He will truly be dead before the goods get to Earth. So think about that.
So... you're allowing the trader's society to have sufficient technology and resources to accelerate a shipload of titanium to virtually c, to navigate across instellar voids, and then decelerate again... but you also think that society will not have conquered aging?
That seems far-fetched to me.
And of course, once aging becomes an outpatient condition, then a species' horizon is going open wide again. Thinking in terms of centuries or millenia will not be uncommon.
Excellent. It took fewer than 20 comments to go from "interesting discussion of an important if abstract philosophical difference" to "ad hominem attack on anyone who disagrees with me". No wonder human discourse is so rarefied and refined these days!
"And furthermore, you're ugly!" Yeah, that rhetorical flourish really adds to the logical cohesion of a point.
Although those examples raise the question of why don't you just get a warrant...
Because it's never been about getting a warrant, or conducting the wiretapping, or any legitimate purpose. It's always about immunizing the telecoms so that the lawsuits can't proceed to discovery phase -- which is just a way of saying, it was about immunizing the administration from its misdeeds.
It's important to recognize that you can't possibly measure which OS has the fewest flaws absolutely. You can only measure which OS has the fewest flaws reported (or discovered). Since the number of flaws reported is proportional to the number of people using the OS, and no one is using Vista, it's natural that it'd have the fewest reported flaws.:)
Is China inching toward the "Gorbachev moment"? That's when an authoritarian system is that has been propagandizing its people about how free and important they are, is suddenly confronted by people believing the propaganda and demanding that power? It can lead to peaceful change or bloody revolution, but it almost never leads back to the status quo.
That opens up a can of worms - anyone given secrets can tell their lawyer and suddenly it's not secret?
Well, in a technical sense, by definition it's no longer secret. But I'm thinking of a more narrowly drawn privilege than that. Here's the hypothetical: Someone is charged wrongly with murder. They have access to information that absolutely clears them, but it's been classified as a "state secret". Should the person truly be prevented from presenting that evidence? Should an innocent person really be sent to the gas chamber to preserve the state secret?
I am no lawyer. Perhaps there exist mechanisms to make sure this doesn't happen. But from everything I've read, the government -- the same government, by the way, that's pressing the murder charge -- could and would keep that evidence from consideration. That seems absurd.
OK. But it's also not unreasonable to say that these "secrets" no longer are secret -- having been revealed to the lawyers -- and thus should be opened by the court. If someone claims to have seen evidence that could clear them, or convict the other guy, it's a little ludicrous to then deny them a review of that evidence.
Kyle McSlarry whines that studies show fewer than 70% of American households subscribe to cable -- and thus the FCC doesn't have power to regulate cable. But under the "70/70 rule" of the 1984 Cable Communications Act, Congress empowered the FCC once cable was available to 70% of households and was subscribed to by 70% of those who could. So really the line is 49%, not 70%.
Are the cablecos deliberately misleading people or is it just that they can't do math? Judging from my cable bill, both.
The thing is, where is the place I can go to ahead of time and identify these problems before they occur?
Um, couldn't you search on the product before you buy? I tend to do that with anything costing more than $10 or so. Google (or other search engine) for product name + "complaint" or + "failure" or whatever. You generally turn up some indicators, if there's a widespread problem.
You leave the TV on and unplug the cable. If what spills out is all ones and zeros, it's digital. If you get a tangled mess of unspooled E&M, then it's analog.
One math professor told us that animated sequences and 3D graphics are pretty, but there's no significant learning advantage
How old was the professor? Did his/her grad work predate cheap home computers? I'm not a gambling man, but I'd expect the answer is Yes. People who have succeeded in a system often have trouble seeing the flaws of that system -- but considering the abysmally small fraction of people who "can handle" math more advanced than arithmetic, I'd say traditional teaching methods have not actually been all that successful. Some fraction of the populace will be able to pick stuff up with just 2D chalk pictures. That doesn't mean it's the correct percentage, or that the others can't "do math".
I know this blows the doors off for some people, but -- believe it or not -- there are more than one style of learning,and the one you use does not, by itself, make you superior or inferior at thinking.
Wow. No disrespect intended, but I think you're flat-out wrong. Physics is largely about how systems evolve through time, and the ability to render animations or quickly replot graphs is incredibly helpful in getting across concepts, both basic and advanced. Unlike many of the times I post on/. I can speak of this with some justification, as I am a physics teacher who's been using a smartboard for four years now.
It's certainly possible to be seduced by the bright shiny objects. That's a far cry from "proving" that new technology is per se bad. The problem with a call for doing it the way we've always done it, is that the way we've always done it absolutely sucks -- its success rate was measurable in the low percents. Hence in part physics' reputation as not just hard but ungettable.
How about because there exists a draconian law that allows this association to get the illegitimate stuff taken down -- the very DMCA that the SFWA can't seem to apply correctly?
How about because yet another "umbrella" organization is acting on the alleged behalf of its members, without checking if it actually represents them, and is using a badly-written law like a giant club in exactly the way tech-savvy people warned the badly-written law was going to be abused?
How about because the removal of illegitimate texts is uncontroversial and so there is, bizarrely enough, no controversy about it?
But mostly because broadsides fired by four-letter-acronym associations that are overbroad and intimidating, serve to chill what should be an open and free environment?
Catholic doctrine says the pope has earthly authority over the church, and is inspired and thus incapable of errors.
Actually, dogma recognizes that the Pope can speak infallibly, not that he always does. In fact, I believe that the Pope has in fact spoken so once, on the doctrine of the Assumption of Mary. Also, the infallibility doctrine has been in place only since 1870.
I am just saying that a bunch of people getting free BS degrees in science isn't really a very good way to address the demands of the job market or the advancement of science.
If it increases the pool of qualified science teachers, it is -- and right now, there is a real shortage of math/sci teachers who know science and math, even leaving aside the issue of their teaching skills.
I appreciate your thoughtful response, which also rises far above the rhetoric being thrown around in this case. That being said, I still think you are wrong. When an implied auxiliary power of the President (his ability to collect battlefield intelligence, pursuant to his Commander-in-Chief role) runs afoul of an explicit statute (FISA), the President's power is at its lowest ebb -- as has been verified by the Supreme Court on numerous occasions, most famously in Truman's seizure of the steel plants. Meanwhile, this Administration continues to argue that any review of the policy, in Congress or the courts, would damage the national security of the United States and therefore our only option is to trust that the President's decisions are uniformly reasonable and correct.
In other words, it's somewhat strange to argue that the Administration is defending Constitutional integrity when it explicitly rejects checks-and-balances while also undermining separation (by ignoring Congress and by arrogating judicial powers to itself).
As the parent said "he is listening in on you" is completely false unless you are talking to the enemy of America.
No, it's completely false unless he says you are talking to the enemy of America. The President steadfastly refuses any sort of overview, review, or check of his declarations (or those made in his name by subordinates). There's no test to see whether he's right when he says the person is talking to an enemy. It's the ultimate in "Trust me -- I'm from the government". Frankly, I'm astounded by how many nominal conservatives are willing to assign that sort of authority over to any one person.
There are many dangerous things in this program. Not the least is the idea that the President can make such determinations and not be subject to review by the other branches. He's already admitted he's willing -- indeed, proud! -- to break the law, so that removes Congress. Now he's also saying that he, not the courts, make the determination of innocence or guilt. What, exactly, distinguishes that from monarchy?
Finally, someone who sees the actual important point (even though they don't seem to realize it):
It doesn't say they cannot listen to your conversations. What it does say is that certain elements must be present first that makes it not unreasonable for them to do so. Part of this is a probable cause which has been debated and changed from time to time by congress as well as the courts. [emphasis added]
Indeed, Congress and the courts did lay down pretty clear and well-crafted guidelines as to when wiretapping, etc., would be "reasonable" (even against US citizens). It's 50 U.S.C. 1801-1811, 1821-29, 1841-46, and 1861-62, better known as -- wait for it! -- the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or FISA. Despite recent accusations, this law has been functional and well-settled for nearly 30 years, updated occasionally as new technologies have demanded. The President has openly admitted to authorizing warrantless wiretaps in direct and obvious violation of FISA, which is (by the way) a felony under that statute. Asked specifically if he needed new tools to fight the Bad Guys, he assured Congress and the American people that he in fact had all the tools he needed -- assurances made at the exact same time he was willfully disregarding a settled statute.
The only relevant fact is that the President of the United States, by his own (proud!) admission, has repeatedly committed explicit felonies under well-established law -- that he has arrogated to himself a monarchical power not granted him by the Congress, by the Constitution, or by the people.
It doesn't really matter what's driving this. What matters is, there is a law that has been on the books and functioning for nearly 30 years. It makes it a felony to conduct wiretapping of Americans except under the aegis of a court order. The President has publicly admitted that he has approved warrantless wiretaps of a sort that, prima facie, violate the conditions of the law -- and, indeed, the administration has never disagreed with that prima facie reading. (They claim the law is invalid or outdated, but they never claim that what the NSA wiretaps were within FISA itself.)
In other words, the President has admitted to repeatedly committing a felony under the statutes of the United States. Period.
There are things that make this worse -- such as the fact that the President did this during a time when he repeatedly and publicly claimed that FISA gave him all the tools he needed, or the fact that FISA has been continually amended and updated (both obviating the "The law is outdated" defense). But it really is as simple as, the President of the United States willfully and repeatedly committed acknowledged felonies.
Calling this "Bush bashing" is like saying that drunk drivers are arrested as part of a campaign to shut down breweries.
Slashdot Mirror
And so many more don't get even that far...
Property is to intellectual property as gold is to fool's gold.
So... you're allowing the trader's society to have sufficient technology and resources to accelerate a shipload of titanium to virtually c, to navigate across instellar voids, and then decelerate again... but you also think that society will not have conquered aging?
That seems far-fetched to me.
And of course, once aging becomes an outpatient condition, then a species' horizon is going open wide again. Thinking in terms of centuries or millenia will not be uncommon.
Excellent. It took fewer than 20 comments to go from "interesting discussion of an important if abstract philosophical difference" to "ad hominem attack on anyone who disagrees with me". No wonder human discourse is so rarefied and refined these days!
"And furthermore, you're ugly!" Yeah, that rhetorical flourish really adds to the logical cohesion of a point.
Because it's never been about getting a warrant, or conducting the wiretapping, or any legitimate purpose. It's always about immunizing the telecoms so that the lawsuits can't proceed to discovery phase -- which is just a way of saying, it was about immunizing the administration from its misdeeds.
It's important to recognize that you can't possibly measure which OS has the fewest flaws absolutely. You can only measure which OS has the fewest flaws reported (or discovered). Since the number of flaws reported is proportional to the number of people using the OS, and no one is using Vista, it's natural that it'd have the fewest reported flaws. :)
Is China inching toward the "Gorbachev moment"? That's when an authoritarian system is that has been propagandizing its people about how free and important they are, is suddenly confronted by people believing the propaganda and demanding that power? It can lead to peaceful change or bloody revolution, but it almost never leads back to the status quo.
... an idiot would have on his luggage!
12345 forever, baby!
Well, in a technical sense, by definition it's no longer secret. But I'm thinking of a more narrowly drawn privilege than that. Here's the hypothetical: Someone is charged wrongly with murder. They have access to information that absolutely clears them, but it's been classified as a "state secret". Should the person truly be prevented from presenting that evidence? Should an innocent person really be sent to the gas chamber to preserve the state secret?
I am no lawyer. Perhaps there exist mechanisms to make sure this doesn't happen. But from everything I've read, the government -- the same government, by the way, that's pressing the murder charge -- could and would keep that evidence from consideration. That seems absurd.
OK. But it's also not unreasonable to say that these "secrets" no longer are secret -- having been revealed to the lawyers -- and thus should be opened by the court. If someone claims to have seen evidence that could clear them, or convict the other guy, it's a little ludicrous to then deny them a review of that evidence.
Kyle McSlarry whines that studies show fewer than 70% of American households subscribe to cable -- and thus the FCC doesn't have power to regulate cable. But under the "70/70 rule" of the 1984 Cable Communications Act, Congress empowered the FCC once cable was available to 70% of households and was subscribed to by 70% of those who could. So really the line is 49%, not 70%.
Are the cablecos deliberately misleading people or is it just that they can't do math? Judging from my cable bill, both.
Um, couldn't you search on the product before you buy? I tend to do that with anything costing more than $10 or so. Google (or other search engine) for product name + "complaint" or + "failure" or whatever. You generally turn up some indicators, if there's a widespread problem.
You leave the TV on and unplug the cable. If what spills out is all ones and zeros, it's digital. If you get a tangled mess of unspooled E&M, then it's analog.
Sheesh.
Oh my God, you do know you're posting on slashdot , don't you? You've gone and unleashed the hounds of libertarianism -- we're all doomed now.
How old was the professor? Did his/her grad work predate cheap home computers? I'm not a gambling man, but I'd expect the answer is Yes. People who have succeeded in a system often have trouble seeing the flaws of that system -- but considering the abysmally small fraction of people who "can handle" math more advanced than arithmetic, I'd say traditional teaching methods have not actually been all that successful. Some fraction of the populace will be able to pick stuff up with just 2D chalk pictures. That doesn't mean it's the correct percentage, or that the others can't "do math".
I know this blows the doors off for some people, but -- believe it or not -- there are more than one style of learning,and the one you use does not, by itself, make you superior or inferior at thinking.
Yes and no. You can't complete neglect the impact of factors like cost and conservatism.
Wow. No disrespect intended, but I think you're flat-out wrong. Physics is largely about how systems evolve through time, and the ability to render animations or quickly replot graphs is incredibly helpful in getting across concepts, both basic and advanced. Unlike many of the times I post on /. I can speak of this with some justification, as I am a physics teacher who's been using a smartboard for four years now.
It's certainly possible to be seduced by the bright shiny objects. That's a far cry from "proving" that new technology is per se bad. The problem with a call for doing it the way we've always done it, is that the way we've always done it absolutely sucks -- its success rate was measurable in the low percents. Hence in part physics' reputation as not just hard but ungettable.
How about because there exists a draconian law that allows this association to get the illegitimate stuff taken down -- the very DMCA that the SFWA can't seem to apply correctly?
How about because yet another "umbrella" organization is acting on the alleged behalf of its members, without checking if it actually represents them, and is using a badly-written law like a giant club in exactly the way tech-savvy people warned the badly-written law was going to be abused?
How about because the removal of illegitimate texts is uncontroversial and so there is, bizarrely enough, no controversy about it?
But mostly because broadsides fired by four-letter-acronym associations that are overbroad and intimidating, serve to chill what should be an open and free environment?
Actually, dogma recognizes that the Pope can speak infallibly, not that he always does. In fact, I believe that the Pope has in fact spoken so once, on the doctrine of the Assumption of Mary. Also, the infallibility doctrine has been in place only since 1870.
If it increases the pool of qualified science teachers, it is -- and right now, there is a real shortage of math/sci teachers who know science and math, even leaving aside the issue of their teaching skills.
In a capitalist, consumerist country, what else should they do?
I appreciate your thoughtful response, which also rises far above the rhetoric being thrown around in this case. That being said, I still think you are wrong. When an implied auxiliary power of the President (his ability to collect battlefield intelligence, pursuant to his Commander-in-Chief role) runs afoul of an explicit statute (FISA), the President's power is at its lowest ebb -- as has been verified by the Supreme Court on numerous occasions, most famously in Truman's seizure of the steel plants. Meanwhile, this Administration continues to argue that any review of the policy, in Congress or the courts, would damage the national security of the United States and therefore our only option is to trust that the President's decisions are uniformly reasonable and correct.
In other words, it's somewhat strange to argue that the Administration is defending Constitutional integrity when it explicitly rejects checks-and-balances while also undermining separation (by ignoring Congress and by arrogating judicial powers to itself).
No, it's completely false unless he says you are talking to the enemy of America. The President steadfastly refuses any sort of overview, review, or check of his declarations (or those made in his name by subordinates). There's no test to see whether he's right when he says the person is talking to an enemy. It's the ultimate in "Trust me -- I'm from the government". Frankly, I'm astounded by how many nominal conservatives are willing to assign that sort of authority over to any one person.
There are many dangerous things in this program. Not the least is the idea that the President can make such determinations and not be subject to review by the other branches. He's already admitted he's willing -- indeed, proud! -- to break the law, so that removes Congress. Now he's also saying that he, not the courts, make the determination of innocence or guilt. What, exactly, distinguishes that from monarchy?
Indeed, Congress and the courts did lay down pretty clear and well-crafted guidelines as to when wiretapping, etc., would be "reasonable" (even against US citizens). It's 50 U.S.C. 1801-1811, 1821-29, 1841-46, and 1861-62, better known as -- wait for it! -- the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or FISA. Despite recent accusations, this law has been functional and well-settled for nearly 30 years, updated occasionally as new technologies have demanded. The President has openly admitted to authorizing warrantless wiretaps in direct and obvious violation of FISA, which is (by the way) a felony under that statute. Asked specifically if he needed new tools to fight the Bad Guys, he assured Congress and the American people that he in fact had all the tools he needed -- assurances made at the exact same time he was willfully disregarding a settled statute.
The only relevant fact is that the President of the United States, by his own (proud!) admission, has repeatedly committed explicit felonies under well-established law -- that he has arrogated to himself a monarchical power not granted him by the Congress, by the Constitution, or by the people.
It doesn't really matter what's driving this. What matters is, there is a law that has been on the books and functioning for nearly 30 years. It makes it a felony to conduct wiretapping of Americans except under the aegis of a court order. The President has publicly admitted that he has approved warrantless wiretaps of a sort that, prima facie, violate the conditions of the law -- and, indeed, the administration has never disagreed with that prima facie reading. (They claim the law is invalid or outdated, but they never claim that what the NSA wiretaps were within FISA itself.)
In other words, the President has admitted to repeatedly committing a felony under the statutes of the United States. Period.
There are things that make this worse -- such as the fact that the President did this during a time when he repeatedly and publicly claimed that FISA gave him all the tools he needed, or the fact that FISA has been continually amended and updated (both obviating the "The law is outdated" defense). But it really is as simple as, the President of the United States willfully and repeatedly committed acknowledged felonies.
Calling this "Bush bashing" is like saying that drunk drivers are arrested as part of a campaign to shut down breweries.