My problem with Mono is this (and I have not researched it much):
MS were smart in the way which they tried to kill java. They made their language and libraries fully compatible, except for a relatively small list of exceptions. This caused some developers to use MS 'just in case'.
Even though Mono is following a true standard in most parts, it is still possible for MS to pull the same tricks. They don't even have to create incompatibilites necessarily, just give the illusion of them to people who are too busy with their projects to care otherwise.
Even in the case where Mono is following an ANSI type standard for both language and libraries (I am under the impression it actually does), MS can still add extra functionality which would have a similar FUD effect.
Already covered under existing free speech laws (as cartoons are by definition humorous). If the cartoon was shown to be pure propoganda to kill someone without any humour then it would not be covered of course.
One simple test is to put yourself in a hypothetical position of power (e.g. a teacher) and see if you would then class it as libel. I don't think many people would for your example, but it obviously depends on how you presented the page (clearly as fact or not).
You are right, violence should not be condoned. It is a good thing a picture and some words are not violence.
So you would allow any type of communication regarding future violence because it is not actual violence? I know this is rude but that simplistic view was thrown out of court about, oh, 500 years ago.
On the other hand, a buddy icon (regardless of the actually security measures implemented) carries semi-private conotations. The icon is meant only for your friends -- those you talk to with your messaging client.
He would still be advocating the teacher's death to his IM friends (if you do not consider it as a joke).
if jokes were always taken at face value, there would be literally hundreds of thousands of people on the internet who would be guilty of that crime.
And if borderline threats were always treated as jokes, there would be a few less people period.
Why isn't "Kill Jonny the Democrat voter" as a sign on my front lawn a joke, when Jonny lives close by and so do some extreme violent right wingers? After all, I have no plans or intention to kill him, it's just a joke because obviously I would not kill someone.
An interesting questions is would you judge me differently if I were black, in a gang and then broadcast the death threat to my homies? What if I were white, my parents were both bikes and were abusing me and I was near snapping point? Or maybe if I were suicidal and would possibly take down a teacher I hate with me.
I agree that intention is an important factor in a court's decision. If real intention was proven in this case then the kid would be getting more than a 6 month school suspension.
This isn't an airport. We aren't required to be deliberately stupid and pretend we don't know the difference between a joke and a real death threat.
And yet if a teacher slaps a kid on the head (even as a joke), it is *NEVER* *EVER* given the slightest chance of being interpereted as a joke. IMO we are just paying the Piper for over-political correctness that has been forced upon schools and other government orgs.
This kid should start a band called "Kill Mr. VanderMolen"...
I don't see how that would be any different in the eyes of the court. If the kid had no troubled relationship with any Mr VanderHolen then it would be understandable.
And what if the teacher was Muslim and the kid had a shaved head and was rumoured to hang around with white supremacists? What if he had a historical charge of violence against other people?
Precedents are set by courts for a reason. If you analyse a specific case then decisions can seem over the top, or too lenient.
You must also take into account that the teacher was obviously not on great terms with the kid, and so seeing a broadcast death threat from someone like that would get you at least slightly worried.
Such people are NOT SUPPOSED to get the convention-specified treatment of a prisoner of war. This was done deliberately in the original formulation of the accords...
The current problem seems to be that even if a soldier witnesses someone breaking the Geneva Convention, they still must treat them as a normal POW (e.g. non-GC torture is still not allowed on them), thus giving no incentive for the terrorist to obey the GC in the first place. Am I missing something there?
In intelligence, it is very, very, VERY rare that you get the equiv. of a smoking gun. 99.9999% of the time, the most you get is a balance of probabilities...
I would recommend to anyone who is against lie-detector type machines to look at this bayesian reasoning introduction. The link does not discuss lie detectors in particular, but demonstrates how it is possible to scientifically use machines that are 60%/40% right/wrong etc..
In this actual case I feel the ACLU is preying on the fact that most people are ignorant of statistics and probabilities. Even if a lie detector works only 15% of the time, it can be sucessfully used to improve intelligence. It goes without saying that such a machine (with less than 90% correctness at least) could not be used to prove or disprove guilt officially (as the fear mongering would have you believe).
I did not blame the west for anything. Read my post again, in particular the section you quoted, as I did not blame anyone for anything! In fact, we are in complete agreement.
I apologize, I may have misread the quote of yours i used. It is a common viewpoint around the world, and slashdot in particular, that the US causes most of the world's problems.
Your quote did say that the inequity between 3rd and 1st world was mostly due to the layout of multinationals and logistics etc.. I would still say this is not the case in the slightest. My original argument was that this is due to policy decisions made by respective governments (and therefore by the people).
... in a moral sense, is that Americans are not morally entitled to an unequal share of the economic benefits available through the free market.
If americans are the biggest consumers then they probably should get proportional economic benifits. At least I think it is debatable. But I am not entirely clear of which benifits you refer to, I am just assuming general things like nicer standard of living in good economic areas and the like.
... Americans must accept that much of our economic advantage over the rest of the world cannot be morally defended. For example, we cannot morally justify laws that ban outsourcing...
If the rest of the world got rid of tarrifs then that would be true. They would also have to donate as much as the US, bring human rights up to a similar level etc..
This is a big topic, to say the least, but my point was simply that Americans (in general) could be more aware of the circumstances of some of the truly disadvantaged human beings living in the third world.
I agree and an interesting moral topic for me. I still think it is baseless generalisation to say US citizens are more or less inclined to think about poorer people or act on it with donations.
Finally, we Americans live in a democracy. Thus, I can refer to the shortfalls of Americans, in the aggregate. If you think I am being racist, you are simply wrong.
I have no problems with that and I see your point. But by the same logic I could say africans are corrupt (because their government is), same with most poorer asian countries, south america etc.. I see it as an insidious root of racism because it is so easy to get mixed up in the semantics of 'Country X is bad' and 'Country X's people are bad'.
When the rich (and that means most of us in the West) start to realize that giving(rather than flaunting) wealth garners the most prestige, the world will be a far better place.
You don't mix with people much do you. (Hint, many people in the west give to charity, I will pull figures out if you request).
It is a donation when you have no choice or intention to use said crappy software.
Did the government force you to buy windows? Did the police give you an ultimatum? Microsoft? Anyone?
Just because MS managed to take advantage of the general public using technical trickery with standards, does not make it forced upon people giving them 'no choice'. If you are too lazy to use software other than windows for your information proccessing needs, then it is solely your fault.
Even if there were no other x86 operating systems than windows, there is nothing preventing a rival company writing an OS (besides the obvious complexity). If there were government regulations that prevented competition then I would agree with you.
I'm no fan of moon hotels but:... while at the same time not recognizing the obscene inequity that exists between the first world and third world due to arbitrary conglomeration and demand supply relationships of the free market...
If you wish to blame the economic problems of the 3rd world on the west like that then you are simply scape-goating. There are, and have been *internal* reasons why countries like Africa are in bad shape, including choices in government structure and laws by the people (excluding dictorships of course).
It's actually very racist to me to blame Americans for things they have no control over. It is also out of touch with the many US citizens who wish good fortune for 3rd world countries and donate, campaign for rights etc.. Pure racism and over-generalisation.
A lesson on intelectual integrity from someone who has learnt the meaning of irony from Alanis Morissette?
I was more pleased with the irony of your post consisting of a single ad hominem against a parent post that was (correctly) pointing out logical fallicies in an article.
Most people here seem to conveniently forget the hard work he did to get from $0 to his first $100,000, or first million. It is very easy to say that money is self generating but actually building it up is very, very hard work in almost any case (except for absolute luck like lotto).
This man spent his whole life building up millions of dollars, so that eventually he could give it to charity (yes he has planned this for decades).
In effect he is the equivalent of a large charity organization, there is no real functional difference (they both work to get billions and give to poor). He may have used more unethical practices to make the money (I don't know) and that would certainly be a moral problem for me. 'Means to an end' is a dangerous code to live by.
It astonishes me that anyone could even consider critizing this guy. I consider myself a very generous person, and if I were ever in his position I would like to think I'd do the same. But with some of the opinions that are out there regarding charity I would honestly be tempted to give nothing out of pure spite.
So, if this is the case, why didn't he put this money into play 10 years ago?
Quite frankly it is none of your business. Be happy that he is donating billions now.
He may be rich beyond belief, and he may even have been born that way for all I care. Charity is a gift, it is not something that should be forced, complained about (when it occurs) etc..
If he donated only a dollar to charity in his life, it is still better than $0. It still helps the recipient by an extra dollar; it does an extra dollar of good for charity as a whole.
He earned every dollar that he is choosing to give away. Sure, consumers and other people helped him make it in the first place, but bakers and butchers also make money 'off' consumers. He may have earned them while sitting in a leather chair juggling stocks, but then so does a programmer or a receptionist (sit in a chair all day).
You are certainly free to critizise any type of charity. But to impose any type of moral force on charity really changes the definition of charity to something of 'socially enforced tax' etc. (with quite unclear and subjective rules to go with it).
And in case I am ever rich and you wish to judge me by level of charity, keep in mind that a large percentage of charity is given privately. Private donation is a philosophy held by many people, including myself.
Slashdot Mirror
My problem with Mono is this (and I have not researched it much):
MS were smart in the way which they tried to kill java. They made their language and libraries fully compatible, except for a relatively small list of exceptions. This caused some developers to use MS 'just in case'.
Even though Mono is following a true standard in most parts, it is still possible for MS to pull the same tricks. They don't even have to create incompatibilites necessarily, just give the illusion of them to people who are too busy with their projects to care otherwise.
Even in the case where Mono is following an ANSI type standard for both language and libraries (I am under the impression it actually does), MS can still add extra functionality which would have a similar FUD effect.
XP already has code to "phone home" built into it ...
Already there with the XP activation module.
Just because MS WGA *might* stop a pirate copy running, should not mean you switch OS because your illegal copy no longer runs.
You totally ignored cost and other factors (yes, TCO does matter to users other than large corporations).
Exactly. One could even argue that they have a legal obligation to stop piracy, due to shareholder laws.
... punishment of a 1/2 year suspension for drawing a picture.
Sounds similar to being imprisoned for 10 years for just 'moving your hips' (ie. rape).
... A lot of students said that sort of thing. At least back in my days. Would we be better off suspending them all? ...
But they didn't broadcast it. They also didn't take a few hours to design an icon that captured their fleeting thought of anger.
You can say or write pretty much whatever you want privately. It is broadcasting that message that is the problem.
So a cartoon of ...
Already covered under existing free speech laws (as cartoons are by definition humorous). If the cartoon was shown to be pure propoganda to kill someone without any humour then it would not be covered of course.
I wonder if that could've been libel.
One simple test is to put yourself in a hypothetical position of power (e.g. a teacher) and see if you would then class it as libel. I don't think many people would for your example, but it obviously depends on how you presented the page (clearly as fact or not).
You are right, violence should not be condoned. It is a good thing a picture and some words are not violence.
So you would allow any type of communication regarding future violence because it is not actual violence? I know this is rude but that simplistic view was thrown out of court about, oh, 500 years ago.
On the other hand, a buddy icon (regardless of the actually security measures implemented) carries semi-private conotations. The icon is meant only for your friends -- those you talk to with your messaging client.
He would still be advocating the teacher's death to his IM friends (if you do not consider it as a joke).
if jokes were always taken at face value, there would be literally hundreds of thousands of people on the internet who would be guilty of that crime.
And if borderline threats were always treated as jokes, there would be a few less people period.
Why isn't "Kill Jonny the Democrat voter" as a sign on my front lawn a joke, when Jonny lives close by and so do some extreme violent right wingers? After all, I have no plans or intention to kill him, it's just a joke because obviously I would not kill someone.
An interesting questions is would you judge me differently if I were black, in a gang and then broadcast the death threat to my homies? What if I were white, my parents were both bikes and were abusing me and I was near snapping point? Or maybe if I were suicidal and would possibly take down a teacher I hate with me.
I agree that intention is an important factor in a court's decision. If real intention was proven in this case then the kid would be getting more than a 6 month school suspension.
This isn't an airport. We aren't required to be deliberately stupid and pretend we don't know the difference between a joke and a real death threat.
And yet if a teacher slaps a kid on the head (even as a joke), it is *NEVER* *EVER* given the slightest chance of being interpereted as a joke. IMO we are just paying the Piper for over-political correctness that has been forced upon schools and other government orgs.
This kid should start a band called "Kill Mr. VanderMolen" ...
I don't see how that would be any different in the eyes of the court. If the kid had no troubled relationship with any Mr VanderHolen then it would be understandable.
And what if the teacher was Muslim and the kid had a shaved head and was rumoured to hang around with white supremacists? What if he had a historical charge of violence against other people?
Precedents are set by courts for a reason. If you analyse a specific case then decisions can seem over the top, or too lenient.
You must also take into account that the teacher was obviously not on great terms with the kid, and so seeing a broadcast death threat from someone like that would get you at least slightly worried.
Such people are NOT SUPPOSED to get the convention-specified treatment of a prisoner of war. This was done deliberately in the original formulation of the accords ...
The current problem seems to be that even if a soldier witnesses someone breaking the Geneva Convention, they still must treat them as a normal POW (e.g. non-GC torture is still not allowed on them), thus giving no incentive for the terrorist to obey the GC in the first place. Am I missing something there?
In intelligence, it is very, very, VERY rare that you get the equiv. of a smoking gun. 99.9999% of the time, the most you get is a balance of probabilities ...
I would recommend to anyone who is against lie-detector type machines to look at this bayesian reasoning introduction. The link does not discuss lie detectors in particular, but demonstrates how it is possible to scientifically use machines that are 60%/40% right/wrong etc..
In this actual case I feel the ACLU is preying on the fact that most people are ignorant of statistics and probabilities. Even if a lie detector works only 15% of the time, it can be sucessfully used to improve intelligence. It goes without saying that such a machine (with less than 90% correctness at least) could not be used to prove or disprove guilt officially (as the fear mongering would have you believe).
I did not blame the west for anything. Read my post again, in particular the section you quoted, as I did not blame anyone for anything! In fact, we are in complete agreement.
... in a moral sense, is that Americans are not morally entitled to an unequal share of the economic benefits available through the free market.
... Americans must accept that much of our economic advantage over the rest of the world cannot be morally defended. For example, we cannot morally justify laws that ban outsourcing ...
I apologize, I may have misread the quote of yours i used. It is a common viewpoint around the world, and slashdot in particular, that the US causes most of the world's problems.
Your quote did say that the inequity between 3rd and 1st world was mostly due to the layout of multinationals and logistics etc.. I would still say this is not the case in the slightest. My original argument was that this is due to policy decisions made by respective governments (and therefore by the people).
If americans are the biggest consumers then they probably should get proportional economic benifits. At least I think it is debatable. But I am not entirely clear of which benifits you refer to, I am just assuming general things like nicer standard of living in good economic areas and the like.
If the rest of the world got rid of tarrifs then that would be true. They would also have to donate as much as the US, bring human rights up to a similar level etc..
This is a big topic, to say the least, but my point was simply that Americans (in general) could be more aware of the circumstances of some of the truly disadvantaged human beings living in the third world.
I agree and an interesting moral topic for me. I still think it is baseless generalisation to say US citizens are more or less inclined to think about poorer people or act on it with donations.
Finally, we Americans live in a democracy. Thus, I can refer to the shortfalls of Americans, in the aggregate. If you think I am being racist, you are simply wrong.
I have no problems with that and I see your point. But by the same logic I could say africans are corrupt (because their government is), same with most poorer asian countries, south america etc.. I see it as an insidious root of racism because it is so easy to get mixed up in the semantics of 'Country X is bad' and 'Country X's people are bad'.
When the rich (and that means most of us in the West) start to realize that giving(rather than flaunting) wealth garners the most prestige, the world will be a far better place.
You don't mix with people much do you. (Hint, many people in the west give to charity, I will pull figures out if you request).
I'm glad you live in America too; the inability to consider anything except extreme right wing economics hurts the American people and its society.
Since when is free choice of charity an exreme right wing concept? Do try to stay intellectually honest.
It is a donation when you have no choice or intention to use said crappy software.
Did the government force you to buy windows? Did the police give you an ultimatum? Microsoft? Anyone?
Just because MS managed to take advantage of the general public using technical trickery with standards, does not make it forced upon people giving them 'no choice'. If you are too lazy to use software other than windows for your information proccessing needs, then it is solely your fault.
Even if there were no other x86 operating systems than windows, there is nothing preventing a rival company writing an OS (besides the obvious complexity). If there were government regulations that prevented competition then I would agree with you.
I'm no fan of moon hotels but: ... while at the same time not recognizing the obscene inequity that exists between the first world and third world due to arbitrary conglomeration and demand supply relationships of the free market ...
If you wish to blame the economic problems of the 3rd world on the west like that then you are simply scape-goating. There are, and have been *internal* reasons why countries like Africa are in bad shape, including choices in government structure and laws by the people (excluding dictorships of course).
It's actually very racist to me to blame Americans for things they have no control over. It is also out of touch with the many US citizens who wish good fortune for 3rd world countries and donate, campaign for rights etc.. Pure racism and over-generalisation.
A lesson on intelectual integrity from someone who has learnt the meaning of irony from Alanis Morissette?
I was more pleased with the irony of your post consisting of a single ad hominem against a parent post that was (correctly) pointing out logical fallicies in an article.
Most people here seem to conveniently forget the hard work he did to get from $0 to his first $100,000, or first million. It is very easy to say that money is self generating but actually building it up is very, very hard work in almost any case (except for absolute luck like lotto).
This man spent his whole life building up millions of dollars, so that eventually he could give it to charity (yes he has planned this for decades).
In effect he is the equivalent of a large charity organization, there is no real functional difference (they both work to get billions and give to poor). He may have used more unethical practices to make the money (I don't know) and that would certainly be a moral problem for me. 'Means to an end' is a dangerous code to live by.
It astonishes me that anyone could even consider critizing this guy. I consider myself a very generous person, and if I were ever in his position I would like to think I'd do the same. But with some of the opinions that are out there regarding charity I would honestly be tempted to give nothing out of pure spite.
It appears the real saviour back then would have been some 3rd grade reasoning skills.
So, if this is the case, why didn't he put this money into play 10 years ago?
Quite frankly it is none of your business. Be happy that he is donating billions now.
He may be rich beyond belief, and he may even have been born that way for all I care. Charity is a gift, it is not something that should be forced, complained about (when it occurs) etc..
If he donated only a dollar to charity in his life, it is still better than $0. It still helps the recipient by an extra dollar; it does an extra dollar of good for charity as a whole.
He earned every dollar that he is choosing to give away. Sure, consumers and other people helped him make it in the first place, but bakers and butchers also make money 'off' consumers. He may have earned them while sitting in a leather chair juggling stocks, but then so does a programmer or a receptionist (sit in a chair all day).
You are certainly free to critizise any type of charity. But to impose any type of moral force on charity really changes the definition of charity to something of 'socially enforced tax' etc. (with quite unclear and subjective rules to go with it).
And in case I am ever rich and you wish to judge me by level of charity, keep in mind that a large percentage of charity is given privately. Private donation is a philosophy held by many people, including myself.