> If it took two months to port a puzzle game, imagine how much time and expenses it would take to port a big-name...
One suspects most of that time was learning a new platform. If Linux was a target from the start and the game house had done it before the porting time would be less. To begin a cross platform library like SDL would probably be selected at the start of the project. Porting would then be a minor problem. Even better would be to divide the development team's workstations and develop all targeted platforms in parallel to catch cross platform issues during development. Done that way a wide targeted product should not add more than a couple percent to the development costs.
Another idea. If a game house or group of them developed a common repository the distribution costs could be minimal. This doesn't require their wares be free either. Activation keys/etc could still be used while using repos to eliminate installation problems, distributing updates, etc. Who needs Steam? Better, who needs to cut Steam in for a cut for something Linux has native?
> I seriously doubt we're going to have any web site *forced* to be put on.xxx even if the owner doesn't consider it to be porn.
Oh really. Just wait until a crusading anti-porn AG is in office. Considering how fast Obama is sinking the pendulum will very likely swing in '12 and we will have one.
Now the Courts are shooting down most of the "for the children' anti-porn on the net laws because they rightly resist treating everyone like a child. But wait until a law hits imposing harsh penalties for exposing children to porn with an exception for sites on the.xxx domain which, of course, all browsers and firewalls will block by default. Care to bet that law wouldn't be upheld? Are you sure? And the second a massive judgement or three gets handed down on some high profile.com sites you can bet yer rent money there will be a stampede into.xxx by every site operator within the reach of US law. Let the wheels grind a few years and pretty much any controversial content will end up in.xxx. Where few will be able to actually see it.
> If porn sites don't move, you won't be able to filter them by domain.
Exactly. The law of unintended consequences. But in this case it isn't really unintended because a lot of people have been raising the alarm on the perfectly natural result creating an.xxx tld is going to have and the activists are sticking their fingers in their ears and humming really loud. By now they should realize what they are doing but apparently they are refusing to face reality. Idiots!
This is going to become a nightmare within a year of the.xxx domain going live. Just watch. If anyone were thinking rationally we would make.kids, allow parents to lock a browser into that domain and stfu with all this "we must do it for the children" nonsense.
> The questions at the heart of this situation are: Does a company (school, government) have a > right to restrict SSL traffic so it can snoop your data, or does an individual have a right > to encrypted Internet facilities?
No, the question at the heart of this situation is does a school/government/employer have a right to monitor your activity while using their equipment. Everyone pretty much answered that one a decade ago: Yes they do. That ship has already sailed. I get so tired of numbnut crypto weenies running around waving their magic pixie dust thinking it changes everything. Nope. If they have the right to monitor you can't wave your crypto weenie and say "Neener neener, you can't stop me!" and expect no reaction from the system/the man/whatever. They aren't going to be all like, "Oh noes, they have crypto so the rules don't apply to them; they can do whatever they want. We are so powerless against it's awesomeness. Wwwaaahh!" No, they are going to open up the crypto or ban/block your use of it. And this is news how? Even news for nerds?
> So, it sounds like Manning was "boasting" about it.
Exactly. But when push came to shove, Lamo had a conscience and did the right thing. Sorry pinheads, if we let every junior officer who goes kostard decide to dump half the damned diplomatic traffic for the last decade there just ain't no way we can run a government. If you don't like the way things are get off your sorry, get educated and VOTE. Vote like your life depends on it.. because these dark days it pretty much does.
> Or, to put it differently, what part of "neutral" don't you understand?
Lemme toss a grenade into this subject and ask a better question.....
What the hell is wrong with you people? Who WANTS to be 'neutral' on the Taliban? If everyone here can't agree they are evil then there ain't no hope for our civilization. They executed a seven year old child. I don't give a rat's rear end why they did it. If they actually thought he was spying they are insane and if they did it to 'send a message' (more likely) then they are utterly, irredeemably wicked. And a society that can't bring itself to say that is doomed.
So tell me, exactly what use is it to mince words and make a point of ensuring the Taliban gets a NPV article like they are 'just another point of view, equal to every other?"
> Yeah, it is. And you agree or you would stop paying Social Security. Unless you're a hypocrite. Or a coward.
WTF? Are you under the delusion Social Security is optional? It isn't. If you don't want to pay you only have a few options:
1. Live a life off the grid, doing menial labor for cash. This also gets you out of most other taxes but odds are you won't make enough to worry about that.
2. Work for a state government and participate in their mandatory retirement system.
3. Go to Federal Prison. Yup, you won't pay Social Security taxes..... there are some downsides.
4. Leave the US. And go where? We are the last bastion to fall. When America is gone there will be no free land to flee to as the few outliers will quickly fall. The last stand must be here or not at all so no, I won't run.
5. Wage a successful rebellion, overthrow the Empire and restore the Old Republic. Me. By myself. I never knew you Progressives though people like me were so formidable. Perhaps it explains your team's irrational fear of any opposition.
> When I buy the book, I have that license FOR EVER, or until I sell that book and give away that license.
The legal theory may vary elsewhere, but in the US you don't license a book (or CD/DVD/BD). When you buy a copyrighted work in a store you actually buy the book. Copyright law forbids public exhibition and duplication (with famous exceptions) but that is a layer of law that applies in general and isn't a contract between you and the publisher. One important benefit is there is no opportunity for the publisher to add clauses to the EULA that copyright law wouldn't allow.
> Sometimes I wonder if that would be a bad thing.
Then give yourself a Darwin Award and get the hell out of the way of those of us who actually give a damn. But of course you won't do it anymore than than asshat Peter Singer (look up his latest NYT column) will off himself. No, your type would want to be the last one out after you make sure all the useful people are killed off.
> If the return on the investment was actually knowable...
I know the US was the undisputed tech leader during the NASA era. We aren't anymore. Correlation doesn't always mean causation but in this case it almost certainly does.
> Discovery is not going anywhere. In the meantime, the neighbors' kids are hungry and sick.
Uh huh. By that 'logic' we wouldn't spend a dime on any R&D until we had made the world a utopia where nobody was ever wanting for anything. But of course we don't have the wealth to even attempt such a thing and the sort of socialism needed to try would destroy the world's productive economies. R&D is the way out you fool. We can argue whether we should be spending our R&D on space, safe nuke plants, green bullshit or whatever but saying R&D can't happen until we have heaven on Earth is a sign of a unserious person.
> Yes, that is EVERYONE'S responsibility. If you disagree, save up your cash, and please go live on the Moon.
No it isn't everyone's responsibility. First off, care to explain why society shouldn't be telling prospective parents "If you can't feed em, don't breed em!" I don't object to private charity to help those who have the unusual/unexpected happen to them but I do object when the State trys to do it. For they always make things worse, creating an entitlement mentality such as you exhibit.
And if we could, many of us WOULD go to the moon to escape the sort of civilizational suicide folks such as yourself represent. But we can't. After all, even Columbus's three ships (fully equiped and manned) represented the sort of inventment few private sources could have managed and space, for now, is a lot bigger job. Of course the potential rewards are equally greater if we but had the imagination to seize it.
Going to the moon and then losing the will to plant a colony will almost certainly be remembered as the moment our civilization failed. It would be like Moses leading his people to the Promised Land, them looking over the mountain and saying, "Nah, too hard we are going back to Egypt."
> but at the end of the day, no matter how bad the Earth gets, it's exponentially more comfortable and practical than any other place in the Solar System.
While you are correct as far as your limited imagination goes, ponder these notions:
1. One medium size nickel-iron asteroid has more metal content than pretty much everything we will need for decades. Space has a LOT of resources and there isn't any sort of ecology to worry about despoiling. So do YOU care about the environment? Or are you a poser interested in the egoboo of recycling your plastic Walmart bags? Or perhaps a pave the Earth nutjob? (See how easy it is?)
2. The one thing space has is space. Something we have run out of here, there aren't any places to go here and start over. Yes there are barren hellholes almost as hard to colonize as space but you won't escape the long arm of civilizatrion ANYWHERE earthside. A frontier is a great social relief valve, allowing a certain personality type to be a useful asset instead of a bomb waiting to go off.
3. Sooner or later Earth is doomed. If we are still all here when that happens we go extinct.
4. Resources expended on space exploration has a hell of a lot more useful economic benefits than warehousing losers in housing projects.
Hey, look at the upside. Now when the usual suspects use the tired argument, "If we can put a man on the moon we can do X." just look at em and say "But we CAN'T put a man on the moon anymore. Our might forebearers could do that but we can't. Morons like you traded all that for a welfare state."
Someone always pops up saying something like this anytime Mono is mentioned. But if C#/.Net/Mono is so great why hasn't anything really great been created with it in all the years it has existed? Remember when Microsoft was going to recode pretty much all of their userland? yea right. Reminds me of when belief in the Java hype pushed Corel under as they thought they could write a cross platform office suite with it. So show me something Mono/.Net based that that is awesome and where the choice of platform was something more a technical than a political/religious decision.
But beyond that, the fact is we are talking about a technology controlled by Microsoft. Many people simply do not trust them, and for good reason. So using Mono to allow otherwise foreign code to run is unobjectionable. Creating core subsystems of the Free Software/Open Source environment isn't. Any distribution that breaks if Mono is removed is going to be unacceptable to a large enough subset of users that it simply isn't likely to happen in any of the top ten distros.
> We put up those turtle crossing signs to warn motorists of the danger, not to protect the turtles!
While you may be right about the signs serving a real (non stupid/green) purpose what makes paying for them a Federal responsibility. More importantly what lawful authority does Congress use to order them erected?
> By your logic, people should be allowed to own nuclear weapons!
It isn't a question of logic, it is question of English comprehension. The 2nd Amendment is perfectly clear that thee and me may keep and bear arms and the usage of the time meant private citizens could and did own cannon and fully armed naval vessels, i.e. the most potent arms available at the time. The maximum potency of arms have increased greatly but the Constitution is unchanged. But I am willing to propose a compromise:
We should both agree to promote the idea of a Constitutional Amendment adjusting the 2nd Amendment to provide that crew served weapons may only be possessed by licensed militia companies with a secured Armory and that Weapons of Mass Destruction of the sort whose use is generally prohibited in combat by Treaty to the US Armed forces may only be maintained in stockpiles in secured US military facilities for deterrence (MAD) purposes. In return for us Libertarians compromising your side must be willing to include an explicit proclamation that full automatic weapons small than 30 caliber are personal arms and no Federal Law may impede the peaceful possession of such, may only regulate the bearing (open or concealed) to prohibit them from a very select list of high security locations to include Congress, Federal Courts, military and intelligence facilities and a few I probably aren't thinking of now. As one attempt to try and prevent abuse, add a clause that says any site that prohibits Citizens from bearing arms must provide armed guards and be subject to full liability when a whack job goes off on the disarmed.
> if it was written today no one would be able to read it without paying some exorbitant price
Of course it would be expensive! After all. go look at the EU Constitutionfor an example of what modern Progressive politicians would write. They gotta kill a lot of trees to print a copy of that f**ker. Of course that is the beauty of ours, it is short enough EVERY person should be expected to demonstrate not just a basic knowledge of it, they should demonstrate mastery of it before being given a ballot. No Progressive would ever be elected again, which is of course why they spent the last century on a project to push it down the memory hole. First they pushed for government schools and then undermined the curriculum to remove all study of the Constitution beyond the Preamble. Beyond that the texts tell the kids what it 'says' without studying the actual text.
> this is bizarre hyperbole that has nothing to do with the way sentencing is actually done in the US.
Exactly. Even the article was the sort of gross bias one only finds from kdawson or on sites like Daily Kos. The guy doesn't really dispute that he committed the crimes and it is long standing tradition that one faces judgement in the jurisdiction where the crime occurred, not where one happens to live or where one gets arrested. Having trouble seeing where the can be a controversy to argue about really.
And just to try creating a little discussion.... insanity should be no defense anyway. A succesful insanity plea should result in a Guilty verdict followed by another one judging the person Insane. So they go to a secure mental ward instead of the general prison population. If they can be treated, drugs or whatever, they can file a plea to have the Insane verdict removed and if judged no longer a menace to society they could be released under strict parole rules requiring them to stay on their meds or continue any other treatment. A verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity makes enforcing post release rules a lot harder.
> What we should really do is invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to atheism.
Doubt that would work, which is why the mention of Coulter's solution instead. Shifting them from one branch of the monothism tree to another just might be possible in the time[1] that will be available. Especially since they respect strength and it will have most likely been the Christian world that would have defeated them and be in the process of rebuilding their world. And besides, no civilization based on atheism has been a success. One based on pure Reason may be possible someday, and will probably be a major step forward; but we still need to work on the underpinning of such a thing a bit longer. And that is OK, after all it has only been the merest blink of cosmic time since we learned to make fire, be patient and we will work it out eventually.
[1] We are racing the clock. Science is progressing far faster than even Western moral development and the Islamic world is firmly stuck in the 1st Millenium. Sooner or later a genie will pop out we can't keep stuffed down. Biowarfare on the cheap, nanotech, something we aren't even thinking about now. When that happens, if there are still millions and millions of primitive savages running around with a massive inferiority complex and a belief system based on slaughtering the infidel for instant virgins in the afterlife we are boned. And that is assuming we find an answer to Iran getting nukes sometime next year.
As an agnostic I'm perhaps the wrong one to answer, but I was raised Southern Baptist and still usually fight on the same political team so I'll give it a shot.
> How many Christians truly support freedom of speech when it comes to pornography?
Depends. Most these days would like to push it back into the 'red light' districts but these days most would be willing settle for keeping it off prime time TV. And is that really such an out of the mainstream oosition?
> How many truly support homosexual rights?
Again, depends. Do most Christians favor returning the anti-sodomy laws? Don't think so. Do they consider it a sin? If they are Christian they do, pretty much black letter Biblical law. Of course every other religion agrees and even Science recognized it as a mental defect until political correctness came along in the latter half of the 20th Century. As for "Gay Rights" I have to join in rejecting that notion. Civil Rights for what you happen to be? Of course. Extending that idea to behavior and saying any criticism of what someone DOES is also wrong just doesn't pass the smell test. And 'Gay Marriage' is a simple language issue. No, the word 'Marriage' does not encompass that, and never has in any human language. So no, unelected judges have no lawful authority to redefine words, that way lies madness. In the last year or so actual elected legislatures have taken up the issue, I have no problem with that. Legislatures ARE allowed to make new laws. I may disagree with them but in a Republic we live with the laws passed. Christians generally agree with the notion of obeying the law, and if many make Guns God and Gays a voting issue they have exactly as much right to do so as the Gays do to be single issue voters.
> How many truly believe that academic education and the progress of science is a good thing, versus those who rail against academic, science, and "evilution"?
Seeing as a good many of the leading educational institutions, not only in the US but throughoout Western Civilization, are founded as and still operate as Religious institutions I'd venture to guess most christians have few problems with Science.
> How many support the right of a woman to choose an abortion?
what right? You are asking a null question. The right question is, "When does a fetus become a Citizen?" The Constitution clearly says birth but medical science has advanced greatly and that question is going to need to be revisited. If it is a Citizen there is no 'right' to murder (except in self defense when it isn't murder) and if it isn't a Citizen the question of whether the state can regulate is no laughable (in a properly limited government) that it would be daft to speak of some sacred 'Right' to something so bloody obvious. Most Christians are firmly of the belief (for religious reasons vs my more scientific ones) that the fetus is a person way before birth, may go so far as conception, thus being 'endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights...'
If women don't want to worry about abortions keep their damned pants on. This notion that birth control freed sex from reproduction has caused no end of probems.
> For that matter, how many support the right of women to work, versus those who would prefer to see all women mothering children in the home?
Yup, many Christians do believe that. And a growing number of sociologists are asking disturbing questions. Should women be allowed to work outside the home? Doubt you would find more than a single digit minority saying "No, under no circumstances." in even the most conservative Christian sects. Since it is sometimes a requirement only a few braindead idjits would want to see women lose the right to do what they think they have to do. But whether it is something to be promoted as an unquestioned good is now open for debate after running the experiment for a couple of generations. And whether we should be structuring society in ways that encourage it to the point of making the two
> What are Muslims supposed to think when they read these comments?
They can either come up with a third option, or get ready for a very bad future regardless who wins the coming war. The problem is for all the politically correct blather about the existence of moderate muslims they seem to be about as rare as unicorns. There seem to be three kinds, lapsed, terrified into silence or militant. The silent ones are as useless as the 'good Germans' were in the 1930s and the lapsed only tend to exist here in the West for rather obvious reasons. And even 1% of a billion being militant is a dangerous situation when they are willing to use suicide tactics and are sooner or later going to get hold of WMD. And I have this terrible dread the real number who would prefer to see Islam exported by the sword is a lot closer to 50% than 1%. That larger number doesn't have to be willing to strap on the suicide vest, they only have to be accepting and supportive of those who do, giving them aid, comfort and moral support.
It really is a sign of the madness of our times that discussion of a total, no holds barred, twilight struggle involving most of the human race is something to calmly speak of in civilized company.
I really would like a third option. But I ain't seeing it. And while quick to denounce, didn't see you mentioning a better idea either and it is a very safe bet none will post any.
As an agnostic I don't get the option of becoming a Dhimmi so have nothing to lose; victory or death. I'll say it again, if it must be them or me I pick me and if I be damned thereby so be it for any who chose otherwise don't deserve life.
> I dunno, but it seems to me that dogmatic, xenophobic, recidivist behaviour is on the rise > worldwide -- Islam certainly has no corner on the market for running amok, not now, and not > historically, and the term "Christian" probably carries as much negative baggage through > the years as "Muslim" does.
This quote is a good example of an all too common species of politically correct fool. So much wrong with it. It assumes time is immaterial. That events in the dark past are indisinguishable from current events and carry the exact same moral weight. That persons, events and movements must be judged with the exact same modern politically correct intolerant eye.
We are still crawling up from the muck, people and events must be viewed from the perspective of the time they occured in. For example the US Founders lived in a time when slavery was accepted as normal and had been since recorded history began. Individual liberty of any sort was a REVOLUTIONARY idea. After exhausting peaceful means they became violent revolutionaries. And most of them understood the inherent conflict between slavery and "All Men are created equal..." but also realized the new nation wasn't ready to follow where that line of thought lead. But notice that less than a century later the only places still practicing slavery were parts of Africa and the Middle East outside the range of the British Navy. Christianity did some nasty things but went through the Enlightenment, pretending that didn't happen and judging it as if that didn't happen and that the religion of the Inquisition still exists unchanged is daft.
Islam didn't experience the Enlightenment and rejects it today. The past is just that, past; we have a problem in the here and now as a result. Islam's rejection of the foundational principles of modern civilization is a problem NOW. Coexistance isn't even possible because of their expansionist and supremisist ideas. We in the West either abandon our civilization and accept Sharia or sooner or later (and with Nukes spreading it better be sooner) we are going to be forced to end Islam as it is currently known and practiced. That means Ann Coulter's solution of "Invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." It will be the worst human rights atrocity in recorded history but I'm damned if I see a better solution. We just don't have the time left to embark on a psyops action to slowly pervert their religion so as to remove the nastier bits.
So if it comes down to them or me I'm picking me and mine. Politically incorrect selfish bastard that I am. Future generations can flagelate themselves like the modern campus set do now about the American Indians, the Monroe Doctrine, ending WWII with the Bomb, the Cold War or any of that other stuff. So long as it IS civilization having that discussion in the future and not some starving primitives worshiping an insane child molester in a radioactive wasteland. And they will be sort of 'right' in that by the more advanced civilization our hard choices will allow them to build what we will do in our day will BE wrong... but still making the same mistake modern scholars keep making of judging us by their standards. So be it.
> Each printer (including the small desktop models) at my work can be emailed to and from, > which works excellent with printing, scanning and faxing (receiving and sending).
Yea, we have Oki multifunctions that send and receive email. All you do is specify an smtp and pop3 server on the setup page. Even does authenticated smtp if you need it. But you are right, it doesn't sound like this sort of useful feature set is what HP has in mind.
> If I understand correctly though, it will have a preconfigured, easy to set up web-based email adress om a HP server.
Translation from marketing to geek:
If I understand it correctly, newer HP printers will be leased, not sold. They will be forever tied to hp.com where they will reserve the right to send any print job they decide to 'their' printer.... that YOU buy the insanely expensive ink for. Just wait for the EULA update that specifies the maximum time you can allow their printer to go without ink.
> One of the best news[link to BBC] organizations in the world is funding by a TV license fee.
I remember when the BBC World Service on shortwave was pretty much the Voice of God. They fell victim to O'Sullivan's Law decades ago.
Even though it worked for a short period doesn't change the fact that the whole notion of government owned media is abhorrent and proof the Brits just ain't right. They still don't have proper freedom of speech, no RTKBA, no formal constitution, etc. You can dress up a monarchy with the trappings of representive government but it is just window dressing in the end.
Of course we had a written constitution that explicitly provided all those things above and the Progressives convinced us to chuck it all for a welfare state now almost indistinguishable from Europe. Feh.
> All of the news outlets that don't get the bailout, perhaps?
You don't understand how Progressives work. Everyone with any audience will get the bailouts, online, cable, legacy networks, dead tree. Just like the banks who were smart enough to see the trap and initially said "No thanks." until they were all brought into a conference room and told "You WILL take the money."
Once everyone is on the government teat nothing else will change for a while, as slowly the whole industry realigns to the 'new normal' such that operating without the subsidy becomes an utter absurdity. THEN the chains go on and there won't be anyone to object. A few decades later (see home loans, student loans, etc) Progressives will whine about the money going to huge media corporations and the whole thing gets nationalized.
Slashdot Mirror
> If it took two months to port a puzzle game, imagine how much time and expenses it would take to port a big-name...
One suspects most of that time was learning a new platform. If Linux was a target from the start and the game house had done it before the porting time would be less. To begin a cross platform library like SDL would probably be selected at the start of the project. Porting would then be a minor problem. Even better would be to divide the development team's workstations and develop all targeted platforms in parallel to catch cross platform issues during development. Done that way a wide targeted product should not add more than a couple percent to the development costs.
Another idea. If a game house or group of them developed a common repository the distribution costs could be minimal. This doesn't require their wares be free either. Activation keys/etc could still be used while using repos to eliminate installation problems, distributing updates, etc. Who needs Steam? Better, who needs to cut Steam in for a cut for something Linux has native?
> I seriously doubt we're going to have any web site *forced* to be put on .xxx even if the owner doesn't consider it to be porn.
Oh really. Just wait until a crusading anti-porn AG is in office. Considering how fast Obama is sinking the pendulum will very likely swing in '12 and we will have one.
Now the Courts are shooting down most of the "for the children' anti-porn on the net laws because they rightly resist treating everyone like a child. But wait until a law hits imposing harsh penalties for exposing children to porn with an exception for sites on the .xxx domain which, of course, all browsers and firewalls will block by default. Care to bet that law wouldn't be upheld? Are you sure? And the second a massive judgement or three gets handed down on some high profile .com sites you can bet yer rent money there will be a stampede into .xxx by every site operator within the reach of US law. Let the wheels grind a few years and pretty much any controversial content will end up in .xxx. Where few will be able to actually see it.
> If porn sites don't move, you won't be able to filter them by domain.
Exactly. The law of unintended consequences. But in this case it isn't really unintended because a lot of people have been raising the alarm on the perfectly natural result creating an .xxx tld is going to have and the activists are sticking their fingers in their ears and humming really loud. By now they should realize what they are doing but apparently they are refusing to face reality. Idiots!
This is going to become a nightmare within a year of the .xxx domain going live. Just watch. If anyone were thinking rationally we would make .kids, allow parents to lock a browser into that domain and stfu with all this "we must do it for the children" nonsense.
> The questions at the heart of this situation are: Does a company (school, government) have a
> right to restrict SSL traffic so it can snoop your data, or does an individual have a right
> to encrypted Internet facilities?
No, the question at the heart of this situation is does a school/government/employer have a right to monitor your activity while using their equipment. Everyone pretty much answered that one a decade ago: Yes they do. That ship has already sailed. I get so tired of numbnut crypto weenies running around waving their magic pixie dust thinking it changes everything. Nope. If they have the right to monitor you can't wave your crypto weenie and say "Neener neener, you can't stop me!" and expect no reaction from the system/the man/whatever. They aren't going to be all like, "Oh noes, they have crypto so the rules don't apply to them; they can do whatever they want. We are so powerless against it's awesomeness. Wwwaaahh!" No, they are going to open up the crypto or ban/block your use of it. And this is news how? Even news for nerds?
> So, it sounds like Manning was "boasting" about it.
Exactly. But when push came to shove, Lamo had a conscience and did the right thing. Sorry pinheads, if we let every junior officer who goes kostard decide to dump half the damned diplomatic traffic for the last decade there just ain't no way we can run a government. If you don't like the way things are get off your sorry, get educated and VOTE. Vote like your life depends on it.. because these dark days it pretty much does.
> Or, to put it differently, what part of "neutral" don't you understand?
Lemme toss a grenade into this subject and ask a better question.....
What the hell is wrong with you people? Who WANTS to be 'neutral' on the Taliban? If everyone here can't agree they are evil then there ain't no hope for our civilization. They executed a seven year old child. I don't give a rat's rear end why they did it. If they actually thought he was spying they are insane and if they did it to 'send a message' (more likely) then they are utterly, irredeemably wicked. And a society that can't bring itself to say that is doomed.
So tell me, exactly what use is it to mince words and make a point of ensuring the Taliban gets a NPV article like they are 'just another point of view, equal to every other?"
> Yeah, it is. And you agree or you would stop paying Social Security. Unless you're a hypocrite. Or a coward.
WTF? Are you under the delusion Social Security is optional? It isn't. If you don't want to pay you only have a few options:
1. Live a life off the grid, doing menial labor for cash. This also gets you out of most other taxes but odds are you won't make enough to worry about that.
2. Work for a state government and participate in their mandatory retirement system.
3. Go to Federal Prison. Yup, you won't pay Social Security taxes..... there are some downsides.
4. Leave the US. And go where? We are the last bastion to fall. When America is gone there will be no free land to flee to as the few outliers will quickly fall. The last stand must be here or not at all so no, I won't run.
5. Wage a successful rebellion, overthrow the Empire and restore the Old Republic. Me. By myself. I never knew you Progressives though people like me were so formidable. Perhaps it explains your team's irrational fear of any opposition.
> When I buy the book, I have that license FOR EVER, or until I sell that book and give away that license.
The legal theory may vary elsewhere, but in the US you don't license a book (or CD/DVD/BD). When you buy a copyrighted work in a store you actually buy the book. Copyright law forbids public exhibition and duplication (with famous exceptions) but that is a layer of law that applies in general and isn't a contract between you and the publisher. One important benefit is there is no opportunity for the publisher to add clauses to the EULA that copyright law wouldn't allow.
> Sometimes I wonder if that would be a bad thing.
Then give yourself a Darwin Award and get the hell out of the way of those of us who actually give a damn. But of course you won't do it anymore than than asshat Peter Singer (look up his latest NYT column) will off himself. No, your type would want to be the last one out after you make sure all the useful people are killed off.
> If the return on the investment was actually knowable...
I know the US was the undisputed tech leader during the NASA era. We aren't anymore. Correlation doesn't always mean causation but in this case it almost certainly does.
> Discovery is not going anywhere. In the meantime, the neighbors' kids are hungry and sick.
Uh huh. By that 'logic' we wouldn't spend a dime on any R&D until we had made the world a utopia where nobody was ever wanting for anything. But of course we don't have the wealth to even attempt such a thing and the sort of socialism needed to try would destroy the world's productive economies. R&D is the way out you fool. We can argue whether we should be spending our R&D on space, safe nuke plants, green bullshit or whatever but saying R&D can't happen until we have heaven on Earth is a sign of a unserious person.
> Yes, that is EVERYONE'S responsibility. If you disagree, save up your cash, and please go live on the Moon.
No it isn't everyone's responsibility. First off, care to explain why society shouldn't be telling prospective parents "If you can't feed em, don't breed em!" I don't object to private charity to help those who have the unusual/unexpected happen to them but I do object when the State trys to do it. For they always make things worse, creating an entitlement mentality such as you exhibit.
And if we could, many of us WOULD go to the moon to escape the sort of civilizational suicide folks such as yourself represent. But we can't. After all, even Columbus's three ships (fully equiped and manned) represented the sort of inventment few private sources could have managed and space, for now, is a lot bigger job. Of course the potential rewards are equally greater if we but had the imagination to seize it.
Going to the moon and then losing the will to plant a colony will almost certainly be remembered as the moment our civilization failed. It would be like Moses leading his people to the Promised Land, them looking over the mountain and saying, "Nah, too hard we are going back to Egypt."
> but at the end of the day, no matter how bad the Earth gets, it's exponentially more comfortable and practical than any other place in the Solar System.
While you are correct as far as your limited imagination goes, ponder these notions:
1. One medium size nickel-iron asteroid has more metal content than pretty much everything we will need for decades. Space has a LOT of resources and there isn't any sort of ecology to worry about despoiling. So do YOU care about the environment? Or are you a poser interested in the egoboo of recycling your plastic Walmart bags? Or perhaps a pave the Earth nutjob? (See how easy it is?)
2. The one thing space has is space. Something we have run out of here, there aren't any places to go here and start over. Yes there are barren hellholes almost as hard to colonize as space but you won't escape the long arm of civilizatrion ANYWHERE earthside. A frontier is a great social relief valve, allowing a certain personality type to be a useful asset instead of a bomb waiting to go off.
3. Sooner or later Earth is doomed. If we are still all here when that happens we go extinct.
4. Resources expended on space exploration has a hell of a lot more useful economic benefits than warehousing losers in housing projects.
Hey, look at the upside. Now when the usual suspects use the tired argument, "If we can put a man on the moon we can do X." just look at em and say "But we CAN'T put a man on the moon anymore. Our might forebearers could do that but we can't. Morons like you traded all that for a welfare state."
> I LIKE c#/.net.
Someone always pops up saying something like this anytime Mono is mentioned. But if C#/.Net/Mono is so great why hasn't anything really great been created with it in all the years it has existed? Remember when Microsoft was going to recode pretty much all of their userland? yea right. Reminds me of when belief in the Java hype pushed Corel under as they thought they could write a cross platform office suite with it. So show me something Mono/.Net based that that is awesome and where the choice of platform was something more a technical than a political/religious decision.
But beyond that, the fact is we are talking about a technology controlled by Microsoft. Many people simply do not trust them, and for good reason. So using Mono to allow otherwise foreign code to run is unobjectionable. Creating core subsystems of the Free Software/Open Source environment isn't. Any distribution that breaks if Mono is removed is going to be unacceptable to a large enough subset of users that it simply isn't likely to happen in any of the top ten distros.
A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity.
-- Sigmund Freud - General Introduction to Psychoanalysis
> We put up those turtle crossing signs to warn motorists of the danger, not to protect the turtles!
While you may be right about the signs serving a real (non stupid/green) purpose what makes paying for them a Federal responsibility. More importantly what lawful authority does Congress use to order them erected?
> By your logic, people should be allowed to own nuclear weapons!
It isn't a question of logic, it is question of English comprehension. The 2nd Amendment is perfectly clear that thee and me may keep and bear arms and the usage of the time meant private citizens could and did own cannon and fully armed naval vessels, i.e. the most potent arms available at the time. The maximum potency of arms have increased greatly but the Constitution is unchanged. But I am willing to propose a compromise:
We should both agree to promote the idea of a Constitutional Amendment adjusting the 2nd Amendment to provide that crew served weapons may only be possessed by licensed militia companies with a secured Armory and that Weapons of Mass Destruction of the sort whose use is generally prohibited in combat by Treaty to the US Armed forces may only be maintained in stockpiles in secured US military facilities for deterrence (MAD) purposes. In return for us Libertarians compromising your side must be willing to include an explicit proclamation that full automatic weapons small than 30 caliber are personal arms and no Federal Law may impede the peaceful possession of such, may only regulate the bearing (open or concealed) to prohibit them from a very select list of high security locations to include Congress, Federal Courts, military and intelligence facilities and a few I probably aren't thinking of now. As one attempt to try and prevent abuse, add a clause that says any site that prohibits Citizens from bearing arms must provide armed guards and be subject to full liability when a whack job goes off on the disarmed.
> if it was written today no one would be able to read it without paying some exorbitant price
Of course it would be expensive! After all. go look at the EU Constitutionfor an example of what modern Progressive politicians would write. They gotta kill a lot of trees to print a copy of that f**ker. Of course that is the beauty of ours, it is short enough EVERY person should be expected to demonstrate not just a basic knowledge of it, they should demonstrate mastery of it before being given a ballot. No Progressive would ever be elected again, which is of course why they spent the last century on a project to push it down the memory hole. First they pushed for government schools and then undermined the curriculum to remove all study of the Constitution beyond the Preamble. Beyond that the texts tell the kids what it 'says' without studying the actual text.
> this is bizarre hyperbole that has nothing to do with the way sentencing is actually done in the US.
Exactly. Even the article was the sort of gross bias one only finds from kdawson or on sites like Daily Kos. The guy doesn't really dispute that he committed the crimes and it is long standing tradition that one faces judgement in the jurisdiction where the crime occurred, not where one happens to live or where one gets arrested. Having trouble seeing where the can be a controversy to argue about really.
And just to try creating a little discussion.... insanity should be no defense anyway. A succesful insanity plea should result in a Guilty verdict followed by another one judging the person Insane. So they go to a secure mental ward instead of the general prison population. If they can be treated, drugs or whatever, they can file a plea to have the Insane verdict removed and if judged no longer a menace to society they could be released under strict parole rules requiring them to stay on their meds or continue any other treatment. A verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity makes enforcing post release rules a lot harder.
> What we should really do is invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to atheism.
Doubt that would work, which is why the mention of Coulter's solution instead. Shifting them from one branch of the monothism tree to another just might be possible in the time[1] that will be available. Especially since they respect strength and it will have most likely been the Christian world that would have defeated them and be in the process of rebuilding their world. And besides, no civilization based on atheism has been a success. One based on pure Reason may be possible someday, and will probably be a major step forward; but we still need to work on the underpinning of such a thing a bit longer. And that is OK, after all it has only been the merest blink of cosmic time since we learned to make fire, be patient and we will work it out eventually.
[1] We are racing the clock. Science is progressing far faster than even Western moral development and the Islamic world is firmly stuck in the 1st Millenium. Sooner or later a genie will pop out we can't keep stuffed down. Biowarfare on the cheap, nanotech, something we aren't even thinking about now. When that happens, if there are still millions and millions of primitive savages running around with a massive inferiority complex and a belief system based on slaughtering the infidel for instant virgins in the afterlife we are boned. And that is assuming we find an answer to Iran getting nukes sometime next year.
As an agnostic I'm perhaps the wrong one to answer, but I was raised Southern Baptist and still usually fight on the same political team so I'll give it a shot.
> How many Christians truly support freedom of speech when it comes to pornography?
Depends. Most these days would like to push it back into the 'red light' districts but these days most would be willing settle for keeping it off prime time TV. And is that really such an out of the mainstream oosition?
> How many truly support homosexual rights?
Again, depends. Do most Christians favor returning the anti-sodomy laws? Don't think so. Do they consider it a sin? If they are Christian they do, pretty much black letter Biblical law. Of course every other religion agrees and even Science recognized it as a mental defect until political correctness came along in the latter half of the 20th Century. As for "Gay Rights" I have to join in rejecting that notion. Civil Rights for what you happen to be? Of course. Extending that idea to behavior and saying any criticism of what someone DOES is also wrong just doesn't pass the smell test. And 'Gay Marriage' is a simple language issue. No, the word 'Marriage' does not encompass that, and never has in any human language. So no, unelected judges have no lawful authority to redefine words, that way lies madness. In the last year or so actual elected legislatures have taken up the issue, I have no problem with that. Legislatures ARE allowed to make new laws. I may disagree with them but in a Republic we live with the laws passed. Christians generally agree with the notion of obeying the law, and if many make Guns God and Gays a voting issue they have exactly as much right to do so as the Gays do to be single issue voters.
> How many truly believe that academic education and the progress of science is a good thing, versus those who rail against academic, science, and "evilution"?
Seeing as a good many of the leading educational institutions, not only in the US but throughoout Western Civilization, are founded as and still operate as Religious institutions I'd venture to guess most christians have few problems with Science.
> How many support the right of a woman to choose an abortion?
what right? You are asking a null question. The right question is, "When does a fetus become a Citizen?" The Constitution clearly says birth but medical science has advanced greatly and that question is going to need to be revisited. If it is a Citizen there is no 'right' to murder (except in self defense when it isn't murder) and if it isn't a Citizen the question of whether the state can regulate is no laughable (in a properly limited government) that it would be daft to speak of some sacred 'Right' to something so bloody obvious. Most Christians are firmly of the belief (for religious reasons vs my more scientific ones) that the fetus is a person way before birth, may go so far as conception, thus being 'endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights...'
If women don't want to worry about abortions keep their damned pants on. This notion that birth control freed sex from reproduction has caused no end of probems.
> For that matter, how many support the right of women to work, versus those who would prefer to see all women mothering children in the home?
Yup, many Christians do believe that. And a growing number of sociologists are asking disturbing questions. Should women be allowed to work outside the home? Doubt you would find more than a single digit minority saying "No, under no circumstances." in even the most conservative Christian sects. Since it is sometimes a requirement only a few braindead idjits would want to see women lose the right to do what they think they have to do. But whether it is something to be promoted as an unquestioned good is now open for debate after running the experiment for a couple of generations. And whether we should be structuring society in ways that encourage it to the point of making the two
> What are Muslims supposed to think when they read these comments?
They can either come up with a third option, or get ready for a very bad future regardless who wins the coming war. The problem is for all the politically correct blather about the existence of moderate muslims they seem to be about as rare as unicorns. There seem to be three kinds, lapsed, terrified into silence or militant. The silent ones are as useless as the 'good Germans' were in the 1930s and the lapsed only tend to exist here in the West for rather obvious reasons. And even 1% of a billion being militant is a dangerous situation when they are willing to use suicide tactics and are sooner or later going to get hold of WMD. And I have this terrible dread the real number who would prefer to see Islam exported by the sword is a lot closer to 50% than 1%. That larger number doesn't have to be willing to strap on the suicide vest, they only have to be accepting and supportive of those who do, giving them aid, comfort and moral support.
It really is a sign of the madness of our times that discussion of a total, no holds barred, twilight struggle involving most of the human race is something to calmly speak of in civilized company.
I really would like a third option. But I ain't seeing it. And while quick to denounce, didn't see you mentioning a better idea either and it is a very safe bet none will post any.
As an agnostic I don't get the option of becoming a Dhimmi so have nothing to lose; victory or death. I'll say it again, if it must be them or me I pick me and if I be damned thereby so be it for any who chose otherwise don't deserve life.
> I dunno, but it seems to me that dogmatic, xenophobic, recidivist behaviour is on the rise
> worldwide -- Islam certainly has no corner on the market for running amok, not now, and not
> historically, and the term "Christian" probably carries as much negative baggage through
> the years as "Muslim" does.
This quote is a good example of an all too common species of politically correct fool. So much wrong with it. It assumes time is immaterial. That events in the dark past are indisinguishable from current events and carry the exact same moral weight. That persons, events and movements must be judged with the exact same modern politically correct intolerant eye.
We are still crawling up from the muck, people and events must be viewed from the perspective of the time they occured in. For example the US Founders lived in a time when slavery was accepted as normal and had been since recorded history began. Individual liberty of any sort was a REVOLUTIONARY idea. After exhausting peaceful means they became violent revolutionaries. And most of them understood the inherent conflict between slavery and "All Men are created equal..." but also realized the new nation wasn't ready to follow where that line of thought lead. But notice that less than a century later the only places still practicing slavery were parts of Africa and the Middle East outside the range of the British Navy. Christianity did some nasty things but went through the Enlightenment, pretending that didn't happen and judging it as if that didn't happen and that the religion of the Inquisition still exists unchanged is daft.
Islam didn't experience the Enlightenment and rejects it today. The past is just that, past; we have a problem in the here and now as a result. Islam's rejection of the foundational principles of modern civilization is a problem NOW. Coexistance isn't even possible because of their expansionist and supremisist ideas. We in the West either abandon our civilization and accept Sharia or sooner or later (and with Nukes spreading it better be sooner) we are going to be forced to end Islam as it is currently known and practiced. That means Ann Coulter's solution of "Invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." It will be the worst human rights atrocity in recorded history but I'm damned if I see a better solution. We just don't have the time left to embark on a psyops action to slowly pervert their religion so as to remove the nastier bits.
So if it comes down to them or me I'm picking me and mine. Politically incorrect selfish bastard that I am. Future generations can flagelate themselves like the modern campus set do now about the American Indians, the Monroe Doctrine, ending WWII with the Bomb, the Cold War or any of that other stuff. So long as it IS civilization having that discussion in the future and not some starving primitives worshiping an insane child molester in a radioactive wasteland. And they will be sort of 'right' in that by the more advanced civilization our hard choices will allow them to build what we will do in our day will BE wrong... but still making the same mistake modern scholars keep making of judging us by their standards. So be it.
> Each printer (including the small desktop models) at my work can be emailed to and from,
> which works excellent with printing, scanning and faxing (receiving and sending).
Yea, we have Oki multifunctions that send and receive email. All you do is specify an smtp and pop3 server on the setup page. Even does authenticated smtp if you need it. But you are right, it doesn't sound like this sort of useful feature set is what HP has in mind.
> If I understand correctly though, it will have a preconfigured, easy to set up web-based email adress om a HP server.
Translation from marketing to geek:
If I understand it correctly, newer HP printers will be leased, not sold. They will be forever tied to hp.com where they will reserve the right to send any print job they decide to 'their' printer.... that YOU buy the insanely expensive ink for. Just wait for the EULA update that specifies the maximum time you can allow their printer to go without ink.
> One of the best news[link to BBC] organizations in the world is funding by a TV license fee.
I remember when the BBC World Service on shortwave was pretty much the Voice of God. They fell victim to O'Sullivan's Law decades ago.
Even though it worked for a short period doesn't change the fact that the whole notion of government owned media is abhorrent and proof the Brits just ain't right. They still don't have proper freedom of speech, no RTKBA, no formal constitution, etc. You can dress up a monarchy with the trappings of representive government but it is just window dressing in the end.
Of course we had a written constitution that explicitly provided all those things above and the Progressives convinced us to chuck it all for a welfare state now almost indistinguishable from Europe. Feh.
> All of the news outlets that don't get the bailout, perhaps?
You don't understand how Progressives work. Everyone with any audience will get the bailouts, online, cable, legacy networks, dead tree. Just like the banks who were smart enough to see the trap and initially said "No thanks." until they were all brought into a conference room and told "You WILL take the money."
Once everyone is on the government teat nothing else will change for a while, as slowly the whole industry realigns to the 'new normal' such that operating without the subsidy becomes an utter absurdity. THEN the chains go on and there won't be anyone to object. A few decades later (see home loans, student loans, etc) Progressives will whine about the money going to huge media corporations and the whole thing gets nationalized.