Drugs Win Drug War (from The Onion)
on
"Traffic"
·
· Score: 3
From The Onion's book, Our Dumb Century:
WASHINGTON, DC-- After nearly 30 years of combat, the U.S. has lost the drug war.
Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey delivered the U.S.'s unconditional surrender in a brief statement Friday. "Drugs, after a long, hard battle, you have defeated us," he said. "Despite all our efforts, the United States has proven no match for the awesome power of the illegal high."
"In retrospect," McCaffrey added, "this was not a winnable war."
McCaffrey then handed over power to High Times magazine editor Steven Hager, who will now head the new U.S. Office of Drug Policy, replacing the now-defunct DEA.
"We must all get behind drugs now," outgoing DEA Chief Thomas Constantine said. "I recommend we all get really, really baked."
With the defeat, drugs will begin a full-scale occupation of the vanquished U.S. Massive quantities of crack, heroin, PCP, LSD, marijuana and other drugs will flood the nation legally, saving America's estimated 75 million drug users billions of dollars on their yearly drug budgets.
Street gangs, working in conjunction with Columbian coke lords, will assume leadership of America's inner cities, and federally backed marijuana farms are expected to begin appearing throughout the rural Midwest and Northern California by the end of the year.
Drug kingpin Amando Fuentes said it was "inevitable" that the U.S. would surrender. "We knew we would eventually win this war," Fuentes told reporters from his impenetrable Mexico City palace. "America's relentless campaign of anti-drug slogans, TV public-service announcements and elite elementary-school D.A.R.E. forces were a formidable enemy in this war. But in the end, my well-armed and well-financed army was victorious." ---
This was modded Funny, but I wouldn't hesitate to put an Insightful point on it, myself, were I a Moderator right now.. I find a sad trend in the class-action culture being developed these days. Suing tobacco companies for one's own smoking habit, suing fast food restaurants for making their coffee hot... and Microsoft is by no means the first Big Company to be sued for racism, sexism, or any other kind of -ism on possibly frivolous grounds. Coca Cola recently had another such suit to deal with, I heard on the radio.
Most of the time, these suits are settled out of court. The upside for the company is, less risk of bad press. The upside for the people bringing on the suit: They don't actually have to prove their case to get the cash.
And there are people who make their entire livelyhood in this leachlike manner. Lawyers especially, but not just them. Race-baiters who stand on political platforms are also especially notorious.
Do away with elections. Conscript congress and the senate, for a single term only, by picking names out of the phone book. And a lot of this bull-{expletive deleted] disappears.
I mentioned this when posting on another topic, but it seems appropriate again....
I remember hearing of a short story, I think it was by Clarke. It was about a future in which elections -had- been done with, and representatives were chosen by a big computer which would choose based purely on qualification.
Anyone actually -wanting- to be in political office would be immediately disqualified. And, once selected, the only way to get out of a position would be to do a good job of it.
So, you'd have a lot of really, really qualified folks doing great jobs as President or Congressman or whatever... just so they could get out of office and on with their lives.
Well, first of all, I disagree about the so-called 'partisanship' of the US Supreme Court Justices who threw out the Florida Supreme Court's plan for a recount. That ruling was 7-2, crossing these imagined 'party lines'. -That- is partisanship. The ruling, in a nutshell, said that a recount without rules (which is what the David Boise said he wanted) would lead to 'unequal treatment' of the votes.
Still don't get what I'm saying? Let's say you and I are sitting down at the recount table. We haven't been told -how- to count all these 'undervotes'. My 'personal judgement' is gonna be different from yours. Even if we're the two wisest, most honest people on earth, there's no telling that we're gonna both come to the same conclusions from this dented piece of paper.
As for the Justice chairs Bush has to fill... well, all he's said is that he wants Justices who'll stick to what's in the Constitution and what's on the lawbooks. Fine by me. You want to rewrite the law, you go to Congress, not Court. That's the way it's supposed to be. The Judicial is supposed to be non-activist branch of government.
Indeed. This goes even if you're getting a regular cell phone. Certainly check with someone who's actually employed by the provider.
A friend of mine was told by a salesperson (for a 'middleman' store) that he'd be able to get service both in Savannah and Atlanta, and that he'd be able to set it up so that he could call 'locally' to Atlanta. He found out, months later, that his his particular phone provider only covers the eastern seaboard. Roaming -and- long distance charges should he actually wish to use his phone in Atlanta.
I agree. To us, it's a joke... but then, we 'Mericans (as a Canadian friend of mine calls us) can buy a more powerful computer nearly any day of the week, with applications galore preloaded. Iraq, thanks to trade sanctions, is one of the most computing-deprived nations there is. So what if the development tools aren't geared toward their applications? So what if the only programs commercially available for this platform are games? They just might do the open-source thing and 'make their own'. Building chip factories takes resources which the Iraqis don't have; building software just takes smarts.
As you say, hardware's hardware. They've already got the warheads. What they haven't had until recently is the ability to aim them anywhere quickly enough to catch us by surprise. But remember those old DOS/Apple II-era games where you had to shoot a ground-to-ground missile at a city along a parabolic path, possibly taking wind and elevation into account? I betcha one PS2 is at least a little faster than one 286...
There's a nuclear plant sitting next to my home city that supplies all of the city's power and exports power to the US. It's been operating for many years. Its waste fits in a swimming pool inside the plant (water makes a nifty radiation shield).
Actually, I heard once upon a time that about 90-something % of used nuclear fuel can be reprocessed into fresh, useable fuel rods. The technology exists. If it were used, a single batch of fuel could be used much, much longer than it is now. To use an automobile analogy, more miles/gallon -> longer drives before filling up -> less fuel used within a time period -> less pollution within a time period. Why isn't this fuel reprocessed in the US, then, as it is (I think) in some other countries? A regulation dating back from the 70's, made by politicians who were afraid of terrorists getting their hands on these reprocessed fuel rods and making weapons.
Now, if terrorists can get their hands on reprocessed fuel in spite of serious security precautions, I'd they should have no problem getting their hands on the used-but-not-reprocessed stuff. And if they've got the manufacturing plants to turn power-grade fuel into weapons-grade, I wouldn't put it past them to be able to reprocess the stuff on their own.
I must agree... The potential of nuclear power is grossly underestimated by the uninformed public, and the dangers generally overplayed. When was the last time you heard mention of radiation on the evening news without the word 'deadly' in front of it? And yet, radiation is a fact of the universe, whether you're sunning on the beach or working in a coal mine. Its 'deadliness' is in how its treated... and in the past 20 years, the nuclear power industry as a whole has made significant progress in safety practices.
Not that they've had any choice. As one author wrote, all utilities with nuclear plants are 'hostages of each other'. Everyone knows that one more heavily-publicized Major Disaster will spell the end of an otherwise worthy industry, no matter how unsafe and environmentally unsound the alternatives may be. If one company messes up, everyone suffers. Therefore, for most utilities, constant vigilance and high standards of safety are the rule.
I wouldn't say it's absolutely pointless to argue the merits. There are good companies out there that haven't given up on nuclear. As energy in the US is deregulated, the more efficient energies will have a significant competitive advantage. The future is as yet to be written. But of course, there always have been and always will always be the less-than-perfectly-informed masses. Ever wonder if there was a Prehistoric Greenpeace dedicated to ending the use of fire or the wheel?
And who knows? Maybe after global society collapses and we've been through another Dark Ages lasting a couple hundred years, someone in the Second Renaissance find some plans left behind by the Ancients of Candu... (kidding, of course.;-) )
Georgia Tech recently added a new course to the CS lineup, an optional 'hands-on' OS course to follow up on the OS Theory course that's required for both Computer Science and Computer Engineering majors. I was lucky enough to be in this class the first semester that it was taught (I love this kinda stuff!).
Of course, the school didn't want us messing up the kernels on computers in the school labs for our tinkering... but Compaq Research Labs was kind enough to loan out some single-board computers that they've been developing (in exchange for free 'field testing').
The operating system being used for these computers? Linux, in Debian flavor. I'm no Linux expert, I've yet to have a Linux machine of my own (though when I've got money enough for a New System, it will be Linux), but I was glad to learn the ins and outs of Linux in this class.
True indeed. I posted while it was yet early in the morning. Not necessarily useful, except perhaps at the kernel level, but interesting as a mere curiosity. Thanks for the reminder.
Well, having taken a few computer architecture courses, I'll testify to the fact that Hz is not the only possible measure of performance. In fact, it can be pretty misleading. You can increase the cycles-per-second by making each instruction take more cycles to complete, a tradeoff which may or may not give you more instructions-per-second. Also, how many operations you can perform with each instruction is Really Important. These G4s may only do 500 MHz, but they are, I understand, rated at at least one gigaflop. That means two floating point operations per cycle! I don't know much about Mac architecture at the chip level, but that sounds to me like superscalar architecture!
This makes me curious. Has anyone gotten an estimate of performance on the 1GHz processors vs. the G4 Gigaflop processors in BogoMIPS, using Linux and LinuxPPC? BogoMIPS isn't a perfect measure of speed either, but it gives a pretty good estimate.
Simulated violence is far different from actual violence.
From a detached, philisophical standpoint, yes. They are different.
Still, they may bring forth similar reactions in a non-detached audience.
Every time I watch the 'simulated' killing in Schindler's List, I get hit with an Emotion. That Emotion is, I would warrant, similar to that which I would experience were I watching the Real Thing. The more realistic the simulation, the more realistic the Emotion.
I recently watched Titus (starring Anthony Hopkins) on DVD. A very powerful adaption of Shakespere's most popular (in his day) tragedy. The director depicted some violent acts in a very symbolic manner (making it easy for a viewer to take a detached view) and others in a bloody, realistic view (intending to hit the viewer right in the gut). If you do watch it on DVD, be sure to watch the commentaries.
The problem with video games is that it's easy to develop a Pavlovian response. More guts->more points->more fun.
Now, I'm not 100% against video games, I'm a big fan of Diablo II and the Warcraft/Starcraft serieses. But it's unwise to say that people won't be affected by a certain kind of violence because 'it's only a game'.
We are influenced by what we do and the games we play. I've heard it said that a child at play isn't 'just' playing... This child is rehearsing for life. ---
I must agree. The more I learn, the more I realize that there is a lot of stuff I haven't yet learned.
And what is true of knowledge is even more true of wisdom. The two are not the same, though it is easy to lump them together. Sure, I may have more ready access to facts and pure information than my father or my grandfather ever had, or have even now. But then, I've never fought in a war, or been through a Depression, or visited half the places in the world that they have. Plus, they've had at least a couple more decades to 'think things through' than I have.;)
---
Re:What about the BSA (Wandering quite OT)
on
Geek Charities?
·
· Score: 2
I get the feeling I should mention, I don't think this isn't exactly an argument that has an objective, scientifically provable 'right' or 'wrong' answer, and I must apologize... I do tend to argue sometimes just for the sake of trying to see both sides myself. I've enjoyed this discussion we've had so far, really.
1) Well, you've got your favorite writers, I've got mine. I personally have trouble getting into anything written by Ayn Rand, though I know she's considered by some to be an influential philosophical writer.
2) Whoever said I was putting a friendly face on a murderer? I'm putting the friendly, or perhaps I should say, civil, face on myself.
3) Try this on for size. Tolerance ain't enough to ensure freedom. Love for one's fellow human beings is needed. A strong enough love to fight for the rights of others even if you gain no benefit. Which sounds better: A Scout Tolerates (or puts up with) his fellow human beings, or A Scout Truly Cares for his fellow human beings? True, in order to truly care for someone, you need to tolerate them... but there's a little bit of an 'extra mile' thing going on with Caring.
Anyhow, again... I've enjoyed this discussion, and I don't mean in a demeaning way. I've found it thought-provoking, challenging to my own views, and that's something I like. I do my best philisophical thinking in a 'debate' situation. I'm hoping I've returned the favor, by giving you something worth chewing over. If you don't like it, well, the great thing is, you don't have to agree with me. Thank God (if he exists) for Freedom of Thought. You may be right, I may be wrong, there's no way to know in this lifetime. Heck, we may both be right -and- wrong.
And thank you for considering me worthy of continued response. I've gained a healthy respect for you through our discussion, PD. Whether I agree with you or not, your beliefs are well-grounded, and you hold them well. ---
The Screen Savers on TechTV had a visit from Larry Tesler (developer at Xerox PARC and of the Apple Lisa) yesterday, you can see it in RealVideo here. Seems the Xerox Star had windows, but not overlapping windows, only side-by-side ones. The screen they had on the Star was huge, big enough to easily fit two documents on one screen. The Lisa's screen, however, was much smaller... so, to do any windowing of any sort, there had to be overlapping. And it stuck with the industry.
Ironically, this aired just after I gave a presentation in one of my classes on the Apple Lisa and its place in computing history....
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't that like asking "Everyone not here, please raise your hand?"
---
...of possible heart surgery by a tin man.
---
From The Onion's book, Our Dumb Century:
WASHINGTON, DC-- After nearly 30 years of combat, the U.S. has lost the drug war.
Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey delivered the U.S.'s unconditional surrender in a brief statement Friday. "Drugs, after a long, hard battle, you have defeated us," he said. "Despite all our efforts, the United States has proven no match for the awesome power of the illegal high."
"In retrospect," McCaffrey added, "this was not a winnable war."
McCaffrey then handed over power to High Times magazine editor Steven Hager, who will now head the new U.S. Office of Drug Policy, replacing the now-defunct DEA.
"We must all get behind drugs now," outgoing DEA Chief Thomas Constantine said. "I recommend we all get really, really baked."
With the defeat, drugs will begin a full-scale occupation of the vanquished U.S. Massive quantities of crack, heroin, PCP, LSD, marijuana and other drugs will flood the nation legally, saving America's estimated 75 million drug users billions of dollars on their yearly drug budgets.
Street gangs, working in conjunction with Columbian coke lords, will assume leadership of America's inner cities, and federally backed marijuana farms are expected to begin appearing throughout the rural Midwest and Northern California by the end of the year.
Drug kingpin Amando Fuentes said it was "inevitable" that the U.S. would surrender. "We knew we would eventually win this war," Fuentes told reporters from his impenetrable Mexico City palace. "America's relentless campaign of anti-drug slogans, TV public-service announcements and elite elementary-school D.A.R.E. forces were a formidable enemy in this war. But in the end, my well-armed and well-financed army was victorious."
---
after the lawyers take their fair share.
This was modded Funny, but I wouldn't hesitate to put an Insightful point on it, myself, were I a Moderator right now.. I find a sad trend in the class-action culture being developed these days. Suing tobacco companies for one's own smoking habit, suing fast food restaurants for making their coffee hot... and Microsoft is by no means the first Big Company to be sued for racism, sexism, or any other kind of -ism on possibly frivolous grounds. Coca Cola recently had another such suit to deal with, I heard on the radio.
Most of the time, these suits are settled out of court. The upside for the company is, less risk of bad press. The upside for the people bringing on the suit: They don't actually have to prove their case to get the cash.
And there are people who make their entire livelyhood in this leachlike manner. Lawyers especially, but not just them. Race-baiters who stand on political platforms are also especially notorious.
Just my two bits, end rant.
---
I vote we say it was "poached". Or perhaps "de-scaled".
---
Do away with elections. Conscript congress and the senate, for a single term only, by picking names out of the phone book. And a lot of this bull-{expletive deleted] disappears.
I mentioned this when posting on another topic, but it seems appropriate again....
I remember hearing of a short story, I think it was by Clarke. It was about a future in which elections -had- been done with, and representatives were chosen by a big computer which would choose based purely on qualification.
Anyone actually -wanting- to be in political office would be immediately disqualified. And, once selected, the only way to get out of a position would be to do a good job of it.
So, you'd have a lot of really, really qualified folks doing great jobs as President or Congressman or whatever... just so they could get out of office and on with their lives.
Wouldn't it be nice....
---
Stupid me... I preview and preview, and still typo. D'oh.
-That- is partisanship -> That is -not- partisanship.
---
Well, first of all, I disagree about the so-called 'partisanship' of the US Supreme Court Justices who threw out the Florida Supreme Court's plan for a recount. That ruling was 7-2, crossing these imagined 'party lines'. -That- is partisanship. The ruling, in a nutshell, said that a recount without rules (which is what the David Boise said he wanted) would lead to 'unequal treatment' of the votes.
Still don't get what I'm saying? Let's say you and I are sitting down at the recount table. We haven't been told -how- to count all these 'undervotes'. My 'personal judgement' is gonna be different from yours. Even if we're the two wisest, most honest people on earth, there's no telling that we're gonna both come to the same conclusions from this dented piece of paper.
As for the Justice chairs Bush has to fill... well, all he's said is that he wants Justices who'll stick to what's in the Constitution and what's on the lawbooks. Fine by me. You want to rewrite the law, you go to Congress, not Court. That's the way it's supposed to be. The Judicial is supposed to be non-activist branch of government.
---
Indeed. This goes even if you're getting a regular cell phone. Certainly check with someone who's actually employed by the provider.
A friend of mine was told by a salesperson (for a 'middleman' store) that he'd be able to get service both in Savannah and Atlanta, and that he'd be able to set it up so that he could call 'locally' to Atlanta. He found out, months later, that his his particular phone provider only covers the eastern seaboard. Roaming -and- long distance charges should he actually wish to use his phone in Atlanta.
---
I agree. To us, it's a joke... but then, we 'Mericans (as a Canadian friend of mine calls us) can buy a more powerful computer nearly any day of the week, with applications galore preloaded. Iraq, thanks to trade sanctions, is one of the most computing-deprived nations there is. So what if the development tools aren't geared toward their applications? So what if the only programs commercially available for this platform are games? They just might do the open-source thing and 'make their own'. Building chip factories takes resources which the Iraqis don't have; building software just takes smarts.
As you say, hardware's hardware. They've already got the warheads. What they haven't had until recently is the ability to aim them anywhere quickly enough to catch us by surprise. But remember those old DOS/Apple II-era games where you had to shoot a ground-to-ground missile at a city along a parabolic path, possibly taking wind and elevation into account? I betcha one PS2 is at least a little faster than one 286...
---
There's a nuclear plant sitting next to my home city that supplies all of the city's power and exports power to the US. It's been operating for many years. Its waste fits in a swimming pool inside the plant (water makes a nifty radiation shield).
Actually, I heard once upon a time that about 90-something % of used nuclear fuel can be reprocessed into fresh, useable fuel rods. The technology exists. If it were used, a single batch of fuel could be used much, much longer than it is now. To use an automobile analogy, more miles/gallon -> longer drives before filling up -> less fuel used within a time period -> less pollution within a time period. Why isn't this fuel reprocessed in the US, then, as it is (I think) in some other countries? A regulation dating back from the 70's, made by politicians who were afraid of terrorists getting their hands on these reprocessed fuel rods and making weapons.
Now, if terrorists can get their hands on reprocessed fuel in spite of serious security precautions, I'd they should have no problem getting their hands on the used-but-not-reprocessed stuff. And if they've got the manufacturing plants to turn power-grade fuel into weapons-grade, I wouldn't put it past them to be able to reprocess the stuff on their own.
Just my thoughts on it.
---
I must agree... The potential of nuclear power is grossly underestimated by the uninformed public, and the dangers generally overplayed. When was the last time you heard mention of radiation on the evening news without the word 'deadly' in front of it? And yet, radiation is a fact of the universe, whether you're sunning on the beach or working in a coal mine. Its 'deadliness' is in how its treated... and in the past 20 years, the nuclear power industry as a whole has made significant progress in safety practices.
;-) )
Not that they've had any choice. As one author wrote, all utilities with nuclear plants are 'hostages of each other'. Everyone knows that one more heavily-publicized Major Disaster will spell the end of an otherwise worthy industry, no matter how unsafe and environmentally unsound the alternatives may be. If one company messes up, everyone suffers. Therefore, for most utilities, constant vigilance and high standards of safety are the rule.
I wouldn't say it's absolutely pointless to argue the merits. There are good companies out there that haven't given up on nuclear. As energy in the US is deregulated, the more efficient energies will have a significant competitive advantage. The future is as yet to be written. But of course, there always have been and always will always be the less-than-perfectly-informed masses. Ever wonder if there was a Prehistoric Greenpeace dedicated to ending the use of fire or the wheel?
And who knows? Maybe after global society collapses and we've been through another Dark Ages lasting a couple hundred years, someone in the Second Renaissance find some plans left behind by the Ancients of Candu... (kidding, of course.
---
Georgia Tech recently added a new course to the CS lineup, an optional 'hands-on' OS course to follow up on the OS Theory course that's required for both Computer Science and Computer Engineering majors. I was lucky enough to be in this class the first semester that it was taught (I love this kinda stuff!).
Of course, the school didn't want us messing up the kernels on computers in the school labs for our tinkering... but Compaq Research Labs was kind enough to loan out some single-board computers that they've been developing (in exchange for free 'field testing').
The operating system being used for these computers? Linux, in Debian flavor. I'm no Linux expert, I've yet to have a Linux machine of my own (though when I've got money enough for a New System, it will be Linux), but I was glad to learn the ins and outs of Linux in this class.
---
Just what we need. A Marvel Mutant with spines all over and the ability to puff up his body. Didn't I see this guy on The Tick?
---
True indeed. I posted while it was yet early in the morning. Not necessarily useful, except perhaps at the kernel level, but interesting as a mere curiosity. Thanks for the reminder.
---
Well, having taken a few computer architecture courses, I'll testify to the fact that Hz is not the only possible measure of performance. In fact, it can be pretty misleading. You can increase the cycles-per-second by making each instruction take more cycles to complete, a tradeoff which may or may not give you more instructions-per-second. Also, how many operations you can perform with each instruction is Really Important. These G4s may only do 500 MHz, but they are, I understand, rated at at least one gigaflop. That means two floating point operations per cycle! I don't know much about Mac architecture at the chip level, but that sounds to me like superscalar architecture!
This makes me curious. Has anyone gotten an estimate of performance on the 1GHz processors vs. the G4 Gigaflop processors in BogoMIPS, using Linux and LinuxPPC? BogoMIPS isn't a perfect measure of speed either, but it gives a pretty good estimate.
---
Mr. Gilfix musta just heard a whole mega-flock of owls....
---
...life begin at 40, or something like that?
---
Heck, there's already an ANSI standard for this. How can you patent a function performed by an industry standard?
SELECT Product, Company
FROM AllDatabasesEverMade
WHERE Feature LIKE "*SQL*" OR Structure="Relational"
ORDER BY DateProduced;
---
no, the proposed change is: char char char char char char char char char char char char char char char char
Any syntax mistake with this data structure will be referred to as a 'char wreck'.
---
...that they are still working on Quantum Yakko and Wakko technology.
---
Simulated violence is far different from actual violence.
From a detached, philisophical standpoint, yes. They are different.
Still, they may bring forth similar reactions in a non-detached audience.
Every time I watch the 'simulated' killing in Schindler's List, I get hit with an Emotion. That Emotion is, I would warrant, similar to that which I would experience were I watching the Real Thing. The more realistic the simulation, the more realistic the Emotion.
I recently watched Titus (starring Anthony Hopkins) on DVD. A very powerful adaption of Shakespere's most popular (in his day) tragedy. The director depicted some violent acts in a very symbolic manner (making it easy for a viewer to take a detached view) and others in a bloody, realistic view (intending to hit the viewer right in the gut). If you do watch it on DVD, be sure to watch the commentaries.
The problem with video games is that it's easy to develop a Pavlovian response. More guts->more points->more fun.
Now, I'm not 100% against video games, I'm a big fan of Diablo II and the Warcraft/Starcraft serieses. But it's unwise to say that people won't be affected by a certain kind of violence because 'it's only a game'.
We are influenced by what we do and the games we play. I've heard it said that a child at play isn't 'just' playing... This child is rehearsing for life.
---
I must agree. The more I learn, the more I realize that there is a lot of stuff I haven't yet learned.
;)
And what is true of knowledge is even more true of wisdom. The two are not the same, though it is easy to lump them together. Sure, I may have more ready access to facts and pure information than my father or my grandfather ever had, or have even now. But then, I've never fought in a war, or been through a Depression, or visited half the places in the world that they have. Plus, they've had at least a couple more decades to 'think things through' than I have.
---
I get the feeling I should mention, I don't think this isn't exactly an argument that has an objective, scientifically provable 'right' or 'wrong' answer, and I must apologize... I do tend to argue sometimes just for the sake of trying to see both sides myself. I've enjoyed this discussion we've had so far, really.
1) Well, you've got your favorite writers, I've got mine. I personally have trouble getting into anything written by Ayn Rand, though I know she's considered by some to be an influential philosophical writer.
2) Whoever said I was putting a friendly face on a murderer? I'm putting the friendly, or perhaps I should say, civil, face on myself.
3) Try this on for size. Tolerance ain't enough to ensure freedom. Love for one's fellow human beings is needed. A strong enough love to fight for the rights of others even if you gain no benefit. Which sounds better: A Scout Tolerates (or puts up with) his fellow human beings, or A Scout Truly Cares for his fellow human beings? True, in order to truly care for someone, you need to tolerate them... but there's a little bit of an 'extra mile' thing going on with Caring.
Anyhow, again... I've enjoyed this discussion, and I don't mean in a demeaning way. I've found it thought-provoking, challenging to my own views, and that's something I like. I do my best philisophical thinking in a 'debate' situation. I'm hoping I've returned the favor, by giving you something worth chewing over. If you don't like it, well, the great thing is, you don't have to agree with me. Thank God (if he exists) for Freedom of Thought. You may be right, I may be wrong, there's no way to know in this lifetime. Heck, we may both be right -and- wrong.
And thank you for considering me worthy of continued response. I've gained a healthy respect for you through our discussion, PD. Whether I agree with you or not, your beliefs are well-grounded, and you hold them well.
---
The Screen Savers on TechTV had a visit from Larry Tesler (developer at Xerox PARC and of the Apple Lisa) yesterday, you can see it in RealVideo here. Seems the Xerox Star had windows, but not overlapping windows, only side-by-side ones. The screen they had on the Star was huge, big enough to easily fit two documents on one screen. The Lisa's screen, however, was much smaller... so, to do any windowing of any sort, there had to be overlapping. And it stuck with the industry.
Ironically, this aired just after I gave a presentation in one of my classes on the Apple Lisa and its place in computing history....
---