I have no problem with this guy saying the government should be overthrown. But you can say that without publishing bomb-making instructions. Not allowing someone to provide others with information enabling them to kill large numbers of people does not restrict their ability to express their opinions.
In this respect the first amendment contradicts the preamble of the Constitution. There are situations in which the government cannot protect its citizens without in some way abridging the freedom of speech. In my opinion, and apparently in the opinion of most others, one man's right to enable and urge others to kill a large number of people is not worth the possible deaths that may result from it. One's right to live is the most important right of all. It is the trump card and freedom of speech is really a petty thing next to it.
Personally, I think we should reconsider what we as a society need and want from our government rather than accepting on faith that the Constitution is the best possible charter of government. As it is so often noted, Thomas Jefferson thought future generations would do this.
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
This basically says that the purpose of the United States government is to protect it's citizens.
When this twit decided to make bomb-making instructions available to anyone, regardless of how irresponsible they are, he was just trying to find someone else to blow up public buildings because he was too afraid to. Allowing people to do this in no way "promotes the general welfare." It only increases the likelihood of innocents being killed.
If you take Dante's Inferno to be an accurate description of Hell, then the innermost circle of Hell, reserved for traitors, has always been frozen over.
Why is it that you people see the world black and white?
Either all health care is private or it is public.
Some people have to make sure that whatever they are attacking has been tied to the ground before they attack it. These people are incapable of hitting any sort of moving target.
I suppose that these people can't really be blamed for making faulty arguments. It's not their fault that they are mentally deficient.
Communinism and unions can be seen as distant cousins. Both were the result of the realization that the upper classes are dependent on the labor of the workers. The idea behind communism is that the power of the upper class in a capitalist society comes from the control of the working class and so the working class should revolt and thus strip the upper class of its power. Trade unions take advantage of the dependence of employers on their workers in order to make arrangements under which the workers are not exploited quite so much.
That's true, but only if the limit of the probability of the event occuring as time approaches infinity is non-zero (ignoring cases where the limit doesn't exist).
This statement is equivalent to Murphy's Law. If the probability of something going wrong is non-zero (ie it can go wrong) then, given an infinite number of trials, it will happen.
Actually, long ago there was a comparison between DEC's Fortran compiler and MIT's Lisp compiler. The two were found to be about even in speed. Of course, more optimizations for both languages have been developed since then, so that should be taken with a grain of salt.
I would love to have one of those just to fool around on.
I would really like to see what a Lisp machine designed today could do. TI used to have a processor designed for Lisp, but the only thing I can find on it is a fifteen year old press release about it.
Of course, it's incredibly unlikely that any company would design and market a new Lisp machine. Lisp has fallen out of favor and everyone cowers in fear of anything that breaks compatibility with what they already have. I wish everyone could agree to throw out all of our current hardware and software and make a fresh start. But only silly, impractical people like me would like that.
Actually, I've spent the last few days reading all of Intel's documents on the x86 architecture. The x86 architecture is far from ideal for the purpose of implementing a Lisp environment (or anything else for that matter), but I see no reason why device drivers couldn't be implemented in Lisp using special functions (which would have to be written in Assembler) for things such as I/O, setting interrupt handlers, etc.
Also, Lisp is much faster than you think it is. Take a look at this.
I'm sure that device drivers written in Assembler would be faster than device drivers written in Lisp. I don't really care about that. Performance is important, but it isn't the only thing. What I consider to be most important is being able to make the computer do interesting and/or useful things easily.
I would like to have an OS (kernel, apps and everything in between) written in one language and having a consistent and unified design. The language should preferably be some sort of Lisp. I want one language that can serve every purpose, and Lisp is the only language that I know of that is capable of that. Unix systems have all sorts of languages with very different syntaxes used for different purposes. It takes a lot of time to learn everything. Using a higher level language like Lisp would also make the system more secure by preventing buffer overflows and such.
I would also like to be able to summon some sort of Lisp console from any application. The Script-Fu console in the Gimp is pretty much what I'm thinking about. After learning the language of the system, a person could learn to automate, customize, and extend the functionality of every application.
If you are designing a processor that is backwards compatable to a 10yr-old line of chips, removing something like the FPU and expecting software to change is a bit hipocritical, if you ask me.
Actually, it's even worse than that. Here's a quote from the Intel Architecture Software Developer's Manual:
The developments leading to the Intel Architecture can be traced back through the 8085 and 8080 microprocessors to the 4004 microprocessor (the first microprocessor, designed by Intel in 1969). However, the first actual processor in the Intel Architecture family is the 8086, quickly followed by a more cost effective version for smaller systems, the 8088. The object code programs created for these processors starting in 1978 will still execute on the latest members of the Intel Architecture family.
So the Pentium 4 is a descendent of the first microprocessor ever created and the core of the x86 instruction set is over 20 years old.
Duck is also a verb in English. It means "to lower the head or body quickly." The poster to whom you replied probably should have said "Duck and cover!" as he was most likely making reference to various films shown to children in the 50s to "prepare" them for a nuclear attack.
Nope, you've got it backwards. The same side of the moon always faces toward the earth. The phases of the moon are caused by the fact that the sun illuminates different portions of the moon as the moon revolves around the earth. A new moon occurs when the far side of the moon (aka the "dark" side of the moon) is facing the sun.
You're complaining about an ad that is on the screen for less than 10 seconds. Quite frankly, I think you're a dick. Nothing's free. You do realize that don't you? Salon has to pay their writers. Salon offers you two ways of paying for their content, by paying for a subscription or by paying with a little bit of your time. Time is cheap.
You are free to view these advertisements as a travesty against all that you love, but I think you are overreacting just a bit. Have you noticed how many advertisements there are in an average magazine? Advertisement is the way that magazines make money. Salon may be published online but it is still a magazine. You implied that you had been a Salon reader in the past. If you like their articles, why don't you calm down a bit and just not let the ads bother you?
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There is a tremendous difference between a single gene and a fly.
Wow! You are completely, overwhelmingly, thoroughly fucked up.
That was insightful.
I have no problem with this guy saying the government should be overthrown. But you can say that without publishing bomb-making instructions. Not allowing someone to provide others with information enabling them to kill large numbers of people does not restrict their ability to express their opinions.
Personally, I think we should reconsider what we as a society need and want from our government rather than accepting on faith that the Constitution is the best possible charter of government. As it is so often noted, Thomas Jefferson thought future generations would do this.
This basically says that the purpose of the United States government is to protect it's citizens.
When this twit decided to make bomb-making instructions available to anyone, regardless of how irresponsible they are, he was just trying to find someone else to blow up public buildings because he was too afraid to. Allowing people to do this in no way "promotes the general welfare." It only increases the likelihood of innocents being killed.
Some time ago my Myth II CD was damaged. If I try to install it the installation fails on certain files.
If you take Dante's Inferno to be an accurate description of Hell, then the innermost circle of Hell, reserved for traitors, has always been frozen over.
The average slashdotter thinks that any program could be reduced to the following if it were written by "skilled" programmers:
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { return 0; }
Basically it's better to do nothing quickly than to actually accomplish something more slowly.
No, it's just that security isn't easily quantifiable. As a result it's unwise to make claims like "X is more secure than Y."
Maybe you should read this
I wish I hadn't.
And I suppose that you think you're really clever for coming up with that.
Some people have to make sure that whatever they are attacking has been tied to the ground before they attack it. These people are incapable of hitting any sort of moving target.
I suppose that these people can't really be blamed for making faulty arguments. It's not their fault that they are mentally deficient.
Communinism and unions can be seen as distant cousins. Both were the result of the realization that the upper classes are dependent on the labor of the workers. The idea behind communism is that the power of the upper class in a capitalist society comes from the control of the working class and so the working class should revolt and thus strip the upper class of its power. Trade unions take advantage of the dependence of employers on their workers in order to make arrangements under which the workers are not exploited quite so much.
This statement is equivalent to Murphy's Law. If the probability of something going wrong is non-zero (ie it can go wrong) then, given an infinite number of trials, it will happen.
Actually, long ago there was a comparison between DEC's Fortran compiler and MIT's Lisp compiler. The two were found to be about even in speed. Of course, more optimizations for both languages have been developed since then, so that should be taken with a grain of salt.
I would really like to see what a Lisp machine designed today could do. TI used to have a processor designed for Lisp, but the only thing I can find on it is a fifteen year old press release about it.
Of course, it's incredibly unlikely that any company would design and market a new Lisp machine. Lisp has fallen out of favor and everyone cowers in fear of anything that breaks compatibility with what they already have. I wish everyone could agree to throw out all of our current hardware and software and make a fresh start. But only silly, impractical people like me would like that.
Also, Lisp is much faster than you think it is. Take a look at this.
I'm sure that device drivers written in Assembler would be faster than device drivers written in Lisp. I don't really care about that. Performance is important, but it isn't the only thing. What I consider to be most important is being able to make the computer do interesting and/or useful things easily.
I would also like to be able to summon some sort of Lisp console from any application. The Script-Fu console in the Gimp is pretty much what I'm thinking about. After learning the language of the system, a person could learn to automate, customize, and extend the functionality of every application.
Actually, it's even worse than that. Here's a quote from the Intel Architecture Software Developer's Manual:
So the Pentium 4 is a descendent of the first microprocessor ever created and the core of the x86 instruction set is over 20 years old.
Duck is also a verb in English. It means "to lower the head or body quickly." The poster to whom you replied probably should have said "Duck and cover!" as he was most likely making reference to various films shown to children in the 50s to "prepare" them for a nuclear attack.
Nope, you've got it backwards. The same side of the moon always faces toward the earth. The phases of the moon are caused by the fact that the sun illuminates different portions of the moon as the moon revolves around the earth. A new moon occurs when the far side of the moon (aka the "dark" side of the moon) is facing the sun.
No, we're going to use the prisoners to bring back Roman-style gladiator combat so we can't afford to waste them with medical research.
You are free to view these advertisements as a travesty against all that you love, but I think you are overreacting just a bit. Have you noticed how many advertisements there are in an average magazine? Advertisement is the way that magazines make money. Salon may be published online but it is still a magazine. You implied that you had been a Salon reader in the past. If you like their articles, why don't you calm down a bit and just not let the ads bother you?