The right to privacy is an important one, because it provides us with refuge from totalitarian authority that would seek to enslave us, to use information about us against us. But even more important than the right to privacy is the right to live freely. One might say that the right to privacy is important insofar as it is one of the pillars that support the right to live freely.
How can one live freely if one must hide behind privacy in order to avoid getting in trouble with various authorities? If one can only be a dissident, contrarian, or black sheep if one hides within the safe confines of one's own skull, is that not what we used to call in oldspeak "oppression"?
I see a bolder way, in living openly, freely, and standing up against those who would punish us for exercise freedoms. To use an easy example, if recreational drug users were a unified voting block, they could take over the country in an election cycle. But because the law makes it dangerous to use drugs recreationally, users are forced to protect themselves with a shield of privacy (which has been steadily eroded by the war on drugs over the years). If everyone would just stand up and openly do what they believed in, they would not be politically isolated and would not be able to be pushed around.
Similarly, the gay rights movement really started picking up steam only after people began coming out of the closet in droves. Privacy protected them, but it also contained and enslaved them. By stepping out into the public realm, they have forced society to deal with them, and through the necessary struggles that are still ongoing, have found increasing acceptance in our culture.
It's true that if you are a fool, and do stupid things, and people find out about it, your life will become more difficult. But there is a difference between foolishness and good people standing up in order to live the lives they wish to choose. Let the fools of the world weed themselves out of the breeding population, but let oppressors and would-be oppressors everywhere quake at the thought of a brave world of proud, public freedom-weilding citizens who are unashamed to let the world see their lives in a warts-and-all nakedness, which really is more beautiful than the idealized, airbrushed nakedness once you realize that the latter is a hollow lie, and that truth is the only substance out of which we build our lives.
Actually, if the criminal "can't help it" because he has no free will, then the same argument should apply to the criminal justice system. We also have no free will, and therefore also "can't help it" but to find criminals guilty, and punish them, in full accordance with the laws of physics and causation.
I can't help but believe that the whole determinism/free will debate is based on false dichotomy and misunderstandings.
It could be a flaw, or it could be an advantage. Just because it's different or abnormal doesn't mean that it is a flaw -- it makes sense to reserve judgement and see how well the difference confers evolutionary advantages. Since the vast majority of animals seem to get by with a single head, it suggests strongly that two heads are not better than one. But the reasons why are likely to be interesting and merit study.
As far as potential reasons, I can think of several likely reasons.
It could be that devoting the energy to developing and sustaining a redundant head does not yield as great an advantage of other redudnant organs. We have two kidneys, two lungs, two eyes, two ears, two hands, etc. and can still funtion adequately enough to survive for a long time if one of them fails. Yet we only have a single heart, and a single brain, and a single liver, and so forth. Perhaps the energy devoted to growing that second head is better applied to growing a more robust body.
It could be that if one brain dies, the organism will die soon after, even with a second viable brain. In that case, rather than reducing risk through redundant systems, the risk is actually doubled, giving a two-headed creature an evolutionary disadvantage. With other redundant organ systems, often the failure of one organ simply means a reduction in funtion and the body can survive at diminished capacities. But perhaps this is not so with a bi-brained organism.
Dominance conflicts resulting in fatal indecision-- if there are two brains, both must vie for control over the organism's body. Quick-decision making in survival situations might be impeded if the two brains must contest for control over the body, leading to the organism failing to survive situations where a quick, unilateral, singleminded decision is called for.
Proprietary software can support old hardware, too. They just choose not to.
OSS software can support old hardware, as well. More often, they choose to. But not always. Why can't I run Firefox on Commodore 64 or an Altair? Because I haven't downloaded the source code, written the missing parts that would enable the trunk code to be ported to $myplatform, and recompiled it.
You want legacy hardware support? If you're one of the few people still using something that old, and no one else wants to support it, hire a developer.
"We could have a keyboard drawn onto the desks that would work perfectly and could be disinfected much more easily."
Yeah, or you could have a membrane keyboard, like they do at fast food restaurant cash registers. If the solution already exists, and has existed for decades, why hasn't it been implemented? So some high-dollar high-tech overkill solution can be found instead?
...to the known universe. In other words, *everything* has a political dimension to it. Politics is unavoidable.
What needs to be avoided is not politics but the temptation to distort scientific findings and inquiries to match preconceived ideas that support entrenched political interests.
We're pretty terrible at that. But it might not take a genius amount of forethought to understand that putting Al Gore's name on the movie doesn't help to de-politicize the issue.
I could give a crap how many things there are to choose from. I am only interested in the one I want. I always want the one I want to be an option, and if everyone else is pretty much the same as me, only their preferred choice is different from mine, that's how we get to having a shitload of choices. But really, just guarantee that my choice is available, that's all I want. Then go make everyone else happy. Then you get a shitload of choices to choose from. But as long as I can still find mine, I'm good. If there's "too many" choices, and you reduce and my favorite gets cut, that's just going to make me unhappy.
Sounds like someone came up with a $10^10 solution to a $~10^7 problem...
Greenhouses are "localized terraforming" in the same sense as this proposal, would not require giant orbital mirrors to be precisely aligned, and would be far more efficient because the environment would be more contained against losses of heat and atmosphere into the ambient surroundings.
I received the notice last night through Windows Automatic Updates that the download was available. I clicked Cancel and didn't download or install it. Anyone who wants that level of control over their system just has to go into Automatic Updates control panel and configure it. Or, hell, even turn it off and run WindowsUpdate manually every second Tuesday of the month, with the Custom option that allows you to pick and choose what you want to install.
The only people being "forced" are people who are too dumb to know how to manage their boxes, and corporate end-users who have no say in what is run in their corporate environment.
Simply find a parallel universe in which the quantum computer has already been rooted, and use that system to launch DDOU (Distributed Denial of Universe) attacks against the un-compromised quantum-entangled systems residing in nearby parallel universes.
Slashdot Mirror
DVDs beat the pants off of VCRs in the following areas:
Image quality.
Random access.
Extra features on-media.
VCRs still cling to live mainly because it doesn't cost anything to not throw them away, and because of recording.
Let me know when the number of PVRs outnumbers the number of VCRs. That's when the transition will truly be complete.
Of couse p2p Video on Demand services (as represented by YouTube and BitTorrent piracy networks) probably blows both away in the middle to long run.
How long until they make hammer possession a felony?
The right to privacy is an important one, because it provides us with refuge from totalitarian authority that would seek to enslave us, to use information about us against us. But even more important than the right to privacy is the right to live freely. One might say that the right to privacy is important insofar as it is one of the pillars that support the right to live freely.
How can one live freely if one must hide behind privacy in order to avoid getting in trouble with various authorities? If one can only be a dissident, contrarian, or black sheep if one hides within the safe confines of one's own skull, is that not what we used to call in oldspeak "oppression"?
I see a bolder way, in living openly, freely, and standing up against those who would punish us for exercise freedoms. To use an easy example, if recreational drug users were a unified voting block, they could take over the country in an election cycle. But because the law makes it dangerous to use drugs recreationally, users are forced to protect themselves with a shield of privacy (which has been steadily eroded by the war on drugs over the years). If everyone would just stand up and openly do what they believed in, they would not be politically isolated and would not be able to be pushed around.
Similarly, the gay rights movement really started picking up steam only after people began coming out of the closet in droves. Privacy protected them, but it also contained and enslaved them. By stepping out into the public realm, they have forced society to deal with them, and through the necessary struggles that are still ongoing, have found increasing acceptance in our culture.
It's true that if you are a fool, and do stupid things, and people find out about it, your life will become more difficult. But there is a difference between foolishness and good people standing up in order to live the lives they wish to choose. Let the fools of the world weed themselves out of the breeding population, but let oppressors and would-be oppressors everywhere quake at the thought of a brave world of proud, public freedom-weilding citizens who are unashamed to let the world see their lives in a warts-and-all nakedness, which really is more beautiful than the idealized, airbrushed nakedness once you realize that the latter is a hollow lie, and that truth is the only substance out of which we build our lives.
Actually, if the criminal "can't help it" because he has no free will, then the same argument should apply to the criminal justice system. We also have no free will, and therefore also "can't help it" but to find criminals guilty, and punish them, in full accordance with the laws of physics and causation.
I can't help but believe that the whole determinism/free will debate is based on false dichotomy and misunderstandings.
Next headline: Humans Could Some Day Beg Robots For Legal Rights.
As far as potential reasons, I can think of several likely reasons.
Indeed; Netcraft has been circling like vultures, drooling with anticipation of the day they can write up their obituary.
Based on this, I give Apple 1, perhaps 2 more centuries of profitable operations.
Why not really fix the problem by:
Giveth.
Taketh away.
Proprietary software can support old hardware, too. They just choose not to.
OSS software can support old hardware, as well. More often, they choose to. But not always. Why can't I run Firefox on Commodore 64 or an Altair? Because I haven't downloaded the source code, written the missing parts that would enable the trunk code to be ported to $myplatform, and recompiled it.
You want legacy hardware support? If you're one of the few people still using something that old, and no one else wants to support it, hire a developer.
You keep using that word... I do not think it means what you think it means.
Req. Order #12308-129
Item Description: Can, Aerosol, 12 oz., String, Silly, Camouflage
Quantity: 100,000
Destination: US Army, Baghdad, Iraq
Status: Approved
Comment: Can be weaponized as flame thrower if we purchase optional birthday cake.
You try filling out a requisition form for $10,000,000 of silly string, and submit that to the Pentagon. See how far you get;)
So if AMD doesn't catch up with Intel by that timeframe, they'd be pretty much screwed, wouldn't they?
Hopefully we can see some Socket AM2 65nm stuff in the retail channel soon.
Yeah, or you could have a membrane keyboard, like they do at fast food restaurant cash registers. If the solution already exists, and has existed for decades, why hasn't it been implemented? So some high-dollar high-tech overkill solution can be found instead?
...to the known universe. In other words, *everything* has a political dimension to it. Politics is unavoidable.
What needs to be avoided is not politics but the temptation to distort scientific findings and inquiries to match preconceived ideas that support entrenched political interests.
We're pretty terrible at that. But it might not take a genius amount of forethought to understand that putting Al Gore's name on the movie doesn't help to de-politicize the issue.
I mean, duh.
I could give a crap how many things there are to choose from. I am only interested in the one I want. I always want the one I want to be an option, and if everyone else is pretty much the same as me, only their preferred choice is different from mine, that's how we get to having a shitload of choices. But really, just guarantee that my choice is available, that's all I want. Then go make everyone else happy. Then you get a shitload of choices to choose from. But as long as I can still find mine, I'm good. If there's "too many" choices, and you reduce and my favorite gets cut, that's just going to make me unhappy.
Sounds like someone came up with a $10^10 solution to a $~10^7 problem...
Greenhouses are "localized terraforming" in the same sense as this proposal, would not require giant orbital mirrors to be precisely aligned, and would be far more efficient because the environment would be more contained against losses of heat and atmosphere into the ambient surroundings.
Do not talk about MS Vista EULA
...
Rule number 2: DO NOT TALK ABOUT MS VISTA EULA.
Rule number 3: Only 1 machine to a license.
Rule number 4: System will remain stable* as long as it has to.**
Rule number 8: If this is your first time readin the MS Vista EULA, you have to click Accept.
I received the notice last night through Windows Automatic Updates that the download was available. I clicked Cancel and didn't download or install it. Anyone who wants that level of control over their system just has to go into Automatic Updates control panel and configure it. Or, hell, even turn it off and run WindowsUpdate manually every second Tuesday of the month, with the Custom option that allows you to pick and choose what you want to install.
The only people being "forced" are people who are too dumb to know how to manage their boxes, and corporate end-users who have no say in what is run in their corporate environment.
That's a 50 DKP MINUS!
I quite agree. This 64-bit Firefox will really help when I want to load a 16TB web page in my browser. ;-)
Simply find a parallel universe in which the quantum computer has already been rooted, and use that system to launch DDOU (Distributed Denial of Universe) attacks against the un-compromised quantum-entangled systems residing in nearby parallel universes.
How are you going to defend against that?
Where at least I'm told I'm free.
Does this mean we'll start hearing about "-1 Day Exploits" now?