You seem to be missing the point. If you allow everyone into the lifeboat, no one lives. Survival frequently requires cruel things. So many people cry and white about what is fair and compassionate, but the truth is there is nothing in nature much that cares. Nature is a deer screaming in the woods while its eaten, alive. To believe in some fantasy where the world is any different from that is delusional.
Yes, when possible, we mitigate that harsh reality as much as we can, but don't criticize someone for pointing out where the limit is.
This doesn't logically follow. An open border does not guarantee migration will work nor does a closed border make it work. A closed border protecting you FROM migrating people's might well save you. Harsh, but reality is like that at times.
That's pathetic, honestly. My family went through all of that, quite a bit more hardship than that actually, and managed to cook and not be fat and they were almost universally poorer than most "poor" people today.
I've worked straight 16s before, for weeks, and I still cooked.
This just screams to me that people are spoiled and just don't want to learn to do anything for themselves. Reminds me of what my grandfather used to say: the cost of living has not gone up, just the cost of convenience.
That assumes the reference is to the same tower, that it wasn't built more than once, and a number of possibilities.
Its entirely possible that the Bible is right and the tower was built in 600BCE, or that historians are wrong about the dates, etc. Also there is a difference between wrong and inaccurate. The Bible could be right about the tower being build and just off by date (assuming it attempted to give a date in the first place).
For what its worth, I like reading a lot of ancient books, and listening to human storytelling. The irony of all of it is that even though its often inaccurate short term, I have heard that its more accurate than almost anything else long term. One paper I read which I wish I could reference here on data storage and future interpretation suggested that if the ancients had computers millenia ago, the data from them would be less accurate than the stories we have now, and in most cases we'd not even have the data at all.
Data storage and preservation is almost as interesting as what we store and try to study.
I think all of you are assuming that the origin of language in the Bible references all human language. Why can't it reference a family of languages or a certain development in language, or a common historical focal point where most other currently in use derived or where influenced by?
Not everything in the Bible is wrong, not everything in Atheist Dreamland is correct.
There are a lot of historical chains branching out to our current world from Babylon. It was a city with very high influence in a number of areas.
The American mile is different? The American mile is 5280 feet, and that was a unit created by English Parliment in 1593. What are you thinking of? Examples?
If you want to get us Americans to use metric, all you have to do is require the most important thing we deal with to become metric: gasoline purchases. Everything else will follow. Gas is the most important thing to us, it is what we spend half our income on, and what we bitch about the price of most.
That's actually a neat idea. I think grocery stores could push it more than they do as well.
However, where do you get that we spend half our income on gas? Even when I made $30K and less my gas bill wasn't remotely close to that with 10K miles per year.
Anyone else here spend that much on gas? Sorry to derail the thread, but A) this is slashdot and B) that kinda made me curious.:)
Well that's a good point, myoglobin is what makes meat red, and beef simply has more of it than say chicken or fish.
However, I rarely buy meat where all of the blood is totally gone, especially if its a fresh kill market from local sources, or of course game animals from a hunting trip.
I suppose "no blood" is actually some legal formula which specifics the maximum allowed in reality and it is probably very low but not gone.
I'm personally happy for Anonymous to keep doing this until the large corporates start to wise up
Then you are a criminal minded puke just like them.
This isn't activism or anything like that, its crime, period.
If Anonymous or any other cowardly criminals like them want to do something effectively, they could put their time toward participating in their government. Just because someone does something dumb, incorrect, or even criminal does not justify committing a crime in response.
The free market does allow this, but whether it brings it or not depends on the market. Socialism on the other hand does this "in everyone's best interests", regardless of the market telling them hell no.
Where do you get the idea meat doesn't have blood in it? Some meat has quite a bit of blood in it. The steak I cooked for Christmas dinner last nite for example, I like it rare so the plate ran with blood. Yummy.
Some of you people are so ignorant its hard to believe any of you went to college or hold down a job.
Capitalism is private ownership of the means of production, and if you want to get detailed about it, private was intended to mean everyone, not just artificial aristocracies and corporations.
Capitalism is not a form of government, and has never been used as a banner under which people are slaughtered for political reasons as was communism, socialism, etc.
Unfortunately the suggestions you make are not possible for most of it. Government interference has created the situation where we don't have a choice. We can't go to an hourly job when the law has been changed and/or the industry regulated to eliminate the possibility.
I'm a big fan of Robert Howard's Conan stories. Not the modified stuff in the movies and L. Sprague de Camp's edits, I mean his original work that never was put into a novel. You can get a collection of them from various places called the Centenial Edition I believe. Very good.
I also like the Dragonlance novels.
For science fiction, I really like some of Brunner's work, A Shockwave Rider being a favorite. I also liked the Neuromancer trilogy from William Gibson, and some of the followup.
A little bit different recommendation for you: I love pen-and-paper RPGs, and some of their source material is also very good and I enjoy reading through that as well. I highly recommend Shadowrun (3rd edition), Ars Magica, and World of Darkness.
This is fair to a point, but the truth is that when a GPL projects gets abandoned, its much the same thing. Over 99% of users can't do a thing with the code, and a good number of coding professionals can't either for various reasons.
This is really a human social/engineering issue that isn't solved with licenses. GPL, BSD... whatever you can solve this issue by managing projects properly.
GNU can make sure GPL projects don't stagnate, and Apple can have a plan for what to do if they die. The licenses don't matter near as much as the management.
They profit because (mostly) they can distribute GPL code without running into the issues it presents.
What if Red Hat wanted to create an MMO? If you released the source, people would cheat with it. That's a prime example of a time when not having the source is good for (most of) the users. Yes, its probably not all that common, but it exists.
The real problems come in situations close to that, where for various reasons you need to use various bits of code and cannot use the GPL license or provide all of your modifications. You simply can't use the GPL. What makes this worse is if you are required to or desire to support a GPL operating system and/or API and the viral nature of the GPL tries to force you to use that license for your own code. This situation is very common.
Sure in an ideal and perfect world it would be great of all code could be free, much like it would be great if we could all do without door locks and other "restrictions on freedom". We don't live in that world.
There are some uses of GPL which I agree with, some of the ideas, like trying to promote open source and various freedoms for users. However, in pragmatic terms it causes a lot more problems than many proponents want to admit, and many of them don't agree with the extremists like Stallman. The problem with that is his extremism is codified in the GPL, at least the later versions.
What I want, what I need, is to be able to release under GPL when that's OK, and otherwise use a different license. Ideally I'd try to keep software open, but I should not be forced to. That's real freedom. A lot of the drive behing the GPL does not want to allow it. Its about a lot more than customer freedom and the things I see mentioned here, its about trying to shove a particular ideology down people's throats and that's wrong, even if that particular road to hell is paved with a few good intentions.
But the GPL *DOES* restrict other people. Its mythology that it doesn't.
The GPL is viral and ties to force me to make my code fall under GPL if I use GPL code with it. RMS has stated many, many times that this is his goal. People need to quit pretending otherwise.
There are many valid situations where I cannot give source back or make it open, and the GPL interferes with this all the time. It is not evil or bad to restrict source, there are times when this is a necessary and positive thing.
GPL is not freedom, it is giving up freedom in exchange for what some people think are more important freedoms. Its also incorrect to state that GPL is about the freedom of the code. It greatly impacts the freedom of the coder, you can't neatly separate that out like it doesn't matter.
Even if you agree that the GPL freedoms are more important than the ones you give up, at least admit that's what is happening.
Incorrect. Atheism is a highly vocal and zealous religion. I get more zealous bullshit from atheists than I get from all other religions combined. This is a fairly recent development, but its very real and very bothersome.
Glad to hear it... naturally it follows that you believe Atheism is bad, since after all it is one of the most zealous and vocal religions out there.
As far as questioning a god-given truth goes... you are clueless. It is the hallmark of many christians and jews that they question the truth. I'm certain others do as well, but those are all I have direct experience with.
Slashdot Mirror
You seem to be missing the point. If you allow everyone into the lifeboat, no one lives. Survival frequently requires cruel things. So many people cry and white about what is fair and compassionate, but the truth is there is nothing in nature much that cares. Nature is a deer screaming in the woods while its eaten, alive. To believe in some fantasy where the world is any different from that is delusional.
Yes, when possible, we mitigate that harsh reality as much as we can, but don't criticize someone for pointing out where the limit is.
This doesn't logically follow. An open border does not guarantee migration will work nor does a closed border make it work. A closed border protecting you FROM migrating people's might well save you. Harsh, but reality is like that at times.
Bravo to you. Most people today are so damned lazy they couldn't survive 1-3 months of this. I wish I had mod points for you.
That's pathetic, honestly. My family went through all of that, quite a bit more hardship than that actually, and managed to cook and not be fat and they were almost universally poorer than most "poor" people today.
I've worked straight 16s before, for weeks, and I still cooked.
This just screams to me that people are spoiled and just don't want to learn to do anything for themselves. Reminds me of what my grandfather used to say: the cost of living has not gone up, just the cost of convenience.
You are prolly crect.
That assumes the reference is to the same tower, that it wasn't built more than once, and a number of possibilities.
Its entirely possible that the Bible is right and the tower was built in 600BCE, or that historians are wrong about the dates, etc. Also there is a difference between wrong and inaccurate. The Bible could be right about the tower being build and just off by date (assuming it attempted to give a date in the first place).
For what its worth, I like reading a lot of ancient books, and listening to human storytelling. The irony of all of it is that even though its often inaccurate short term, I have heard that its more accurate than almost anything else long term. One paper I read which I wish I could reference here on data storage and future interpretation suggested that if the ancients had computers millenia ago, the data from them would be less accurate than the stories we have now, and in most cases we'd not even have the data at all.
Data storage and preservation is almost as interesting as what we store and try to study.
I think all of you are assuming that the origin of language in the Bible references all human language. Why can't it reference a family of languages or a certain development in language, or a common historical focal point where most other currently in use derived or where influenced by?
Not everything in the Bible is wrong, not everything in Atheist Dreamland is correct.
There are a lot of historical chains branching out to our current world from Babylon. It was a city with very high influence in a number of areas.
Steve Jobs can't do it, he was reincarnated as a Chinese factory worker.
Personally, I think beer should always be sold by the pint. Not the short crap we get, pints. Real pints.
Keep the metric system away from my beer.
The American mile is different? The American mile is 5280 feet, and that was a unit created by English Parliment in 1593. What are you thinking of? Examples?
If you want to get us Americans to use metric, all you have to do is require the most important thing we deal with to become metric: gasoline purchases. Everything else will follow. Gas is the most important thing to us, it is what we spend half our income on, and what we bitch about the price of most.
That's actually a neat idea. I think grocery stores could push it more than they do as well.
However, where do you get that we spend half our income on gas? Even when I made $30K and less my gas bill wasn't remotely close to that with 10K miles per year.
Anyone else here spend that much on gas? Sorry to derail the thread, but A) this is slashdot and B) that kinda made me curious. :)
Well that's a good point, myoglobin is what makes meat red, and beef simply has more of it than say chicken or fish.
However, I rarely buy meat where all of the blood is totally gone, especially if its a fresh kill market from local sources, or of course game animals from a hunting trip.
I suppose "no blood" is actually some legal formula which specifics the maximum allowed in reality and it is probably very low but not gone.
I'm personally happy for Anonymous to keep doing this until the large corporates start to wise up
Then you are a criminal minded puke just like them.
This isn't activism or anything like that, its crime, period.
If Anonymous or any other cowardly criminals like them want to do something effectively, they could put their time toward participating in their government. Just because someone does something dumb, incorrect, or even criminal does not justify committing a crime in response.
This, my friend, is what socialism brings you.
Fixed it for you.
The free market does allow this, but whether it brings it or not depends on the market. Socialism on the other hand does this "in everyone's best interests", regardless of the market telling them hell no.
Where do you get the idea meat doesn't have blood in it? Some meat has quite a bit of blood in it. The steak I cooked for Christmas dinner last nite for example, I like it rare so the plate ran with blood. Yummy.
Some of you people are so ignorant its hard to believe any of you went to college or hold down a job.
Capitalism is private ownership of the means of production, and if you want to get detailed about it, private was intended to mean everyone, not just artificial aristocracies and corporations.
Capitalism is not a form of government, and has never been used as a banner under which people are slaughtered for political reasons as was communism, socialism, etc.
Sure, but this is an example of "needing" to do something because the system is inherently and idiotically broken, like much business is.
Unfortunately the suggestions you make are not possible for most of it. Government interference has created the situation where we don't have a choice. We can't go to an hourly job when the law has been changed and/or the industry regulated to eliminate the possibility.
I'm a big fan of Robert Howard's Conan stories. Not the modified stuff in the movies and L. Sprague de Camp's edits, I mean his original work that never was put into a novel. You can get a collection of them from various places called the Centenial Edition I believe. Very good.
I also like the Dragonlance novels.
For science fiction, I really like some of Brunner's work, A Shockwave Rider being a favorite. I also liked the Neuromancer trilogy from William Gibson, and some of the followup.
A little bit different recommendation for you: I love pen-and-paper RPGs, and some of their source material is also very good and I enjoy reading through that as well. I highly recommend Shadowrun (3rd edition), Ars Magica, and World of Darkness.
This is fair to a point, but the truth is that when a GPL projects gets abandoned, its much the same thing. Over 99% of users can't do a thing with the code, and a good number of coding professionals can't either for various reasons.
This is really a human social/engineering issue that isn't solved with licenses. GPL, BSD... whatever you can solve this issue by managing projects properly.
GNU can make sure GPL projects don't stagnate, and Apple can have a plan for what to do if they die. The licenses don't matter near as much as the management.
They profit because (mostly) they can distribute GPL code without running into the issues it presents.
What if Red Hat wanted to create an MMO? If you released the source, people would cheat with it. That's a prime example of a time when not having the source is good for (most of) the users. Yes, its probably not all that common, but it exists.
The real problems come in situations close to that, where for various reasons you need to use various bits of code and cannot use the GPL license or provide all of your modifications. You simply can't use the GPL. What makes this worse is if you are required to or desire to support a GPL operating system and/or API and the viral nature of the GPL tries to force you to use that license for your own code. This situation is very common.
Sure in an ideal and perfect world it would be great of all code could be free, much like it would be great if we could all do without door locks and other "restrictions on freedom". We don't live in that world.
There are some uses of GPL which I agree with, some of the ideas, like trying to promote open source and various freedoms for users. However, in pragmatic terms it causes a lot more problems than many proponents want to admit, and many of them don't agree with the extremists like Stallman. The problem with that is his extremism is codified in the GPL, at least the later versions.
What I want, what I need, is to be able to release under GPL when that's OK, and otherwise use a different license. Ideally I'd try to keep software open, but I should not be forced to. That's real freedom. A lot of the drive behing the GPL does not want to allow it. Its about a lot more than customer freedom and the things I see mentioned here, its about trying to shove a particular ideology down people's throats and that's wrong, even if that particular road to hell is paved with a few good intentions.
But the GPL *DOES* restrict other people. Its mythology that it doesn't.
The GPL is viral and ties to force me to make my code fall under GPL if I use GPL code with it. RMS has stated many, many times that this is his goal. People need to quit pretending otherwise.
There are many valid situations where I cannot give source back or make it open, and the GPL interferes with this all the time. It is not evil or bad to restrict source, there are times when this is a necessary and positive thing.
GPL is not freedom, it is giving up freedom in exchange for what some people think are more important freedoms. Its also incorrect to state that GPL is about the freedom of the code. It greatly impacts the freedom of the coder, you can't neatly separate that out like it doesn't matter.
Even if you agree that the GPL freedoms are more important than the ones you give up, at least admit that's what is happening.
Incorrect. Atheism is a highly vocal and zealous religion. I get more zealous bullshit from atheists than I get from all other religions combined. This is a fairly recent development, but its very real and very bothersome.
The former USSR was atheist, and they killed countless millions and committed other atrocious acts of evil.
Seems pretty clear your issue is not with religions, but rather with evil humans, correct?
Glad to hear it... naturally it follows that you believe Atheism is bad, since after all it is one of the most zealous and vocal religions out there.
As far as questioning a god-given truth goes... you are clueless. It is the hallmark of many christians and jews that they question the truth. I'm certain others do as well, but those are all I have direct experience with.