Maann.. I don't know if I could stomach Tribes. Imagine getting hit square in the chest with a shockwave cannon and being thrown off a platform, spinning wildly through the air, plummeting hundreds and hundreds of feet, until your eventual gory collision with the ground below.
That's the kind of thing that'll give you post-traumatic stress disorder.
I rather have A glove (a la NES), goggles, and a mouse.
I forget where this was from, but I remember the quote, and it seems apropos:
When the term "virtual reality" came into play, Sociologists panicked and predicted that people would withdraw from the real world in favor of the virtual. When the experienced turned out to be more like playing Pac-Man with a bowling ball taped to your head, the excitement died down.
I can explain this. At least, as well as Jon Katz could.
The pantscam shows us the danger of American culture in conjunction with the internet. Americans have been obsessed with celebrity and exposure since the first non-silent motion pictures. Now, easy web access gives us the ability to gain as much exposure as we could possibly want.
The result? First, people start sticking web cams in front of their computers. Then, in their bedrooms, showers, refrigerators. Then, in their pants, toilets, and attached to their toothbrushes.
How can we reverse this trend? Well, we can't. Pretty soon, Americans will voluntarily be wearing these tremendous get-ups with cameras sticking every direction, which will enable them to be filmed twenty-four hours a day from fifty angles.
I apologize for my delay in answering this thread which no one will ever read.
Whether a culture considers murder to be a crime is totally absolute, because murder is defined as unlawful killing. Whether a culture considers a particular killing to be a murder is subjective.
If you believe that law is totally absolute, I've got some beachfront property in Utah for you. Sure, I see what you're saying - "Murder is defined as 'criminal killing'". But even a definition is very subjective. Anyone can see that a dictionary's denotative definition is often worthless compared to the common-usage connotative definition. The issues of whether murder is criminal and whether a specific killing is a murder are more linked than you make them out to be. Often, a jury will make a decision based on the fact that they don't accept the legal definition of murder.
Now, certainly, I believe that there are objective facts. To me, an objective fact is a fact which can be demonstrated--and repeated--to anyone; for example, "When you throw a quarter in the air, it will fall to the ground."
If you drop a pencil on the ground, it becomes a fact to you and me, because we have seen it, and it could be repeated. When we relay that fact to someone else, however, it becomes hearsay, and can no longer be trusted as fact. Let me say right now: I just threw a rolled-up velcro strip at my co-worker's head. Can you safely consider that a fact?
1. The definition of "murder" varies by culture and situation;
2. The definition of "crime" varies by culture and situation;
3. Whether a culture considers murder to be a crime at all is not absolute; and
4. Whether a killing is "unlawful" could be subjected to different cultural standards.
If you dropped a pencil in front of me once, that could be construed as fact to the immediate parties (you and me), but to no one else. First, perceptions are fallible and I could, for some reason, merely believe you to have dropped a pencil in front of me. I make it a point never to trust anyone's perception of an incident. Some people exaggerate; some cast themselves in a postive light; some lie completely. Second, if I reported the information that a pencil had been dropped to someone, and they were skeptical about it, there'd be no way to verify it. So, to them, "A pencil was dropped in front of Chiasmus by AnotherMacHack" could not be construed as fact.
Even "Murder is a crime" is very, very subjective.
First, take murder as "The unlawful killing of one human being by another." Does this include war? Well, you might say, "No", because war isn't unlawful. But, then, Milosovic just had a war with Bosnia (?) and we're accusing him of being a "war criminal" and want him to stand trial in the U.S. Has he committed murder? If so, is it a crime?
Second, the law itself is subjective, so the phrase "the unlawful killing" is subject to interpretation, as well. If a man beats his wife for 20 years and she shoots him, was her action unlawful? Well, that's decided by the opinions of seven random people in her area.
I'm not suggesting that murder isn't a crime; it's my strongly held opinion that it is. But it's just too subjective to be labeled a fact. "The netmask 255.255.255.192 represents 64 addresses" is a fact. It's repeatable and quantifiable.
Personally, I still like the idea that a state is a somewhat powerful political entity.
If we removed the electoral college, consider this: if every state were in favor of Bush, 51-49, and California was 100% behind Gore, Gore would win - despite the fact that he had a minority in 49 states.
Yes, I know it's an extreme example of what could go wrong. But, then, people only tend to focus on the extreme examples of what goes wrong in the status quo:)
I going to respond to the troll, just for the hell of it.
Unless something is quantifiable and repeatable, it is an opinion. Even opinions held by everyone or nearly everyone such as "Murder is a crime" or "Humans are more intelligent than rabbits" or "Polluting the water with cyanide is bad" are nonetheless opinions.
None of your facts are quantifiable or repeatable. They are not scientific facts such as "The molar mass of carbon". Therefore, they, too, are opinions.
That's the correct position on the internet, IMHO. It still doesn't get the libertarians my vote.
America's got a lot of problems, but it's pretty prosperous overall. It's not a bad enough system that we should take our current paradigm, where the government takes 50% of our money for itself to turn around and tell us what to do, and move that DRASTICALLY to 100% (Stalinist communism) or 0% (Pure libertarianism).
What we ought to do is look for a candidate who wants to protect our rights and shrink goverment, say, 20%. Sadly, no such candidate exists.
Well, except for abortion, gay rights, military action, gun registration, workers rights, corportate welfare, social saftey net, and a couple dozen other things....
Don't confuse "Close to home" with "Important to me".
If these issues are all "close to home," you'd seem to imply that you're a pregnant lesbian ex-soldier who can barely survive on the $5.15 you now make at Wal Mart.
I went ahead and read some of your posts on other discussions, and I can honestly say that I hope you try to delete iexplorer.exe and save us the trouble of having to hear from you for a couple weeks.
I think he may have been referring to the fact that Microsoft's software is so integrated that removing Internet Explorer will cripple your ability to even look at your system files (unless you drop to a prompt).
By contrast, if you do a dpkg --purge mozilla, you'll probably find "ls" intact:) At least... I hope so.
Actually, I think it tends to be more of a hardware issue than a software issue. And, rightly so. Whether you're an English-speaking scuba diver or a Basque merchant, a bullet through the head will have relatively the same effect...
On the hardware topic, though, I read an article a couple years back about a group 8of electrical engineers creating a computer in their garage with the processor in a cube format, which could aparently detect damage to the circuitry and route around it, so, theoretically, you could throw a javelin at the thing and it would keep running, albeit at reduced speed. Can't seem to find any links on it, though..
If the Office paperclip could learn, he'd burn out on his job pretty quick. I can just imagine a conversation now.
"Paperclip, where did I save the letter to my mom?"
"Try/dev/null."
"I can't find/dev/null... is that anything like C:\My Documents?"
"Maybe you should get a real operating system. Now, leave me alone. I rewrote your damn letter. It's saved as FUNNY_STUFF.TXT.SHS."
Re:Throw-away accounts won't save you
on
Anonymity
·
· Score: 2
Each step along that trail can be subpoenaed, which is what's being discussed here.
Not if you plug six laptop computers into a public phone bank like in the movie Hackers!
Your metaphor is AWFUL. It kind of reminds me of that scene in Cryptonomicon where the acedemia guy says, "On the information superhighway, who will have access to the on-ramps?" and Randy screams, "The information superhighway is a fucking metaphor!"
I've never seen slippery slope arguments to hold water anyway. Like, "This guy says we shouldn't give kids allowances! If we don't stop him soon, we'll be legalizing child abuse and pretty soon we'll be cooking our own newborn children and eating them with ranch dressing!"
Maybe that's a ridiculous example, but I don't think it's a hell of a lot more ridiculous than "If Vietnam becomes communist, soon England and then the U.S. will follow suit! Why? Well, it's a slippery slope!"
I call him an idiot because he posted without even reading the article. This is my sole reason. Don't drag me into some religious debate because I've been in many and it's impossble for either side to defend any points because they're not debating from the same paradigm.
I was just wondering to myself, "If I had $500,000,000 in my wallet, how much would I spend on the Deja archives?"
I came to the conclusion that I would spend nothing at all. Why? Because I feel that ideally, these archives should be free to all and any attempt to charge for access would be somehow wrong. These are ideas in their purest form, when they were just first beginning to be transferred into digital format en masse. This stuff belongs in a museum, not a pay site.
On the other hand.. maintaining such a behemoth for no profit would suck, and would take someone far more idealistic than me.
In conclusion, I don't want Deja, and anyone who does want it will either be A) A zealot we admire but secretly resent; or B) A big businessman with a stupid business plan and no soul.
Two years ago, I worked at Tower Records. That's $5.15/hr, or about $41.20 a day, or roughly $1,200 a month, gross. Now let's take a fictious computer programmer who makes $48,000 a year, or $4,000 a month, gross.
Now, I don't know where you live, but a decent figure for rent in a place where you won't get shot or robbed the first day in my area is $500. Let's say income tax is a flat 20%.
So Tower Records employee comes away with $960 a month ($240 taxes), minus $500 rent, leaving $460 a month for food, rent, car insurance, power, etc. Fictitious programmer comes away with $3200 a month ($800 taxes), which should be more than enough than any single guy would ever need to live comfortably.
Now, let me ask you, if Tower Records guy, who (I know from experience) works a much more physically and socially grueling and difficult shift than Computer Programmer, ends up beating up Computer Programmer and stealing $200 from him so he can eat, can you really blame him? Well, yes, you can. But you can see why he did it anyway.
So, I say, structure the tax so Tower Records Guy can keep his $240--even if Computer Programmer has to pay $1024. And, yes, I am a programmer, although I am not that good. Of course, the best scenario would be to end the war on drugs so Tower Records Guy can pay $0 and Computer Programmer can pay $600:)
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Maann.. I don't know if I could stomach Tribes. Imagine getting hit square in the chest with a shockwave cannon and being thrown off a platform, spinning wildly through the air, plummeting hundreds and hundreds of feet, until your eventual gory collision with the ground below.
That's the kind of thing that'll give you post-traumatic stress disorder.
I rather have A glove (a la NES), goggles, and a mouse.
I forget where this was from, but I remember the quote, and it seems apropos:
When the term "virtual reality" came into play, Sociologists panicked and predicted that people would withdraw from the real world in favor of the virtual. When the experienced turned out to be more like playing Pac-Man with a bowling ball taped to your head, the excitement died down.
I can explain this. At least, as well as Jon Katz could.
The pantscam shows us the danger of American culture in conjunction with the internet. Americans have been obsessed with celebrity and exposure since the first non-silent motion pictures. Now, easy web access gives us the ability to gain as much exposure as we could possibly want.
The result? First, people start sticking web cams in front of their computers. Then, in their bedrooms, showers, refrigerators. Then, in their pants, toilets, and attached to their toothbrushes.
How can we reverse this trend? Well, we can't. Pretty soon, Americans will voluntarily be wearing these tremendous get-ups with cameras sticking every direction, which will enable them to be filmed twenty-four hours a day from fifty angles.
I apologize for my delay in answering this thread which no one will ever read.
Whether a culture considers murder to be a crime is totally absolute, because murder is defined as unlawful killing. Whether a culture considers a particular killing to be a murder is subjective.
If you believe that law is totally absolute, I've got some beachfront property in Utah for you. Sure, I see what you're saying - "Murder is defined as 'criminal killing'". But even a definition is very subjective. Anyone can see that a dictionary's denotative definition is often worthless compared to the common-usage connotative definition. The issues of whether murder is criminal and whether a specific killing is a murder are more linked than you make them out to be. Often, a jury will make a decision based on the fact that they don't accept the legal definition of murder.
Now, certainly, I believe that there are objective facts. To me, an objective fact is a fact which can be demonstrated--and repeated--to anyone; for example, "When you throw a quarter in the air, it will fall to the ground."
If you drop a pencil on the ground, it becomes a fact to you and me, because we have seen it, and it could be repeated. When we relay that fact to someone else, however, it becomes hearsay, and can no longer be trusted as fact. Let me say right now: I just threw a rolled-up velcro strip at my co-worker's head. Can you safely consider that a fact?
That was a very, very insightful post.
...FOR ME TO POOP ON!
Mr. Katz, you've always been against the mass stereotyping of geeks, such that I find it rude that you would do the same to real news outlets
Katz isn't against the stereotyping of geeks.. he just wants to have a monopoly on it.
I believe the points I was making are as follows:
1. The definition of "murder" varies by culture and situation;
2. The definition of "crime" varies by culture and situation;
3. Whether a culture considers murder to be a crime at all is not absolute; and
4. Whether a killing is "unlawful" could be subjected to different cultural standards.
If you dropped a pencil in front of me once, that could be construed as fact to the immediate parties (you and me), but to no one else. First, perceptions are fallible and I could, for some reason, merely believe you to have dropped a pencil in front of me. I make it a point never to trust anyone's perception of an incident. Some people exaggerate; some cast themselves in a postive light; some lie completely. Second, if I reported the information that a pencil had been dropped to someone, and they were skeptical about it, there'd be no way to verify it. So, to them, "A pencil was dropped in front of Chiasmus by AnotherMacHack" could not be construed as fact.
Even "Murder is a crime" is very, very subjective.
First, take murder as "The unlawful killing of one human being by another." Does this include war? Well, you might say, "No", because war isn't unlawful. But, then, Milosovic just had a war with Bosnia (?) and we're accusing him of being a "war criminal" and want him to stand trial in the U.S. Has he committed murder? If so, is it a crime?
Second, the law itself is subjective, so the phrase "the unlawful killing" is subject to interpretation, as well. If a man beats his wife for 20 years and she shoots him, was her action unlawful? Well, that's decided by the opinions of seven random people in her area.
I'm not suggesting that murder isn't a crime; it's my strongly held opinion that it is. But it's just too subjective to be labeled a fact. "The netmask 255.255.255.192 represents 64 addresses" is a fact. It's repeatable and quantifiable.
Personally, I still like the idea that a state is a somewhat powerful political entity.
:)
If we removed the electoral college, consider this: if every state were in favor of Bush, 51-49, and California was 100% behind Gore, Gore would win - despite the fact that he had a minority in 49 states.
Yes, I know it's an extreme example of what could go wrong. But, then, people only tend to focus on the extreme examples of what goes wrong in the status quo
I going to respond to the troll, just for the hell of it.
Unless something is quantifiable and repeatable, it is an opinion. Even opinions held by everyone or nearly everyone such as "Murder is a crime" or "Humans are more intelligent than rabbits" or "Polluting the water with cyanide is bad" are nonetheless opinions.
None of your facts are quantifiable or repeatable. They are not scientific facts such as "The molar mass of carbon". Therefore, they, too, are opinions.
That's the correct position on the internet, IMHO. It still doesn't get the libertarians my vote.
America's got a lot of problems, but it's pretty prosperous overall. It's not a bad enough system that we should take our current paradigm, where the government takes 50% of our money for itself to turn around and tell us what to do, and move that DRASTICALLY to 100% (Stalinist communism) or 0% (Pure libertarianism).
What we ought to do is look for a candidate who wants to protect our rights and shrink goverment, say, 20%. Sadly, no such candidate exists.
Well, except for abortion, gay rights, military action, gun registration, workers rights, corportate welfare, social saftey net, and a couple dozen other things....
Don't confuse "Close to home" with "Important to me".
If these issues are all "close to home," you'd seem to imply that you're a pregnant lesbian ex-soldier who can barely survive on the $5.15 you now make at Wal Mart.
I went ahead and read some of your posts on other discussions, and I can honestly say that I hope you try to delete iexplorer.exe and save us the trouble of having to hear from you for a couple weeks.
I am so going to sue you. I sprinted down to my car and gave my laptop a bowl of water and now look what happened.
I think he may have been referring to the fact that Microsoft's software is so integrated that removing Internet Explorer will cripple your ability to even look at your system files (unless you drop to a prompt).
:) At least... I hope so.
By contrast, if you do a dpkg --purge mozilla, you'll probably find "ls" intact
Actually, I think it tends to be more of a hardware issue than a software issue. And, rightly so. Whether you're an English-speaking scuba diver or a Basque merchant, a bullet through the head will have relatively the same effect...
On the hardware topic, though, I read an article a couple years back about a group 8of electrical engineers creating a computer in their garage with the processor in a cube format, which could aparently detect damage to the circuitry and route around it, so, theoretically, you could throw a javelin at the thing and it would keep running, albeit at reduced speed. Can't seem to find any links on it, though..
If the Office paperclip could learn, he'd burn out on his job pretty quick. I can just imagine a conversation now.
/dev/null." /dev/null... is that anything like C:\My Documents?"
"Paperclip, where did I save the letter to my mom?"
"Try
"I can't find
"Maybe you should get a real operating system. Now, leave me alone. I rewrote your damn letter. It's saved as FUNNY_STUFF.TXT.SHS."
Each step along that trail can be subpoenaed, which is what's being discussed here.
Not if you plug six laptop computers into a public phone bank like in the movie Hackers!
Your metaphor is AWFUL. It kind of reminds me of that scene in Cryptonomicon where the acedemia guy says, "On the information superhighway, who will have access to the on-ramps?" and Randy screams, "The information superhighway is a fucking metaphor!"
I've never seen slippery slope arguments to hold water anyway. Like, "This guy says we shouldn't give kids allowances! If we don't stop him soon, we'll be legalizing child abuse and pretty soon we'll be cooking our own newborn children and eating them with ranch dressing!"
Maybe that's a ridiculous example, but I don't think it's a hell of a lot more ridiculous than "If Vietnam becomes communist, soon England and then the U.S. will follow suit! Why? Well, it's a slippery slope!"
Just because this may not coincide with some moderator's opinion on tax structure does NOT make it flamebait!!!!
I call him an idiot because he posted without even reading the article. This is my sole reason. Don't drag me into some religious debate because I've been in many and it's impossble for either side to defend any points because they're not debating from the same paradigm.
I was just wondering to myself, "If I had $500,000,000 in my wallet, how much would I spend on the Deja archives?"
I came to the conclusion that I would spend nothing at all. Why? Because I feel that ideally, these archives should be free to all and any attempt to charge for access would be somehow wrong. These are ideas in their purest form, when they were just first beginning to be transferred into digital format en masse. This stuff belongs in a museum, not a pay site.
On the other hand.. maintaining such a behemoth for no profit would suck, and would take someone far more idealistic than me.
In conclusion, I don't want Deja, and anyone who does want it will either be A) A zealot we admire but secretly resent; or B) A big businessman with a stupid business plan and no soul.
Boy, hacking your firewall wasn't hard at all!
I SSH'ed to that address and found that I could log on using *MY OWN ROOT PASSWORD*
What really threw me was that you named your box the same thing that I named mine... what a coincidence.
It's all in the Bible.
Perhaps if you had READ THE ARTICLE, you'd have discovered that Discover included Divine Intervention as an Armageddon possibility.
Idiot! Read before you troll!
Let's think about this "flat tax" thing.
:)
Two years ago, I worked at Tower Records. That's $5.15/hr, or about $41.20 a day, or roughly $1,200 a month, gross. Now let's take a fictious computer programmer who makes $48,000 a year, or $4,000 a month, gross.
Now, I don't know where you live, but a decent figure for rent in a place where you won't get shot or robbed the first day in my area is $500. Let's say income tax is a flat 20%.
So Tower Records employee comes away with $960 a month ($240 taxes), minus $500 rent, leaving $460 a month for food, rent, car insurance, power, etc. Fictitious programmer comes away with $3200 a month ($800 taxes), which should be more than enough than any single guy would ever need to live comfortably.
Now, let me ask you, if Tower Records guy, who (I know from experience) works a much more physically and socially grueling and difficult shift than Computer Programmer, ends up beating up Computer Programmer and stealing $200 from him so he can eat, can you really blame him? Well, yes, you can. But you can see why he did it anyway.
So, I say, structure the tax so Tower Records Guy can keep his $240--even if Computer Programmer has to pay $1024. And, yes, I am a programmer, although I am not that good. Of course, the best scenario would be to end the war on drugs so Tower Records Guy can pay $0 and Computer Programmer can pay $600