY pieces of software (especially Open Source types). Just because the big, scary government likes to cover their butts the same as everyone else, that doesn't mean that they're out to spy on your computer. You flatter yourself to think that the NSA even cares about the half-naked Brittney Spears pictures you are downloading. They don't. The source code that is being patched into your kernel is right there in front of you. If you have concerns about it, read it. I'm sure that many people will, just to make sure there are no back doors. If you find a back door, fix it. They can't patch something into your kernel without your interaction. Now go back to playing your video games, and let the educated people see if they can do something useful with this patch.
P.S. I only speak in condescending tones to those who sound like children.
I agree that there are bad teachers. I've known many of them. There are also bad Physicists and bad anything else. That doesn't mean that most teachers are bad teachers. My point was that the solution to better teachers is not to require all of them to be Ph.D.'s in Physics. Many of the teachers start out pretty good and just get so sick of all the crap that they turn into grumpy old farts. Leave them alone and let them teach, and maybe that won't happen as much. Of course it would also help if the parents taught the kids some manners, but I digress.
My other bone to pick is that not everyone needs to be a Ph.D. in science (I say this being a student of electrical engineering). I started out as a Physics major. I switched to engineering because it's more commercially viable. Certainly pure sciences are valuable (I'm considering getting my Masters in Physics), but we don't need everyone in the world to be a Physicist going around with an elitist attitude. In fact, I'm glad that there are carpenters and plumbers and landscapers and other people with little or no science education. A lot of those people don't want science degrees because it doesn't interest them. Just like professional carpentry or plumbing or landscaping don't interest me. Diversity is not a bad thing.
Actually, the people no longer have the privilege of owning a piece of the trash. They get to pay (preferrably by giving Redmond their credit card number and a Carte Blanche on its use) for the privilege of licensing a copy (they don't even own the copy, mind you) of the trash that is hard-wired to a particular garbage can. Later, when TrashSOL is released, they will be automatically billed for the upgrade and it will be downloaded to their garbage can without their knowledge or consent. If you upgrade to a new garbage can, be prepared to license a new copy of the trash.
Actually, I have used both vi and emacs quite a bit in windows. There are ports available. I use vim for Windows when I have to use Windows because it's a lot more powerful and usable than that WordPad (or whatever that lame text editor is called).
I'll have to jump into the discussion here. I believe that the power to choose is one of the most fundamental principles of humanity, and should not be taken from anybody. However, the power to choose does not necessarily imply the power to right to choose indiscriminately. Choices have consequences, good or bad. If you cannot live with the consequences of one choice, the responsible thing to do is to choose an alternative. In short, I think the woman has the right to choose in the beginning, but that does not absolve her (or her partner) of responsibility for their actions. If pregnancy is a choice you and your partner cannot live with, then DON'T HAVE SEX. It is reckless and irresponsible to make a human life, even in its earliest stages of development, bear the consequences of your irresponsible decisions. Then, you will argue, what about victims of rape? The victim of rape never made a choice to have sex, so she cannot be held responsible for its consequences. In that case I agree with you that it is solely her decision what to do with the pregnancy. But I do not think that rape victims form a bulk of the cases of abortion. I think the largest percentage of abortions is people seeking to avoid the natural consequence of an action (in this case, unwanted pregnancy as a result of illicit sex)
Abortion wouldn't be nearly as big an issue (nor would AIDS and many other problems) as it is if people could just learn to keep it in their pants. It's not that difficult. Yes, it takes some effort, but it can be done (I did not have sex until I got married, at which point my wife and I were both prepared to live with the consequences of sex, which at that point were quite positive). If you think you can't, then you've already made your choice, and by making the choice, you have also chosen the consequences.
I'm going to have to spar with you again. I haven't read the proposed bill, but it appears from the post that it's aimed solely at congressmen/women. You would still be free to jump in bed with whomever you please (consensually, and over 18 at least), which is what you're really concerned about, no doubt. If you're married, I pity your spouse for your attitude. If not, then you're just blowing smoke about something that has nothing to do with you anyway.
As our government officials are supposed to be representatives of the people, they should be held to the highest moral standards as that would help us feel more comfortable about why they make certain decisions. Perhaps if congress was held to a higher moral standard, we wouldn't have to worry about the corporations owning them as so many people complain about here. Unfortunately, it's usually the other way around. For some reason, holding public office makes them exempt from having to exercise even common decency.
Just for the record, I have travelled outside of my city, state and country, I have actually lived in a foreign country (not in the military, either), and I do speak its language. I have also studied as much as possible other cultures and customs to at least be familiar with them. So I don't think I'm looking at the world through a tiny pin hole.
I think it sounds kind of like fraternizing with the enemy. Who has that cool .sig about nobody ever winning the battle of the sexes because there's too much fraternization with the enemy? I think this is the perfect word for that, ala
Nobody will ever win the war of the sexes because there is too much commingling.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e
No, you've got it all wrong. It shouldn't ask you what you want to do. It should tell you what to do. You have to realize, that users are totally clueless and they don't know what they want. They have to be pulled around the desktop and told what they want. Here is a much better scenario:
.NET?: Netscape
Hello, you want to login as MsBob, right? : msbob
You're going to enter your password now: ********
Welcome to Windows 2004!
Do you want to see the list of Microsoft-approved websites, or use the latest beta of
I'm sorry, 'Netscape' is not an approved program. By requesting this forbidden operation, your lease on the operating system has been accelerated 7 months.
WARNING: Your lease on this Operating System has EXPIRED, but you are still using it. This behavior is undemocratic and illegal. The MS piracy police will be visiting you shortly.
[computer starts smoking and monitor melts...]
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e
This will probably get everybody all up in arms, but Nuclear Weapons are probably even more misunderstood than nuclear power. You say nuke and everyone thinks about those Japanese cities that we completely leveled (we didn't) with those two bombs and mushroom clouds and one bomb will wipe out an entire city and the radiation will contaminate the whole earth for 500 years. None of that is true. The deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki comprised somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of the total Japanese deaths from American bombing raids. Hiroshima was hammered, but certainly not leveled (the firestorm did much more damage than the actual blast). For Nagasaki, which got hit in a hilly area, the area of really heavy destruction was somewhere around a mile and a half, and most of the people that were killed were not killed by the initial blast.
It is true that the nuclear testing done in the 50's and 60's was careless by modern standards, but that was mostly because we had a beast on our hands that we did not completely understand, but that we had to keep developing for the sake of our survival. The defense nuclear weapons industry of the 21st century is not the industry of the mid 20th century. The sad truth is that since nuclear weapons have been invented, people have them, and that means we have to have them. Even at that, the trend of recent history has been towards smaller and fewer. Our total number of warheads is a small fraction of what it used to be in the heyday of the 60's. Our big, scary Peacekeeper ICBM's carry smaller warheads (about 300 kT) than the Titans of yesteryear and are much more accurate (we can basically hit a football field with them). They are optimized for hard target kills (taking out the enemies weapons), not for wiping out whole cities. They are terribly destructive, but not the way people envision them. We really are not out to depopulate the whole earth, and I would tell any green freak to his face two things. One, that the only reason he is able to stand around protesting things he doesn't understand is because we have these weapons, and two, the people who work with those weapons and actually understand them are a lot less anxious to see them fired than he is.
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My wife has wanted a house since about the day we got married. She spent about two years searching the internet and wishing we could afford the homes she saw on realtor.com (I'm still in school, so our budget is pretty tight). All of the ones in our price range were dumps. After we had given up the prospect of finding a house before I graduate, we got a reference for a good realtor. The first house he showed us was a nice little one that was exactly the price we had been searching for. He was able to get to know us a little, and found us something that fit our needs. The bottom line is, no computer algorithm has the reasoning power of an intelligent person. Also, since we are first time home buyers, he was a good point of contact for all of the little things we had to get done. We're closing on the place next week. For almost anything else, I'd just as soon shop online, but for a purchase that big, it was good to have a human interface. Just my $0.02.
This is a bad thing? If some rich drunken moron in a huge SUV ran me down, I'd be ecstatic to hear that his overpriced toy was what allowed the cops to nail him. The On-Star gadget tracking his movements would not have turned out to be a problem if he had not been driving drunk. Please, show me an example where this thing harmed someone who was not doing something stupid and illegal, and it might sway me.
I would think that many companies coding for the government would intentionally make their code poorly documented or use obscure methods so as to eliminate the potential for your example (competeing companies would have to place a higher bid to cover the cost of researching the coding methods before modifying it).
:-)
Intentional or not, the code I am upgrading is poorly written (full of global variables, nested macros and the stupid DOS GUI was interlocked with even the lowest-level modules). I couldn't use more than about 4 functions "as-is." Most of the stuff I just had to rewrite using the old source code as a guide. You're right in that, if there is a follow-on for an upgrade, the government is not required to give it to us, but probably would because nobody knows that code as well as I do. However, government contracts usually require a ream of documentation to be delivered with them, so yes, you can write bad code, but usually somebody else can figure it out.
Are you saying the government buys a unique compiler for each program it contracts?
No, but in this case it was specified in the contract. Part of the development price was the purchase of an IDE. I think a government shift to Linux would actually help Borland tremendously now that they have Kylix and are moving towards a C++ release of the same. I would love to have a reason to tell our customer that we absolutely have to get a copy of Kylix
The one problem would be porting proprietary windows programs written for gov use. Unfortunately I'd imagine most of the developers would charge an arm and a leg for porting it. With something like Wine though, this would be less of an issue.
I write Windows programs for the government (Air Force) and I know WINE won't run my app. However, the porting problem is not as great as you imply. You are thinking the contractor has proprietary ownership of code written for the government. This is only true if the government buys commercially available software, for which there are always competitors. When I write code for the government, they pay me to write it, so they own that code. At the end of the project, I deliver all of the source code to them, and in this case even the Compiler/IDE (C++ Builder) because they paid for that too. In fact, the program I am ready to sell off is an upgrade of a program written by one of our big competitors. The upgrade contract was given to us. If the goverment decided to move to *NIX, they would probably go competitive with most of the ports, so if we asked for too much money, they would just award the contract to another contractor. Personally, I would love to see them move to a standardized *NIX solution. I think they are entirely too dependent on MS right now.
Have you personally been convicted of DWI based solely on your refusal to take a test? Has someone you personally know? Have you even heard of a specific instance of this happening? Or are you just shouting nonsense for its sensationalist, anti-establishment rhetorical value? For all of Slashdot's posts from people crying about how terrible the US has become and how their constitutional rights have been crushed under the tremendous weight of corporate America, I don't see a huge exodus to parts elsewhere. Honestly, I agree that in many cases the original intent of the constitution has been overwhelmed by interpretations favorable to some special interest or another, and usually those are special interests that are able to gather lots of funds. But even conceding that, there is a reason there are a lot more people breaking their necks to get into this country than to get out of it. This is still a great place to be. If you ever think differently, go check out the political climate in Korea. Ask some old people how their relatives in the North live. Talk to the guys in South Korea (i.e. The Republic of Korea) who are forced to spend two of the best years of their lives in mandatory active military service, and several more years in the reserve. Ask about what they have to do to make sure their government can keep tabs on them if they move. It's a beautiful place, but I promise you that there are lots more Koreans emigrating to the US than the other way around, and it's the same throughout much of the rest of the world. I think Americans need to stop worrying so much about their rights and start thinking about their responsibilities. I think one would follow the other.
Nobody is forcing anybody to install filters. The mandate is that if you accept government money to build your computer network, you play by the government's rules, which include filters. If some outfit wants an uncensored internet, then they don't have to take government money for it. It's that simple.
Do you really think that censorware will cripple our children's education? Is it really so important that they can look at pictures of naked women at school? I personally did quite well in school without access to pornography, and you probably did too, since most school libraries do not have a subscription to Playboy.
Let the (poorly spelled and logically flawed) flames roll...
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
>>The Shouptronic is a closed system that isn't open for inspection. Several groups argue that it has been used to fix the vote in elections. This is a good argument to use an open system for election counting.
Of course!!! The Shouptronic is made by a corporation, all corporations are all about money, so they are pro-Republican. That's why the Republicans win every office in every election!!!
Yeah, vote Nader so we can legalize drugs and come up with more brilliant ideas like this while we're all stoned off our arses.
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
I agree with you on most points. It is the parents' job to raise children, and parents who do not intend to raise their children have no business having them. I'm about to have a daughter in a very few weeks, and the last entity I want raising her is the federal government. It's important enough that my wife recently left her job so that she could be home to take care of her. This is not an issue I am shaky on. I am also a huge proponent of individual responsibility, and I agree that it is something that is often lacking among our populace. As I said before, I believe this law would give parents another tool to help them out. You obviously disagree with me on this, and I respect your right to your opinion. It was at least more intelligent than some of the other responses I got.
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
>> Crime is going down.
Please reduce your crack intake which hopefully would reduce your hyperbolic waste output.
My original comment:
While it is true that you cannot trace the increasingly brazen violence going on to a single source (such as video games), there is a definite trend towards violence in our society
I did not mention "crime rates". I mentioned "brazen violence," specifically thinking of the disturbing and abundant examples of mass shootings in various public places. I really do believe that people are becoming desensitized to violence. If you have an intelligent argument to offer against this, please offer it. Comments on crack usage do not tend to sway my political opinions.
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
>>You can say, "I will kill the president!"
Say that in the privacy of your home, and nobody will care. Try publicly threatening the president, or try writing him a note informing him that you intend to kill him (which you should sign so as to better make your point about "free" speech, something you neglected to do with your post), and see how far your supposed rights will take you.
>> You can also incite rebellion against the gov't. That is a right specifically delineated in the Constitution!
For your convenience, I have printed below Article III, Section 3 in its entirety. Please point out to me the section that specifically protects rebellion against the government. >>Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.
>>Why is it reasonable to tell a teenager, "If you play a violent video game, I will lock you in a cell with criminals!" That seems like a terrible thing to me. Why do you want that? Even if violent games really are a bad influence, isn't prison a worse one?
I have not read the full text of the law, but I supposed it to be intended to prevent teenagers from purchasing video games without parental consent. I doubt it contains a provision to throw the kids in jail if they play such video games. If it does contain such a provision, then I stand with you in disagreeing with that position.
>>Hitler decided that Jews were not to be caught breathing. Is that a limitation or a ban? What the hell is the difference?
Neither. If you check your trusty dictionary, I believe you will find that under "genocide." Limiting video game purchases without parental consent is not even close to genocide. It is a limitation.
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
The declaration of independence is not the constitution. They are totally separate documents that were written at different times for different reasons. The Declaration of Independence is a great document, but it is a break from a government, not an establishment of a new one. The Constitution is the document that should govern our laws (though, mostly, it doesn't anymore, which is sad).
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
The editors may also try to learn a little bit about the constitution they cry about every time someone "infringes" on one of their "rights". The right to free speech, included in an amendment to the constitution, is not an all-sweeping, all-inclusive right. For example, I am not "free" to make threats against the president, I am not "free" to incite rebellion against the government, I am not "free" to aid or comfort foreign powers considered to be enemies of the goverment, and furthermore, "obscenities" were never intended to be protected under this right. Of course, the "obscene" classification has become almost non-existant by this time, but it seems reasonable to at least restrict teenagers (under 18, i.e. not a legal adult) from obtaining this kind of trash without their parents' knowledge. While it is true that you cannot trace the increasingly brazen violence going on to a single source (such as video games), there is a definite trend towards violence in our society, and I don't think it's unreasonable to give parents a little help in keeping tabs on what's going on in their homes. Perhaps you could check your vocabulary and realize there is a difference between a limitation and a "ban."
I used to enjoy reading slashdot, but that was because I thought it was supposed to be a tech forum, not a propoganda page for inflammatory pseudo-polotics. Go back to reporting tech news. Leave political misinformation to the politicians.
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters