Don't get in the way of an entity which is making money hand over fist. First of all, they are very, very likely to be strongly interested in their revenue stream and will stop at nothing to protect it. It follows that the larger the revenue stream is, the greater their means to convince you to cease and desist.
Isn't that a wonderful legal term? Cease and desist. It's like a really nice way of saying, Shut the fuck up before we have to send someone over there to rough you up.
It's a bit like trying to stop a runaway train. You certainly can't do it by yourself if you're not on board. One might think that a large group of people would help, but what it really takes is the proper technology, applied with expertise--with careful consideration as to who is on board, and who owns the train.
Comparisons to the RIAA and the US Justice Department are left as an exercise to the reader.
The problem with these United States is that the leadership is dreaming up bullshit of what they think that others must actually be thinking, and worse yet, they now actually believe what they have invented.
Let's take torture for example: The Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) manuals were designed to prepare soldiers, sailors, and marines for what *might* happen if they were captured. There was some knowledge of past torture techniques employed by enemies, but the manuals and the courses emphasized that there was no way to really know what might be encountered.
It makes sense, so far: "You'll be executing missions in a largely unknown environment, so we'll prepare you for the worst in case you are captured." We'll just skip over the psychological trade-offs for the sake of argument. At least they went beyond, "Just give them your name, rank, and serial number per the Geneva Convention." It was wisely recognized that not everyone respects the Geneva accords.
Recall that torture is widely recognized as a very unreliable method for obtaining accurate information. It is well known that gaining trust is far more effective--although there are many trade-offs to consider here, too.
Now let's examine the present torture programs: Someone has taken the SERE materials and skipped over the bits about whether or not the methods described are being used by presumed enemies. This much has been assumed to be true. The really foolish move was to use this assumption to justify the use of torture. Not only does this approach ignore the data which show that torture produces unreliable intelligence, it casts "enhanced interrogation" as a sort of revenge for imagined offenses. One has only to read the comments posted to news stories about torture to see that the justification for torture--and other atrocities--is the presumption that enemies have also done so. Perhaps it is naive to hew to the values which are taught in public school with public funds, but I believe that great nations and great people do not stoop to the level of those with whom we disagree. The philosophy of winning at any cost doesn't scale: What if winning costs you everything--or more than you have?
This is only one example of how terrorism has adversely affected governments and public opinion in what was once a group of free countries. I'm not saying that terrorists planned this in some grand scheme, but their actions have most certainly produced terror among those that we the people have trusted to exercise wisdom in place of fearful reaction. Imagining things about one's perceived enemies is, by definition, immature behavior. Would that we could actually have mature and sensible leadership, in place of sensationalist fools who lead the general population down a narrowing tunnel of darkness and distrust. I hope that the human race survives into another Renaissance, rather than fulfilling its own invented idea of an Apocalypse.
My father became very cynical in the wake of poor decisions he'd made, and began to blame others for what was his own responsibility. Within a decade of his death, he literally said, "People are out to screw you. You've got to screw them before they screw you."
He died bitter and penniless, having isolated himself from all of his friends and most of his family, in great pain, with profound regret, ravaged by the pain of cancer for which he refused to seek treatment, and confused by the spectre of Alzheimer's disease. It would appear that the grand experiment known as the United States of America is determined at present to make the same journey.
What you resist, persists. Eventually, you become what you resist.
The validity of the message is judged by the reputation of the messenger. Consider the difference--in your own interpretation--between the same message content delivered by:
Noam Chomsky
Stephen Hawking
Alan Greenspan
Ben Bernanke
Geraldo Rivera
Paris Hilton
The message content is certainly important--and the messenger strongly influences the context. Ultimately, the context is decisive.
The best part is your use of revenant. Had to look it up: One who returns after death (as a ghost) or after a long absence. Other sources say animated corpse.
Kind of like our guarantees of freedoms, any more: Ghosts, or zombies at best, but possibly resurrected in toto at some future date.
Sounds great. Where are they? Haven't yet seen one. Voted for more than a few based on my interpretation, then watched what they did and saw differently.
Maybe your definition of integrity is different than mine. I think it means "doing what I said I would do when I said I would do it," including reporting that I won't be doing when I said I would, as soon as I know I won't be doing what I said.
If I tell you that I'll meet you at 5:00 and I get stuck in traffic 30 minutes away, you'd be disappointed if I had a phone with me but didn't call you and made you wait, right? You'd probably get over it, but wouldn't you be left with the impression that I can't be counted on?
What if it wasn't just meeting to hang out? What if it was a promise I made to get a P.O. approved in time to get power for your new rack of machines? Then it's not just me and my reputation on the line--you've now got to explain to others why you can't do what you said you'd do.
Then again, maybe the people I've voted for had integrity only with their close associates. Silly me, I've been operating out of the assumption that my representatives' integrity is with the people s/he represents.
I don't agree. I don't see any instances of Jesus saying what is "wrong" or "right." Nor do I see him telling anyone what they should/shouldn't do. These are all in the interpretations of others.
Jesus spoke in parables. I haven't memorized everything he said and did, but I'm pretty sure that he never once said, "Do this" or "Don't do that." At least not as a rule. He gave personal advice, as mentioned above. Wouldn't you tell someone whose life you'd just saved how to avoid almost losing it again?
If you want to believe that these stories mean--for you--that there are things that you shouldn't do, or that there are ways of being that you should adhere to, great. How's that going, by the way? Ever feel bad about it? Have a little guilt? Recall that the document says over and over that sin is inherent to human beings. Does it follow that the deity referenced in the document would trick you into feeling like you're not supposed to sin--and to then feel badly for having sinned?
After all, sin is not defined by rules or laws. Sin is the absence of God. Sin is when you use your free will to turn your back on being with God. It's not what happens when you're hiding from him--it's the act of hiding. This usually follows having broken a rule or two.
I have the notion that a deity powerful enough to create a Universe would have the compassion to refrain from telling us things that would cause suffering to us, inherent to the way we're designed.
It's my view that God tells people what's good for them and what's not good for them--from the point of view of a compassionate creator. Many seem to interpret the Ten Commandments as laws that require punishment. I see it more as someone telling someone else--with ultimate knowledge of the situation--"Hey, these ten things? They're *bad* for you. If you do any of them, they'll mess you up."
Including the "no gods before me" one. That is, if you're committed to listening to someone in the first place, why would you then listen to someone else who contradicts the first?
It was a local affair, *and* it sparked the Revolution. There are several analogous local affairs in the matter at hand, namely the suits filed against those accused of file sharing.
The Boston tea merchants were affected by a combination of at least two of the British Crown's foolish acts, namely the outrageously high tariff on tea imported from India by the colonists, and the subsequent allowing of the East India Tea Company to circumvent this tariff. The latter's goods were roughly half the price, and were driving the colonial merchants out of business.
The Crown had bankrupted itself fighting the French and Indian War. Like most present-day governments, it had issued Bonds which were presumed to be very safe investments based on the presumption that they were backed by the power of taxation. It was the excessive taxation enacted upon the booming colonial economy which resulted in Samuel Adams' (and others') rallying against taxation without representation.
The analogy is very, very apt: Both the RIAA and the MPAA are taxpayer-funded entities, but they are not accountable to taxpayers. Further, the RIAA collects (and sues for the collection of) royalties for artists who are giving their music away.
That is, they are making uninformed decisions on how to spend taxpayer monies. OTOH, they are not interfering with anyone's livelihoods--that would foment revolution. The response thus far seems to be increased violation of ridiculous and largely unenforceable law, with a modicum of derision and righteous indignation over the manipulation of tort law to reap unreasonable damages from individual citizens with very little proof.
At a very high level, the analogy is sound: Both cases involve wealthy and powerful entities acting in desperation because each wants to remain rigid in the midst of changing times. Further, both the British Crown and the American Recording Industry caused the change: The British colonized North America, and the Recording Industry introduced digital media. The common belief is one of entitlement based on investment.
Funny how that doesn't work for individuals. When things change, you and I must adapt or fail. Some of us have certainly wasted a fortune or two trying to reign in a changing situation beyond our control. How marvelous and surprising it would be to see successful adaptation. There is hope, you know: Rick Rubin is now the president of Columbia Records. And that link is free for everyone: The New York Times is now 100% free.
Uhhh, yeah, but he also stopped everyone else from throwing rocks at her.
I think you may have a different understanding of tolerance than I do. I don't think it means "sure, do whatever it is you want to do."
I also don't think that it has anything to do with morality. I have a big, big problem with others telling me what I can and can't do because of what they've either made up for themselves or decided to believe.
Show me some evidence of harm from my practices, or speak to me plainly, and I may listen to--and compromise in order to suit your wishes.
Let's just be clear that it's your wishes we're talking about, rather than some divine, universal law. Hygiene, safety, non-pollution of the environment we share and proper child-rearing? I'm all for that, but only because it's been shown to work. If you want to pretend in private--alone or with your friends--that's great, I hope you get something out of it. Don't go pushing it my face, though, because I'm not afraid of your myths, and I've seen the havoc that your fear wreaks.
Furthermore, the idea that Jesus wasn't banging Mary Magdalen is the single biggest denial in the entire cult. I don't care whether they had a child, or children (Knights Templar, &c).
If the "reason" for God showing up as Jesus was for him to experience humanity firsthand, surely he wouldn't skip that experience.
Like God needs a reason for anything. Reason is a human trait. Perhaps God created it--or is creating it continuously. He most certainly does not need it.
Finally, how ridiculous is it to try to explain God?
Despite the very interesting discussion generated here, TFA is about a speech predicated on the US' reaction to what it thought Sputnik represented, e.g. technical dominance by the Soviet Republic. On the 50th anniversary of a watershed event, we learn that it was not a concerted effort with project plans and classic goal-setting. Or maybe we haven't learned it. The flurry of articles I find today are very different than the ones published before the actual anniversary of the launch. At first, the talk was all about the irony we can now see. The current articles ignore this and seem to simply react.
I'm saying that Goodnight's talk seems to have been designed to attract attention, rather than to present a clear statement of the problem and a proposed solution. It rather neatly illustrates the problem: We as a people can't be bothered to thoughtfully consider very much at all. Our attention has to be yanked away from something else. Think for a moment about the 9/11 attacks: It took something incredibly dramatic to get everyone's attention.
Attention-getting behavior has nothing to do with meriting attention, though, does it? And yet that's how politics and influence work. Invoking the survival instinct in others is a time-tested trick: it often spurs action in favor of thought, and can lead to holding false, lifelong-held beliefs borne of the reaction and the attendant misdirection. This is how religion works: Invoke profound fear at an early age, and reinforce it with icons to reactivate the fear. It's not necessarily bad or harmful, but it doesn't belong in education, unless all you want to teach is fear-based respect. Consider the mistakes made by human beings who have reacted rather than reasoned. Education teaches the subject matter and how to think and act about the subject matter.
Is there anyone who believes that reactionary education is effective? Consider the irony of the US' anti-meritocracy: Bureaucrats didn't just throw money at the problem that they believed that the launch of Sputnik represented. They threw money at people who wanted money instead of empowering people who could define and solve the problem. FFS, the ensuing actions were labeled as The Space Race. Has anyone consistently performed well in a technical situation that looked like a race? Outside of films about people saving the world heroically, that is.
Education lagging behind is not a problem. It is a symptom of the failure to recognize and passionately promote the value of education. In a reactionary society, thoughtfulness and consideration are not just rare, they're devalued in favor of fast results. There may come a day when teachers are revered, respected, and rewarded for their profound long-term, strategic influence. For now, we are still reacting to perceived threats and craving results that feel good in the short term.
Re-read the parent: Logfile timestamps, for the most part, are written as character data translated by the operating system at the time of the event. One exception are wtmp files, which are written in binary format and read by other programs, e.g., last(1). However, syslogd does the translation on the fly, and therefore writes its messages per the current timezone setting, viz:
Feb 27 01:01:04 umbc9 syslogd: restart Feb 27 01:01:14 umbc9 telnetd[1803]: connect from annex3.umbc.edu Feb 27 01:02:15 umbc9 rlogind[1845]: connect from annex1.umbc.edu Feb 27 01:02:44 umbc9 lpd[1879]:/usr/adm/acsps-errs: No such file or
directory Feb 27 01:07:08 umbc9 telnetd[1914]: connect from annex1.umbc.edu Feb 27 01:08:06 umbc9 rlogind[1946]: connect from annex1.umbc.edu Feb 27 01:10:28 umbc9 rshd[1985]: connect from xxxx@deputy.cs.umbc.edu Feb 27 01:10:30 umbc9 rlogind[1993]: connect from xxxx@deputy.cs.umbc.edu Feb 27 01:13:01 umbc9 sendmail[2042]: BAA02041: to=xzy@picard.cs.wisc.edu,
delay=00:00:02, mailer=nullclient, relay=mailhub1.gl.umbc.edu. (130.85.3.11),
stat=Sent (BAA04370 Message accepted for delivery)
Note that this example does not include the timezone; most UNIX implementations do, so at least the logs can be transposed to reflect one's own timezone.
The impact is skewing of post-event analysis of messages in logs. While I agree with the value of your presumption, i.e., logs could be written with timestamps expressed as offsets from the epoch, it's not the way things are done at present. OTOH, if the analysis is crucial, it's trivial to write a [Perl|Tcl] script to filter the logs for less error-prone analysis.
I happen to have written a small app recently to log events with the timestamps written as epoch offsets, because the people who use the logs are in different timezones and want to understand the events' occurrences in their own timezone.
All that you were missing was co-op employment or an internship. Like it or not, there's no match for real-world experience.
After decades as a UNIX sysadmin, having managed machines with almost every flavor of UNIX, I'm surprised by how many gatekeepers still want specific experience. I'd have thought by this time that my experience would prove that I can pick up anything, given documentation.
I think that's the real value of a degree. You prove to yourself and to the world that you can read and write critically.
That's okay for piece work, I guess. I get paid for 40 hours/week even when I'm not even here for 40 hours some weeks--because I've set things up to work without breaking. I did the design, the planning, the up-front work onsite and elsewhere, i.e., I lived and breathed it for a few months. And during those months, I kept the crappy environment I'd inherited working with minimal interruption.
Those were 40+ hour weeks, BTW, even when I didn't get called in the middle of the night.
Then I set it up, which entailed finding out who all of the interested parties were, convincing them, including them in test plans, accommodating them when necessary.
You can figure out the rest. I know, I know, not everyone here manages systems. I've done development, and that can really suck a$$, even when your boss *does* understand what you're up against. And I've done systems support that was more like fighting fire with a spray bottle.
I'm just sayin':-)... not everyone's gig is the same. I question TFA's source of information, and I do agree that if my firm is foolish enough to bring in consultants to save a few bucks, I'll start looking for the next gig.
Until that time, I'm careful to regularly point out that things are running much, much more smoothly than anyone can remember. I'm either on site or no more than 15 minutes from being online (EVDO, w00t) to troubleshoot.
Deafening silence from the left side of the aisle.
Hey, Jumper. Your talking points are showing.
It's only deafening silence if you choose not to listen. There's no comparison between the US Attorney turnover at the beginning of almost every first Presidential term and the very obviously political machinations of the US Attorney firings designed by Rove and executed by Gonzales' staff--mid-term, in clear retribution for those attorneys' refusal to pursue political agenda in order to outflank the opposing party.
Sure, these attorneys serve at the President's pleasure. I'd personally have simply shrugged and chalked it up to business as usual for this White House. It's the ham-handed and fumbling attempts at covering it up that drew attention to it, and the arrogant incompetence demonstrated by the appointed spokespeople that raised the hackles of the electorate. FFS, if one is going to play the political game, we want it done slickly, so that even if we notice, we can at least acknowledge the skill.
You have every right to ignore the facts. You also have the right to post falsehoods in the form of exaggeration here and in many other places. Believe as you wish; my advice is to refrain from laboring under the illusion that posting your indefensible beliefs here makes any difference.
'm a Republican, but if Bush takes an oath to tell the truth and then lies to a grand jury I'll support impeaching him [sic] to.
Pretty safe bet, there. Bush will never, ever appear in front of any sort of official panel, jury, board, committee, or commission. Nor will this milquetoast Congress find the stones to so much as issue the subpoena.
The irony is that Clinton did not have to appear in the forum in which he perjured himself. I chalk it up to a lack of training, with the possible complication factor of feeling guilty about having been demonstrably guilty.
The high irony is that Clinton's approval ratings not only did not drop after his taped testimony was broadcast--it actually rose in some polls.
Nicely put. It's even funnier that people will engage in violence to back up their assertion that the war was fought over slavery. It's a fine point, but it was about the right to engage in slavery--or any other activity deemed illegal by the Federal government.
See also California's ongoing disagreement with the Feds about medicinal marijuana... which will almost certainly not result in secession or any sort of civil war.
That's pretty simple. Lying under oath to a judge. Perjury is a felony outright. You lie to a grand jury or judge you're a felon. Same to Mr. Gonzales. Same to Hillary's "I don't recall" statements that made forgetfulness famous.
Nice try, kid. Next time look it up instead of relying on memory, or, worse yet, relying on the memes of demagogues. Your apparent point is well taken, i.e., claiming not to remember when one actually does recall what happened does constitute a lie. Very difficult to prove, however.
The reply "I don't recall" did, indeed, make forgetfulness famous, during the Watergate hearings. It has been echoed many times since, but those hearings pre-empted daytime network programming and so became etched into popular culture.
I think that if anyone could screw up the simple plan, it's Dubya. I can't figure out how he made it into the catbird seat, i.e., was chosen to execute the plan. It seems obvious to me that he's the wildcard.
If there's any hope for foiling the plans of the Illuminati, it's Bush himself. I guess that's what happens when a True Believer gets to the top of the pyramid without figuring out what the real game is.
Hear, hear. The analogy about drinking resonates. The bored student just stirs the water with the straw--the thirst for knowledge makes you want to pick up the bucket and chug. There's an ocean of difference between the student who just wants to please the teacher and the one who transcends the concept of the student/teacher relationship in favor of satisfying profound curiosity about the subject. Recall that Newton didn't even need a teacher; he was happy to sit in his room and poke himself in the eye with a blunt knitting needle to better understand how the human eye perceives and processes light.
It wasn't until I realized that I wanted to understand computers--after trying theater, music, flipping burgers, working in a warehouse, transcribing Russian, teaching mentally retarded adults--that I really got motivated. I had developed this irrational fear of math, and when I realized that the curriculum for CS was a based on a math major, I hesitated for about 45 seconds. Then I just gritted my teeth and drove to the university and got started. Two months later I was in my first programming course, fifteen months after that I was interning as a sysadmin, eight more months and I had a UNIX system to myself with an assignment that required me to learn C in order to use a database API to "mechanize" purchasing for a regional phone company. Between internships, I'd ask my professors for more and they'd work with me to develop independent studies. During my final semester, the campus recruiters were peeing their pants because I already had a resume. Twenty years later, it's still all about digging in to figure out what's in it for me. Work has only been boring when I've forgotten this and found myself fulfilling someone else's ambition. Many times, it's been these very forums that remind me of this. Past the frosty piss and trolls, some of you have reawakened the curiosity because it's obvious that you know more than I do.
It's not--it can't be about being led the whole way. At some point, you have to realize--as in make real for yourself--that you want something bad enough to stay focused, to stay interested. My favorite professor used to present new programming concepts and then say, "Now go and convince yourself that this works."
This is not unlike the difference between playing around with, say, Perl, and having the language be the vehicle to get something that you want. I couldn't ever get math for math's sake, but when I saw it as the way to get and keep accounts on the computers at school, I saw the teachers in a different light.
And, of course, they weren't public school teachers, which is the matter at hand. Also, they could tell that I was after something. There's a noticeable difference to any teacher in the student who is engaged, who asks questions that indicate that he or she is committed to going beyond the subject matter of the course.
It also helped that I was paying my own way that time around. Your mileage may vary.
It's an entirely different experience when you're somehow in it for yourself. Up until my second time in college, I'd just been filling squares, trying to do what someone else told me. I thought there was something wrong with me because I knew I was intelligent, but I couldn't seem to get anything done. Straight A's with no plan is not going to bring anyone happiness. I didn't grok grammar by passing English in elementary school. I got it in Discrete Math. That unlocked what had been only rote memorization.
Then again, I did meet the guys who formed the Butthole Surfers while pretending to study Drama, so it wasn't a complete waste of time. Sometimes the value of an experience isn't apparent without the benefit of hindsight. Come to think of it, none of it was a waste. Even the sloppy attempts at "enriched" and "advanced" courses in middle school were valuable exposure to the subject matter. I developed the distinctions after I got myself aligned with what I wanted.
I'm still wondering why most email clients work this way. It makes sense when I'm replying to one person, but if I want to expand the audience, I'd rather the preceding discussion show up first.
Then again--speaking of those golden Usenet days--I'm still trying to wean myself from fisking.
WOW. The site is just unbelievable. It's beyond ironic that the image on every page is that of a middle-aged man behind bars, dramatically lit, with a pissed-off and indignant look in his eyes. I'm guessing that the designers of the site (what was that gig like??) intended to portray a pornographer.
It looks more to me like someone convicted of doing something that he believed was not illegal.
The only good thing I see about the clampdown is the renaissance that will follow--if humans survive it, that is.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't get in the way of an entity which is making money hand over fist. First of all, they are very, very likely to be strongly interested in their revenue stream and will stop at nothing to protect it. It follows that the larger the revenue stream is, the greater their means to convince you to cease and desist.
Isn't that a wonderful legal term? Cease and desist. It's like a really nice way of saying, Shut the fuck up before we have to send someone over there to rough you up.
It's a bit like trying to stop a runaway train. You certainly can't do it by yourself if you're not on board. One might think that a large group of people would help, but what it really takes is the proper technology, applied with expertise--with careful consideration as to who is on board, and who owns the train.
Comparisons to the RIAA and the US Justice Department are left as an exercise to the reader.
Your point is well taken, and very revealing.
The problem with these United States is that the leadership is dreaming up bullshit of what they think that others must actually be thinking, and worse yet, they now actually believe what they have invented.
Let's take torture for example: The Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) manuals were designed to prepare soldiers, sailors, and marines for what *might* happen if they were captured. There was some knowledge of past torture techniques employed by enemies, but the manuals and the courses emphasized that there was no way to really know what might be encountered.
It makes sense, so far: "You'll be executing missions in a largely unknown environment, so we'll prepare you for the worst in case you are captured." We'll just skip over the psychological trade-offs for the sake of argument. At least they went beyond, "Just give them your name, rank, and serial number per the Geneva Convention." It was wisely recognized that not everyone respects the Geneva accords.
Recall that torture is widely recognized as a very unreliable method for obtaining accurate information. It is well known that gaining trust is far more effective--although there are many trade-offs to consider here, too.
Now let's examine the present torture programs: Someone has taken the SERE materials and skipped over the bits about whether or not the methods described are being used by presumed enemies. This much has been assumed to be true. The really foolish move was to use this assumption to justify the use of torture. Not only does this approach ignore the data which show that torture produces unreliable intelligence, it casts "enhanced interrogation" as a sort of revenge for imagined offenses. One has only to read the comments posted to news stories about torture to see that the justification for torture--and other atrocities--is the presumption that enemies have also done so. Perhaps it is naive to hew to the values which are taught in public school with public funds, but I believe that great nations and great people do not stoop to the level of those with whom we disagree. The philosophy of winning at any cost doesn't scale: What if winning costs you everything--or more than you have?
This is only one example of how terrorism has adversely affected governments and public opinion in what was once a group of free countries. I'm not saying that terrorists planned this in some grand scheme, but their actions have most certainly produced terror among those that we the people have trusted to exercise wisdom in place of fearful reaction. Imagining things about one's perceived enemies is, by definition, immature behavior. Would that we could actually have mature and sensible leadership, in place of sensationalist fools who lead the general population down a narrowing tunnel of darkness and distrust. I hope that the human race survives into another Renaissance, rather than fulfilling its own invented idea of an Apocalypse.
My father became very cynical in the wake of poor decisions he'd made, and began to blame others for what was his own responsibility. Within a decade of his death, he literally said, "People are out to screw you. You've got to screw them before they screw you."
He died bitter and penniless, having isolated himself from all of his friends and most of his family, in great pain, with profound regret, ravaged by the pain of cancer for which he refused to seek treatment, and confused by the spectre of Alzheimer's disease. It would appear that the grand experiment known as the United States of America is determined at present to make the same journey.
What you resist, persists. Eventually, you become what you resist.
Right on. Tom Cruise was awesome in Magnolia.
The message content is certainly important--and the messenger strongly influences the context. Ultimately, the context is decisive.
The best part is your use of revenant. Had to look it up: One who returns after death (as a ghost) or after a long absence. Other sources say animated corpse.
Kind of like our guarantees of freedoms, any more: Ghosts, or zombies at best, but possibly resurrected in toto at some future date.
Sounds great. Where are they? Haven't yet seen one. Voted for more than a few based on my interpretation, then watched what they did and saw differently.
Maybe your definition of integrity is different than mine. I think it means "doing what I said I would do when I said I would do it," including reporting that I won't be doing when I said I would, as soon as I know I won't be doing what I said.
If I tell you that I'll meet you at 5:00 and I get stuck in traffic 30 minutes away, you'd be disappointed if I had a phone with me but didn't call you and made you wait, right? You'd probably get over it, but wouldn't you be left with the impression that I can't be counted on?
What if it wasn't just meeting to hang out? What if it was a promise I made to get a P.O. approved in time to get power for your new rack of machines? Then it's not just me and my reputation on the line--you've now got to explain to others why you can't do what you said you'd do.
Then again, maybe the people I've voted for had integrity only with their close associates. Silly me, I've been operating out of the assumption that my representatives' integrity is with the people s/he represents.
I don't agree. I don't see any instances of Jesus saying what is "wrong" or "right." Nor do I see him telling anyone what they should/shouldn't do. These are all in the interpretations of others.
Jesus spoke in parables. I haven't memorized everything he said and did, but I'm pretty sure that he never once said, "Do this" or "Don't do that." At least not as a rule. He gave personal advice, as mentioned above. Wouldn't you tell someone whose life you'd just saved how to avoid almost losing it again?
If you want to believe that these stories mean--for you--that there are things that you shouldn't do, or that there are ways of being that you should adhere to, great. How's that going, by the way? Ever feel bad about it? Have a little guilt? Recall that the document says over and over that sin is inherent to human beings. Does it follow that the deity referenced in the document would trick you into feeling like you're not supposed to sin--and to then feel badly for having sinned?
After all, sin is not defined by rules or laws. Sin is the absence of God. Sin is when you use your free will to turn your back on being with God. It's not what happens when you're hiding from him--it's the act of hiding. This usually follows having broken a rule or two.
I have the notion that a deity powerful enough to create a Universe would have the compassion to refrain from telling us things that would cause suffering to us, inherent to the way we're designed.
It's my view that God tells people what's good for them and what's not good for them--from the point of view of a compassionate creator. Many seem to interpret the Ten Commandments as laws that require punishment. I see it more as someone telling someone else--with ultimate knowledge of the situation--"Hey, these ten things? They're *bad* for you. If you do any of them, they'll mess you up."
Including the "no gods before me" one. That is, if you're committed to listening to someone in the first place, why would you then listen to someone else who contradicts the first?
It was a local affair, *and* it sparked the Revolution. There are several analogous local affairs in the matter at hand, namely the suits filed against those accused of file sharing.
The Boston tea merchants were affected by a combination of at least two of the British Crown's foolish acts, namely the outrageously high tariff on tea imported from India by the colonists, and the subsequent allowing of the East India Tea Company to circumvent this tariff. The latter's goods were roughly half the price, and were driving the colonial merchants out of business.
The Crown had bankrupted itself fighting the French and Indian War. Like most present-day governments, it had issued Bonds which were presumed to be very safe investments based on the presumption that they were backed by the power of taxation. It was the excessive taxation enacted upon the booming colonial economy which resulted in Samuel Adams' (and others') rallying against taxation without representation.
The analogy is very, very apt: Both the RIAA and the MPAA are taxpayer-funded entities, but they are not accountable to taxpayers. Further, the RIAA collects (and sues for the collection of) royalties for artists who are giving their music away.
That is, they are making uninformed decisions on how to spend taxpayer monies. OTOH, they are not interfering with anyone's livelihoods--that would foment revolution. The response thus far seems to be increased violation of ridiculous and largely unenforceable law, with a modicum of derision and righteous indignation over the manipulation of tort law to reap unreasonable damages from individual citizens with very little proof.
At a very high level, the analogy is sound: Both cases involve wealthy and powerful entities acting in desperation because each wants to remain rigid in the midst of changing times. Further, both the British Crown and the American Recording Industry caused the change: The British colonized North America, and the Recording Industry introduced digital media. The common belief is one of entitlement based on investment.
Funny how that doesn't work for individuals. When things change, you and I must adapt or fail. Some of us have certainly wasted a fortune or two trying to reign in a changing situation beyond our control. How marvelous and surprising it would be to see successful adaptation. There is hope, you know: Rick Rubin is now the president of Columbia Records. And that link is free for everyone: The New York Times is now 100% free.
Uhhh, yeah, but he also stopped everyone else from throwing rocks at her.
I think you may have a different understanding of tolerance than I do. I don't think it means "sure, do whatever it is you want to do."
I also don't think that it has anything to do with morality. I have a big, big problem with others telling me what I can and can't do because of what they've either made up for themselves or decided to believe.
Show me some evidence of harm from my practices, or speak to me plainly, and I may listen to--and compromise in order to suit your wishes.
Let's just be clear that it's your wishes we're talking about, rather than some divine, universal law. Hygiene, safety, non-pollution of the environment we share and proper child-rearing? I'm all for that, but only because it's been shown to work. If you want to pretend in private--alone or with your friends--that's great, I hope you get something out of it. Don't go pushing it my face, though, because I'm not afraid of your myths, and I've seen the havoc that your fear wreaks.
Furthermore, the idea that Jesus wasn't banging Mary Magdalen is the single biggest denial in the entire cult. I don't care whether they had a child, or children (Knights Templar, &c).
If the "reason" for God showing up as Jesus was for him to experience humanity firsthand, surely he wouldn't skip that experience.
Like God needs a reason for anything. Reason is a human trait. Perhaps God created it--or is creating it continuously. He most certainly does not need it.
Finally, how ridiculous is it to try to explain God?
Despite the very interesting discussion generated here, TFA is about a speech predicated on the US' reaction to what it thought Sputnik represented, e.g. technical dominance by the Soviet Republic. On the 50th anniversary of a watershed event, we learn that it was not a concerted effort with project plans and classic goal-setting. Or maybe we haven't learned it. The flurry of articles I find today are very different than the ones published before the actual anniversary of the launch. At first, the talk was all about the irony we can now see. The current articles ignore this and seem to simply react.
I'm saying that Goodnight's talk seems to have been designed to attract attention, rather than to present a clear statement of the problem and a proposed solution. It rather neatly illustrates the problem: We as a people can't be bothered to thoughtfully consider very much at all. Our attention has to be yanked away from something else. Think for a moment about the 9/11 attacks: It took something incredibly dramatic to get everyone's attention.
Attention-getting behavior has nothing to do with meriting attention, though, does it? And yet that's how politics and influence work. Invoking the survival instinct in others is a time-tested trick: it often spurs action in favor of thought, and can lead to holding false, lifelong-held beliefs borne of the reaction and the attendant misdirection. This is how religion works: Invoke profound fear at an early age, and reinforce it with icons to reactivate the fear. It's not necessarily bad or harmful, but it doesn't belong in education, unless all you want to teach is fear-based respect. Consider the mistakes made by human beings who have reacted rather than reasoned. Education teaches the subject matter and how to think and act about the subject matter.
Is there anyone who believes that reactionary education is effective? Consider the irony of the US' anti-meritocracy: Bureaucrats didn't just throw money at the problem that they believed that the launch of Sputnik represented. They threw money at people who wanted money instead of empowering people who could define and solve the problem. FFS, the ensuing actions were labeled as The Space Race. Has anyone consistently performed well in a technical situation that looked like a race? Outside of films about people saving the world heroically, that is.
Education lagging behind is not a problem. It is a symptom of the failure to recognize and passionately promote the value of education. In a reactionary society, thoughtfulness and consideration are not just rare, they're devalued in favor of fast results. There may come a day when teachers are revered, respected, and rewarded for their profound long-term, strategic influence. For now, we are still reacting to perceived threats and craving results that feel good in the short term.
Re-read the parent: Logfile timestamps, for the most part, are written as character data translated by the operating system at the time of the event. One exception are wtmp files, which are written in binary format and read by other programs, e.g., last(1). However, syslogd does the translation on the fly, and therefore writes its messages per the current timezone setting, viz:
/usr/adm/acsps-errs: No such file or
Feb 27 01:01:04 umbc9 syslogd: restart
Feb 27 01:01:14 umbc9 telnetd[1803]: connect from annex3.umbc.edu
Feb 27 01:02:15 umbc9 rlogind[1845]: connect from annex1.umbc.edu
Feb 27 01:02:44 umbc9 lpd[1879]:
directory
Feb 27 01:07:08 umbc9 telnetd[1914]: connect from annex1.umbc.edu
Feb 27 01:08:06 umbc9 rlogind[1946]: connect from annex1.umbc.edu
Feb 27 01:10:28 umbc9 rshd[1985]: connect from xxxx@deputy.cs.umbc.edu
Feb 27 01:10:30 umbc9 rlogind[1993]: connect from xxxx@deputy.cs.umbc.edu
Feb 27 01:13:01 umbc9 sendmail[2042]: BAA02041: to=xzy@picard.cs.wisc.edu,
delay=00:00:02, mailer=nullclient, relay=mailhub1.gl.umbc.edu. (130.85.3.11),
stat=Sent (BAA04370 Message accepted for delivery)
Note that this example does not include the timezone; most UNIX implementations do, so at least the logs can be transposed to reflect one's own timezone.
The impact is skewing of post-event analysis of messages in logs. While I agree with the value of your presumption, i.e., logs could be written with timestamps expressed as offsets from the epoch, it's not the way things are done at present. OTOH, if the analysis is crucial, it's trivial to write a [Perl|Tcl] script to filter the logs for less error-prone analysis.
I happen to have written a small app recently to log events with the timestamps written as epoch offsets, because the people who use the logs are in different timezones and want to understand the events' occurrences in their own timezone.
All that you were missing was co-op employment or an internship. Like it or not, there's no match for real-world experience.
After decades as a UNIX sysadmin, having managed machines with almost every flavor of UNIX, I'm surprised by how many gatekeepers still want specific experience. I'd have thought by this time that my experience would prove that I can pick up anything, given documentation.
I think that's the real value of a degree. You prove to yourself and to the world that you can read and write critically.
From http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?stor
Bums With Blackberries--I've seen that band!
That's okay for piece work, I guess. I get paid for 40 hours/week even when I'm not even here for 40 hours some weeks--because I've set things up to work without breaking. I did the design, the planning, the up-front work onsite and elsewhere, i.e., I lived and breathed it for a few months. And during those months, I kept the crappy environment I'd inherited working with minimal interruption.
:-) ... not everyone's gig is the same. I question TFA's source of information, and I do agree that if my firm is foolish enough to bring in consultants to save a few bucks, I'll start looking for the next gig.
Those were 40+ hour weeks, BTW, even when I didn't get called in the middle of the night.
Then I set it up, which entailed finding out who all of the interested parties were, convincing them, including them in test plans, accommodating them when necessary.
You can figure out the rest. I know, I know, not everyone here manages systems. I've done development, and that can really suck a$$, even when your boss *does* understand what you're up against. And I've done systems support that was more like fighting fire with a spray bottle.
I'm just sayin'
Until that time, I'm careful to regularly point out that things are running much, much more smoothly than anyone can remember. I'm either on site or no more than 15 minutes from being online (EVDO, w00t) to troubleshoot.
Hey, Jumper. Your talking points are showing.
It's only deafening silence if you choose not to listen. There's no comparison between the US Attorney turnover at the beginning of almost every first Presidential term and the very obviously political machinations of the US Attorney firings designed by Rove and executed by Gonzales' staff--mid-term, in clear retribution for those attorneys' refusal to pursue political agenda in order to outflank the opposing party.
Sure, these attorneys serve at the President's pleasure. I'd personally have simply shrugged and chalked it up to business as usual for this White House. It's the ham-handed and fumbling attempts at covering it up that drew attention to it, and the arrogant incompetence demonstrated by the appointed spokespeople that raised the hackles of the electorate. FFS, if one is going to play the political game, we want it done slickly, so that even if we notice, we can at least acknowledge the skill.
You have every right to ignore the facts. You also have the right to post falsehoods in the form of exaggeration here and in many other places. Believe as you wish; my advice is to refrain from laboring under the illusion that posting your indefensible beliefs here makes any difference.
Pretty safe bet, there. Bush will never, ever appear in front of any sort of official panel, jury, board, committee, or commission. Nor will this milquetoast Congress find the stones to so much as issue the subpoena.
The irony is that Clinton did not have to appear in the forum in which he perjured himself. I chalk it up to a lack of training, with the possible complication factor of feeling guilty about having been demonstrably guilty.
The high irony is that Clinton's approval ratings not only did not drop after his taped testimony was broadcast--it actually rose in some polls.
Nicely put. It's even funnier that people will engage in violence to back up their assertion that the war was fought over slavery. It's a fine point, but it was about the right to engage in slavery--or any other activity deemed illegal by the Federal government.
See also California's ongoing disagreement with the Feds about medicinal marijuana... which will almost certainly not result in secession or any sort of civil war.
Nice try, kid. Next time look it up instead of relying on memory, or, worse yet, relying on the memes of demagogues. Your apparent point is well taken, i.e., claiming not to remember when one actually does recall what happened does constitute a lie. Very difficult to prove, however.
The reply "I don't recall" did, indeed, make forgetfulness famous, during the Watergate hearings. It has been echoed many times since, but those hearings pre-empted daytime network programming and so became etched into popular culture.
I think that if anyone could screw up the simple plan, it's Dubya. I can't figure out how he made it into the catbird seat, i.e., was chosen to execute the plan. It seems obvious to me that he's the wildcard.
If there's any hope for foiling the plans of the Illuminati, it's Bush himself. I guess that's what happens when a True Believer gets to the top of the pyramid without figuring out what the real game is.
Yes, plenty will notice, but will be drowned out, even convinced of some other reason by old media and new talk shows.
I think it'll be cast and/or spun as reconciliation. You know, nation-healing, like Gerald Ford called the pardon of Nixon.
Hear, hear. The analogy about drinking resonates. The bored student just stirs the water with the straw--the thirst for knowledge makes you want to pick up the bucket and chug. There's an ocean of difference between the student who just wants to please the teacher and the one who transcends the concept of the student/teacher relationship in favor of satisfying profound curiosity about the subject. Recall that Newton didn't even need a teacher; he was happy to sit in his room and poke himself in the eye with a blunt knitting needle to better understand how the human eye perceives and processes light.
It wasn't until I realized that I wanted to understand computers--after trying theater, music, flipping burgers, working in a warehouse, transcribing Russian, teaching mentally retarded adults--that I really got motivated. I had developed this irrational fear of math, and when I realized that the curriculum for CS was a based on a math major, I hesitated for about 45 seconds. Then I just gritted my teeth and drove to the university and got started. Two months later I was in my first programming course, fifteen months after that I was interning as a sysadmin, eight more months and I had a UNIX system to myself with an assignment that required me to learn C in order to use a database API to "mechanize" purchasing for a regional phone company. Between internships, I'd ask my professors for more and they'd work with me to develop independent studies. During my final semester, the campus recruiters were peeing their pants because I already had a resume. Twenty years later, it's still all about digging in to figure out what's in it for me. Work has only been boring when I've forgotten this and found myself fulfilling someone else's ambition. Many times, it's been these very forums that remind me of this. Past the frosty piss and trolls, some of you have reawakened the curiosity because it's obvious that you know more than I do.
It's not--it can't be about being led the whole way. At some point, you have to realize--as in make real for yourself--that you want something bad enough to stay focused, to stay interested. My favorite professor used to present new programming concepts and then say, "Now go and convince yourself that this works."
This is not unlike the difference between playing around with, say, Perl, and having the language be the vehicle to get something that you want. I couldn't ever get math for math's sake, but when I saw it as the way to get and keep accounts on the computers at school, I saw the teachers in a different light.
And, of course, they weren't public school teachers, which is the matter at hand. Also, they could tell that I was after something. There's a noticeable difference to any teacher in the student who is engaged, who asks questions that indicate that he or she is committed to going beyond the subject matter of the course.
It also helped that I was paying my own way that time around. Your mileage may vary.
It's an entirely different experience when you're somehow in it for yourself. Up until my second time in college, I'd just been filling squares, trying to do what someone else told me. I thought there was something wrong with me because I knew I was intelligent, but I couldn't seem to get anything done. Straight A's with no plan is not going to bring anyone happiness. I didn't grok grammar by passing English in elementary school. I got it in Discrete Math. That unlocked what had been only rote memorization.
Then again, I did meet the guys who formed the Butthole Surfers while pretending to study Drama, so it wasn't a complete waste of time. Sometimes the value of an experience isn't apparent without the benefit of hindsight. Come to think of it, none of it was a waste. Even the sloppy attempts at "enriched" and "advanced" courses in middle school were valuable exposure to the subject matter. I developed the distinctions after I got myself aligned with what I wanted.
Then again--speaking of those golden Usenet days--I'm still trying to wean myself from fisking.
WOW. The site is just unbelievable. It's beyond ironic that the image on every page is that of a middle-aged man behind bars, dramatically lit, with a pissed-off and indignant look in his eyes. I'm guessing that the designers of the site (what was that gig like??) intended to portray a pornographer.
It looks more to me like someone convicted of doing something that he believed was not illegal.
The only good thing I see about the clampdown is the renaissance that will follow--if humans survive it, that is.