> I'm still a better driver when on the phone than half the morons out there driving without any drinks...
And that could be true though, _sadly_. And I've seen some people drive pretty well while they're definitely over the alcohol limit, definitely better and safer than the morons out there[1].
The trouble is they're not going to jail people who are "driving while being a moron".
Not quite sure if there's a useful, reliable and legally administerable test for it too. Especially since most people snap out of "moron mode" once the police officer appears.;)
[1] Yes it should still be illegal, since in the real world it's just not practical to test for driving competence, and people are often poor judges of their own competence.
But did they make specific and credible threats about killing Obama? Just saying "I'm going to kill Obama, he deserves to die" is nothing. There are thousands of people everywhere who say that, but there are very few who should be taken seriously.
For example if they threatened to kill Obama at a certain time and place, and Obama was indeed going to be at that place, and they were also likely to be in that place too, I'm sure they'd get investigated and possibly arrested too.
To anyone in the USA who doesn't believe me, try it: publicly post a specific threat to kill Obama some place where he WILL be, and then for bonus points, make plans to fly/travel to that spot some days before. But don't complain about me if you get arrested or worse. I'll just laugh at you when the relevant slashdot story appears.
If this nut was in Hawaii, and said he'd blow up the Indiana-Chicago flight, I suspect the FBI wouldn't have bothered about it (and just investigated him later on if the plane actually did blow up). But he was living close enough to the relevant airport (maybe 25-30 minutes away?). So the FBI certainly should investigate him.
> Even Schumacher stops talking when he gets into a difficult situation.
And so should other drivers. You don't have to multitask that much to do that.
The problem is many are not trained to maintain enough attention to realize when they start to get into a difficult driving situation and the rest don't even stop talking when that happens. Heck they can't even stay within their own lane when chatting (or sometimes even when not talking;) ).
I strongly suspect the US Agency already knows what the study will show and they're taking the easy way out, and going "lalalala, everything is fine as it is, lets not deal with it".
Because what will very likely happen is the study will show that most drivers with the existing training and certification/licensing are not able to drive safely while handling cellphone calls even with hands-free kits.
Then they will have the politically incorrect options of:
a) Making cellphone use illegal even with handsfree kits. b) Requiring higher standards for driving skills - so that drivers can drive safely and properly handle cellphone calls (and other distractions[1]). c) Having a two tier license grade e.g. "cellphone capable driver" and "non cellphone capable driver". d) Doing nothing about a problem that's now more visible.
Some of these options might even be impractical economically, not just politically.
[1] If a passenger drops stuff on the floor while you're driving round a corner, do you glance at it? You shouldn't.
I bet the studies are all done on people who haven't been trained in that skill (plus have had many hours of practice).
There are lots of professional drivers who have to talk (pit crew, engineers, etc) while driving and they still can drive _competitively_ while doing so. I suspect some pilots have to do a similar thing too (screw up and your low-level flight ends abruptly).
I was not saying that we should make it legal, I was pointing out that: 1) One other difference between talking to passengers and phones is they're not going to ban talking to passengers:). 2) It's like any other complex skill (e.g. driving, juggling, dancing). Takes a lot of practice. Sure some may never get it (just like some people never manage to drive well enough to pass their driving exams).
The current problem is novices "practicing" on the road, risking everyone's lives, and failing to get it right - practice a mistake and you just get better at repeating a mistake.
The US agency has probably figured out that the result of the study is going to be politically incorrect (e.g. might indicate banning any cellphone use even handsfree), and so they are going to just going to _ignore_ the problem.
I on the other hand claim the real problem is poor training and skills. If you really want higher safety either you ban any cellphone use, or you require drivers to be better trained.
From a safety perspective, you don't even have to be able to make conversation while doing difficult maneuvers, all you need to be able to refocus your attention rapidly. It's not really that hard to keep some attention to driving, and when things on the road get more difficult, just shut up, stop paying attention to the conversation and focus on driving. Lots of people listen to music while driving, and when the driving situation suddenly gets difficult, most stop paying attention to the music ASAP. The big problem with many (most?) people is they prioritize their cellphone conversations way too much, and too little on things like even just staying in their lane.
The other difference is they're not calling for a ban against talking with passengers. Do they actually gather accident stats on drivers being distracted because they were talking to passengers?
While cellphone use is definitely a potential distraction and reduces focus on driving, I claim that most people who can drive properly can actually learn to talk over the phone while driving safely.
HOWEVER just like learning to drive, it is a skill that requires training and practice under controlled circumstances. Most people can't automatically drive a car properly on their first try, much less use a phone while driving and answering mentally challenging questions.
I'm not aware of anyone providing or requiring training, exams and licenses for that. I doubt that'll happen because it's not _necessary_ for most people to talk while driving (whether it's to a passenger or someone else far away). If implemented we'd have to have stickers or something to indicate that the driver is licensed to use a phone while driving. The benefit-cost ratio might not be good enough. Better to just improve the average driving ability with better training.
FWIW, Michael Schumacher used to chat with his pit crew while making really fast F1 laps.
1) Why so upset? 2) My hands aren't big at all. Just about manage an octave on a normal piano keyboard. FWIW, I can't do that Vulcan greeting thing easily. 3) I was just surprised that even the gamer/expensive keyboards still had keylock problems (I recently encountered one that can't even do 6 key rollover- so my friend couldn't play O2Mania/O2jam on it - and those sort of games require up to 7 keys pressed at once - typical config is sdf jkl and spacebar - it's a bit like guitar hero). A shame really, if even the expensive keyboards have keylock, there's not so much pressure for the cheap keyboards to do much better. 4) I said "rollover" was a _related_ term.
Firstly, the Green Party, a minority partner in Ireland's coalition government that has no ties to traditional, rural Ireland, saved the blasphemy legislation from defeat in the Seanad, Ireland's undemocratic pretend parliament for various worthies and failed politicians. Likewise, the opposition Labour Party, home to Ireland's liberal elites, has not sought to have the law struck down, instead favouring its amendment to make it more palatable to the cultural constituency. Labour's Pat Rabbitte sought a reformulation that excepts from the definition of blasphemy material which has 'literary, artistic, social or academic merit', harking back to the interminable debates about what is art and what is pornography (6).... and while the Catholic Church grumbles about a decline in spiritual values it has not actually demanded this law, nor are there many votes to be picked up on a 'Catholic Ireland' ticket. Even the other usual suspects, the 'mad mullahs' of Islam, are notable by their absence from the debate. Put simply, the religious lobby is not behind the move to criminalise blasphemy.
His fan club apparently aren't responsible for this particular mess. Seems like the Green Party and Liberals are responsible this time.
From the article:
" while the Catholic Church grumbles about a decline in spiritual values it has not actually demanded this law, nor are there many votes to be picked up on a 'Catholic Ireland' ticket. Even the other usual suspects, the 'mad mullahs' of Islam, are notable by their absence from the debate. Put simply, the religious lobby is not behind the move to criminalise blasphemy."
And:
" Firstly, the Green Party, a minority partner in Ireland's coalition government that has no ties to traditional, rural Ireland, saved the blasphemy legislation from defeat in the Seanad, Ireland's undemocratic pretend parliament for various worthies and failed politicians. Likewise, the opposition Labour Party, home to Ireland's liberal elites, has not sought to have the law struck down, instead favouring its amendment to make it more palatable to the cultural constituency. Labour's Pat Rabbitte sought a reformulation that excepts from the definition of blasphemy material which has 'literary, artistic, social or academic merit', harking back to the interminable debates about what is art and what is pornography (6). "
But so many atheists here are blaming Religion.
Ironically, the Great Dawkins Himself (May the FSM Bless Him;) ) said something to the effect that "Atheists should be proud, not apologetic, because atheism is evidence of a healthy, independent, rational mind".
Me thinks someone has a bit too much faith in the wrong thing.
1) Even though some crazy guy could be doing terrible things in the name of Britney Spears (or sanosuke002), if you're a rational thinking person you should only blame Britney Spears for the stuff she actually does (or the stuff she doesn't do that she legally should do;) ).
2) It's a general "offend religious belief" law, it doesn't cover only the Church. There are many other religions in Ireland. Maybe the neo-pagans might have some fun with this law. My guess is the muslims will find it really handy too.
The more types of animals and plants you eat, the less stress on the ecosystem as long as you aren't having something like the "bycatch issue" as in commercial fishing which I consider really terrible.
Bycatch is what a commercial fishing boat catches and throws away (usually dead) because it's not the sort of thing the boat specializes in catching.
So a sardine boat might catch other sorts of fishes, squids, prawns etc, but throw away everything that's not sardines. Then a shrimp boat comes along and catches all sorts of fishes, etc and throws away everything that's not shrimp.
Worse of all, the stuff that is thrown away dead can make up more than 80% of the catch! That's such an amazingly huge waste, that to me they should make that sort of fishing illegal. If you're going to fish for stuff, you should be eating/selling most of it, or let it go alive and _well_.
This is like someone going to a farm and killing sheep, and cows and dumping them, and only keeping the chickens to sell. Then, someone else comes along and kills and dumps chicken and sheep, and only takes the cows. That rarely happens in farming because the farmers have to pay for it all.
But in the bycatch case it doesn't cost the fishermen anything much in the short term, but in the long term all of us will end up with the costs.
Everything from the sea/waters that does not have fins and scales is out too. That includes lobsters, shrimp, mussels, oysters, catfish, eels, squid (calamari:) ). The French, Italian and Spanish do eat a lot of stuff the "Anglos" don't appear to eat nowadays.
It's not just about clean/unclean. Many of the "clean" animals must also be slaughtered in a certain way (to drain most of the blood out) otherwise they should not be eaten.
Traditionally mixing meat and dairy products = nonkosher. So that means a pizza with meat+cheese toppings is out...
Seems that was extrapolated that from the verse which says something to the effect that you should not cook a calf in its mother's milk (which to me is a rather different thing from making a pizza or a cheese burger). We're probably swallowing protozoa or even dust mites every now and then, so trying to stretch things to include more cases/scenarios seems a bad idea to me. But what do I know...
> The public must be educated to see dogs not for their aesthetic appeal but to think about their health.
Huh, when I look at a bulldog I see a really unhealthy dog, what aesthetic appeal? So many of the "Kennel breeds" are crap. They're breeding cripples and twisted "bonsais". Back problems, tendency to become paraplegics, tendency to go deaf or blind...
As for those who claim that "mutts" are better, I disagree. You can have good working dogs - go ask the shepherds that use dogs. Sure there'll be some "bugs" somewhere, but even "mutts" often have problems too, you just don't know what they are.
I've got my dsl line protected by having 250mA fast blow fuses on each wire (you can pick lower amp ratings if you're paranoid), and gas discharge tubes, MOVs across the lines to ground, after the fuses. So when there's a big enough lightning induced surge, I just have to change the fuses (once I had to change the RJ11 connectors and sockets - they got welded together - but the modem was OK;) ).
So far my previous adsl modem only failed after many years and it failed after a power failure, not a storm. So maybe it was a power line surge that did it, or it failed due to stress of powering up. Thing is, it was on a UPS and that should have protected it from the power supply.
But I'm well aware that if lightning actually hits stuff, all that might not help at all - everything could just be vaporized or burnt up.
I'm personally not very comfortable with "fancy backup software" at least for personal use. Copying files is fine. dd + lzop for imaging is fine (careful to have conv=sync if you use noerror - using noerror is a good idea since if stuff is just starting to fail, you probably want to start copying as much as you can out ASAP).
0) The election can be fair and be understood as fair enough (especially by the average voter) 1) Independent+Party representatives can verify with high certainty that the counting starts from zero (boxes are empty) 2) Independent+Party observers can observe that it's one person one vote. 3) Independent+Party observers can keep watch over the storage (and the transportation if necessary - preferable that the ballots aren't moved, but sometimes there's no choice) to help ensure that tampering is hard. 4) Independent+Party observers can observe the counting[1] 5) The voting remains anonymous (I personally don't think this is that important, but lots of people seem to believe it is).
You'll probably have something that looks very much like a paper voting system, only a lot more expensive and complex. How is it going to be different AND better?
Do show me how you can have a electronic voting system that satisfies all that and will be better and cheaper.
[1] Over here as part of the count process, the counters will lift the paper ballot up to let everyone around who is interested to look at it. The different parties can have their own people tallying up the votes themselves. So far over here the complaints are mainly about postal votes (which e-voting has the same probs with), and the bribing of _voters_ by politicians.
Regarding the vote buying, if the voters think that it's better to get some of their money back upfront rather than get some other benefit via big promises that's up to them.
The ctrl and shift keys are still reachable from ESDF. If they weren't millions of touch typists would complain. Alt seems to be in a less convenient place even for WASD (requires some thumb tucking).
I can most certainly hold down shift or ctrl while pressing any of those keys (ESDF) to move.
Actually I'm kind of surprised that gamer (or the more expensive) keyboards still have "keylock" problems.
FWIW I believe the related term is "rollover", and the traditional required keys for Braille support or "6 key rollover" was sdf jkl. Not asd "whatever".
Uh, to rig a paper election you will have to hide something. The more hiding you do the more suspicious it is. The more open the process is, the harder it is to cheat. With people watching each step e.g. checking that the boxes are empty, observing the voting, the storing and opening of the boxes, and the counting, it gets very hard to cheat on a massive enough scale.
Go see how paper voting is done in various countries and you can see it's really hard to rig in some countries, and easier in other countries (ballot boxes are moved, counting is done in secret by one organization).
Sure you can bribe people. But if so many are bribable, the country is screwed up so badly it hardly matters what system you use.
In contrast an electronic election is mostly _hidden_ to observers. So it should be suspicious by default.
If you set it up so that people can observe the storage and counting of the electronic votes, it's going to be as slow as paper voting, but more expensive and complicated.
The easiest way you can rig paper elections that are done openly and properly is with postal votes. However electronic voting systems are just as vulnerable to this problem - if not more so.
Elections don't just have to be fair, they have to be seen as fair (or at least fair enough). Otherwise they increase the odds of massive riots even if the result was correct.
Electronic voting systems are still opaque to the average person even if they happen to be fair.
In contrast when paper voting is done properly, the various parties can have their representatives observe the whole process of the voting, storage and counting. This is in fact done in many countries. It is not some "theory".
In "notorious" countries typically the "counting" is done behind closed doors, or observers aren't allowed to keep an eye over the ballot boxes. The more a country/gov hides the whole process, the more suspicious it will seem.
With electronic voting systems the counting is effectively done behind closed doors. And if you set things up so that independent and party representatives can observe the counting, the system ends up about as slow as paper voting, just more complex and expensive.
Electronic voting systems are only useful for the wrong reasons.
I have to admit that paper based voting fails if too many of the citizens in your country can't count properly. But by that time you probably have an idiocracy anyway.
I don't really recall an Apple II game using WASD for "up left down right".
While I doubt there was much of a standard in those days, controls like IJKM and IJKL (lode runner) were more common. Many also had AZ and "left arrow" "right arrow".
And some like Castle Wolfenstein had QWEASDZXC IOPKL;,./ (and other keys), so that you could control movement and the gun direction independently...
Most people should be able to hit the shift, caps and control from ESDF. Touch typists already use SDF as "home position", and as far as I know the shift key is plenty reachable for them - the ctrl key is stupid, it should be where the capslock currently is, but maybe the lawyers threatened to sue anyone who tried to revert it to the original position for the rest of us who only use capslock by mistake;)...
And the bonus is you can _additionally_ use A, Q, W, Z, C for other stuff on the left (while having the same number of keys available on the right as compared to ASDF).
Whereas if you use ASDF, you're stuck with just Q,TAB,CAPSLOCK,shift,z for the left. That's far fewer keys available for stuff.
I use ASDF because I'm too lazy to switch. I'm not one of those who would walk into a cybercafe and then spend 5 minutes customizing the controls (or load a relevant config file from a thumbdrive;) ). It's not like I'm that great anyway.
But ESDF really makes more sense - the only issue is hitting "1" quickly might be a problem for many people, but if the weapons ran 2-7 instead that's not a problem. The problem I guess is explaining to new users that their weapons don't start from 1.
In the old quake and doom days not being able to hit 1 quickly wasn't really a problem, since you'd want to use the other weapons. Being able to quickly hit stuff like "super shotgun" was a lot more important than switch to the weakest gun (which was by default bound to 1).
The other thing about keyboards that rarely comes up is - how many keys can you press on the keyboard before it stops detecting the new keys. This is important for some games where you need to press many keys down at once. Or for the old games where you had two players sharing the same keyboard:).
Proper spelling and grammar is not a waste of time. Poor spelling and bad grammar wastes other people's time (since it can be harder for them to understand you) and often wastes your own time when you have to spend more time explaining what you actually meant.
Taking the effort and time to communicate properly is not a waste of time as long as you have something useful or interesting to say.
FWIW if enough people start using "it's" to convey a "possessive" meaning, then it'll be the correct spelling. The various factions are casting their votes accordingly;).
> prevents client devices associated to an access point from _inadvertently_ sharing files or communicating with other client devices associated to the access point. [emphasis mine].
With this feature the AP won't let client devices talk to each other _through_ it (e.g. the AP won't help forward the packets), but if you don't use WPA the communications still won't be encrypted securely.
You still have the problem that the client devices could be all sharing the same key and so can decrypt each other's comms.
It behaves like a wired switch with "protected ports" enabled, the trouble is it's not a wired switch, it's easier to tap or tamper with wireless communications.
That said, I wonder if someone has tried TEMPEST attacks on cat-5 cable carrying ethernet data and made the results available.
Slashdot Mirror
> I'm still a better driver when on the phone than half the morons out there driving without any drinks...
;)
And that could be true though, _sadly_. And I've seen some people drive pretty well while they're definitely over the alcohol limit, definitely better and safer than the morons out there[1].
The trouble is they're not going to jail people who are "driving while being a moron".
Not quite sure if there's a useful, reliable and legally administerable test for it too. Especially since most people snap out of "moron mode" once the police officer appears.
[1] Yes it should still be illegal, since in the real world it's just not practical to test for driving competence, and people are often poor judges of their own competence.
But did they make specific and credible threats about killing Obama? Just saying "I'm going to kill Obama, he deserves to die" is nothing. There are thousands of people everywhere who say that, but there are very few who should be taken seriously.
For example if they threatened to kill Obama at a certain time and place, and Obama was indeed going to be at that place, and they were also likely to be in that place too, I'm sure they'd get investigated and possibly arrested too.
To anyone in the USA who doesn't believe me, try it: publicly post a specific threat to kill Obama some place where he WILL be, and then for bonus points, make plans to fly/travel to that spot some days before. But don't complain about me if you get arrested or worse. I'll just laugh at you when the relevant slashdot story appears.
If this nut was in Hawaii, and said he'd blow up the Indiana-Chicago flight, I suspect the FBI wouldn't have bothered about it (and just investigated him later on if the plane actually did blow up). But he was living close enough to the relevant airport (maybe 25-30 minutes away?). So the FBI certainly should investigate him.
The FBI/NSA/DEA report to the government the US voters apparently elected.
:).
Whereas the other bunch of thugs don't.
They might all be thugs but there's still a slight difference.
That and the former probably get more taxpayer money
> Even Schumacher stops talking when he gets into a difficult situation.
;) ).
And so should other drivers. You don't have to multitask that much to do that.
The problem is many are not trained to maintain enough attention to realize when they start to get into a difficult driving situation and the rest don't even stop talking when that happens. Heck they can't even stay within their own lane when chatting (or sometimes even when not talking
I strongly suspect the US Agency already knows what the study will show and they're taking the easy way out, and going "lalalala, everything is fine as it is, lets not deal with it".
Because what will very likely happen is the study will show that most drivers with the existing training and certification/licensing are not able to drive safely while handling cellphone calls even with hands-free kits.
Then they will have the politically incorrect options of:
a) Making cellphone use illegal even with handsfree kits.
b) Requiring higher standards for driving skills - so that drivers can drive safely and properly handle cellphone calls (and other distractions[1]).
c) Having a two tier license grade e.g. "cellphone capable driver" and "non cellphone capable driver".
d) Doing nothing about a problem that's now more visible.
Some of these options might even be impractical economically, not just politically.
[1] If a passenger drops stuff on the floor while you're driving round a corner, do you glance at it? You shouldn't.
I bet the studies are all done on people who haven't been trained in that skill (plus have had many hours of practice).
:).
There are lots of professional drivers who have to talk (pit crew, engineers, etc) while driving and they still can drive _competitively_ while doing so. I suspect some pilots have to do a similar thing too (screw up and your low-level flight ends abruptly).
I was not saying that we should make it legal, I was pointing out that:
1) One other difference between talking to passengers and phones is they're not going to ban talking to passengers
2) It's like any other complex skill (e.g. driving, juggling, dancing). Takes a lot of practice. Sure some may never get it (just like some people never manage to drive well enough to pass their driving exams).
The current problem is novices "practicing" on the road, risking everyone's lives, and failing to get it right - practice a mistake and you just get better at repeating a mistake.
The US agency has probably figured out that the result of the study is going to be politically incorrect (e.g. might indicate banning any cellphone use even handsfree), and so they are going to just going to _ignore_ the problem.
I on the other hand claim the real problem is poor training and skills. If you really want higher safety either you ban any cellphone use, or you require drivers to be better trained.
From a safety perspective, you don't even have to be able to make conversation while doing difficult maneuvers, all you need to be able to refocus your attention rapidly. It's not really that hard to keep some attention to driving, and when things on the road get more difficult, just shut up, stop paying attention to the conversation and focus on driving. Lots of people listen to music while driving, and when the driving situation suddenly gets difficult, most stop paying attention to the music ASAP. The big problem with many (most?) people is they prioritize their cellphone conversations way too much, and too little on things like even just staying in their lane.
The other difference is they're not calling for a ban against talking with passengers. Do they actually gather accident stats on drivers being distracted because they were talking to passengers?
While cellphone use is definitely a potential distraction and reduces focus on driving, I claim that most people who can drive properly can actually learn to talk over the phone while driving safely.
HOWEVER just like learning to drive, it is a skill that requires training and practice under controlled circumstances. Most people can't automatically drive a car properly on their first try, much less use a phone while driving and answering mentally challenging questions.
I'm not aware of anyone providing or requiring training, exams and licenses for that. I doubt that'll happen because it's not _necessary_ for most people to talk while driving (whether it's to a passenger or someone else far away). If implemented we'd have to have stickers or something to indicate that the driver is licensed to use a phone while driving. The benefit-cost ratio might not be good enough. Better to just improve the average driving ability with better training.
FWIW, Michael Schumacher used to chat with his pit crew while making really fast F1 laps.
1) Why so upset?
2) My hands aren't big at all. Just about manage an octave on a normal piano keyboard. FWIW, I can't do that Vulcan greeting thing easily.
3) I was just surprised that even the gamer/expensive keyboards still had keylock problems (I recently encountered one that can't even do 6 key rollover- so my friend couldn't play O2Mania/O2jam on it - and those sort of games require up to 7 keys pressed at once - typical config is sdf jkl and spacebar - it's a bit like guitar hero). A shame really, if even the expensive keyboards have keylock, there's not so much pressure for the cheap keyboards to do much better.
4) I said "rollover" was a _related_ term.
RTFA:
...
Firstly, the Green Party, a minority partner in Ireland's coalition government that has no ties to traditional, rural Ireland, saved the blasphemy legislation from defeat in the Seanad, Ireland's undemocratic pretend parliament for various worthies and failed politicians. Likewise, the opposition Labour Party, home to Ireland's liberal elites, has not sought to have the law struck down, instead favouring its amendment to make it more palatable to the cultural constituency. Labour's Pat Rabbitte sought a reformulation that excepts from the definition of blasphemy material which has 'literary, artistic, social or academic merit', harking back to the interminable debates about what is art and what is pornography (6).
and while the Catholic Church grumbles about a decline in spiritual values it has not actually demanded this law, nor are there many votes to be picked up on a 'Catholic Ireland' ticket. Even the other usual suspects, the 'mad mullahs' of Islam, are notable by their absence from the debate. Put simply, the religious lobby is not behind the move to criminalise blasphemy.
His fan club apparently aren't responsible for this particular mess. Seems like the Green Party and Liberals are responsible this time.
;) ) said something to the effect that "Atheists should be proud, not apologetic, because atheism is evidence of a healthy, independent, rational mind".
From the article:
" while the Catholic Church grumbles about a decline in spiritual values it has not actually demanded this law, nor are there many votes to be picked up on a 'Catholic Ireland' ticket. Even the other usual suspects, the 'mad mullahs' of Islam, are notable by their absence from the debate. Put simply, the religious lobby is not behind the move to criminalise blasphemy."
And:
" Firstly, the Green Party, a minority partner in Ireland's coalition government that has no ties to traditional, rural Ireland, saved the blasphemy legislation from defeat in the Seanad, Ireland's undemocratic pretend parliament for various worthies and failed politicians. Likewise, the opposition Labour Party, home to Ireland's liberal elites, has not sought to have the law struck down, instead favouring its amendment to make it more palatable to the cultural constituency. Labour's Pat Rabbitte sought a reformulation that excepts from the definition of blasphemy material which has 'literary, artistic, social or academic merit', harking back to the interminable debates about what is art and what is pornography (6). "
But so many atheists here are blaming Religion.
Ironically, the Great Dawkins Himself (May the FSM Bless Him
Me thinks someone has a bit too much faith in the wrong thing.
1) Even though some crazy guy could be doing terrible things in the name of Britney Spears (or sanosuke002), if you're a rational thinking person you should only blame Britney Spears for the stuff she actually does (or the stuff she doesn't do that she legally should do ;) ).
2) It's a general "offend religious belief" law, it doesn't cover only the Church. There are many other religions in Ireland. Maybe the neo-pagans might have some fun with this law. My guess is the muslims will find it really handy too.
The more types of animals and plants you eat, the less stress on the ecosystem as long as you aren't having something like the "bycatch issue" as in commercial fishing which I consider really terrible.
Bycatch is what a commercial fishing boat catches and throws away (usually dead) because it's not the sort of thing the boat specializes in catching.
So a sardine boat might catch other sorts of fishes, squids, prawns etc, but throw away everything that's not sardines. Then a shrimp boat comes along and catches all sorts of fishes, etc and throws away everything that's not shrimp.
Worse of all, the stuff that is thrown away dead can make up more than 80% of the catch! That's such an amazingly huge waste, that to me they should make that sort of fishing illegal. If you're going to fish for stuff, you should be eating/selling most of it, or let it go alive and _well_.
This is like someone going to a farm and killing sheep, and cows and dumping them, and only keeping the chickens to sell. Then, someone else comes along and kills and dumps chicken and sheep, and only takes the cows. That rarely happens in farming because the farmers have to pay for it all.
But in the bycatch case it doesn't cost the fishermen anything much in the short term, but in the long term all of us will end up with the costs.
Everything from the sea/waters that does not have fins and scales is out too. That includes lobsters, shrimp, mussels, oysters, catfish, eels, squid (calamari :) ). The French, Italian and Spanish do eat a lot of stuff the "Anglos" don't appear to eat nowadays.
It's not just about clean/unclean. Many of the "clean" animals must also be slaughtered in a certain way (to drain most of the blood out) otherwise they should not be eaten.
Traditionally mixing meat and dairy products = nonkosher. So that means a pizza with meat+cheese toppings is out...
Seems that was extrapolated that from the verse which says something to the effect that you should not cook a calf in its mother's milk (which to me is a rather different thing from making a pizza or a cheese burger). We're probably swallowing protozoa or even dust mites every now and then, so trying to stretch things to include more cases/scenarios seems a bad idea to me. But what do I know...
> The public must be educated to see dogs not for their aesthetic appeal but to think about their health.
Huh, when I look at a bulldog I see a really unhealthy dog, what aesthetic appeal? So many of the "Kennel breeds" are crap. They're breeding cripples and twisted "bonsais". Back problems, tendency to become paraplegics, tendency to go deaf or blind...
As for those who claim that "mutts" are better, I disagree. You can have good working dogs - go ask the shepherds that use dogs. Sure there'll be some "bugs" somewhere, but even "mutts" often have problems too, you just don't know what they are.
Till there's a parasite problem...
Seems sexual reproduction helps create descendants who are more resistant to parasites.
I've got my dsl line protected by having 250mA fast blow fuses on each wire (you can pick lower amp ratings if you're paranoid), and gas discharge tubes, MOVs across the lines to ground, after the fuses. So when there's a big enough lightning induced surge, I just have to change the fuses (once I had to change the RJ11 connectors and sockets - they got welded together - but the modem was OK ;) ).
So far my previous adsl modem only failed after many years and it failed after a power failure, not a storm. So maybe it was a power line surge that did it, or it failed due to stress of powering up. Thing is, it was on a UPS and that should have protected it from the power supply.
But I'm well aware that if lightning actually hits stuff, all that might not help at all - everything could just be vaporized or burnt up.
I'm personally not very comfortable with "fancy backup software" at least for personal use. Copying files is fine. dd + lzop for imaging is fine (careful to have conv=sync if you use noerror - using noerror is a good idea since if stuff is just starting to fail, you probably want to start copying as much as you can out ASAP).
By the time you get an electronic system where:
0) The election can be fair and be understood as fair enough (especially by the average voter)
1) Independent+Party representatives can verify with high certainty that the counting starts from zero (boxes are empty)
2) Independent+Party observers can observe that it's one person one vote.
3) Independent+Party observers can keep watch over the storage (and the transportation if necessary - preferable that the ballots aren't moved, but sometimes there's no choice) to help ensure that tampering is hard.
4) Independent+Party observers can observe the counting[1]
5) The voting remains anonymous (I personally don't think this is that important, but lots of people seem to believe it is).
You'll probably have something that looks very much like a paper voting system, only a lot more expensive and complex. How is it going to be different AND better?
Do show me how you can have a electronic voting system that satisfies all that and will be better and cheaper.
[1] Over here as part of the count process, the counters will lift the paper ballot up to let everyone around who is interested to look at it. The different parties can have their own people tallying up the votes themselves. So far over here the complaints are mainly about postal votes (which e-voting has the same probs with), and the bribing of _voters_ by politicians.
Regarding the vote buying, if the voters think that it's better to get some of their money back upfront rather than get some other benefit via big promises that's up to them.
The ctrl and shift keys are still reachable from ESDF. If they weren't millions of touch typists would complain. Alt seems to be in a less convenient place even for WASD (requires some thumb tucking).
I can most certainly hold down shift or ctrl while pressing any of those keys (ESDF) to move.
Actually I'm kind of surprised that gamer (or the more expensive) keyboards still have "keylock" problems.
FWIW I believe the related term is "rollover", and the traditional required keys for Braille support or "6 key rollover" was sdf jkl. Not asd "whatever".
Uh, to rig a paper election you will have to hide something. The more hiding you do the more suspicious it is. The more open the process is, the harder it is to cheat. With people watching each step e.g. checking that the boxes are empty, observing the voting, the storing and opening of the boxes, and the counting, it gets very hard to cheat on a massive enough scale.
Go see how paper voting is done in various countries and you can see it's really hard to rig in some countries, and easier in other countries (ballot boxes are moved, counting is done in secret by one organization).
Sure you can bribe people. But if so many are bribable, the country is screwed up so badly it hardly matters what system you use.
In contrast an electronic election is mostly _hidden_ to observers. So it should be suspicious by default.
If you set it up so that people can observe the storage and counting of the electronic votes, it's going to be as slow as paper voting, but more expensive and complicated.
The easiest way you can rig paper elections that are done openly and properly is with postal votes. However electronic voting systems are just as vulnerable to this problem - if not more so.
Elections don't just have to be fair, they have to be seen as fair (or at least fair enough). Otherwise they increase the odds of massive riots even if the result was correct.
Electronic voting systems are still opaque to the average person even if they happen to be fair.
In contrast when paper voting is done properly, the various parties can have their representatives observe the whole process of the voting, storage and counting. This is in fact done in many countries. It is not some "theory".
In "notorious" countries typically the "counting" is done behind closed doors, or observers aren't allowed to keep an eye over the ballot boxes. The more a country/gov hides the whole process, the more suspicious it will seem.
With electronic voting systems the counting is effectively done behind closed doors. And if you set things up so that independent and party representatives can observe the counting, the system ends up about as slow as paper voting, just more complex and expensive.
Electronic voting systems are only useful for the wrong reasons.
I have to admit that paper based voting fails if too many of the citizens in your country can't count properly. But by that time you probably have an idiocracy anyway.
I don't really recall an Apple II game using WASD for "up left down right".
While I doubt there was much of a standard in those days, controls like IJKM and IJKL (lode runner) were more common. Many also had AZ and "left arrow" "right arrow".
And some like Castle Wolfenstein had QWEASDZXC IOPKL;,./ (and other keys), so that you could control movement and the gun direction independently...
Most people should be able to hit the shift, caps and control from ESDF. Touch typists already use SDF as "home position", and as far as I know the shift key is plenty reachable for them - the ctrl key is stupid, it should be where the capslock currently is, but maybe the lawyers threatened to sue anyone who tried to revert it to the original position for the rest of us who only use capslock by mistake ;)...
;) ). It's not like I'm that great anyway.
:).
And the bonus is you can _additionally_ use A, Q, W, Z, C for other stuff on the left (while having the same number of keys available on the right as compared to ASDF).
Whereas if you use ASDF, you're stuck with just Q,TAB,CAPSLOCK,shift,z for the left. That's far fewer keys available for stuff.
I use ASDF because I'm too lazy to switch. I'm not one of those who would walk into a cybercafe and then spend 5 minutes customizing the controls (or load a relevant config file from a thumbdrive
But ESDF really makes more sense - the only issue is hitting "1" quickly might be a problem for many people, but if the weapons ran 2-7 instead that's not a problem. The problem I guess is explaining to new users that their weapons don't start from 1.
In the old quake and doom days not being able to hit 1 quickly wasn't really a problem, since you'd want to use the other weapons. Being able to quickly hit stuff like "super shotgun" was a lot more important than switch to the weakest gun (which was by default bound to 1).
The other thing about keyboards that rarely comes up is - how many keys can you press on the keyboard before it stops detecting the new keys. This is important for some games where you need to press many keys down at once. Or for the old games where you had two players sharing the same keyboard
Yeah I've gone to WASD but I wished game makers standardized on ESDF instead since it means there are more keys around the "triangle" you can use.
FWIW, even if you play many hours a week it doesn't mean you're addicted.
;).
e.g. if you can go on a holiday for a week and still not feel the urge to login and play, you're probably not addicted.
I know people who go on a holiday but they still "must" log in a few times
Spelling is not a waste of intellectual energy.
;).
Proper spelling and grammar is not a waste of time. Poor spelling and bad grammar wastes other people's time (since it can be harder for them to understand you) and often wastes your own time when you have to spend more time explaining what you actually meant.
Taking the effort and time to communicate properly is not a waste of time as long as you have something useful or interesting to say.
FWIW if enough people start using "it's" to convey a "possessive" meaning, then it'll be the correct spelling. The various factions are casting their votes accordingly
> prevents client devices associated to an access point from _inadvertently_ sharing files or communicating with other client devices associated to the access point.
[emphasis mine].
With this feature the AP won't let client devices talk to each other _through_ it (e.g. the AP won't help forward the packets), but if you don't use WPA the communications still won't be encrypted securely.
You still have the problem that the client devices could be all sharing the same key and so can decrypt each other's comms.
It behaves like a wired switch with "protected ports" enabled, the trouble is it's not a wired switch, it's easier to tap or tamper with wireless communications.
That said, I wonder if someone has tried TEMPEST attacks on cat-5 cable carrying ethernet data and made the results available.