"The wealthiest 1 percent of families owns roughly 34.3% of the nation's net worth, the top 10% of families owns over 71%, and the bottom 40% of the population owns way less than 1%."
>The bulk of the spending increases have been in defense, an area where traditional socialists oppose massive spending and where libertarians support it.
Umm, Libertarians are not for massive defense spending. Straight from the horses mouth:
"3.1 National Defense
We support the maintenance of a sufficient military to defend the United States against aggression. The United States should both abandon its attempts to act as policeman for the world and avoid entangling alliances. We oppose any form of compulsory national service."
I've been running an email server off of a Roadrunner account for years now without any problems whatsoever. Of course, there are only about 10 accounts on the box, so who really cares?
>Great. There are salamanders that are very close cousins. Can you point me grandpa? I'm not saying he doesn't exist, but where is he?
Umm, how would you ever know that any given million year old fossil is the direct ancestor of any creature? It seems the odds would be very low for finding your exact great great great great grandfather by just randomly digging in some graveyard somewhere in the world.
Any program you write is, at its most basic, nothing but a sequence of mathematical operations. Every single statement you write can be translated directly into a set of compares, additions, multiplication, subtractions, or divisions. Flipping a register is the same as setting it to zero and then adding the requested value to that zero.
A backup *is* you. It has all of your thoughts, attitudes, and memories. Any decision you would make, it would make in the exact same way - at least until your experiences started diverging enough. This is much more than your twin.
>I'd like to see a robot experience getting bit by a bullet ant and actually feeling that pain, or experiencing the colour green the way we do.
You can no more know if that robot is actually feeling pain or seeing green than you can know that I am. After all, I could have that disease that makes me immune to pain and I could just be faking it, or I could be colorblind. You know what you experience, but there is no way for you to know for sure what anyone else, let alone a robot, is experiencing.
Qualia is just our experience of sensory input. If a computer mind can interpret a visual image in a way that is meaningful to it, how can you say that it doesn't have qualia?
>I don't know about that. I'm no fan of the drug war, but I think decriminalization will increase the USE of illegal drugs and therefore increase the DEMAND for it.
'"Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success," says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. "It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does."
Compared to the European Union and the U.S., Portugal's drug use numbers are impressive. Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 in the E.U.: 10%. The most comparable figure in America is in people over 12: 39.8%. Proportionally, more Americans have used cocaine than Portuguese have used marijuana.'
>Not all "soft" drug users are addicts, but pretty much anyone doing anything but marijuana are addicts as most recreational drugs are almost as addictive as nicotine.
No, not really. Most drug users, even heroin users, are casual users. For every tweeked out meth head, there are 10 people that just use it occasionally. I know quite a few people who have used all sorts of drugs without ever developing a problem. Quoting the linked article:
"A 1976 study by the drug researchers Leon G. Hunt and Carl D. Chambers estimated there were 3 or 4 million heroin users in the United States, perhaps 10 percent of them addicts. "Of all active heroin users," Hunt and Chambers wrote, "a large majority are not addicts: they are not physically or socially dysfunctional; they are not daily users and they do not seem to require treatment." A 1994 study based on data from the National Comorbidity Survey estimated that 23 percent of heroin users ever experience substance dependence.
The comparable rate for alcohol in that study was 15 percent, which seems to support the idea that heroin is more addictive: A larger percentage of the people who try it become heavy users, even though it's harder to get. At the same time, the fact that using heroin is illegal, expensive, risky, inconvenient, and almost universally condemned means that the people who nevertheless choose to do it repeatedly will tend to differ from people who choose to drink. They will be especially attracted to heroin's effects, the associated lifestyle, or both. In other words, heroin users are a self-selected group, less representative of the general population than alcohol users are, and they may be more inclined from the outset to form strong attachments to the drug."
Sure, they have just as much privacy as anyone else when they are at home. When they are out in public, they are just as subject to surveillance as everyone else.
>US Citizens don't have the right to go on military bases, and top secret facilities and publish pictures and information about what they see and the personnel.
These are neither military operations nor classified information.
>There is an agreement, or general consensus, that it is in our best interests for our government to operate with some privacy at times.
Yes, and this isn't one of them. If the police want this kind of activity to be illegal, they should get a law passed prohibiting it. Of course, it would be thrown out as soon as it went before a judge, so tough luck.
>She was not just writing a blog about police activities. She was putting DEA agents at risk by disclosing their operations and locations.
So what? The police exist to protect our rights. If they are actually taking them away, they need to reevaluate their purpose in society.
The argument is that if you are in a public space, you have no right to privacy. Either this is true or false. Of course, I would prefer it to be false. If it is true, it is just as true for the FBI, DEA, or the local police as it is for me. There is nothing illegal about gathering public information and publishing it, and there should not be. Unless the woman was actually making threats towards the police or encouraging others to break the law, the cops owe her an apology at *least*.
>"Freedom of speech" applies only to political action and only when such action is peaceful and doesn't constitute or promote violence.
Wow. I don't know how much more wrong you could be. Freedom of speech is for any kind of expression whatsoever, and is only punishable in certain very restricted circumstances.
>And, just so you are aware, if you happen to pass a police officer laying in wait of speeders and signal on-coming cars to let them know the officer is there, you are obstructing justice.
Nope. Depending on what state you are in, it is either illegal to flash your headlights for reasons outside a few specific ones (like lane changes), or is completely legal as a warning of a speed trap. In any state where such cases have gone before the court (as in Pennsylvania), the courts have found that it is protected speech.
This is nothing like falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater. If she had actually incited someone to do harm to any of them, you might have a point, but she didn't. All she did was post publically available information that the police would rather she didn't. Free press 101.
Sorry, no. If the police think that they have the right to track us 24/7 whenever we are in a public place with cameras up on every corner, we also have the right to follow them around 24/7 and record everything they do. They don't get to have it both ways.
>Sorry, EllisDees. Burning Man is a private event with an ethos and rules. You can get stuffed if you don't like them.
Already been there. Next time I'll be sure and take *lots* of pictures. Hell, maybe I'll attach a camera to the front of my bike and record everywhere and everyone I come across.
The Grand Canyon could not have been created by flash floods. It is absolutely impossible unless you can explain how flash floods also created these. Where, anywhere else in the world, has there ever been a flash flood that could carve such twisty canyons out of multiple layers of solid granite?
AFAIK, anyone in the US can put a freeze on their credit report that will keep anyone - yes, even prospective employers - from getting a copy of your report. See here for details.
Slashdot Mirror
>The point is, the middle class owns the vast majority of American capital. All savings is investment. This is a trivial accounting identity.
Nope. You are entirely wrong. The rich have controlled most of the wealth in the US for a very long time.
According to this link:
"The wealthiest 1 percent of families owns roughly 34.3% of the nation's net worth, the top 10% of families owns over 71%, and the bottom 40% of the population owns way less than 1%."
>The bulk of the spending increases have been in defense, an area where traditional socialists oppose massive spending and where libertarians support it.
Umm, Libertarians are not for massive defense spending. Straight from the horses mouth:
"3.1 National Defense
We support the maintenance of a sufficient military to defend the United States against aggression. The United States should both abandon its attempts to act as policeman for the world and avoid entangling alliances. We oppose any form of compulsory national service."
I've been running an email server off of a Roadrunner account for years now without any problems whatsoever. Of course, there are only about 10 accounts on the box, so who really cares?
No, if it were recursive, it would be XMC Media Center. XBMC is just a case of plain old RAS Syndrome
If you wanted to control it, you wouldn't license it BSD.
>Also IMHO the way to go is VirtualBox (FOSS and made by Soracle).
Agree 100%. I'm watching Netflix on my linux media box right now using XP in Virtualbox. Works like a charm.
>Great. There are salamanders that are very close cousins. Can you point me grandpa? I'm not saying he doesn't exist, but where is he?
Umm, how would you ever know that any given million year old fossil is the direct ancestor of any creature? It seems the odds would be very low for finding your exact great great great great grandfather by just randomly digging in some graveyard somewhere in the world.
Any program you write is, at its most basic, nothing but a sequence of mathematical operations. Every single statement you write can be translated directly into a set of compares, additions, multiplication, subtractions, or divisions. Flipping a register is the same as setting it to zero and then adding the requested value to that zero.
They don't call them 'computers' for nothing.
Sure, because Israel is so incapable of defending itself that it needs the US to help it out.
Don't forget the fraudiest of all frauds - homeopaths.
A backup *is* you. It has all of your thoughts, attitudes, and memories. Any decision you would make, it would make in the exact same way - at least until your experiences started diverging enough. This is much more than your twin.
>I'd like to see a robot experience getting bit by a bullet ant and actually feeling that pain, or experiencing the colour green the way we do.
You can no more know if that robot is actually feeling pain or seeing green than you can know that I am. After all, I could have that disease that makes me immune to pain and I could just be faking it, or I could be colorblind. You know what you experience, but there is no way for you to know for sure what anyone else, let alone a robot, is experiencing.
Qualia is just our experience of sensory input. If a computer mind can interpret a visual image in a way that is meaningful to it, how can you say that it doesn't have qualia?
>I don't know about that. I'm no fan of the drug war, but I think decriminalization will increase the USE of illegal drugs and therefore increase the DEMAND for it.
You would be completely wrong:
'"Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success," says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. "It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does."
Compared to the European Union and the U.S., Portugal's drug use numbers are impressive. Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 in the E.U.: 10%. The most comparable figure in America is in people over 12: 39.8%. Proportionally, more Americans have used cocaine than Portuguese have used marijuana.'
>Not all "soft" drug users are addicts, but pretty much anyone doing anything but marijuana are addicts as most recreational drugs are almost as addictive as nicotine.
No, not really. Most drug users, even heroin users, are casual users. For every tweeked out meth head, there are 10 people that just use it occasionally. I know quite a few people who have used all sorts of drugs without ever developing a problem. Quoting the linked article:
"A 1976 study by the drug researchers Leon G. Hunt and Carl D. Chambers estimated there were 3 or 4 million heroin users in the United States, perhaps 10 percent of them addicts. "Of all active heroin users," Hunt and Chambers wrote, "a large majority are not addicts: they are not physically or socially dysfunctional; they are not daily users and they do not seem to require treatment." A 1994 study based on data from the National Comorbidity Survey estimated that 23 percent of heroin users ever experience substance dependence.
The comparable rate for alcohol in that study was 15 percent, which seems to support the idea that heroin is more addictive: A larger percentage of the people who try it become heavy users, even though it's harder to get. At the same time, the fact that using heroin is illegal, expensive, risky, inconvenient, and almost universally condemned means that the people who nevertheless choose to do it repeatedly will tend to differ from people who choose to drink. They will be especially attracted to heroin's effects, the associated lifestyle, or both. In other words, heroin users are a self-selected group, less representative of the general population than alcohol users are, and they may be more inclined from the outset to form strong attachments to the drug."
Sure, they have just as much privacy as anyone else when they are at home. When they are out in public, they are just as subject to surveillance as everyone else.
>US Citizens don't have the right to go on military bases, and top secret facilities and publish pictures and information about what they see and the personnel.
These are neither military operations nor classified information.
>There is an agreement, or general consensus, that it is in our best interests for our government to operate with some privacy at times.
Yes, and this isn't one of them. If the police want this kind of activity to be illegal, they should get a law passed prohibiting it. Of course, it would be thrown out as soon as it went before a judge, so tough luck.
>She was not just writing a blog about police activities. She was putting DEA agents at risk by disclosing their operations and locations.
So what? The police exist to protect our rights. If they are actually taking them away, they need to reevaluate their purpose in society.
The argument is that if you are in a public space, you have no right to privacy. Either this is true or false. Of course, I would prefer it to be false. If it is true, it is just as true for the FBI, DEA, or the local police as it is for me. There is nothing illegal about gathering public information and publishing it, and there should not be. Unless the woman was actually making threats towards the police or encouraging others to break the law, the cops owe her an apology at *least*.
>"Freedom of speech" applies only to political action and only when such action is peaceful and doesn't constitute or promote violence.
Wow. I don't know how much more wrong you could be. Freedom of speech is for any kind of expression whatsoever, and is only punishable in certain very restricted circumstances.
>And, just so you are aware, if you happen to pass a police officer laying in wait of speeders and signal on-coming cars to let them know the officer is there, you are obstructing justice.
Nope. Depending on what state you are in, it is either illegal to flash your headlights for reasons outside a few specific ones (like lane changes), or is completely legal as a warning of a speed trap. In any state where such cases have gone before the court (as in Pennsylvania), the courts have found that it is protected speech.
This is nothing like falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater. If she had actually incited someone to do harm to any of them, you might have a point, but she didn't. All she did was post publically available information that the police would rather she didn't. Free press 101.
>All in all, there is no dichotomy here. Surveillance and stalking both are the same wrong thing.
Sure, but the cops *already do it to all of us*. Why should they get special rights not to be watched while they are in a public place?
Sorry, no. If the police think that they have the right to track us 24/7 whenever we are in a public place with cameras up on every corner, we also have the right to follow them around 24/7 and record everything they do. They don't get to have it both ways.
>Sorry, EllisDees. Burning Man is a private event with an ethos and rules. You can get stuffed if you don't like them.
Already been there. Next time I'll be sure and take *lots* of pictures. Hell, maybe I'll attach a camera to the front of my bike and record everywhere and everyone I come across.
Sorry, BMO. Any pictures that I take are mine. You can get stuffed if you don't like them.
The Grand Canyon could not have been created by flash floods. It is absolutely impossible unless you can explain how flash floods also created these. Where, anywhere else in the world, has there ever been a flash flood that could carve such twisty canyons out of multiple layers of solid granite?
AFAIK, anyone in the US can put a freeze on their credit report that will keep anyone - yes, even prospective employers - from getting a copy of your report. See here for details.