If morality is set by the community, then I suppose you have no problem with people getting their hands cut off for stealing, or women getting stoned to death because they were *accused* of adultery (whether or not they're actually guilty of the act) because in some community - THOSE are the standards.
Such reasoning also supports wonderful things like child rape, slavery, and alcohol prohibition.
Of course Homosexuals are equals in the eyes of the law.
They have the same right to marry a person of the opposite sex as the rest of us. They have the same right to express physical love to a member of the opposite sex as the rest of us.
The conservative philosophical sticking point is, these horrible gays *choose* to exhibit illegal, deviant behavior, and giving them the rights to do such behavior is tantamount to giving them rights above and beyond ordinary people.
I'm not supporting or justifying this philosophy, just explaining it for those who haven't heard an explanation of it yet. Try listening to Rush, he'll set you straight. Though I often wonder where his anal cysts came from. . .
This dovetails nicely with the article yesterday regarding big political donors demanding access to politicians.
So - I guess money really *IS* speech.
- - A few years ago, I saw a mathematical proof based on the concept of; time=money and the physics definition of "work" which proved that the more money you make, the less you work.
I guess the speech=money corellary built upon that is; the less you work, the more you talk?
for target shooting, sport shooting, and home defense, a locked up gun is not useless, it's totally useful. Of course there are Home Defense cases where a locked up gun does you no good. The alternative is to sleep with the gun under your pillow, and hope you wake up before the intruder puts a baseball bat through your skull in your bed. It's a risk every single person takes when they go to sleep, whether they sleep with a gun under their pillow, or in a safe, or no gun at all.
On the other hand, the person with a gun under their pillow is risking accidental discharge every single night. I say fuck that.
The scary thing is - you can download the docs from MSDN on how it works, and then you can try to test it (go ahead, delete a file in \system32, and watch what happens) - and it in no way works as documented. It *does* protect your system files - but it has some unexpected behaviors.
It's built into the netlogon service, so it's active as soon as you log into the system.
I'm guessing that if they did that, they'd thereafter shortly get a C&D letter from MS saying they're violating the DMCA. (whether they technically are or not).
I always like to point to Shelley's Frankenstein as THE seminal work.
To me (now, this is just MY opinion) - Science Fiction is all about man versus nature. Our inginuity, our technology, how we change the situation God/Nature handed to us, and how that change or attempt changes us; the human condition, and consideration of the implications, morally, ethically, of what we as a species do.
For instance, in Frankenstein, the limits imposed on us by Death seemed to be broken down by Frankenstein's innovative experiment. But it made us think about the implications.
WHAT? Your ignorance is showing. The Bedouin are the desert-dwelling nomads of the Arabian peninsula, and the Negev and Sinai deserts. The live their "backwards" (oh, the arrogance) lifestyle out of tradition and preference, not out of religion.
I don't see the difference. And don't get all PC on me - I use backwards not as a "cultural imperialist" term, but as a relative descriptive term, which more quickly and efficiently communicates my idea, without offending anyone who might possibly be reading slashdot. Except for those wired busybodies who live vicariously through the opressed of the world.
"Here's how it is. The Earth got used up, so we moved out and terraformed a whole new galaxy of Earths.
But this almost certainly did not happen overnight, and almost certainly was not backed or funded by "homesteaders" or political refugees. Perhaps the term "terraformed" is used quite liberally, but it's already well-established that interplanetary travel itself is quite expensive, colonization quite a bit more so - and my whole point is - without the availability of mass-produced goods, and exploitation and industrialization, it's just not very believable.
I can see how things like mass media and communication might be absent - and your local convenience store - but basic technologies which are enormously time saving, and make our modern lifestyles possible - at the very least, in the absence of petroleum products and technologies, solar power?
All I'm asking is for a little more rational thought about the presence of mass-produced goods. My complaint is that apparently, nobody put any thought to it - it's all stylistic.
Uh... they, themselves, are? That's what "handmade" means.
Who has the TIME to make this stuff? 19th century settlers did it because there simply was no alternative. The people of Firefly would almost certainly have alternatives that were much cheaper.
You must understand (and I'm not trying to justify it - only trying to explain why) - that America has gone through this enormous turmoil in the past 50 years, fighting communism. There have been huge propaganda campaigns to head off the growth of communism, and eliminate communist sympathies here in the US. Examples:
The McCarthy witch-hunts. "Under God" "Centrally planned economies don't work" Private enterprise will always do a better, cheaper, faster job of something than government can. Anything which hinders or limits the freedom of business, impairs it's ability to compete against foreign business (and is therefore unAmerican). Only self-interest motivates people to do their best. People who are rich became rich through hard work and good old-fashioned American know-how, and therefore should remain "in control", because they've already demonstrated that they can be successful, so they can't possibly lead us astray. MBA's are required to take ethics courses, so you don't have to worry about fraud or abuses.
All of these statements and philosophies are taken as absolutes, because if you question them, or dilute their meaning by saying "sometimes" or even "in most cases" - you're unAmerican, pro-Communist, anti-Freedom, a liberal, and want to destroy everything our Founding Fathers set out to build.
There are a few free-thinkers, but the majority of us are brainwashed from an early age - in school, and from the Media - to accept this anti-communist propaganda. Now that communism has fallen, you'd think that some of this would drop away as unnecessary. But that only has strengthened this "movement". Look at the popularity of the right-wing extremist talk shows out there. Look at the latest election results. Americans are TERRIFIED that those dirty democrats are going to take away our SUVs, and turn everything into a "government project" and make us the next communist state.
I'm just trying to explain where we Americans are coming from - to outsiders who have no idea. It was the fear of communism that drove us all willingly into the arms of our corporate masters.
I personally am very pro-freedom, I love my country, and I don't think that government intervention is always the best solution. However, being absolutist about it is simply wrong, and is what has led us so far astray. There are some jobs which are necessary for the functioning and well being of society, the preservation of our values, that just simply cannot be done by private enterprise.
I think that "unpossible" should be accepted into the lexicon of modern English - as a word which means what it says - "that which is not possible" - yet also communicates to the reader that the person who uttered the word is making a subtle Simpson's reference, or possibly even making a stab at George Bush's low IQ, or just plain ignorant. Words can have meanings on several different levels you know, and just because it's not grammatically correct, does not mean it's wrong.
While I agree with you about guns, in general (and disassemblers and hex editors where the DMCA is concerned) - what if a company produced a device consisting of a head-clamp, with a pistol attached, specifically designed to clamp around the head of a human prisoner and fire by radio control.
There's no other possible use for such a device, other than to kill people. (guns DO have other uses - self-defense, sport, hunting, etc.) Hell, even a nuclear warhead on top of an ICBM has a use other than killing people - deterrance!
But my hypothetical device really doesn't have any other legitimate use.
Is the designer and manufacturer of this device ethically unsound?
But you can't tell me that it's more likely that someone doing manual labor to farm and build a new world, working hard to survive, is going to hand-fashion clothing and furniture, who is going to have the time? The megacorps would have factories spitting out Gap jeans, Nike sneakers and Tshirts. And those products are going to be much more accesible than the costumes these people are all wearing in the show.
There are simply many technological conveniences that people would not be without, if they could not get them, they'd manufacture them using modern techniques - because they have the knowledge, whereas folks in the REAL 19th century did not.
You'd better believe that if fossil fuels DO exist on these worlds, SOME person's going to build a refinery to extract and exploit it, and find buyers either on their own planet or offworld. And it would not take long. The only reason for humanity to go to other worlds is to exploit resources. Period. There's simply no other reason.
after all. We live in a world where 747s and Bedouins coexist.
Sorry, I don't buy that. Bedouins and Quakers live their backwards lifestyles out of religious conviction. You expect me to believe that a zillion people on hundreds of different worlds all suddenly agree to adopt a cult-like belief that "the simple life is best"? And if that's the case, how come it's not ever mentioned in the storyline? Simple - because no thought was ever put to it. It's 100% stylistic.
Style is fine and dandy - but why cant they at least put a little thought to it?
For instance, the clothing. I know it's really important to convey the "western" style that these people on backwater worlds are wearing handmade vintage clothing. Who is making it?
Here's how I see things. Earth's used up. Big megacorps launch pre-fab factories to the other planets, and settlers come looking for work. They'll be the exploited third world labor of the future. This is the culture, clothing, and architecture you'll see in the future on these backwater worlds. Not some glorified historical re-enactment society.
Sorry, it was the muppets for me. I just couldn't bear to watch it. I always expected the slug-king guy to break out into song every five minutes. (don't worry, I've always expected to see Kermit the Frog hanging out at Yoda's little mud hut on Dagobah).
Slashdot Mirror
seems like Scientific American was right. Unless you call Front Wheel Drive an improvement.
I preferred the old TRS-80 blackjack game.
It let you bet negative numbers. So all you had to do was bet -$100, intentionally lose, and you got $100.
Oh yeah, and Robin Hood wasn't a legend;
r ob inhood/
http://www.nottinghamshiretourism.co.uk/themes/
There's some historical evidence of him being a real person. While some of his deeds may be mythological. . .
If morality is set by the community, then I suppose you have no problem with people getting their hands cut off for stealing, or women getting stoned to death because they were *accused* of adultery (whether or not they're actually guilty of the act) because in some community - THOSE are the standards.
Such reasoning also supports wonderful things like child rape, slavery, and alcohol prohibition.
Of course Homosexuals are equals in the eyes of the law.
They have the same right to marry a person of the opposite sex as the rest of us.
They have the same right to express physical love to a member of the opposite sex as the rest of us.
The conservative philosophical sticking point is, these horrible gays *choose* to exhibit illegal, deviant behavior, and giving them the rights to do such behavior is tantamount to giving them rights above and beyond ordinary people.
I'm not supporting or justifying this philosophy, just explaining it for those who haven't heard an explanation of it yet. Try listening to Rush, he'll set you straight. Though I often wonder where his anal cysts came from. . .
In other words:v elopers!
developers!
developers!
developers!
de
I can't understand why, as stupid as Microsoft is, they seem to "get it" in this regard, and NOBODY else does.
I don't see why that would be a problem.
After all. Microsoft's purchase of Bungie didn't slow down the release schedule for Halo on Mac OS X.
I can't understand why MS would want to buy Borland, they've already hired away all their talent.
IMHO
as a former Veritas employee - I'd say that DJPenguin's probably talking about NetBackup, not VxVM.
This dovetails nicely with the article yesterday regarding big political donors demanding access to politicians.
So - I guess money really *IS* speech.
- -
A few years ago, I saw a mathematical proof based on the concept of;
time=money
and the physics definition of "work" which proved that the more money you make, the less you work.
I guess the speech=money corellary built upon that is; the less you work, the more you talk?
for target shooting, sport shooting, and home defense, a locked up gun is not useless, it's totally useful.
Of course there are Home Defense cases where a locked up gun does you no good. The alternative is to sleep with the gun under your pillow, and hope you wake up before the intruder puts a baseball bat through your skull in your bed. It's a risk every single person takes when they go to sleep, whether they sleep with a gun under their pillow, or in a safe, or no gun at all.
On the other hand, the person with a gun under their pillow is risking accidental discharge every single night. I say fuck that.
Actually, it kinda-sorta *IS* built in.
It's called Windows File Protection.
The scary thing is - you can download the docs from MSDN on how it works, and then you can try to test it (go ahead, delete a file in \system32, and watch what happens) - and it in no way works as documented. It *does* protect your system files - but it has some unexpected behaviors.
It's built into the netlogon service, so it's active as soon as you log into the system.
I'm guessing that if they did that, they'd thereafter shortly get a C&D letter from MS saying they're violating the DMCA. (whether they technically are or not).
Is WalMart Evil this week?
(For exploiting the DMCA re: copyrighted prices)
or is WalMart Good this week?
(for selling MS-free PC's)
I'm so confused. . .
Heh, the same could be said about Republicans.
Then I highly recommend you read John Norman's Gor series.
I always like to point to Shelley's Frankenstein as THE seminal work.
To me (now, this is just MY opinion) - Science Fiction is all about man versus nature. Our inginuity, our technology, how we change the situation God/Nature handed to us, and how that change or attempt changes us; the human condition, and consideration of the implications, morally, ethically, of what we as a species do.
For instance, in Frankenstein, the limits imposed on us by Death seemed to be broken down by Frankenstein's innovative experiment. But it made us think about the implications.
WHAT? Your ignorance is showing. The Bedouin are the desert-dwelling nomads of the Arabian peninsula, and the Negev and Sinai deserts. The live their "backwards" (oh, the arrogance) lifestyle out of tradition and preference, not out of religion.
I don't see the difference. And don't get all PC on me - I use backwards not as a "cultural imperialist" term, but as a relative descriptive term, which more quickly and efficiently communicates my idea, without offending anyone who might possibly be reading slashdot. Except for those wired busybodies who live vicariously through the opressed of the world.
"Here's how it is. The Earth got used up, so we moved out and terraformed a whole new galaxy of Earths.
But this almost certainly did not happen overnight, and almost certainly was not backed or funded by "homesteaders" or political refugees. Perhaps the term "terraformed" is used quite liberally, but it's already well-established that interplanetary travel itself is quite expensive, colonization quite a bit more so - and my whole point is - without the availability of mass-produced goods, and exploitation and industrialization, it's just not very believable.
I can see how things like mass media and communication might be absent - and your local convenience store - but basic technologies which are enormously time saving, and make our modern lifestyles possible - at the very least, in the absence of petroleum products and technologies, solar power?
All I'm asking is for a little more rational thought about the presence of mass-produced goods. My complaint is that apparently, nobody put any thought to it - it's all stylistic.
Uh... they, themselves, are? That's what "handmade" means.
Who has the TIME to make this stuff? 19th century settlers did it because there simply was no alternative. The people of Firefly would almost certainly have alternatives that were much cheaper.
You must understand (and I'm not trying to justify it - only trying to explain why) - that America has gone through this enormous turmoil in the past 50 years, fighting communism. There have been huge propaganda campaigns to head off the growth of communism, and eliminate communist sympathies here in the US. Examples:
The McCarthy witch-hunts.
"Under God"
"Centrally planned economies don't work"
Private enterprise will always do a better, cheaper, faster job of something than government can.
Anything which hinders or limits the freedom of business, impairs it's ability to compete against foreign business (and is therefore unAmerican).
Only self-interest motivates people to do their best.
People who are rich became rich through hard work and good old-fashioned American know-how, and therefore should remain "in control", because they've already demonstrated that they can be successful, so they can't possibly lead us astray.
MBA's are required to take ethics courses, so you don't have to worry about fraud or abuses.
All of these statements and philosophies are taken as absolutes, because if you question them, or dilute their meaning by saying "sometimes" or even "in most cases" - you're unAmerican, pro-Communist, anti-Freedom, a liberal, and want to destroy everything our Founding Fathers set out to build.
There are a few free-thinkers, but the majority of us are brainwashed from an early age - in school, and from the Media - to accept this anti-communist propaganda. Now that communism has fallen, you'd think that some of this would drop away as unnecessary. But that only has strengthened this "movement". Look at the popularity of the right-wing extremist talk shows out there. Look at the latest election results. Americans are TERRIFIED that those dirty democrats are going to take away our SUVs, and turn everything into a "government project" and make us the next communist state.
I'm just trying to explain where we Americans are coming from - to outsiders who have no idea. It was the fear of communism that drove us all willingly into the arms of our corporate masters.
I personally am very pro-freedom, I love my country, and I don't think that government intervention is always the best solution. However, being absolutist about it is simply wrong, and is what has led us so far astray. There are some jobs which are necessary for the functioning and well being of society, the preservation of our values, that just simply cannot be done by private enterprise.
I think that "unpossible" should be accepted into the lexicon of modern English - as a word which means what it says - "that which is not possible" - yet also communicates to the reader that the person who uttered the word is making a subtle Simpson's reference, or possibly even making a stab at George Bush's low IQ, or just plain ignorant. Words can have meanings on several different levels you know, and just because it's not grammatically correct, does not mean it's wrong.
While I agree with you about guns, in general (and disassemblers and hex editors where the DMCA is concerned) - what if a company produced a device consisting of a head-clamp, with a pistol attached, specifically designed to clamp around the head of a human prisoner and fire by radio control.
There's no other possible use for such a device, other than to kill people.
(guns DO have other uses - self-defense, sport, hunting, etc.)
Hell, even a nuclear warhead on top of an ICBM has a use other than killing people - deterrance!
But my hypothetical device really doesn't have any other legitimate use.
Is the designer and manufacturer of this device ethically unsound?
yeah, I can buy the whole cow thing.
But you can't tell me that it's more likely that someone doing manual labor to farm and build a new world, working hard to survive, is going to hand-fashion clothing and furniture, who is going to have the time? The megacorps would have factories spitting out Gap jeans, Nike sneakers and Tshirts. And those products are going to be much more accesible than the costumes these people are all wearing in the show.
There are simply many technological conveniences that people would not be without, if they could not get them, they'd manufacture them using modern techniques - because they have the knowledge, whereas folks in the REAL 19th century did not.
You'd better believe that if fossil fuels DO exist on these worlds, SOME person's going to build a refinery to extract and exploit it, and find buyers either on their own planet or offworld. And it would not take long. The only reason for humanity to go to other worlds is to exploit resources. Period. There's simply no other reason.
after all. We live in a world where 747s and Bedouins coexist.
Sorry, I don't buy that. Bedouins and Quakers live their backwards lifestyles out of religious conviction. You expect me to believe that a zillion people on hundreds of different worlds all suddenly agree to adopt a cult-like belief that "the simple life is best"? And if that's the case, how come it's not ever mentioned in the storyline? Simple - because no thought was ever put to it. It's 100% stylistic.
Style is fine and dandy - but why cant they at least put a little thought to it?
For instance, the clothing. I know it's really important to convey the "western" style that these people on backwater worlds are wearing handmade vintage clothing. Who is making it?
Here's how I see things.
Earth's used up.
Big megacorps launch pre-fab factories to the other planets, and settlers come looking for work. They'll be the exploited third world labor of the future. This is the culture, clothing, and architecture you'll see in the future on these backwater worlds. Not some glorified historical re-enactment society.
Sorry, it was the muppets for me. I just couldn't bear to watch it. I always expected the slug-king guy to break out into song every five minutes. (don't worry, I've always expected to see Kermit the Frog hanging out at Yoda's little mud hut on Dagobah).