Yeah, sorry to all the other readers for the rantishness. I tend to get a little angry when I'm called a "sick fuck" who needs to "get counselling". I shouldn't, but I do.
Yeah, I'm always surprised when a "news" service just reprints press releases verbatim. I shouldn't be, but I am. So why didn't they reproduce the nice letterhead it was faxed in on too?;)
In defence of the monolith, they did pay Sun $20m in order that they can continue to sell their current line of pseudo-Java products. So, like they say, their current customers and current products are not affects.
Founded in 1975, Microsoft is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software -- any time, any place and on any device.
Are they serious? Is this section for all those readers of Yahoo Business News who had never previously heard of Microsoft?
we need to start drawing the line on responsibility not medium
It's a tricky line, and you're drawing it in the wrong place IMHO. It's an interesting topic you raise. Suppose I were to take a picture of a girl I found attractive at work [if only such a girl existed;)] and Photoshop it onto a picture of some porno model with her legs spread. Who does that harm?
I would say it harms no-one, initially. The point you raise is that if the girl were to find out, she might be upset by it. It might be tantamount to sexual harrassment - if I showed it to her.
So let's keep the legislation at the point of action: in this case, showing the picture to the girl would be actionable as sexual harrassment. Just making the picture and having it wouldn't.
Although I don't know what would happen if she somehow innocently found such a picture. I guess this would be a case of misadventure. I doubt anyone would be seriously harmed by such an act, but they wouldn't want to be my friend again;)
The free speech issue is important. Nazi propaganda, in and of itself, does not harm anyone. Speech doesn't hurt people, only people can do that. And that's what the law is there to protect us from.
Well, my palm-reader says that the asteroid belt was formed when a previous civilization destroyed the planet Vulcan, and that we're all paying the Karmic cost today.
So, maybe Ceres is like the middle of Vulcan or something.
It's Your Anus. The other pronunciation was invented by TV and schools so that kids wouldn't giggle whenever the planet's name was mentioned.
Re:We need a simple definition of planet...
on
Is Pluto A Planet?
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· Score: 1
I think you got convex and concave muddled up. Convex orbits always have an angular velocity which has the same sign, while concave orbits have an angular velocity that can change sign. All the planets are in convex orbits around the sun.
Given that this is a simple case of muddling up two already confusing terms, is the moon's orbit really convex wrt the sun? Surely it has 13 cusps corresponding to the lunar months where its angular velocity wrt the sun switches sign?
OK, so you're a dickhead who wants to persecute people because they have a different brain chemistry to you. That's really high morality. Well done. It's people like you who persecuted witches, gays, women and blacks in the past. This is no different - wrapping it up in a neat little "oh, please think of the CHILDREN" package is just an excuse. You're a closed-minded bigot who cannot comprehend the fact that others might be different - SUBSTANTIALLY different - from himself. I merely allow the possibility, and according to you that makes me a "sick fuck"? More redneck morality here - why don't you get a posse together and string me up for daring to speak out?
Let me just say this one more time: if your actions do not affect another human being, they are nobody's business but your own. This includes looking at virtual kiddie porn. Like I say, it's not the porn per se, it's the actions that result in obtaining the porn. If the porn can exist without those actions, there is nothing wrong with it. Are you capable of swallowing your overdeveloped morality long enough to grasp this simple concept?
Pardon me for extending an olive branch of understanding to those unfortunate individuals who really have a powerful drive to look at kiddie porn. What, do you think they woke up one day and made a choice that children and not adults would get their juices going? Any more than a gay makes a choice that men and not women get their juices going? Of course not! Do you think it benefits society to persecute them? Or do you think a humane society might be able to swallow their repugnance and give these people something that helps them without harming others?
Your arguments for banning virtual porn are no different to any other argument that prevents free speech. They boil down to the same thing - we need to censor activity to help us stop crime, never mind that the same activity might actually benefit society in a larger, less obvious, way. It's bullshit. A crime hasn't been committed until a crime has been committed. I wish law enforcement officers would bear this in mind before they entrap the mentally ill and send them to jail with the *real* criminals (those of sound mind who deliberately engage in activities harmful to others).
Looking at adult porn does not make one a rapist, so why does looking at kiddie porn make one a child molester? Answer me that one. And get a fucking clue about cause and effect before you start saying that DOOM contributed to Columbine, or that 100% of child abusers look at kiddie porn. Just because salad is green, doesn't mean all green things are salad. The will to go out and abuse children, shoot people, whatever is fundamentally different to the will to look at pictures of children, or violent movies or video games. Of course, because all the actual criminals are found to engage in the non-criminal activity it gives those with weak analytical powers the idea that the two are intrinsically bound. They are NOT. Get this through your head, for Christ's sake.
But for all your outrage you do make one interesting point - about how digital imaging technology might mask real kiddie porn. What makes this different from any other legal case in which evidence has been digitally tampered with? There is a science called forensics which deals with issues like this - and yeah, digital technology forces forensics to advance. This is nothing new, and nothing unique to kiddie porn. [Anyway, all you need do is prove that ONE of those 50,000 images is genuine.] What, should we ban all new technology because it makes the police's job harder?
So why don't you try using your head? All you've done so far is spout utterly standard moral outrage (you could have cribbed it from any Fox 11 News report), and you've made one weak argument that says "forensics is more difficult if we allow freedom of speech". Think with your head, not your gut.
Fuck you, and your fake morality. In your rush to be fashionably protective towards children, you've completely forgotten to be compassionate towards misguided adults. They deserve our sympathy too, especially those who have done nothing to harm anyone. The internal fight for such people must be monstrous - can you even begin to imagine how a decent person might feel when he realizes he is sexually attracted to young children? It makes most people's life struggles seem completely trivial.
Having said all this, of course we should lock up anyone who does harm to children, or who has a provable intent to do harm to children. Or adults, for that matter. That's what jails are for; they're not there to enforce your idea of morality by locking up people who have done no harm to anyone other than offend their sensitivities. Remember, this is about virtual kiddie porn, not about the "right" to molest children. Keep that in mind. Stay focused.
[Incidentally, are you really in law enforcement? If so, it reaffirms my views on the sort of people who get into that job.]
don't be so unthankful to keep your changes to yourself
Or, rather, "don't be so unthankful for our 200-line library that you don't release the entire 20MLOC codebase you've developed that uses it".
Face it, the GPL is silly. And so is Stallman. It's all a big joke. I bet GPL code can be found in hundreds of commercial products made by companies that just don't give a fuck about this childishness.
While this is true, it's also true that the GPL is viral. If I want to contribute to the Linux project, I have no choice other than to GPL my code. So I write code as a service to others and end up not being allowed to specify my own terms on its usage. Is that a good thing? Is that encouraging me to contribute? No, not at all.
The BSD license is much more practical, coming as it does from a genuine desire to "give to the community" rather than a fake desire to give that's generally based on egoism and hubris and the idea that access to the source code is more important than access to the software itself.
It's serving Stallman's interests, of course. If the GPL wasn't restrictive, many many free-as-in-beer-but-not-as-in-speech projects would benefit. But Stallman isn't interested in making computing accessible to the masses; he's only interested in making source code available to hackers - a tiny minority of users.
Well as you say, radio is still live and kicking in the UK. BBC Radio 1 - love it or hate it - puts out a fantastic mix of music. Slashdotters would probably love John Peel's eclectic selections.
In fact, in the UK, a good dozen radio stations started up in the last decade, including Kiss FM which is (I think) the second most popular in London.
Looked down upon if fine. Making it illegal is not.
If you ask me, virtual child porn has the best chance (better than strict law enforcement) of lowering the incidence of actual child abuse. But you have to swallow your morals and be a little more pragmatic to accept this idea. Moral repugnance is in the eye of the beholder. Child abuse is not.
believe castration is a reasonable punishment for child molesters
Child molesters are psychological cases; society has no right disfiguring them to prove a point. Lock them up to prevent them harming others. Two wrongs don't make a right [oh, I forgot, the USA still has the death penalty.]
No he's not; he's being bigoted. The idea that "most people would agree" is the classic response from bigots when called on their bigotry. It doesn't make them right.
Oh, but I suppose the fact that "most people" thought that women shouldn't be allowed to vote in the 1800s made that right to?
Yeah, go ahead, campaign to have "evil thoughts" outlawed. Thankfully we don't have the technology to do it yet, so the bigotry displayed here is at least Mostly Harmless. For now.
Yeah, right. Try reading some history for some great examples of how the "moral majority" has actually caused most of the evil in this world, due to their ridiculous conception that "wicked thoughts" should be outlawed.
Those who cannot learn through history are condemned to repeat it.
Let's get this straight: THOUGHTS DON'T HURT PEOPLE. Only ACTIONS can do that. Is that really beyond your comprehension? Most 5-year-olds understand it pretty well.
There's nothing wrong with liking kiddie porn per se. The problem comes when actual real-life kids are exploited the make these movies/photos.
It may make you sick to the stomach thinking about it, but it's better to provide kiddie porn fans with a virtual outlet for their perversion, than actually make real kiddie porn.
It's like video games. It's better to vent your frustrations on a Cacodemon than it is to go postal. I think video games have a useful place in society as exactly that : an outlet for urges which may be harmful if let out in real life.
I don't see how kiddie porn is different, and anything that reduces the market for genuine kiddie porn is a good thing.
That's if kiddie porn even exists, and isn't just a manufactured concept designed to raise funding for federal law enforcement... which some have suggested.
Anyway, as has been argued passim on this site, once the technology exists it will happen. When we have proper virtual adult porn, how hard is it going to be to load in a less mature looking model?
I say keep this legal. It harms no-one, and the idea that kiddie porn is a "gateway drug" to actual child abuse is just a bunch of weak supposition backed by moral outrage. Like video games "causing" shoot-outs in highschools.
Having said that, though, your description of how a company is a group of people joined through a common purpose is the best description of a company I've seen on these pages. Excellent in its pragmatism. I hope you can appreciate mine with regards to the "purpose" of the economy;)
Try reading Stafford Beer: The Brain of the Firm for some more insights in these areas.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, sorry to all the other readers for the rantishness. I tend to get a little angry when I'm called a "sick fuck" who needs to "get counselling". I shouldn't, but I do.
Yeah, I'm always surprised when a "news" service just reprints press releases verbatim. I shouldn't be, but I am. So why didn't they reproduce the nice letterhead it was faxed in on too? ;)
What cheerful news. At least we'll still have JavaScript ;)
In defence of the monolith, they did pay Sun $20m in order that they can continue to sell their current line of pseudo-Java products. So, like they say, their current customers and current products are not affects.
Founded in 1975, Microsoft is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software -- any time, any place and on any device.
Are they serious? Is this section for all those readers of Yahoo Business News who had never previously heard of Microsoft?
It's a tricky line, and you're drawing it in the wrong place IMHO. It's an interesting topic you raise. Suppose I were to take a picture of a girl I found attractive at work [if only such a girl existed ;)] and Photoshop it onto a picture of some porno model with her legs spread. Who does that harm?
I would say it harms no-one, initially. The point you raise is that if the girl were to find out, she might be upset by it. It might be tantamount to sexual harrassment - if I showed it to her.
So let's keep the legislation at the point of action: in this case, showing the picture to the girl would be actionable as sexual harrassment. Just making the picture and having it wouldn't.
Although I don't know what would happen if she somehow innocently found such a picture. I guess this would be a case of misadventure. I doubt anyone would be seriously harmed by such an act, but they wouldn't want to be my friend again ;)
The free speech issue is important. Nazi propaganda, in and of itself, does not harm anyone. Speech doesn't hurt people, only people can do that. And that's what the law is there to protect us from.
So, maybe Ceres is like the middle of Vulcan or something.
It's Your Anus. The other pronunciation was invented by TV and schools so that kids wouldn't giggle whenever the planet's name was mentioned.
Given that this is a simple case of muddling up two already confusing terms, is the moon's orbit really convex wrt the sun? Surely it has 13 cusps corresponding to the lunar months where its angular velocity wrt the sun switches sign?
Let me just say this one more time: if your actions do not affect another human being, they are nobody's business but your own. This includes looking at virtual kiddie porn. Like I say, it's not the porn per se, it's the actions that result in obtaining the porn. If the porn can exist without those actions, there is nothing wrong with it. Are you capable of swallowing your overdeveloped morality long enough to grasp this simple concept?
Pardon me for extending an olive branch of understanding to those unfortunate individuals who really have a powerful drive to look at kiddie porn. What, do you think they woke up one day and made a choice that children and not adults would get their juices going? Any more than a gay makes a choice that men and not women get their juices going? Of course not! Do you think it benefits society to persecute them? Or do you think a humane society might be able to swallow their repugnance and give these people something that helps them without harming others?
Your arguments for banning virtual porn are no different to any other argument that prevents free speech. They boil down to the same thing - we need to censor activity to help us stop crime, never mind that the same activity might actually benefit society in a larger, less obvious, way. It's bullshit. A crime hasn't been committed until a crime has been committed. I wish law enforcement officers would bear this in mind before they entrap the mentally ill and send them to jail with the *real* criminals (those of sound mind who deliberately engage in activities harmful to others).
Looking at adult porn does not make one a rapist, so why does looking at kiddie porn make one a child molester? Answer me that one. And get a fucking clue about cause and effect before you start saying that DOOM contributed to Columbine, or that 100% of child abusers look at kiddie porn. Just because salad is green, doesn't mean all green things are salad. The will to go out and abuse children, shoot people, whatever is fundamentally different to the will to look at pictures of children, or violent movies or video games. Of course, because all the actual criminals are found to engage in the non-criminal activity it gives those with weak analytical powers the idea that the two are intrinsically bound. They are NOT. Get this through your head, for Christ's sake.
But for all your outrage you do make one interesting point - about how digital imaging technology might mask real kiddie porn. What makes this different from any other legal case in which evidence has been digitally tampered with? There is a science called forensics which deals with issues like this - and yeah, digital technology forces forensics to advance. This is nothing new, and nothing unique to kiddie porn. [Anyway, all you need do is prove that ONE of those 50,000 images is genuine.] What, should we ban all new technology because it makes the police's job harder?
So why don't you try using your head? All you've done so far is spout utterly standard moral outrage (you could have cribbed it from any Fox 11 News report), and you've made one weak argument that says "forensics is more difficult if we allow freedom of speech". Think with your head, not your gut.
Fuck you, and your fake morality. In your rush to be fashionably protective towards children, you've completely forgotten to be compassionate towards misguided adults. They deserve our sympathy too, especially those who have done nothing to harm anyone. The internal fight for such people must be monstrous - can you even begin to imagine how a decent person might feel when he realizes he is sexually attracted to young children? It makes most people's life struggles seem completely trivial.
Having said all this, of course we should lock up anyone who does harm to children, or who has a provable intent to do harm to children. Or adults, for that matter. That's what jails are for; they're not there to enforce your idea of morality by locking up people who have done no harm to anyone other than offend their sensitivities. Remember, this is about virtual kiddie porn, not about the "right" to molest children. Keep that in mind. Stay focused.
[Incidentally, are you really in law enforcement? If so, it reaffirms my views on the sort of people who get into that job.]
Or, rather, "don't be so unthankful for our 200-line library that you don't release the entire 20MLOC codebase you've developed that uses it".
Face it, the GPL is silly. And so is Stallman. It's all a big joke. I bet GPL code can be found in hundreds of commercial products made by companies that just don't give a fuck about this childishness.
The BSD license is much more practical, coming as it does from a genuine desire to "give to the community" rather than a fake desire to give that's generally based on egoism and hubris and the idea that access to the source code is more important than access to the software itself.
I bet you haven't even written any GPL code. Less of the MY please.
It's serving Stallman's interests, of course. If the GPL wasn't restrictive, many many free-as-in-beer-but-not-as-in-speech projects would benefit. But Stallman isn't interested in making computing accessible to the masses; he's only interested in making source code available to hackers - a tiny minority of users.
In fact, in the UK, a good dozen radio stations started up in the last decade, including Kiss FM which is (I think) the second most popular in London.
But when people start talking about mere thoughts being inherently wicked I definitely get a distinct odor of bigotry.
That's a really great idea. I'm sure natural language processors are already sophisticated enough to do most of the things you'd want.
If you ask me, virtual child porn has the best chance (better than strict law enforcement) of lowering the incidence of actual child abuse. But you have to swallow your morals and be a little more pragmatic to accept this idea. Moral repugnance is in the eye of the beholder. Child abuse is not.
Child molesters are psychological cases; society has no right disfiguring them to prove a point. Lock them up to prevent them harming others. Two wrongs don't make a right [oh, I forgot, the USA still has the death penalty.]
BTW, great point about the FBI agents!
Oh, but I suppose the fact that "most people" thought that women shouldn't be allowed to vote in the 1800s made that right to?
Yeah, go ahead, campaign to have "evil thoughts" outlawed. Thankfully we don't have the technology to do it yet, so the bigotry displayed here is at least Mostly Harmless. For now.
Those who cannot learn through history are condemned to repeat it.
Let's get this straight: THOUGHTS DON'T HURT PEOPLE. Only ACTIONS can do that. Is that really beyond your comprehension? Most 5-year-olds understand it pretty well.
You're talking about real child porn, and I never said that should be legal.
I also never claimed that it doesn't exist - I said that others have claimed this.
So next time ... try reading the article, then the post, before shooting your mouth off. I guess that's why you go a -1: Flamebait.
You know you're talking to a bigot when he claims that ideas in people's minds can be "sick and wrong".
It may make you sick to the stomach thinking about it, but it's better to provide kiddie porn fans with a virtual outlet for their perversion, than actually make real kiddie porn.
It's like video games. It's better to vent your frustrations on a Cacodemon than it is to go postal. I think video games have a useful place in society as exactly that : an outlet for urges which may be harmful if let out in real life.
I don't see how kiddie porn is different, and anything that reduces the market for genuine kiddie porn is a good thing.
That's if kiddie porn even exists, and isn't just a manufactured concept designed to raise funding for federal law enforcement ... which some have suggested.
Anyway, as has been argued passim on this site, once the technology exists it will happen. When we have proper virtual adult porn, how hard is it going to be to load in a less mature looking model?
I say keep this legal. It harms no-one, and the idea that kiddie porn is a "gateway drug" to actual child abuse is just a bunch of weak supposition backed by moral outrage. Like video games "causing" shoot-outs in highschools.
Try reading Stafford Beer: The Brain of the Firm for some more insights in these areas.