Look, the $$ from ads (selling your eyeballs) gives us a lot of "free" stuff - TV, radio, local newpapers, etc.
(yes, complain all you want about Clearchannel, crap mainstream TV, but it is FREE)
These guys are LOSING their revenue stream. People are turning to the web for more and more of their leisure, entertainment activities AS WELL AS DVDs killing movies and TV programs (I don't even WATCH decent shows on TV anymore, I just wait until they come out on DVD and watch all the episodes in a couple of commercial-free days.)
So what can they do?
I personally don't MIND product placement if: a) I get something for it - cheaper prices, free products, whatever. The company is selling MY time, I should at least get a cut of that. b) it's in-context. A giant Pepsi ad in ogrimaar- stupid, and atmosphere killing. But a shield that is the pepsi logo without words? Or a Bladerunner-MMOG with futuristic ads on the blimps intersperced with the ads for the off-world colonies? That would actually HELP the atmosphere.
So no, advertising isn't inherently evil. It simply ISN'T.
but...while I understand it's a gut reflex to say "OMFG!!!!" like all your friends, precisely what is bad in any of the Patriot Act specifics? I mean, take off the tinfoil hat, set aside your ASSUMPTION that Bush 43 & crew are the personification of (your particularly secular version of) Satan on earth and read through the Patriot Act.
Personally I don't find a single thing SPECIFICALLY to object to. I don't mind the US government looking through my library withdrawls - not that they actually ever have even used that power - oh noes! they are going to see that I read David Sedaris' latest book! So? And yes, I WOULD like them to know if my neighbor has checked out lots of books with blueprints of government buildings as well as books on explosives. And I don't mind at all if they search his house and don't tell him about it immediately.
"BUT WAIT" the hyper liberals say "WHAT IF THEY DECIDE TO INVESTIGATE YOU BASED ON YOUR READING LIST?" First, that's pure speculation and in my experience ALL the real criticisms of the Patriot Act RELY on such a flight of fancy as their first step - it's never specifically about the Act, it's about what the government *might* do with the information. That alone should be enough to bankrupt the critics.
But let's run with the supposition for giggles. Hey, investigate away. Tap my phone. Search my garbage. Read my email. Plant a camera to watch me have marital relations with my wife. My only objection is that it would be a waste of my tax dollars but aside from that? No problem here. Funny, perhaps my lack of concern has to do with my lack of DOING ANYTHING WRONG?
I understand that reflexively a lot of people will knee-jerk that this is a horrible restriction of 'civil rights' but color me unconvinced at the overreaction of a bunch of near-professional-level drama queens.
IMO nobody's restricted your ability to vote with your feet. Please. Go to Canada if you're so unhappy. (Sorry Canada)
Until someone can point out a specific application of the Patriot Act as unfair and hurtful, I'll just lump all of you guys in with the gang that's been telling us that the world's going to end "any moment now" since what, about 1970?
Until I see something myself, I'm simply not going to believe your speculation that the Sky is Falling.
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. " -Benjamin Franklin
Is freedom of movement an essential liberty? I'd say so. Yet I can't drive my car across the sidewalk, over your yard, or for that matter through your house. Oh wait, you must be one of those naive tools who traded away some of your Essential Liberty (to drive anywhere you want) in exchange for Temporary Safety (ie. not having you or your family driven over).
But hey, just keep repeating aphorisms, it's a pretty good disguise for real thought.
Browsing at 4: 33 comments, universally bemoaning the near-fascist oppression of the Evil Bush & Co., as well as the obligatory comments about how we shouldn't be in Iraq.
1) Do you people understand what a Riot IS? This is not a bunch of grungy stoners standing around peacably smoking hemp before they are brutalized by the jackbooted police thugs. I've BEEN in a riot, and they are characterized by VIOLENCE. Violence and damage to property, as well as against other people standing around. Many posters have said something about the indiscriminate use of these weapons. Hey dumbass: the point of RIOT CONTROL cops is not to beat your sorry ass down (as much as you may deserve it) it's to DISPERSE the rioters, because people are far less likely to be (rioting) assholes when not protected by the anonymity of the herd around them. If you're a spectator, you're part of the fscking problem. For all the sympathy we're supposed to have for 'innocent bystanders' accidentally caught in this weapon's area of effect, I don't see a SINGLE post suggesting sympathy for the people whose businesses, cars, property, and yes, even LIVES are threatened/damaged/ruined by the rioters. But then again, why should they get sympathy? They're working a job, running a local business, making a living, supporting a family...you know, all those things that the "anti-globalization protestors" (really fancy way of saying unemployed vandals) are supposedly "protecting"...
2) It's great we're in Iraq, we're accomplishing good things in the majority of the country where the psychotic terrorists aren't an everyday event. And yes, it's JUST as irrelevant for me to make that point as it is to make yours that "we shouldn't be there".
Probably they will show a higher profit/user ratio, and the bean counters will declare a success. But they won't see the deadly effect on their image of treating their customers as criminals, nor will they ever see the profit they could have made by turning their energies to something park visitors would actually enjoy.
See, in capitalism you have a choice. If you have an "issue" with it, don't go. Voila, you've voted against this sort of thing with your wallet.
But the fact is, most people won't find this terribly onerous, so it will continue. So? You're not affected by it if you don't go.
OK, let's say it again slowly for the stupid ones in the bleacher seats.
1) she wasn't Secret Squirrel. She was an officer that worked at LANGLEY. You know, the HQ of the CIA? Know a lot of non-CIA employees that work there do you?
2) the law states that she has to have been a covert operative within the last 5 years. I gather she was employed with a 'cover' 9 years ago.
3) the law states that Rove needs to reveal her identity with intent to expose her - it's a huge stretch to suggest that the identification that was made was an intent to reveal.
Please, the Libocrats are so busy building strawmen on this one, they seem to have lost what little reason they evidently had left. Everyone from the news organizations that were looking for this information, to the lawyer that drafted the law being referred to: they all say no crime was committed.
People, read the freaking law. Stop parroting talking points from Moveon.org, it just makes you look stupid(er).
Mosaic had two children, Netscape and IE. IE lives on, while Netscape died in an "accident" but is survived by more-or-less bastard children of many names- mozilla/firefox, Opera, etc.
So now, 10 years later, do we know for sure: did IE murder Netscape, was it truly an accident of circumstance, or was it semi-suicide?
Simple, I think we need legislation that enforces a system of "loser pays COMPLETE costs of trial".
This includes court costs, room rental, Judge's time, etc. as well as legal fees.
Yes, this means that the 'burden' of a lawsuit will make it that much less likely that poor people will be willing to stick their necks out and sue a big company, but not all solutions are good for everybody: if a change to the system improves 99.5% of the system, do we toss it out because that last 0.5% is getting shafted?
Oh, and a lawyer that is before the bar on 3 successive civil suits in which the ruling is against him, loses his license until re-certified. They're ALLEGEDLY officers of the court, and responsible to be selecting cases that have some reasonable chance of winning.
(And hey, if we're fixing the system, one more: if a Judge is overturned on appeal 3 times (based on the ultimate resolution on successive appeals), he's put on probation and can do all the crappy cases judges don't want to do for a year. 3 more overturns ever and he's no longer a judge.)
Yeah, because it's all about the justification. Maybe I'm wrong, but I recall that muslim extremists hated the US and Britain sometime before the invasion of Iraq?
Heaven forbid we actually blame the murderous savages who commit the crime or perhaps the manipulative amoral thugs who pollute Islam with their rationalizations and fatwas legitimizing (in the stunted brains of brainwashed drones) such acts.
Oooh, and you called the terrorists "idiots" - man, that's some tough talk.
The problem with that is that any such action would be 'imagineered' by the RIAA as "proof" that filesharing is destroying their business, and their tools in congress would have that much more ammunition to pass ridiculous legislation.
Let's be honest: most of the stuff on MTV is crap, no? So is most of the indie stuff that's NOT pimped by the RIAA. So I listen to the radio, and when I hear something I like, I tape it (legally accepted fair use). Then I turn THAT tape into an mp3. I can go in with an editor, clip it, clean out the hiss or anything I don't like.
Screw the RIAA and their cronies. But the simple (simplistic?) view that economic pressure is going to correct their behavior only works if the market is actually free, which it is far from being.
DM: There is an elf in front of you." P2: "Whoa!" Player 3: "That's me, right?" DM: "He's wearing a brown tunic, and he has grey hair, and blue eyes..." P3: "No I don't, I have grey eyes!" DM: "Let me see that sheet..." P3: "W... well, the sheet says I have blue eyes, but I decided I want grey eyes!" DM: "Whatever... ok, look, you guys can talk to each other now." P2: (pause)"Hello." P3: (pause)"Hello." P2: "I am Galstaff, sorcerer of light!" P3: "Then how come you had to cast magic missile?" (laughter)
Keep opening and reading spamcrap, and eventually your computer will be so totally locked down as a zombie/virus nexus that your system will lock up, your ISP will cancel your account, and all of the people you have in your email addressbook will hate you and never talk to you again (nor ever open your emails).
Eventually, you'll HAVE to go outside in the sunlight and get some fresh air, if only to go buy a new computer system.
Isn't that pretty much the (internal) argument that a lot of/.'ers make in regards pirating Microsoft software? Bill Gates is filthy rich, what me worry?
Well it's all about where you invest the brainpower, isn't it?
I mean, current systems have the brainpower invested in the front end, where the developers try to think of a number of hypothetical situations in which the system could find itself, and then program in at least gross responses to that situation. The problem is, the 'carrying capacity' of a system to encompass EVERY possible situation is not available. Or, more accurately, the time it would take to hypothesize every situation and program it in would mean a development time stretched implausibly far. So, we kludge it for critical systems (like weapons) by appending a human operator to fill in the gaps in imagination of the original engineers.
That's why I don't think it's all too unrealistic to imagine self-directing robots. However, humans and other animals are learning machines. Someone just has to accept the fact that, presuming that we're not 'there' yet, TEACHING this construct is going to take years - probably an order of magnitude longer than it takes to raise a child.
Because the location you speak of, the first Lagrangian Point [wikipedia.org] (L1), is unstable.
Well, if you're putting it up to block the SUN, wouldn't you have ample energy (say for ion engines, etc) for stationkeeping against small perturbations?
These cannot be great books, since they are almost exclusively by white men.
Only (men) wishing to extend the patriarchal phallo-centric culture would advocate a list of books such as this. We all now know that womyn and persons of color are the only ones who may speak authoritatively on any subject. At least, that's what my college lit classes were teaching.
Parents need to be prepared for the worst, but having a list like this will only make it possible for these people to be punished while they're not in prison or on parole or probation by some holier-than-thou zealot with a shotgun and too much Bud Light in his system. Click and shoot.
Welcome to 2005. In this world, we apparently are more concerned about the comfort and freedom of past sex offenders than the near-certainty that they will offend again, if given the opportunity. (One 30-year Canadian follow-up study showed a recidivism rate of 77% for criminals convicted of sexual offences.)
Tell you what, YOU can raise your family next to him. Good luck with that.
Me? I'm sitting on my front porch with a Budweiser (not a Bud Light) in one hand and a really big gun in the other. I'm not deeply concerned about HIS rights, not even a little bit. And I'm not Holier than Thou...I'm damn sure I'm holier than HIM though, because I HAVEN'T COMMITED A SEX CRIME. See how that works? It's a pretty simple system. Non-felon > felon. Even liberals COULD understand it, but they don't want to. They're too busy "sympathizing".
I'm sure it only matters if they are successful, in which case a circling cloud of patent attorneys will descend on them to pick them clean.
It will go into court, and the judge will decide against all common sense that "throwing it into the garbage" does not revoke one's title to original work. Then he'll go on an extended vacation paid for by the RIAA/MPAA while the case chugs through into the appeals process.
The creative and hardworking crew will have the EFF join them as well as vocal but useless moral support from the thousands of fans and supporters on/. Eventually however, the grinding cost of litigation will be too much, these guys will decide they its simply not worth throwing their lives away and mortgaging their homes for this game, and it will pass back into the original owner's possession.
They may make a desultory effort to wring some money from it, but once the lawyers no longer smell chum in the water, they will decide to circle elsewhere, and the case will be settled out of court.
The game itself may stumble on for a few weeks or months, until the original owners really decide that it's too much work for a cobbled-together piece of code, and they will put it back into the drawer (or the dumpster) where it will sit, unused, unappreciated, like a piece of toxic waste that nobody dares touch.
I won't say you're wrong. I will say that I can't be as certain as you are without knowing a lot of facts modern historians don't know the answers to. The fact is, I don't know the truth and I believe nobody ever will. I don't think the Japanese, Americans or Soviets knew everything that was going on. Nuclear war certainly wasn't on the table when Japan decided to make its move. How do you evaluate a risk like that when scientists haven't even proven it works?
While I agree with your doubt about ever knowing the truth of the matter, I disagree with your assessment of the OP's interpretation (or more accurately, their certainty) as being ethnocentrist. I think you are similarly 'filtering' the data in this case.
In August of 1945, it's naive to suggest that the US was intent on saving lives. The focus of the US government was to win the war. Win it, not end it: the Relativist world of 2005 has seen the distinction severely blurred.
If the war could be won and American lives saved in the process, great. But in a real war where national survival is at stake, the butcher's bill (even of your own soldiers) is merely an item in the cost-benefit calculation that needs to be made. Japanese lives lost were, given the context, utterly disregarded.
The retrospective condemnation of the atomic bombings (and the probably more credible but less newsworthy criticism of LeMay's firebombing campaigns) only makes sense if one fails to regard that the decisions were not being made in the comfortable hindsight of 2005 but in the grim reality of 1945.
Japanese civilians unfortunately paid the price for the heinous conduct of the IJA for the prevoius 4 years. To suggest there was any reasonable way for the American government to spare the innocent and punish the guilty is a luxury not available in 1945, nor even today.
I would take your offer to walk in the Peace Park, and through the museum because I have. I've also walked through Dachau, been to Pearl Harbor, and spoken to many survivors of Japanese PoW camps.
I have absolutely no problem with the idea that what the US did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki was necessary. This does not mean it wasn't horrific, tragic, and terrible. And they likewise do not cancel out the necessity.
As for your further points, one could easily argue that the catastrophic power unleashed over those two Japanese cities, and the subsequent nuclear and thermonuclear buildup that followed was the ONLY thing that kept the two world superpowers from getting into a direct war with each other. Acknowledging the dubious value of a sample size of ONE, it's still possible to point to the MAD doctrine and say "it worked". What would have been the cost of a conventional war between the US and Russia immediately following WW2?
Again, I have no problem saying with absolute certainy that the US dropping the bombs on Japan was necessary and ultimately saved more lives.
I'd be interested to see how many people in/. who might applaud this pro-active white-hattery, who simultaneously strenuously object to the US Patriot act which is pretty much just allowing the government to do the same thing in real life?
Slashdot Mirror
Look, the $$ from ads (selling your eyeballs) gives us a lot of "free" stuff - TV, radio, local newpapers, etc.
(yes, complain all you want about Clearchannel, crap mainstream TV, but it is FREE)
These guys are LOSING their revenue stream. People are turning to the web for more and more of their leisure, entertainment activities AS WELL AS DVDs killing movies and TV programs (I don't even WATCH decent shows on TV anymore, I just wait until they come out on DVD and watch all the episodes in a couple of commercial-free days.)
So what can they do?
I personally don't MIND product placement if:
a) I get something for it - cheaper prices, free products, whatever. The company is selling MY time, I should at least get a cut of that.
b) it's in-context. A giant Pepsi ad in ogrimaar- stupid, and atmosphere killing. But a shield that is the pepsi logo without words? Or a Bladerunner-MMOG with futuristic ads on the blimps intersperced with the ads for the off-world colonies? That would actually HELP the atmosphere.
So no, advertising isn't inherently evil. It simply ISN'T.
but...while I understand it's a gut reflex to say "OMFG!!!!" like all your friends, precisely what is bad in any of the Patriot Act specifics? I mean, take off the tinfoil hat, set aside your ASSUMPTION that Bush 43 & crew are the personification of (your particularly secular version of) Satan on earth and read through the Patriot Act.
Personally I don't find a single thing SPECIFICALLY to object to. I don't mind the US government looking through my library withdrawls - not that they actually ever have even used that power - oh noes! they are going to see that I read David Sedaris' latest book! So? And yes, I WOULD like them to know if my neighbor has checked out lots of books with blueprints of government buildings as well as books on explosives. And I don't mind at all if they search his house and don't tell him about it immediately.
"BUT WAIT" the hyper liberals say "WHAT IF THEY DECIDE TO INVESTIGATE YOU BASED ON YOUR READING LIST?" First, that's pure speculation and in my experience ALL the real criticisms of the Patriot Act RELY on such a flight of fancy as their first step - it's never specifically about the Act, it's about what the government *might* do with the information. That alone should be enough to bankrupt the critics.
But let's run with the supposition for giggles. Hey, investigate away. Tap my phone. Search my garbage. Read my email. Plant a camera to watch me have marital relations with my wife. My only objection is that it would be a waste of my tax dollars but aside from that? No problem here. Funny, perhaps my lack of concern has to do with my lack of DOING ANYTHING WRONG?
I understand that reflexively a lot of people will knee-jerk that this is a horrible restriction of 'civil rights' but color me unconvinced at the overreaction of a bunch of near-professional-level drama queens.
IMO nobody's restricted your ability to vote with your feet. Please. Go to Canada if you're so unhappy. (Sorry Canada)
Until someone can point out a specific application of the Patriot Act as unfair and hurtful, I'll just lump all of you guys in with the gang that's been telling us that the world's going to end "any moment now" since what, about 1970?
Until I see something myself, I'm simply not going to believe your speculation that the Sky is Falling.
...is apparently mistaken for truth.
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. " -Benjamin Franklin
Is freedom of movement an essential liberty? I'd say so. Yet I can't drive my car across the sidewalk, over your yard, or for that matter through your house. Oh wait, you must be one of those naive tools who traded away some of your Essential Liberty (to drive anywhere you want) in exchange for Temporary Safety (ie. not having you or your family driven over).
But hey, just keep repeating aphorisms, it's a pretty good disguise for real thought.
Browsing at 4: 33 comments, universally bemoaning the near-fascist oppression of the Evil Bush & Co., as well as the obligatory comments about how we shouldn't be in Iraq.
1) Do you people understand what a Riot IS? This is not a bunch of grungy stoners standing around peacably smoking hemp before they are brutalized by the jackbooted police thugs. I've BEEN in a riot, and they are characterized by VIOLENCE. Violence and damage to property, as well as against other people standing around. Many posters have said something about the indiscriminate use of these weapons. Hey dumbass: the point of RIOT CONTROL cops is not to beat your sorry ass down (as much as you may deserve it) it's to DISPERSE the rioters, because people are far less likely to be (rioting) assholes when not protected by the anonymity of the herd around them. If you're a spectator, you're part of the fscking problem. For all the sympathy we're supposed to have for 'innocent bystanders' accidentally caught in this weapon's area of effect, I don't see a SINGLE post suggesting sympathy for the people whose businesses, cars, property, and yes, even LIVES are threatened/damaged/ruined by the rioters.
But then again, why should they get sympathy? They're working a job, running a local business, making a living, supporting a family...you know, all those things that the "anti-globalization protestors" (really fancy way of saying unemployed vandals) are supposedly "protecting"...
2) It's great we're in Iraq, we're accomplishing good things in the majority of the country where the psychotic terrorists aren't an everyday event. And yes, it's JUST as irrelevant for me to make that point as it is to make yours that "we shouldn't be there".
Probably they will show a higher profit/user ratio, and the bean counters will declare a success. But they won't see the deadly effect on their image of treating their customers as criminals, nor will they ever see the profit they could have made by turning their energies to something park visitors would actually enjoy.
See, in capitalism you have a choice. If you have an "issue" with it, don't go. Voila, you've voted against this sort of thing with your wallet.
But the fact is, most people won't find this terribly onerous, so it will continue. So? You're not affected by it if you don't go.
OK, let's say it again slowly for the stupid ones in the bleacher seats.
1) she wasn't Secret Squirrel. She was an officer that worked at LANGLEY. You know, the HQ of the CIA? Know a lot of non-CIA employees that work there do you?
2) the law states that she has to have been a covert operative within the last 5 years. I gather she was employed with a 'cover' 9 years ago.
3) the law states that Rove needs to reveal her identity with intent to expose her - it's a huge stretch to suggest that the identification that was made was an intent to reveal.
Please, the Libocrats are so busy building strawmen on this one, they seem to have lost what little reason they evidently had left. Everyone from the news organizations that were looking for this information, to the lawyer that drafted the law being referred to: they all say no crime was committed.
People, read the freaking law. Stop parroting talking points from Moveon.org, it just makes you look stupid(er).
Mosaic had two children, Netscape and IE.
IE lives on, while Netscape died in an "accident" but is survived by more-or-less bastard children of many names- mozilla/firefox, Opera, etc.
So now, 10 years later, do we know for sure: did IE murder Netscape, was it truly an accident of circumstance, or was it semi-suicide?
I'd genuinely like to know.
(Score +1, Triumphant)
Theroy is correctly spelled THEORY.
(It's equally traditional to not RTFM)
Simple, I think we need legislation that enforces a system of "loser pays COMPLETE costs of trial".
This includes court costs, room rental, Judge's time, etc. as well as legal fees.
Yes, this means that the 'burden' of a lawsuit will make it that much less likely that poor people will be willing to stick their necks out and sue a big company, but not all solutions are good for everybody: if a change to the system improves 99.5% of the system, do we toss it out because that last 0.5% is getting shafted?
Oh, and a lawyer that is before the bar on 3 successive civil suits in which the ruling is against him, loses his license until re-certified. They're ALLEGEDLY officers of the court, and responsible to be selecting cases that have some reasonable chance of winning.
(And hey, if we're fixing the system, one more: if a Judge is overturned on appeal 3 times (based on the ultimate resolution on successive appeals), he's put on probation and can do all the crappy cases judges don't want to do for a year. 3 more overturns ever and he's no longer a judge.)
You're shocked that one could interpret conservatives as being more pro-war?
In Old Yeller, they have to shoot the dog.
Was the guy who had to do this "pro-murder"?
Liberals: assuming Conservatives are not only wrong, but !EVIL! since Ronald Reagan.
...allows users to privately view large-size video or pictures equivalent to a 12-inch screen as seen from three feet away...
So?
My current phone does this, I simply hold the screen 3" from my eye. Works perfectly, but it does look a little funny.
Predicted the Matrix in 1984, we can trust him
A broken clock is right twice a day.
My trust in someone's opinions is inversely proportional to their opinion of themselves.
Yeah, because it's all about the justification. Maybe I'm wrong, but I recall that muslim extremists hated the US and Britain sometime before the invasion of Iraq?
Heaven forbid we actually blame the murderous savages who commit the crime or perhaps the manipulative amoral thugs who pollute Islam with their rationalizations and fatwas legitimizing (in the stunted brains of brainwashed drones) such acts.
Oooh, and you called the terrorists "idiots" - man, that's some tough talk.
The problem with that is that any such action would be 'imagineered' by the RIAA as "proof" that filesharing is destroying their business, and their tools in congress would have that much more ammunition to pass ridiculous legislation.
Let's be honest: most of the stuff on MTV is crap, no? So is most of the indie stuff that's NOT pimped by the RIAA. So I listen to the radio, and when I hear something I like, I tape it (legally accepted fair use). Then I turn THAT tape into an mp3. I can go in with an editor, clip it, clean out the hiss or anything I don't like.
Screw the RIAA and their cronies. But the simple (simplistic?) view that economic pressure is going to correct their behavior only works if the market is actually free, which it is far from being.
DM: There is an elf in front of you."
P2: "Whoa!"
Player 3: "That's me, right?"
DM: "He's wearing a brown tunic, and he has grey hair, and blue eyes..."
P3: "No I don't, I have grey eyes!"
DM: "Let me see that sheet..."
P3: "W... well, the sheet says I have blue eyes, but I decided I want grey eyes!"
DM: "Whatever... ok, look, you guys can talk to each other now."
P2: (pause)"Hello."
P3: (pause)"Hello."
P2: "I am Galstaff, sorcerer of light!"
P3: "Then how come you had to cast magic missile?"
(laughter)
Keep opening and reading spamcrap, and eventually your computer will be so totally locked down as a zombie/virus nexus that your system will lock up, your ISP will cancel your account, and all of the people you have in your email addressbook will hate you and never talk to you again (nor ever open your emails).
Eventually, you'll HAVE to go outside in the sunlight and get some fresh air, if only to go buy a new computer system.
= better health!
Isn't that pretty much the (internal) argument that a lot of /.'ers make in regards pirating Microsoft software? Bill Gates is filthy rich, what me worry?
Well it's all about where you invest the brainpower, isn't it?
I mean, current systems have the brainpower invested in the front end, where the developers try to think of a number of hypothetical situations in which the system could find itself, and then program in at least gross responses to that situation. The problem is, the 'carrying capacity' of a system to encompass EVERY possible situation is not available. Or, more accurately, the time it would take to hypothesize every situation and program it in would mean a development time stretched implausibly far. So, we kludge it for critical systems (like weapons) by appending a human operator to fill in the gaps in imagination of the original engineers.
That's why I don't think it's all too unrealistic to imagine self-directing robots. However, humans and other animals are learning machines. Someone just has to accept the fact that, presuming that we're not 'there' yet, TEACHING this construct is going to take years - probably an order of magnitude longer than it takes to raise a child.
Because the location you speak of, the first Lagrangian Point [wikipedia.org] (L1), is unstable.
Well, if you're putting it up to block the SUN, wouldn't you have ample energy (say for ion engines, etc) for stationkeeping against small perturbations?
These cannot be great books, since they are almost exclusively by white men.
Only (men) wishing to extend the patriarchal phallo-centric culture would advocate a list of books such as this. We all now know that womyn and persons of color are the only ones who may speak authoritatively on any subject. At least, that's what my college lit classes were teaching.
Parents need to be prepared for the worst, but having a list like this will only make it possible for these people to be punished while they're not in prison or on parole or probation by some holier-than-thou zealot with a shotgun and too much Bud Light in his system. Click and shoot.
Welcome to 2005.
In this world, we apparently are more concerned about the comfort and freedom of past sex offenders than the near-certainty that they will offend again, if given the opportunity. (One 30-year Canadian follow-up study showed a recidivism rate of 77% for criminals convicted of sexual offences.)
Tell you what, YOU can raise your family next to him. Good luck with that.
Me? I'm sitting on my front porch with a Budweiser (not a Bud Light) in one hand and a really big gun in the other. I'm not deeply concerned about HIS rights, not even a little bit. And I'm not Holier than Thou...I'm damn sure I'm holier than HIM though, because I HAVEN'T COMMITED A SEX CRIME. See how that works? It's a pretty simple system. Non-felon > felon. Even liberals COULD understand it, but they don't want to. They're too busy "sympathizing".
I'm sure it only matters if they are successful, in which case a circling cloud of patent attorneys will descend on them to pick them clean.
/. Eventually however, the grinding cost of litigation will be too much, these guys will decide they its simply not worth throwing their lives away and mortgaging their homes for this game, and it will pass back into the original owner's possession.
It will go into court, and the judge will decide against all common sense that "throwing it into the garbage" does not revoke one's title to original work. Then he'll go on an extended vacation paid for by the RIAA/MPAA while the case chugs through into the appeals process.
The creative and hardworking crew will have the EFF join them as well as vocal but useless moral support from the thousands of fans and supporters on
They may make a desultory effort to wring some money from it, but once the lawyers no longer smell chum in the water, they will decide to circle elsewhere, and the case will be settled out of court.
The game itself may stumble on for a few weeks or months, until the original owners really decide that it's too much work for a cobbled-together piece of code, and they will put it back into the drawer (or the dumpster) where it will sit, unused, unappreciated, like a piece of toxic waste that nobody dares touch.
Me, cynical? Nah.
I won't say you're wrong. I will say that I can't be as certain as you are without knowing a lot of facts modern historians don't know the answers to. The fact is, I don't know the truth and I believe nobody ever will. I don't think the Japanese, Americans or Soviets knew everything that was going on. Nuclear war certainly wasn't on the table when Japan decided to make its move. How do you evaluate a risk like that when scientists haven't even proven it works?
While I agree with your doubt about ever knowing the truth of the matter, I disagree with your assessment of the OP's interpretation (or more accurately, their certainty) as being ethnocentrist. I think you are similarly 'filtering' the data in this case.
In August of 1945, it's naive to suggest that the US was intent on saving lives. The focus of the US government was to win the war. Win it, not end it: the Relativist world of 2005 has seen the distinction severely blurred.
If the war could be won and American lives saved in the process, great. But in a real war where national survival is at stake, the butcher's bill (even of your own soldiers) is merely an item in the cost-benefit calculation that needs to be made. Japanese lives lost were, given the context, utterly disregarded.
The retrospective condemnation of the atomic bombings (and the probably more credible but less newsworthy criticism of LeMay's firebombing campaigns) only makes sense if one fails to regard that the decisions were not being made in the comfortable hindsight of 2005 but in the grim reality of 1945.
Japanese civilians unfortunately paid the price for the heinous conduct of the IJA for the prevoius 4 years. To suggest there was any reasonable way for the American government to spare the innocent and punish the guilty is a luxury not available in 1945, nor even today.
I would take your offer to walk in the Peace Park, and through the museum because I have. I've also walked through Dachau, been to Pearl Harbor, and spoken to many survivors of Japanese PoW camps.
I have absolutely no problem with the idea that what the US did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki was necessary. This does not mean it wasn't horrific, tragic, and terrible. And they likewise do not cancel out the necessity.
As for your further points, one could easily argue that the catastrophic power unleashed over those two Japanese cities, and the subsequent nuclear and thermonuclear buildup that followed was the ONLY thing that kept the two world superpowers from getting into a direct war with each other. Acknowledging the dubious value of a sample size of ONE, it's still possible to point to the MAD doctrine and say "it worked". What would have been the cost of a conventional war between the US and Russia immediately following WW2?
Again, I have no problem saying with absolute certainy that the US dropping the bombs on Japan was necessary and ultimately saved more lives.
So, how is this different from a "Star Chamber"?
/. who might applaud this pro-active white-hattery, who simultaneously strenuously object to the US Patriot act which is pretty much just allowing the government to do the same thing in real life?
I'd be interested to see how many people in