And then you still get screwed when the 6 people who voted for the fringe guy are outnumbered by the 100 million who elect SantRomObama.
Are you people not reading what I write? Oh right; of course not. I forgot this is Slashdot... Silly me. Let me respond to your statement by quoting what you replied to:
None of them have a good chance of winning, but that's OK, your vote is so infinitesimally likely to make a difference in the race between the two parties anyway. Vote your conscience, that's the only way to be hold your head high and mutter "I told you so" in 2014.:)
Some of them are screwballs, some of them look fairly compelling, particularly for single-issue voters. None of them have a good chance of winning, but that's OK, your vote is so infinitesimally likely to make a difference in the race between the two parties anyway. Vote your conscience, that's the only way to be hold your head high and mutter "I told you so" in 2014.:)
Why, oh WHY on earth? Maybe it's because my experience with American is largely limited to flying into Haiti and coast-to-coast, but it's invariably a horrendous experience. Especially when compared to carriers like Southwest, who actually "gets" customer service.
In fact, I flew American back in January, and my Facebook status briefly said: "I am not in any way surprised that American Airlines is in bankruptcy."
Don't blame me - I voted the best that I knew how to try to correct egregious wrongs - blame the politicians.
I'm sorry, but if you were foolish enough in 2008 to see him as anything but what he is -- yet another (Chicago, even!) politician, you're kinda gullible (or, at least, insufficiently cynical.) (Don't worry, I fell for Bush 2000 myself, so I'm right there with you in the gullible camp.)
How am I supposed to vote?!?!?
Well, you could start by figuring out how to vote in the Republican primaries and voting for Paul. If Paul isn't palatable for you, there are plenty of other parties and candidates; chances are very good that you can find someone that you pretty well agree with out there somewhere.
To the sibling poster who claims that you "need to vote for him the next time, too", that's patently ridiculous. There are plenty of candidates for president who actually make a *credible* claim that they'll fight to restore our constitutionally-enshrined rights. Yes, they aren't likely to win, but I swear I'll go all medieval on you if you claim that I am throwing away my vote by voting for someone who believes as I do instead of voting for someone who I disagree slightly less with but is more likely to win.
No, he does deserver to be moddded down. It is not logical in any way.
If it's so self-evidently logical that the OP is wrong, why did you feel the need to enlighten us with an explanation of why he was wrong? Was it a waste of time, or did you possibly impart some knowledge that wouldn't have been passed on if the original statement had never been made? You did EXACTLY what should be done, instead of moderating an opinion into oblivion and leaving it unanswered, you replied and refuted it. THAT is the way that Slashdot comments are fruitful, not by abusing the moderation system.
For the record, I don't believe YOUR post deserves to be modded down, either. I'm sorry to see that it's been done, and I fear it might have been induced by my reply.
In my opinion, Flamebait and Troll are actions of intention. When I moderate down, I try to discern the intention of the poster -- were they attempting to incite something? Did they or should they have known better? Even if they were trying to incite something, do they have a legitimate point that CAN be replied to in an informative way?
Of course, more often I more try to find a good point-counterpoint thread and upmod both sides.
And we've all learned something from that conversation, right? That's why we should be encouraging opinions that differ from ours, not encouraging moderators to silence them. It provokes good discussion.
If you don't agree with use then you are stupid and ignorant.
As a Christian, I often find myself cringing at dogmatic statements such as this from some of my fellow Christians. I'm glad (and, I suppose, somewhat dismayed) to see that it's not just "us".
I see, so Japanese civilian casualties were okay because it saved US military lives.
Pretty much, yes. It's war; war is an ugly "us-or-them" fight to the death where a nation's very existence is on the line. That's why it must be avoided at all costs. Unfortunately, the US hasn't been very good at that of late.
In the case of Japan, while I don't take any pleasure out of the usage of nuclear weapons, in the end Japan was the aggressor. If you start a fist fight by punching me and I hit you over the head with a fire extinguisher, yes that's "cheating" in a fist fight, but I didn't ask for the fight.
So I'll reverse the question to you: Have you ever worked at State Government?
No, I have existed solely at the Federal level, although from what I can gather by friends who have and do work in state government, it's not all that different, at least in my state (MD).
I'm surprised that there aren't any provisions for small-value credit card purchases that can be approved at a lower level. *shrug*
I really do hope it works out well, in all sincerity. I have my doubts, but like R2D2, I have been known to make mistakes... from time to time...
I've got a slashdot UID of 5 digits, have contributed to the Linux kernel and other project, tech edited a book on Drupal, and been doing techy things for over 25 years now...
But have you ever (and I'm quite serious about this) worked on a government project where acquisitions are made, to understand the kind of "We'll get what we want, it's just a matter of the right amount of paperwork" shenanigans that go on? And as such, do you honestly think the CIO of any agency will actually care?
I'm also curious -- the legislation that others quoted doesn't make any mention of the size of the acquisition. Does this mean that every credit card purchase of software will require such justification to be sent to the CIO? And if so, do you honestly expect anything other than copy and paste boilerplate explanations that will be so numerous and repetitive as to be essentially meaningless?
Perhaps those issues are addressed, but to be honest, it seems like one of those "sounds like a great idea" measures that will increase the amount of paperwork that people have to get their jobs done, and at best will only provide some technical person a little bit of fodder to demonstrate to management that his suggestion to use some sort of free software to accomplish the task isn't completely off the mark.
seriously, it's taken the gop & tea nuts HOW many years to figure this out?
...
who knows? maybe there's hope that in another few decades they'll figure out fraud & forgery actually ARE crimes when committed by banks (not just individuals) or that molesting children & microwaving their parents doesn't make flying any safer or maybe even that spending $ arresting/prosecuting/incarcerating people for THC is basically setting it on fire...
Yeah, but once you've convinced the GOP of that then you have to go and convince the Dems. It'd probably be more efficient to teach both wings of the party at the same time.
"The Cloud" is for dopes. Period. If you stored mission- or life-critical data in "The Cloud", then you get what you deserve.
I'm glad you understand all "cloud" technologies and how they relate everyone else's business case and can perform the risk analysis for them. Saves us all a lot of work.
Counter-intuitively, Verizon and Verizon Wireless are different companies. Verizon owns a controlling share of Verizon Wireless, but a huge chunk of VZW is owned by Vodafone. (VZW is actually a DBA (Doing Business As), the company's real name is Cellco Parnership. Go figure.)
This is completely reverse to what companies in my country have started doing.
Oh, that's very much the case here in the US as well. To the point of being obnoxious.
I still opt for paper bills and mail in checks for the folks who don't take credit cards.
Perhaps it's because someone at Verizon Wireless was bothered at how much they were paying for credit/debit card transaction fees, and figured this was the way to recoup that cost.
You mean God? That's how the bible refers to him. Also, Jesus was a "he", and according to my doctrinal position Jesus was God, so it's similarly convenient.
So what exactly is the religious USA's beef with evolution an science in general?
Well, it's a fairly tough question to explain, because I don't necessarily share the opinion.:)
I've found the person who does a fairly good job of representing the young-earth-because-it's-critical-to-doctrine side is John MacArthur. You can watch a couple of his sermons where he elaborates, but here's a quickie article he wrote on the subject: http://www.gty.org/resources/articles/A135/creationism
The relevant quote:
If we wobble to any degree on the truth of this passage, we undermine the very foundations of our faith. After all, if God is not the Creator, then maybe He's not the Redeemer either. If we cannot believe the opening chapters of Scripture, how can we be certain of anything the Bible says?
(Even as I Christian, I have a hard time watching that because I want to throw things at him.:) )
I've found that I've had some very good conversations with fellow Christians who profoundly believe as MacArthur, and I've been thrilled to hear that many of them at least understand and be able to articulate my position, even if they don't agree.
(Hopefully you catch this; it's been a day and you're AC...)
When it comes to Creationism vs Evolution, it's really a battle of religions, because Evolution is a religion.
From a fellow Christian, please take this as nicely as possible:
Please stop trying to defend us; you are making it worse. Spend some time actually understanding your opponent's views (you've mischaracterized both science and the evolutionary process while demonstrating some pretty poor logic.) You sound like you've been reading a Bob Jones University biology textbook as your sole source of understanding of evolutionary process. I know this because I've been there before.
If an all-powerful being exists, that being must have the power to prove it's own existence. No such proof exists, and therefore it becomes necessary to invent excuses for the all-powerful being.
As a Christian (closest to Baptist in my beliefs), I personally believe that God had revealed himself to us to the extent he sees fit and necessary.
See a story that Jesus told in Luke 16:19-31. An excerpt:
“He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’
“Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’
“‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
“He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
Essentially, Jesus said "They have what they need to believe already." You (and even sometimes I) may disagree with that, but that's the stance that the (Christian) Bible seems to take on the matter.
(I have quite a few more thoughts on this, but unfortunately not the time to commit them to a post at this very moment.)
Slashdot Mirror
And then you still get screwed when the 6 people who voted for the fringe guy are outnumbered by the 100 million who elect SantRomObama.
Are you people not reading what I write? Oh right; of course not. I forgot this is Slashdot... Silly me. Let me respond to your statement by quoting what you replied to:
None of them have a good chance of winning, but that's OK, your vote is so infinitesimally likely to make a difference in the race between the two parties anyway. Vote your conscience, that's the only way to be hold your head high and mutter "I told you so" in 2014. :)
As I said, there will be plenty of candidates out there besides the nominees of the two major parties.
To help you get started, the venerable Wikipedia has a list of some of them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_third_party_and_independent_presidential_candidates,_2012
Some of them are screwballs, some of them look fairly compelling, particularly for single-issue voters. None of them have a good chance of winning, but that's OK, your vote is so infinitesimally likely to make a difference in the race between the two parties anyway. Vote your conscience, that's the only way to be hold your head high and mutter "I told you so" in 2014. :)
American Airlines used to be my favorite airline
Why, oh WHY on earth? Maybe it's because my experience with American is largely limited to flying into Haiti and coast-to-coast, but it's invariably a horrendous experience. Especially when compared to carriers like Southwest, who actually "gets" customer service.
In fact, I flew American back in January, and my Facebook status briefly said: "I am not in any way surprised that American Airlines is in bankruptcy."
Don't blame me - I voted the best that I knew how to try to correct egregious wrongs - blame the politicians.
I'm sorry, but if you were foolish enough in 2008 to see him as anything but what he is -- yet another (Chicago, even!) politician, you're kinda gullible (or, at least, insufficiently cynical.) (Don't worry, I fell for Bush 2000 myself, so I'm right there with you in the gullible camp.)
How am I supposed to vote?!?!?
Well, you could start by figuring out how to vote in the Republican primaries and voting for Paul. If Paul isn't palatable for you, there are plenty of other parties and candidates; chances are very good that you can find someone that you pretty well agree with out there somewhere.
To the sibling poster who claims that you "need to vote for him the next time, too", that's patently ridiculous. There are plenty of candidates for president who actually make a *credible* claim that they'll fight to restore our constitutionally-enshrined rights. Yes, they aren't likely to win, but I swear I'll go all medieval on you if you claim that I am throwing away my vote by voting for someone who believes as I do instead of voting for someone who I disagree slightly less with but is more likely to win.
Can't immediately find the Slashdot story, but this was mentioned a few years ago:
http://www.i-shovel.com/
No, he does deserver to be moddded down.
It is not logical in any way.
If it's so self-evidently logical that the OP is wrong, why did you feel the need to enlighten us with an explanation of why he was wrong? Was it a waste of time, or did you possibly impart some knowledge that wouldn't have been passed on if the original statement had never been made? You did EXACTLY what should be done, instead of moderating an opinion into oblivion and leaving it unanswered, you replied and refuted it. THAT is the way that Slashdot comments are fruitful, not by abusing the moderation system.
For the record, I don't believe YOUR post deserves to be modded down, either. I'm sorry to see that it's been done, and I fear it might have been induced by my reply.
In my opinion, Flamebait and Troll are actions of intention. When I moderate down, I try to discern the intention of the poster -- were they attempting to incite something? Did they or should they have known better? Even if they were trying to incite something, do they have a legitimate point that CAN be replied to in an informative way?
Of course, more often I more try to find a good point-counterpoint thread and upmod both sides.
And we've all learned something from that conversation, right? That's why we should be encouraging opinions that differ from ours, not encouraging moderators to silence them. It provokes good discussion.
You deserve to be modded down.
No, he doesn't. He deserves to have a logical and thoughtful refutation of his opinion posted in reply. I'm so sick of (-1, Disagree).
If you don't agree with use then you are stupid and ignorant.
As a Christian, I often find myself cringing at dogmatic statements such as this from some of my fellow Christians. I'm glad (and, I suppose, somewhat dismayed) to see that it's not just "us".
I see, so Japanese civilian casualties were okay because it saved US military lives.
Pretty much, yes. It's war; war is an ugly "us-or-them" fight to the death where a nation's very existence is on the line. That's why it must be avoided at all costs. Unfortunately, the US hasn't been very good at that of late.
In the case of Japan, while I don't take any pleasure out of the usage of nuclear weapons, in the end Japan was the aggressor. If you start a fist fight by punching me and I hit you over the head with a fire extinguisher, yes that's "cheating" in a fist fight, but I didn't ask for the fight.
So I'll reverse the question to you: Have you ever worked at State Government?
No, I have existed solely at the Federal level, although from what I can gather by friends who have and do work in state government, it's not all that different, at least in my state (MD).
I'm surprised that there aren't any provisions for small-value credit card purchases that can be approved at a lower level. *shrug*
I really do hope it works out well, in all sincerity. I have my doubts, but like R2D2, I have been known to make mistakes... from time to time...
I've got a slashdot UID of 5 digits, have contributed to the Linux kernel and other project, tech edited a book on Drupal, and been doing techy things for over 25 years now...
But have you ever (and I'm quite serious about this) worked on a government project where acquisitions are made, to understand the kind of "We'll get what we want, it's just a matter of the right amount of paperwork" shenanigans that go on? And as such, do you honestly think the CIO of any agency will actually care?
I'm also curious -- the legislation that others quoted doesn't make any mention of the size of the acquisition. Does this mean that every credit card purchase of software will require such justification to be sent to the CIO? And if so, do you honestly expect anything other than copy and paste boilerplate explanations that will be so numerous and repetitive as to be essentially meaningless?
Perhaps those issues are addressed, but to be honest, it seems like one of those "sounds like a great idea" measures that will increase the amount of paperwork that people have to get their jobs done, and at best will only provide some technical person a little bit of fodder to demonstrate to management that his suggestion to use some sort of free software to accomplish the task isn't completely off the mark.
seriously, it's taken the gop & tea nuts HOW many years to figure this out?
...
who knows? maybe there's hope that in another few decades they'll figure out fraud & forgery actually ARE crimes when committed by banks (not just individuals) or that molesting children & microwaving their parents doesn't make flying any safer or maybe even that spending $ arresting/prosecuting/incarcerating people for THC is basically setting it on fire...
Yeah, but once you've convinced the GOP of that then you have to go and convince the Dems. It'd probably be more efficient to teach both wings of the party at the same time.
I'm not a bad kisser. It's just that I have an unreliable network connection! Why did they have to use UDP for this?!
I hear slashcode locked your cat in your bedroom as well.
"The Cloud" is for dopes. Period. If you stored mission- or life-critical data in "The Cloud", then you get what you deserve.
I'm glad you understand all "cloud" technologies and how they relate everyone else's business case and can perform the risk analysis for them. Saves us all a lot of work.
Counter-intuitively, Verizon and Verizon Wireless are different companies. Verizon owns a controlling share of Verizon Wireless, but a huge chunk of VZW is owned by Vodafone. (VZW is actually a DBA (Doing Business As), the company's real name is Cellco Parnership. Go figure.)
This is completely reverse to what companies in my country have started doing.
Oh, that's very much the case here in the US as well. To the point of being obnoxious.
I still opt for paper bills and mail in checks for the folks who don't take credit cards.
Perhaps it's because someone at Verizon Wireless was bothered at how much they were paying for credit/debit card transaction fees, and figured this was the way to recoup that cost.
When someone starts quoting the Bible to show how God really exists
Well then, it's a good thing I didn't do that. Please re-read with your comprehension module loaded.
You mean God? That's how the bible refers to him. Also, Jesus was a "he", and according to my doctrinal position Jesus was God, so it's similarly convenient.
So what exactly is the religious USA's beef with evolution an science in general?
Well, it's a fairly tough question to explain, because I don't necessarily share the opinion. :)
I've found the person who does a fairly good job of representing the young-earth-because-it's-critical-to-doctrine side is John MacArthur. You can watch a couple of his sermons where he elaborates, but here's a quickie article he wrote on the subject: http://www.gty.org/resources/articles/A135/creationism
The relevant quote:
If you're REALLY curious about the mentality behind it, watch this sermon: http://www.gty.org/resources/sermons/90-359/the-theology-of-creation
(Even as I Christian, I have a hard time watching that because I want to throw things at him. :) )
I've found that I've had some very good conversations with fellow Christians who profoundly believe as MacArthur, and I've been thrilled to hear that many of them at least understand and be able to articulate my position, even if they don't agree.
(Hopefully you catch this; it's been a day and you're AC...)
Why are you replying to me? Or did you miss that the text you're refuting was quoted text?
When it comes to Creationism vs Evolution, it's really a battle of religions, because Evolution is a religion.
From a fellow Christian, please take this as nicely as possible:
Please stop trying to defend us; you are making it worse. Spend some time actually understanding your opponent's views (you've mischaracterized both science and the evolutionary process while demonstrating some pretty poor logic.) You sound like you've been reading a Bob Jones University biology textbook as your sole source of understanding of evolutionary process. I know this because I've been there before.
If an all-powerful being exists, that being must have the power to prove it's own existence. No such proof exists, and therefore it becomes necessary to invent excuses for the all-powerful being.
As a Christian (closest to Baptist in my beliefs), I personally believe that God had revealed himself to us to the extent he sees fit and necessary.
See a story that Jesus told in Luke 16:19-31. An excerpt:
Essentially, Jesus said "They have what they need to believe already." You (and even sometimes I) may disagree with that, but that's the stance that the (Christian) Bible seems to take on the matter.
(I have quite a few more thoughts on this, but unfortunately not the time to commit them to a post at this very moment.)