Forget about the usefulness of the invention for a moment (patents have never been concerned with the merits of the invention), this guy created something new and unique, and something which, to some, could be pretty valuable. After all, the exact things you list as examples (lava lamps and plasma balls) have made tons of cash (hell, I have a lava lamp on my desk). So why shouldn't Dyson be allowed exclusive rights to his invention and any monetary rewards it generates for a time? That's exactly what patents were created for! To allow the "little guy" to innovate, and benefit from those innovations.
You misquoted the original poster, actually. He said the *GPL* isn't essential to maintaining the free sharing of software. This doesn't preclude the important role that the FSF played in bringing open source software to the forefront. It only says that the GPL license wasn't a requirement, and more to the point, isn't today, either.
What the FSF did was develop and impressive suite of applications, and then release them for free. IMHO, it was this act itself that kickstarted the freeware community again, not the license the software was placed under, or the philosophy behind the FSF. Yes, the GPL is an interesting political statement, but I'd argue that if the original GNU tools had been placed under the Artistic license, they would have had the same, dramatic impact on the software industry. This is especially true given the closed, proprietary environment in which they were released, as the actions of the FSF were so contrary to the prevailing opinion of the time, hence making massive waves in the industry and re-opening people's eyes to the idea of freeware.
I would contend that the GPL has quite a lot to do with the spirit of the community. It is much easier to be generous when you can be sure that your generosity will not be turned against you.
I suspect the developers of Apache and its related tools, not to mention Perl, Python, and the various BSD-derived OSs might disagree with you.
Yes, it is. Nowadays, "Free Software" means pretty much what the FSF suggests it means. It's not a term you can "re-apply" any more, because the FSF definition is established.
Ahh yes, that's actually a very good point. Perhaps I should have said "open source" rather than "free". At least, I think that's what I should have said... I'm so confused. *sigh*:)
Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is a different kettle of fish, or a "philosophical argument that no one will win", as you so eloquently put it. But I don't think it's terribly productive in 2003 do be debating the meaning of "Free Software".
I couldn't agree more...
Re:Bah, the GPL is not the "core of the ... moveme
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The GPL is the core of the Free Software movement.
No, it isn't. My whole premise is that the free software "movement" (as in, the process of providing software for others to modify, use, or abuse as they see fit) would probably be chugging along just as well if the GPL never existed. Why? Because what drives the "movement" is its spirit, NOT its license! This contrasts with the article which claims (wrongly, IMHO) that this "movement" will somehow "derail" if the GPL is defeated. Bull, I say! It will be just fine, no matter what Stallman would have you believe. After all, if you believed this ridiculous premise, the BSD-derived OSs shouldn't exist, not to mention Apache and a host of other non-GPL-licensed software projects.
Incidentally, I happen to believe that the BSD license provides MORE freedom than the GPL, in that it doesn't mandate what the end user can and cannot do with the code (ie, they are "free" to do more things under the BSD license than the GPL). But this is, of course, a philosophical argument that no one will win.:)
Bah, the GPL is not the "core of the ... movement"
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Free software has been around for a LONG time, and in many incarnations. Sure, much of it has been licensed under the GPL, but the BSD-derived licenses have been around for as long (if not longer), not to mention the classic Artistic license, and so on. Calling the GPL the core of the free software movement is a vast overstatement.
Consider, the BSD-derived operating systems (and by operating system, I mean the core and all the related tools) have been around for a LONG time, and have attracted a large number of developers. These developers have improved the BSD systems as a whole, and have contributed their changes back into the code base, despite there being no LEGAL requirement to do so. Granted, some companies have coopted BSD code, but who cares? In the end the BSDs have progressed just fine.
So, why is this? It's because, in the end, the core of the free software movement is about creativity, generosity, and a sense of community, and NOT because they feel that *have* to contribute their changes back to the community. . I would contend that the reason the Linux kernel has progressed so well has little to do with the license and everything to do with the spirit of the community. Heck, I suspect that if the Linux kernel had been licensed under the BSD license, or even the Artistic license, it would have done just as well. Why? Because people *want* to work on the kernel. They want to be part of that community, and to feel like they can contribute. In the end, the GPL serves as nothing more than a political statement about the views of that community.
Thus, I have to seriously question the idea that, if the GPL was defeated, this would "derail" the free software "movement". This so-called movement has been around for a long time, and will continue, whether or not the GPL is legally tenable.
Heck, this is even more true if you leverage Mozilla and XUL. Yes, you are limiting yourself to a certain "platform" (the Mozilla platform), but you end up with something which is supremely portable (as much as Mozilla is portable) and incredibly powerful.
Yes, it's just that some people have been working to redefine free. For some strange reason, the Supreme Court has gone along with them.
Oh come on, that's an easy one! When you're highest court is appointed by the goddamn President, its not all that surprising that it tends to uphold the government agenda.
Umm, I think you're missing the point. The republicans hijacked a government department in order to further their own political agenda. Yes, what the demos did was questionable, but the fact that the republicans felt they could abuse the DHS to surveil other political representatives is disgusting and frightening. Moreover, it shows what can happen when you have that kind of power in the hands of government officials who, clearly, are easily corrupted. And yes, I'd feel the exact same way if the parties were reversed... this is an example of a gross abuse of power, plain and simple, no matter who did it.
Just to argue the other side here, what you're describing is a "slippery slope". Unfortunately, this like a logical fallacy. For a particularly applicable example, see example four on that page.
However I am called anti-American before for not agreeing with all they do.
Don't worry... *Americans* are often called anti-American "for not agreeing with all they do", "they" being, of course, the current regime in power. Just ask the Dixie Chicks...
Okay, this may be brutally obvious, but the drivers shouldn't be able freeze the UI! Plain and simple, it just should not be possible, especially on a system where the GUI is the only way to manipulate the system. The fact that a codec (a CODEC!) could possibly freeze the system indicates to me that Microsoft didn't go to enough trouble to protect the OS from user-space apps.
I appreciate your willingness to discuss this matter. Please take no offense at the things I say. If I come off a little over-the-top it is because my opinions are very strong with regard to this subject.
That probably applies to everyone... it's a pretty polarizing issue.
Let's take this one in order. The logic you state can be argued both ways. A simple basic argument in logic would go something like this: A person has life, someone takes it thereby incurring a debt of 1 "life." They must therefore forfeit their life to satisfy the debt. Society collects the debt through the instrument of the justice system so that "vengeance" is not the motivation. Vengeance is PERSONAL and subjectively applied...the justice system is impersonal and is applied with objectivity and impartiality. The criminal knows the penalty before they commit the crime. With vengeance you never know what you will get.
The problem with this view is that the justice system isn't impartial. Just look at the average number of blacks on death row versus whites (yes, there are many factors here, but the sheer imbalance implies that it's not just due to socioeconomic issues). In fact, I would argue that a murder suspect on trial may very well not "know what [they] will get", simply because the sentence handed down may vary depending on the judge, the jury, the state...
Of course, now I'm beginning to understand the difference in views here. I see the role of punishment in the justice system as primarily 1) deterrant and 2) therapeutic (for lack of a better term). It appears your view is that the role of punishment is deterrant, and to "balance the scales". Again, the "eye for an eye" approach. 'course, it's tough to argue against that one, simply because it really is a matter of values. I am of the opinion that there can be no excuse for ending a human life... even if you think they "deserve it" (the definition of which is impossible to define conclusively).
In other words, some people believe that it is integral to morality, not a by-product or appendage or marginal, but central. It is the ultimate penalty to those who oppose the morality itself.
Yes, but how can you claim to live in a moral society when you are willing to selectively ignore those moral values? How can you possibly claim that it's valid to punish an immoral act by performing an immoral act? It makes no sense. It's not internally consistent. By allowing the state to decide which moral values are important when, you are weakening the values of society as a whole.
As for the death penalty being a deterrent and your statement about the drug war I kind of lost you there.
My point was this: You claimed that you could improve the effectiveness of the DP by increasing the frequency of its use (effectively "toughening up" the laws). Now, an analagous example of this in the real world is the US drug laws. For years, the US has been making these laws harsher and harsher, in an attempt to deter drug use and abuse. Despite this, drug use continues. Thus, it seems that simply "toughening up" the laws does not necessarily work.
Here is my experience. A friend of mine went to jail in Texas ( I happen to live in Texas) for a crime just short of RICO type drug charges not to mention posession of narcotics with intent to distribute, etc, etc. Of a 10 year term he spent 18 months in jail. Tell me again about longer sentences?
Well, this is more an example of a break in the legal system. The US has still tried to deter drug use and distribution through harsher laws, to no avail.
Anyways, the act of comitting crime changes the criminal. Just like perverse sexual acts change the sex addict. If you can provide sufficient levels of deterence throught the function of a harsh judicial system, many criminals will not progress to the point of requiring the death penalty.
Err, you used the phrase "will not". You probably meant "might not". I say
Not really... the criminal has been captured (he must have been, you're about to kill him). He's no longer a threat to society, as he's now jailed (the jailing of the criminal is, really, the act of self-defense).
Remember, in general, the self-defense argument requires that the person be in imminent danger. I wouldn't say this is the case with an imprisoned convict.
Not much does. You should take a nice close look at the subject of criminality before you extemporaneously state your emotional position as basis for how the real world "should" work.
Actually, my statement had little to do with the way the world "should" work. My argument is more logically and morally based than anything (in the philosophical, rather than Bush-style rhetoric, sense of the word;)... 'course, one could argue that morals are relative, but...:)
Anyway, when selecting a form of punishment for a criminal, one should examine the justification for the sentence (why we use the forms of punishment we do). There are primarily two ways to argue this. The first is based around the idea of deterrence; we institute a form of punishment based on the idea that it will deter others from committing a crime. Of course, it's not so cut and dried as that... you first look at what extent capital punishment deters crime deters crime (which, in its current incarnation, does not) and whether or not other methods (early intervention, other types of punishment, etc) may be equally effective (looking at other nations where, for example, murder rates are far lower, I'd say this is true). You also have to consider the benefits (amount of deterrence) against the drawbacks. In this case, you have the (not insignificant) potential for innocent people being put to death. I would suggest this single drawback is enough to invalidate the DP, although there are others (mostly based on moral arguments... I'll stick to the empirical ones, though). Of course, this all depends on whether you agree that one innocent life is a fine price to pay for "justice"...
The second primary argument is based on retributivism... you know, "an eye for an eye" and all that. Does the punishment bring peace to the victims (my own impression is "no", but this is intuitive... I'd love evidence, one way or the other)? This side is, I think, a little more difficult to argue, one way or the other, because it depends on your beliefs (fe, I disagree with the concept of "vengeance" as a basis for the justice system).
Education, in most cases, results in well-read criminals. Psychotherapy results in criminals who learn to fake the psychologist's "steps to recovery." The plain truth is that "reform" is a crock of krap 99% of the time.
Care to back this up? You're assuming all criminals who are given the death penalty are either clinically sociopathic (they feel they are superior, not beholden to the rules/values of society, etc) or a lost cause for whatever reason, and then using this as a basis for your whole argument. But this is clearly nothing more than a generalization...
The fact that the death penalty is, in your opinion, not a deterrent to crime is twofold.
Actually, this has little to do with "[my] opinion". Just look at the violent crime rates for Texas and Florida. Are the numbers lower than adjacent states? No! So clearly there's something wrong here... the DP doesn't seem to be doing its job.
One, if it was applied more often and more expediently it would definitely be much more effective of a deterrent.
Hmm... but this argument doesn't hold with the drug war. Quicker, more expedient trials and longer jail sentences has done nothing to deter people from using drugs. So why would more frequent use of the death penalty make a difference. After all, you said it yourself, these people are sociopaths... it seems unlikely that they would actually be deterred, especially considering it doesn't even deter regular, moral individuals.
Two, it is the sole responsibility of the judicial system to deter criminals. The manner and effect of punnishment is the only deterrent to criminality. See one above.
Actually, your second point has nothing to do with whether the DP is a deterrant to crime, but I digress...
Oh please... the fact is, killing another human being is murder. Period. Try to justify it all you want, but if there is no valid reason for a one person to kill another (self defense doesn't apply in this case, since the state is certainly not defending itself), then there is no morally consistent way to argue that the state should, in fact, have the power to kill a human being.
Basically, what you're advocating is state-sponsored vengeance. Well, sorry, I completely disagree with that... the law isn't about vengeance. It's about justice, and I don't believe that justice can be had by committing a second crime to "balance the scales". Of course, given the US mentality toward "justice", it doesn't surprise me that this is the prevailing belief. The fact that you believe certain crimes "merit" death is even more frightening, given the arbitrary nature of the determination (yet another key issue regarding the DP, IMHO).
Incidentally, I call capital punishment "vengeance" because it has no basis as a valid form of punishment. It doesn't deter crime (just look at the capital crime rates for Texas and Florida) and, clearly, it doesn't reform the criminals (kinda hard to reform when you're dead). Moreover, the significant possibility of mistrial (ever read "To Kill A Mocking Bird"... a book far too topical today, given the racial bias in death penalty sentences), or simply a wrong verdict, makes capital punishment FAR too dangerous. After all, it's a little difficult to take back if you made a mistake...
Incidentally, the response to "mod parent down" because you didn't like what I had to say speaks much to clearly about the state of things in the US. Better to suppress an unpopular opinion than have to listen to something you disagree with, eh?
Well, given that we're talking about a country where killing people is considered a valid form of punishment, you find this mentality surprising?
In fact, I just thought of something. In law, murder is considered one of the most heinous crimes, and, I would claim, considered worse than rape. BUT, the government is allowed to murder criminals as a form of punishment. So, if you accept that murder is worse than rape, then rape should be a perfectly valid form of punishment as well, and a lesser one than the death penalty.
Of course, it's quite likely there are Americans who actually agree with this logic (or at least the conclusion); a truly sad thing, IMHO.
Unfortunately, there's no consistent way to cleanly remove things that I compile. And keeping track of the dependencies is next to impossible to do. I don't like to clutter up my directories with files and directories that aren't needed anymore.
Actually, on my Debian system, I have a mix.debs and stuff I've compiled myself, and my solution to the cruft problem is to use stow. I install all custom-compiled packages to/usr/local/packages/package-name, and then just enter the package directory and type
stow package-name
Voila! Very handy, and makes it VERY easy to uninstall packages (stow -D package-name; rm -rf package-name). Of course, there's still the dependencies issue, but I don't find that to be a big problem on a normal system.
Incidentally, stow is great for users who want to maintain their own private software repo as well. I do this at work, where I don't want to mix my personal software with the stuff from the default workstation install.
I notice that you don't disagree, you just label it as a "troll"
Well, I do disagree, but only because your thesis ("Leftists hate cars") is so ridiculous I could only assume your post was a troll. Apparently I was mistaken... which makes your original post all the more amusing! Oh, careful, your tinfoil hat is crooked.
See, the problem with your troll is that you didn't build up to the climax. Your first paragraph was pretty good... fairly lucid, yet somewhat controversial. But then you just right into "Leftists hate individualism", which gives the troll away immediately. What you needed was a gradual introduction of the concept... talk about freedoms and so forth (perhaps citing the DMCA or something), then mention the government tendency to limit freedoms, specifically leftist governments, and then *finally* the coup de grace, "Leftists hate cars". I would suggest following as a possible modification:
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Cars represent freedom. I can hop in my car and drive pretty much wherever I want, whenever I want. It offers me great individual mobility. Much moreso than the ever-so-overhyped Segway(tm).
Of course, as we all know, the government in recent years has shown a distinct lack of interest in personal freedoms, passing such ridiculous laws as the DMCA, not to mention the state-level super-DMCAs. This is just another similar move, cleverly justified by ridiculous "environmental concerns" being touted by leftists who are really more concerned with limiting our personal freedoms (just look at the attacks on gun ownership, something which is a sanctified *right* in the constitution!)
Thus, its plainly obvious that this paper is really an attack on freedoms, thinly disguised by a veneer of politically correct, environmental double-speak.
Don't get me wrong, I would actually prefer to see American cities (particularly my own hometown of Atlanta where it is impossible to live sans auto and thus suffers from the worst, most redneck-engineered traffic jams in the country) become more pedestrian friendly. But I'm not so blind as to understand why so many Star-Trek-worshipping pan-socialist latch-onto-the-government-teat know-it-all college-student crybabies would like to ban the automobile.
Yes, but in your example, this code is non-portable. One can't guarantee, on all compilers, or even with different libc's, that atoi() is making use of the nonnull attribute. IMHO, this feature is only really useful for user-written functions, and again, I would argue assert() accomplishes the same thing (and in a portable fashion).
Well, spotting null pointers is only so useful anyway. My own intuition suggests that most pointer problems are related to pointers with undefined values in them. Either they weren't initialized in the first place, or they were free'd prematurely.
Besides, checking for NULL can be quite easily done at runtime using assert(). 'course, having the compiler do it at compile time will catch a few cases, and doesn't incur the (minor) performance hit of doing a runtime check, but it still strikes me as a narrowly useful feature.
Right now it takes DVD-Rs 2 discs to back up a movie (dual-layer vs. single layer). It would be nice to archive my movie collections using less media.
Bah, who cares one way or another. The government, since it's meant to represent ALL the people, should not, ever, EVER, incorporate religious doctrine, symbolism, etc, into it's workings. Yes, that includes no "under god" in the pledge of allegiance, or religious phrases on currency. Why? Because it's plainly obvious (to anyone who isn't trying to argue their way out of a corner) that the "god" mentioned is the Christian God, thus excluding all else. Clearly, this is a VERY bad thing for a government which is "by the people, for the people", and hopefully, ALL people. It results in people being excluded, because those who are not part of the "not-quite-state-sponsored" religion are left out.
A better question is, why should the government endorse/recognize any religion at all? What purpose does this serve? WTF is the phrase "under god" included in the pledge of allegiance, other than to counter the "godless communists" of the cold war era? Frankly, I see no need for it... religion is a personal matter, and belongs in the home and in the church. It does NOT belong in the government that runs the country.
Right now it takes DVD-Rs 2 discs to back up a movie (dual-layer vs. single layer). It would be nice to archive my movie collections using less media.
And you don't think there'll be the equivalent of "dual-layer HD-DVDs" so you can't just go copying HD-DVDs willy-nilly? Come on, don't be silly. Other than additional storage, the great thing about dual-layer DVDs (from the studio POV) is they're harder to copy. Why do away with that?
Now, if you're talking about copying regular DVDs onto HD-DVD media, don't assume the studios won't find some way to prevent that (likely at the player level), say by disallowing the playback of regular DVD-quality MPEG-2 from an HD-DVD disc. And if they cut out the low-end Chinese/overseas manufacturing machine, it'll be a lot harder to find devices that allow you to disable something like this (like region coding, etc, on the current gen of DVD players).
Slashdot Mirror
Forget about the usefulness of the invention for a moment (patents have never been concerned with the merits of the invention), this guy created something new and unique, and something which, to some, could be pretty valuable. After all, the exact things you list as examples (lava lamps and plasma balls) have made tons of cash (hell, I have a lava lamp on my desk). So why shouldn't Dyson be allowed exclusive rights to his invention and any monetary rewards it generates for a time? That's exactly what patents were created for! To allow the "little guy" to innovate, and benefit from those innovations.
You misquoted the original poster, actually. He said the *GPL* isn't essential to maintaining the free sharing of software. This doesn't preclude the important role that the FSF played in bringing open source software to the forefront. It only says that the GPL license wasn't a requirement, and more to the point, isn't today, either.
What the FSF did was develop and impressive suite of applications, and then release them for free. IMHO, it was this act itself that kickstarted the freeware community again, not the license the software was placed under, or the philosophy behind the FSF. Yes, the GPL is an interesting political statement, but I'd argue that if the original GNU tools had been placed under the Artistic license, they would have had the same, dramatic impact on the software industry. This is especially true given the closed, proprietary environment in which they were released, as the actions of the FSF were so contrary to the prevailing opinion of the time, hence making massive waves in the industry and re-opening people's eyes to the idea of freeware.
I would contend that the GPL has quite a lot to do with the spirit of the community. It is much easier to be generous when you can be sure that your generosity will not be turned against you.
I suspect the developers of Apache and its related tools, not to mention Perl, Python, and the various BSD-derived OSs might disagree with you.
Yes, it is. Nowadays, "Free Software" means pretty much what the FSF suggests it means. It's not a term you can "re-apply" any more, because the FSF definition is established.
:)
Ahh yes, that's actually a very good point. Perhaps I should have said "open source" rather than "free". At least, I think that's what I should have said... I'm so confused. *sigh*
Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is a different kettle of fish, or a "philosophical argument that no one will win", as you so eloquently put it. But I don't think it's terribly productive in 2003 do be debating the meaning of "Free Software".
I couldn't agree more...
The GPL is the core of the Free Software movement.
:)
No, it isn't. My whole premise is that the free software "movement" (as in, the process of providing software for others to modify, use, or abuse as they see fit) would probably be chugging along just as well if the GPL never existed. Why? Because what drives the "movement" is its spirit, NOT its license! This contrasts with the article which claims (wrongly, IMHO) that this "movement" will somehow "derail" if the GPL is defeated. Bull, I say! It will be just fine, no matter what Stallman would have you believe. After all, if you believed this ridiculous premise, the BSD-derived OSs shouldn't exist, not to mention Apache and a host of other non-GPL-licensed software projects.
Incidentally, I happen to believe that the BSD license provides MORE freedom than the GPL, in that it doesn't mandate what the end user can and cannot do with the code (ie, they are "free" to do more things under the BSD license than the GPL). But this is, of course, a philosophical argument that no one will win.
Free software has been around for a LONG time, and in many incarnations. Sure, much of it has been licensed under the GPL, but the BSD-derived licenses have been around for as long (if not longer), not to mention the classic Artistic license, and so on. Calling the GPL the core of the free software movement is a vast overstatement.
Consider, the BSD-derived operating systems (and by operating system, I mean the core and all the related tools) have been around for a LONG time, and have attracted a large number of developers. These developers have improved the BSD systems as a whole, and have contributed their changes back into the code base, despite there being no LEGAL requirement to do so. Granted, some companies have coopted BSD code, but who cares? In the end the BSDs have progressed just fine.
So, why is this? It's because, in the end, the core of the free software movement is about creativity, generosity, and a sense of community, and NOT because they feel that *have* to contribute their changes back to the community. . I would contend that the reason the Linux kernel has progressed so well has little to do with the license and everything to do with the spirit of the community. Heck, I suspect that if the Linux kernel had been licensed under the BSD license, or even the Artistic license, it would have done just as well. Why? Because people *want* to work on the kernel. They want to be part of that community, and to feel like they can contribute. In the end, the GPL serves as nothing more than a political statement about the views of that community.
Thus, I have to seriously question the idea that, if the GPL was defeated, this would "derail" the free software "movement". This so-called movement has been around for a long time, and will continue, whether or not the GPL is legally tenable.
Heck, this is even more true if you leverage Mozilla and XUL. Yes, you are limiting yourself to a certain "platform" (the Mozilla platform), but you end up with something which is supremely portable (as much as Mozilla is portable) and incredibly powerful.
Yes, it's just that some people have been working to redefine free. For some strange reason, the Supreme Court has gone along with them.
Oh come on, that's an easy one! When you're highest court is appointed by the goddamn President, its not all that surprising that it tends to uphold the government agenda.
Umm, I think you're missing the point. The republicans hijacked a government department in order to further their own political agenda. Yes, what the demos did was questionable, but the fact that the republicans felt they could abuse the DHS to surveil other political representatives is disgusting and frightening. Moreover, it shows what can happen when you have that kind of power in the hands of government officials who, clearly, are easily corrupted. And yes, I'd feel the exact same way if the parties were reversed... this is an example of a gross abuse of power, plain and simple, no matter who did it.
Just to argue the other side here, what you're describing is a "slippery slope". Unfortunately, this like a logical fallacy. For a particularly applicable example, see example four on that page.
However I am called anti-American before for not agreeing with all they do.
Don't worry... *Americans* are often called anti-American "for not agreeing with all they do", "they" being, of course, the current regime in power. Just ask the Dixie Chicks...
Okay, this may be brutally obvious, but the drivers shouldn't be able freeze the UI! Plain and simple, it just should not be possible, especially on a system where the GUI is the only way to manipulate the system. The fact that a codec (a CODEC!) could possibly freeze the system indicates to me that Microsoft didn't go to enough trouble to protect the OS from user-space apps.
I appreciate your willingness to discuss this matter. Please take no offense at the things I say. If I come off a little over-the-top it is because my opinions are very strong with regard to this subject.
That probably applies to everyone... it's a pretty polarizing issue.
Let's take this one in order. The logic you state can be argued both ways. A simple basic argument in logic would go something like this: A person has life, someone takes it thereby incurring a debt of 1 "life." They must therefore forfeit their life to satisfy the debt. Society collects the debt through the instrument of the justice system so that "vengeance" is not the motivation. Vengeance is PERSONAL and subjectively applied...the justice system is impersonal and is applied with objectivity and impartiality. The criminal knows the penalty before they commit the crime. With vengeance you never know what you will get.
The problem with this view is that the justice system isn't impartial. Just look at the average number of blacks on death row versus whites (yes, there are many factors here, but the sheer imbalance implies that it's not just due to socioeconomic issues). In fact, I would argue that a murder suspect on trial may very well not "know what [they] will get", simply because the sentence handed down may vary depending on the judge, the jury, the state...
Of course, now I'm beginning to understand the difference in views here. I see the role of punishment in the justice system as primarily 1) deterrant and 2) therapeutic (for lack of a better term). It appears your view is that the role of punishment is deterrant, and to "balance the scales". Again, the "eye for an eye" approach. 'course, it's tough to argue against that one, simply because it really is a matter of values. I am of the opinion that there can be no excuse for ending a human life... even if you think they "deserve it" (the definition of which is impossible to define conclusively).
In other words, some people believe that it is integral to morality, not a by-product or appendage or marginal, but central. It is the ultimate penalty to those who oppose the morality itself.
Yes, but how can you claim to live in a moral society when you are willing to selectively ignore those moral values? How can you possibly claim that it's valid to punish an immoral act by performing an immoral act? It makes no sense. It's not internally consistent. By allowing the state to decide which moral values are important when, you are weakening the values of society as a whole.
As for the death penalty being a deterrent and your statement about the drug war I kind of lost you there.
My point was this: You claimed that you could improve the effectiveness of the DP by increasing the frequency of its use (effectively "toughening up" the laws). Now, an analagous example of this in the real world is the US drug laws. For years, the US has been making these laws harsher and harsher, in an attempt to deter drug use and abuse. Despite this, drug use continues. Thus, it seems that simply "toughening up" the laws does not necessarily work.
Here is my experience. A friend of mine went to jail in Texas ( I happen to live in Texas) for a crime just short of RICO type drug charges not to mention posession of narcotics with intent to distribute, etc, etc. Of a 10 year term he spent 18 months in jail. Tell me again about longer sentences?
Well, this is more an example of a break in the legal system. The US has still tried to deter drug use and distribution through harsher laws, to no avail.
Anyways, the act of comitting crime changes the criminal. Just like perverse sexual acts change the sex addict. If you can provide sufficient levels of deterence throught the function of a harsh judicial system, many criminals will not progress to the point of requiring the death penalty.
Err, you used the phrase "will not". You probably meant "might not". I say
Not really... the criminal has been captured (he must have been, you're about to kill him). He's no longer a threat to society, as he's now jailed (the jailing of the criminal is, really, the act of self-defense).
Remember, in general, the self-defense argument requires that the person be in imminent danger. I wouldn't say this is the case with an imprisoned convict.
Now this is a more interesting discussion. :)
;)... 'course, one could argue that morals are relative, but... :)
Not much does. You should take a nice close look at the subject of criminality before you extemporaneously state your emotional position as basis for how the real world "should" work.
Actually, my statement had little to do with the way the world "should" work. My argument is more logically and morally based than anything (in the philosophical, rather than Bush-style rhetoric, sense of the word
Anyway, when selecting a form of punishment for a criminal, one should examine the justification for the sentence (why we use the forms of punishment we do). There are primarily two ways to argue this. The first is based around the idea of deterrence; we institute a form of punishment based on the idea that it will deter others from committing a crime. Of course, it's not so cut and dried as that... you first look at what extent capital punishment deters crime deters crime (which, in its current incarnation, does not) and whether or not other methods (early intervention, other types of punishment, etc) may be equally effective (looking at other nations where, for example, murder rates are far lower, I'd say this is true). You also have to consider the benefits (amount of deterrence) against the drawbacks. In this case, you have the (not insignificant) potential for innocent people being put to death. I would suggest this single drawback is enough to invalidate the DP, although there are others (mostly based on moral arguments... I'll stick to the empirical ones, though). Of course, this all depends on whether you agree that one innocent life is a fine price to pay for "justice"...
The second primary argument is based on retributivism... you know, "an eye for an eye" and all that. Does the punishment bring peace to the victims (my own impression is "no", but this is intuitive... I'd love evidence, one way or the other)? This side is, I think, a little more difficult to argue, one way or the other, because it depends on your beliefs (fe, I disagree with the concept of "vengeance" as a basis for the justice system).
Education, in most cases, results in well-read criminals. Psychotherapy results in criminals who learn to fake the psychologist's "steps to recovery." The plain truth is that "reform" is a crock of krap 99% of the time.
Care to back this up? You're assuming all criminals who are given the death penalty are either clinically sociopathic (they feel they are superior, not beholden to the rules/values of society, etc) or a lost cause for whatever reason, and then using this as a basis for your whole argument. But this is clearly nothing more than a generalization...
The fact that the death penalty is, in your opinion, not a deterrent to crime is twofold.
Actually, this has little to do with "[my] opinion". Just look at the violent crime rates for Texas and Florida. Are the numbers lower than adjacent states? No! So clearly there's something wrong here... the DP doesn't seem to be doing its job.
One, if it was applied more often and more expediently it would definitely be much more effective of a deterrent.
Hmm... but this argument doesn't hold with the drug war. Quicker, more expedient trials and longer jail sentences has done nothing to deter people from using drugs. So why would more frequent use of the death penalty make a difference. After all, you said it yourself, these people are sociopaths... it seems unlikely that they would actually be deterred, especially considering it doesn't even deter regular, moral individuals.
Two, it is the sole responsibility of the judicial system to deter criminals. The manner and effect of punnishment is the only deterrent to criminality. See one above.
Actually, your second point has nothing to do with whether the DP is a deterrant to crime, but I digress...
Oh please... the fact is, killing another human being is murder. Period. Try to justify it all you want, but if there is no valid reason for a one person to kill another (self defense doesn't apply in this case, since the state is certainly not defending itself), then there is no morally consistent way to argue that the state should, in fact, have the power to kill a human being.
Basically, what you're advocating is state-sponsored vengeance. Well, sorry, I completely disagree with that... the law isn't about vengeance. It's about justice, and I don't believe that justice can be had by committing a second crime to "balance the scales". Of course, given the US mentality toward "justice", it doesn't surprise me that this is the prevailing belief. The fact that you believe certain crimes "merit" death is even more frightening, given the arbitrary nature of the determination (yet another key issue regarding the DP, IMHO).
Incidentally, I call capital punishment "vengeance" because it has no basis as a valid form of punishment. It doesn't deter crime (just look at the capital crime rates for Texas and Florida) and, clearly, it doesn't reform the criminals (kinda hard to reform when you're dead). Moreover, the significant possibility of mistrial (ever read "To Kill A Mocking Bird"... a book far too topical today, given the racial bias in death penalty sentences), or simply a wrong verdict, makes capital punishment FAR too dangerous. After all, it's a little difficult to take back if you made a mistake...
Incidentally, the response to "mod parent down" because you didn't like what I had to say speaks much to clearly about the state of things in the US. Better to suppress an unpopular opinion than have to listen to something you disagree with, eh?
Well, given that we're talking about a country where killing people is considered a valid form of punishment, you find this mentality surprising?
In fact, I just thought of something. In law, murder is considered one of the most heinous crimes, and, I would claim, considered worse than rape. BUT, the government is allowed to murder criminals as a form of punishment. So, if you accept that murder is worse than rape, then rape should be a perfectly valid form of punishment as well, and a lesser one than the death penalty.
Of course, it's quite likely there are Americans who actually agree with this logic (or at least the conclusion); a truly sad thing, IMHO.
Unfortunately, there's no consistent way to cleanly remove things that I compile. And keeping track of the dependencies is next to impossible to do. I don't like to clutter up my directories with files and directories that aren't needed anymore.
.debs and stuff I've compiled myself, and my solution to the cruft problem is to use stow. I install all custom-compiled packages to /usr/local/packages/package-name, and then just enter the package directory and type
Actually, on my Debian system, I have a mix
stow package-name
Voila! Very handy, and makes it VERY easy to uninstall packages (stow -D package-name; rm -rf package-name). Of course, there's still the dependencies issue, but I don't find that to be a big problem on a normal system.
Incidentally, stow is great for users who want to maintain their own private software repo as well. I do this at work, where I don't want to mix my personal software with the stuff from the default workstation install.
I notice that you don't disagree, you just label it as a "troll"
Well, I do disagree, but only because your thesis ("Leftists hate cars") is so ridiculous I could only assume your post was a troll. Apparently I was mistaken... which makes your original post all the more amusing! Oh, careful, your tinfoil hat is crooked.
See, the problem with your troll is that you didn't build up to the climax. Your first paragraph was pretty good... fairly lucid, yet somewhat controversial. But then you just right into "Leftists hate individualism", which gives the troll away immediately. What you needed was a gradual introduction of the concept... talk about freedoms and so forth (perhaps citing the DMCA or something), then mention the government tendency to limit freedoms, specifically leftist governments, and then *finally* the coup de grace, "Leftists hate cars". I would suggest following as a possible modification:
-----
Cars represent freedom. I can hop in my car and drive pretty much wherever I want, whenever I want. It offers me great individual mobility. Much moreso than the ever-so-overhyped Segway(tm).
Of course, as we all know, the government in recent years has shown a distinct lack of interest in personal freedoms, passing such ridiculous laws as the DMCA, not to mention the state-level super-DMCAs. This is just another similar move, cleverly justified by ridiculous "environmental concerns" being touted by leftists who are really more concerned with limiting our personal freedoms (just look at the attacks on gun ownership, something which is a sanctified *right* in the constitution!)
Thus, its plainly obvious that this paper is really an attack on freedoms, thinly disguised by a veneer of politically correct, environmental double-speak.
Don't get me wrong, I would actually prefer to see American cities (particularly my own hometown of Atlanta where it is impossible to live sans auto and thus suffers from the worst, most redneck-engineered traffic jams in the country) become more pedestrian friendly. But I'm not so blind as to understand why so many Star-Trek-worshipping pan-socialist latch-onto-the-government-teat know-it-all college-student crybabies would like to ban the automobile.
Yes, but in your example, this code is non-portable. One can't guarantee, on all compilers, or even with different libc's, that atoi() is making use of the nonnull attribute. IMHO, this feature is only really useful for user-written functions, and again, I would argue assert() accomplishes the same thing (and in a portable fashion).
Well, spotting null pointers is only so useful anyway. My own intuition suggests that most pointer problems are related to pointers with undefined values in them. Either they weren't initialized in the first place, or they were free'd prematurely.
Besides, checking for NULL can be quite easily done at runtime using assert(). 'course, having the compiler do it at compile time will catch a few cases, and doesn't incur the (minor) performance hit of doing a runtime check, but it still strikes me as a narrowly useful feature.
Right now it takes DVD-Rs 2 discs to back up a movie (dual-layer vs. single layer). It would be nice to archive my movie collections using less media.
Bah, who cares one way or another. The government, since it's meant to represent ALL the people, should not, ever, EVER, incorporate religious doctrine, symbolism, etc, into it's workings. Yes, that includes no "under god" in the pledge of allegiance, or religious phrases on currency. Why? Because it's plainly obvious (to anyone who isn't trying to argue their way out of a corner) that the "god" mentioned is the Christian God, thus excluding all else. Clearly, this is a VERY bad thing for a government which is "by the people, for the people", and hopefully, ALL people. It results in people being excluded, because those who are not part of the "not-quite-state-sponsored" religion are left out.
A better question is, why should the government endorse/recognize any religion at all? What purpose does this serve? WTF is the phrase "under god" included in the pledge of allegiance, other than to counter the "godless communists" of the cold war era? Frankly, I see no need for it... religion is a personal matter, and belongs in the home and in the church. It does NOT belong in the government that runs the country.
Right now it takes DVD-Rs 2 discs to back up a movie (dual-layer vs. single layer). It would be nice to archive my movie collections using less media.
And you don't think there'll be the equivalent of "dual-layer HD-DVDs" so you can't just go copying HD-DVDs willy-nilly? Come on, don't be silly. Other than additional storage, the great thing about dual-layer DVDs (from the studio POV) is they're harder to copy. Why do away with that?
Now, if you're talking about copying regular DVDs onto HD-DVD media, don't assume the studios won't find some way to prevent that (likely at the player level), say by disallowing the playback of regular DVD-quality MPEG-2 from an HD-DVD disc. And if they cut out the low-end Chinese/overseas manufacturing machine, it'll be a lot harder to find devices that allow you to disable something like this (like region coding, etc, on the current gen of DVD players).
Alan Thicke owns two hot hookers?! Umm, wouldn't that make them concubines?
:)
Hehe, suddenly the image of Alan Thicke with a room full of concubines sprung into my head... very disturbing.