Where did that appear in my post? I never said that communism was a good thing, nor did I say that it was a bad thing.
No, you implied that the primary problem with Communism in the United States was simply because it was an "alternative", and not because it really was a military threat.
The purpose of my post was to point out that both Microsoft and the American Government have spread FUD about a philosophy that they felt was threatening to them. Both tried to force a pre-packaged opinion on people who hadn't taken the time to study communism or the GPL themselves.
While I'm sure there was a lot of hysteria about Communism back in the 50s (McCarthy comes to mind), on balance there was not a huge "FUD campaign" as you say. There WAS a clear and present danger from Communism, and not just some theoretical "mind share" threat.
Communism in the 1950's was an alternative to the American capitalist society, and the American government were opposed to it because wide support for communism would threaten to undermime the democracy of the United States.
Sheesh, nice rewrite of history. "Communism was just a peaceful movement that was hammered by the jack-booted thugs of a jealous, threatened United States Government."
You conveniently leave out the fact that the Soviet Union oppressed its citizens (which is instrinsic to Communism, not in philosophy, but in implementation), and also leave out the fact that the Soviet Union was highly expansionistic. The Soviet Union as an "evil empire" was an understatement, if anything.
Re:CSI - Crummy Science for Idiots
on
The Rise of CSI
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Furthermore, Quincy frequently went after "larger issues" like Tourette's Syndrome, illegal waste dumping laws, and so on. Now, CSI almost never goes after any thing "larger" - it's almost always just some guy offing some other guy.
I agree with you in large part, but some of us like shows that just present an interesting drama without the need to preach a sermon (of course, only Hollywood "approved" sermons).
I think the "issue of the week" is better left in shows of the 70s and 80s.
Yesterday we were mad about SSSCA [slashdot.org] and the fact that Disney is one of the few who are going to fuck the country with their bought Senator(s), and now we're cheering about them.
Maybe "we" should think for ourselves, and not give in to "group think" (on either side of the issue).
This rail gun is human muscle powered and the magnets simply create a storage vessel for the energy.
That's what I find interesting about this: Could it be a poor-man's (or poor country's) railgun? So what if you had to have a couple hundred slaves\\\\\\ soldiers reset the balls before firing? If you could accelerate a payload and fire a few hundred miles, it could be pretty devastating. I know that the US has some big-ass cannons that can do that, but I'm sure it's pretty tricky technology.
Anyway, it's probably not practical given the limits of permanent magnets and the inherent wear-and-tear on every firing.
Wow, this is exceptionally clever. The only other gauss rifles I've seen talked about used electromagnets and big-ass power.
It makes me wonder... could this scale? What if you built a big version with, say, 50 pound explosive charges (delayed fuse, of course) and big magnets? It seems like with enough phases, you could make a pretty devastating launcher. And I bet it would be pretty damn accurate, too.
Let me just put out a vote that I don't mind big ads. I'm not a freeloader, and don't expect a free ride to pay for something as expensive as Slashdot.
And yes, if you use Junkbuster, you are a freeloader.
I find it rather interesting that you define two classes of sexuality: heterosexuality and homosexuality.
Actually, I defined two different classes of homosexuality, which is important.
However, according to Kinsey and every relevant study conducted after him, there are *three times* as many bisexuals walking the planet as homosexuals.
Well, feel free to save toilet paper by using Kinsey. But let's say that that's the number. Either there is genetic bisexuality, or it would be psychological bisexuality.
I didn't really cover bisexuality because I didn't think it was all that relevent, but it's possible to have a genetic bisexuality where the attraction mechanism is either totally off or on for both sexes. If this was the case, it would still be a defect.
I have no particular evidence, but my gut feeling is that most bisexuality is psychological. That is, most people who are bisexual override their natural inclination by wanting to try "something different".
The whole subject is extremely complex, and it will be very difficult to know what percentage of anything is genetically based or psychologically based until we've really isolated the cause of brain-based homosexuality. The point is that any genetic flaws that cause the attraction mechanism to not work in a way that encourages reproduction is most likely a defect.
When you say that something is intended you imply that it is intended by someone. Who is that?
"Intended" doesn't have to mean by someone. I simply mean the natural function. For example, chlorophyll is "intended" to provide food to a plant. That doesn't necessarily mean that there has to be a someone providing intent.
Maybe in 30 years it will be very popular to be homosexual. They might hate you for fixing them.
If it's in vogue (hey, it's never happened in the history of mankind, but you never know), nothing is stopping them from making the switch.
Perhaps homosexual couples provide a certain benefit to traditional or modern society.
It's possible, but it's hard to dismiss the historical animus towards homosexuality in almost every culture (I'm sure there are exceptions to this). If evolution truly favored homosexuality, then it would make sense that societies would tend to evolve toward accepting the benefits of it.
I'm willing to accept the possibility that there might be some subtle purpose to the attraction mechanism getting switched around, but at this point that seems more political "happy science" than real science.
But what makes a gene that is against the norm a defect? Extreme intelligens is against the norm. Is that too a defect?
As I pointed out in another post, the question is whether something is functioning in the way it was intended. Note that a defect can be beneficial... for example, if I was born with 4 completely functioning arms, that might be a benefit as a piano player. But it would still be a defect.
Put it this way. Let's say I was going to have a child, and there was a genetic defect that caused the "switch" of whether to be attracted to the opposite sex to be switched wrong. Let's say there was a simple procedure to fix the problem. Should I do it? I would say, definitely.
The reason is because the mechanism is not functioning the way it was supposed to. Am I supposed to tell my child that they are doomed to not have children of their own (or at least with great difficulty) because it was politically incorrect to fix that particular genetic defect?
Uh, what do you mean by "wrong"? Your assertatoin that there's "no question" that this is a defect is simply false.
The purpose (think about that word before jerking knee) of sex is procreation. That there is a recreational and pleasurable aspect to sex is purely a side-effect: it's only to encourage the behavior. We are genetically programmed to find the opposite sex attractive, in order to continue the species (hopefully you don't think that man-woman attraction is societal
conditioning). If that mechanism is somehow switched around so that we are attracted to the same sex, obviously that doesn't bode well for continuing the species.
If a function of the brain is not operating in the way it was intended (i.e., attraction to the same sex), then it's a defect. Note that there is no moral component to this: it's simply factual.
Such as labelling someone else's choice of lovers - for whatever reason - as "wrong"?
You used the word "wrong" here in the sense of moral right and wrong, which is not the way I used it. Morality is irrelevent to this issue -- to either side.
Recall that not that long ago in the U.S., homosexuality was offically considered a "disease".
Well, calling something a "disease" is a loaded statement. I'm pretty convinced that there are two types of homosexuality: genetic based (where your sexual attraction mechanism is backwards), and psychologically based.
For genetic based homosexulity, there is no question that it is a genetic defect to be attracted to the wrong sex (I mean, duh). I would not do post-fertilized screening, but if it were possible to screen my sperm or my wife's egg for the defect, I would certainly do it.
On the other hand, psychologically-based homosexuality is debatable whether it's a "problem" or not. The truth is that it probably is in some cases, and not in others. For example, a severely abused woman who chooses lesbianism because of the abuse is probably a candidate for counseling. On the other hand, if you simply had a person whose personality encouraged "trying different things", and simply preferred homosexuality, then it's probably not a problem.
Once again it has to be pointed out that closed mindedness of most sorts is bad ("homosexuality is always wrong!" or "Homosexuality is always a 'lifestyle' choice and should never be called a defect!")
The history of aspartame is also not nonsense, including that it took the Reagan administration to approve it, and that folks like Donald Rumsfeld worked for Monsanto (actually, Searle, at the time). There's a lot more, but it's offtopic here and only given as a demonstration that our government doesn't give damn one about the "citizens".
None of that is evidence of ANYTHING. All you've proven is that if you take J. Random Politician, you can find a link to almost anything, which is not surprising since politicians are typically the most connected people in the world.
Try this simple test: Literally hundreds of millions of people drink Asparatame, probably 10 of millions every day. If it was that bad, then don't you think we would see a major pattern of health problems?
Just because someone is sick and blames Aspartame doesn't mean that Aspartame is to blame. Those are the same people who blame cell phones and electrical fields for cancer, or "environmental poisons" for their "multiple chemical sensitivity".
But hey, maybe I'm wrong. Point me to a link to a reputable double-blind study that shows problems with Aspartame. Anecdotal evidence == zero evidence.
I agree with you, but don't you think you could have said it a bit more elequently?
Heh, yes I could have. But that wouldn't make my post any more true, because the QuickTime player under Windows is a truly terrible piece of software.
Don't you think stating it the way I did is much more entertaining? I thought all the adjectives were pretty amusing, myself (I particularly liked the "smoking" part -- really brings the image into your mind, doesn't it?). But the biggest reason is that Mac fans are so thin-skinned that it's funny to watch them go into convulsions at any criticism of Apple, particularly when it's so true in this case.
I was pretty sure I would end up getting marked down (Apple people have notoriously little sense of humor), but heck, I've got Karma to spare.
You might want to have that jerking knee attended to by a physician.
And you might want to have that selective vision checked out by a optometrist. He is talking about the products in general, not specifically to Linux. Read it again.
The fact of the matter is that it is YOU that is smoking crack because QuickTime is a more complete solution that provides the most flexibility for content creators.
And who cares how good the content creation software is if no one can view the bloody video? And no, people with Macintoshes don't count.
You think this is bad, I've been reading about the Reagan-era flunkies who pushed aspartame on the market.
By the way, just for the record, there is nothing wrong with Aspartame. Yes, I've read some of the bull that's been going around the internet. It's all urban legend nonsense.
Windows media player "shite"? "Kick ass" Quicktime?
I don't know about this guy's universe, but in mine, Windows Media Player works great, but Quicktime under windows is a giant, stinking, smelly, steaming, smoking, pile of dog-doo. It constantly crashes, and the user interface is probably the worst ever designed.
Just to close out the whole function language argument that came up the last time.NET and languages came up, here is a link to a paper that was in Dr. Dobbs about a functional language for the.NET platform: http://research.microsoft.com/~emeijer/Papers/Mond rianDDJ.pdf
Hard to say. All I can say is that I remember the movie being really good in the theatre, but when I recently saw the Director's Cut DVD, I found my self saying, "This is it? Is this the movie that I saw? This movie is kind of..., well, dull."
I don't know if it's me, or if it's the movie.
On the other hand, it might be a case of "Citizen Kane"-itis where a movie is brilliant and original when it comes out in it's time, but does not age well against modern movies.
To be honest, I though Hannibal mostly sucked. On the other hand, the book wasn't much better, so it's not entirely Ridley Scott's fault. Both were gravy training Silence of the Lambs.
Gladiator is hardly a classic, but it was at least entertaining compared to his other recent efforts.
Slashdot Mirror
Where did that appear in my post? I never said that communism was a good thing, nor did I say that it was a bad thing.
No, you implied that the primary problem with Communism in the United States was simply because it was an "alternative", and not because it really was a military threat.
The purpose of my post was to point out that both Microsoft and the American Government have spread FUD about a philosophy that they felt was threatening to them. Both tried to force a pre-packaged opinion on people who hadn't taken the time to study communism or the GPL themselves.
While I'm sure there was a lot of hysteria about Communism back in the 50s (McCarthy comes to mind), on balance there was not a huge "FUD campaign" as you say. There WAS a clear and present danger from Communism, and not just some theoretical "mind share" threat.
Communism in the 1950's was an alternative to the American capitalist society, and the American government were opposed to it because wide support for communism would threaten to undermime the democracy of the United States.
Sheesh, nice rewrite of history. "Communism was just a peaceful movement that was hammered by the jack-booted thugs of a jealous, threatened United States Government."
You conveniently leave out the fact that the Soviet Union oppressed its citizens (which is instrinsic to Communism, not in philosophy, but in implementation), and also leave out the fact that the Soviet Union was highly expansionistic. The Soviet Union as an "evil empire" was an understatement, if anything.
Furthermore, Quincy frequently went after "larger issues" like Tourette's Syndrome, illegal waste dumping laws, and so on. Now, CSI almost never goes after any thing "larger" - it's almost always just some guy offing some other guy.
I agree with you in large part, but some of us like shows that just present an interesting drama without the need to preach a sermon (of course, only Hollywood "approved" sermons).
I think the "issue of the week" is better left in shows of the 70s and 80s.
Yesterday we were mad about SSSCA [slashdot.org] and the fact that Disney is one of the few who are going to fuck the country with their bought Senator(s), and now we're cheering about them.
Maybe "we" should think for ourselves, and not give in to "group think" (on either side of the issue).
Just a thought.
This rail gun is human muscle powered and the magnets simply create a storage vessel for the energy.
That's what I find interesting about this: Could it be a poor-man's (or poor country's) railgun? So what if you had to have a couple hundred slaves\\\\\\ soldiers reset the balls before firing? If you could accelerate a payload and fire a few hundred miles, it could be pretty devastating. I know that the US has some big-ass cannons that can do that, but I'm sure it's pretty tricky technology.
Anyway, it's probably not practical given the limits of permanent magnets and the inherent wear-and-tear on every firing.
Wow, this is exceptionally clever. The only other gauss rifles I've seen talked about used electromagnets and big-ass power.
It makes me wonder... could this scale? What if you built a big version with, say, 50 pound explosive charges (delayed fuse, of course) and big magnets? It seems like with enough phases, you could make a pretty devastating launcher. And I bet it would be pretty damn accurate, too.
Let me just put out a vote that I don't mind big ads. I'm not a freeloader, and don't expect a free ride to pay for something as expensive as Slashdot.
And yes, if you use Junkbuster, you are a freeloader.
I find it rather interesting that you define two classes of sexuality: heterosexuality and homosexuality.
Actually, I defined two different classes of homosexuality, which is important.
However, according to Kinsey and every relevant study conducted after him, there are *three times* as many bisexuals walking the planet as homosexuals.
Well, feel free to save toilet paper by using Kinsey. But let's say that that's the number. Either there is genetic bisexuality, or it would be psychological bisexuality.
I didn't really cover bisexuality because I didn't think it was all that relevent, but it's possible to have a genetic bisexuality where the attraction mechanism is either totally off or on for both sexes. If this was the case, it would still be a defect.
I have no particular evidence, but my gut feeling is that most bisexuality is psychological. That is, most people who are bisexual override their natural inclination by wanting to try "something different".
The whole subject is extremely complex, and it will be very difficult to know what percentage of anything is genetically based or psychologically based until we've really isolated the cause of brain-based homosexuality. The point is that any genetic flaws that cause the attraction mechanism to not work in a way that encourages reproduction is most likely a defect.
When you say that something is intended you imply that it is intended by someone. Who is that?
"Intended" doesn't have to mean by someone. I simply mean the natural function. For example, chlorophyll is "intended" to provide food to a plant. That doesn't necessarily mean that there has to be a someone providing intent.
Maybe in 30 years it will be very popular to be homosexual. They might hate you for fixing them.
If it's in vogue (hey, it's never happened in the history of mankind, but you never know), nothing is stopping them from making the switch.
Perhaps homosexual couples provide a certain benefit to traditional or modern society.
It's possible, but it's hard to dismiss the historical animus towards homosexuality in almost every culture (I'm sure there are exceptions to this). If evolution truly favored homosexuality, then it would make sense that societies would tend to evolve toward accepting the benefits of it.
I'm willing to accept the possibility that there might be some subtle purpose to the attraction mechanism getting switched around, but at this point that seems more political "happy science" than real science.
But what makes a gene that is against the norm a defect? Extreme intelligens is against the norm. Is that too a defect?
As I pointed out in another post, the question is whether something is functioning in the way it was intended. Note that a defect can be beneficial... for example, if I was born with 4 completely functioning arms, that might be a benefit as a piano player. But it would still be a defect.
Put it this way. Let's say I was going to have a child, and there was a genetic defect that caused the "switch" of whether to be attracted to the opposite sex to be switched wrong. Let's say there was a simple procedure to fix the problem. Should I do it? I would say, definitely.
The reason is because the mechanism is not functioning the way it was supposed to. Am I supposed to tell my child that they are doomed to not have children of their own (or at least with great difficulty) because it was politically incorrect to fix that particular genetic defect?
Uh, what do you mean by "wrong"? Your assertatoin that there's "no question" that this is a defect is simply false.
The purpose (think about that word before jerking knee) of sex is procreation. That there is a recreational and pleasurable aspect to sex is purely a side-effect: it's only to encourage the behavior. We are genetically programmed to find the opposite sex attractive, in order to continue the species (hopefully you don't think that man-woman attraction is societal conditioning). If that mechanism is somehow switched around so that we are attracted to the same sex, obviously that doesn't bode well for continuing the species.
If a function of the brain is not operating in the way it was intended (i.e., attraction to the same sex), then it's a defect. Note that there is no moral component to this: it's simply factual.
Such as labelling someone else's choice of lovers - for whatever reason - as "wrong"?
You used the word "wrong" here in the sense of moral right and wrong, which is not the way I used it. Morality is irrelevent to this issue -- to either side.
Mind if I quote you? Was that original thought or are you paraphrasing someone else?
My own humble thoughts. Feel free to quote me: I'm all in favor of removing politics from this issue and bringing reasonableness.
Recall that not that long ago in the U.S., homosexuality was offically considered a "disease".
Well, calling something a "disease" is a loaded statement. I'm pretty convinced that there are two types of homosexuality: genetic based (where your sexual attraction mechanism is backwards), and psychologically based.
For genetic based homosexulity, there is no question that it is a genetic defect to be attracted to the wrong sex (I mean, duh). I would not do post-fertilized screening, but if it were possible to screen my sperm or my wife's egg for the defect, I would certainly do it.
On the other hand, psychologically-based homosexuality is debatable whether it's a "problem" or not. The truth is that it probably is in some cases, and not in others. For example, a severely abused woman who chooses lesbianism because of the abuse is probably a candidate for counseling. On the other hand, if you simply had a person whose personality encouraged "trying different things", and simply preferred homosexuality, then it's probably not a problem.
Once again it has to be pointed out that closed mindedness of most sorts is bad ("homosexuality is always wrong!" or "Homosexuality is always a 'lifestyle' choice and should never be called a defect!")
The history of aspartame is also not nonsense, including that it took the Reagan administration to approve it, and that folks like Donald Rumsfeld worked for Monsanto (actually, Searle, at the time). There's a lot more, but it's offtopic here and only given as a demonstration that our government doesn't give damn one about the "citizens".
None of that is evidence of ANYTHING. All you've proven is that if you take J. Random Politician, you can find a link to almost anything, which is not surprising since politicians are typically the most connected people in the world.
Try this simple test: Literally hundreds of millions of people drink Asparatame, probably 10 of millions every day. If it was that bad, then don't you think we would see a major pattern of health problems?
Just because someone is sick and blames Aspartame doesn't mean that Aspartame is to blame. Those are the same people who blame cell phones and electrical fields for cancer, or "environmental poisons" for their "multiple chemical sensitivity".
But hey, maybe I'm wrong. Point me to a link to a reputable double-blind study that shows problems with Aspartame. Anecdotal evidence == zero evidence.
I agree with you, but don't you think you could have said it a bit more elequently?
Heh, yes I could have. But that wouldn't make my post any more true, because the QuickTime player under Windows is a truly terrible piece of software.
Don't you think stating it the way I did is much more entertaining? I thought all the adjectives were pretty amusing, myself (I particularly liked the "smoking" part -- really brings the image into your mind, doesn't it?). But the biggest reason is that Mac fans are so thin-skinned that it's funny to watch them go into convulsions at any criticism of Apple, particularly when it's so true in this case.
I was pretty sure I would end up getting marked down (Apple people have notoriously little sense of humor), but heck, I've got Karma to spare.
You might want to have that jerking knee attended to by a physician.
And you might want to have that selective vision checked out by a optometrist. He is talking about the products in general, not specifically to Linux. Read it again.
The fact of the matter is that it is YOU that is smoking crack because QuickTime is a more complete solution that provides the most flexibility for content creators.
And who cares how good the content creation software is if no one can view the bloody video? And no, people with Macintoshes don't count.
You think this is bad, I've been reading about the Reagan-era flunkies who pushed aspartame on the market.
By the way, just for the record, there is nothing wrong with Aspartame. Yes, I've read some of the bull that's been going around the internet. It's all urban legend nonsense.
Apparently you're talking about the encoder. I'm talking about the player.
Windows media player "shite"? "Kick ass" Quicktime?
I don't know about this guy's universe, but in mine, Windows Media Player works great, but Quicktime under windows is a giant, stinking, smelly, steaming, smoking, pile of dog-doo. It constantly crashes, and the user interface is probably the worst ever designed.
Just to close out the whole function language argument that came up the last time .NET and languages came up, here is a link to a paper that was in Dr. Dobbs about a functional language for the .NET platform: http://research.microsoft.com/~emeijer/Papers/Mond rianDDJ.pdf
And Steve Jobs will still claim that his 2 Ghz G6 is "twice as fast" on some obscure benchmark.
Hard to say. All I can say is that I remember the movie being really good in the theatre, but when I recently saw the Director's Cut DVD, I found my self saying, "This is it? Is this the movie that I saw? This movie is kind of..., well, dull."
I don't know if it's me, or if it's the movie.
On the other hand, it might be a case of "Citizen Kane"-itis where a movie is brilliant and original when it comes out in it's time, but does not age well against modern movies.
To be honest, I though Hannibal mostly sucked. On the other hand, the book wasn't much better, so it's not entirely Ridley Scott's fault. Both were gravy training Silence of the Lambs.
Gladiator is hardly a classic, but it was at least entertaining compared to his other recent efforts.