If you want to fund topologists, I won't complain. If you put a gun in my back and take the money I was going to use to feed a starving family in Mozambique, and spend it on your shiny play toy, I think there are a number of people who have a right to kill you in self-defense.
In my view, the substantive point is that public funds should be expended for public benefit. Anything else is just corruption.
Big science does not provide public benefit which corresponds to its public funding.
Now if you want to start a voluntary organization for the purpose of funding your supercollider, I can only encourage you. But putting a gun in my back to prevent me from using my money to save human lives via medical research or famine relief is a morally reprehensible act.
You're taking rhetorical cheap shots and failing to substantively address the issue. Whether Pfizer can sell something or not is not interesting. What is interesting is whether it kills people or saves their lives. Oxfam estimates that a strategic investment of $20 in famine relief is the cost of a human life. For the cost of the SSC project, the U.S. could have eliminated malnutrition globally. For this reason, I contend that ever HEP physicist should be taken out and shot, before they kill again.
I've been telecommuting since 1990, and I think anyone who works in this industry and sets foot on company premises more than once a month is living a substandard life.
> How much responsibility does the owner of an > Internet-connected computer have for crimes > committed using their equipment
None, unless they have responsibility for the use itself.
> and what are ways we can best determine > their involvement, or lack of it, in said > crimes?
Firstly, you don't want to. You don't want to live in a world where people can't speak freely on the Internet. Therefore you don't want to live in a world where it is easy to hunt down and kill anyone who criticizes you.
Secondly, in the U.S., you need proof beyond a reasonable doubt to convict of a crime. That will never happen without human witnesses to substatiate the accuracy of data submitted in evidence, since all data is equally possible to fabricate on demand. So, in brief, only on the testimony of disinterested witnesses can responsibility for a digitally intermediated act be proven or refuted.
Rights are percieved objects, just as are desks and waterfalls and helicopters. They are not scientific objects, because observations incorporate a subjective element which renders reproducibility of observations quite low. The hypotenuse of a right triangle is not reducible to physics via anthropology. Why would you think that deontic truth would be less real than mathematical truth?
> That's what I hate about Slashdot. You think > anybody in the world that's not a geek gives > a fuck what you think about anything because > you're a geek? Do you think that being a > geek means anybody cares what think about > politics or business?
Nope. But they do care about a TOW-22 up the back pipe.
Slashdot Mirror
This is a new low. Next we'll see papers
on using genetic algorithms to find the best
channel on TV.
What would be interesting is a genetic system
to select meso-scale optimizations in a
compile back-end, for example.
Chopping off your arm is much
less disabling than chopping off your
head. Should you therefore chop off
your arm?
And the theory of relativity didn't cost
one public dollar. Einstein produced it
because he wanted to.
If you want to fund topologists, I won't
complain. If you put a gun in my back
and take the money I was going to use to
feed a starving family in Mozambique, and
spend it on your shiny play toy, I think
there are a number of people who have a right
to kill you in self-defense.
In my view, the substantive point is that
public funds should be expended for public
benefit. Anything else is just corruption.
Big science does not provide public benefit
which corresponds to its public funding.
Now if you want to start a voluntary organization
for the purpose of funding your supercollider,
I can only encourage you. But putting a
gun in my back to prevent me from using
my money to save human lives via medical
research or famine relief is a morally
reprehensible act.
You're taking rhetorical cheap shots and
failing to substantively address the issue.
Whether Pfizer can sell something or not is
not interesting. What is interesting is
whether it kills people or saves their lives.
Oxfam estimates that a strategic investment
of $20 in famine relief is the cost of a
human life. For the cost of the SSC project,
the U.S. could have eliminated malnutrition
globally. For this reason, I contend that
ever HEP physicist should be taken out and
shot, before they kill again.
> Problem is, you can't tell which projects
> will be the big hits until afterward
I beg to differ. CP violation is not going
to produce an economic benefit in my lifetime.
That doesn't take second-sight.
This is funnier than its moderation, but
I can't help complaining that mesons don't
interact strongly.
Adds aren't bad, but multadds are better.
> any educated person
I think you misspelled "effete pedant".
But mutual incomprehensibility of dialect is
VERY useful sometimes.
Pull up the carpet, apply aluminum foil,
replace carpet.
Yeah, travel the world, meet interesting
people, and kill them.
I've been telecommuting since 1990, and I
think anyone who works in this industry and
sets foot on company premises more than once
a month is living a substandard life.
If you were a dwarf, your name would have to be Insightful!
No, my neighbors prefer lasers for finding
aswell, when it gets lost.
But seriously, folks, bad analogies prove
nothing except analogical ineptitude.
> How much responsibility does the owner of an
> Internet-connected computer have for crimes
> committed using their equipment
None, unless they have responsibility for
the use itself.
> and what are ways we can best determine
> their involvement, or lack of it, in said
> crimes?
Firstly, you don't want to. You don't want
to live in a world where people can't
speak freely on the Internet. Therefore
you don't want to live in a world where
it is easy to hunt down and kill anyone
who criticizes you.
Secondly, in the U.S., you need proof beyond
a reasonable doubt to convict of a crime.
That will never happen without human
witnesses to substatiate the accuracy of
data submitted in evidence, since all data
is equally possible to fabricate on demand.
So, in brief, only on the testimony of
disinterested witnesses can responsibility
for a digitally intermediated act be
proven or refuted.
I'm glad 99.99% of the people think like
you do. It makes it easy for the 0.01% of
the rest of us to walk all over your asses.
How did you get mod access? I lost mine
a couple of years ago for being politically
incorrect, and I see no reason to think I'll
ever get it back.
Rights are percieved objects, just as are
desks and waterfalls and helicopters.
They are not scientific objects, because
observations incorporate a subjective element
which renders reproducibility of observations
quite low. The hypotenuse of a right triangle
is not reducible to physics via anthropology.
Why would you think that deontic truth would
be less real than mathematical truth?
> SUSE...wounded
How you managed to mistake "bankrolled" for
"wounded" is a puzzle.
No, SCO isn't bleeding anybody with
litigation. IBM isn't even sweating, let
alone bleeding, and SCO has no other cases.
Designing an efficient and affordable system
to automate the task, for one.
> That's what I hate about Slashdot. You think
> anybody in the world that's not a geek gives
> a fuck what you think about anything because
> you're a geek? Do you think that being a
> geek means anybody cares what think about
> politics or business?
Nope. But they do care about a TOW-22 up
the back pipe.
Thanks for making my point.
You zero the free space and pipe it through
a cpu-cheap compression stage.
ok, do this instead:
echo '^@' > zeroes
while cat zeroes >> zeroes; do echo -n . ; done