You completely misunderstand the word homophobia, then -- or, you have an agenda to meet with it.
Am I afraid of people with homosexual behaviors? Hardly. Am I "afraid" of what homosexual behavior does to people? Yep. Am I "afraid" of what some heterosexual behavior does
to people? Yep. Am I "afraid" of what smoking does to people? Yep. All in the same sense.
How this makes me "homophobic", I don't know. Maybe you can explain it.
I'm glad to try. "Homophobic" in today's sense doesn't mean afraid of people with homosexual behaviors.. it just means prejudiced against them. Be as overly literal as you want; that's what the word is globally accepted as meaning. If you really take offense, substiture "anti-homosexual" for homophobic. My point is the same: if you say that the homosexual lifestyle is innately harmful then you're displaying a prejudice and are coloring the rest of your argument.
Funny, I've seen studies and experiences that
said the opposite (probably can be accounted for by the fact that most studies/personal inquiries are backed by an agenda, my own included).
Backed by a common set of assumptions as well as an agenda. I'd like to think that the criteria of psychological health, intelligence according to grades, ability to form friendships and romantic relationships, &c, are good enough. It seems that by your standards, if they believe there's nothing wrong with the homosexual lifestyle then they may have "turned out wrong."
And.. since I know you're thinking it.. the kids don't always turn out gay. Fancy that.. homosexual parents tend to hope that their progeny will make their own decisions about
sexuality.
You didn't even read my post if you thought that's what I was thinking. Take a little time to do so.
a) Not necessarily 'you' so much as whoever is reading the post. b) Your post certainly said nothing that insinuated that you weren't thinking that.
This isn't out of sheer 'homophobia' -- though I do believe that homosexual behavior is inherently harmful to the individuals involved.
Sounds like "sheer 'homophobia'" to me. You've discredited yourself with this statement.. but this is not my point. I rather doubt that you have ever met any children who are the product of two same-sex parents. Guess what? They certainly have
a chance of being well-adjusted happy people.. in fact, my experience and studies (I haven't any links handy) have shown that from all testable aspects, children raised by same-sex couples do better on average than others.
Shocking? Not really. Factors to consider: A -lot- of kids these days are raised by a single parent. No matter what your reasoning you have to concede that two parents are better than one. Also, gay couples with children are in a much more hazardous condition than straight couples with children. The legal climate is far from friendly, the social climate is even worse.. a gay couple has to be much more serious about raising children than a straight couple would have to be. This means more love and devotion to each other --- much better than a straight couple fighting all the time/getting divorced. A less certain point is that more tolerant, liberal people will naturally be prone to raise better kids (more emphasis on feelings, intelligence, constructive problem solving?).
And.. since I know you're thinking it.. the kids don't always turn out gay. Fancy that.. homosexual parents tend to hope that their progeny will make their own decisions about sexuality.
I'd have to guess that it's due to a couple of factors: 1) Computer scientists have, as a matter of course, been a young lot, meaning that being openly gay is probably more accepted among friends and coworkers than the average. 2) The intelligence (and perhaps the particular sort of intelligence) required for computer science jibe well with the self-awareness needed to be comfortable with one's homosexuality.
I figure some part of this must be true. After all, what's the computer capital of the world these days? San Francisco.. a city famous for many other things.
.. so we can see all the Slashdot nerds donate their $300 to the prosecution fund against Napster.
Seriously, I'd like to see a boycott work, but I just don't have faith in you nerds.. when the PSX2 comes out there'll be a big/. article about it and the posters will come out in droves to sing its praises, and any discussion of boycott will be poo-poohed.. such is life.
What the Linux 'community' should do is produce a DVD player that uses DeCSS to simply play a DVD on a Linux PC, with no 'Save to File' or other obviously abuseable options. Until that is done,
you don't really have a leg to stand on.
Oh, please. "Obviously abuseable options" to one person are intrinsically useful to another. The Microsoft-perpetuated standard of childproof, underpowered software is fine for users, but if it begins to be mandated by law then there's something seriously wrong..
Plus, as far as I'm aware, the only use that DeCSS is put to is to rip DVDs and recompress them in DiVX format.
According to ABC Canada, 22% of adult Canadians have "serious problems dealing with printed materials" (some kind of phobia?). While this isn't the same as illiteracy, I guess they consider it functional illiteracy.
Actually, Shockwave for Linux has been out for at least several months. That doesn't matter, though, because shockwave.com's JavaScript evidently won't run at all in Netscape (4.7). woo!
The reason that (paper) junk mail and phone calls have higher hit rates is the unit cost - junk mail lists are prequalified because it's worth spending 40c per name to eliminate a no hopers from the list if the mail piece costs 60c a unit with postage. Telemarketing costs $3 a call, ditto. This is plausible, but I still have doubts. Example: I've never bought anything from telemarketers or from random snailmail spammers, but I still recieve telemarketer calls and snailmail spam on a daily basis. Now perhaps I didn't specify plainly enough in my original posting -- one out of every 100 spam e-mails _which gets through_ results in a sale. I haven't ever seen a list, but I'll bet that when you buy a CD with 10 million e-mail addresses on it, the majority of the addresses are duplicates, fakes, NOSPAM-munged, or addresses that aren't being actively checked any more. Also, it's much easier just to hit 'delete' as soon as you see spam than it is to ignore telemarketers or throw away snailmail. So perhaps you have to send out 10,000 e-mails if you want 100 of them to be read, and one sale to be made.
The negative response of the public is all that is holding back the flood right now; the ultimate way to control it would be price rather than legislation - make emails cost a tenth of a cent each, and it would be enough to severely curtail spam without pricing real communication out of the market. Who would collect the 1/10th of a cent? Who would pay for huge mailing lists like linux-kernel or bugtraq? Would you have to pay if the message was sent and received inside a LAN (like a business or something)?
I know a number of people who are, or have been, telemarketers; apparently making one sale out of a hundred calls is good-to-average. It wouldn't be too far-fetched to say that one out of every hundred spam mails that's attended to (i.e. that goes to a working e-mail address and that isn't filtered out) would result in a sale. Anyway, if it didn't work then they wouldn't do it..
Nope, I dont think the GPL has EVER been tested in court, positivly not in a major lawsuit.
You're wrong. Several posters in this thread have mentioned suits involving the GPL. As for 'major,' high-profile lawsuits, it doesn't seem to me that we'd want to use this suit as the GPL's public introduction as a powerful document, because it could be given the spin that we're -restricting- the rights of the author of this Quake-derivative work, rather than protecting the rights of the community.
And if you read it, you will soon see that it is very clearly not written by a lawyer - it's less than 10 pages long!
I have, of course, read it. It is worded in very precise terms, as a legal document; and the FSF would be utterly foolish not to have it reviewed and clarified by a lawyer. It's a common-sense assumption.
The other day at work we cracked open an old 500MB drive from a recently-dismantled Sun 4. It was about the size of an old shoebox, but we were able to dismantle it with entirely nondestructive tools (breaking the vacuum in the platter chamber was a bit tough though). The platters are about a foot in diameter. Fun stuff.
This is the most absurd analogy I've ever read. Comparing things like information with things like children is exactly what got intellectual property into the ridiculous mess it's in today. You don't lose any of the quality of use of your knowledge if you allow others to do it too, unless you were somehow using it to others' expense, which is of course bad.
Sure, it would show people that the GPL is enforcable. How valuable is that? It's clearly enforcable, it's written by lawyers and has surely been tested in the past. I fear that if this has to be settled in the court, it will be painted as 'the dark side of the GPL:' some GPL sticklers working to destroy a project just because the project author wouldn't comply with their Communist license.
It's obvious to many people, probably most Slashdot readers, that this is not the case; however, once the ball is in the public court, the media will do what they want with it. It's always a concern.
--neil
By the way, let it be said in advance that I will laugh heartily if this post is moderated down because of my obvious sarcastic hyperbole re: the GPL. Standard disclaimer: that's not what I really think. Obviously.
If this prevents you from reading Slashdot, you probably have too much time on your hands anyway. The comments section has always been a waste of time. Being a blatant waste of time is not much worse. Furthermore, if you don't want to read the trolls, then you don't want to read a public forum, and you don't want to read Slashdot comments. All of your suggestions except the last are utterly ridiculous and elitist and would turn Slashdot into a bunch of pandering yes-men, much like it probably looks if you read at threshold of 1. So if that's the way you want it, just read at 1 and leave the public forum for the rest of us. Or stop reading Slashdot altogether, as you 'threaten.' I doubt you could come up with one person who'd miss you.
--neil, posting non-anonymously because if a moderator can't find anything better to moderate down, then he couldn't be helped anyway
Your analogy is correct to a point. Yes, you can walk from Los Angeles to New York, given enough time. The real challenge would be walking from New York to London. It obviously wouldn't be as simple as just taking small steps, just as macroevolution is not as simple as accentuating small features. There are certain steps in macroevolution which are very difficult to explain in reactive rather than proactive terms (and, in case you didn't know, microevolution is only reactive). I mentioned them in my former post. If you need me to go into more detail, just say so.
Completely wrong. You can't prove that macro- and micro-evolution are the same thing. There are strong arguments, but there are also unexplained phenomena in the genesis (pardon the choice of word) of new species.
Brief primer for people who aren't in the know: Microevolution is a species undergoing minute changes over small timespans (single generations) in response to changes in environment. This has been observed in the wild and experimentally reproduced. Macroevolution is the creation of new species, even new types of species (i.e. fish->primates). The amount of time which (according to the fossil record) this takes is very difficult for people to comprehend. There are also many steps which cannot be explained simply in terms of microevolution, such as the advent of aerobic organisms, or animal life leaving the sea. There are, of course, cogent theories to explain these things, but they don't change the fact that macroevolution is scientifically unprovable and likely always will be. Not that this matters so much; several scientific phenomena which we take as fact are really only theories.
Slashdot Mirror
Why bother tweaking your /etc/hosts? Right-click on an ad banner and choose "Block Images from this Server" and presto..
I'm glad to try. "Homophobic" in today's sense doesn't mean afraid of people with homosexual behaviors.. it just means prejudiced against them. Be as overly literal as you want; that's what the word is globally accepted as meaning. If you really take offense, substiture "anti-homosexual" for homophobic. My point is the same: if you say that the homosexual lifestyle is innately harmful then you're displaying a prejudice and are coloring the rest of your argument.
Funny, I've seen studies and experiences that said the opposite (probably can be accounted for by the fact that most studies/personal inquiries are backed by an agenda, my own included).
Backed by a common set of assumptions as well as an agenda. I'd like to think that the criteria of psychological health, intelligence according to grades, ability to form friendships and romantic relationships, &c, are good enough. It seems that by your standards, if they believe there's nothing wrong with the homosexual lifestyle then they may have "turned out wrong."
You didn't even read my post if you thought that's what I was thinking. Take a little time to do so.
a) Not necessarily 'you' so much as whoever is reading the post. b) Your post certainly said nothing that insinuated that you weren't thinking that.
Sounds like "sheer 'homophobia'" to me. You've discredited yourself with this statement.. but this is not my point. I rather doubt that you have ever met any children who are the product of two same-sex parents. Guess what? They certainly have a chance of being well-adjusted happy people.. in fact, my experience and studies (I haven't any links handy) have shown that from all testable aspects, children raised by same-sex couples do better on average than others.
Shocking? Not really. Factors to consider: A -lot- of kids these days are raised by a single parent. No matter what your reasoning you have to concede that two parents are better than one. Also, gay couples with children are in a much more hazardous condition than straight couples with children. The legal climate is far from friendly, the social climate is even worse.. a gay couple has to be much more serious about raising children than a straight couple would have to be. This means more love and devotion to each other --- much better than a straight couple fighting all the time/getting divorced. A less certain point is that more tolerant, liberal people will naturally be prone to raise better kids (more emphasis on feelings, intelligence, constructive problem solving?).
And.. since I know you're thinking it.. the kids don't always turn out gay. Fancy that.. homosexual parents tend to hope that their progeny will make their own decisions about sexuality.
I figure some part of this must be true. After all, what's the computer capital of the world these days? San Francisco.. a city famous for many other things.
No, just an extremely poor logician.
YM 'one kilocriminal'
Go to www.jwz.org. Make a file and use it. Time limit: 15 minutes.
Extra credit: Explain it.
Extra extra credit: Don't use perl.
(The above extra extra credit, of course, goes for anything you ever program!)
Which is good, because before that nobody could use the first Walkman (invented in India in the 5th century BC).
Seriously, I'd like to see a boycott work, but I just don't have faith in you nerds.. when the PSX2 comes out there'll be a big /. article about it and the posters will come out in droves to sing its praises, and any discussion of boycott will be poo-poohed.. such is life.
-- neil, who won't be buying one
According to ABC Canada, 22% of adult Canadians have "serious problems dealing with printed materials" (some kind of phobia?). While this isn't the same as illiteracy, I guess they consider it functional illiteracy.
Ah. That would explain why I couldn't get it to work. :)
Actually, Shockwave for Linux has been out for at least several months. That doesn't matter, though, because shockwave.com's JavaScript evidently won't run at all in Netscape (4.7). woo!
This is plausible, but I still have doubts. Example: I've never bought anything from telemarketers or from random snailmail spammers, but I still recieve telemarketer calls and snailmail spam on a daily basis. Now perhaps I didn't specify plainly enough in my original posting -- one out of every 100 spam e-mails _which gets through_ results in a sale. I haven't ever seen a list, but I'll bet that when you buy a CD with 10 million e-mail addresses on it, the majority of the addresses are duplicates, fakes, NOSPAM-munged, or addresses that aren't being actively checked any more. Also, it's much easier just to hit 'delete' as soon as you see spam than it is to ignore telemarketers or throw away snailmail. So perhaps you have to send out 10,000 e-mails if you want 100 of them to be read, and one sale to be made.
The negative response of the public is all that is holding back the flood right now; the ultimate way to control it would be price rather than legislation - make emails cost a tenth of a cent each, and it would be enough to severely curtail spam without pricing real communication out of the market.
Who would collect the 1/10th of a cent? Who would pay for huge mailing lists like linux-kernel or bugtraq? Would you have to pay if the message was sent and received inside a LAN (like a business or something)?
--neil
--neil
You're wrong. Several posters in this thread have mentioned suits involving the GPL. As for 'major,' high-profile lawsuits, it doesn't seem to me that we'd want to use this suit as the GPL's public introduction as a powerful document, because it could be given the spin that we're -restricting- the rights of the author of this Quake-derivative work, rather than protecting the rights of the community.
And if you read it, you will soon see that it is very clearly not written by a lawyer - it's less than 10 pages long!
I have, of course, read it. It is worded in very precise terms, as a legal document; and the FSF would be utterly foolish not to have it reviewed and clarified by a lawyer. It's a common-sense assumption.
--neil
The other day at work we cracked open an old 500MB drive from a recently-dismantled Sun 4. It was about the size of an old shoebox, but we were able to dismantle it with entirely nondestructive tools (breaking the vacuum in the platter chamber was a bit tough though). The platters are about a foot in diameter. Fun stuff.
Bad analogy.
It's obvious to many people, probably most Slashdot readers, that this is not the case; however, once the ball is in the public court, the media will do what they want with it. It's always a concern.
--neil
By the way, let it be said in advance that I will laugh heartily if this post is moderated down because of my obvious sarcastic hyperbole re: the GPL. Standard disclaimer: that's not what I really think. Obviously.
--neil, posting non-anonymously because if a moderator can't find anything better to moderate down, then he couldn't be helped anyway
--neil
--neil
Brief primer for people who aren't in the know:
Microevolution is a species undergoing minute changes over small timespans (single generations) in response to changes in environment. This has been observed in the wild and experimentally reproduced.
Macroevolution is the creation of new species, even new types of species (i.e. fish->primates). The amount of time which (according to the fossil record) this takes is very difficult for people to comprehend. There are also many steps which cannot be explained simply in terms of microevolution, such as the advent of aerobic organisms, or animal life leaving the sea. There are, of course, cogent theories to explain these things, but they don't change the fact that macroevolution is scientifically unprovable and likely always will be. Not that this matters so much; several scientific phenomena which we take as fact are really only theories.
--neil
--neil
No it's not.
Try it out. gcc -Wall doesn't give any warnings and it works like a dre am.
--neil