There are going to be a lot of jackasses that comment with "so what you should have nothing to hide" or "that's what you get when you don't run your own email server" etc.
My question is, how many people would it acceptable if the USPO opened all your mail and made photocopies of it to store for their own use? What about UPS, or FedEx?
The solution everyone is too afraid to talk about is simple: kill the tyrants.
That will send a message to the other tyrants that we are no longer in the position to have our privacy, our freedom, and our liberty trampled upon.
You know the solution to your problem? Use proper English in IM conversations too.
I'd say the solution is to use worse grammar. To the point that it's only legible to yourself. Make it so illegible that everything you say is followed up with a "huh?" or a "what?" from your correspondents.
I'm sorry, but I just have to reply again. I'm not sure which bothers me more, the tone of your post or your +4 Insightful mod.
The type of rhetoric you are engaging in is entirely designed by the terrorists. If you were the spokesperson for the US, I'd say the terrorists had won. What you never do when fighting terrorists, is alter your behavior based on their threats. Here you are preaching about how "if we were just a little bit less evil, they would all love us like the truly peaceful religious group they are". You make suggestions on how to change our behavior to give them less fuel. WTF +4?
Anyone in the US with some testicles and mod points please mod this guy down or mod me up!
Who fucking cares? *Ring-Ring* Hi it's 2010 calling, the US is a Christian country. Yes you have the freedom of religion, but failing to recognize the fact that we are a Christian country gives you a fake and made up reason to be upset. Instead, you should simply ignore it, or be grateful for it.
Also, I notice you seem to be intentionally avoiding mentioning the fact that many of the terrorists and/or people we are at war with are fighting a jihad against the US. I'm not exactly sure if it's factually correct to say the US troops are Crusaders forcing people to convert. I'm not even sure it's correct to say they are Crusaders simply because they are fighting mujahideen.
So, what? Leave them off entirely? It's been, oh, seven years since I last took a CompTIA cert. I feel old now. I've got five of the damn things, and a pile more other certs since then, so do you really recommend not mentioning them at all?
And, dare I ask again, what are you basing this on? Not to be a dick, but without some kind of evidence, it sounds like you are playing little dominance heirarchy games, "look at me! I'm so much better than CompTIA certs, if you have them, what a loser!" So, seriously, besides your own enlightened opinion, care to cite something meaningful, or do you just want to keep knob-polishing?
Granted after a few years in the field you'll hopefully acquire vastly more useful and valuable skills. Anyone shit talking the certs are just assholes that have honestly convinced themselves that they deserve whatever it is they already have.
Maybe I'm just more humble than I previously thought I was, I don't think I deserve anything. Not even opportunity. Sixteen years after obtaining my A+ from CompTIA I'm a Sr. Sysadmin, and I'm being coerced by my employers to use more of my hobbyist db and programming skills at the office.
It's truly a matter of perspective, which is relative. I was still a teenager when I got my A+ and I never intended to make my living with it, but I certainly planned on using it as a foot in the door to the rest of my career path. Looking back on the last 16 years, I'm glad I did.
Disease did most of the work you attribute to men.
Disease weakened them. Men destroyed them.
Second to that was the total devastation of their main game, the North American buffalo, which the new immigrants hunted (for fun, not food) to near extinction.
Read up on the Buffalo Wars sometime. As part of the effort to move the Plains Indians on to reservations, the US Army organized extermination hunts of buffalo.
Yes. That is precisely why I brought these up as counters to your argument. Men did not destroy these civilizations. Most of them still exist today (in fact you just mentioned the Indian Reservations). Disease killed the vast majority of them. You seem to be under some delusion that the "wild west" was truly Cowboys vs. Indians. This completely ignores the fact that the majority of Native Americans actually helped the pilgrims and settlers, and freely traded away their land.
Now, someones original position was that settlers and pilgrims killed the Native Americans for their food. That is completely false. Again, I mentioned the buffalo hunts first, as evidence that they were indeed not seeking the Native's food sources.
Gold never loses it's luster, and as long as man roams the earth, it will never lose it's value.
The fact that President Barack Obama has over 7 million Facebook fans, and First Lady Michelle Obama over 650,000 fans, are confirmation that social media has come of age
How does the number of fans Barack Obama has confirm that social media has come of age?
How many civilizations can you count that have been destroyed by another for their food supplies?
Right off the top of my head? Egypt (repeatedly) and most of the Mesopotamian civilizations have been conquered for their food. The areas now known as Poland and the Ukraine have also been popular, and there's evidence that the fall of Rome was caused by Germanic tribes looking for food. In the Americas, most of the native civilizations were destroyed to gain either farmland or ranchland -- the Great Plains tribes in particular were pushed out (and the buffalo that fed them were exterminated) to gain room for cattle to feed the cities of the East Coast.
Ships carrying grain from newly-conquered provinces aren't as glamorous as ones carrying gold, so historians don't write about them as often, but the grain fleets outnumbered the treasure fleets by several orders of magnitude.
I will have to do some checking on the North African/Middle East events. I don't have enough time to explain how wrong you are about the Native American's and how some of their civilizations fell. Disease did most of the work you attribute to men. Second to that was the total devastation of their main game, the North American buffalo, which the new immigrants hunted (for fun, not food) to near extinction.
Basically all native American civilisation. Well, actually for the land, but they are equivalent at the end of the day.
Let's be specific here. By food I mean dead plant or animal matter that I can consume through digestion and derive energy from. By gold I mean that rare orange metal dug out of the ground that never loses it's luster.
Oh, and just fishing here, but who exactly killed Native American's for their food? I can draw a clear distinction between the Spanish and Central American natives and the Pilgrims and North American natives. That distinction being that the Spanish came to collect the gold and dispatch with any humans that got in their way. I've never read a single story about the Pilgrims killing Natives to take their food...
Heh, sorry for the harsh response but I can get pretty intense when it comes to philosophical discussions. I do appreciate other people's views, and intelligence/knowledge is a big topic (aesthetics is the other). I was just sharing my opinions back!:)
their currency is just as virtual as online virtual currency -- it has no actual intrinsic value.
Neither does real gold, unless you happen to need to make really really thin wires, or build something which is extremely reflective, or actually make use of gold's natural properties in some other way. Don't delude yourself. There is no such thing as "intrinsic value."
Well, don't delude yourself. Removing the human factor from the equation; nothing has value, intrinsic or otherwise. Gold is perhaps the only material known to man that has, since the beginning of recorded history, maintained a value. Many times during our history this value was greater than that of other men's lives. Just sayin'.
Are you suggesting that we sue libraries out of existence for helping other people access material under copyright?
I don't have a problem with sites like Oink existing but what he was doing and what libraries are doing aren't the same thing. If libraries started making it possible and easy for patrons all over the world to near instantly create perfect replicas (and take permanent ownership) of copyrighted materials, libraries as we know them would not be permitted to exist.
Libraries operate on a lending model; you have to give stuff back or they fine you and only as many people can take that content concurrently as exist purchased copies (eBooks on a subscription model or one-to-many model is the exception).
File sharing sites and networks allow almost limitless numbers of people to simultaneously create their own identical copy of the original material that they intend to keep and in turn distribute. Whether the content they are pursuing is legal (or should be legal) for them to acquire in that manner is a separate issue.
So.. you're saying that... because we have this technology which we can use to instantly copy things, that we should be paying as much or more than if we didn't have this technology and relied on others to make copies for us?
I always thought that the cheaper something becomes to produce/copy, the less profits the producer/copier can exact from the sale of said something.
Well, in the UK, they lend out books and pay a small per-loan royalty to the authors.
I may be severely undereducated in such matters, but I don't think the public libraries in the US pay royalties. The main website to my local network of libraries seems to be down, or having a disruption. http://www.mpls.lib.mn.us/
Again, this is becoming a philosophical discussion. Might I mention that prior to the invention of computers, computation and language was considered the marks of intelligence since humans could do it and animals could not? (Note that this indicates that the term 'AI' is then very accurate, even for menial tasks) Now again the definition expands to these so called "emergent qualities" in order to restrict the property 'intelligent' to be true only in humans. It's a problem of the definition, not the concept, and this trend indicates that computers will never be considered intelligent because humans will always find a way to make themselves special. Either way, things such as computer generated poetry are not unheard of (http://www.robopoem.com/) and I would not be surprised if someone has done something similar with pictures.
Also that is not by my logic, I tried to be very specific that things that humans construct with tools is considered 'artificial'. All things outside that category are thus natural. I apologize if there was confusion in my definition.
As a final note, I feel that I must point out that not all humans are intelligent, even by simplistic metrics such as ability to perform simple computations.
It is most definitely a philosophical discussion. I understand and generally agree with the usage and placement of the term 'artificial' in this context. I just for whatever reason (stupid me!) thought I would share my personal opinion on the subject. The last time an AI topic came up that I had something to comment on, I was modded into oblivion for a few days for sharing.
I also agree with something I inferred from your post, that humans may not be the only 'things' to exhibit intelligence.
You forgot to mention that we don't even know yet if "intelligence" is even a meaningful concept on its own, and not just an abstract philosophical construct with no representation in reality.
Slashdot Mirror
need to put to death.
There are going to be a lot of jackasses that comment with "so what you should have nothing to hide" or "that's what you get when you don't run your own email server" etc.
My question is, how many people would it acceptable if the USPO opened all your mail and made photocopies of it to store for their own use? What about UPS, or FedEx?
The solution everyone is too afraid to talk about is simple: kill the tyrants.
That will send a message to the other tyrants that we are no longer in the position to have our privacy, our freedom, and our liberty trampled upon.
While an excellent reference no doubt, the 12 Monkey's tooth was actually a transmitter/receiver.
Dr. Yueh's tooth implant was a poison gas tooth :)
Don't mind me, I only look crazy; I pulled my cochlear implant teeth out so they couldn't send me back to the apocalyptic future!
You know the solution to your problem? Use proper English in IM conversations too.
I'd say the solution is to use worse grammar. To the point that it's only legible to yourself. Make it so illegible that everything you say is followed up with a "huh?" or a "what?" from your correspondents.
I'll say it again: "Training."
Add it to the drivers education curriculum and make it part of the mandatory drivers license examination. Maybe make a new class of license...
iI iDon't iKnow iWhy iIt's iWorse. iSeriously. iCan iSomeone iTell iMe iWhy iPad iIs iA iStupid iName?
iI iKnow iThis iIs iRendundant, iJust iSayin'.
I'm sorry, but I just have to reply again. I'm not sure which bothers me more, the tone of your post or your +4 Insightful mod.
The type of rhetoric you are engaging in is entirely designed by the terrorists. If you were the spokesperson for the US, I'd say the terrorists had won. What you never do when fighting terrorists, is alter your behavior based on their threats. Here you are preaching about how "if we were just a little bit less evil, they would all love us like the truly peaceful religious group they are". You make suggestions on how to change our behavior to give them less fuel. WTF +4?
Anyone in the US with some testicles and mod points please mod this guy down or mod me up!
Who fucking cares? *Ring-Ring* Hi it's 2010 calling, the US is a Christian country. Yes you have the freedom of religion, but failing to recognize the fact that we are a Christian country gives you a fake and made up reason to be upset. Instead, you should simply ignore it, or be grateful for it.
Also, I notice you seem to be intentionally avoiding mentioning the fact that many of the terrorists and/or people we are at war with are fighting a jihad against the US. I'm not exactly sure if it's factually correct to say the US troops are Crusaders forcing people to convert. I'm not even sure it's correct to say they are Crusaders simply because they are fighting mujahideen.
So, what? Leave them off entirely? It's been, oh, seven years since I last took a CompTIA cert. I feel old now. I've got five of the damn things, and a pile more other certs since then, so do you really recommend not mentioning them at all?
And, dare I ask again, what are you basing this on? Not to be a dick, but without some kind of evidence, it sounds like you are playing little dominance heirarchy games, "look at me! I'm so much better than CompTIA certs, if you have them, what a loser!" So, seriously, besides your own enlightened opinion, care to cite something meaningful, or do you just want to keep knob-polishing?
Granted after a few years in the field you'll hopefully acquire vastly more useful and valuable skills. Anyone shit talking the certs are just assholes that have honestly convinced themselves that they deserve whatever it is they already have.
Maybe I'm just more humble than I previously thought I was, I don't think I deserve anything. Not even opportunity. Sixteen years after obtaining my A+ from CompTIA I'm a Sr. Sysadmin, and I'm being coerced by my employers to use more of my hobbyist db and programming skills at the office.
It's truly a matter of perspective, which is relative. I was still a teenager when I got my A+ and I never intended to make my living with it, but I certainly planned on using it as a foot in the door to the rest of my career path. Looking back on the last 16 years, I'm glad I did.
Can someone prove to me the method by which energy becomes unable to do any work?
I am very curious about how such an event is even possible, and what the evidence is to suggest that it's actually happening.
Disease weakened them. Men destroyed them.
Read up on the Buffalo Wars sometime. As part of the effort to move the Plains Indians on to reservations, the US Army organized extermination hunts of buffalo.
Yes. That is precisely why I brought these up as counters to your argument. Men did not destroy these civilizations. Most of them still exist today (in fact you just mentioned the Indian Reservations). Disease killed the vast majority of them. You seem to be under some delusion that the "wild west" was truly Cowboys vs. Indians. This completely ignores the fact that the majority of Native Americans actually helped the pilgrims and settlers, and freely traded away their land.
Now, someones original position was that settlers and pilgrims killed the Native Americans for their food. That is completely false. Again, I mentioned the buffalo hunts first, as evidence that they were indeed not seeking the Native's food sources.
Gold never loses it's luster, and as long as man roams the earth, it will never lose it's value.
The fact that President Barack Obama has over 7 million Facebook fans, and First Lady Michelle Obama over 650,000 fans, are confirmation that social media has come of age
How does the number of fans Barack Obama has confirm that social media has come of age?
Because he's black. YEAH I SAID IT!
Right off the top of my head? Egypt (repeatedly) and most of the Mesopotamian civilizations have been conquered for their food. The areas now known as Poland and the Ukraine have also been popular, and there's evidence that the fall of Rome was caused by Germanic tribes looking for food. In the Americas, most of the native civilizations were destroyed to gain either farmland or ranchland -- the Great Plains tribes in particular were pushed out (and the buffalo that fed them were exterminated) to gain room for cattle to feed the cities of the East Coast.
Ships carrying grain from newly-conquered provinces aren't as glamorous as ones carrying gold, so historians don't write about them as often, but the grain fleets outnumbered the treasure fleets by several orders of magnitude.
I will have to do some checking on the North African/Middle East events. I don't have enough time to explain how wrong you are about the Native American's and how some of their civilizations fell. Disease did most of the work you attribute to men. Second to that was the total devastation of their main game, the North American buffalo, which the new immigrants hunted (for fun, not food) to near extinction.
Basically all native American civilisation. Well, actually for the land, but they are equivalent at the end of the day.
Let's be specific here. By food I mean dead plant or animal matter that I can consume through digestion and derive energy from. By gold I mean that rare orange metal dug out of the ground that never loses it's luster.
Oh, and just fishing here, but who exactly killed Native American's for their food? I can draw a clear distinction between the Spanish and Central American natives and the Pilgrims and North American natives. That distinction being that the Spanish came to collect the gold and dispatch with any humans that got in their way. I've never read a single story about the Pilgrims killing Natives to take their food...
I think food has done a better job of maintaining value -- you can't eat gold.
How many civilizations can you count that have been destroyed by another for their food supplies?
Heh, sorry for the harsh response but I can get pretty intense when it comes to philosophical discussions. I do appreciate other people's views, and intelligence/knowledge is a big topic (aesthetics is the other). I was just sharing my opinions back! :)
Tis the reason I enjoy this here /. :D
their currency is just as virtual as online virtual currency -- it has no actual intrinsic value.
Neither does real gold, unless you happen to need to make really really thin wires, or build something which is extremely reflective, or actually make use of gold's natural properties in some other way. Don't delude yourself. There is no such thing as "intrinsic value."
Well, don't delude yourself. Removing the human factor from the equation; nothing has value, intrinsic or otherwise. Gold is perhaps the only material known to man that has, since the beginning of recorded history, maintained a value. Many times during our history this value was greater than that of other men's lives. Just sayin'.
I don't know what YOU are thinking, but I was thinking of the Wizard of Oz - rainbows and poppies.
Haha I was thinking of all the poppy fields in the country right next to Pakistan!
we put QWERTY in your phone so you can set records while you commit social faux pas!
Are you suggesting that we sue libraries out of existence for helping other people access material under copyright?
I don't have a problem with sites like Oink existing but what he was doing and what libraries are doing aren't the same thing. If libraries started making it possible and easy for patrons all over the world to near instantly create perfect replicas (and take permanent ownership) of copyrighted materials, libraries as we know them would not be permitted to exist.
Libraries operate on a lending model; you have to give stuff back or they fine you and only as many people can take that content concurrently as exist purchased copies (eBooks on a subscription model or one-to-many model is the exception).
File sharing sites and networks allow almost limitless numbers of people to simultaneously create their own identical copy of the original material that they intend to keep and in turn distribute. Whether the content they are pursuing is legal (or should be legal) for them to acquire in that manner is a separate issue.
So.. you're saying that... because we have this technology which we can use to instantly copy things, that we should be paying as much or more than if we didn't have this technology and relied on others to make copies for us?
I always thought that the cheaper something becomes to produce/copy, the less profits the producer/copier can exact from the sale of said something.
No! No, no, not 6! I said 7. Nobody's comin' up with 6. Who works out in 6 minutes? You won't even get your heart goin, not even a mouse on a wheel.
They think the world is all rainbows and poppies now, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.
Was that intentional, as in a really funny joke that apparently only I got? Or a Freudian slip that was just funny? :)
Well, in the UK, they lend out books and pay a small per-loan royalty to the authors.
I may be severely undereducated in such matters, but I don't think the public libraries in the US pay royalties. The main website to my local network of libraries seems to be down, or having a disruption. http://www.mpls.lib.mn.us/
Again, this is becoming a philosophical discussion. Might I mention that prior to the invention of computers, computation and language was considered the marks of intelligence since humans could do it and animals could not? (Note that this indicates that the term 'AI' is then very accurate, even for menial tasks) Now again the definition expands to these so called "emergent qualities" in order to restrict the property 'intelligent' to be true only in humans. It's a problem of the definition, not the concept, and this trend indicates that computers will never be considered intelligent because humans will always find a way to make themselves special. Either way, things such as computer generated poetry are not unheard of (http://www.robopoem.com/) and I would not be surprised if someone has done something similar with pictures. Also that is not by my logic, I tried to be very specific that things that humans construct with tools is considered 'artificial'. All things outside that category are thus natural. I apologize if there was confusion in my definition. As a final note, I feel that I must point out that not all humans are intelligent, even by simplistic metrics such as ability to perform simple computations.
It is most definitely a philosophical discussion. I understand and generally agree with the usage and placement of the term 'artificial' in this context. I just for whatever reason (stupid me!) thought I would share my personal opinion on the subject. The last time an AI topic came up that I had something to comment on, I was modded into oblivion for a few days for sharing.
I also agree with something I inferred from your post, that humans may not be the only 'things' to exhibit intelligence.
You forgot to mention that we don't even know yet if "intelligence" is even a meaningful concept on its own, and not just an abstract philosophical construct with no representation in reality.
very true, and an excellent point as well