"... other than your distrust of police in general, you don't seem to cite any reason to think that this incident didn't happen exactly as described."
Actually, I did cite another reason -- my distrust of the New York Post. I have first-hand knowledge of how badly even "responsible" media -- and I don't count the Post in that number -- can screw up a story. I take pretty much any news story with at least a grain of salt, and keep the shaker hand if I think they and/or their sources may have reason to slant things.
It's entirely possible that Steinberg "charged at police with his bicycle raised over his head". It's also entirely possible that something else was happening, and in the general confusion the cops misinterpreted the action. It's also entirely possible that the cops exaggerated or outright lied about the incident. And so on.
I'm frankly tired of people who think that street punks, because they happen to be black, are being treated in a racist fashion when they're hassled by the police.
It's racism if white "street punks" aren't hassled the same way, or when black kids are hassled because cops assume that of course they're street punks, because they're Walking While Black.
I'm frankly tired of people buying into the propaganda that cops would never ever hassle anyone that they shouldn't hassle, and any reports that the hassling might be slanted is just so much whining.
The New York Post?! That's hardly an unbiased source of information, either, you know. I'd hardly take their description of "the situation" as even being within shouting distance of accurate.
As for the word of a police officer, no doubt some of them are honest, but I suspect they're in the minority. Commiting perjury to convict a suspect -- whether there's other evidence to support the charge or not -- is so common that cops themselves have a word for it... "testilying".
In any case, it didn't really matter to the powers-that-be whether these people were guilty or not. I doubt they could care less about the final disposition of the cases. They simply wanted these people off of the streets (and the evening news), and used absurd bail to keep them off. Whether the charges were accurate and the bail was appropriate probably didn't matter to them.
I think you're right on.. it needs to become electronic. As a bystander up here in Canada, it boggles the mind how many different methods the various counties and states use to tally votes. Amazing.
Actually, one could consider that a good thing. A heterogeneous system is -- in general -- harder to subvert than a homogeneous one. Problems tend to be localized, too. (If we had all used the Palm Beach system, Buchanan might be president-elect!)
Not totally worthless but yeah, reading some Drexler -- Unbounding the Future, for instance -- would be better intro. What bugged me most was the hand-waving about how smoothly and happily society would adapt. The sci.nanotech newsgroup gets this sort of blithe speculation sometimes, and I find it rather mind-bogglingly simplistic.
(Drexler gets hand-wavy too, sometimes, but at least he seems to be clearer on the inherent uncertainty.)
Don't you think involving the government in market concerns sets a rather bad precedent?
No. It would be a "precedent" if (a) it were the first time and (b) it serves as an example or rule for subsequent. The Microsoft case is not, by any stretch of the imagination, the first example of "involving the government in market concerns", and plenty of examples already exist. The government in the US, as in most places, is involved in market concerns in all kinds of ways, often to the benefit of businesses (especially large corporations).
(When a corporate spokesdroid whines about "government interference" and speaks glowingly of the "free market", what they mean is "we only want the government to interfere when it benefits us". Heck, the very act of creating a corporation involves the government in market concerns. I suspect that in an real free market, corporations would be just so much tissue paper in hell.)
Scare me? No. Surprise me? No. Piss me off? Yes. There is a long sordid history of Republicrats doing underhanded things to make sure there's no threat to the "bi-partisan" hegemony.
[shrug] Yeah, I'd roll my eyes at that kind of "humor", too. It's at about the same level.
Anyway, there's obviously no shortage of losers who are still trying to use the "invented the internet" (mis-)quote as if it was actually funny, and not (supposedly) funny because it's unfunny. So trying to use it to be funny because it's unfunny only works if you know that your audience knows it's unfunny, and they know that you know that. Which doesn't describe using it on Slashdot.
... there will be one small consolation. At least we won't have to continue hearing from all the (half-)wits who think that referring to a Republican exaggeration of a Gore comment for the nth time (as n approaches infinity) is funny.
(Off-topic, I know. Go ahead, take away a karma point...)
Re:The memes (lowercase) are bad enough!
on
Candle
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· Score: 2
The book gives the phrase "How do you fight an idea?" a sinister twist, but doesn't provide a solution to handling the real-world problem of bad memes.
The only real way to fight a meme is with another meme. Or, as Supreme Court Justice Brandeis put it in the landmark Whitney v. California case in 1927: "If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."
The well-known "Godwin's Law" was actually an intentional (and at least partially successful) act of memetic engineering by Mike Godwin. Read his essay about it here.
It's like I don't believe in any special rights for homosexuals. Heterosexuals have the right to marry any person of the opposite gender that they choose. Homosexuals should have exactly the same right: to marry anyone of the opposite gender that they choose.
That's funny, but it's also an argument I've seen used seriously, as a rationale for DOMA.
(DOMA == the so-called Defense Of Marriage Act, which said that US states don't have to recognize any same-sex marriages recognized in any other states (if that ever happens) and also defined marriage as far as the US federal government as "one man & one woman". This "Defense Of Marriage Act" was championed -- at least in part -- by many people who are guilty of adultery and/or who have been divorced at least once... and it was signed by Bill Clinton. Talk about pegging the ol' ironicometer...)
Wow. I didn't think two parties could possibly be any farther away from each other on the political spectrum than these two.
[grin] You've been living too long in a country where the two "major parties" are portrayed as much farther apart than they are. So it makes other parties look really far apart. Granted, the Libs and the Greens do have major differences, but I actually think there are some important similarities.
One wants to solve everything through government control, and the other wants to remove almost all government control.
I think that's oversimplifying both points of view.
I can only assume that you're a very complicated individual;^) Take care!
Your assumption, in this case, is correct. [grin] It's a complicated universe.
] Nope, I made no such assumption. I haven't the faintest idea why you would think so.
Because you implied that people who are outraged have no clue that this currently happens. You imply that they are happy with the system as it currently stands, but unhappy with Nader's suggestions.
[shrug] Obviously I can't speak for these specific people, but yes, I've run into a lot of people who are "happy with" (though "oblivious to" seems to be more often correct) the system as it currently stands and oh-so-outraged at some of what Nader suggests.
]] Those of us who are truly outraged by this would vote Libertarian.
] Some would, some wouldn't.
The Libertarian party appears to be the only one that does not condone using the tax system for social engineering. Do you know of another party with the same view of the roll of federal taxes?
I know of people for whom the decision about who to vote for is not that cut-and-dried. Me, for instance. I've voted Libertarian in the past. No doubt I will again in the future. This year, for various reasons, I'm voting for Nader.
+1 Worrisome, at least. The annexation wouldn't have to be de jure, even. If Canada's political process and media are as susceptible to corporate influence as those in the US, then the fact that Canada is a separate country may become more and more moot.
It's clear that the overwelming majority of americans either don't have a problem with the way any of these corporations do business or they do not feel the corporation's activitys are worrysome enough to put effort into seeking alternative products.
Actually, it's clear to me that the overwhelming majority of US citizens are either oblivious to or are in deep denial about the way corporations do business, and that corporations are ever so happy to encourage them to stay that way.
I assume by "we" he means the People (although in reality it's the Party). If it were the people, you can rest assured most people do _not_ like pollution, etc. I see nothing wrong with using tax as a way to fight this kind of thing.
I love how outraged some people act about this. Hello? This already happens, in effect. The people in charge now give tax breaks for things they do like, which mostly end up as the various types of corporate welfare, and mostly line the pockets of those who then complain about any attempt to tax their "hard-earned" profits.
If they had any clue about Slashdot they'd be wise to do so, considering they can reach several hundred thousand voters at least!
I'm curious about what your number is based on. (Keep in mind that even if Slashdot has that many readers -- which would surprise me -- not all of them are US citizens, and not all of those are potential voters.)
Slashdot is arguably influencial in a certain subset of society, but I think it's really small beans in terms of overall media reach, and politicos and their handlers have other priorities. But major media outlets pretty much ignore so-called third parties -- aside from the occasion sophomoric horse-race crap about Nader "hurting" Gore -- which leaves third party people available (and desperate) to talk to almost anybody willing to listen to them.
This system is truly fucked now.... I want to leave the US soon at this rate.
Where would you go? (Serious question. Me, I'm considering Canada. Not perfect by any means, but the jerk ratio seems to be significantly lower.)
Note that Canadian immigration is easier for those with certain occupational experience -- computer background scores very high on Occupational Factor and Educational and Training Factor.
Re:Hopefully NASA won't screw up this time
on
6 New Mars Missions
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· Score: 2
If NASA can't correctly calculate the position of Mars so that the lander can make it to the surface, then this whole project needs to be placed into the hands of corporations who will actually hire competent mathematicians and scientists to do the math.
Perhaps they could hire some folks away from Firestone and Microsoft. Yup, corporations are just naturally better at hiring competent people, aren't they? Say, maybe the ex-captain of the Exxon Valdez might be interested in running the project...
Did anyone else laugh at the description of the "bird's eye view of the asteroid"? (South Saddle.) I had a fleeting image of some poor confused crow seeing this view as it flailed about with its useless wings and its last breath blew out into the vacuum.
Maybe I'm just too damn literal.
Re:Is there a point to keeping Mir alive?
on
Mir Lives
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· Score: 2
Quite apart from any of the justifications you'll hear (of which, let's be honest, politics & prestige are the only 2 that count), from a pushing-the-bounds-of-human-knowledge viewpoint the single best reason to keep Mir up there is that, yes indeed it's absolutely vital we understand what goes wrong on long-duration space facilities and how we deal with it.
I understand what you're saying, but it seems to me that you describe what we have learned from Mir. What I'm wondering is whether it's really worth it to keep it up there. IANARS (I Am Not A Rocket Scientist), but I don't think it really can be "abandoned-in-place" without ongoing maintenance funding, of the sort that keeps getting scraped up at the last minute.
Is there a point to keeping Mir alive?
on
Mir Lives
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· Score: 4
Aside from the morale/PR value for Russia, is there any point to keeping Mir alive? Given how old and patched it is, and the damage from fires and collisions, is it really still functional enough to be useful? Or should it be given a proud death, briefly lighting the heavens over Siberia?
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I did cite another reason -- my distrust of the New York Post. I have first-hand knowledge of how badly even "responsible" media -- and I don't count the Post in that number -- can screw up a story. I take pretty much any news story with at least a grain of salt, and keep the shaker hand if I think they and/or their sources may have reason to slant things.
It's entirely possible that Steinberg "charged at police with his bicycle raised over his head". It's also entirely possible that something else was happening, and in the general confusion the cops misinterpreted the action. It's also entirely possible that the cops exaggerated or outright lied about the incident. And so on.
It's racism if white "street punks" aren't hassled the same way, or when black kids are hassled because cops assume that of course they're street punks, because they're Walking While Black.
I'm frankly tired of people buying into the propaganda that cops would never ever hassle anyone that they shouldn't hassle, and any reports that the hassling might be slanted is just so much whining.
How about doing some reading on this sort of thing?
Which is irrelevant. Blacks are not magically immune to racism, not even against other blacks.
As for the word of a police officer, no doubt some of them are honest, but I suspect they're in the minority. Commiting perjury to convict a suspect -- whether there's other evidence to support the charge or not -- is so common that cops themselves have a word for it ... "testilying".
In any case, it didn't really matter to the powers-that-be whether these people were guilty or not. I doubt they could care less about the final disposition of the cases. They simply wanted these people off of the streets (and the evening news), and used absurd bail to keep them off. Whether the charges were accurate and the bail was appropriate probably didn't matter to them.
Actually, one could consider that a good thing. A heterogeneous system is -- in general -- harder to subvert than a homogeneous one. Problems tend to be localized, too. (If we had all used the Palm Beach system, Buchanan might be president-elect!)
(Drexler gets hand-wavy too, sometimes, but at least he seems to be clearer on the inherent uncertainty.)
[shrug] Obviously, blaming Nader is easier than fixing the system. (And it ain't just the voting system that's broke.)
No. It would be a "precedent" if (a) it were the first time and (b) it serves as an example or rule for subsequent. The Microsoft case is not, by any stretch of the imagination, the first example of "involving the government in market concerns", and plenty of examples already exist. The government in the US, as in most places, is involved in market concerns in all kinds of ways, often to the benefit of businesses (especially large corporations).
(When a corporate spokesdroid whines about "government interference" and speaks glowingly of the "free market", what they mean is "we only want the government to interfere when it benefits us". Heck, the very act of creating a corporation involves the government in market concerns. I suspect that in an real free market, corporations would be just so much tissue paper in hell.)
Scare me? No. Surprise me? No. Piss me off? Yes. There is a long sordid history of Republicrats doing underhanded things to make sure there's no threat to the "bi-partisan" hegemony.
Anyway, there's obviously no shortage of losers who are still trying to use the "invented the internet" (mis-)quote as if it was actually funny, and not (supposedly) funny because it's unfunny. So trying to use it to be funny because it's unfunny only works if you know that your audience knows it's unfunny, and they know that you know that. Which doesn't describe using it on Slashdot.
(Off-topic, I know. Go ahead, take away a karma point ...)
The only real way to fight a meme is with another meme. Or, as Supreme Court Justice Brandeis put it in the landmark Whitney v. California case in 1927: "If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."
The well-known "Godwin's Law" was actually an intentional (and at least partially successful) act of memetic engineering by Mike Godwin. Read his essay about it here.
That's funny, but it's also an argument I've seen used seriously, as a rationale for DOMA.
(DOMA == the so-called Defense Of Marriage Act, which said that US states don't have to recognize any same-sex marriages recognized in any other states (if that ever happens) and also defined marriage as far as the US federal government as "one man & one woman". This "Defense Of Marriage Act" was championed -- at least in part -- by many people who are guilty of adultery and/or who have been divorced at least once ... and it was signed by Bill Clinton. Talk about pegging the ol' ironicometer ...)
[grin] You've been living too long in a country where the two "major parties" are portrayed as much farther apart than they are. So it makes other parties look really far apart. Granted, the Libs and the Greens do have major differences, but I actually think there are some important similarities.
One wants to solve everything through government control, and the other wants to remove almost all government control.
I think that's oversimplifying both points of view.
I can only assume that you're a very complicated individual ;^) Take care!
Your assumption, in this case, is correct. [grin] It's a complicated universe.
Because you implied that people who are outraged have no clue that this currently happens. You imply that they are happy with the system as it currently stands, but unhappy with Nader's suggestions.
[shrug] Obviously I can't speak for these specific people, but yes, I've run into a lot of people who are "happy with" (though "oblivious to" seems to be more often correct) the system as it currently stands and oh-so-outraged at some of what Nader suggests.
]] Those of us who are truly outraged by this would vote Libertarian.
] Some would, some wouldn't.
The Libertarian party appears to be the only one that does not condone using the tax system for social engineering. Do you know of another party with the same view of the roll of federal taxes?
I know of people for whom the decision about who to vote for is not that cut-and-dried. Me, for instance. I've voted Libertarian in the past. No doubt I will again in the future. This year, for various reasons, I'm voting for Nader.
Nope, I made no such assumption. I haven't the faintest idea why you would think so.
Those of us who are truly outraged by this would vote Libertarian.
Some would, some wouldn't.
+1 Worrisome, at least. The annexation wouldn't have to be de jure, even. If Canada's political process and media are as susceptible to corporate influence as those in the US, then the fact that Canada is a separate country may become more and more moot.
Actually, it's clear to me that the overwhelming majority of US citizens are either oblivious to or are in deep denial about the way corporations do business, and that corporations are ever so happy to encourage them to stay that way.
I love how outraged some people act about this. Hello? This already happens, in effect. The people in charge now give tax breaks for things they do like, which mostly end up as the various types of corporate welfare, and mostly line the pockets of those who then complain about any attempt to tax their "hard-earned" profits.
I'm curious about what your number is based on. (Keep in mind that even if Slashdot has that many readers -- which would surprise me -- not all of them are US citizens, and not all of those are potential voters.)
Slashdot is arguably influencial in a certain subset of society, but I think it's really small beans in terms of overall media reach, and politicos and their handlers have other priorities. But major media outlets pretty much ignore so-called third parties -- aside from the occasion sophomoric horse-race crap about Nader "hurting" Gore -- which leaves third party people available (and desperate) to talk to almost anybody willing to listen to them.
Where would you go? (Serious question. Me, I'm considering Canada. Not perfect by any means, but the jerk ratio seems to be significantly lower.)
Note that Canadian immigration is easier for those with certain occupational experience -- computer background scores very high on Occupational Factor and Educational and Training Factor.
Perhaps they could hire some folks away from Firestone and Microsoft. Yup, corporations are just naturally better at hiring competent people, aren't they? Say, maybe the ex-captain of the Exxon Valdez might be interested in running the project ...
Did anyone else laugh at the description of the "bird's eye view of the asteroid"? (South Saddle.) I had a fleeting image of some poor confused crow seeing this view as it flailed about with its useless wings and its last breath blew out into the vacuum.
Maybe I'm just too damn literal.
I understand what you're saying, but it seems to me that you describe what we have learned from Mir. What I'm wondering is whether it's really worth it to keep it up there. IANARS (I Am Not A Rocket Scientist), but I don't think it really can be "abandoned-in-place" without ongoing maintenance funding, of the sort that keeps getting scraped up at the last minute.
(I ain't saying, I'm asking.)