I disapprove of what you say, but I would defend to the death your right to say it against abusive moderators if I had any mod points.
Seriously, I don't find the arguments in Mr. Coward's comment very convincing either, but you have to know that you're abusing the system when you mod this perfectly polite post down as "Flamebait" just because you disagree with it, so why do it?
I'm pretty sure your allusion to/parody of that famous quote about dissent against genocidal evil and the necessity of defending those who aren't ourselves breaks down somewhere around the "there was no one left to speak up" part. Unless the world started communicating exclusively via Google Voice and I failed to notice, that doesn't make a lot of sense.
I never had any desire to get a first post, but I noticed once that I was reading a story without one, so I gave it a shot. "First post!" I said, and I was right!
Won me some negative karma of course, but whatever. I'm glad I did it, so one day I can tell my grandchildren that I once got a First Post on Slashdot, who I suppose will somehow manage to care even less than my friends do now.
True enough... But isn't the goal of Ubuntu to be a GNU/Linux distro for everyone? That may not be the *reality*, but Ubuntu is an example of a project where of where we should try to avoid "anyone who's knowledgeable enough to..." kinds of arguments.
but would you really prefer if the Allies (and soviets) hadn't fought WW2?
I didn't think that was a question I came even close to raising... but I'm perfectly willing to engage in it. Keep in mind that I'm more knowledgeable about some aspects of WW2 than others.
First of all, leaving aside the Pacific war between the US and Japan, I don't think it even makes sense to imagine a WW2 without the Soviets fighting in it. Before Germany invaded the Soviet Union, there wasn't a World War 2, but rather German (and Italian) expansionism and some civil wars between Leftists and Fascists. The rest of the West, at most, gave token (though sometimes harsh) condemnation of fascism (notably, the Nazi occupation of France was welcomed by many of the elite in that country, who preferred foreign-imposed fascism over a left-wing revolution). The Soviets won much prestige in the West for being the ones who stood in opposition to fascism, leading to a surge in membership in Communist parties, followed by an exodus of members with the signing of the non-aggression pact. The Nazis, whose imperial ambitions were clear, had always identified the Soviet Union and "Judeo-Bolshevism" as the primary enemy. The Soviet Union had been decimated by World War 1, followed by the revolutions in February and October, followed by invasions from European and North American armies, followed by a Civil War, and had every reason to make any deal with the Nazis that would at least delay an invasion. That there was an imperialist element to the non-aggression pact on the part of both parties is without a doubt, but the desire to simply survive was the essential motivation of the Soviets. Anyway, point is, the question of fighting in WW2 was not a choice the Soviets had to make.
As for the US involvement in the war against Germany, whether I would "prefer" it is a tricky question to answer. Clearly the people in the places we liberated from Nazi occupation had good reason to celebrate our arrival. I would be hard-pressed to come up with an argument that our involved was a bad thing. But our *motivation*, or the motivation of those in charge, is another question. The nature of our involvement in the war against Germany in the Second World War was the same as the nature of our involvement in the first: imperialism, plunder, a chance to grow our might and profit for American corporations. It's not a well-kept secret that may American companies profited immensely by supporting the Nazi war machine; Ford made a killing (pun somewhat intended) building vehicles for both the US and German armies, even including while they were at war with one other. It's notable that the US showed little interest in entering Europe until the tide had turned in the German-Soviet war, and the Soviets seemed poised to single-handedly defeat the Nazis in Eastern Europe and be the de facto leaders of their defeat across Europe.
I didn't do a great job of answering your question. I'm trying to impress that there's reason to be greatly skeptical of our involvement in that war. It's also true that there was great heroism on the part of American soldiers, who could rightly claim to have helped defeat one of the greatest evils (I hate the word "evil"... but it'll do for now) the world has ever seen. I can't recommend highly enough a greatly critical, but well-documented and well-rounded book, "The Myth of the Good War" by Jacques Pauwels.
Adolph Hitler condemns my beloved kitty as "an enemy of Nazism", praises my ex by saying "let the world know, MQDuck's ex is great in the eyes of Hitler".
It would be interesting if you could also tell us the "Official" Allied rationale for the Dresden bombing, so readers can compare.
To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what the answer to that is. My recollection is that it was portrayed as being in fulfillment of the Western Allies' agreement to aid the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front, though I can't provide any sources for that offhand. It's informative that the senselessness of the firebombing campaign was condemned by intellectuals in Britain even while the war still raged.
You might also be aware that for many readers the official version will carry a lot more weight than your argument
I can hardly be blamed for their foolishness despite decades of being lied to about the meaning of wars, over and over.
so could you give a couple of pointers as to why we should trust an amateur looking website
If "amateur" = basic, Web 1.0 HTML, then I'm not sure why that's a particular reason to distrust it. But I shall take your advice and recommend to Mr. Long that he hire a Web design firm to create a legitimacy-centric Flash/HTML 5.0/AJAX website to attractively display the truth about the senseless use of weapons of mass destruction by the world's most powerful nation.
over the people who defeated Hitler
Last I checked, the people of the former Soviet Union will back me up on this.
I know replying to one's own post is generally frowned upon around here, but...
It should be reminded that there's precedent of the Western Allies' willingness to cause mass death and destruction for non-military purposes during World War 2. I'm referring specifically to the firebombing of Dresden, which was just as devastating and just as unnecessary as the atomic bombs dropped in Japan. Dresden, curiously, was a city the Red Army was just about to reach.
GP is entirely correct, though I'm shocked that (s)he hasn't been modded to hell because of it. Well, to be technical, nobody can claim to know the true motive for dropping The Bomb, only that the stated reason was without a doubt bullshit. That the motive to to keep away/send a message to the Soviet Union is the only reasonable explanation anyone's come up with but, as far as I know, there's no hard evidence for it.
Please allow me to continue pretending that Hipsters and Punks are separate and incompatible social groups.
Anyway, the Young People have been preferring to stay up late for far longer than the hipster trend (even longer than the original hipsters in the 1950s (you have my permission to call Beatniks compatible with Punks if you like), probably ever since God invented light bulbs and leisure time).
"The difference between the two companies is that Apple has been fearless about transformational change while Microsoft has been reluctant to leave its past behind"
Lies! You (mercifully?) forget Microsoft Bob. Also, the first time I ever heard of tablet computers is when I heard Bill Gates hyping it as the next revolutionary step forward for computers at least five years ago. The issue is not so much Microsoft's boldness as its incompetency (though the fact that the media doesn't treat Gate's words as inspired prophesy like it does Jobs's probably has something to do with it, too).
Just a thought: Apple's success is 50% hype. Perhaps they only release one big product at a time because they want that hype to build up, waiting until later to hype another one thing.
Well, the way I read the discussion, it's being worked on for Fennec because Fennec is where things are happening in Mozilla browserland today. If/When GStreamer support in the Fennec branch becomes mature, desktop Firefox support will be extremely likely, unofficially at worst.
While I am in general agreement with the lock your pool/teach the kids to swim metaphor, I have to wonder if it distracts us from more important questions regarding internet usage in schools.
I agree, for a different reason. The Internet can indeed be a dangerous place (identity theft, etc.), but the existence of pornography - which is usually the target of Web filtering - is not one of them. Not only is it futile in this day and age to try to block kids from accessing porn, but I'm *still* waiting for someone to tell me why it's so imperative to do so in the first place.
Actually, I'd prefer the smell of nothing, but you can't fire someone for using the restroom, no matter how bad it smells.:)
I'm certainly no expert on the matter, but I believe you can fire someone for anything not explicitly forbidden by anti-discrimination and such laws. From what I understand, people in America are usually wrong when they assume that something can't legally be grounds for firing an employee.
I'm not a proponent of "Free Trade", which tends to harm people in poor nations even more than it harms some workers here. But taking the attitude that we should have preference for people inside our imaginary borders than outside them is not the solution.
Why do you say that? If you interpreted khasim's statement as implying that Germany can and should hire German programmers out of some kind of nationalism (which isn't how I interpreted it), then that's offensive no matter which government we're talking about. Still, I hardly ever hear people (besides myself) saying that things like "Buy American-Made" is offensive anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
I disapprove of what you say, but I would defend to the death your right to say it against abusive moderators if I had any mod points.
Seriously, I don't find the arguments in Mr. Coward's comment very convincing either, but you have to know that you're abusing the system when you mod this perfectly polite post down as "Flamebait" just because you disagree with it, so why do it?
I'm pretty sure your allusion to/parody of that famous quote about dissent against genocidal evil and the necessity of defending those who aren't ourselves breaks down somewhere around the "there was no one left to speak up" part. Unless the world started communicating exclusively via Google Voice and I failed to notice, that doesn't make a lot of sense.
By the way, first person to say that my having successfully made a First Post guarantees that I won't have any grandchildren gets hit.
I never had any desire to get a first post, but I noticed once that I was reading a story without one, so I gave it a shot. "First post!" I said, and I was right!
Won me some negative karma of course, but whatever. I'm glad I did it, so one day I can tell my grandchildren that I once got a First Post on Slashdot, who I suppose will somehow manage to care even less than my friends do now.
True enough... But isn't the goal of Ubuntu to be a GNU/Linux distro for everyone? That may not be the *reality*, but Ubuntu is an example of a project where of where we should try to avoid "anyone who's knowledgeable enough to..." kinds of arguments.
but would you really prefer if the Allies (and soviets) hadn't fought WW2?
I didn't think that was a question I came even close to raising... but I'm perfectly willing to engage in it. Keep in mind that I'm more knowledgeable about some aspects of WW2 than others.
First of all, leaving aside the Pacific war between the US and Japan, I don't think it even makes sense to imagine a WW2 without the Soviets fighting in it. Before Germany invaded the Soviet Union, there wasn't a World War 2, but rather German (and Italian) expansionism and some civil wars between Leftists and Fascists. The rest of the West, at most, gave token (though sometimes harsh) condemnation of fascism (notably, the Nazi occupation of France was welcomed by many of the elite in that country, who preferred foreign-imposed fascism over a left-wing revolution). The Soviets won much prestige in the West for being the ones who stood in opposition to fascism, leading to a surge in membership in Communist parties, followed by an exodus of members with the signing of the non-aggression pact. The Nazis, whose imperial ambitions were clear, had always identified the Soviet Union and "Judeo-Bolshevism" as the primary enemy. The Soviet Union had been decimated by World War 1, followed by the revolutions in February and October, followed by invasions from European and North American armies, followed by a Civil War, and had every reason to make any deal with the Nazis that would at least delay an invasion. That there was an imperialist element to the non-aggression pact on the part of both parties is without a doubt, but the desire to simply survive was the essential motivation of the Soviets. Anyway, point is, the question of fighting in WW2 was not a choice the Soviets had to make.
As for the US involvement in the war against Germany, whether I would "prefer" it is a tricky question to answer. Clearly the people in the places we liberated from Nazi occupation had good reason to celebrate our arrival. I would be hard-pressed to come up with an argument that our involved was a bad thing. But our *motivation*, or the motivation of those in charge, is another question. The nature of our involvement in the war against Germany in the Second World War was the same as the nature of our involvement in the first: imperialism, plunder, a chance to grow our might and profit for American corporations. It's not a well-kept secret that may American companies profited immensely by supporting the Nazi war machine; Ford made a killing (pun somewhat intended) building vehicles for both the US and German armies, even including while they were at war with one other. It's notable that the US showed little interest in entering Europe until the tide had turned in the German-Soviet war, and the Soviets seemed poised to single-handedly defeat the Nazis in Eastern Europe and be the de facto leaders of their defeat across Europe.
I didn't do a great job of answering your question. I'm trying to impress that there's reason to be greatly skeptical of our involvement in that war. It's also true that there was great heroism on the part of American soldiers, who could rightly claim to have helped defeat one of the greatest evils (I hate the word "evil"... but it'll do for now) the world has ever seen. I can't recommend highly enough a greatly critical, but well-documented and well-rounded book, "The Myth of the Good War" by Jacques Pauwels.
This just in:
Adolph Hitler condemns my beloved kitty as "an enemy of Nazism", praises my ex by saying "let the world know, MQDuck's ex is great in the eyes of Hitler".
Naturally, I'm devestated.
It would be interesting if you could also tell us the "Official" Allied rationale for the Dresden bombing, so readers can compare.
To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what the answer to that is. My recollection is that it was portrayed as being in fulfillment of the Western Allies' agreement to aid the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front, though I can't provide any sources for that offhand. It's informative that the senselessness of the firebombing campaign was condemned by intellectuals in Britain even while the war still raged.
You might also be aware that for many readers the official version will carry a lot more weight than your argument
I can hardly be blamed for their foolishness despite decades of being lied to about the meaning of wars, over and over.
so could you give a couple of pointers as to why we should trust an amateur looking website
If "amateur" = basic, Web 1.0 HTML, then I'm not sure why that's a particular reason to distrust it. But I shall take your advice and recommend to Mr. Long that he hire a Web design firm to create a legitimacy-centric Flash/HTML 5.0/AJAX website to attractively display the truth about the senseless use of weapons of mass destruction by the world's most powerful nation.
over the people who defeated Hitler
Last I checked, the people of the former Soviet Union will back me up on this.
I know replying to one's own post is generally frowned upon around here, but...
It should be reminded that there's precedent of the Western Allies' willingness to cause mass death and destruction for non-military purposes during World War 2. I'm referring specifically to the firebombing of Dresden, which was just as devastating and just as unnecessary as the atomic bombs dropped in Japan. Dresden, curiously, was a city the Red Army was just about to reach.
http://www.doug-long.com/hiroshim.htm
GP is entirely correct, though I'm shocked that (s)he hasn't been modded to hell because of it. Well, to be technical, nobody can claim to know the true motive for dropping The Bomb, only that the stated reason was without a doubt bullshit. That the motive to to keep away/send a message to the Soviet Union is the only reasonable explanation anyone's come up with but, as far as I know, there's no hard evidence for it.
Please allow me to continue pretending that Hipsters and Punks are separate and incompatible social groups.
Anyway, the Young People have been preferring to stay up late for far longer than the hipster trend (even longer than the original hipsters in the 1950s (you have my permission to call Beatniks compatible with Punks if you like), probably ever since God invented light bulbs and leisure time).
"The difference between the two companies is that Apple has been fearless about transformational change while Microsoft has been reluctant to leave its past behind"
Lies! You (mercifully?) forget Microsoft Bob. Also, the first time I ever heard of tablet computers is when I heard Bill Gates hyping it as the next revolutionary step forward for computers at least five years ago. The issue is not so much Microsoft's boldness as its incompetency (though the fact that the media doesn't treat Gate's words as inspired prophesy like it does Jobs's probably has something to do with it, too).
A well-known hacker of the iPhone, who previously defeated Apple's restrictions on developers, has claimed in a video to have hacked the iPad.
It's not surprising that a veteran iPhone hacker was able to root the iPad right away. After all, they have very similar hardware.
Just a thought: Apple's success is 50% hype. Perhaps they only release one big product at a time because they want that hype to build up, waiting until later to hype another one thing.
Efficiency?
Everybody agrees that the majority of filesharing is illegal. Don't confuse "illegal" with "wrong".
Well, the way I read the discussion, it's being worked on for Fennec because Fennec is where things are happening in Mozilla browserland today. If/When GStreamer support in the Fennec branch becomes mature, desktop Firefox support will be extremely likely, unofficially at worst.
Mozilla support for a GStreamer backend is being written. Doesn't that solve the issue of H.264 support?
...WOOSH!
While I am in general agreement with the lock your pool/teach the kids to swim metaphor, I have to wonder if it distracts us from more important questions regarding internet usage in schools.
I agree, for a different reason. The Internet can indeed be a dangerous place (identity theft, etc.), but the existence of pornography - which is usually the target of Web filtering - is not one of them. Not only is it futile in this day and age to try to block kids from accessing porn, but I'm *still* waiting for someone to tell me why it's so imperative to do so in the first place.
Maybe that's the planned next step in Chinese capitalism. Zombies don't complain about things like hours and wages and overtime pay.
Actually, I'd prefer the smell of nothing, but you can't fire someone for using the restroom, no matter how bad it smells. :)
I'm certainly no expert on the matter, but I believe you can fire someone for anything not explicitly forbidden by anti-discrimination and such laws. From what I understand, people in America are usually wrong when they assume that something can't legally be grounds for firing an employee.
a sneak preview of the next Elder Scrolls V game
I'm pretty sure they have to make the first Elder Scrolls V game before you can be waiting for the "next" one.
I'm not a proponent of "Free Trade", which tends to harm people in poor nations even more than it harms some workers here. But taking the attitude that we should have preference for people inside our imaginary borders than outside them is not the solution.
Why do you say that? If you interpreted khasim's statement as implying that Germany can and should hire German programmers out of some kind of nationalism (which isn't how I interpreted it), then that's offensive no matter which government we're talking about. Still, I hardly ever hear people (besides myself) saying that things like "Buy American-Made" is offensive anyway.