These things are also not the same. Being gay is uncommon, but normal, and not to be considered a 'bad habit'.
I beg to differ. I think that wanting control over your own life including when to end it is uncommon, but normal too, and should not be considered a mental problem.
The right to end one's life on their own terms is an essential liberty that should not be denied. But every attempt should be made to ensure that it is a decision based out of conviction from sound mind, and not impaired judgement due to mental illness or extreme duress.
To a certain point. Not the "every attempt" point. I mean, would you demand "every attempt" for other decisions people make about their own bodies, like smoking, drinking, having unprotected sex, or being gay for that matter?
I see many people in this situation. Sure, you may have to trade your privacy, but if the opportunity cost is missing out on employment, which would you rather them choose?
That argument doesn't hold water. You can substitute "jewelry" for "privacy" in it, without it changing its meaning. Is that still free by your definition? Or have you already made the assumption that privacy is not worth anything, and are begging the question?
If your comment here is serious (yes, this is how far sites like SlashDot have sunk), you ought to know that you can reach out for help.
This attitude is what pisses me off more than anything. The belief that anyone who plans or attempts suicide needs help. That's incredibly condescending, and shows off your cultural bias based on a fairy tale belief that "life is sacred". Sure, some people might have their life changed in one way or another, making suicide no longer their choice. But that still does not make it right. Who are you to say that life is better than no life for others? Do you say the same about being hetero being better than being gay too? It's really the same type of condescending "moral" view that people want to enforce on others.
If someone wants to die, that should be their right. If we cannot even be allowed to own the decision about our own death, and don't own our own bodies, we are slaves.
Us conservatives aren't against science. It stupid stuff like a 500K study to determine the difference in pleasure between condom and no condom.
That seems like a very cheap and worthwhile study. If greater understanding of that issue can lead to as little as one unwanted pregnancy less, the whole study has likely been a net gain for society. Why would you be against that?
Experiments that confirm what everyone assumes to be true, assumes at such a deep level that its below conscious thought, those are valuable.
The unwashed masses on the right that oppose "wasting" money on science like this really don't understand that science isn't just about discovery, it's also about validation. Without the validation part, it's not science, but faith, with a high risk of being wrong, incomplete, or useless for further discoveries. This is money exceptionally well spent.
Next experiment, we're going to explore whether rocks can spontaneously roll uphill if they are watched long enough.
The current quantum mechanics theories and interpretations are in favour of that possibility, but that the odds are so long that even if you watched every rock in the entire universe until all rocks have decayed, you would never see one of them move. Smaller scale experiments, though, confirm the predictions of the theory.
The one thing that I have noticed is that with the rise in mobile computing, it seems that building more powerful CPUs has taken a backseat to building more power efficient CPUs.
Not just mobile computing, but data centers where parallel processing is more important than raw speed, and the cost of a year of electricity multiplied by several thousand CPUs makes a difference. But when you need linear computing power, the advances haven't been all that great over the last twenty years. That 3.06 GHz Pentium 4 from 2002 isn't all that much slower for that than today's CPUs.
Plot twist, all 10 fingers are invalid, the body part that actually unlocks it is left up to the readers imagination.
I think it's fairly clear that this should be the brain.
The problem is in assuming that the finger (or in your case other body part) always will be representing the brain. That's a bad assumption. Authentication and authorization (by the user, not the device) need to be decoupled - the former does not imply the latter. "I am arth1" does not automatically validate "and arth1 wants to unlock".
Yeah, this is false advertising. Although it might be possible to cause the battery to explode, and at least get a decent chance of maiming them. Just reducing the number of police trigger fingers might make this part of the world a safer place.
That's still a substantial improvement over the fastest RAM available when the PIII 1.4 came out, 133 MHz SDRAM. If both the CPU and RAM clock cycle speeds had increased at the same rate, we'd have 16.8 GHz CPUs to go with the 1600 MHz clocked RAM.
To make it worse, the speed increases we did get also came with an increase in pipeline length, which makes the CPU substantially slower whenever branch prediction fails and the pipeline has to be refilled. So the 5 GHz of tomorrow isn't going to run all code 3.5 times as fast as a 1.4 GHz PIII CPU. Optimized code for the newer CPUs, with compiler assisted branch prediction is certainly helping, but it won't run old code 3.5 times as fast, and in some clinical cases (small operations called through jump tables) probably not much faster at all.
It's still an accomplishment though since it's the first ever consumer CPU to run at a such an insane clockrate.
It does not sound insane to me. I mean, back in 2002, we had Pentium III running at 1.4 GHz, and not long after, the P4 3.06 GHz. 16 years later, and we haven't been able to double the PIII clock rate twice or the P4 clock rate once?
For perspective, in the same time span, we have gone from 133 MHz SDRAM and 533 MHz RDRAM to 3200 MHz DDR4. That's a far more impressive clock rate increase. If this trend continues, we'll soon have to offload cycle dependent calculations from the CPU to the RAM controller because it's going to be faster...:p
Where specifically is the line you're drawing here, if not restricting the freedom to the very rich? Ban both?
It's rather simple - if money changes hands for the purpose of advertising politics, it's illegal. If no money changes hands, it's not. That levels the playing field so those with more money cannot get more exposure, and those with no money can get none.
The rich have no problems getting their voice heard. None. It's disingenuous to pretend that placing restrictions on the wealthy will make their voice not heard. Restricting the volume of the megaphone does not silence a person.
The problem with the US system is that everything is treated as a commodity to be bought and sold, including opinions and votes. What little protection the little man had has been eroded, and he cannot get his voice out because his voice is drowned by the protected paid megaphones of the rich. Go back and look at the rather obvious intent of the constitution and amendments. To protect the voice of the common man, so that those in power cannot silence him. Not to allow those with power to silence him by buying enough decibels that he can't be heard over the din, and that limiting the volume of the loudest is impeaching on their freedom.
Again, are you really arguing that an ordinary person, who can only afford to buy an ad, not a newspaper corporation, does not have the right to political expression? Are you sure you want to say "political speech is only protected for 1%ers"?
No, I am not arguing that at all, as you well know. You're trying to construct a strawman here.
Every individual has and should have the right to political expression, but not the right to buy publishing. Buying publishing does not give equal right of expression, it gives more expression the deeper your pockets are, which favors the 1%'ers.
One system used by some countries is to only allow political ads paid for by the parties, using money received from the government based on the primary representation each party has. Any party that has enough signatures to run a ballot gets an allotment. Individuals are free to their political speech, as long as they do not pay for the publishing. I.e. if they can find a newspaper that accepts the speech as an unpaid editorial, it's fine. If they print their own pamphlets, or run their own blog, it's fine. But when money changes hands for the purpose of influencing others through advertising, it is no longer fine, as it favors the rich over the poor.
That's great and all, but we're talking about the US government regulating US corporations, and US political campaigns.
That's not how the world works anymore - that started changing with the advent of radio, which doesn't recognize borders, and culminated with Internet. A media company headquartered in Ireland and an ad agency in Bucarest can present ads to an American public with the US government having no direct jurisdiction. They can attempt to squash any US based operations a company may have in retaliation, but then they risk running afoul of constitutional protections.
Again, is the freedom to publish one's political view limited to the like of Bezos and Murdock, who can buy a newspaper corporation, or ordinary people who can only buy an ad?
The press is free to refuse to publish. You have no right to buy ads. Write your own pamphlets, run your own private press - that is explicitly protected.
But when it comes to Americans running political ads during elections, that's exactly what is meant by "freedom of the press".
Um, no. Freedom of the press was all about the government not being able to suppress editorial content, not regulation of paid content.
The baffling supreme court decision that the first amendment should be interpreted to classify money as speech wasn't from 1796, but 1976.
This, along with the "corporate personhood" doctrine, has subverted the constitution and amendments from what was the obvious intent to something completely different, eroding the safeties of the individual from abuse of power that the founding fathers clearly had in mind.
We have laws against rape and murder and all kind of other things but they do no good. Understand?
I don't get raped twice a night, five times on weekends. By and large, rape is under control - when it happens, it's terrible, but it is not a great risk and worry for most people. Most of us don't go home and think "I hope I don't get raped or murdered today".
It's not like there are rare occurrences of unsolicited phone calls coming through, hitting people once in a lifetime. It's prevalent, and enough so that, as TFA says, people don't pick up their phone anymore. Each occurrence isn't a terrible experience for most people (except shift workers or those waiting for a call from a hospital), but the sheer amount is what makes it a serious problem, cumulatively.
Add that most of them are illegal scams too, or politicians who have exempted themselves from do-not-call lists. I.e. crooks in both cases.
Basically only mom and pop stores don't accept AMEX, I have yet to find anywhere that has more that a few locations, that does not accept it.
You're probably American. TFA is about Europe, where few places except hotels, car rentals and other places catering to American tourists accept American Express. VISA, MasterCard and giro payments[*] are really the three options in Europe.
[*]: Transactions in mainland Europe are payer initiated, not payee initiated. This makes direct deposits to anyone convenient, with no need to keep banking information secret.
And what older person seeking employment doesn't have at least some semblance of a network through which they could reasonably find something else?
The older you are, the smaller your network becomes, as people move away or die. Establishing new nodes becomes increasingly hard compared to when young, and they become less and less relevant (your acquaintances that are cordwainers, VCR repairmen and darkroom experts probably aren't going to be too useful from a job perspective).
Slashdot Mirror
Now can we agree?
Hell, no. Because of your:
Me: "Ok, but let's at least make sure there is a reason like terminal illness or just advanced age,
You're saying that because I don't have a terminal illness or advanced age, I should not be allowed to make that decision? Well, fuck you.
These things are also not the same. Being gay is uncommon, but normal, and not to be considered a 'bad habit'.
I beg to differ. I think that wanting control over your own life including when to end it is uncommon, but normal too, and should not be considered a mental problem.
The right to end one's life on their own terms is an essential liberty that should not be denied. But every attempt should be made to ensure that it is a decision based out of conviction from sound mind, and not impaired judgement due to mental illness or extreme duress.
To a certain point. Not the "every attempt" point. I mean, would you demand "every attempt" for other decisions people make about their own bodies, like smoking, drinking, having unprotected sex, or being gay for that matter?
I see many people in this situation. Sure, you may have to trade your privacy, but if the opportunity cost is missing out on employment, which would you rather them choose?
That argument doesn't hold water. You can substitute "jewelry" for "privacy" in it, without it changing its meaning. Is that still free by your definition? Or have you already made the assumption that privacy is not worth anything, and are begging the question?
If your comment here is serious (yes, this is how far sites like SlashDot have sunk), you ought to know that you can reach out for help.
This attitude is what pisses me off more than anything. The belief that anyone who plans or attempts suicide needs help. That's incredibly condescending, and shows off your cultural bias based on a fairy tale belief that "life is sacred". Sure, some people might have their life changed in one way or another, making suicide no longer their choice. But that still does not make it right. Who are you to say that life is better than no life for others? Do you say the same about being hetero being better than being gay too? It's really the same type of condescending "moral" view that people want to enforce on others.
If someone wants to die, that should be their right. If we cannot even be allowed to own the decision about our own death, and don't own our own bodies, we are slaves.
Us conservatives aren't against science. It stupid stuff like a 500K study to determine the difference in pleasure between condom and no condom.
That seems like a very cheap and worthwhile study. If greater understanding of that issue can lead to as little as one unwanted pregnancy less, the whole study has likely been a net gain for society.
Why would you be against that?
Experiments that confirm what everyone assumes to be true, assumes at such a deep level that its below conscious thought, those are valuable.
The unwashed masses on the right that oppose "wasting" money on science like this really don't understand that science isn't just about discovery, it's also about validation. Without the validation part, it's not science, but faith, with a high risk of being wrong, incomplete, or useless for further discoveries. This is money exceptionally well spent.
Next experiment, we're going to explore whether rocks can spontaneously roll uphill if they are watched long enough.
The current quantum mechanics theories and interpretations are in favour of that possibility, but that the odds are so long that even if you watched every rock in the entire universe until all rocks have decayed, you would never see one of them move.
Smaller scale experiments, though, confirm the predictions of the theory.
AMD Athlon XP 2800+ @ 2.25 GHz / rel. October 1, 2002 / Score: 627
P4 3.06 which came out at the same time scores 656 according to that table.
IANAL but Reddit is skating near Defamation per se.
Doesn't defamation require fame, not infamy?
The one thing that I have noticed is that with the rise in mobile computing, it seems that building more powerful CPUs has taken a backseat to building more power efficient CPUs.
Not just mobile computing, but data centers where parallel processing is more important than raw speed, and the cost of a year of electricity multiplied by several thousand CPUs makes a difference.
But when you need linear computing power, the advances haven't been all that great over the last twenty years. That 3.06 GHz Pentium 4 from 2002 isn't all that much slower for that than today's CPUs.
Plot twist, all 10 fingers are invalid, the body part that actually unlocks it is left up to the readers imagination.
I think it's fairly clear that this should be the brain.
The problem is in assuming that the finger (or in your case other body part) always will be representing the brain. That's a bad assumption.
Authentication and authorization (by the user, not the device) need to be decoupled - the former does not imply the latter.
"I am arth1" does not automatically validate "and arth1 wants to unlock".
Yeah, this is false advertising. Although it might be possible to cause the battery to explode, and at least get a decent chance of maiming them.
Just reducing the number of police trigger fingers might make this part of the world a safer place.
That's still a substantial improvement over the fastest RAM available when the PIII 1.4 came out, 133 MHz SDRAM. If both the CPU and RAM clock cycle speeds had increased at the same rate, we'd have 16.8 GHz CPUs to go with the 1600 MHz clocked RAM.
To make it worse, the speed increases we did get also came with an increase in pipeline length, which makes the CPU substantially slower whenever branch prediction fails and the pipeline has to be refilled. So the 5 GHz of tomorrow isn't going to run all code 3.5 times as fast as a 1.4 GHz PIII CPU. Optimized code for the newer CPUs, with compiler assisted branch prediction is certainly helping, but it won't run old code 3.5 times as fast, and in some clinical cases (small operations called through jump tables) probably not much faster at all.
It's still an accomplishment though since it's the first ever consumer CPU to run at a such an insane clockrate.
It does not sound insane to me. I mean, back in 2002, we had Pentium III running at 1.4 GHz, and not long after, the P4 3.06 GHz.
16 years later, and we haven't been able to double the PIII clock rate twice or the P4 clock rate once?
For perspective, in the same time span, we have gone from 133 MHz SDRAM and 533 MHz RDRAM to 3200 MHz DDR4. That's a far more impressive clock rate increase. :p
If this trend continues, we'll soon have to offload cycle dependent calculations from the CPU to the RAM controller because it's going to be faster...
We have consumer protection laws for a reason, and that reason is that not having them costs everyone money.
And here I thought consumer protection laws were for protecting consumers, and not about money. Silly me.
Where specifically is the line you're drawing here, if not restricting the freedom to the very rich? Ban both?
It's rather simple - if money changes hands for the purpose of advertising politics, it's illegal. If no money changes hands, it's not. That levels the playing field so those with more money cannot get more exposure, and those with no money can get none.
The rich have no problems getting their voice heard. None. It's disingenuous to pretend that placing restrictions on the wealthy will make their voice not heard. Restricting the volume of the megaphone does not silence a person.
The problem with the US system is that everything is treated as a commodity to be bought and sold, including opinions and votes. What little protection the little man had has been eroded, and he cannot get his voice out because his voice is drowned by the protected paid megaphones of the rich.
Go back and look at the rather obvious intent of the constitution and amendments. To protect the voice of the common man, so that those in power cannot silence him. Not to allow those with power to silence him by buying enough decibels that he can't be heard over the din, and that limiting the volume of the loudest is impeaching on their freedom.
Again, are you really arguing that an ordinary person, who can only afford to buy an ad, not a newspaper corporation, does not have the right to political expression? Are you sure you want to say "political speech is only protected for 1%ers"?
No, I am not arguing that at all, as you well know. You're trying to construct a strawman here.
Every individual has and should have the right to political expression, but not the right to buy publishing. Buying publishing does not give equal right of expression, it gives more expression the deeper your pockets are, which favors the 1%'ers.
One system used by some countries is to only allow political ads paid for by the parties, using money received from the government based on the primary representation each party has. Any party that has enough signatures to run a ballot gets an allotment. Individuals are free to their political speech, as long as they do not pay for the publishing. I.e. if they can find a newspaper that accepts the speech as an unpaid editorial, it's fine. If they print their own pamphlets, or run their own blog, it's fine. But when money changes hands for the purpose of influencing others through advertising, it is no longer fine, as it favors the rich over the poor.
That's great and all, but we're talking about the US government regulating US corporations, and US political campaigns.
That's not how the world works anymore - that started changing with the advent of radio, which doesn't recognize borders, and culminated with Internet. A media company headquartered in Ireland and an ad agency in Bucarest can present ads to an American public with the US government having no direct jurisdiction.
They can attempt to squash any US based operations a company may have in retaliation, but then they risk running afoul of constitutional protections.
It's scumbags like you who are ruining this country.
No, it's not the vocal scumbags who ruin the country, it's all of those who can't be bothered to stand up to the scumbags.
"Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing."
-- John Stuart Mill
Again, is the freedom to publish one's political view limited to the like of Bezos and Murdock, who can buy a newspaper corporation, or ordinary people who can only buy an ad?
The press is free to refuse to publish. You have no right to buy ads.
Write your own pamphlets, run your own private press - that is explicitly protected.
But when it comes to Americans running political ads during elections, that's exactly what is meant by "freedom of the press".
Um, no. Freedom of the press was all about the government not being able to suppress editorial content, not regulation of paid content.
The baffling supreme court decision that the first amendment should be interpreted to classify money as speech wasn't from 1796, but 1976.
This, along with the "corporate personhood" doctrine, has subverted the constitution and amendments from what was the obvious intent to something completely different, eroding the safeties of the individual from abuse of power that the founding fathers clearly had in mind.
We have laws against rape and murder and all kind of other things but they do no good. Understand?
I don't get raped twice a night, five times on weekends.
By and large, rape is under control - when it happens, it's terrible, but it is not a great risk and worry for most people. Most of us don't go home and think "I hope I don't get raped or murdered today".
It's not like there are rare occurrences of unsolicited phone calls coming through, hitting people once in a lifetime. It's prevalent, and enough so that, as TFA says, people don't pick up their phone anymore. Each occurrence isn't a terrible experience for most people (except shift workers or those waiting for a call from a hospital), but the sheer amount is what makes it a serious problem, cumulatively.
Add that most of them are illegal scams too, or politicians who have exempted themselves from do-not-call lists. I.e. crooks in both cases.
Basically only mom and pop stores don't accept AMEX, I have yet to find anywhere that has more that a few locations, that does not accept it.
You're probably American. TFA is about Europe, where few places except hotels, car rentals and other places catering to American tourists accept American Express. VISA, MasterCard and giro payments[*] are really the three options in Europe.
[*]: Transactions in mainland Europe are payer initiated, not payee initiated. This makes direct deposits to anyone convenient, with no need to keep banking information secret.
And what older person seeking employment doesn't have at least some semblance of a network through which they could reasonably find something else?
The older you are, the smaller your network becomes, as people move away or die. Establishing new nodes becomes increasingly hard compared to when young, and they become less and less relevant (your acquaintances that are cordwainers, VCR repairmen and darkroom experts probably aren't going to be too useful from a job perspective).