Because Saudi Arabia would be a liberal paradise if it weren't for US support?
It is very difficult to say what Saudi Arabia or the whole Middle East would be like today without post-World War II US and Soviet influence. The potential hypothetical maybe that an even worse regime might exist in Saudi Arabia is no excuse and is bordering on a white man's burden argument.
Also, I'd be careful about attacking fanaticism, especially in strawmen. Your posting history suggests a fairly aggressive and monotone standpoint;-).
Well, I somewhat agree. The US has been stable partly because it's so good at delivering empty platitudes to its citizens in between times when the promise isn't delivered at all (Alien and Sedition Act, abolitionist speech, Mutual Film Corp. v. Industrial Commission of Ohio, Office of Censorship, Smith Act and McCarthyism, pre-DJB crypto, etc). When the Middle and Far East realise that this method is way more effective than honest censorship, maybe people will work it out.
Re:Fuck him, I hope he dies in prison
on
The Great Cyberheist
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· Score: 0, Flamebait
Property is theft, etc. But since you bring up a method of your most rowdy puppet state (not Israel - way too smart to be puppets)...
I can't make up my mind whether it is Americans or Saudi Arabians who are more convinced of the impossibility of a flaw in their belief systems and the resultant society created. Although I have always got better discussions from adherents to conservative Islam than from arch-capitalists, probably because only the former understand what fundamental faith-based assumptions they are making.
Yet more proof that religious folk are vulnerable to the creation of oppressive sociopolitical groups.
Half right The US props up the Saudi Arabian theocracy because an oppressed Saudi Arabia is a Saudi Arabia which delivers energy and military supremacy to the US without anyone having the chance to question it.
But Facebook isn't dangerous any more than cannabis is dangerous. That said, ban it and you'll remind the locals of your power while lazy foreigners wave their arms abourt over a loud but minor detail. It's the opposite strategy to giving US citizens guns and making them think they're well defended against a tyranny, but the effect is the same: do something irrelevant for distraction.
So you are agreeing with the principle and just debating the detail of whether the original hard copy has any value. Now, the latter question is argued in the positive by museums across the world, so I don't think we need to rehash that.
Erm, all my intellectual work which amounts to more than scraps or drill exercises is publicly available and can for the most part be downloaded. I'm not providing you with links because I maintain anonymity using this account. But I make a point of not hoarding my work, and I've got in more than several arguments with people who want me to do so.
The few times I have tried to build with my hands, I have made such a hash of it that it would probably threaten your safety if you tried to use the fruits of my labour. But I'm hoping it is more energy efficient to burn firewood for heat than the gas transported hundreds/thousands of miles.
Lots of people are discovered by or reported to the law for tax evasion, and for any number of regulatory crimes - which is what sodomy laws essentially were (as, of course, are drugs laws). At any one time many people will be enjoying sanctions and some a custodial sentence.
This is not evidence that the regulations are fairly and universally applied.
Can someone please explain why the above post was moderated down? I have suggested that he was not driven to suicide for being homosexual, since anyone in the right situation could get away with practising homosexuality. IOW it was a very selectively enforced law. Recall Churchill on the Navy: rum, sodomy and the lash.
His work was funded by the people, built on the knowledge of the people, is part of the heritage of the people and its content belongs to the people. At worst, the "owner" should be required to maintain its condition and make it publicly available, and to provide digital copies which enter the public domain. Just like any item of antiquity or listed building.
Oh please, everyone has and/or is aware of the gay at some stage if they went through Public school, and no-one cared or cares. He would normally have been left alone, so he must have been picked on because it was in some way politically expedient. In the worst case, it was mirroring the homosexuality scapegoat of US intelligence; more likely he had a combination of opinions and information that the government didn't want him to have any more. Who knows?
All that's clear is that it wasn't just "because he was gay", because he was neither being made an example of for his homosexuality (e.g. as Wilde), nor was he too low down the pecking order to get away with being gay.
I've read through all the comments to this article and I haven't seen anyone yet suggest that the councillor was perfectly serious, just hoped he could get away with it. Perhaps he wasn't expecting that this would push someone over the edge to do what they have already been wanting to do to her for years, but there is no question that it was one conservative from one culture helping to legitimise the view of another in another.
It is interesting to ask whether speech protections should include the right to say, "Give an opinion that I don't like and I shall call for your death."
So are you confirming or disagreeing with what I said? I'm also on one of the few "Unlimited" ISPs in the country which, to everyone's knowledge, has never (for those on its premium brand) kicked someone off for excessive usage, nor does it shape traffic.
This is only possible, as staff have suggested, because pretty much everyone either transfers an insignificant amount of data or practices restraint. If even a sizeable minority were to take unrestrained advantage of the Internet's wealth of multimedia resources, as has been increasingly happening with mainstream ISPs, the ISPs end up introducing fair usage policy/caps/throttling/traffic management (sometimes not revealing this last until a few technically minded people demonstrate it).
And yet no provider is going to stand for more than a couple of people actually operating at that speed more than a few hours a month. Lines are congested; transit isn't free. Internet access is being mis-sold just like everything else today: on the basis of a few upfront figures but ignoring the ongoing experience.
(Only yesterday I was confirming once again that there is no point upgrading my 10-year-old printer and CRT, while another dead mid-range LCD gets dismantled for parts after five years of life.)
If there is one place where a man should have the right to feel absolutely secure, it should in their own home.
The law should not concern itself with feeling, nor should you have any right to be more secure in your own home. Put another way, you have no less right to security outside your own home.
It is not reasonable to believe that your life is in danger simply because someone appears to be breaking/have broken down the door you are behind. That is the conclusion of a paranoid coward who would rather destroy than confront.
I'm a criminal, I don't have to obey the law, but you are not a criminal so you do.
If you think that the only reason people don't go around raping and killing is because they are law-abiding, you are a sorry human being. You are also a couple of steps away from totalitarianism, because a scoff law who drops litter is dangerous as a serial killer, right?
Home invasions are a lot risker when you know the homeowner can legally kill you.
For the homeowner and the unwelcome visitor, because the number of purpose-built lethal weapons will have gone up from 0 to 2.
Perhaps you would like to check how break-ins in the UK end up with the murder of anyone in the house, and compare that to the US.
If someone kicks in your front door or crashes through a window, they're not coming in for tea and crumpets. They probably are going to rape you and kill your family. Are there kinder gentler criminals in other countries?
Yes. For example, I know America is a country full of financially responsible people but evil socialist Europe has quite a few people who buy what they cannot afford and sometimes the debt collector knocks a little too hard on the door.
In the U.S., you can justifiably kill someone if they've broken into your house and you could convince a jury that you were in fear of your life.
Oh, self defence applies pretty much everywhere... it is just that the jury in a civilised country understands the difference between, say, pushing down a piece of wood and attempting to kill someone. So, there is quite a chasm between breaking into someone's house and a reasonable person in the house being in fear of his life.
I don't see why you would be any more in fear of your life than, say, if someone started running at you with wild eyes in the street... but, as we all know, the law is about Americans feeling insecure and having to have some notion of a sacrosanct parcel of land. This insecurity can be reinforced so that the pathetic and dwindling middle class relate in a pathological and masochistic way to the ruling elite when they try to justify their expeditions.
Yeah, outside America people aren't so scared of others and understand proportionate response, which is why there's a notion of excessive force.
Americans, being neophytes at the whole civilisation thing, assume everyone is as much of an ape as they are. So they choose to shoot first and ask questions later. This applies from individual all the way to national self defence.
If you're so afraid of civilisation and see every threat in terms of OH GOD SOMEONE'S ABOUT TO RAPE ME AND KILL MY FAMILY then perhaps you ought to move to Texas rather than dragging Canada down with you.
I'm sorry, I must have missed the part in my post where I said that the electronics community were a bunch of third-rate geeks or even criticised the Arduino. I criticised an electronics starter kit builder for refusing to take on (or sponsor) the more difficult challenge of building something similar to Kinect and instead offering an attention-whoring bounty to someone who can write a driver for someone else's. IOW, they can build their own damn hardware.
If you're going to call yourself "Lady Ada" you'd better be able to justify it. Despite my mathematical training I don't go around calling myself Karl Friedrich Gauss partly because I'm not him and partly because I don't deserve it.
Stop being an attention whoring second rate electronics kit seller for third rate geeks and build your own damn hardware. You have a moderately bright staff and you're wasting resources on tacky PR.
Stallman's had it right from the start: unless you must, don't tie yourself into something someone else has built and doesn't want to share. This applies as much for hardware, protocols and interfaces as for code proper.
If you're happy with the status quo, you'll vote for the incumbent
No, you may think that all options are equally good. For example, you may be centre-right and conclude that Tory, Clegg Liberal Democrat and New Labour will satisfy you equally. You thus don't vote because you are happy with any outcome. Perhaps you take a slightly more involved viewpoint that what matters is that you/can/ vote, not who you vote for, so all you really need to do is to allow democracy to change government every few years to prevent rot. The intentionally spoiled ballot is generally understood as a protest, whereas either of the described are usually expressed through simply not turning up.
A compulsory system, at least, tells you _something_ about the majority,
What does it tell you, please? You are taking away one choice (not turning up), so how can this tell you/more/ about how people feel? Are you proposing that the writing on any spoilt ballot is recorded? For example, in my case I would write that I refuse to vote while voting is compulsory (actually, I lie, I would probably not turn up and pay the $20ish fine, if it becomes anything like the Australian system - and on the form explaining my reason for not voting, I would say "because I have to, and that is not democracy").
Sure there is. It's called a donkey vote. Ie: an invalid ballot.
Re-read what I said. You cannot, with a spoilt ballot, differentiate between the following:
(i) I am happy with the status quo, and will leave it up to others to decide which candidate based on details which are unimportant to me;
(ii) I am not happy with any of the options, and choose none of them;
(iii) I haven't really thought much about this and only turning up because I will be punished if I don't.
At least with voluntary voting you may be able to say something about the difference between someone who spoilt his ballot and somebody who does not turn up.
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Because Saudi Arabia would be a liberal paradise if it weren't for US support?
It is very difficult to say what Saudi Arabia or the whole Middle East would be like today without post-World War II US and Soviet influence. The potential hypothetical maybe that an even worse regime might exist in Saudi Arabia is no excuse and is bordering on a white man's burden argument.
Also, I'd be careful about attacking fanaticism, especially in strawmen. Your posting history suggests a fairly aggressive and monotone standpoint ;-).
Well, I somewhat agree. The US has been stable partly because it's so good at delivering empty platitudes to its citizens in between times when the promise isn't delivered at all (Alien and Sedition Act, abolitionist speech, Mutual Film Corp. v. Industrial Commission of Ohio, Office of Censorship, Smith Act and McCarthyism, pre-DJB crypto, etc). When the Middle and Far East realise that this method is way more effective than honest censorship, maybe people will work it out.
Property is theft, etc. But since you bring up a method of your most rowdy puppet state (not Israel - way too smart to be puppets)...
I can't make up my mind whether it is Americans or Saudi Arabians who are more convinced of the impossibility of a flaw in their belief systems and the resultant society created. Although I have always got better discussions from adherents to conservative Islam than from arch-capitalists, probably because only the former understand what fundamental faith-based assumptions they are making.
Yet more proof that religious folk are vulnerable to the creation of oppressive sociopolitical groups.
Half right The US props up the Saudi Arabian theocracy because an oppressed Saudi Arabia is a Saudi Arabia which delivers energy and military supremacy to the US without anyone having the chance to question it.
But Facebook isn't dangerous any more than cannabis is dangerous. That said, ban it and you'll remind the locals of your power while lazy foreigners wave their arms abourt over a loud but minor detail. It's the opposite strategy to giving US citizens guns and making them think they're well defended against a tyranny, but the effect is the same: do something irrelevant for distraction.
Meanwhile, you continue imposing your will.
So you are agreeing with the principle and just debating the detail of whether the original hard copy has any value. Now, the latter question is argued in the positive by museums across the world, so I don't think we need to rehash that.
Erm, all my intellectual work which amounts to more than scraps or drill exercises is publicly available and can for the most part be downloaded. I'm not providing you with links because I maintain anonymity using this account. But I make a point of not hoarding my work, and I've got in more than several arguments with people who want me to do so.
The few times I have tried to build with my hands, I have made such a hash of it that it would probably threaten your safety if you tried to use the fruits of my labour. But I'm hoping it is more energy efficient to burn firewood for heat than the gas transported hundreds/thousands of miles.
Lots of people are discovered by or reported to the law for tax evasion, and for any number of regulatory crimes - which is what sodomy laws essentially were (as, of course, are drugs laws). At any one time many people will be enjoying sanctions and some a custodial sentence.
This is not evidence that the regulations are fairly and universally applied.
Can someone please explain why the above post was moderated down? I have suggested that he was not driven to suicide for being homosexual, since anyone in the right situation could get away with practising homosexuality. IOW it was a very selectively enforced law. Recall Churchill on the Navy: rum, sodomy and the lash.
In what way is this is trolling? thanks.
His work was funded by the people, built on the knowledge of the people, is part of the heritage of the people and its content belongs to the people. At worst, the "owner" should be required to maintain its condition and make it publicly available, and to provide digital copies which enter the public domain. Just like any item of antiquity or listed building.
Oh please, everyone has and/or is aware of the gay at some stage if they went through Public school, and no-one cared or cares. He would normally have been left alone, so he must have been picked on because it was in some way politically expedient. In the worst case, it was mirroring the homosexuality scapegoat of US intelligence; more likely he had a combination of opinions and information that the government didn't want him to have any more. Who knows?
All that's clear is that it wasn't just "because he was gay", because he was neither being made an example of for his homosexuality (e.g. as Wilde), nor was he too low down the pecking order to get away with being gay.
I hate it when my copper rusts away like that man.
He formed a thin oxide layer to resist further corrosion, surely?
I've read through all the comments to this article and I haven't seen anyone yet suggest that the councillor was perfectly serious, just hoped he could get away with it. Perhaps he wasn't expecting that this would push someone over the edge to do what they have already been wanting to do to her for years, but there is no question that it was one conservative from one culture helping to legitimise the view of another in another.
It is interesting to ask whether speech protections should include the right to say, "Give an opinion that I don't like and I shall call for your death."
So are you confirming or disagreeing with what I said? I'm also on one of the few "Unlimited" ISPs in the country which, to everyone's knowledge, has never (for those on its premium brand) kicked someone off for excessive usage, nor does it shape traffic.
This is only possible, as staff have suggested, because pretty much everyone either transfers an insignificant amount of data or practices restraint. If even a sizeable minority were to take unrestrained advantage of the Internet's wealth of multimedia resources, as has been increasingly happening with mainstream ISPs, the ISPs end up introducing fair usage policy/caps/throttling/traffic management (sometimes not revealing this last until a few technically minded people demonstrate it).
And yet no provider is going to stand for more than a couple of people actually operating at that speed more than a few hours a month. Lines are congested; transit isn't free. Internet access is being mis-sold just like everything else today: on the basis of a few upfront figures but ignoring the ongoing experience.
(Only yesterday I was confirming once again that there is no point upgrading my 10-year-old printer and CRT, while another dead mid-range LCD gets dismantled for parts after five years of life.)
If there is one place where a man should have the right to feel absolutely secure, it should in their own home.
The law should not concern itself with feeling, nor should you have any right to be more secure in your own home. Put another way, you have no less right to security outside your own home.
It is not reasonable to believe that your life is in danger simply because someone appears to be breaking/have broken down the door you are behind. That is the conclusion of a paranoid coward who would rather destroy than confront.
I'm a criminal, I don't have to obey the law, but you are not a criminal so you do.
If you think that the only reason people don't go around raping and killing is because they are law-abiding, you are a sorry human being. You are also a couple of steps away from totalitarianism, because a scoff law who drops litter is dangerous as a serial killer, right?
Home invasions are a lot risker when you know the homeowner can legally kill you.
For the homeowner and the unwelcome visitor, because the number of purpose-built lethal weapons will have gone up from 0 to 2.
Perhaps you would like to check how break-ins in the UK end up with the murder of anyone in the house, and compare that to the US.
"Let's not kill a man for breaking down a door."
If someone kicks in your front door or crashes through a window, they're not coming in for tea and crumpets. They probably are going to rape you and kill your family. Are there kinder gentler criminals in other countries?
Yes. For example, I know America is a country full of financially responsible people but evil socialist Europe has quite a few people who buy what they cannot afford and sometimes the debt collector knocks a little too hard on the door.
In the U.S., you can justifiably kill someone if they've broken into your house and you could convince a jury that you were in fear of your life.
Oh, self defence applies pretty much everywhere... it is just that the jury in a civilised country understands the difference between, say, pushing down a piece of wood and attempting to kill someone. So, there is quite a chasm between breaking into someone's house and a reasonable person in the house being in fear of his life.
I don't see why you would be any more in fear of your life than, say, if someone started running at you with wild eyes in the street... but, as we all know, the law is about Americans feeling insecure and having to have some notion of a sacrosanct parcel of land. This insecurity can be reinforced so that the pathetic and dwindling middle class relate in a pathological and masochistic way to the ruling elite when they try to justify their expeditions.
Yeah, outside America people aren't so scared of others and understand proportionate response, which is why there's a notion of excessive force.
Americans, being neophytes at the whole civilisation thing, assume everyone is as much of an ape as they are. So they choose to shoot first and ask questions later. This applies from individual all the way to national self defence.
If you're so afraid of civilisation and see every threat in terms of OH GOD SOMEONE'S ABOUT TO RAPE ME AND KILL MY FAMILY then perhaps you ought to move to Texas rather than dragging Canada down with you.
I'm sorry, I must have missed the part in my post where I said that the electronics community were a bunch of third-rate geeks or even criticised the Arduino. I criticised an electronics starter kit builder for refusing to take on (or sponsor) the more difficult challenge of building something similar to Kinect and instead offering an attention-whoring bounty to someone who can write a driver for someone else's. IOW, they can build their own damn hardware.
If you're going to call yourself "Lady Ada" you'd better be able to justify it. Despite my mathematical training I don't go around calling myself Karl Friedrich Gauss partly because I'm not him and partly because I don't deserve it.
Stop being an attention whoring second rate electronics kit seller for third rate geeks and build your own damn hardware. You have a moderately bright staff and you're wasting resources on tacky PR.
Stallman's had it right from the start: unless you must, don't tie yourself into something someone else has built and doesn't want to share. This applies as much for hardware, protocols and interfaces as for code proper.
The world needs fewer technocrats.
(That's not my department, says Wernher von Braun...)
If you're happy with the status quo, you'll vote for the incumbent
No, you may think that all options are equally good. For example, you may be centre-right and conclude that Tory, Clegg Liberal Democrat and New Labour will satisfy you equally. You thus don't vote because you are happy with any outcome. Perhaps you take a slightly more involved viewpoint that what matters is that you /can/ vote, not who you vote for, so all you really need to do is to allow democracy to change government every few years to prevent rot. The intentionally spoiled ballot is generally understood as a protest, whereas either of the described are usually expressed through simply not turning up.
A compulsory system, at least, tells you _something_ about the majority,
What does it tell you, please? You are taking away one choice (not turning up), so how can this tell you /more/ about how people feel? Are you proposing that the writing on any spoilt ballot is recorded? For example, in my case I would write that I refuse to vote while voting is compulsory (actually, I lie, I would probably not turn up and pay the $20ish fine, if it becomes anything like the Australian system - and on the form explaining my reason for not voting, I would say "because I have to, and that is not democracy").
Sure there is. It's called a donkey vote. Ie: an invalid ballot.
Re-read what I said. You cannot, with a spoilt ballot, differentiate between the following:
(i) I am happy with the status quo, and will leave it up to others to decide which candidate based on details which are unimportant to me;
(ii) I am not happy with any of the options, and choose none of them;
(iii) I haven't really thought much about this and only turning up because I will be punished if I don't.
At least with voluntary voting you may be able to say something about the difference between someone who spoilt his ballot and somebody who does not turn up.