The first time I read your post the first thing that popped into my head was that citizens were griping for more pylons, a situation many of us are familiar with I'm sure.
And the slashdot entry is also wrong. The article doesn't say anything about "an off-by ten error in btrees". It doesn't talk about btrees except for a passing reference. It talks about heaps and heapsort.
Well, yeah, but completely mangling whatever is in the article to sound as inflammatory as possible has been the/. way for at least 5 years or so now.
Let me put it this way, if I ever see a Slashdot topic with the title "No reason to believe world will end tomorrow" that'll truly push the panic buttons.
Really though, Carr values "deep thinking" in and of itself, and doesn't care if people who need it can do it.
I'd argue that anyone eligible to vote requires the ability to "think deep" at least every x amount of years.
Do what you want in your own life guys, but for god's sake, when it comes to deciding who gets to run the county/state/country/whatever for the next couple of years, make the effort to actually think about it?
"In free and democratic societies, an individual deciding on his or her own to leak classified information is a subversion of that very democratic process. "
Well, it is, isn't it? At least it is when that information harms those we like to back up or typically agree with. When it harms those we dislike it is patriotic and brave...
For instance, does the right to free speech in the First Amendment give me the right to tell the whole world that [username] committed some unspeakable act? Actually, no, it doesn't - because that would be slander (or libel), assuming that 1. it was false, 2. I knew it was false and didn't bother to check into it, 3. the claim was just credible enough that it might be believed by some number of people, and 4. their belief of that false statement cause [username] harm.
Sorry, but that's a non-argument. Just because the constitution guarantuees you can say whatever you bloody well please does not mean that another citizen can't hold you accountable for your speech, and if he can demonstrate in civil court that your speech has in fact unjustly caused damage to him or her, then it is only right that you repair that damage.
In the old days all the power companies in my country were owned by the government, be it local or national. Following the lead of the Thatcherites and Reaganites we decided to let the free market reign and privatized the companies.
The problem is, power companies will use the assets that make up the infrastructure which a nation is completely dependant upon as collateral for loans, risky business endeavours etc. This what companies do and there is nothing wrong with that, except if it means that your economy could come crashing down at any time through no fault of your own because some jackass decide to play the lottery and now a couple of million people are sitting in the dark.
So what did we do? We separated the companies that supply energy from the ones that manage the infrastructure. The infrastructure is safely in public hands, so there's no risk of waking up one day to find out the powerlines are owned by google. The suppliers are free to do whatever the heck they please within the rules, and if one of 'm goes tits up, we just switch to one of the two dozen other choices. Same principle applies to the phonelines and within a few years I expect the cable providers will do the same.
There are some things that are simply too important and too valuable to be trusted to the free market. Electrical infrastructure. Transportation. Phonelines, the internet. As folks on Slashdot repeat over and over, a corporation has 1 objective and that is too squeeze out as much profit as possible for the shareholders, consequences be damned. When there is choice, that is not a problem, but when you're dealing with a natural monopoly, it is.
You know what would happen if the US actually did what you preach? You would wake up one day and find out that not only does China own all your national debt, they own your powerlines, the road you use to go to work, the postman delivering your mail and the modem allowing you to post your ideological drivel.
Ehmm, if i pick up some pot or hash at the local coffeeshop there's nothing to stop me from taking it home and smoking it on tv. Heck, plenty of folks have a quiet smoke somewhere and the only time people complain is if they're downwind;-)
He wants to turn the USA into a central, government-run economy (like Cuba is today, or the Soviet Union used to be).
No, he doesn't. He doesn't even get anywhere close. We western europeans are miiiiiiles to the left of you in terms of the economy and social security(please note i do not include our attitude to furreners after the amount of votes the esteemed mr wilders got last night) and *we* are nowhere near Cuba or the former Soviet Union. Compared to the kind of politicians we elect Obama is a corporate shill, as is most of your congress, so no worries, you'll be happily bent over the barrel of whichever corporation is in line to assrape you next.
See how empty hyperbole rhetoric serves no purpose except to scare stupid people and make you look like a total ass to the intelligent ones? If you guys want to change shit, stop talking in terms of ridiculous absolutes and start living in the real world for a change. You know, the one that is full of other countries that have all tried various approaches and gathered tons of valuable data on what does and does not work.
I was really looking forward to telling Firefox what IRQ/port/DMA to use for the soundcard. And *then* I get to setup emm386.exe and himem.sys just right for it to run...
Of course--after all, their kind created the sort of law which needs the assistance of a lawyer, in order to avoid becoming a criminal--even for the most mundane of transgressions. If you ask me, *that* is where the evil lies. It's basically the case of the fox guarding the hen house.
Ahhh, if only there were some method for the hens to decide who would be the most appropriate to guard the hen house. Oh wait, I have an idea, they could choose one themselves? Of course that would mean the hens would have to turn their brains on for a couple of seconds...
A lot of papers were published in the 1990s claiming that endocrine disruptors such as BPA will cause children to have delayed onset of puberty. Since the onset of puberty has become earlier if anything, this seems to be in the same class of research as the "harm" of fluoridated water, power line radio waves, or dental amalgam mercury.
Oh jesus fucking christ, another one.
Me hitting you causes you to make you feel bad. A hot redhead giving you a blowjob causes makes you feel reeeaaaalllly good.
Since you've been feeling good lately, clearly there is no reason for me to stop hitting you.
In other news, stuff might be influenced by more than 1 factor.
Chromas, man, its summer so they were wearing little tanks man, and they had tits. Not just those little bitty "just starting to bloom" boobs, we are talking big ass C cup tits man, along with those womanly J-Lo booties, and we are talking 13-14 year old girls man!
Ehmm, when I was 13(roughly 20 years ago) most of the guys in my class hadn't had their growth spurt yet, but the girls were pretty damn tall and pretty much all of them had most of what their eventual cupsizes would be.
Now it was still easy to see they were teenagers, but not based on the size of their breasts.
Is it possible your own age has distorted both your recollections and ability to judge age in teen/tweens a wee bit?
Its as if we are still cave men sitting on the edge of the ocean too afraid to build ourselves a raft even though we've been using rafts for travel along the rivers for as long as the older of us can remember.
Good grief, what is it with Slashdot and making analogies that completely miss the point.
Yes, we have built rafts before. However, apart from prestige and long term science the immediate return on investment was rather low. Since at the moment our supplies of food are depleted and the women in the cave are complaining about the children crying all the time because they're hungry, it might not be a bad idea for the cavemen to invest their time hunting for food and postpone the building of the next raft till after the next migration season, when the cave is full of food again.
For the americans, driving a car is a way of life, it is the american way.
That's why we tax fuel, thereby enforcing responsible use of it, and spend the proceeds on road maintenance, public transport and other useful stuff. The americans on the other hand actually *subsidize* fuel...
Either that or they have some sort of national complex about the size of their dicks, which they try to compensate for by massive cars, big guns and even bigger guts.
Ehmm, just what percentage of US television is taken up by commercials again? They're telling us what we want, when we want it and why we want it, and a good percentage of consumers gobbles it up like candy. Just look at the amount of PR and marketing people working in pretty much any company to realize that creating demand is a science, and they're bloody good at it.
The impression I get from Turkey is pretty much like my own country (Portugal) from 20 or 30 years ago: while a minority of mostly city living, more educated people don't want religion mixed with politics, the majority which are mostly poorly-educated and living outside cities does want a religion-influenced government. If it's like in my own country, urbanization and near-universal education will sort this out soon enough.
Well, yes, but there is one problem. If you put the religious nutcases in power, they will do everything possible to prevent the unwashed masses that put them there from getting educated in anything they dislike. Like...say...blocking access to information or trying to get $local_flavor_of_insanity to be taught in schools.
Slashdot Mirror
The first time I read your post the first thing that popped into my head was that citizens were griping for more pylons, a situation many of us are familiar with I'm sure.
And the slashdot entry is also wrong. The article doesn't say anything about "an off-by ten error in btrees". It doesn't talk about btrees except for a passing reference. It talks about heaps and heapsort.
Well, yeah, but completely mangling whatever is in the article to sound as inflammatory as possible has been the /. way for at least 5 years or so now.
Let me put it this way, if I ever see a Slashdot topic with the title "No reason to believe world will end tomorrow" that'll truly push the panic buttons.
Mechwarrior 2...best soundtrack for a PC game *ever*
Still play it on occasion :-)
Solar powered lightbulbs...
Tackling education and overpopulation problems at the same time.
This may not be quite as good, but it still beats the Taliban and ... well, whatever economic basis Afghanistan had before.
Or....the Taliban get their hands on a piece of the action and become the #1 customer of Nukes'r'Us...
Really though, Carr values "deep thinking" in and of itself, and doesn't care if people who need it can do it.
I'd argue that anyone eligible to vote requires the ability to "think deep" at least every x amount of years.
Do what you want in your own life guys, but for god's sake, when it comes to deciding who gets to run the county/state/country/whatever for the next couple of years, make the effort to actually think about it?
Our island!
In the middle of the sea!
"In free and democratic societies, an individual deciding on his or her own to leak classified information is a subversion of that very democratic process. "
Well, it is, isn't it? At least it is when that information harms those we like to back up or typically agree with. When it harms those we dislike it is patriotic and brave...
For instance, does the right to free speech in the First Amendment give me the right to tell the whole world that [username] committed some unspeakable act? Actually, no, it doesn't - because that would be slander (or libel), assuming that 1. it was false, 2. I knew it was false and didn't bother to check into it, 3. the claim was just credible enough that it might be believed by some number of people, and 4. their belief of that false statement cause [username] harm.
Sorry, but that's a non-argument. Just because the constitution guarantuees you can say whatever you bloody well please does not mean that another citizen can't hold you accountable for your speech, and if he can demonstrate in civil court that your speech has in fact unjustly caused damage to him or her, then it is only right that you repair that damage.
With power comes responsibility and all that.
It's not the weapons themselves that should be feared, but the drooling morons allowed to wield them.
It doesn't have people like me going around blowing your shit up? :)
You filthy bastard...
how dare you imply a give a shit about stamps? :)
No, they are not. Concrete example:
In the old days all the power companies in my country were owned by the government, be it local or national. Following the lead of the Thatcherites and Reaganites we decided to let the free market reign and privatized the companies.
The problem is, power companies will use the assets that make up the infrastructure which a nation is completely dependant upon as collateral for loans, risky business endeavours etc. This what companies do and there is nothing wrong with that, except if it means that your economy could come crashing down at any time through no fault of your own because some jackass decide to play the lottery and now a couple of million people are sitting in the dark.
So what did we do? We separated the companies that supply energy from the ones that manage the infrastructure. The infrastructure is safely in public hands, so there's no risk of waking up one day to find out the powerlines are owned by google. The suppliers are free to do whatever the heck they please within the rules, and if one of 'm goes tits up, we just switch to one of the two dozen other choices. Same principle applies to the phonelines and within a few years I expect the cable providers will do the same.
There are some things that are simply too important and too valuable to be trusted to the free market. Electrical infrastructure. Transportation. Phonelines, the internet. As folks on Slashdot repeat over and over, a corporation has 1 objective and that is too squeeze out as much profit as possible for the shareholders, consequences be damned. When there is choice, that is not a problem, but when you're dealing with a natural monopoly, it is.
You know what would happen if the US actually did what you preach? You would wake up one day and find out that not only does China own all your national debt, they own your powerlines, the road you use to go to work, the postman delivering your mail and the modem allowing you to post your ideological drivel.
But you can only light it up in those bars.
Ehmm, if i pick up some pot or hash at the local coffeeshop there's nothing to stop me from taking it home and smoking it on tv. Heck, plenty of folks have a quiet smoke somewhere and the only time people complain is if they're downwind ;-)
He wants to turn the USA into a central, government-run economy (like Cuba is today, or the Soviet Union used to be).
No, he doesn't. He doesn't even get anywhere close. We western europeans are miiiiiiles to the left of you in terms of the economy and social security(please note i do not include our attitude to furreners after the amount of votes the esteemed mr wilders got last night) and *we* are nowhere near Cuba or the former Soviet Union. Compared to the kind of politicians we elect Obama is a corporate shill, as is most of your congress, so no worries, you'll be happily bent over the barrel of whichever corporation is in line to assrape you next.
See how empty hyperbole rhetoric serves no purpose except to scare stupid people and make you look like a total ass to the intelligent ones? If you guys want to change shit, stop talking in terms of ridiculous absolutes and start living in the real world for a change. You know, the one that is full of other countries that have all tried various approaches and gathered tons of valuable data on what does and does not work.
The same way they profit from all the other websites they offer free of charge...by slapping some of their ads on?
Hmm...context-sensitive ads in a search engine for patents...I see potential for giggles.
Awwwwww
I was really looking forward to telling Firefox what IRQ/port/DMA to use for the soundcard. And *then* I get to setup emm386.exe and himem.sys just right for it to run...
Ahhh, good times, good times.
Of course--after all, their kind created the sort of law which needs the assistance of a lawyer, in order to avoid becoming a criminal--even for the most mundane of transgressions. If you ask me, *that* is where the evil lies. It's basically the case of the fox guarding the hen house.
Ahhh, if only there were some method for the hens to decide who would be the most appropriate to guard the hen house. Oh wait, I have an idea, they could choose one themselves? Of course that would mean the hens would have to turn their brains on for a couple of seconds...
A lot of papers were published in the 1990s claiming that endocrine disruptors such as BPA will cause children to have delayed onset of puberty. Since the onset of puberty has become earlier if anything, this seems to be in the same class of research as the "harm" of fluoridated water, power line radio waves, or dental amalgam mercury.
Oh jesus fucking christ, another one.
Me hitting you causes you to make you feel bad.
A hot redhead giving you a blowjob causes makes you feel reeeaaaalllly good.
Since you've been feeling good lately, clearly there is no reason for me to stop hitting you.
In other news, stuff might be influenced by more than 1 factor.
Chromas, man, its summer so they were wearing little tanks man, and they had tits. Not just those little bitty "just starting to bloom" boobs, we are talking big ass C cup tits man, along with those womanly J-Lo booties, and we are talking 13-14 year old girls man!
Ehmm, when I was 13(roughly 20 years ago) most of the guys in my class hadn't had their growth spurt yet, but the girls were pretty damn tall and pretty much all of them had most of what their eventual cupsizes would be.
Now it was still easy to see they were teenagers, but not based on the size of their breasts.
Is it possible your own age has distorted both your recollections and ability to judge age in teen/tweens a wee bit?
Its as if we are still cave men sitting on the edge of the ocean too afraid to build ourselves a raft even though we've been using rafts for travel along the rivers for as long as the older of us can remember.
Good grief, what is it with Slashdot and making analogies that completely miss the point.
Yes, we have built rafts before. However, apart from prestige and long term science the immediate return on investment was rather low. Since at the moment our supplies of food are depleted and the women in the cave are complaining about the children crying all the time because they're hungry, it might not be a bad idea for the cavemen to invest their time hunting for food and postpone the building of the next raft till after the next migration season, when the cave is full of food again.
For the americans, driving a car is a way of life, it is the american way.
That's why we tax fuel, thereby enforcing responsible use of it, and spend the proceeds on road maintenance, public transport and other useful stuff. The americans on the other hand actually *subsidize* fuel...
Either that or they have some sort of national complex about the size of their dicks, which they try to compensate for by massive cars, big guns and even bigger guts.
When *I* saw it worked at a movie theatre...and we watched it with just the staff, a couple of beers each and the volume cranked to 11.
We're talking a sound system that was massively overspecced because one of the owners was a huge fun of sexy audio gear. That movie was awesome :P
Ehmm, just what percentage of US television is taken up by commercials again? They're telling us what we want, when we want it and why we want it, and a good percentage of consumers gobbles it up like candy. Just look at the amount of PR and marketing people working in pretty much any company to realize that creating demand is a science, and they're bloody good at it.
The impression I get from Turkey is pretty much like my own country (Portugal) from 20 or 30 years ago: while a minority of
mostly city living, more educated people don't want religion mixed with politics, the majority which are mostly poorly-educated and living outside cities does want a religion-influenced government. If it's like in my own country, urbanization and near-universal education will sort this out soon enough.
Well, yes, but there is one problem. If you put the religious nutcases in power, they will do everything possible to prevent the unwashed masses that put them there from getting educated in anything they dislike. Like...say...blocking access to information or trying to get $local_flavor_of_insanity to be taught in schools.