The "prejudicial" label fits, because Card is fundamentally asserting that his values are normative and should become universal. But how is that not the same as what we do when we call him a bigot?
It's different because the latter is not espousing a value so much as a meta-value: a value regarding values. Admittedly, it's a semantic mine field, but I would assert that there is a distinct difference between intolerance to intolerance, and intolerance in general.
More to the point, Card's brand of intolerance comes from prejudice and assumptions based on general attributes of a person (their sexuality). On other hand, intolerance to Card and his ilk is based on specific actions they have taken. It's the difference between treating someone as a criminal because they are black (prejudging), and treating someone as a criminal because they just confessed to robbing a liquor store (judging).
That's idiotic. Bigotry means treating people badly because of your prejudice. The key there is prejudice, as in prejudging, or (to be perfectly clear), judging based on assumptions before you actually confirm those assumptions. Card advocates the negative treatment of gays because he has prejudged that they are evil, or deviants, or want to force him to get gay married, or whatever it is people like that think. h4rr4r, on the other hand, is basing his treatment of Card on the way Card himself has acted. He judged him, but not prejudged him. So no, it's not bigoted.
No, claiming the movie is bad because you don't like someone associated with it would be an ad hominem fallacy. Boycotting it for the same reason involves no logical fallacy as it isn't an argument, it's an attempt to punish the person, or at least to make a point about your opinion of the person.
Anyway, I disagree. I don't think intolerance deserves tolerance. Not every point of view needs to be accepted just because it's somebody's opinions. Everyone has a right to their opinion, but that doesn't mean the rest of us can't object to it. At the risk of an RAA, Hitler had a particular point of view regarding Jews, and I dare say this point of view should not be tolerated.
Yes, tape drives are too expensive for my purposes, and there's still the issue of obsolescence. Anything that can be implemented in software (like a barcode scanner, I feel safe in assuming digital imaging equipment won't go away in the next century) is at least a safer bet than hardware. The issue then becomes resurrecting the knowledge to decode it, but not building or finding the hardware to do so.
Well there's a reason this is "news for nerds", not "news for practical people".
Yes, it would be pretty easy to re-type the information, which is one of the reasons I'm considering printing in plain text. But if there's a better way to do it (easier, more reliable) why wouldn't I want that? The whole reason I asked was to get opinions on what makes the most sense. Now I've got your opinion.
I'm really not too concerned about it being secure. I mentioned encryption as an upside/downside, but not a deal breaker. The main concern is that the data will be accessible for several decades, and in the event of a catastrophe.
You missed the point. Privacy is a secondary concern. The primary concern is backup, i.e., data availability for the far future and in the event of some catastrophe. Any digital copies will be subject to a myriad of vulnerabilities that paper doesn't have (obsolescence, data retention, etc). And if I put it on a server now, I have to keep that server going for the next 10 or 20 years. It's like those companies who rely on software that only works with windows 95 so they have to have some clunky old cream-colored tower sitting around somewhere just to access old records. Plus, it would need to be a remote server in order to be useful as a backup, and that means I have to rely on that provider still being around when I need them. If I put it on paper in some useful way and stick in a secure location, I don't have to worry about it again until the day I need the data.
The reason for not relying on digital backups in unrelated to being human readable. The issue with digital backups is general data retention, susceptibility to heat and moisture, and technological obsolescence. I already use digital backups but I want a paper back up on top of that for my most important data (hence "backup of a backup").
Interesting, thanks. I'll take a look. I'm a little hesitant about using an "outsider" format, meaning something that isn't widely used or known and has a high risk of going away when I need it in 20 years. The upside is that it's open source. The downside is that I would need to store either the source code or a good description of the format along with the data, and then I get into a chicken and egg problem.
Durable, perhaps, but their data retention is pretty lousy. Most mfrs spec it at about 10 years under ideal conditions. There's also the issue of format and interface obsolescence.
Well, the questions about barcode scanners are kind of outdated. Any android device can scan and decode barcodes with a multitude of free apps. Or a PC with a scanner or a digital camera.
I would argue that the most conventional "tried and true" method of archiving is ink on paper (or similar media). But there are a number of reasons I don't want to rely on digital backups. I have them, as a primary backup, but for my most important data, I want something that: a) is not subject to obsolescence; b) has a longer natural life expectancy (flash storage, for instance, usually has a data retention of only 10 years per spec); and c) is more robust against humidity, heat, and electrical extremes.
The amount of data is on the order of a few dozen kB. There are no legal requirements, this is only personal data I don't want to loose. Privacy is not a big concern (certainly not the main one), but it is a plus. The question of encryption is really just a matter of whether or not the encoding supports it (i.e., binary data). For instance, if I'm printing in plain text, I wouldn't encrypt it. If I'm printing barcodes, or encoded text, I probably would.
When I said "backup of a backup" I meant I've already got it backed up digitally. The paper backup is for the (admittedly unlikely) event that the digital backup becomes damaged, corrupted, obsolete, or otherwise inaccessible. For instance, a flash device will likely start loosing data after about a decade, according to most mfr specs. Hard disks can be easily damaged when left unused for a while, especially when subjected to excessive heat.
Most flash media is only specified for a data retention of about 10 years under ideal conditions. There's also the issue for trying to find a computer that can access a USB 2.0 flash drive in ten or twenty years.
Thanks for the idea, but there are a number of reasons I don't want to rely on digital storage. In fact, I do have a USB harddisk in the same fire box that I use for backups, but for my most important data, I want a second, more robust, backup. I only have data on the order of kilobytes, so cost is really not a concern. Digital storage of any practical variety is fairly susceptible to damage and just general data loss over time. There's also the very real possibility of obsolescence and an inability to access my data over the next few decades with a digital backup.
I agree, the robustness of a modern barcode is highly desirable, but I haven't found any that have good solutions for arbitrarily large amounts of data. Even the programs that generate them don't seem to have any built-in functionality for splitting data across multiple barcodes.
Hard disks are vulnerable to heat though, aren't they? In the event of a fire, the inside of a fire box can still get pretty hot, and I suspect a hard disk will take damage well below the burning point of paper.
Maybe I missed something: Why encrypt the hard drive if I'm going to tape the password to it?
The whole point of using a hardcopy is to avoid a number of problems with digital copies, the biggest of which is that harddisks, flash memory, and optical discs all suffer in terms of data longevity. They can also be damaged relatively easily, and, as someone mentioned above, data and hardware formats go obsolete and may be practically inaccessible in relatively short order.
Is love ever a deciding factor? My wife and I had to fill out quite a bit of paper work to get our marriage certificate, but I don't recall any forms where we had to indicate whether or not we loved each other. So as far as I can see, now that DOMA has been struck down, two roommates should be able to apply for a marriage license and get the same benefits, whether they love each other or not. I guess things get tricky if one of the partners is not a citizen or permanent resident: if what I learned from television is true, the INS may demand evidence of a loving and committed relationship.
I think your comment raises the question of why we have marriage benefits in the first place. I'm not suggesting we shouldn't have them, but I've never heard what the motivation is for benefits like special tax laws for married couples. Property, custody, inheritance, and medical rights I understand, you want to be able to pick somebody that you want to make decisions for you, share your property, take care of your kids, etc. That being the case, I think you're right, there's no good reason love needs to factor into that at all. But what are the reasons for offering tax breaks, and is there any reason they shouldn't apply to couples who aren't in love? I honestly don't know.
I think you're missing their point. They're not trying to say that marriage as a concept is religious, they're trying to say that the term marriage should not have a legal definition. Legally, the concept of marriage would be relabeled as "civil union" or something of that nature, and it would apply equally to gay and straight couples. The term "marriage" would have no legal definition but churches and other non governmental institutions that have traditionally performed marriages could continue to do so with the same label, but that label alone would not provide any government benefits.
Do it like RMS, download all the pages you might want to visit in a day, and browse them with an offline browser (and from a machine that never connects to the internet).
Isn't the whole point of onion routing that the endpoints are irrelevant? Ok, they can see your traffic, but we can assume that the NSA already has that capability. The point of onion routing is that they don't know where the traffic originates. They would need to operate a significant number of routers as well as endpoints in order to trace it back to the originator. Or, you know, if you do anything at all that identifies you while browsing with the same Tor connection (email, banking, shopping, logging in to anything with your real name or an established handle).
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The "prejudicial" label fits, because Card is fundamentally asserting that his values are normative and should become universal. But how is that not the same as what we do when we call him a bigot?
It's different because the latter is not espousing a value so much as a meta-value: a value regarding values. Admittedly, it's a semantic mine field, but I would assert that there is a distinct difference between intolerance to intolerance, and intolerance in general.
More to the point, Card's brand of intolerance comes from prejudice and assumptions based on general attributes of a person (their sexuality). On other hand, intolerance to Card and his ilk is based on specific actions they have taken. It's the difference between treating someone as a criminal because they are black (prejudging), and treating someone as a criminal because they just confessed to robbing a liquor store (judging).
That's idiotic. Bigotry means treating people badly because of your prejudice. The key there is prejudice, as in prejudging, or (to be perfectly clear), judging based on assumptions before you actually confirm those assumptions. Card advocates the negative treatment of gays because he has prejudged that they are evil, or deviants, or want to force him to get gay married, or whatever it is people like that think. h4rr4r, on the other hand, is basing his treatment of Card on the way Card himself has acted. He judged him, but not prejudged him. So no, it's not bigoted.
No, claiming the movie is bad because you don't like someone associated with it would be an ad hominem fallacy. Boycotting it for the same reason involves no logical fallacy as it isn't an argument, it's an attempt to punish the person, or at least to make a point about your opinion of the person.
Anyway, I disagree. I don't think intolerance deserves tolerance. Not every point of view needs to be accepted just because it's somebody's opinions. Everyone has a right to their opinion, but that doesn't mean the rest of us can't object to it. At the risk of an RAA, Hitler had a particular point of view regarding Jews, and I dare say this point of view should not be tolerated.
Yes, tape drives are too expensive for my purposes, and there's still the issue of obsolescence. Anything that can be implemented in software (like a barcode scanner, I feel safe in assuming digital imaging equipment won't go away in the next century) is at least a safer bet than hardware. The issue then becomes resurrecting the knowledge to decode it, but not building or finding the hardware to do so.
I haven't, though several others have recommended it. They're very interesting, but the issue is finding a device that will read them in 1000 years.
Jesus, you people will over-engineer ANYTHING.
Well there's a reason this is "news for nerds", not "news for practical people".
Yes, it would be pretty easy to re-type the information, which is one of the reasons I'm considering printing in plain text. But if there's a better way to do it (easier, more reliable) why wouldn't I want that? The whole reason I asked was to get opinions on what makes the most sense. Now I've got your opinion.
I'm really not too concerned about it being secure. I mentioned encryption as an upside/downside, but not a deal breaker. The main concern is that the data will be accessible for several decades, and in the event of a catastrophe.
You missed the point. Privacy is a secondary concern. The primary concern is backup, i.e., data availability for the far future and in the event of some catastrophe. Any digital copies will be subject to a myriad of vulnerabilities that paper doesn't have (obsolescence, data retention, etc). And if I put it on a server now, I have to keep that server going for the next 10 or 20 years. It's like those companies who rely on software that only works with windows 95 so they have to have some clunky old cream-colored tower sitting around somewhere just to access old records. Plus, it would need to be a remote server in order to be useful as a backup, and that means I have to rely on that provider still being around when I need them. If I put it on paper in some useful way and stick in a secure location, I don't have to worry about it again until the day I need the data.
The reason for not relying on digital backups in unrelated to being human readable. The issue with digital backups is general data retention, susceptibility to heat and moisture, and technological obsolescence. I already use digital backups but I want a paper back up on top of that for my most important data (hence "backup of a backup").
In what way is it future proof? It uses special purpose formats and relies on third party cloud services.
Interesting, thanks. I'll take a look. I'm a little hesitant about using an "outsider" format, meaning something that isn't widely used or known and has a high risk of going away when I need it in 20 years. The upside is that it's open source. The downside is that I would need to store either the source code or a good description of the format along with the data, and then I get into a chicken and egg problem.
Durable, perhaps, but their data retention is pretty lousy. Most mfrs spec it at about 10 years under ideal conditions. There's also the issue of format and interface obsolescence.
Well, the questions about barcode scanners are kind of outdated. Any android device can scan and decode barcodes with a multitude of free apps. Or a PC with a scanner or a digital camera.
I would argue that the most conventional "tried and true" method of archiving is ink on paper (or similar media). But there are a number of reasons I don't want to rely on digital backups. I have them, as a primary backup, but for my most important data, I want something that: a) is not subject to obsolescence; b) has a longer natural life expectancy (flash storage, for instance, usually has a data retention of only 10 years per spec); and c) is more robust against humidity, heat, and electrical extremes.
The amount of data is on the order of a few dozen kB. There are no legal requirements, this is only personal data I don't want to loose. Privacy is not a big concern (certainly not the main one), but it is a plus. The question of encryption is really just a matter of whether or not the encoding supports it (i.e., binary data). For instance, if I'm printing in plain text, I wouldn't encrypt it. If I'm printing barcodes, or encoded text, I probably would.
When I said "backup of a backup" I meant I've already got it backed up digitally. The paper backup is for the (admittedly unlikely) event that the digital backup becomes damaged, corrupted, obsolete, or otherwise inaccessible. For instance, a flash device will likely start loosing data after about a decade, according to most mfr specs. Hard disks can be easily damaged when left unused for a while, especially when subjected to excessive heat.
Interesting, I've never seen these. However, the issue then becomes finding a device that can access these in ten or twenty years.
I agree in general and for RAR in particular, but just to nitpick, base64 format is trivial and can realistically be encoded/decoded by hand.
Most flash media is only specified for a data retention of about 10 years under ideal conditions. There's also the issue for trying to find a computer that can access a USB 2.0 flash drive in ten or twenty years.
Thanks for the idea, but there are a number of reasons I don't want to rely on digital storage. In fact, I do have a USB harddisk in the same fire box that I use for backups, but for my most important data, I want a second, more robust, backup. I only have data on the order of kilobytes, so cost is really not a concern. Digital storage of any practical variety is fairly susceptible to damage and just general data loss over time. There's also the very real possibility of obsolescence and an inability to access my data over the next few decades with a digital backup.
I agree, the robustness of a modern barcode is highly desirable, but I haven't found any that have good solutions for arbitrarily large amounts of data. Even the programs that generate them don't seem to have any built-in functionality for splitting data across multiple barcodes.
Hard disks are vulnerable to heat though, aren't they? In the event of a fire, the inside of a fire box can still get pretty hot, and I suspect a hard disk will take damage well below the burning point of paper.
Maybe I missed something: Why encrypt the hard drive if I'm going to tape the password to it?
The whole point of using a hardcopy is to avoid a number of problems with digital copies, the biggest of which is that harddisks, flash memory, and optical discs all suffer in terms of data longevity. They can also be damaged relatively easily, and, as someone mentioned above, data and hardware formats go obsolete and may be practically inaccessible in relatively short order.
Is love ever a deciding factor? My wife and I had to fill out quite a bit of paper work to get our marriage certificate, but I don't recall any forms where we had to indicate whether or not we loved each other. So as far as I can see, now that DOMA has been struck down, two roommates should be able to apply for a marriage license and get the same benefits, whether they love each other or not. I guess things get tricky if one of the partners is not a citizen or permanent resident: if what I learned from television is true, the INS may demand evidence of a loving and committed relationship.
I think your comment raises the question of why we have marriage benefits in the first place. I'm not suggesting we shouldn't have them, but I've never heard what the motivation is for benefits like special tax laws for married couples. Property, custody, inheritance, and medical rights I understand, you want to be able to pick somebody that you want to make decisions for you, share your property, take care of your kids, etc. That being the case, I think you're right, there's no good reason love needs to factor into that at all. But what are the reasons for offering tax breaks, and is there any reason they shouldn't apply to couples who aren't in love? I honestly don't know.
I think you're missing their point. They're not trying to say that marriage as a concept is religious, they're trying to say that the term marriage should not have a legal definition. Legally, the concept of marriage would be relabeled as "civil union" or something of that nature, and it would apply equally to gay and straight couples. The term "marriage" would have no legal definition but churches and other non governmental institutions that have traditionally performed marriages could continue to do so with the same label, but that label alone would not provide any government benefits.
Do it like RMS, download all the pages you might want to visit in a day, and browse them with an offline browser (and from a machine that never connects to the internet).
Isn't the whole point of onion routing that the endpoints are irrelevant? Ok, they can see your traffic, but we can assume that the NSA already has that capability. The point of onion routing is that they don't know where the traffic originates. They would need to operate a significant number of routers as well as endpoints in order to trace it back to the originator. Or, you know, if you do anything at all that identifies you while browsing with the same Tor connection (email, banking, shopping, logging in to anything with your real name or an established handle).