my concern: The stripping away of the ability for law enforcement to detect aberrant behavior BEFORE it gets to the point of violence against another.
Cops fundamentally don't do that. They don't do it now, and won't do it if we gave them all the authority in the world. Did you not read my 2nd to last paragraph?
if the guy next door to me starts purchasing large amounts of explosives over the internet
BAM, instant warrant. No problem. No need to give extra authority to cops.
The same for pedophiles
You know? I'm ok with people on parole for sexual crimes to have their internet logs double-checked by their parole officer. Ex-cons really do have less rights than the upstanding citizens.
Also: How is the individual going to protect themselves and their families against those who would (falsely) accuse them of wrong-doing?
But there are a countable number of (visible) stars, it's just a large number. And the infinity of space is literally unobservable. It's just black. So you're not seeing an uncountably infinite number of anything up there.
Just don't think too hard about it, otherwise you'll face something similar to the Total Perspective Vortex
judge the past using the morals of the present, without taking into account the prevailing culture of that period
Well duh. Morals are relative. You seem to think that means they're rooted to their associated culture, but that's not really how it has to be. My views on morals are relative to me. So I can say that something is horrendously atrocious...to me. And I frankly don't care about context or the social norms of the time and the environment in which this guy was raised. (Actually, I do take that into account, but it doesn't sway me much. But hey, that's just me.)
Sure, it might not seem racist *to them* at the time. To them it might seem perfectly normal. But *to me*, it's still racism.
But I have to agree with you that just because the guy is racist, and I see him as a raging racist, doesn't mean his works are somehow inherently bad because of it. It just means the sections that pertain to race are probably a bit off. Like how Heinlein has some seriously fucked up issues when it comes to women. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is still a good book. Just take the part about polygamy with a grain of salt. (and his issues don't really come out all that bad in that book).
Or Foxnews. Just because they're political arm of Murdoch and his republican ways doesn't mean everything they report is bad. You just have to accept that it's being presented by a propaganda machine.
The works of an author are not necessarily tainted by the flaws of the author. Even when they are tainted, as long as you understand the flawed premise, the remainder of the work can still be of quality. And all that said, were I alive at the time I would probably
pirate his work rather than give the racist a dime.
A lot of the things you are for and against sound great in theory, but not so much when it comes out that the person next door to you has been quietly collecting explosives for the last decade. Or has a long record of molesting children.
Without referencing the government or law enforcement; how is the individual going to protect themselves and their families against those who would do them harm? It seems that the only things you agree with are reactive, and not protective
Well I guess I've got civil libertarian trends, so I'll take a shot.
Cellphones to call 911 is the obvious answer but you're excluding law enforcement so I guess that's out. Past that I'd say door locks, dogs, and shotguns.
Why exactly are you excluding law enforcement? Because I believe in civil liberties? Please. I really do want the cops to bust down doors and catch the bad guys, but I want them to have a warrant to do so. We have checks and balances here for a reason. They can't throw a black hood over anyone they suspect, and I can't do anything illegal without being fined or getting thrown in jail. Yay social contract!
Also, why do you think the person next door has been collecting explosive? If you have a reason to suspect that, I imagine a judge would most certainly give out a search warrant.
If someone has a long record of molesting children... I imagine he's a convict of some sort and isn't allowed to be around kids. Short of killing him or keeping him in prison forever there's really no guaranteed solution of what to do with ex-cons. It's a known problem. He's probably on parole, but still, I wouldn't let your children go over there. What more do you want?
I'd rather prevent it from happening.
But tearing down civil liberties and giving the cops the authority to spy on you won't help with that. Cops are a reactionary force themselves. Someone calls them they respond. If they can arrest someone from the evidence left behind, you could say they prevented all sorts of future crimes the guy might have committed. Maybe, sorta, kinda. But the only time the cops are proactive is when they can hand out a ticket and collect a fine. You know, speeding tickets. Soooo, it appears that you're the one trying to beef up reactionary forces that will seek vengeance for your murdered family.
How is the individual going to protect themselves and their families against those who would (falsely) accuse them of wrong-doing? Because that's a subset of "do harm". Especially if they have the power to sic the cops on you and have them spy on you.
As a fencer, I always watch their bellguard. It's pretty center-of-mass. The eyes are too far away from the thing that actually makes attacks, and it's even further away from their feet, which are usually the biggest indicator of what they're going to do. Well, not so much their feet, but their weight distribution on their feet. The fact that we wear these face-obscuring masks might contribute.
A programmer from a very large computer company went to a software conference and then returned to report to his manager, saying: ``What sort of programmers work for other companies? They behaved badly and were unconcerned with appearances. Their hair was long and unkempt and their clothes were wrinkled and old. They crashed our hospitality suite and they made rude noises during my presentation.''
The manager said: ``I should have never sent you to the conference. Those programmers live beyond the physical world. They consider life absurd, an accidental coincidence. They come and go without knowing limitations. Without a care, they live only for their programs. Why should they bother with social conventions?
Hacker sports are almost always primarily self-competitive ones involving concentration, stamina, and micromotor skills: martial arts, bicycling, auto racing, kite flying, hiking, rock climbing, aviation, target-shooting, sailing, caving, juggling, skiing, skating, skydiving, scuba diving.
Why no love for fencing?
[hacker degrees] linguistics, and philosophy.
Wut? Really?
Hacker folklore that pays homage to ‘wizards’ and speaks of incantations and demons has too much psychological truthfulness about it to be entirely a joke.
That or we played D&D and read Tolkien...
Also, did you include Taoism entirely because of that one 1987 book "The Tao of Programming"?
It's kinda odd this hasn't been explicitly said yet. But while Linux has everything for developing games, what it DOESN'T have is a massive library of games to play on it. As opposed to Windows, which does. Every windows gamer out there owns a pile of games that only runs on windows. More than likely, those simply won't run on Linux. And historically, gaming meant Windows. Now, Windows might not have as big of a library as you might think. A LOT of older games need to be run in DosBox or other emulation, which is frankly above the heads of most gamers. Same goes with Wine. Linux has a much larger library of games if you include Wine, but that's really only an option to geeks. Last I saw, it takes a lot of tweaking and fiddling. (And personally, fuck the non-geeks. I'm really not that motivated to help gamers who won't help themselves.)
If Valve is serious about pushing games on Linux, they need to make some serious contributions to the usability of Wine for gaming. Even though every hour played on Wine is an hour people aren't paying Valve. Which, come on, companies don't do that. They also need to lay down the law and state that they (and their LinuxSteam games) only care about a limited set of hardware. With new hardware being added as it comes out. That would help a lot.
Oh? Android can mange 3 monitors? Do you really think it will even in 4 years?
By 2016, Android will outsell windows.
Phones might sell like hotcakes, but the comparison of bicycle sales to motorcycle sales is not equivalent. Both have their uses. One might be more in vogue as the healthier more economical option. But sometimes you need to GET places.
Not to be protectionistic, or appeal to nationalism, I certainly understand immigrants are just looking for a better life. But what about the Honduran dream?
Why don't you work hard to improve your homeland? Got something against Hondurans? Hey, it's great you want to come work over here. You sound like a pretty hip guy and it'd probably be cool to be your neighbor. And you'd do that whole contribution to society thing and we'd have a net gain. That thing where you take someone's first world job and telecommute for third-world wages is, frankly, a harsh reality that we in the first world have to wake up to. (It's another harsh reality for managers when the quality from a third-world third-party is often not on par with local engineering, but I digress.) But really, someone has to fix up the shitty parts of the world. There's a lot of work needed there. A lot of opportunity. You could run the best/only engineering firm in your area. And simply put, you're a HELL of a lot better choice than me for being the guy to try and make it better. You know, resentment against outsiders and all. Listen, we're all in this together, and we can't simply ignore the poor luckless shmucks. So why are you leaving?
our children need never experience the fears that come with momentary separations,
Let me be clear about this. Children NEED to experience the fears that come with momentary separations. It'll happen eventually. It's better if he is not 18 and driving a car to college when it happens. But yeah, do it in stages.
The military doesn't build these things. Companies do. So it's not like the money is put into a pile and lit on fire. It circulates; which is key to a health economy.
Yeah, I'm with daem0n1x on this. You could say that if we employed people to do nothing but dig ditches and fill them back up that the money we pay them "gets circulated" and improves the economy. Those people buy shovels, and have homes, and lead meaningful lives outside of work. But it doesn't add one fucking drop of wealth to the system. The taxes that we collect from everyone to pay these selective few IS wealth. Taxes are a burden. But if we come together pool our money and buy important things, like oh I dunno, infrastructure, then the GAIN we reap is GREATER than the COST. This justifies governments. If they piss away our money, kick 'em out. As with any business type situation, if the cost of the employee is more than the benefit of the employee, cut them loose. And keep that metric on a long-term reading.
Now, as for military R&D, I have to admit it's a good way to convince the paranoid into parting with some of their fallout-shelter and shotgun shells fund and doing something TANGENTIALLY useful with it. As long as it's basic or fundamental research.
screw smart drugs, it's 2012, where's my neural implants?
Turns out most people aren't a fan of surgery. So we put it in your pocket. You now have a portable powerful external brain that can memorize anything and everything you throw at it, is near-constantly, near-instantly connected to everyone everywhere, knows where you're at, and who is nearby.
And you can even make calls with it.
Hmmm, looking at it that way, the effort we put into adapting to the shift from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle to... all of us being bookworms... it seems downright fascist. We're dictating that the majority of the populace has to be a geek. Or at least, we're rewarding those who are, and punishing those who aren't. I understand there are really good reasons, the needs have simply changed. These days we need more geeks then we need spear-throwers. But to encourage a system where we force people to behave a certain way? To change who they fundamentally are? Education is one thing, mind-altering drugs another. There does come a point where the human animal rebels at being changed.
I don't think it would be a good thing if we had a culture where students and professionals were expected to take aderall to stay competitive. That's the sort of thing that's straight out of a dystopian sci-fi novel.
And all that said, I'm still tempted to see if it would make me a better coder.
I mean what is this complete obsession with putting every damned thing on everything else?
That's the idea that we can re-use things that we own. Recycling, if you will. It's kind of a thing on slashdot that we have the right to tinker and be in control of the things we own. There's that noticeable shift from being owners to renters even when it comes to our hardware and software. That irks us. We push back. When we buy something, we own it, and we will damn well do whatever we want with it.
I too have one of these photo frame things. I guess I've used it a couple times at parties, but otherwise it's just a power leech. I came here for interesting ideas about what to put on a random LCD screen in the house. Sure, a picture frame can just be a picture frame. Unless I want it to be something else. I have that right to tinker and re-purpose it. I know that not everyone is a tinkerer, and that's perfectly fine. But really, if you don't like the current conversation, why butt in?
There was barely any time to do what I wanted to do.
But, once they've found that subject, they should be allowed to pursue it.
I'm sorry, but most kids will choose videogames and browsing the internet. I mean, hand-eye coordination studies and mixed-medium art appreciation classes. Or they'll strive for that football scholarship. Or focus on "communications" (which is a degree now, apparently). Or sex. I hear a lot of highschool kids are pretty interested in that field of study.
This whole "creating a productive workforce" thing is not a good thing to leave to the whims of highschool students.
We need STEM workers. Everything else is getting automated away (and that's progress). So listen up kiddos, it's time you learned some science.
AT-Robots, by Ed T. Toton (the third). Assembly in a virtual environment. It's not... the newest, or the hippest language, the best, or possibly even a good idea... but by god's teeth if it was good enough for me, it'll be good enough for my kid.
Alright people, form a group. Short people in front, tall people behind. Does everyone have their props? Lighting, fix that tripod. Tone down the fans, I SAID TONE DOWN THE FANS. These are makers, not storm-chasers.
You, you, to the left. Spread out on the right.... ok.
Alright people, serious face, game time. ROLLING! All together now, 3... 2... 1...
Separation of church/state has always been about keeping either as an institution from controlling the other
Exactly, if churches weren't tax-exempt, the state couldn't influence the church by threatening to remove the tax-exempt status.
Sadly, many people take this to somehow mean that politicians can't be part of the church
Huh, that's funny. I must have missed all those atheist candidates...
(Also, they're facing the loss of their tax-exempt status not for preaching bigotry, but for preaching to their masses to vote for the guy that supports bigotry. Once they enter that political ring, they lose their tax-exempt status. Same goes for all non-profit)
software developers are supposed to make money in a world where they can't charge people for software licenses.
Well, as a software engineer, I can answer this one: People pay you to solve problems. Generally they hire you to do so, but I've seen a lot of consultant/contractors do the mercenary thing.
At some of the places I worked, they would be perfectly fine if was open sourced afterwards, as long as they could still use it to solve their problem. Other places, the source was a national secret. But in both, there was a problem, they needed some software to solve it, and they paid me to git'er'done.
There are, indeed, those people that have products out on the web, that you can purchase and run, typically with some sort of DRM to keep the filthy pirates from keehauling them. And if IP laws are relaxed... they'll face the same troubles they do now: The poor pirate them and are unsueable because they're poor and have nothing to take, the rich blatantly steal their ideas and are unsueable because they're rich and can afford better lawyers.
Considering the "give it away for free" model has worked pretty well for Linux and that entire community, I'm going to just declare that this section of the problem has been solved. Our skillset is rare enough and useful enough that software developers as a whole don't have a problem with money.
in a world where they are not allowed to sell their works?
Whoa now. Whoever suggested that is crazy. No. I believe the idea is that they can't sue people for listening/viewing/reading their work. Subtle difference between "not allowed" and "it's an unrealistic expectation". I imagine there'd be a lot of begging, donation buttons, and commissions.
Ah, running Dwarf Fortress remotely is interesting. Thank you. This might let my little netbook tackle it...
But the crux of that requirement was speed. Portable devices aren't beefy enough, memory and processing wise, to handle these heavyweight programs. It doesn't matter if you can run it remotely if there's no-where remote to run it.
But these are just my requirements. Most people don't particularly need that much processing power because they don't run Dwarf Fortress. Even though they should. So while I will be sticking to my desktop, I imagine a lot of people out there could simply live on a smartphone today. Which is kinda concerning because once desktop components are not the defacto-standard, they'll no longer benefit from economy of scale. Which means I, and geeks who actually use their computers, will suffer for it.
As much as I like the guy, this would be the thing that would get me to vote against him. If the opposing candidate promised justice in this case, that would be a really REALLY good sign.
Slashdot Mirror
my concern: The stripping away of the ability for law enforcement to detect aberrant behavior BEFORE it gets to the point of violence against another.
Cops fundamentally don't do that. They don't do it now, and won't do it if we gave them all the authority in the world. Did you not read my 2nd to last paragraph?
if the guy next door to me starts purchasing large amounts of explosives over the internet
BAM, instant warrant. No problem. No need to give extra authority to cops.
The same for pedophiles
You know? I'm ok with people on parole for sexual crimes to have their internet logs double-checked by their parole officer. Ex-cons really do have less rights than the upstanding citizens.
Also: How is the individual going to protect themselves and their families against those who would (falsely) accuse them of wrong-doing?
But there are a countable number of (visible) stars, it's just a large number. And the infinity of space is literally unobservable. It's just black. So you're not seeing an uncountably infinite number of anything up there.
Just don't think too hard about it, otherwise you'll face something similar to the Total Perspective Vortex
judge the past using the morals of the present, without taking into account the prevailing culture of that period
Well duh. Morals are relative. You seem to think that means they're rooted to their associated culture, but that's not really how it has to be. My views on morals are relative to me. So I can say that something is horrendously atrocious ...to me. And I frankly don't care about context or the social norms of the time and the environment in which this guy was raised. (Actually, I do take that into account, but it doesn't sway me much. But hey, that's just me.)
Sure, it might not seem racist *to them* at the time. To them it might seem perfectly normal. But *to me*, it's still racism.
But I have to agree with you that just because the guy is racist, and I see him as a raging racist, doesn't mean his works are somehow inherently bad because of it. It just means the sections that pertain to race are probably a bit off.
Like how Heinlein has some seriously fucked up issues when it comes to women. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is still a good book. Just take the part about polygamy with a grain of salt. (and his issues don't really come out all that bad in that book).
Or Foxnews. Just because they're political arm of Murdoch and his republican ways doesn't mean everything they report is bad. You just have to accept that it's being presented by a propaganda machine.
The works of an author are not necessarily tainted by the flaws of the author. Even when they are tainted, as long as you understand the flawed premise, the remainder of the work can still be of quality. And all that said, were I alive at the time I would probably pirate his work rather than give the racist a dime.
A lot of the things you are for and against sound great in theory, but not so much when it comes out that the person next door to you has been quietly collecting explosives for the last decade. Or has a long record of molesting children.
Without referencing the government or law enforcement; how is the individual going to protect themselves and their families against those who would do them harm? It seems that the only things you agree with are reactive, and not protective
Well I guess I've got civil libertarian trends, so I'll take a shot.
Cellphones to call 911 is the obvious answer but you're excluding law enforcement so I guess that's out. Past that I'd say door locks, dogs, and shotguns.
Why exactly are you excluding law enforcement? Because I believe in civil liberties? Please. I really do want the cops to bust down doors and catch the bad guys, but I want them to have a warrant to do so. We have checks and balances here for a reason. They can't throw a black hood over anyone they suspect, and I can't do anything illegal without being fined or getting thrown in jail. Yay social contract!
Also, why do you think the person next door has been collecting explosive? If you have a reason to suspect that, I imagine a judge would most certainly give out a search warrant.
If someone has a long record of molesting children... I imagine he's a convict of some sort and isn't allowed to be around kids. Short of killing him or keeping him in prison forever there's really no guaranteed solution of what to do with ex-cons. It's a known problem. He's probably on parole, but still, I wouldn't let your children go over there. What more do you want?
I'd rather prevent it from happening.
But tearing down civil liberties and giving the cops the authority to spy on you won't help with that. Cops are a reactionary force themselves. Someone calls them they respond. If they can arrest someone from the evidence left behind, you could say they prevented all sorts of future crimes the guy might have committed. Maybe, sorta, kinda. But the only time the cops are proactive is when they can hand out a ticket and collect a fine. You know, speeding tickets. Soooo, it appears that you're the one trying to beef up reactionary forces that will seek vengeance for your murdered family.
How is the individual going to protect themselves and their families against those who would (falsely) accuse them of wrong-doing? Because that's a subset of "do harm". Especially if they have the power to sic the cops on you and have them spy on you.
As a fencer, I always watch their bellguard. It's pretty center-of-mass. The eyes are too far away from the thing that actually makes attacks, and it's even further away from their feet, which are usually the biggest indicator of what they're going to do. Well, not so much their feet, but their weight distribution on their feet. The fact that we wear these face-obscuring masks might contribute.
A programmer from a very large computer company went to a software conference and then returned to report to his manager, saying: ``What sort of programmers work for other companies? They behaved badly and were unconcerned with appearances. Their hair was long and unkempt and their clothes were wrinkled and old. They crashed our hospitality suite and they made rude noises during my presentation.''
The manager said: ``I should have never sent you to the conference. Those programmers live beyond the physical world. They consider life absurd, an accidental coincidence. They come and go without knowing limitations. Without a care, they live only for their programs. Why should they bother with social conventions?
``They are alive within the Tao.''
Hacker sports are almost always primarily self-competitive ones involving concentration, stamina, and micromotor skills: martial arts, bicycling, auto racing, kite flying, hiking, rock climbing, aviation, target-shooting, sailing, caving, juggling, skiing, skating, skydiving, scuba diving.
Why no love for fencing?
[hacker degrees] linguistics, and philosophy.
Wut? Really?
Hacker folklore that pays homage to ‘wizards’ and speaks of incantations and demons has too much psychological truthfulness about it to be entirely a joke.
That or we played D&D and read Tolkien...
Also, did you include Taoism entirely because of that one 1987 book "The Tao of Programming"?
It's kinda odd this hasn't been explicitly said yet. But while Linux has everything for developing games, what it DOESN'T have is a massive library of games to play on it. As opposed to Windows, which does. Every windows gamer out there owns a pile of games that only runs on windows. More than likely, those simply won't run on Linux. And historically, gaming meant Windows. Now, Windows might not have as big of a library as you might think. A LOT of older games need to be run in DosBox or other emulation, which is frankly above the heads of most gamers. Same goes with Wine. Linux has a much larger library of games if you include Wine, but that's really only an option to geeks. Last I saw, it takes a lot of tweaking and fiddling. (And personally, fuck the non-geeks. I'm really not that motivated to help gamers who won't help themselves.)
If Valve is serious about pushing games on Linux, they need to make some serious contributions to the usability of Wine for gaming. Even though every hour played on Wine is an hour people aren't paying Valve. Which, come on, companies don't do that.
They also need to lay down the law and state that they (and their LinuxSteam games) only care about a limited set of hardware. With new hardware being added as it comes out. That would help a lot.
The desktop is dead.
Oh? Android can mange 3 monitors? Do you really think it will even in 4 years?
By 2016, Android will outsell windows.
Phones might sell like hotcakes, but the comparison of bicycle sales to motorcycle sales is not equivalent. Both have their uses. One might be more in vogue as the healthier more economical option. But sometimes you need to GET places.
What about the American dream?
Not to be protectionistic, or appeal to nationalism, I certainly understand immigrants are just looking for a better life. But what about the Honduran dream?
Why don't you work hard to improve your homeland? Got something against Hondurans? Hey, it's great you want to come work over here. You sound like a pretty hip guy and it'd probably be cool to be your neighbor. And you'd do that whole contribution to society thing and we'd have a net gain. That thing where you take someone's first world job and telecommute for third-world wages is, frankly, a harsh reality that we in the first world have to wake up to. (It's another harsh reality for managers when the quality from a third-world third-party is often not on par with local engineering, but I digress.)
But really, someone has to fix up the shitty parts of the world. There's a lot of work needed there. A lot of opportunity. You could run the best/only engineering firm in your area. And simply put, you're a HELL of a lot better choice than me for being the guy to try and make it better. You know, resentment against outsiders and all. Listen, we're all in this together, and we can't simply ignore the poor luckless shmucks. So why are you leaving?
our children need never experience the fears that come with momentary separations,
Let me be clear about this. Children NEED to experience the fears that come with momentary separations. It'll happen eventually. It's better if he is not 18 and driving a car to college when it happens. But yeah, do it in stages.
The military doesn't build these things. Companies do. So it's not like the money is put into a pile and lit on fire. It circulates; which is key to a health economy.
Yeah, I'm with daem0n1x on this. You could say that if we employed people to do nothing but dig ditches and fill them back up that the money we pay them "gets circulated" and improves the economy. Those people buy shovels, and have homes, and lead meaningful lives outside of work. But it doesn't add one fucking drop of wealth to the system. The taxes that we collect from everyone to pay these selective few IS wealth. Taxes are a burden. But if we come together pool our money and buy important things, like oh I dunno, infrastructure, then the GAIN we reap is GREATER than the COST. This justifies governments. If they piss away our money, kick 'em out. As with any business type situation, if the cost of the employee is more than the benefit of the employee, cut them loose. And keep that metric on a long-term reading.
Now, as for military R&D, I have to admit it's a good way to convince the paranoid into parting with some of their fallout-shelter and shotgun shells fund and doing something TANGENTIALLY useful with it. As long as it's basic or fundamental research.
screw smart drugs, it's 2012, where's my neural implants?
Turns out most people aren't a fan of surgery. So we put it in your pocket. You now have a portable powerful external brain that can memorize anything and everything you throw at it, is near-constantly, near-instantly connected to everyone everywhere, knows where you're at, and who is nearby.
And you can even make calls with it.
Hmmm, looking at it that way, the effort we put into adapting to the shift from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle to... all of us being bookworms... it seems downright fascist. We're dictating that the majority of the populace has to be a geek. Or at least, we're rewarding those who are, and punishing those who aren't. I understand there are really good reasons, the needs have simply changed. These days we need more geeks then we need spear-throwers. But to encourage a system where we force people to behave a certain way? To change who they fundamentally are? Education is one thing, mind-altering drugs another. There does come a point where the human animal rebels at being changed.
I don't think it would be a good thing if we had a culture where students and professionals were expected to take aderall to stay competitive. That's the sort of thing that's straight out of a dystopian sci-fi novel.
And all that said, I'm still tempted to see if it would make me a better coder.
I mean what is this complete obsession with putting every damned thing on everything else?
That's the idea that we can re-use things that we own. Recycling, if you will. It's kind of a thing on slashdot that we have the right to tinker and be in control of the things we own. There's that noticeable shift from being owners to renters even when it comes to our hardware and software. That irks us. We push back. When we buy something, we own it, and we will damn well do whatever we want with it.
I too have one of these photo frame things. I guess I've used it a couple times at parties, but otherwise it's just a power leech. I came here for interesting ideas about what to put on a random LCD screen in the house. Sure, a picture frame can just be a picture frame. Unless I want it to be something else. I have that right to tinker and re-purpose it. I know that not everyone is a tinkerer, and that's perfectly fine. But really, if you don't like the current conversation, why butt in?
uh huh. Cause Baidu would NEVER violate your privacy.
Hey, look at that. The little square thing says I'm a libertarian!
There was barely any time to do what I wanted to do.
But, once they've found that subject, they should be allowed to pursue it.
I'm sorry, but most kids will choose videogames and browsing the internet. I mean, hand-eye coordination studies and mixed-medium art appreciation classes. Or they'll strive for that football scholarship. Or focus on "communications" (which is a degree now, apparently).
Or sex. I hear a lot of highschool kids are pretty interested in that field of study.
This whole "creating a productive workforce" thing is not a good thing to leave to the whims of highschool students.
We need STEM workers. Everything else is getting automated away (and that's progress). So listen up kiddos, it's time you learned some science.
AT-Robots, by Ed T. Toton (the third). Assembly in a virtual environment. It's not... the newest, or the hippest language, the best, or possibly even a good idea... but by god's teeth if it was good enough for me, it'll be good enough for my kid.
You know, when he reaches highschool age.
Alright people, form a group. Short people in front, tall people behind. Does everyone have their props? Lighting, fix that tripod. Tone down the fans, I SAID TONE DOWN THE FANS. These are makers, not storm-chasers. ... ok.
Alright people, serious face, game time. ROLLING! All together now, 3... 2... 1...
You, you, to the left. Spread out on the right.
NOT IF WE HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT!
Obviously they didn't have their ducks in a row.
Separation of church/state has always been about keeping either as an institution from controlling the other
Exactly, if churches weren't tax-exempt, the state couldn't influence the church by threatening to remove the tax-exempt status.
Sadly, many people take this to somehow mean that politicians can't be part of the church
Huh, that's funny. I must have missed all those atheist candidates...
(Also, they're facing the loss of their tax-exempt status not for preaching bigotry, but for preaching to their masses to vote for the guy that supports bigotry. Once they enter that political ring, they lose their tax-exempt status. Same goes for all non-profit)
software developers are supposed to make money in a world where they can't charge people for software licenses.
Well, as a software engineer, I can answer this one: People pay you to solve problems. Generally they hire you to do so, but I've seen a lot of consultant/contractors do the mercenary thing.
At some of the places I worked, they would be perfectly fine if was open sourced afterwards, as long as they could still use it to solve their problem. Other places, the source was a national secret. But in both, there was a problem, they needed some software to solve it, and they paid me to git'er'done.
There are, indeed, those people that have products out on the web, that you can purchase and run, typically with some sort of DRM to keep the filthy pirates from keehauling them. And if IP laws are relaxed... they'll face the same troubles they do now: The poor pirate them and are unsueable because they're poor and have nothing to take, the rich blatantly steal their ideas and are unsueable because they're rich and can afford better lawyers.
Considering the "give it away for free" model has worked pretty well for Linux and that entire community, I'm going to just declare that this section of the problem has been solved. Our skillset is rare enough and useful enough that software developers as a whole don't have a problem with money.
in a world where they are not allowed to sell their works?
Whoa now. Whoever suggested that is crazy. No. I believe the idea is that they can't sue people for listening/viewing/reading their work. Subtle difference between "not allowed" and "it's an unrealistic expectation". I imagine there'd be a lot of begging, donation buttons, and commissions.
Ah, running Dwarf Fortress remotely is interesting. Thank you. This might let my little netbook tackle it...
But the crux of that requirement was speed. Portable devices aren't beefy enough, memory and processing wise, to handle these heavyweight programs. It doesn't matter if you can run it remotely if there's no-where remote to run it.
But these are just my requirements. Most people don't particularly need that much processing power because they don't run Dwarf Fortress. Even though they should. So while I will be sticking to my desktop, I imagine a lot of people out there could simply live on a smartphone today. Which is kinda concerning because once desktop components are not the defacto-standard, they'll no longer benefit from economy of scale. Which means I, and geeks who actually use their computers, will suffer for it.
As much as I like the guy, this would be the thing that would get me to vote against him. If the opposing candidate promised justice in this case, that would be a really REALLY good sign.