All this evil going on...let's see, there are fewer nukes than there were 30 years ago, all of Gaias' vast bosom (and great hairy twat besides) is made of 'chemicals', no human has been cloned (and if this happened, explain how it will kill me), etc., etc...I'm surprised you haven't keeled over from an excess of righteous indignation!
Martins' point about the "natural earth" supporting 8% or less of the current population is almost certainly accurate (within a range), so who decides which 8% lives? I nominate myself to survive, and you and the other Chicken Littles to NOT...or at least to "...live out your natural, unmodified life expectancy" without the "...new technological bone the conglomerates will throw you to keep you complacent." Good Luck.
Myself, I'm keeping the electricity, TV, indoor plumbing, computers, and food. And J-Los' ass...that's all I need...and this chair...
gee...maybe you could read the article. Seems this geezer predicted a lot more specific innovations and aspects of 'net life than just "Oh, and people will be able to send like, letters to each other, they'll call it 'digital epistles'" No, back in '77 he was remarkably prescient as to the path of development and the nature of the impact of the Internet. And enough people have paid him for his ideas that he was able to purchase his own island.
When you have a track record of getting things right a couple of decades ahead of time, we'll probably see your name in Discover too...till then, I'm checking out what the guy says.
to reiterate:
Own Island=Big Platform
/. account=small platform
A) Teacher tend to be leftists. B)Educated people tend to be leftists. You say A derives from B. Might it not be, to a certain extent, the other way around?
As for evils befalling the Republic...well, they certainly aren't always successful in getting their candidates elected, so that's kind of a point, politically. But educationally, if you think that experiments in whole language reading, fun math, self-esteem building at any cost, and anti-competitiveness training haven't been harmful, you haven't had kids in public school.
A case in point-the recent campaign against Dodge-ball...(not that I consider this an "evil befalling the Republic", just a small example of the mindset)
I quote from yesterdays paper: (since the archival access fee for the SL Trib is $110)
"...moves toward extinction of dodge ball have won praise from such grous as the Reston, Va.-based National Association for Sport and Physical Education and Concerned Adults & Students for Physical Education Reform in Chico, Calif.
"NASPE has gone so far as to put dodge ball on its "Physical Education Hall of Shame"-along with such offenders ask kickball, Red Rover, Simon Says, tag and musical chairs."
My point is that in a Venn diagram, the range of wack-ass fuckheads would not be limited to the subset "Republicans". Nor would the set of hateful, stereotyping, close-minded individuals. The kind of people who have it all figured out. The kind of people who say "See! It all fits together!"
...errrr...a rant on the Christian Coalition kind of overlooks the stranglehold that leftists and whack-ass theorists have had over the educational establishment for many decades. Much of the reaction against the NEA comes from this, and is not limited to your straw-man Christian Coalition.
Brad
BTW-If you think only EVIL CORPORATIONS buy elections, check out the influence of the NEA. Not to mention the Trial Lawyers Association. Have we become a litigious society without a little push here and there?
I think the problem with the teachers' unions lies in the oft-trumpeted idea that teaching is an "Art" or a "Gift"...but they then procede to implement Teachers' Education on the idea that anyone who is trained to teach, can teach anything.
This is wrong, wrong, wrong! Some people who know their subjects well, have the 'gift' of teaching. Perhaps they should teach. But if people without the 'gift', or the knowledge of their subject matter are deemed as being able to teach because they have a degree in education...we have the source of our current predicament.
As long, as people are, trolled, I would like this opportunity to assume to answer to a AutoComplaint. But, you, this say waiting period are obviously faux a AutoComplaint. Thus, leave you see to us I react to a copied autocomplaint, which is communicated to a response to one sarcastic response to one troll. Don't I receive some somehow minus the points? What, if I let it run by something permutations Babelfish?
WTF are you talking about? There are larger crystals than this all over the place. They just haven't been found. They are safely residing in the (not to antropomorphize) bowels of the earth. And that's just fine by me. Why don't you go off and appreciate THEM?
And yes, the idea that, absent humans to appreciate it, this whole ball of dirt could be as barren as the Moon, is perfectly valid. Who would give a shit? 'Gaia'? Frankly, I like that concept more than the unexamined and undefended meme that "Nature" is somehow superior if "uncontaminated" by human presence. Check and defend your own damn assumptions, jerk.
PS)You are guilty of using your own homocentric viewpoint when you refer to "...the mess this planet is in." In a million years, I bet it will be hard for "this planet" to remember we were here.
Actually, those salaries represent money SAVED by the company. And when we had the I Love You virus, we didn't have to re-install Windows on a single system. The people who opened the message a third time (I'm not kidding) were sacked, thus saving certain future "losses" they would likely have generated.
Generally, if a figure is generated by a party who stands to gain from fear and paranoia (M$, Symantec,NetAss), it is inflated. (Drug usage stats from the police, anyone?)
hmmm..."rambling idiocy"? "wildly spinning eyes"?
No, I took what appeared to be an abstract philosophical (and therefore useless) observation on your part, and after responding with (admittedly) not-especially-witty sarcasm, addressed your comment with regard to its' real world utility. Or rather, lack thereof.
And if analogy in the service of brevity constitutes rambling, or if I'm a wild-eyed loony for noting the nearly universal phenomenon that geeks tend to set information free whether anyone wants them to or not...well, guilty, I guess.
Don't care for the Prozac part, tho...you wouldn't beleive how I had to threaten my therapist to get him to stop prescribing it.
Anyway, if you think defining rights as abstract, subjective social constructs will have any effect in the real world, try to get over your Philosophy classes dude. For that matter, "reasoned discourse" seems to get pretty short shrift in matters of money, power and politics. As long as it makes you feel superior, I suspect your analysis has served its' main purpose. I also don't detect much logical argument or reasoned discourse in your response.
Brad
"If a flame is posted on an old subject, does anyone hear it?" -Bishop "Busby" Berkley
PS)The Typo Nazi informs me that the words are "argument" and "prize".
PPS)The Grammar Nazi informs me that "Or rather, lack thereof." should be a dependent clause, and not pretend to be a sentence. Damn.
Oh, our rights are just what is "given" to us by the government. Thanks for clearing that up, my rose-colored glasses are off and I can see the shit-colored world as it really is.
...OR...We take what we can!! The "natural place" for my rights is in my own hands. I can opt out of their lousy media culture with little deleterious effect to me or mine. Most of their "media product" (movies, music, s/w) is a load of shallow, PC, homogenized bullshit anyway....there already exists more and better "product" that I haven't read or seen or heard than AOL/Time/Disney/WarnerFox will EVER produce!!
...OR...we'll just fucking steal the shit. What you say about rights applies to these greedy assholes, too. This is about the rights of distributors to control the money, and they may be like a nobleman riding alone through the woods with sacks of gold and only a letter from the King protecting him. But here there lurk highwaymen, and wolves...;> What protection does that letter provide? (So much for encrypted, or "by legal fiat" copyright protection.) What the h/w and s/w manufacturers who are cooperating here are trying to do is akin to helping the noblemen cut down all the trees and post guards all along the road.
Frankly, however much money and power they have, in the virtual world, my bet is on the wolves and highwaymen.
Brad
"Damnit!! Trolled again!"
PS) That's "anthropomoRphic", Mr. smarty-mans.
-Spelling Nazi
errr...tacticle only applies to stratagem designed for a direct assault on the scrotum, as in "I'll Rochambeau you for it." Perhaps you meant...oh never mind.
The reality of the lives of "geeks" (technical geeks, not "biting-heads-off-chickens-at-the-carny" type) is, it seems, changing.
I was a nerd in school, plus we moved around the country and the usual "alienation" resulting from the mindless contempt and persecution I encountered was unavoidable. My son, who is at least as nerdy as I was, has always been viewed by his peers (even "jocks", "rich kids", "stoners", etc.) as having some value BECAUSE of his knowledge of computers. The kid who can get your burned copy of D2 to work , or pump out some wild Photoshopped Rave flyers has some social standing. Not as much as a dealer, maybe, but not aggresively discriminated against either.
This should, over time, produce techie types who less often fit the old sterotype. Of course, the stereotype will linger even when techies are more like people from a beer commercial than the pasty, flabby, asocial, Little Debbie-fueled freaks they are perceived as now. Not YOU, of course.
BJG
(The above was submitted without referencing or even THINKING about Jon Katz' ideas on the subject.)
Unfortunately, I don't think that post was a troll. Some Christian, probably intelligent enough to work in IT or something, actually beleives this crap. You/.ers are just to cool to beleive someone could be so wrongheaded. This is an unfortunate side effect of a)Christians being told, and beleiving, that God and/or the Devil are down here micromanaging everything and b)beleiving that if you read the Bible hard enough you'll be able to understand everything in this world. These people see an undeniable negative effect of todays' culture on "impressionable young minds" and look for the Devils' handiwork.
I'm a Christian, and I don't beleive either of those things, and I'm freaking embarrased by people like this. Pretty funny tho, if you've got a weird sense of humor.
BJG
"Hey! What about those of us who have OLD minds that are still impressionable? Could I be sucked in too? Guess I better be careful..."
I KNEW it would suck when I saw Jar-Jar Wayans in the previews. What kind of movie would throw in such an obvious token to PC...and still blow it?
"Ok Jar-Jar...errr...Mr. Wayans, you're frightened in this scene, so try to bug your eyes out REAL big, ok?"
I'm not PC, but this kind of Buckwheat tokenism sucks anyway. Thanks for the opinions, all, guess I'll save a few bucks. Damn! and I'm such a sucker for CG eyecandy, I really had my hopes up.
BJG
"A.sig in the bush is worth...how would you get a.sig in a bush anyway?"
Have you noticed that people deliberatly obey Bill Clinton? AND that he is surrounded by fearless men who are willing to risk their lives for him...AND...their initials are.....(wait for it, lad)....SS!! Yes, the Secret Service, and they are probably on to you now, now that you have discerned, through your Holmesian powers of deduction, the subtextual propaganda that underlies what we, the unenlightened, thought was JUST A F*CKING SCI-FI NOVEL!!! Yeah, Dune=Nazi, Herbert=Goebbels, Spice=What? Bratwurst? Clinton=Paul/Hitler, The Guild=WTO...to quote every whacked out looney tune I've ever known "SEE?! It all fits together!"
Damn, there are people out there who put a lot of effort into posting dumbass comments just to get a rise, and you top them all....hey...wait a dad-gumb minnit?? Am I bein' hornswoggled here?
Brad
PS)OK, troll or not, I want to point out that the traits you note (fearlessness, obedience, honour, loyalty, discipline (elite fighters do not lack discipline)) are not exactly horrific traits. The only really negative thing you point to is "mercilessness" (not mercylessness, BTW)...which is only one of several traits of the SS (Nazi) which caused them to be bad boys...
.sig="If someone says to you, "See!? It all fits together, be assured that that person is full of shit." Me, to my sons.
Litter:OK, the probe is comprised of molecules of metal. To say, as many seem to, that these molecules are "unnatural" because they have been re-shaped by man is ridiculous. Look at your premises=Whatever happens (i.e.:meteor strike) NOT as the result of Mans' volition is good. Whatever happens by our actions is "unnatural". WTF is the justification of this? I think this is an example of contamination of peoples thought processes. What happens naturally, whether it is the inexorable result of a clockwork universe or the Will of GOD, should not be elevated to a "morally" superior position in our considerations. (Morality itself being an "unnatural" and somewhat arbitrary product of evil polluting humans.) If you think it should be, MAKE THE F*ING ARGUMENT-otherwise STFU!!
Biological contamination:To say that because some microbes may have survived the gentle moon landing that some MAY survive the fiery holocaust of a desent into Jovian atmosphere is ridiculous. And even IF...
IF there are life forms adapted to the wildly different conditions of Jupiter, they will not be threatened by microbes not adapted to those conditions. We don't exactly need a St. George to drive the snakes out of Antarctica, do we?
Time scale: SO WHAT? If you want to consider this probe "pollution" (as opposed to good, "natural" extraplanetary incursions like meteors), what will its' effect be in...2 million years? Because that's the time frame we ought to consider.
Extrasolar trajectory: Again, SO WHAT? Your advanced "math" shows that "eventually" the probe will run into something if we shoot it out of the Solar System? When? Again, millions of years, and I don't think we've done even a million-year study of microbal survival. Also, of all the places the probe might eventually impact (suns, black holes, dense gas clouds, atmosphereless rocks), what percent do you think have ANY chance of supporting ANY type of life? I'm too lazy to do that math, but I'm guessing...pretty close to zero.
"But Mr. Science, we can't be SURE can we?" "No...not perfectly, exactly, 100% sure, Bobby. " "Then why can't we bring back that nasty contaminated old probe and put it in a garbage sack and throw it away?" "You're off the show, Bobby."
I would've expected better than Oprah-level posts from the/. crowd.
Brad
"The enemy of science is not religion, but ignorance."- some famous dead guy.
>The entire point of good lawmaking is to make a >law general enough to be adaptable to new >circumstantial details
Excuse me, but WTF!??! Where, in the efforts of our gov't, do you see an effort to make "good laws"? Indeed, one could examine our legislatures product and conclude that their aim is to curry favor with special interest groups, generate favorable headlines from inch-deep analysis, and make sure that lawyers are paid indefinitely to hash out anything close to a coherent policy from the vague, pandering, feel-good crap that passes for law.
Your reference to code marks you as a naif. (in that there is no comparison)Most legislation makes Micro$ofts' most misguided commmitee-generated bloatware look like an instruction.
And having laws that people will "...do anything to avoid getting in trouble under..." is simply a function of a)harshness of punishment and b)motivating people (usually through monetary benefit)to rat out violators. People run scams for money based on Civil Rights law...enough to make any employer tiptoe around. Does this promote true tolerance and understanding?
Brad
"My.sig, unlike myself, will not work on 2 hours sleep, and so will not be appearing here."
from the report: "One study has evaluated the content of HCAs in fast food restaurants. After evaluating five kinds of meat products from various fast food restaurant chains, the study concluded that there were low levels of HCAs found in fast food meat products due to factors such as cooking temperature and time. The study suggested that greater exposure to HCAs stems from home cooking and cooking in non-fast-food restaurants where food may be cooked to order and where a larger amount of meat is consumed."
Your "study" does not support your innuendo, but keep on slingin'! Anything popular MUST be bad. Also, any research done by a cancer institute should be viewed askance as any study done with money from BIG TOBBACCO-both have a vested interest that favors certain findings. (Damn people doing what they want AGAIN!)
Brad
ahhh, for the old days of Sumer and Alexandria, when people never got sick or died...
...BZZZZ...fallacy alert! You would need to compare the number of excisions done on your ship to a population comparable in age, ethnic composition, etc AND availability of free surgery and time off. "Try to look for factors that are unlike in statistical samples (101)".
It's my understanding that Vet group lobbyists, grant-seeking Govt doctors and grandstanding politicians aside...the data on the number and type of illnesses among the Gulf War population pretty much matches any other 18-25 group NOT in the Gulf. Unless of course we want to just use andecdotes and sound bites, then by all means, lets' get us a fine 'ol conspeericy, damn gummint anyway!!
Why, when someone who has a direct financial windfall at stake testifies or lobbies for something, do we not use the same skepticism we bring to bear on Government and corporate claims?
"The Anti-Conspiracy League-Debunking bullshit paranoia since...errr..now!"
Many thanks for the link. I'm self-respecting enough, but must be inadequately paranoid, because I never knew there was such a thing. Has there ever been a/. story about this office? Seems like something of much interest to the community. It appears, from the little I skimmed of the directors testimony and press releases, that these guys are the ones in charge of scaring our rulers...errr...congresspeople out of their tiny wits about cybersecurity and crime.
They also have the unenviable task of promoting the govs proclaimed policy of favoring greater privacy and security on the net and executing the anti-encryption-we-must-have-access-to-all-cyber-e xchanges-to-catch-terrorists policy that the government actually favors. The cognitive dissonance must be thick as hell around there....
You, Sir, are a cad!! What kind of lamer waits up all night trying to get a first post, only to be beaten out by a...oh, never mind. ps-ambitious system, eh? "But does Schroedingers' Elephant have the Bhudda-Nature?"- Basho
Slashdot Mirror
Stupid fucking troll.
All this evil going on...let's see, there are fewer nukes than there were 30 years ago, all of Gaias' vast bosom (and great hairy twat besides) is made of 'chemicals', no human has been cloned (and if this happened, explain how it will kill me), etc., etc...I'm surprised you haven't keeled over from an excess of righteous indignation!
Martins' point about the "natural earth" supporting 8% or less of the current population is almost certainly accurate (within a range), so who decides which 8% lives? I nominate myself to survive, and you and the other Chicken Littles to NOT...or at least to "...live out your natural, unmodified life expectancy" without the "...new technological bone the conglomerates will throw you to keep you complacent." Good Luck.
Myself, I'm keeping the electricity, TV, indoor plumbing, computers, and food. And J-Los' ass...that's all I need...and this chair...
bjg
gee...maybe you could read the article. Seems this geezer predicted a lot more specific innovations and aspects of 'net life than just "Oh, and people will be able to send like, letters to each other, they'll call it 'digital epistles'" No, back in '77 he was remarkably prescient as to the path of development and the nature of the impact of the Internet. And enough people have paid him for his ideas that he was able to purchase his own island.
When you have a track record of getting things right a couple of decades ahead of time, we'll probably see your name in Discover too...till then, I'm checking out what the guy says.
to reiterate:
Own Island=Big Platform
/. account=small platform
bjg
Well I'll be damned. And this http://channel.nytimes.com/
gives you a directory back to 1919...
Thanks.
LAST POST!
A) Teacher tend to be leftists. B)Educated people tend to be leftists. You say A derives from B. Might it not be, to a certain extent, the other way around?
As for evils befalling the Republic...well, they certainly aren't always successful in getting their candidates elected, so that's kind of a point, politically. But educationally, if you think that experiments in whole language reading, fun math, self-esteem building at any cost, and anti-competitiveness training haven't been harmful, you haven't had kids in public school.
A case in point-the recent campaign against Dodge-ball...(not that I consider this an "evil befalling the Republic", just a small example of the mindset)
I quote from yesterdays paper: (since the archival access fee for the SL Trib is $110)
"...moves toward extinction of dodge ball have won praise from such grous as the Reston, Va.-based National Association for Sport and Physical Education and Concerned Adults & Students for Physical Education Reform in Chico, Calif.
"NASPE has gone so far as to put dodge ball on its "Physical Education Hall of Shame"-along with such offenders ask kickball, Red Rover, Simon Says, tag and musical chairs."
My point is that in a Venn diagram, the range of wack-ass fuckheads would not be limited to the subset "Republicans". Nor would the set of hateful, stereotyping, close-minded individuals. The kind of people who have it all figured out. The kind of people who say "See! It all fits together!"
Not pointing any fingers. Really.
...errrr...a rant on the Christian Coalition kind of overlooks the stranglehold that leftists and whack-ass theorists have had over the educational establishment for many decades. Much of the reaction against the NEA comes from this, and is not limited to your straw-man Christian Coalition.
Brad
BTW-If you think only EVIL CORPORATIONS buy elections, check out the influence of the NEA. Not to mention the Trial Lawyers Association. Have we become a litigious society without a little push here and there?
I think the problem with the teachers' unions lies in the oft-trumpeted idea that teaching is an "Art" or a "Gift"...but they then procede to implement Teachers' Education on the idea that anyone who is trained to teach, can teach anything.
This is wrong, wrong, wrong! Some people who know their subjects well, have the 'gift' of teaching. Perhaps they should teach. But if people without the 'gift', or the knowledge of their subject matter are deemed as being able to teach because they have a degree in education...we have the source of our current predicament.
Brad
As long, as people are, trolled, I would like this opportunity to assume to answer to a AutoComplaint. But, you, this say waiting period are obviously faux a AutoComplaint. Thus, leave you see to us I react to a copied autocomplaint, which is communicated to a response to one sarcastic response to one troll. Don't I receive some somehow minus the points? What, if I let it run by something permutations Babelfish?
Nail without heading
WTF are you talking about? There are larger crystals than this all over the place. They just haven't been found. They are safely residing in the (not to antropomorphize) bowels of the earth. And that's just fine by me. Why don't you go off and appreciate THEM?
And yes, the idea that, absent humans to appreciate it, this whole ball of dirt could be as barren as the Moon, is perfectly valid. Who would give a shit? 'Gaia'? Frankly, I like that concept more than the unexamined and undefended meme that "Nature" is somehow superior if "uncontaminated" by human presence. Check and defend your own damn assumptions, jerk.
PS)You are guilty of using your own homocentric viewpoint when you refer to "...the mess this planet is in." In a million years, I bet it will be hard for "this planet" to remember we were here.
PPS) huh...huh-huh...he said 'homo'.
Actually, those salaries represent money SAVED by the company. And when we had the I Love You virus, we didn't have to re-install Windows on a single system. The people who opened the message a third time (I'm not kidding) were sacked, thus saving certain future "losses" they would likely have generated.
Generally, if a figure is generated by a party who stands to gain from fear and paranoia (M$, Symantec,NetAss), it is inflated. (Drug usage stats from the police, anyone?)
hmmm..."rambling idiocy"? "wildly spinning eyes"?
No, I took what appeared to be an abstract philosophical (and therefore useless) observation on your part, and after responding with (admittedly) not-especially-witty sarcasm, addressed your comment with regard to its' real world utility. Or rather, lack thereof.
And if analogy in the service of brevity constitutes rambling, or if I'm a wild-eyed loony for noting the nearly universal phenomenon that geeks tend to set information free whether anyone wants them to or not...well, guilty, I guess.
Don't care for the Prozac part, tho...you wouldn't beleive how I had to threaten my therapist to get him to stop prescribing it.
Anyway, if you think defining rights as abstract, subjective social constructs will have any effect in the real world, try to get over your Philosophy classes dude. For that matter, "reasoned discourse" seems to get pretty short shrift in matters of money, power and politics. As long as it makes you feel superior, I suspect your analysis has served its' main purpose. I also don't detect much logical argument or reasoned discourse in your response.
Brad
"If a flame is posted on an old subject, does anyone hear it?" -Bishop "Busby" Berkley
PS)The Typo Nazi informs me that the words are "argument" and "prize".
PPS)The Grammar Nazi informs me that "Or rather, lack thereof." should be a dependent clause, and not pretend to be a sentence. Damn.
Oh, our rights are just what is "given" to us by the government. Thanks for clearing that up, my rose-colored glasses are off and I can see the shit-colored world as it really is.
...OR...We take what we can!! The "natural place" for my rights is in my own hands. I can opt out of their lousy media culture with little deleterious effect to me or mine. Most of their "media product" (movies, music, s/w) is a load of shallow, PC, homogenized bullshit anyway....there already exists more and better "product" that I haven't read or seen or heard than AOL/Time/Disney/WarnerFox will EVER produce!!
...OR...we'll just fucking steal the shit. What you say about rights applies to these greedy assholes, too. This is about the rights of distributors to control the money, and they may be like a nobleman riding alone through the woods with sacks of gold and only a letter from the King protecting him. But here there lurk highwaymen, and wolves...;> What protection does that letter provide? (So much for encrypted, or "by legal fiat" copyright protection.) What the h/w and s/w manufacturers who are cooperating here are trying to do is akin to helping the noblemen cut down all the trees and post guards all along the road.
Frankly, however much money and power they have, in the virtual world, my bet is on the wolves and highwaymen.
Brad
"Damnit!! Trolled again!"
PS) That's "anthropomoRphic", Mr. smarty-mans.
-Spelling Nazi
errr...tacticle only applies to stratagem designed for a direct assault on the scrotum, as in "I'll Rochambeau you for it." Perhaps you meant...oh never mind.
Spelling Nazi
The reality of the lives of "geeks" (technical geeks, not "biting-heads-off-chickens-at-the-carny" type) is, it seems, changing.
I was a nerd in school, plus we moved around the country and the usual "alienation" resulting from the mindless contempt and persecution I encountered was unavoidable. My son, who is at least as nerdy as I was, has always been viewed by his peers (even "jocks", "rich kids", "stoners", etc.) as having some value BECAUSE of his knowledge of computers. The kid who can get your burned copy of D2 to work , or pump out some wild Photoshopped Rave flyers has some social standing. Not as much as a dealer, maybe, but not aggresively discriminated against either.
This should, over time, produce techie types who less often fit the old sterotype. Of course, the stereotype will linger even when techies are more like people from a beer commercial than the pasty, flabby, asocial, Little Debbie-fueled freaks they are perceived as now. Not YOU, of course.
BJG
(The above was submitted without referencing or even THINKING about Jon Katz' ideas on the subject.)
Unfortunately, I don't think that post was a troll. Some Christian, probably intelligent enough to work in IT or something, actually beleives this crap. You /.ers are just to cool to beleive someone could be so wrongheaded. This is an unfortunate side effect of a)Christians being told, and beleiving, that God and/or the Devil are down here micromanaging everything and b)beleiving that if you read the Bible hard enough you'll be able to understand everything in this world. These people see an undeniable negative effect of todays' culture on "impressionable young minds" and look for the Devils' handiwork.
I'm a Christian, and I don't beleive either of those things, and I'm freaking embarrased by people like this. Pretty funny tho, if you've got a weird sense of humor.
BJG
"Hey! What about those of us who have OLD minds that are still impressionable? Could I be sucked in too? Guess I better be careful..."
I KNEW it would suck when I saw Jar-Jar Wayans in the previews. What kind of movie would throw in such an obvious token to PC...and still blow it?
.sig in the bush is worth...how would you get a .sig in a bush anyway?"
"Ok Jar-Jar...errr...Mr. Wayans, you're frightened in this scene, so try to bug your eyes out REAL big, ok?"
I'm not PC, but this kind of Buckwheat tokenism sucks anyway. Thanks for the opinions, all, guess I'll save a few bucks. Damn! and I'm such a sucker for CG eyecandy, I really had my hopes up.
BJG
"A
Have you noticed that people deliberatly obey Bill Clinton? AND that he is surrounded by fearless men who are willing to risk their lives for him...AND...their initials are.....(wait for it, lad)....SS!! Yes, the Secret Service, and they are probably on to you now, now that you have discerned, through your Holmesian powers of deduction, the subtextual propaganda that underlies what we, the unenlightened, thought was JUST A F*CKING SCI-FI NOVEL!!! Yeah, Dune=Nazi, Herbert=Goebbels, Spice=What? Bratwurst? Clinton=Paul/Hitler, The Guild=WTO...to quote every whacked out looney tune I've ever known "SEE?! It all fits together!"
Damn, there are people out there who put a lot of effort into posting dumbass comments just to get a rise, and you top them all....hey...wait a dad-gumb minnit?? Am I bein' hornswoggled here?
Brad
PS)OK, troll or not, I want to point out that the traits you note (fearlessness, obedience, honour, loyalty, discipline (elite fighters do not lack discipline)) are not exactly horrific traits. The only really negative thing you point to is "mercilessness" (not mercylessness, BTW)...which is only one of several traits of the SS (Nazi) which caused them to be bad boys...
.sig="If someone says to you, "See!? It all fits together, be assured that that person is full of shit." Me, to my sons.
Where to start?
/. crowd.
Litter:OK, the probe is comprised of molecules of metal. To say, as many seem to, that these molecules are "unnatural" because they have been re-shaped by man is ridiculous. Look at your premises=Whatever happens (i.e.:meteor strike) NOT as the result of Mans' volition is good. Whatever happens by our actions is "unnatural".
WTF is the justification of this? I think this is an example of contamination of peoples thought processes. What happens naturally, whether it is the inexorable result of a clockwork universe or the Will of GOD, should not be elevated to a "morally" superior position in our considerations. (Morality itself being an "unnatural" and somewhat arbitrary product of evil polluting humans.) If you think it should be, MAKE THE F*ING ARGUMENT-otherwise STFU!!
Biological contamination:To say that because some microbes may have survived the gentle moon landing that some MAY survive the fiery holocaust of a desent into Jovian atmosphere is ridiculous.
And even IF...
IF there are life forms adapted to the wildly different conditions of Jupiter, they will not be threatened by microbes not adapted to those conditions. We don't exactly need a St. George to drive the snakes out of Antarctica, do we?
Time scale: SO WHAT? If you want to consider this probe "pollution" (as opposed to good, "natural" extraplanetary incursions like meteors), what will its' effect be in...2 million years? Because that's the time frame we ought to consider.
Extrasolar trajectory: Again, SO WHAT? Your advanced "math" shows that "eventually" the probe will run into something if we shoot it out of the Solar System? When? Again, millions of years, and I don't think we've done even a million-year study of microbal survival. Also, of all the places the probe might eventually impact (suns, black holes, dense gas clouds, atmosphereless rocks), what percent do you think have ANY chance of supporting ANY type of life? I'm too lazy to do that math, but I'm guessing...pretty close to zero.
"But Mr. Science, we can't be SURE can we?"
"No...not perfectly, exactly, 100% sure, Bobby. "
"Then why can't we bring back that nasty contaminated old probe and put it in a garbage sack and throw it away?"
"You're off the show, Bobby."
I would've expected better than Oprah-level posts from the
Brad
"The enemy of science is not religion, but ignorance."- some famous dead guy.
>The entire point of good lawmaking is to make a >law general enough to be adaptable to new >circumstantial details
.sig, unlike myself, will not work on 2 hours sleep, and so will not be appearing here."
Excuse me, but WTF!??! Where, in the efforts of our gov't, do you see an effort to make "good laws"? Indeed, one could examine our legislatures product and conclude that their aim is to curry favor with special interest groups, generate favorable headlines from inch-deep analysis, and make sure that lawyers are paid indefinitely to hash out anything close to a coherent policy from the vague, pandering, feel-good crap that passes for law.
Your reference to code marks you as a naif. (in that there is no comparison)Most legislation makes Micro$ofts' most misguided commmitee-generated bloatware look like an instruction.
And having laws that people will "...do anything to avoid getting in trouble under..." is simply a function of a)harshness of punishment and b)motivating people (usually through monetary benefit)to rat out violators. People run scams for money based on Civil Rights law...enough to make any employer tiptoe around. Does this promote true tolerance and understanding?
Brad
"My
PS- I sympathize about the ergo keyboard.
from the report:
"One study has evaluated the content of HCAs in fast food restaurants. After evaluating five kinds of meat products from various fast food restaurant chains, the study concluded that there were low levels of HCAs found in fast food meat products due to factors such as cooking temperature and time. The study suggested that greater exposure to HCAs stems from home cooking and cooking in non-fast-food restaurants where food may be cooked to order and where a larger amount of meat is consumed."
Your "study" does not support your innuendo, but keep on slingin'! Anything popular MUST be bad. Also, any research done by a cancer institute should be viewed askance as any study done with money from BIG TOBBACCO-both have a vested interest that favors certain findings.
(Damn people doing what they want AGAIN!)
Brad
ahhh, for the old days of Sumer and Alexandria, when people never got sick or died...
...BZZZZ...fallacy alert! You would need to compare the number of excisions done on your ship to a population comparable in age, ethnic composition, etc AND availability of free surgery and time off. "Try to look for factors that are unlike in statistical samples (101)".
It's my understanding that Vet group lobbyists, grant-seeking Govt doctors and grandstanding politicians aside...the data on the number and type of illnesses among the Gulf War population pretty much matches any other 18-25 group NOT in the Gulf. Unless of course we want to just use andecdotes and sound bites, then by all means, lets' get us a fine 'ol conspeericy, damn gummint anyway!!
Why, when someone who has a direct financial windfall at stake testifies or lobbies for something, do we not use the same skepticism we bring to bear on Government and corporate claims?
"The Anti-Conspiracy League-Debunking bullshit paranoia since...errr..now!"
Brad
Many thanks for the link. I'm self-respecting enough, but must be inadequately paranoid, because I never knew there was such a thing. Has there ever been a /. story about this office? Seems like something of much interest to the community. It appears, from the little I skimmed of the directors testimony and press releases, that these guys are the ones in charge of scaring our rulers...errr...congresspeople out of their tiny wits about cybersecurity and crime.
e xchanges-to-catch-terrorists policy that the government actually favors. The cognitive dissonance must be thick as hell around there....
.sig is irrelevant"
They also have the unenviable task of promoting the govs proclaimed policy of favoring greater privacy and security on the net and executing the anti-encryption-we-must-have-access-to-all-cyber-
Brad Gregory
"Any concept reducible to a
You, Sir, are a cad!! What kind of lamer waits up all night trying to get a first post, only to be beaten out by a...oh, never mind. ps-ambitious system, eh? "But does Schroedingers' Elephant have the Bhudda-Nature?"- Basho