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User: jmkelly

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Comments · 16

  1. Re:I'm not even a fan, but on Orson Scott Card's Superman Story Shelved After Homophobia Controversy · · Score: 1

    When a majority of voters decide to deprive certain people of their rights--by making slavery legal, or mixed-race marriages illegal, for example--it's called the tyranny of the majority.
    It's one of the signal flaws of direct democracy and one of the reasons for having a judiciary that can overrule the "will of the people." Because if your rights depend on the mood of the electorate this year, you don't really have any rights.

  2. As the tree grows on Orson Scott Card's Superman Story Shelved After Homophobia Controversy · · Score: 1

    In "Ulysses," any time a character says something antisemitic, you can be sure that character is intended to be seen as an idiot. It's a bit of a jump from James Joyce's fictional characters to real people, but I think it's a fairly reliable principle: bigots make bad art. Bigotry is always imposed on you by your parents and teachers--left to yourself, you might find homosexuality pretty strange but not a moral issue--and believing uncritically whatever your elders teach you is not the way to become a great artist.
    There are exceptions, of course: Leni Riefenstahl, Richard Wagner. But I think they might have been even better artists had they not been crippled by their bigotry (or perhaps, in Riefenstahl's case, her amorality).

  3. Re:Nothing more than McCarthyism on Orson Scott Card's Superman Story Shelved After Homophobia Controversy · · Score: 1

    So you're being oppressed because you're no longer allowed to discriminate against gays (which is by no means the norm--plenty of states still allow you to do so)?
    I guess racists are being oppressed because they're being forced to share lunch counters and barracks with African-Americans.
    You want tolerance? Show some.

  4. The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg on Ask Slashdot: What Books Have Had a Significant Impact On Your Life? · · Score: 1

    In addition to many already named, this will give you some nuts-and-bolts guidance on improving your habits, which will in turn improve your character, without which a leader is worse than nothing.
    If you want to get a supervisory job, though, I would recommend, in addition to reading books, taking the lead on some projects outside the office. Even if you just lead a half-dozen friends picking up trash at the park, it's experience and it'll teach you something. On a resume, what you've read doesn't even show up. What you've led, does.

  5. Re:Not the Bible. on Ask Slashdot: What Books Have Had a Significant Impact On Your Life? · · Score: 1

    First, when you say "western hemisphere" I think you mean "European and Euro-American culture," more often called "western culture."
    Second, if that were true, Shakespeare's plays would include "Abraham and Isaac," "David, King of Israel," and "Jacob and Rachel," not "Julius Caesar," "Henry V," and "Romeo and Juliet." Shakespeare--like most other artists--drew heavily from classic Greek and Roman literature, not from the Bible.
    I'm not saying the Bible isn't there--Joyce's "Finnegans Wake" draws heavily on such Old Testament tropes as Adam, Eve, Noah, and Jacob & Esau--but if you tried to make sense of Western culture by tracing every reference back to the Bible, you'd come up with a lot of dead ends.

  6. short & frequent, yes; dunno about daily on Ask Slashdot: Are Daily Stand-Up Meetings More Productive? · · Score: 1

    At a former job we had weekly standup meetings of no more than 45 minutes' duration, and generally they were only 30 minutes. They were invaluable. No one got enough time to preach or argue; we just had time to update the group on the state of current projects, issues, etc. They were better than two-hour monthly meetings could have been.
    Daily, now, that's pretty hard-core. But if it's focused and brief, it could be a good thing. You need that group mind sometimes if you're going to work as a group.

  7. Wow, you really did it wrong on Ask Slashdot: Do I Give IT a Login On Our Dept. Server? · · Score: 1

    Yes, you should give IT a login on your rogue server. A root login. And you should beg their pardon for setting up a server on their network without their permission. How are they supposed to run their network and keep it secure with people like you popping up servers in every nook and cranny? (Rest assured you're not the only one.)

    Stop with the anarchy. If I were running IT there, I'd give you 3 minutes to turn that box over to the people who run boxes like that for a living or get your whole department removed from the network.

  8. Re:Tasers are more lethal, not less lethal on Testing the Safety of Tasers On Meth-Addled Sheep · · Score: 1

    If police can't subdue people with their bare hands and training, then they shouldn't be police.

    Right.... If Batman can do it, why not Officer Murphy?

  9. Re:Simply put you don't shoot wounded and unarmed on Wikileaks Releases Video of Journalist Killings · · Score: 1

    I went back and watched this section repeatedly. I grant that it may have been hard to tell whether the guy was holding an RPG or a camera, but I think the "sneaking behavior" is in the eye of the beholder. I saw nothing sneaky, not at 480p anyway.

  10. Re: You know what 's better than a tumbleweed? on Could the Tumbleweed Rover Dominate Mars? · · Score: 1

    A guy walking around on the Martian surface.

    Consider yourself nominated. Don't forget your lunch.

  11. Re:Yea right... on Could the Tumbleweed Rover Dominate Mars? · · Score: 1

    Were you watching? The idea is that these tumbleweeds are CHEAP -- no wheels, no motors, hardly any steering. If one of them gets stuck in a hole, no problem. It studies what it finds in the hole while the rest continue to roll around.

  12. Translation on Write Bits Directly Onto a Hard Drive Platter? · · Score: 1

    I think what this guy really wants to do is get a lot of Slashdotters to post speculative, mostly-useless, and silly replies.

    He did pretty well.

  13. Re:In other words, on Microsoft VP Suggests 'Net Tax To Clean Computers · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately, my linux box also crashes (or at least hangs) periodically. I have a sneaking suspicion it's related to the nvidia driver.

    I think your Linux box is not typical. The first Linux box I built was made from junk, literally pulled off the scrap heap, and it NEVER crashed or slowed down except for hardware failures. And I barely knew what I was doing when I built it. Every Linux box I've ever built has been the same way -- not necessarily perfect, but stable as hell.

    Sorry about yours....

  14. you'd have to be pretty stupid.... on New "Spear Phishing" Attacks Target IT Admins · · Score: 1

    I told my boss (not a techie by a long shot) about this. Her response was similar to MightyMartian's, only it started with "How could anyone be that stupid?"

    So yeah, we all get tired and get the stupid sometimes, but when even a suit can see it, you have to admit that falling for something like this is pretty darn stupid.

  15. Fold in a history-of-science lesson on What Objects To Focus On For School Astronomy? · · Score: 1

    Have them repeat Galileo's observations -- the elements of them have been suggested already, but I would put them in the historical framework. It would contribute to learning in other subjects and possibly give your students a better grounding in the basics of the scientific method and worldview.

  16. Re:China is not a Left Wing or Communist State. on China Arrests Thousands In Internet Porn Crackdown · · Score: 1

    I suppose the same can be said of conservative Muslims (e.g., the governments of Saudi Arabia and Iran) and fundamentalist Christians in the USA: they hate porn because they revere women. And yet the status of women in those societies -- in all strata -- is generally lower, their freedoms more curtailed, than in societies where porn is tolerated, e.g. Denmark, Sweden, Germany.

    I don't deny that much porn demeans women. But in the real world, crusades against porn and oppression of women more often than not coexist, and are even run by the same people.