Rehabilitation would definitely be better...if we had any clue as to how to do it reliably. But it's important to break the dominance/submission pattern that exists in prisons.
I still find it hard to believe that you experienced such problems with solitude. Historically it has been quite common (though not in such a confined surround), and the problems were relatively minor over months. (I said six months, because arctic explorers under extreme circumstances tended to get "cabin fever". Shipwrecked sailors, however, survived for years, and though they underwent a personality change, it didn't prevent them from re-integrating with society. ("Robinson Crusoe" was a fictionalized retelling of a true story. Don't take it too seriously, as it bears the same relation to truth as a disney, The original was Alexander Selkirk, but his version of the story wasn't all that popular. He lived for four years on an uninhabited island.)
Neither. I just occasionally run across reports. And, yes, most musicians that earn money don't earn much. But the RIAA doesn't pay for those tours, they just make an advance against future earnings. And THEY choose how much of an advance. And THEY choose how it's to be spent. You can't be careful if you want to. (At least that was how the reports I've read claimed it worked.)
If music is all they get, then probably nothing. Maybe some publicity, but don't count on it. But they don't cost much either.
OTOH, if they become fans, then they offer a market for concert tickets, tee-shirts, posters, etc.
I don't have an answer, I'm not in that business. I've just heard several reports saying that the RIAA is a bad deal for most musicians. (Though there *are* big winners. Just like a lottery.)
OTOH, I'm a software developer, and what I'm working on will be GPL. So in my related occupation, I'm putting my time and efforts into an analogous activity. (OTOH, I'm also retired. Sigh. So the only answer that's obvious is patrons. UGH!)
But not having a good answer doesn't make the *AA an acceptable answer.
It takes a bit more than real solitude to drive someone mad quickly. Solitude will do it, sort of, over a period of ??? six months isn't enough. Not if you have books, etc., as I proposed.
Don't confuse solitude with (extreme) sensory deprivation. I think that's what you're doing, and days may be excessive for that. Hours of extreme sensory deprivation might be able to drive many people mad. Solitude is a very different condition. (The kinds of madness induced are also different.)
The *AA gives something to some artists. To some it's a windfall. To more it's a bill for services. (Sorry, the returns from your album didn't cover what we decided to pay to publicize it. Please pay us the difference.)
There's probably an even larger number that get a little bit, but one doesn't hear about those.
And in every case where an external audit has been forced, the artists were being paid less than their contract required. (But it's really difficult and expensive to force an external audit.)
The average (mean, median, and mode) artist would be better off not working with the RIAA, but they don't find that out until it's too late. (I haven't heard about the MPAA, so I don't have an evidence based belief in their case. This may be because that are almost no independent movies.)
For a musician, signing up with the RIAA is like buying a lottery ticket with the difference that the house is allowed to adjust the odds after you purchase the ticket.
There's also the little fact that at those times the ownership of the media was much less centralized, and editors would print an interesting story, even if it went against normal policy. Readers had choice.
Today, even local papers are parts of a media chain, and editors aren't allowed to print something against company policy, interesting or not, or they'll be fired. (Also Fox news recently won a case based on it's right to intentionally lie to people about what the truth was. *None* of the other media companies objected. Few publicized it.)
If you hold a protest today, there is no media coverage. Not even local coverage. I've watched it happening. That means you can't use the classical means of consciousness raising, so you need to find alternatives. And if all of the legal means have been rendered ineffective, then you have only illegal means that might be effective. (I doubt that this will be effective, but at least it's an attempt.)
P.S.: It's classic history that when non-violent means are rendered ineffective, violent means will be adopted. By a smaller number of people, but larger numbers of people who aren't that committed will sympathize with those who commit the violence. So don't be surprised if this pattern repeats. Non-violence will be used if it can be used (and is seen as an available option). If it can't be used, other means will be used.
Would that it were that simple. But people are different.
Some people would make one mistake, and never repeat it. Others would decide that the chance of a positive personal payoff was sufficient to justify the risk, and to hell with "social good" or anyone else.
Unfortunately, in current society the people who say "...and to hell with "social good"... " are just divided into three classes: The stupid, the powerful, and the sly. The stupid spend a lot of time in prison. The powerful escape punishment. The sly aren't technically guilty of actually breaking a law, or at least you can't prove it. (Yes, the groups merge around the edges, but you know the kinds of people I'm talking about.) I'm not convinced that the folk that end up in prison are actually the ones that do the most damage. But among those who do, there probably *isn't* a better "solution". Unfortunately lots of other people also end up in prison. People whose main "crime" is not being powerful. Others end up there because they technically broke the law, but it was a law that shouldn't have existed. Etc.
My favorite answer is to use REAL solitary in prison. No guards, no cellmates, no communication. And to shorten the sentences a LOT!! Say, to start off with, shorten the sentences to 1/10th of what they are. Put each prisoner into a comfortable sound-proof room, with a slot for meals. Weld it shut. When the sentence is open, cut it open with a torch, and let him go. He's never seen or talked to another inmate or to a guard. No external communications at all while he's in. (Books are allowed. He's provided with a standard library plus any 50 books he specifies. If they're copyrighted, he has to pay for them, otherwise they're free. This includes books of blank pages. And a supply of pens. But he can't take anything with him when he leaves. And anything produced will be burned without being read as S.O.P. This is a place where communication lines are cut.)
Possibly 1/10th of the current length is too harsh a sentence. !/20th might be more reasonable.
If nothing else, my proposal would instantly kill the prison gangs, and would drastically reduce the number of prison guards needed.
I'll grant that they are breaking the law, but they are doing it to protest that the law is unjust.
If you don't like their approach, suggest an alternative, that has any chance of success. (And define success.)
I don't like what they're doing, but I dislike it less than I dislike the corrupt legal systems that they are protesting. (OTOH, let's not be confused. It's just a protest. It's not anything that's very effective.)
The "effective" measures that I can think of are all much more illegal, and all require a much higher level of commitment. Things like assassinating all the janitors and secretaries that work for the company. One a day. So replacing them gets to be so expensive that it can't be done, but they can't be given 24-hour guard because there are too many targets. That has the potential of being effective, but I don't think group of people is so committed that they would do it.
Were they to do as the above paragraph suggests, then one could reasonably argue that they were doing wrong, rather than merely acting illegally. But if they were so committed that they would carry out those acts, then I doubt that they would pay any attention to your evaluation of their moral worth. (Actually, I doubt that anyway. *I* certainly consider it a mere assertion without any backing argument.)
In 5 years this may be a quite reasonable approach. It might not. It all depends.
Actually, it depends on a lot of things. Debian testing is usually quite good, but I generally figure that at least once during every development cycle it will hose my system. It's a rolling release, though possibly a little bit less tested than he's thinking about.
FWIW, I've used Ubuntu, and it's not bad, but now I'm using Debian testing again. (There was a period a couple of months ago when it broke my system. So I figured that was a good time to test Ubuntu.)
Off-topic Addendum: Debian doesn't seem to work as well on portables as Ubuntu. They don't include all the necessary software on DVD-1 (wireless didn't work), and they don't seem to manage the battery as well. Didn't dig into the reason.
Sounds to me like he was in rough agreement. But he didn't address the issue of variability when used by untrained personnel, or the safety precautions usually taken by a dentist's office.
FWIW, I understand that the wave length of radiation used is different, and that the airport scanners deposit all of their energy in a thin layer of tissue near the epidermis, while dental scanners are designed to penetrate tooth and bone. And it is my supposition that the significant damage is caused by damage to the reproductive mechanisms of the cell, usually while it is in the process of dividing. As such, rapidly dividing cells, such as those of the epidermal layer, are more succeptible to damage than are bone cells. (Though if you damage the cells making blood, you can get a kind of leukemia...actually several different kinds of leukemia can be caused by this, but other kinds have other causes.)
OTOH, I'm not a radiologist. If I thought he was speaking as a radiologist, rather than as someone trying to sell xray equipment without really lying, then I'd take his comments more seriously. As it is I only notice that you didn't mention him quoting any research, so I take his words as literally true, but likely to be misleading.
And, as I said at the start, there seems to be rough agreement between what he was saying and what I said.
And if any airline chooses to allow you to fly anyway, I'm sure the government would continue to subsidize them.
Sorry, the airlines are taking sufficient government subsidies that they are de facto arms of the government. If a court disagrees with me, then they court is wrong. If a lawyer disagrees with me, then the lawyer is wrong. When you take federal money you become legally bound by the strictures of the constitution. (I know that in fact this is not enforced, but it should be, and it's the way the laws and the constitution were written.)
Of course, the original constitution didn't envision the widely embracing current government, but that doesn't change what was written. If you don't like it, you should amend it rather than just flout it.
OTOH, if you think about it, having everyone in the country bound by the constitution wouldn't be that bad. The constitution is a pretty good document, that has stood the test of time quite well. It's the interpretations and laws added on that are the problem.
P.S.: Do note that this argument makes anyone who eats food that has been either trucked over an interstate highway or carried by a federally subsidized airline bound by the constitution. What's wrong with that? I think much more highly of the constitution than I do of those laws that wriggle their way through congress. It's not sufficient, but, OTOH, it doesn't contain many mistakes or much corruption. (The interpretations of the constitution, however, are a different matter.)
There have been many studies. They say "When used properly, the machines don't present unreasonable risk.". Unreasonable means that they're about what a dental X-ray would be.
The kicker is "properly", The people running those machines have not been well trained, and you aren't their customer. So they don't really bother about proper use. Convenient (for them) use is more what they consider.
(Ever notice that when you get a dental X-ray you wear a lead apron?)
Nobody has done a study of the exposure in the environments in which those machines are used. I expect that there's a high variability, with some part of the curve coming down in the "rather dangerous" section.
You don't pay more for the clowns at a security theater than you must. The money gets reserved for the approved contractors. (Sorry, this last paragraph is pure cynicism. But I still feel it's probably correct.)
I believe that it's anywhere within 200 miles of either the border or of an airport at which international flights land. (Or, of course, a port at which international shipping docks.)
It's the right metaphor, and properly understood is true.
If you go all literal minded, then it should only seem silly, not meaningful. I'm not really sure where people get the idea that it describes the world behaving the way they want to. Magic, probably. Or fairy tales.
When you think of the computer, or fire, as your servant, then you are using the same though pattern as those you take an intentional stance towards information. But the statement as a metaphor, without an understood intentional stance, is a true statement. (OTOH, people seem quite attached to the intentional stance, so I suppose that it's a metaphor that endangers proper understanding.)
I think most people know and acknowledge that the tragedies mentioned aren't worth the sacrifice of our liberties to prevent. The government, however, is more interested in increasing it's power, and the media select which points of view to present to further the cause of the government. As a result an artificial picture of support for government intrusion is created.
This is the easier because lots of people, myself included, thing that something should be done. E.g., don't leave the door between the pilots and the passengers unlocked. This is a lot different from "anything must be done", but that's the way it gets portrayed. This is the easier because there's a lot of disagreement about exactly which steps are appropriate. And this disagreement can be used as a mask to enable those in authority to select the particular viewpoints they wish to choose, and pretend that they are "obeying the wishes of the electorate".
The central problem is the concentration of power. That is the great evil of the current system. (Other systems have other evils, but that's a very common one.)
"argument from incredulity" presupposes denying evidence. I haven't seen any. Yeah, it's plausible, but plausibility isn't proof. The truth is that I don't know of ANY illegal activity. To from that dataset presume that most activity is illegal...well, the evidence, meager as it is, doesn't support that conclusion.
I think you've missed the point. This is intended as a colonization effort. Yes, we need to know more to have a reasonable chance of success, but waiting until the robots have built a fuel extraction and processing plant, and a rocket engine rebuilding plant is just silly. And it's considerably cheaper to only freight enough cargo for a one-way transit. I can't quote exact numbers, but it's considerably less than 1/4 the cost to plan a one-way trip.
The problem is, we haven't even got the biosphere-n isolation project working. That needs to be tackled first. No reason automated exploration can't be done simultaneously.
I think is *is* illegal. It's just quite expensive to hire lawyers good enough to go to the mat with the university lawyers and prove it. And you won't get your legal fees paid. And you won't get a transcript. (Or the analog in analogous cases.)
I hear this asserted all the time on/., but an assertion isn't proof. I don't know of anybody who used bittorrent that way, and so I remain quite unconvinced.
Yes, my dataset is anecdotal, but you aren't supplying *ANY* data. I don't have a strong argument, but you don't have any.
That said, it wouldn't surprise me if there was a considerable body of copyright infringement over bittorrent. It would be relatively easy. But this is hardly proof. And all too often "everybody knows" translates into "this is a damn lie".
Well, given licensing, etc., there *could* be an immense change. I don't think there has been, but that's not a given. Particularly with Oracle talking about putting out a non-free version of the JVM. (That's one thing I thought was totally standardized.)
Given the recent news, I can understand being hesitant to trust anything with Oracle's name on it, or around it. This despite my being quite willing to trust similar products with Sun's name on them.
OTOH, I don't feel any pressing need to switch from OpenOffice to LibreOffice. I'll want to do it soon, but I don't see any reason to do it immediately. I did, however, scrap all plans for doing the project I've just started in Java. I'm currently considering a bunch of alternatives. At the instant Common Lisp is leading the pack, but it could easily change before next week. Lisp, however, is looking better than C or C++, because it has garbage collection and a standardized way of handling utf8 files. Python could do the same thing, but it's slower. Go is still beta, and it has lousy documentation. Etc. Also, I may have occasion to write some self-modifying code, and that's easier in Lisp than in most compiled languages. (Yeah, scheme. But Scheme doesn't support classes in any standard way. And there aren't many r6rs schemes out, and all the r5rs schemes support utf8 in non-standard ways. [They've got to. It's not a part of the standard.])
I suppose I could check things like Haskell or OCaML, but I find it hard to wrap my head around them. Erlang *is* a possibility, and maybe I should look into it more carefully. Last I checked it didn't have any GUI capability, and the default database wasn't large enough. (Maybe I could partition things, or use Mnesia instead of the built-in methods.) That would mean using C FFI's, but I'll need to do that with Lisp anyway...and multiprocessors *are* becoming more common...
You don't *KNOW* how much of a strawman that decompilation argument was.
On the IBM 7094 I once saw a program that would take linked code, originally written in assembler, and turn over 90% of it into FORTRAN II code, and the rest into assembler. (And consider that you can do things in assembler that you can't do in C, much less in FORTRAN II.)
That's about my feeling. I won't even look at anything.NET. Not even long enough to realize I can't accept the EULA.
(OK, that was a joke. But I'm serious about the point.)
FWIW, I'd generally pick Ruby or Python to add to your toolkit. Ruby seems more relevant to the web, so if that's your target area, it's a factor to consider. Python code is generally faster though. (Neither is a real speed demon.)
Again, FWIW, both Ruby and Python have annoying quirks. In ruby it's hard to track down a bug caused by a missing end or }. It's quite essential to check each piece as you write it, not after you've written a bunch of code. Python, of course, has the well known weirdness of using whitespace as an indentation marker. One can get used to it, but it's annoying...and sometimes causes bugs when you import code.
That said, there isn't a language out there that doesn't have stylistic quirks and problems. NOT ONE. It's probably impossible, but I'm not sure how one would prove that.
A further thought: You will write code faster in a language you know well, even if it's not as well adapted for writing code quickly. It's good to add breadth to your skillset, but don't think it will make you that much more attractive to employers. It makes you a better programmer, but not necessarily the kind of programmer they will spec a job for. So you might consider adding Scheme, Lisp, Ada, Haskell, Smalltalk, or Go. These aren't, directly, to make you more productive at any particular project. These are to make you a better programmer. I don't know about Go (and I'm not certain about Haskell...perhaps I should substitute OCaML), but each of the others focuses on one particular aspect of the skills of programming that isn't really stressed by the more common languages. (N.B.: I'm *NOT* claiming to know all those languages. I'm somewhat familiar with them, to greater or lesser degrees. Haskell almost not. And perhaps I should throw in Erlang now that multiprocessors are becoming more common.)
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Rehabilitation would definitely be better...if we had any clue as to how to do it reliably. But it's important to break the dominance/submission pattern that exists in prisons.
I still find it hard to believe that you experienced such problems with solitude. Historically it has been quite common (though not in such a confined surround), and the problems were relatively minor over months. (I said six months, because arctic explorers under extreme circumstances tended to get "cabin fever". Shipwrecked sailors, however, survived for years, and though they underwent a personality change, it didn't prevent them from re-integrating with society. ("Robinson Crusoe" was a fictionalized retelling of a true story. Don't take it too seriously, as it bears the same relation to truth as a disney, The original was Alexander Selkirk, but his version of the story wasn't all that popular. He lived for four years on an uninhabited island.)
Neither. I just occasionally run across reports. And, yes, most musicians that earn money don't earn much. But the RIAA doesn't pay for those tours, they just make an advance against future earnings. And THEY choose how much of an advance. And THEY choose how it's to be spent. You can't be careful if you want to. (At least that was how the reports I've read claimed it worked.)
If music is all they get, then probably nothing. Maybe some publicity, but don't count on it. But they don't cost much either.
OTOH, if they become fans, then they offer a market for concert tickets, tee-shirts, posters, etc.
I don't have an answer, I'm not in that business. I've just heard several reports saying that the RIAA is a bad deal for most musicians. (Though there *are* big winners. Just like a lottery.)
OTOH, I'm a software developer, and what I'm working on will be GPL. So in my related occupation, I'm putting my time and efforts into an analogous activity. (OTOH, I'm also retired. Sigh. So the only answer that's obvious is patrons. UGH!)
But not having a good answer doesn't make the *AA an acceptable answer.
It takes a bit more than real solitude to drive someone mad quickly. Solitude will do it, sort of, over a period of ??? six months isn't enough. Not if you have books, etc., as I proposed.
Don't confuse solitude with (extreme) sensory deprivation. I think that's what you're doing, and days may be excessive for that. Hours of extreme sensory deprivation might be able to drive many people mad. Solitude is a very different condition. (The kinds of madness induced are also different.)
The *AA gives something to some artists. To some it's a windfall. To more it's a bill for services. (Sorry, the returns from your album didn't cover what we decided to pay to publicize it. Please pay us the difference.)
There's probably an even larger number that get a little bit, but one doesn't hear about those.
And in every case where an external audit has been forced, the artists were being paid less than their contract required. (But it's really difficult and expensive to force an external audit.)
The average (mean, median, and mode) artist would be better off not working with the RIAA, but they don't find that out until it's too late. (I haven't heard about the MPAA, so I don't have an evidence based belief in their case. This may be because that are almost no independent movies.)
For a musician, signing up with the RIAA is like buying a lottery ticket with the difference that the house is allowed to adjust the odds after you purchase the ticket.
There's also the little fact that at those times the ownership of the media was much less centralized, and editors would print an interesting story, even if it went against normal policy. Readers had choice.
Today, even local papers are parts of a media chain, and editors aren't allowed to print something against company policy, interesting or not, or they'll be fired. (Also Fox news recently won a case based on it's right to intentionally lie to people about what the truth was. *None* of the other media companies objected. Few publicized it.)
If you hold a protest today, there is no media coverage. Not even local coverage. I've watched it happening. That means you can't use the classical means of consciousness raising, so you need to find alternatives. And if all of the legal means have been rendered ineffective, then you have only illegal means that might be effective. (I doubt that this will be effective, but at least it's an attempt.)
P.S.: It's classic history that when non-violent means are rendered ineffective, violent means will be adopted. By a smaller number of people, but larger numbers of people who aren't that committed will sympathize with those who commit the violence. So don't be surprised if this pattern repeats. Non-violence will be used if it can be used (and is seen as an available option). If it can't be used, other means will be used.
Would that it were that simple. But people are different.
Some people would make one mistake, and never repeat it. Others would decide that the chance of a positive personal payoff was sufficient to justify the risk, and to hell with "social good" or anyone else.
Unfortunately, in current society the people who say "...and to hell with "social good"... " are just divided into three classes: The stupid, the powerful, and the sly. The stupid spend a lot of time in prison. The powerful escape punishment. The sly aren't technically guilty of actually breaking a law, or at least you can't prove it. (Yes, the groups merge around the edges, but you know the kinds of people I'm talking about.) I'm not convinced that the folk that end up in prison are actually the ones that do the most damage. But among those who do, there probably *isn't* a better "solution". Unfortunately lots of other people also end up in prison. People whose main "crime" is not being powerful. Others end up there because they technically broke the law, but it was a law that shouldn't have existed. Etc.
My favorite answer is to use REAL solitary in prison. No guards, no cellmates, no communication. And to shorten the sentences a LOT!! Say, to start off with, shorten the sentences to 1/10th of what they are. Put each prisoner into a comfortable sound-proof room, with a slot for meals. Weld it shut. When the sentence is open, cut it open with a torch, and let him go. He's never seen or talked to another inmate or to a guard. No external communications at all while he's in. (Books are allowed. He's provided with a standard library plus any 50 books he specifies. If they're copyrighted, he has to pay for them, otherwise they're free. This includes books of blank pages. And a supply of pens. But he can't take anything with him when he leaves. And anything produced will be burned without being read as S.O.P. This is a place where communication lines are cut.)
Possibly 1/10th of the current length is too harsh a sentence. !/20th might be more reasonable.
If nothing else, my proposal would instantly kill the prison gangs, and would drastically reduce the number of prison guards needed.
I'll grant that they are breaking the law, but they are doing it to protest that the law is unjust.
If you don't like their approach, suggest an alternative, that has any chance of success. (And define success.)
I don't like what they're doing, but I dislike it less than I dislike the corrupt legal systems that they are protesting. (OTOH, let's not be confused. It's just a protest. It's not anything that's very effective.)
The "effective" measures that I can think of are all much more illegal, and all require a much higher level of commitment. Things like assassinating all the janitors and secretaries that work for the company. One a day. So replacing them gets to be so expensive that it can't be done, but they can't be given 24-hour guard because there are too many targets. That has the potential of being effective, but I don't think group of people is so committed that they would do it.
Were they to do as the above paragraph suggests, then one could reasonably argue that they were doing wrong, rather than merely acting illegally. But if they were so committed that they would carry out those acts, then I doubt that they would pay any attention to your evaluation of their moral worth. (Actually, I doubt that anyway. *I* certainly consider it a mere assertion without any backing argument.)
In 5 years this may be a quite reasonable approach. It might not. It all depends.
Actually, it depends on a lot of things. Debian testing is usually quite good, but I generally figure that at least once during every development cycle it will hose my system. It's a rolling release, though possibly a little bit less tested than he's thinking about.
FWIW, I've used Ubuntu, and it's not bad, but now I'm using Debian testing again. (There was a period a couple of months ago when it broke my system. So I figured that was a good time to test Ubuntu.)
Off-topic Addendum: Debian doesn't seem to work as well on portables as Ubuntu. They don't include all the necessary software on DVD-1 (wireless didn't work), and they don't seem to manage the battery as well. Didn't dig into the reason.
Sounds to me like he was in rough agreement. But he didn't address the issue of variability when used by untrained personnel, or the safety precautions usually taken by a dentist's office.
FWIW, I understand that the wave length of radiation used is different, and that the airport scanners deposit all of their energy in a thin layer of tissue near the epidermis, while dental scanners are designed to penetrate tooth and bone. And it is my supposition that the significant damage is caused by damage to the reproductive mechanisms of the cell, usually while it is in the process of dividing. As such, rapidly dividing cells, such as those of the epidermal layer, are more succeptible to damage than are bone cells. (Though if you damage the cells making blood, you can get a kind of leukemia...actually several different kinds of leukemia can be caused by this, but other kinds have other causes.)
OTOH, I'm not a radiologist. If I thought he was speaking as a radiologist, rather than as someone trying to sell xray equipment without really lying, then I'd take his comments more seriously. As it is I only notice that you didn't mention him quoting any research, so I take his words as literally true, but likely to be misleading.
And, as I said at the start, there seems to be rough agreement between what he was saying and what I said.
And if any airline chooses to allow you to fly anyway, I'm sure the government would continue to subsidize them.
Sorry, the airlines are taking sufficient government subsidies that they are de facto arms of the government. If a court disagrees with me, then they court is wrong. If a lawyer disagrees with me, then the lawyer is wrong. When you take federal money you become legally bound by the strictures of the constitution. (I know that in fact this is not enforced, but it should be, and it's the way the laws and the constitution were written.)
Of course, the original constitution didn't envision the widely embracing current government, but that doesn't change what was written. If you don't like it, you should amend it rather than just flout it.
OTOH, if you think about it, having everyone in the country bound by the constitution wouldn't be that bad. The constitution is a pretty good document, that has stood the test of time quite well. It's the interpretations and laws added on that are the problem.
P.S.: Do note that this argument makes anyone who eats food that has been either trucked over an interstate highway or carried by a federally subsidized airline bound by the constitution. What's wrong with that? I think much more highly of the constitution than I do of those laws that wriggle their way through congress. It's not sufficient, but, OTOH, it doesn't contain many mistakes or much corruption. (The interpretations of the constitution, however, are a different matter.)
There have been many studies. They say "When used properly, the machines don't present unreasonable risk.". Unreasonable means that they're about what a dental X-ray would be.
The kicker is "properly", The people running those machines have not been well trained, and you aren't their customer. So they don't really bother about proper use. Convenient (for them) use is more what they consider.
(Ever notice that when you get a dental X-ray you wear a lead apron?)
Nobody has done a study of the exposure in the environments in which those machines are used. I expect that there's a high variability, with some part of the curve coming down in the "rather dangerous" section.
You don't pay more for the clowns at a security theater than you must. The money gets reserved for the approved contractors.
(Sorry, this last paragraph is pure cynicism. But I still feel it's probably correct.)
A *LITTLE* bit inside the border? Think again.
I believe that it's anywhere within 200 miles of either the border or of an airport at which international flights land. (Or, of course, a port at which international shipping docks.)
That covers most of the population.
It's the right metaphor, and properly understood is true.
If you go all literal minded, then it should only seem silly, not meaningful. I'm not really sure where people get the idea that it describes the world behaving the way they want to. Magic, probably. Or fairy tales.
When you think of the computer, or fire, as your servant, then you are using the same though pattern as those you take an intentional stance towards information. But the statement as a metaphor, without an understood intentional stance, is a true statement. (OTOH, people seem quite attached to the intentional stance, so I suppose that it's a metaphor that endangers proper understanding.)
I think most people know and acknowledge that the tragedies mentioned aren't worth the sacrifice of our liberties to prevent. The government, however, is more interested in increasing it's power, and the media select which points of view to present to further the cause of the government. As a result an artificial picture of support for government intrusion is created.
This is the easier because lots of people, myself included, thing that something should be done. E.g., don't leave the door between the pilots and the passengers unlocked. This is a lot different from "anything must be done", but that's the way it gets portrayed. This is the easier because there's a lot of disagreement about exactly which steps are appropriate. And this disagreement can be used as a mask to enable those in authority to select the particular viewpoints they wish to choose, and pretend that they are "obeying the wishes of the electorate".
The central problem is the concentration of power. That is the great evil of the current system. (Other systems have other evils, but that's a very common one.)
"argument from incredulity" presupposes denying evidence. I haven't seen any. Yeah, it's plausible, but plausibility isn't proof. The truth is that I don't know of ANY illegal activity. To from that dataset presume that most activity is illegal...well, the evidence, meager as it is, doesn't support that conclusion.
Umnh... Georgia was a penal colony, but I think that was the only one. As for the nutcases and slavers...well, I have to give you that one.
I think you've missed the point. This is intended as a colonization effort. Yes, we need to know more to have a reasonable chance of success, but waiting until the robots have built a fuel extraction and processing plant, and a rocket engine rebuilding plant is just silly. And it's considerably cheaper to only freight enough cargo for a one-way transit. I can't quote exact numbers, but it's considerably less than 1/4 the cost to plan a one-way trip.
The problem is, we haven't even got the biosphere-n isolation project working. That needs to be tackled first. No reason automated exploration can't be done simultaneously.
I think is *is* illegal. It's just quite expensive to hire lawyers good enough to go to the mat with the university lawyers and prove it. And you won't get your legal fees paid. And you won't get a transcript. (Or the analog in analogous cases.)
You won't know about the policies ahead of time. Do you think they're *that* stupid?
I hear this asserted all the time on /., but an assertion isn't proof. I don't know of anybody who used bittorrent that way, and so I remain quite unconvinced.
Yes, my dataset is anecdotal, but you aren't supplying *ANY* data. I don't have a strong argument, but you don't have any.
That said, it wouldn't surprise me if there was a considerable body of copyright infringement over bittorrent. It would be relatively easy. But this is hardly proof. And all too often "everybody knows" translates into "this is a damn lie".
Odd. Given the same list, I'd tend to soft-pedal the vitriol I spewed at Apple. And I'd put even Oracle as less evil than Microsoft.
Well, given licensing, etc., there *could* be an immense change. I don't think there has been, but that's not a given. Particularly with Oracle talking about putting out a non-free version of the JVM. (That's one thing I thought was totally standardized.)
Given the recent news, I can understand being hesitant to trust anything with Oracle's name on it, or around it. This despite my being quite willing to trust similar products with Sun's name on them.
OTOH, I don't feel any pressing need to switch from OpenOffice to LibreOffice. I'll want to do it soon, but I don't see any reason to do it immediately. I did, however, scrap all plans for doing the project I've just started in Java. I'm currently considering a bunch of alternatives. At the instant Common Lisp is leading the pack, but it could easily change before next week. Lisp, however, is looking better than C or C++, because it has garbage collection and a standardized way of handling utf8 files. Python could do the same thing, but it's slower. Go is still beta, and it has lousy documentation. Etc. Also, I may have occasion to write some self-modifying code, and that's easier in Lisp than in most compiled languages. (Yeah, scheme. But Scheme doesn't support classes in any standard way. And there aren't many r6rs schemes out, and all the r5rs schemes support utf8 in non-standard ways. [They've got to. It's not a part of the standard.])
I suppose I could check things like Haskell or OCaML, but I find it hard to wrap my head around them. Erlang *is* a possibility, and maybe I should look into it more carefully. Last I checked it didn't have any GUI capability, and the default database wasn't large enough. (Maybe I could partition things, or use Mnesia instead of the built-in methods.) That would mean using C FFI's, but I'll need to do that with Lisp anyway...and multiprocessors *are* becoming more common...
You don't *KNOW* how much of a strawman that decompilation argument was.
On the IBM 7094 I once saw a program that would take linked code, originally written in assembler, and turn over 90% of it into FORTRAN II code, and the rest into assembler. (And consider that you can do things in assembler that you can't do in C, much less in FORTRAN II.)
That's about my feeling. I won't even look at anything .NET. Not even long enough to realize I can't accept the EULA.
(OK, that was a joke. But I'm serious about the point.)
FWIW, I'd generally pick Ruby or Python to add to your toolkit. Ruby seems more relevant to the web, so if that's your target area, it's a factor to consider. Python code is generally faster though. (Neither is a real speed demon.)
Again, FWIW, both Ruby and Python have annoying quirks. In ruby it's hard to track down a bug caused by a missing end or }. It's quite essential to check each piece as you write it, not after you've written a bunch of code. Python, of course, has the well known weirdness of using whitespace as an indentation marker. One can get used to it, but it's annoying...and sometimes causes bugs when you import code.
That said, there isn't a language out there that doesn't have stylistic quirks and problems. NOT ONE. It's probably impossible, but I'm not sure how one would prove that.
A further thought: You will write code faster in a language you know well, even if it's not as well adapted for writing code quickly. It's good to add breadth to your skillset, but don't think it will make you that much more attractive to employers. It makes you a better programmer, but not necessarily the kind of programmer they will spec a job for. So you might consider adding Scheme, Lisp, Ada, Haskell, Smalltalk, or Go. These aren't, directly, to make you more productive at any particular project. These are to make you a better programmer. I don't know about Go (and I'm not certain about Haskell...perhaps I should substitute OCaML), but each of the others focuses on one particular aspect of the skills of programming that isn't really stressed by the more common languages. (N.B.: I'm *NOT* claiming to know all those languages. I'm somewhat familiar with them, to greater or lesser degrees. Haskell almost not. And perhaps I should throw in Erlang now that multiprocessors are becoming more common.)