Wow, that's quite some speculation there! You believe that the government will plant illegal stuff on his computer--and that this will be made public, and that he'll claim ignorance of it? Well, let's just see! The brilliant thing is that most/many people DO have illegal things on their computers, so your prediction (if it can be called that) is really quite silly! We'll see though...
The long and short of it is, leaking classified info is a crime. See Valerie Plame case. Good or bad, still a crime. Maybe the investigators believe foreign influences are involved? Maybe they think Mr Tamm had leaked/sold/whatever more classified info. Who knows--it's all speculation for me. That's the point of an investigation though.
I thought one of the tenets of modern environmentalism was living sustainably--that is, in a manner so that each individual's "footprint" is not too huge.
And one of the top spokesmen lives in (well actually ones multiple dwellings, with ONE of them being a mansion)--any "mansion" (IIRC the house has 9 bedrooms?) is really not in line with the philosophy that we should work to minimize our footprint. Add to that the MULTIPLE houses, constant airflight, multiple monitors on his computer--multiple computers too for that matter--a mine on his property which only stopped operating within the last several years, etc... it seems hard to say that Al Gore has minimized his footprint at all.
Sure, he has bought carbon indulgences, but from everything I've read, that industry right now is very...sketchy...to say the least, and more "feel good" than anything.
Now, I'm not going to say he's an outrageous hypocrite--movements need spokespeople, and you can't argue that he has not been effective at that. This is a good thing!
But would it be that hard to sell some of his houses? Maybe get rid of his pool? Does a renowned environmentalist REALLY need his own private pool and pool house? Or a guest house for that matter?
Same thing with John Edwards--there's been a fairly big scandal around his huge mansion in NC--complete with handball court, gym, etc. He talks about two americas, and yet we all know which one he lives in--and flaunts even! That's absolutely ok by me--he earned his money, he can spend it. But, to myself and many others, it seems hypocritical to preach about the inequities of wealth in America, and then build yourself a private handball court. Seriously!
There was a time when acting as an example of helping the poor meant actually giving up things YOURSELF instead of asking others to give up things while you live in the lap of luxury.
where i live and work it was over 90F today (32C+) and some of us have to wear business formal at work and really don't get a chance to change/shower. now i agree 4km isn't very far at all (25 minute walk?), but when the humidity is 100%, the temperature is 90, and you're wearing heavy clothes, you can work up a sweat fairly quickly...
Nice to see you're living up to your trolling standards...
The server/desktop distinction is one that microsoft (excuse me, that's the same as the childish M$) of all people made up? That's pretty amazing that they invented that!
~shrug~ I don't know that I believe any survey that reports that 44% of the US population believes the world is 6000 years old and I would LOVE to see just what question they asked! I honestly have never heard one person that i've met--ever--say something like that (and I grew up in North Carolina--"the south!"). I am not denying that there are certainly people (especially in the more rural and deeper south) who are young earthers, but 44% seems like an insane number.
It's like the evolution / creationism debate. Do I believe in creationism? Hell no! BUT, depending on the question, I might have to answer that way. Can I rule out some external force "guiding" evolution in a few instances? Maybe with genetic engineering? No I can't. That doesn't mean I believe it's true either..
It always amuses me to hear people from elsewhere telling me how things in the US are (well, vice versa too--I have very distinct ideas about many places in Europe too!):-)
Biblical literalists outnumber liberal christians? Hmmm... I don't know, I'm not sure I buy that at all! I mean only around 1 in every 5 americans go to church every week according to most polls I've seen.
I've found that many people seem to think of America as a place where everyone walks around with a bible (and a hamburger...and an SUV...and a gun). Particularly Europeans think this--I've read some BBC articles discussing faith in America that I absolutely had no idea was about america at first! I don't think that's the reality at all though. I think religion certainly plays a more public role than in many parts of Europe, and this leads to that conception, but still--1/5 of people go to church every week! just how religious can that remaining 80% of the population be?
I consider myself a gun rights advocate, but I have to say, the idea of one crazy person with a gun being able to kill many many people makes me nervous. If everybody was a rational actor, I would love perfect gun rights... but there are crazy people, and people who are definitely not rational. I don't quite know how to deal with this.
Gotta say, things seem a lot different when i know that in just a few years i'll have a kid in school.. I don't know, this is a very difficult question.
Show me where I said it was the sole determiner of whether or not you are Christian. Come on, show me. 1) Most so-called Christians are nothing like an actual Christian. (followed by 2) 2) The first and most important admonishment is that you Do Unto Others as you would have them Do Unto You. (followed by explanation of how this works) 3) you are not a true christian unless you are willing to die for your world.
Ok, so as I understand your points 1,2,3. ACTUAL Christians (#1) must obey this doctrine (#2), or are not true christians (#3).
That would seem to me to imply that that's it--the whole shebang right there.
Or did I misinterpret something?
There's actually a number of things that you are required to believe by all major sects of Christianity to be considered a Christian - otherwise you're a heretic. For example, you have to believe in the holy trinity. If you don't, you're a heathen. But that's not even what I'm talking about. I'm talking about demands attributed to god, either through his own words to various people or by Jesus' words, which are in the bible. Well sure, unless you're a unitarian, a Mormon, or a Jehovah's witness.. but hey, those millions of people don't matter by your standards??
demands attributed to god, either through his own words to various people or by Jesus' words, which are in the bible
I'll agree that "true Christian" doesn't mean anything, but not that there's no such checklist. The Bible is just that. Which is perfectly true except for human interpretation!
Christianity--as practiced by a majority of adherents--has never been a religion in the mold of Islam (or, in the mold of the dominant theological schools about Islam). In Islam, the Qur'an is seen as the literal and exact word of God--the words in the Qur'an were transmitted directly from God through Muhammad to people. Some people--including many Muslims!--would argue that there is no room for interpretation there. I think the vast majority of Christians WOULD say there is room for interpretation, and that being Christian is not just a checklist.
Those are very convenient weasel words I don't know what that means!
from a man who is considered to be an avatar of their god Wow, what kind of nonsense is this? Just because you've seen a word in a video game clearly doesn't mean you know how to properly use it--this also shows a distinct lack of understanding in Christianity. This coming from a person attempting to DEFINE christian? Color me less than impressed!
It is in fact considered to be a central tenet of christianity. Ok, great, you've isolated "a central tenet" of Christianity. Do I take it to mean that you're backing off from the claim that that this one thing is the SOLE definer of Christian or not?
Christianity is organized religion, and it definitely is not intended to be self-defined; they will in fact tell you specifically what you need to believe, both in the majority of churches and in the "good" book itself. Of course, there's many versions of that book and all in common use today are pretty heavily bastardized -- which should tell you as much as anything else what fucking charlatans the people selling the faith are. Oh ok, so Christianity is an organized religion. Well, let's temper that--MOST sects of Christianity believe in some amount of hierarchical structure--but by no means all! One of my best friends growing up was "non-denominational." His church met at people's houses, places in the mall, wherever they could find. They did bible readings, and discussed things. There was no ordained minister. Hell, my friend din't even acknowledge that Catholics were Christian! papist idolaters don't you know.
So let's be very, very clear. Just because YOU have some stilted idea of who is Christian, and what Christians believe and act like, you're only talking about a VERY small number out of 2 billion people.
Your argument is so...simplistic it's shocking. You rant against "them" and mock what "they" say--but who is them? Protestants? Catholics? Pentacostals?? Non-denominational? African pseudo-Christian-Satanists? Santeria? Mormons?? Greek Orthodox? Russian Orthodox?? Nice jump lumping 2 billion people into one group that you've apparently got a bone with. I just really don't understand this kind of "us versus them" polarization. The world isn't black and white, and neither is Christian or non-Christian black and white.
I have no idea what the point in your last paragraph is, other than a screed against Christianity in general? Completely immaterial to the discussion at hand. Long story short, believe it or not, drinkypoo is not the arbiter of who is Christian and who is not. You know what percentage of americans think Mormons aren't Christians? You have any guess as to whether Mitt Romney thinks of himself as a Christian or not? Who's right?
"Those who would give up a little freedom for temporary safety from corporations deserve neither" --horribly mangled, wrong, off-in-spirit Ben Franklin quote
That's silly too. One can easily find historical texts--dating back hundreds of years (I'm familiar with a some Byzantine / maybe 700-800s in particular) that explain WHY christians don't need to get circumcised, can eat pork, can eat shellfish, etc.
The idea that to be a good christian one also has to be a good jew is actually a relatively NEW idea!
the point is "true Christian" doesn't mean jack shit. There is no one checklist of things that a Christian MUST do/believe and CAN'T do/believe.
Most so-called Christians are nothing like an actual Christian. That's the stupidest thing I've heard today:-P Who are you to define who is a Christian and what they should act like? Nobody, that's who! Terms like Christian are entirely self-defined terms!
It's great that you have a strong idea about what being Christian means, and that--in your view--it's a positive thing. However what about the person who says if you let gays marry you're not Christian? What if you suffer a witch to live?:-P What if allow abortions? the truth is there are many hundreds of thousands if not millions of definitions of what a Christian is. You've defined yours, but you don't have any power to define anyone else's.
Think you might be a little confused about the cause and affects of algae. afaik, the biggest causes of large algae blooms are things like fertilizers and waste finding their way into waters. too much algae can contribute to using up oxygen, if for instance the algae dies for some reason.
I agree that something like this WOULD be nice. It would probably require a good bit of work to make current office programs be able to do this consistently. For one thing, you'd probably want to start embedding fonts in the doc files. (which AFAIK no office suites do currently?)
Reminds me.. a friend of mine in college had multiple professors (I think it was department policy) who would only accept document submissions in PDF format. Reason being that there were just too many word processing programs/platforms/versions out there as well as the fact you couldn't guarantee the way it would display.
My guess is the excuse "oh, you can't read XYZ, well here, let me submit it again a day later" was being used by some students to get "free" time extensions...
The programs are really aimed at entirely different audiences. Pagemaker is like Quark or Indesign--desktop publishing. The control these programs give you over layout (page layout, spacing [pagraph, line, word, character], typographic features, etc) is something no word/wordperfect/oo.org/office program can match. But the goals are really different too. I wrote my thesis in word and then laid it out in InDesign. It would not have been fun to write the thing in Indesign from scratch though...the functions and capabilities are different.
That's not to say there's no room for middle ground... I think it would be great to have a program that united the two functions, but, we're not there yet.
wow, I am shocked you got modded troll when the moron you're arguing with so clearly doesnt have a clue!
the moderation system on slashdot is out of control... I'm tired of EVERY article, no matter if it's political or not becoming some kind of ideological slugfest in the comments. What's up with that??
Then again, 14 years in software terms is forever. I imagine one would be hard pressed to find any significant amount of code in Linux / FreeBSD / Apache / anything big that hasn't been touched in 14 years. Could bring up some interesting consequences in terms of projects becoming mixed public domain / gpl.
People who support "open source" and don't like RMS should stop using the GPL (any version).
How many ways is there to interpret that? That rather depends on what "support open source" means..
How do you possibly get that? Do you equate "the GPL" with "any GPL software"? Just so we're clear no, I am not saying that.
What I'm saying is that if you think the FSF are wrong then don't use the FSF's licenses on your software. I don't think that is such a way out concept do you? Like I said, depends on what you mean by "support open source." I've talked to some people who DO take the viewpoint that they won't use any GPL software--or vice versa, will ONLY use GPL software, because of their beliefs. I don't particularly care either way, I prefer BSD, I use FreeBSD. Even FreeBSD has GPLed software in it (though the amount is steadily decreasing!)
No. I wasn't saying that either. But if you want my opinion, Linux shouldn't have been released under the GPL. Linus should have stuck to his non-commercial-use-only license. He only adopted the GPL because of pressure from others and has never believed in it. I don't advocate people doing things they don't believe in. Not really sure how valid that is. Sounds like a good interview question for Linus--"knowing what you know now, if you had the choice to do it all over again, would you pick the GPL 15 years ago?" (or however long it was).
Nobody wants to do things they don't believe in, but the unfortunate reality is that precious few of us have the ability to make all those stands. From this thread and what I've read elsewhere, Linus seems cool with the GPLv2. Doesn't mean he has to like the people behind it, doesn't mean he has to like v3.
I more or less agree with you... however, the one difference is the invasion of privacy aspect. Like you say, who knows if those video files are porn, home videos, secret business files, whatever.
That's not really true. Some of us have been using EVDO for a good while now--and AFAIK, EVDO RevA competes with anything Europe has to offer. This is exactly the reason I would never consider moving to ATT--their gsm network currently can't compete!
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, that's quite some speculation there! You believe that the government will plant illegal stuff on his computer--and that this will be made public, and that he'll claim ignorance of it? Well, let's just see! The brilliant thing is that most/many people DO have illegal things on their computers, so your prediction (if it can be called that) is really quite silly! We'll see though...
The long and short of it is, leaking classified info is a crime. See Valerie Plame case. Good or bad, still a crime. Maybe the investigators believe foreign influences are involved? Maybe they think Mr Tamm had leaked/sold/whatever more classified info. Who knows--it's all speculation for me. That's the point of an investigation though.
I couldn't help you showed up for me as a slashdot "friend of a friend."
7 28x90_NT.gif
I also noticed that graphic file lives at http://images.slashdot.org/fof.gif
The ad currently on my screen is for "Dice" and is http://m1.2mdn.net/viewad/982522/dice_q107_money_
Seems like most of the other slashdot graphics are pngs, but there are still plenty of gifs around!
I thought one of the tenets of modern environmentalism was living sustainably--that is, in a manner so that each individual's "footprint" is not too huge.
And one of the top spokesmen lives in (well actually ones multiple dwellings, with ONE of them being a mansion)--any "mansion" (IIRC the house has 9 bedrooms?) is really not in line with the philosophy that we should work to minimize our footprint. Add to that the MULTIPLE houses, constant airflight, multiple monitors on his computer--multiple computers too for that matter--a mine on his property which only stopped operating within the last several years, etc... it seems hard to say that Al Gore has minimized his footprint at all.
Sure, he has bought carbon indulgences, but from everything I've read, that industry right now is very...sketchy...to say the least, and more "feel good" than anything.
Now, I'm not going to say he's an outrageous hypocrite--movements need spokespeople, and you can't argue that he has not been effective at that. This is a good thing!
But would it be that hard to sell some of his houses? Maybe get rid of his pool? Does a renowned environmentalist REALLY need his own private pool and pool house? Or a guest house for that matter?
Same thing with John Edwards--there's been a fairly big scandal around his huge mansion in NC--complete with handball court, gym, etc. He talks about two americas, and yet we all know which one he lives in--and flaunts even! That's absolutely ok by me--he earned his money, he can spend it. But, to myself and many others, it seems hypocritical to preach about the inequities of wealth in America, and then build yourself a private handball court. Seriously!
There was a time when acting as an example of helping the poor meant actually giving up things YOURSELF instead of asking others to give up things while you live in the lap of luxury.
why are ppl so judgmental about this?
where i live and work it was over 90F today (32C+) and some of us have to wear business formal at work and really don't get a chance to change/shower. now i agree 4km isn't very far at all (25 minute walk?), but when the humidity is 100%, the temperature is 90, and you're wearing heavy clothes, you can work up a sweat fairly quickly...
Nice to see you're living up to your trolling standards...
/ 1432245
The server/desktop distinction is one that microsoft (excuse me, that's the same as the childish M$) of all people made up? That's pretty amazing that they invented that!
Here's one fairly prominent person's comments on the server/desktop divide: http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/24
~shrug~ I don't know that I believe any survey that reports that 44% of the US population believes the world is 6000 years old and I would LOVE to see just what question they asked! I honestly have never heard one person that i've met--ever--say something like that (and I grew up in North Carolina--"the south!"). I am not denying that there are certainly people (especially in the more rural and deeper south) who are young earthers, but 44% seems like an insane number.
:-)
It's like the evolution / creationism debate. Do I believe in creationism? Hell no! BUT, depending on the question, I might have to answer that way. Can I rule out some external force "guiding" evolution in a few instances? Maybe with genetic engineering? No I can't. That doesn't mean I believe it's true either..
It always amuses me to hear people from elsewhere telling me how things in the US are (well, vice versa too--I have very distinct ideas about many places in Europe too!)
That's a good question.
Biblical literalists outnumber liberal christians? Hmmm... I don't know, I'm not sure I buy that at all! I mean only around 1 in every 5 americans go to church every week according to most polls I've seen.
I've found that many people seem to think of America as a place where everyone walks around with a bible (and a hamburger...and an SUV...and a gun). Particularly Europeans think this--I've read some BBC articles discussing faith in America that I absolutely had no idea was about america at first! I don't think that's the reality at all though. I think religion certainly plays a more public role than in many parts of Europe, and this leads to that conception, but still--1/5 of people go to church every week! just how religious can that remaining 80% of the population be?
Reasonable reply... I more or less agree.
I consider myself a gun rights advocate, but I have to say, the idea of one crazy person with a gun being able to kill many many people makes me nervous. If everybody was a rational actor, I would love perfect gun rights... but there are crazy people, and people who are definitely not rational. I don't quite know how to deal with this.
Gotta say, things seem a lot different when i know that in just a few years i'll have a kid in school.. I don't know, this is a very difficult question.
2) The first and most important admonishment is that you Do Unto Others as you would have them Do Unto You. (followed by explanation of how this works)
3) you are not a true christian unless you are willing to die for your world.
Ok, so as I understand your points 1,2,3. ACTUAL Christians (#1) must obey this doctrine (#2), or are not true christians (#3).
That would seem to me to imply that that's it--the whole shebang right there.
Or did I misinterpret something? There's actually a number of things that you are required to believe by all major sects of Christianity to be considered a Christian - otherwise you're a heretic. For example, you have to believe in the holy trinity. If you don't, you're a heathen. But that's not even what I'm talking about. I'm talking about demands attributed to god, either through his own words to various people or by Jesus' words, which are in the bible. Well sure, unless you're a unitarian, a Mormon, or a Jehovah's witness.. but hey, those millions of people don't matter by your standards??
demands attributed to god, either through his own words to various people or by Jesus' words, which are in the bible
Hmmm.. that's a lot of things!!!
Christianity--as practiced by a majority of adherents--has never been a religion in the mold of Islam (or, in the mold of the dominant theological schools about Islam). In Islam, the Qur'an is seen as the literal and exact word of God--the words in the Qur'an were transmitted directly from God through Muhammad to people. Some people--including many Muslims!--would argue that there is no room for interpretation there. I think the vast majority of Christians WOULD say there is room for interpretation, and that being Christian is not just a checklist.
So let's be very, very clear. Just because YOU have some stilted idea of who is Christian, and what Christians believe and act like, you're only talking about a VERY small number out of 2 billion people.
Your argument is so...simplistic it's shocking. You rant against "them" and mock what "they" say--but who is them? Protestants? Catholics? Pentacostals?? Non-denominational? African pseudo-Christian-Satanists? Santeria? Mormons?? Greek Orthodox? Russian Orthodox?? Nice jump lumping 2 billion people into one group that you've apparently got a bone with. I just really don't understand this kind of "us versus them" polarization. The world isn't black and white, and neither is Christian or non-Christian black and white.
I have no idea what the point in your last paragraph is, other than a screed against Christianity in general? Completely immaterial to the discussion at hand. Long story short, believe it or not, drinkypoo is not the arbiter of who is Christian and who is not. You know what percentage of americans think Mormons aren't Christians? You have any guess as to whether Mitt Romney thinks of himself as a Christian or not? Who's right?
"Those who would give up a little freedom for temporary safety from corporations deserve neither" --horribly mangled, wrong, off-in-spirit Ben Franklin quote
(tongue very much in cheek...and yet...)
That's silly too. One can easily find historical texts--dating back hundreds of years (I'm familiar with a some Byzantine / maybe 700-800s in particular) that explain WHY christians don't need to get circumcised, can eat pork, can eat shellfish, etc.
The idea that to be a good christian one also has to be a good jew is actually a relatively NEW idea!
the point is "true Christian" doesn't mean jack shit. There is no one checklist of things that a Christian MUST do/believe and CAN'T do/believe.
It's great that you have a strong idea about what being Christian means, and that--in your view--it's a positive thing. However what about the person who says if you let gays marry you're not Christian? What if you suffer a witch to live?
I was thinking the other day that I should ask some questions the next time I saw this.
-How do you feel about gun rights? Anyone should be able to own a gun, right?
-Automatic weapons?
-NUCLEAR weapons?
Just FYI, Hawks has an interesting blog at http://www.johnhawks.net/weblog
I think it's down right now, but I'd recommend it!
Think you might be a little confused about the cause and affects of algae. afaik, the biggest causes of large algae blooms are things like fertilizers and waste finding their way into waters. too much algae can contribute to using up oxygen, if for instance the algae dies for some reason.
I agree that something like this WOULD be nice. It would probably require a good bit of work to make current office programs be able to do this consistently. For one thing, you'd probably want to start embedding fonts in the doc files. (which AFAIK no office suites do currently?)
Reminds me.. a friend of mine in college had multiple professors (I think it was department policy) who would only accept document submissions in PDF format. Reason being that there were just too many word processing programs/platforms/versions out there as well as the fact you couldn't guarantee the way it would display.
My guess is the excuse "oh, you can't read XYZ, well here, let me submit it again a day later" was being used by some students to get "free" time extensions...
The programs are really aimed at entirely different audiences. Pagemaker is like Quark or Indesign--desktop publishing. The control these programs give you over layout (page layout, spacing [pagraph, line, word, character], typographic features, etc) is something no word/wordperfect/oo.org/office program can match. But the goals are really different too. I wrote my thesis in word and then laid it out in InDesign. It would not have been fun to write the thing in Indesign from scratch though...the functions and capabilities are different.
That's not to say there's no room for middle ground... I think it would be great to have a program that united the two functions, but, we're not there yet.
wow, I am shocked you got modded troll when the moron you're arguing with so clearly doesnt have a clue!
the moderation system on slashdot is out of control... I'm tired of EVERY article, no matter if it's political or not becoming some kind of ideological slugfest in the comments. What's up with that??
Hah!! That's a very good point...
Then again, 14 years in software terms is forever. I imagine one would be hard pressed to find any significant amount of code in Linux / FreeBSD / Apache / anything big that hasn't been touched in 14 years. Could bring up some interesting consequences in terms of projects becoming mixed public domain / gpl.
How many ways is there to interpret that? That rather depends on what "support open source" means.. How do you possibly get that? Do you equate "the GPL" with "any GPL software"? Just so we're clear no, I am not saying that.
What I'm saying is that if you think the FSF are wrong then don't use the FSF's licenses on your software. I don't think that is such a way out concept do you? Like I said, depends on what you mean by "support open source." I've talked to some people who DO take the viewpoint that they won't use any GPL software--or vice versa, will ONLY use GPL software, because of their beliefs. I don't particularly care either way, I prefer BSD, I use FreeBSD. Even FreeBSD has GPLed software in it (though the amount is steadily decreasing!) No. I wasn't saying that either. But if you want my opinion, Linux shouldn't have been released under the GPL. Linus should have stuck to his non-commercial-use-only license. He only adopted the GPL because of pressure from others and has never believed in it. I don't advocate people doing things they don't believe in. Not really sure how valid that is. Sounds like a good interview question for Linus--"knowing what you know now, if you had the choice to do it all over again, would you pick the GPL 15 years ago?" (or however long it was).
Nobody wants to do things they don't believe in, but the unfortunate reality is that precious few of us have the ability to make all those stands. From this thread and what I've read elsewhere, Linus seems cool with the GPLv2. Doesn't mean he has to like the people behind it, doesn't mean he has to like v3.
Not sure what you're saying?
That people that don't like RMS shouldn't use any GPL software? or that they shouldn't themselves use the GPL?
Are you saying Linux should no longer be under the gpl?
I more or less agree with you... however, the one difference is the invasion of privacy aspect. Like you say, who knows if those video files are porn, home videos, secret business files, whatever.
That's not really true. Some of us have been using EVDO for a good while now--and AFAIK, EVDO RevA competes with anything Europe has to offer. This is exactly the reason I would never consider moving to ATT--their gsm network currently can't compete!