Conventional journalists... steer readers to their websites for more in-depth information and conversation.
they steer you to their websites not because they think the web is the be-all that you do, it's so that they can segment their market in a way that's similar to price-discrimination. They want to keep the broadcast feed general interest to maintain the largest number of eyeballs, and yet they don't want to lose the special interest junkies. So they direct the special interest junkies to the website (better than having them change channels) and the main-show can move on before the average viewer gets bored.
BTW, it was at this point that I got bored with the Katz-feed and didn't read any further.
yes...or just simply tell me who is buying information about me. my point is that it should not be all one-sided, it should not be opaque, and it doesn't need to be one-size-fits all. I'd like to clever solutions for information sharing that bring benefits but maintain some control on my part, or simply knowledge about who has what about me.
if telemarketers would call me with legitimate deals on products I'm interested in, that would be great. if we turn personal information into something special instead of a commodity, it might happen.
of course it occured to me. my point is not that I don't want to be tracked. Tracking offers many cool advantages. My point is I don't want to be kept in the dark and abused. I want to know who is using what information about me for what purpose.
They *are* smart people - they just aren't on your side
sorry, I wasn't being clear. I was referring to the avg slashdot privacy advocate who seems to think "privacy" is about keeping the CIA from knowing anything so they can trade mp3s secretly.
I think it's about trust: being able to give up information--you need to tell the waitress what you want--and trust that it won't be used without your knowledge--health insurance cancelled because you ordered an ice cream sundae. Now, I don't have a problem with insurance companies protecting themselves against your fraud--you're supposed to be on a diet, chubby--but I think that transaction must be transparent to you, and that you should be entitled to equally copious information about the insurance company... or you should get paid for your info... or have it all be private.
around here, everybody thinks that personal information is either secret, or available for download on gnutella because that's the way mp3s work. They (I assume being youngsters?) don't realize that large companies pretty much obey the law and if the law regulated privacy they'd obey it. I'm trying to get to that reasonable regulatory environment; I'm not worried about criminals or the CIA then stealing my information by spying on my transactions.
I think there's a much more interesting (and productive) discussion to be had about the design of information systems that support high functionality and protect privacy.
Here's an example: if you ask your "banker/broker" about their privacy policies, they'll tell you "very private", and the way they are thinking about it, they are. But I inquired specifically at Fidelity about whether my information was protected from access by employees of Fidelity and after some discussion the guy came out with this: "actually, a few months ago we had a customer getting divorced, and his wife worked here. We advised him to switch brokers if he wanted to be sure she could get at his account."
ding, ding! don't bells go off within Fidelity? Privacy should mean people who work there can't browse my account. Care to guess how many Fidelity terminal operators peek at their neighbor's finances? How many hospital nurses
exchange gossip about the medical records of patients they find "interesting"? it happens all the time.
I can think of any number of clever little tricks for keeping patient records anonymous except when needed, or another approach like: no particular privacy requirement, but information systems required to kick out an email to you every time your record is accessed. Then, with knowledge of what people are doing with it we could better advocate for privacy.
Sounds reasonable to me, but I just don't ever hear anybody else suggest stuff like this.
Those of you with
privacy concerns need not worry. According to the manual (p122, large pdf file)
the user does have the ability to turn the 'Position Location' off.
I'm one of those with privacy concerns, but this phone does nothing to allay my concerns.
I want to use the nifty features but still have my privacy. Why does the deal have to be "use the feature and be abused by having the information used without your knowledge?" Why can't seemingly smart people figure stuff like this out?
The Nobel Prize (that's like a +1 Informative) in economics was awarded today in part for the research that showed how one side of a transaction having information that the other side doesn't have can tilt the balance so far that the market fails. I'd like to be able to walk into a shop and negotiate a price that is not based on full knowledge of my movements (perhaps at a competitor) being revealed.
yes, I could turn off the service, but that is a Luddite response which has nothing whatever to do with protecting privacy. Please God, make people smarter: privacy entails a lot more than checking "Jedi Knight" on the census form, or being able to unplug a solid state disk drive when the black helicopter people come through the front door. It's about being able to enjoy the fruits of the modern economy without being abused.
sports teams appear to lose money everywhere all the time, then they get sold for bigger scads of cash everytime... it is voodoo accounting.
cynical people will manipulate any system they can, yes, but it should be stated that it is the goal of accounting to give an accuate financial picture, not a dishonest one. Accountants are always looking to close loopholes in accounting practices, but it's hard to get everybody. That's what analysts are supposed to do, BTW, keep track of the "meaning" of standard accounting in each industry to decode the financial statements more accurately. They only track big companies, though.
yes, it's not just errors in closed-source grading that's sending some kids to summer school. have you considered the impact of closed-source testing? if we open-sourced the exams themselves, that would elimate more errors than any other measure! not to mention the freedom it would engender: free as in "time".
Inventory carrying costs (the value of the money spent multiplied by the time stuff sits) and the labor costs of handling/sorting are expensive, but shipping is cheap. That's why French *water* sold in the US has about the same price as bottled water from the US.
You are using the word "cost" where you should be using the word "costs". Let's say that you buy a book for $5 and sell it six months later for $6. Did you make money?... it all depends.
What is the inventory carrying cost, e.g., how much of the rent on the warehouse is due to that book? But the warehouse is extra large to leave room for future expansion... now how much?
Oh, you own the warehouse... outright or mortgage? What's the interest on the mortgage? And how much could you make on your equity in the warehouse had you invested it in other opportunities you had?
How much management and labor, and senior management time or other central corporate (yes, that's the same as/. "corprate") expenses are due to owning the warehouse?
But, in the middle of the six month period you built a new warehouse, and sold the old one. So split the "cost" of the new, and the capital gain from selling the old.
You considered "the opportunity cost of capital", that is, what else you could have invested the warehouse money in (and the book money, too). But what is your actual cost of capital? You got the money to pay for all this stuff (the new warehouse is much bigger, and you're dumping lots of new stuff in it) from investors. Bondholders expect interest, so we know how much we pay them, but they don't generally lend money to risky businesses like ours. Based on our current share price, vs our cash on hand, is it "worth it" to sell more shares to raise more money?
How long can we hold out at our current rate of expenditure? There is no "current" rate, all the numbers are growing every month, take that into account.
Oh, yeah, don't forget what are the "terms" we buy the books on, vs. those we sell on: how long after we got the book did we actually pay for it (accounts payable),
and how long will take after we ship to get the money from the customer (accounts receivable). Even though we sell for more than we buy for, since we are growing, it turns out that we owe much more than we are due.
Oh, and set some money aside to cover returned merchandise... how much?
Was the book sold to a new customer? Our marketing people tell us that a new customer will likely buy another $400 of merchandise in the next year, vs an existing customer's expected $200. How much of our advertizing and marketing costs should be applied to this book, vs how much the profit from expected future books sold to this customer?
If purchasing habits are so predictable, shouldn't all that expected future profit accrue to this book which did the heavy lifting?
What if we can charge this customer a higher price for those future books than they would ordinarily pay? (we just need cookies, and one click... STOP! I'm not talking about the ethics of it, or the public relations if anybody found out... books were bought and books were sold, we're just trying to figure out whether we made any money. Later we can decide whether the programmers of that system are more or less ethical than either the marketers, or the customers who take advantage of our generous return policy, never even thinking about what shipping costs us. Certainly all are less moral than we accountants who are honestly trying to arrive at the right numbers here.)
Of course, there's lots more...
advanced accounting is a highly technical and extremely fascinating subject. 101 is kinda boring, but it's the only way to get there...
To sum up, there is no "correct" answer to whether you made money from the $6-$5 book. Over periods of time, the entire firm can be seen to make money or not, but it's always in the context of what came before and what position they'll be left in for the future.
someday you'll be glad girlfriends cheat... here's why:
On average, hetero men and women have about the same amount of sex in a lifetime, because every time a man has sex, a woman does too. Generally, at the time of each act, the men are older, but men do start to have sex at
close to the same age and men remain "desirable" till a much older age than women. So, men must be spreading the same amount of sex over a longer active period.
So, young women must be very busy to service both the boys their age, and the older men they enjoy.
In times of high fertility and high mortality (most of human history), there will be more young women for every older man so such female promiscuity would not be required. But today in western countries this is not the case, and as we see, the taboos and strictures against
sluttiness have all dropped away.
If you are a young woman, do your part and live it up, it's not going to last. And if you are a young man, realize that, yes, she's doing some others at the same time, but realize it with equanimity because you'll get your turn with her younger "sisters" later.
The "obvious to a practioner of the art" clause does *not* require prior art. That's the point of it, so obvious that it does not require prior art. With complicated things, of course prior art is compelling, but it is not a requirement.
Software art is the art of creating abstractions of the real world. If there is something in the real world ("nice to see you again, put this on my tab") which is prior art, it should be prior art for a software related patent. That will kill 99% of software patents, as it should.
many slashdotters may not know the fundamental difference between advertizing and PR:
advertizing is when you say you are good in bed
PR is when your ex-girlfriends say you are good in bed
PR is better -- according to my marketing prof, who didn't make it up, of course.
The answer is, hire a good PR agency, they will get you planted in Big Media by pulling strings. Or, do newsworthy, sappy, or otherwise prominent things that attach your name to items that are otherwise newsworthy. Think about the PR that BugTraq and SETI@home get, compared to BSD.
Here's how it would work: I get a spam and it wastes a little of my time and costs me additional money in wasted resources. Maybe it doesn't cost me too much, but together with all the other recipients, the "affected class", it would probably add up. So, to get the lawsuit started, first thing my lawyer will need is the mailing list that the spammers used, and any attendant records of how successful the deliveries were.
Any lawyers out there? Any way the courts would order the beginning of this sort of discovery process?
I'd rather have one company know the info instead of
twenty.
having 20 companies with partial information about your interests and activities is likely to be less of a privacy problem than having one that knows everything.
frankly (that's a pun), improper use of the word "monetize": it does not mean "financed" or even "monied".
It refers to cash money as opposed to money in other forms such as investment, savings and credit.
And I think the Kolob thing is a little far-out...a mormon who beleives everything absolutely vehimently is a
little out there
sounds like you are saying something very close to "whackjobs in terms of their theology" which is what I said.
Since you agree with that part of what I said, I imagine that your real beef was about being considered more out there than the Roman Catholics. While there are certainly cults within Roman Catholicism that have embraced nutty ideas over the years (e.g. martyrs blood and bones), to the extent to which familiar, once you get past the virgin birth and resurrection (which Mormons also embrace), the Catholics stick to a lot of abstract ideas.
I believe that many people feel extra religious simply when they use weird or archaic turns of phrase. Think about it for a minute and, abracadabra, you realize that "called of God" doesn't particularly mean anything in English.
categorizing everyone as a 'whackjob' is rather harsh and uncaring,
I said "in terms of their theology", a qualifier that mutes the original statement and which you are conveniently ignoring.
BTW, some Mormons never take the holy underwear off, even while bathing. They hang one foot out of the tub with the garment dangling from the ankle while they wash one side, and then pull 'em up and down to switch sides.
And what about the part of the theology that used to be explicitly racist till that became publicly untenable and a very convenient revelation revealed itself. I can respect a theology that gets tested in focus groups, but lying (in my belief) about its origins is bad, and being gullible enough embrace the lie... well, words like "wacky" come to mind.
In a way that's pronounced kinda like "focus groups", I am down with the whole polygamy thing, though.:)
we consider it folly. I'm sure you'd agree to that.
well, I don't consider the "plum-pudding" model of the atom total folly, just a first pass. And should evidence emerge that quarks are bound up in pudding, I'll have a bowl.
Though I don't consider atheism a religion.
I don't consider atheism a religion either, but people who feel compelled to actively ridicule or "blaspheme" (using the other side's word) strike me as highly superstitious. They seem to be afraid of something they don't believe in.
as an aside, while I was reading your post I was struck that "we" aren't necessarily a cult, except perhaps when we start to think of ourselves as "we":)
(interesting, was it recklessness by which you decided to capitalize "God", and NOT
capitalize "athiest"?)
I capitalize his name, God, as well as Zeus's, but neither his pronouns nor gods collectively. I capitalize the name of the Roman Catholic Church and the Nazi Party, but not atheism or theism. Buddhism: capitalize or not? I don't know, so I just try to put it at the beginning of the sentence:)
As a Christian, I respect your blind faith in NO God, as you respect my blind faith in
God.
mmm... you say that a little stronger than I would. I respect you, but not particularly your specific beliefs. If someone tried to convince me that they just "knew" that 2 + 2 = 5, I would smile at them and try to say something nice; I wouldn't spit on them. But I'd be hard pressed to come up with actual respect for the idea.
Some parts of religion that I do respect have to do with the traditional aspect of community. Many people yearn for the "spiritual" aspect of religion, but hate the idea that there would be any particular rules that would limit their own behavior in way. They say, "I believe in God, but I disagree with organized religion." I am the opposite; I think that their belief is simply narcissism. I don't believe in God, but I do "believe in" organized religion. I think a community of people coming together, agreeing on some boundaries of behavior, admitting and forgiving transgressions, celebrating life and praying for each others' future is a community worth living in. The average person knows almost nothing about science and medicine, and they undoubtedly know equally little about philosophy. But they put band-aids on cuts and join hands and sing about a brighter future and what's wrong with that?
Yet, if
you asked me, I'd tell you I'm sure that there are no pixies are in my old furnace chimney.
I agree with you. Completely.
But would you describe people who believe that there are pixies as "evil", as the person I responded to did? I think if you did, you'd be guilty of a superstition that could only be described as feverish and religious in nature. An aversion to holy water to me is no different a thirst for it. If someone wants to sprinkle me with holy water, I take it in the spirit intended (their love), just without the Spirit intended (His Love).
And in a like manner, I judge religions one by one for the spirit they intend: I'm flattered that Christians want to go to the trouble to save my soul, I'm irritated that Jews think I'm not one of the chosen (but happily admit it goes down a lot easier with cream cheese and lox). I think nothing of Zen nothingness, and while perhaps in a former life I found comfort in Hindu reincarnation, I don't this time around; rather, I'm scared of any sporadic Islamic urge to hasten my ascendence to the final reward that they, not I, believe in, and in just the same way that they once feared heretical Christian crusaders who seemed to be unwilling to render unto God that which they said was God's.
Also, if an organization wants to copyright their material or mark it as a trade secret, that's their
business.
if they want to, that's their business. But since copyright is a legal abstraction, whether we want to allow them to is our business. I don't believe such copyrights should be allowed.
The Mormons and the Vatican, notably, have lots of secret doctrine and nobody freaks
out about it on Slashdot.
Mormons are certifiable whackjobs (yes, way more than Roman Catholics) when it comes to their theology. I can see why they'd want to keep secrets, but there's no inherent reason we should respect that desire. In fact, the desire to keep secrets indicates to me that there must be a reason we should not allow it. I see no basis for an "organization-al right of privacy" to anywhere near the extent that individuals should expect.
Slashdot Mirror
they steer you to their websites not because they think the web is the be-all that you do, it's so that they can segment their market in a way that's similar to price-discrimination. They want to keep the broadcast feed general interest to maintain the largest number of eyeballs, and yet they don't want to lose the special interest junkies. So they direct the special interest junkies to the website (better than having them change channels) and the main-show can move on before the average viewer gets bored.
BTW, it was at this point that I got bored with the Katz-feed and didn't read any further.
yes ...or just simply tell me who is buying information about me. my point is that it should not be all one-sided, it should not be opaque, and it doesn't need to be one-size-fits all. I'd like to clever solutions for information sharing that bring benefits but maintain some control on my part, or simply knowledge about who has what about me.
if telemarketers would call me with legitimate deals on products I'm interested in, that would be great. if we turn personal information into something special instead of a commodity, it might happen.
of course it occured to me. my point is not that I don't want to be tracked. Tracking offers many cool advantages. My point is I don't want to be kept in the dark and abused. I want to know who is using what information about me for what purpose.
sorry, I wasn't being clear. I was referring to the avg slashdot privacy advocate who seems to think "privacy" is about keeping the CIA from knowing anything so they can trade mp3s secretly.
I think it's about trust: being able to give up information--you need to tell the waitress what you want--and trust that it won't be used without your knowledge--health insurance cancelled because you ordered an ice cream sundae. Now, I don't have a problem with insurance companies protecting themselves against your fraud--you're supposed to be on a diet, chubby--but I think that transaction must be transparent to you, and that you should be entitled to equally copious information about the insurance company... or you should get paid for your info... or have it all be private.
around here, everybody thinks that personal information is either secret, or available for download on gnutella because that's the way mp3s work. They (I assume being youngsters?) don't realize that large companies pretty much obey the law and if the law regulated privacy they'd obey it. I'm trying to get to that reasonable regulatory environment; I'm not worried about criminals or the CIA then stealing my information by spying on my transactions. I think there's a much more interesting (and productive) discussion to be had about the design of information systems that support high functionality and protect privacy.
Here's an example: if you ask your "banker/broker" about their privacy policies, they'll tell you "very private", and the way they are thinking about it, they are. But I inquired specifically at Fidelity about whether my information was protected from access by employees of Fidelity and after some discussion the guy came out with this: "actually, a few months ago we had a customer getting divorced, and his wife worked here. We advised him to switch brokers if he wanted to be sure she could get at his account."
ding, ding! don't bells go off within Fidelity? Privacy should mean people who work there can't browse my account. Care to guess how many Fidelity terminal operators peek at their neighbor's finances? How many hospital nurses exchange gossip about the medical records of patients they find "interesting"? it happens all the time.
I can think of any number of clever little tricks for keeping patient records anonymous except when needed, or another approach like: no particular privacy requirement, but information systems required to kick out an email to you every time your record is accessed. Then, with knowledge of what people are doing with it we could better advocate for privacy.
Sounds reasonable to me, but I just don't ever hear anybody else suggest stuff like this.
privacy concerns need not worry. According to the manual (p122, large pdf file)
the user does have the ability to turn the 'Position Location' off.
I'm one of those with privacy concerns, but this phone does nothing to allay my concerns.
I want to use the nifty features but still have my privacy. Why does the deal have to be "use the feature and be abused by having the information used without your knowledge?" Why can't seemingly smart people figure stuff like this out?
The Nobel Prize (that's like a +1 Informative) in economics was awarded today in part for the research that showed how one side of a transaction having information that the other side doesn't have can tilt the balance so far that the market fails. I'd like to be able to walk into a shop and negotiate a price that is not based on full knowledge of my movements (perhaps at a competitor) being revealed.
yes, I could turn off the service, but that is a Luddite response which has nothing whatever to do with protecting privacy. Please God, make people smarter: privacy entails a lot more than checking "Jedi Knight" on the census form, or being able to unplug a solid state disk drive when the black helicopter people come through the front door. It's about being able to enjoy the fruits of the modern economy without being abused.
cynical people will manipulate any system they can, yes, but it should be stated that it is the goal of accounting to give an accuate financial picture, not a dishonest one. Accountants are always looking to close loopholes in accounting practices, but it's hard to get everybody. That's what analysts are supposed to do, BTW, keep track of the "meaning" of standard accounting in each industry to decode the financial statements more accurately. They only track big companies, though.
yes, it's not just errors in closed-source grading that's sending some kids to summer school. have you considered the impact of closed-source testing? if we open-sourced the exams themselves, that would elimate more errors than any other measure! not to mention the freedom it would engender: free as in "time".
Inventory carrying costs (the value of the money spent multiplied by the time stuff sits) and the labor costs of handling/sorting are expensive, but shipping is cheap. That's why French *water* sold in the US has about the same price as bottled water from the US.
Oh, and set some money aside to cover returned merchandise... how much?
advanced accounting is a highly technical and extremely fascinating subject. 101 is kinda boring, but it's the only way to get there... To sum up, there is no "correct" answer to whether you made money from the $6-$5 book. Over periods of time, the entire firm can be seen to make money or not, but it's always in the context of what came before and what position they'll be left in for the future.
On average, hetero men and women have about the same amount of sex in a lifetime, because every time a man has sex, a woman does too. Generally, at the time of each act, the men are older, but men do start to have sex at close to the same age and men remain "desirable" till a much older age than women. So, men must be spreading the same amount of sex over a longer active period.
In times of high fertility and high mortality (most of human history), there will be more young women for every older man so such female promiscuity would not be required. But today in western countries this is not the case, and as we see, the taboos and strictures against sluttiness have all dropped away.If you are a young woman, do your part and live it up, it's not going to last. And if you are a young man, realize that, yes, she's doing some others at the same time, but realize it with equanimity because you'll get your turn with her younger "sisters" later.
Software art is the art of creating abstractions of the real world. If there is something in the real world ("nice to see you again, put this on my tab") which is prior art, it should be prior art for a software related patent. That will kill 99% of software patents, as it should.
what are you talking about? We here in Flatland were laughing our asses off, but now we are confused...
huh? the evidence you present supports Frater 219's interpretation quite nicely. you owe Frater 219 a retraction :)
PR is better -- according to my marketing prof, who didn't make it up, of course.
The answer is, hire a good PR agency, they will get you planted in Big Media by pulling strings. Or, do newsworthy, sappy, or otherwise prominent things that attach your name to items that are otherwise newsworthy. Think about the PR that BugTraq and SETI@home get, compared to BSD.
Here's how it would work: I get a spam and it wastes a little of my time and costs me additional money in wasted resources. Maybe it doesn't cost me too much, but together with all the other recipients, the "affected class", it would probably add up. So, to get the lawsuit started, first thing my lawyer will need is the mailing list that the spammers used, and any attendant records of how successful the deliveries were.
Any lawyers out there? Any way the courts would order the beginning of this sort of discovery process?
having 20 companies with partial information about your interests and activities is likely to be less of a privacy problem than having one that knows everything.
frankly (that's a pun), improper use of the word "monetize": it does not mean "financed" or even "monied". It refers to cash money as opposed to money in other forms such as investment, savings and credit.
sounds like you are saying something very close to "whackjobs in terms of their theology" which is what I said.
Since you agree with that part of what I said, I imagine that your real beef was about being considered more out there than the Roman Catholics. While there are certainly cults within Roman Catholicism that have embraced nutty ideas over the years (e.g. martyrs blood and bones), to the extent to which familiar, once you get past the virgin birth and resurrection (which Mormons also embrace), the Catholics stick to a lot of abstract ideas.
I believe that many people feel extra religious simply when they use weird or archaic turns of phrase. Think about it for a minute and, abracadabra, you realize that "called of God" doesn't particularly mean anything in English.
I said "in terms of their theology", a qualifier that mutes the original statement and which you are conveniently ignoring.
BTW, some Mormons never take the holy underwear off, even while bathing. They hang one foot out of the tub with the garment dangling from the ankle while they wash one side, and then pull 'em up and down to switch sides.
And what about the part of the theology that used to be explicitly racist till that became publicly untenable and a very convenient revelation revealed itself. I can respect a theology that gets tested in focus groups, but lying (in my belief) about its origins is bad, and being gullible enough embrace the lie... well, words like "wacky" come to mind.
In a way that's pronounced kinda like "focus groups", I am down with the whole polygamy thing, though. :)
well, I don't consider the "plum-pudding" model of the atom total folly, just a first pass. And should evidence emerge that quarks are bound up in pudding, I'll have a bowl.
Though I don't consider atheism a religion.
I don't consider atheism a religion either, but people who feel compelled to actively ridicule or "blaspheme" (using the other side's word) strike me as highly superstitious. They seem to be afraid of something they don't believe in.
as an aside, while I was reading your post I was struck that "we" aren't necessarily a cult, except perhaps when we start to think of ourselves as "we" :)
I capitalize his name, God, as well as Zeus's, but neither his pronouns nor gods collectively. I capitalize the name of the Roman Catholic Church and the Nazi Party, but not atheism or theism. Buddhism: capitalize or not? I don't know, so I just try to put it at the beginning of the sentence :)
As a Christian, I respect your blind faith in NO God, as you respect my blind faith in God.
mmm... you say that a little stronger than I would. I respect you, but not particularly your specific beliefs. If someone tried to convince me that they just "knew" that 2 + 2 = 5, I would smile at them and try to say something nice; I wouldn't spit on them. But I'd be hard pressed to come up with actual respect for the idea.
Some parts of religion that I do respect have to do with the traditional aspect of community. Many people yearn for the "spiritual" aspect of religion, but hate the idea that there would be any particular rules that would limit their own behavior in way. They say, "I believe in God, but I disagree with organized religion." I am the opposite; I think that their belief is simply narcissism. I don't believe in God, but I do "believe in" organized religion. I think a community of people coming together, agreeing on some boundaries of behavior, admitting and forgiving transgressions, celebrating life and praying for each others' future is a community worth living in. The average person knows almost nothing about science and medicine, and they undoubtedly know equally little about philosophy. But they put band-aids on cuts and join hands and sing about a brighter future and what's wrong with that?
I agree with you. Completely.
But would you describe people who believe that there are pixies as "evil", as the person I responded to did? I think if you did, you'd be guilty of a superstition that could only be described as feverish and religious in nature. An aversion to holy water to me is no different a thirst for it. If someone wants to sprinkle me with holy water, I take it in the spirit intended (their love), just without the Spirit intended (His Love).
And in a like manner, I judge religions one by one for the spirit they intend: I'm flattered that Christians want to go to the trouble to save my soul, I'm irritated that Jews think I'm not one of the chosen (but happily admit it goes down a lot easier with cream cheese and lox). I think nothing of Zen nothingness, and while perhaps in a former life I found comfort in Hindu reincarnation, I don't this time around; rather, I'm scared of any sporadic Islamic urge to hasten my ascendence to the final reward that they, not I, believe in, and in just the same way that they once feared heretical Christian crusaders who seemed to be unwilling to render unto God that which they said was God's.
yes, including the cult that feverishly believes there is no God, and without a whisper of proof or any evidence whatsoever.
I'm an atheist, but think you go too far. Religions comprise many well-meaning, good hearted people.
I liked the "scritcha-scritcha" bit, though, a lot :)
if they want to, that's their business. But since copyright is a legal abstraction, whether we want to allow them to is our business. I don't believe such copyrights should be allowed.
The Mormons and the Vatican, notably, have lots of secret doctrine and nobody freaks out about it on Slashdot.
Mormons are certifiable whackjobs (yes, way more than Roman Catholics) when it comes to their theology. I can see why they'd want to keep secrets, but there's no inherent reason we should respect that desire. In fact, the desire to keep secrets indicates to me that there must be a reason we should not allow it. I see no basis for an "organization-al right of privacy" to anywhere near the extent that individuals should expect.