I also wonder how long such a site would be in existence before the stores hired legal hit men to take it down in court.
The website approach requires that people trust that the website isn't being run by the govt, or by someone who'll bend over to the govt.
But luckily, a website isn't the only possible approach. It could be simply a local thing, same scale/feel as a flea market. Hell, it could be a roving hot-dog stand. Drop a card, get a card.
First the newly proven 2,3 Turing machine reverts to its previous non-proven status, and now the intergalactic missing mass is missing again... my life is getting turned upside down. What's next, them telling me my 1200-sq-foot Palo Alto home has started depreciating and is no longer worth the $2M I owe on it?
Take a chill pill. Your mania is WAY out of proportion, and GP is perfectly spot on to casually point out that stacking boxes is a more common and therefor less-paid skill than many others. Don't like economics? Then buy a portrait of Keynes and try screaming at it... that'll have exactly the same effect on reality.
can run five to six kilometres at a speed of 20 meters per minute
Ok, so they can run 3/4 mph for several hours. I find it annoying that the summary doesn't indicate in any regard how this compares to "normal" mice... for all I know normal mice are capable of running 80% of this speed for longer. Yes I could read the article and probably find out, but I just think there's some low-hanging fruit here in terms of enticement that the summary could and should be including.
When someone gets elected to office, their number one job becomes keeping themselves in office, and that means keeping their constituents happy
Sadly, this is not the case, and it's because of money.
As an analogy, think about a corporation that makes a product. The corporation's number one job is to keep that product selling. Which of course means keeping their customers happy, right? So why would a corporation ever do anything contrary to its customers' happiness? But it happens all the time: lead in childrens' toys, planned obsolescence, forced and pricey upgrades, slipshod workmanship, the lockout of competition. It turns out that "keeping customers happy" and "maximizing profit" actually diverge quite a bit once you think about the details of how money flows... and corporations think about it 24/7.
Same with politicians. Keeping the voting public happy is not the same thing as maximizing donation dollars, and those dollars are very very key to retaining power.
And while you're right that politicians adopt the retention of power as their number one job, it *shouldn't be* their number one job. Their number one job should be the dutiful carrying out of their public campaign positions, along with the ongoing thoughtful evaluation of the public's needs and wants.
Our system as described on paper looks great. But we don't live in a paper world, and complacency about the efficacy of the status quo is -- in a major sense -- the very root of the problem.
Or does that sound like too much work? Would you rather piss and moan about it on Slashdot? Might feel good for a moment, but it's all sound and fury signifying nothing.
How ironic... all the things you listed are what amounts to sound and fury signifying nothing. Politicians are too corrupt in this country to respond to letters. Running for office yourself is impossible unless you get on the corporate take. Nobody running for office shares your points of view. What you're prescribing is what has consistently not worked for a long time. Wake the fuck up.
Think of this from the store's point of view for a moment. Should they just go on good faith? What's to stop tens of thousands of people from buying anything they want and coming back with am empty box demanding their money back? Once word of Best Buy's honor system policy gets out they would be bankrupted by scams.
The right thing to do is to take the customer's word as long as such incidences are infrequent. If there's a large uptick in such incidences, *that* is the point at which Best Buy should themselves start verifying merchandise as it goes out the door and upon return before restock; thereby removing the need to take the customer's word.
But until there is such an uptick, they should refrain from what you're implying they should do. In concept, you're advocating that Best Buy behave as though an as-yet-unrealized worst case scenario is already happening. Why not put all merchandises behind locking cases? Why not strip search everyone as they go out the door? After all, if word gets out that they're not doing these things, their losses will be huge, right?
I get so sick and tired of the GPL fanboys who think that everything else is evil. The people who own the code get to decide what they want to do with it, not you. Deal with it.
It's overly simplistic to criticize proponents of the GPL as being against code owners exercising their rights. If I'm a tomato farmer in Peru, you can certainly champion my right to keep my tomatoes all to myself; I grew them, so that's my right. But it misses the larger point that if I trade or sell some percentage of my tomatoes in a market system, in return I can get clothing and medicine. My rights shouldn't blind me to the benefits of participating in a wider ecosystem... which is precisely what the GPL facilitates.
This post is the biggest stereotype I have seen in my life.
it is no doubt vastly offensive, and it sucks that people believe this
I do not have an innate hatred of anyone, nor am I unwilling to listen to further input. The opinion I wrote is based on the reports of people I personally know who've traveled to the middle east. If their impressions are offbase, how can a person like myself become informed of that? Are you objecting to what I wrote simply because it casts people in an unfavorable light, or do you have information to the contrary?
I think every American should be wondering "why do they hate us" - and hopefully come to the conclusion that it might have something to do with the "let's kick some ass" attitude
Don't get me wrong, I think there are plenty of terrible things about the US that I desperately want to change, and that I think warrant people in other countries disliking our govt (or if they can't separate govt from populace, then disliking us). But I -- and most intelligent people I know -- were highly aware of this well before 9/11. So when people say that 9/11 should make us search for reasons we're disliked, it seems to imply that we shouldn't have already had this frame of mind before 9/11. So I don't think that introducing 9/11 as a catalyst for this thought is working; to people like me it seems simple-minded and after the fact, whereas people who didn't get it before 9/11 seem to generally just be in favor of more ass-whuppin' now.
So are/were Christians [taught that sex is wrong]..... what's your point?
Yes, Christians are taught sex is wrong... and I disagree with this idea in the context of Christianity too, so no special treatment. But as I said, there's a huge difference of degree between American Christian sexual attitudes (on average people feel mildly guilty) and Middle East muslim sexual attitudes (women beaten for not covering up, many men not having the opportunity for more than one or two sexual encounters in a lifetime). This degree of difference matters.
I'd assert a similar point about the equating of gangs in the US and tribal rule in the middle east... same basic elements perhaps, but big difference of degree.
[Terrorists] have lost their families, have nothing in life and been convinced through pure hatred that they must take down invading armies in Iraq and their life is meaningless enough that they are happy to die for it?
We're not talking "oh you bad terrorist, please stop" we're talking about people crawling up the wall with pure unrefined rage, these people aren't going to be won over no matter how hard you try, they are more zealous than any paladin could ever dream of, purely because they have nothing left to lose as they lost it all already.
I'm not convinced that suicide bombers can accurately be analyzed as "people who have lost everything". I won't rule out the possibility, but there are some entirely plausible alternatives as to where the rage of middle easterners might come from:
They're taught that sexual contact and sexual thoughts are obscene. This goes against very basic and very powerful biology/psychology, and it's everywhere in their culture. This is almost as crazy as indoctrinating people to believe that eating food is evil. (And yes, I know our culture's not without its misplaced qualms about sex, but the difference in degree is *staggering*; we are AGES ahead of these people in this regard.)
Their culture holds that there is no such thing as redemption. In some parts of the middle east, if a woman is raped she will be killed by her own family, based on the idea that she is now worthless and unredeemable.
Forgiveness or negotiation are held to be signs of weakness, with justice coming only from the decisive infliction of harm on one's enemies.
They hold fervently to the idea that the afterlife will present them with several dozen virgins to fuck and party with.
They hate technology and science too. Which springs from a more basic concept that humans "are not meant to know things".
So the idea that but for "having lost everything" these folks would be happy well-adjusted citizens of the world... I'm not convinced that's the whole story, or even necessarily the majority of the story. I definitely understand that they're full of rage, or sadness, or something maniacal, and that they're therefore hard to deal with, but I don't think we'd agree with them if we just took the time to try to understand their point of view. I've heard too much of this from the "why do they hate us" crowd, and I just need to say that I for one am not going into an existential self-examination crisis in response to people being so fucked up that they pulled 9/11.
literally a million times brighter, going from magnitude 18 to 2.8.
Dr Evil:... and so we will demand... one million dollars! (*laughs evilly*) Henchman: Um, well, it turns out that a million dollars isn't so much money any more. Dr Evil: Hmm. In that case... we will demand... fifty cents!!!
The American team is approaching this by warming the areas of the tops of the hurricane clouds, either by dropping ash to absorb heat from the sun, or directly beaming microwaves on those areas from space. The Israeli team is taking the approach of cooling the bottom of the hurricane by releasing dust along its base.
To paraphrase a Futurama scene from the Star Trek episode:
American: We can affect the hurricane's path from the top, but sadly not at all from the bottom, which would be such a great complementary way to do things.
Israeli: We've got problems too; we can affect the path from the bottom, but have no way to do it from the top.
American: Say... if you can affect things from the bottom...
Israeli:... and you can affect things from the top...
Fry: Stop it! You're just going around in circles. (*rubs temples, concentrates*) THINK, Fry, THINK! Everyone's depending on you!
On the side opposed to software patentability, an eminent Nobel-prize-winning economist.
On the side supporting software patentability, we have Steve Ballmer.
Which side seems more credible to you?
Agreed. Though I note that even if roles were reversed, and Balmer was pulling for OSS while a Nobel winner promoted patents, I'd dismiss the Nobel winner's position(if all I had to go on was WHO was making the statements, as opposed to lines of reasoning). So my agreement is not that with the idea that *I'm* more persuaded, but that -- in terms of PR for the masses -- this represents a large opportunity for OSS.
The article describes work on insect cyborgs as well as purely mechanical flying spies, but quotes vice admiral Joe Dyer, former commander of the Naval Air Systems Command now at iRobot in Burlington, Mass., as follows: "I'll be seriously dead before that program deploys."
Admiral Dyer (pun intended?) was quoted from his hospice-care room where he is enduring the final stages of pancreatic cancer.
At the time of his quote, it was observed that he had his fingers crossed, leading some to speculate that the admiral instead intends to be mirthfully dead.
If we accept people being dishonest in court, we have no justice system, and no rule of law.
I don't believe the penalty corresponds to the damage of the original claim, but I don't think any punishment is too severe for a person who lies in court.
The precious principle of "rule of law" ceases to have the moral authority you ascribe to it when the laws are corrupt and nobody respects them anymore. So she lied to try to get out of being disproportionately punished by an unjust system, and looked inept in so doing... let's fucking hang her ass, eh? 'Cause if we don't, we'll get more people who think they're entitled to being treated fairly!
If you do [disclaim belief in jury nullification], you must use any reason besides jury nullification as your reason for finding the defending "not guilty" or you could face contempt charges.
Contempt charges for exercising a legal right? I'd hate to think that's true, so in the name of diligence I ask: any evidence to support this, as particular to jury nullification? If the claim is simply an extrapolation of the idea that someone willfully misrepresented their position (aka "lied"), and that lying in court amounts to perjury, I could almost see it... but if so, how about stating it as, "I may not have believed in jury nullification when I was being questioned in the jury selection process, but by the end of the trial -- having heard all the facts -- I believed in it plenty."
Clinton argued (he was a lawyer) that 'making oneself available' for a blowjob is not sex, but is sex for the one performing the blowjob (Monica Lewinsky).
Plus, Clinton was the copyright holder on his own DNA, so it was his own copyright that was violated when Monica, um, er, downloaded his DNA.:)
From the article it was the responsibility of the place holding the vote to do the dump of the data. Diebold was responible for clearing the machine once it was returned, which they did.
Which in my opinion simply becomes an argument against paperless machines... so that this very brand of finger-pointing can't be used to cover up the stealing -- or even just the screwing up -- of elections.
Slashdot Mirror
You clearly don't know how explosive falafel can be. :)
The website approach requires that people trust that the website isn't being run by the govt, or by someone who'll bend over to the govt.
But luckily, a website isn't the only possible approach. It could be simply a local thing, same scale/feel as a flea market. Hell, it could be a roving hot-dog stand. Drop a card, get a card.
for writing sloppily.
First the newly proven 2,3 Turing machine reverts to its previous non-proven status, and now the intergalactic missing mass is missing again... my life is getting turned upside down. What's next, them telling me my 1200-sq-foot Palo Alto home has started depreciating and is no longer worth the $2M I owe on it?
Take a chill pill. Your mania is WAY out of proportion, and GP is perfectly spot on to casually point out that stacking boxes is a more common and therefor less-paid skill than many others. Don't like economics? Then buy a portrait of Keynes and try screaming at it... that'll have exactly the same effect on reality.
Ok, so they can run 3/4 mph for several hours. I find it annoying that the summary doesn't indicate in any regard how this compares to "normal" mice... for all I know normal mice are capable of running 80% of this speed for longer. Yes I could read the article and probably find out, but I just think there's some low-hanging fruit here in terms of enticement that the summary could and should be including.
I wish your faith was well-placed.
Sadly, this is not the case, and it's because of money.
As an analogy, think about a corporation that makes a product. The corporation's number one job is to keep that product selling. Which of course means keeping their customers happy, right? So why would a corporation ever do anything contrary to its customers' happiness? But it happens all the time: lead in childrens' toys, planned obsolescence, forced and pricey upgrades, slipshod workmanship, the lockout of competition. It turns out that "keeping customers happy" and "maximizing profit" actually diverge quite a bit once you think about the details of how money flows... and corporations think about it 24/7. Same with politicians. Keeping the voting public happy is not the same thing as maximizing donation dollars, and those dollars are very very key to retaining power.
And while you're right that politicians adopt the retention of power as their number one job, it *shouldn't be* their number one job. Their number one job should be the dutiful carrying out of their public campaign positions, along with the ongoing thoughtful evaluation of the public's needs and wants.
Our system as described on paper looks great. But we don't live in a paper world, and complacency about the efficacy of the status quo is -- in a major sense -- the very root of the problem.
How ironic... all the things you listed are what amounts to sound and fury signifying nothing. Politicians are too corrupt in this country to respond to letters. Running for office yourself is impossible unless you get on the corporate take. Nobody running for office shares your points of view. What you're prescribing is what has consistently not worked for a long time. Wake the fuck up.
The right thing to do is to take the customer's word as long as such incidences are infrequent. If there's a large uptick in such incidences, *that* is the point at which Best Buy should themselves start verifying merchandise as it goes out the door and upon return before restock; thereby removing the need to take the customer's word.
But until there is such an uptick, they should refrain from what you're implying they should do. In concept, you're advocating that Best Buy behave as though an as-yet-unrealized worst case scenario is already happening. Why not put all merchandises behind locking cases? Why not strip search everyone as they go out the door? After all, if word gets out that they're not doing these things, their losses will be huge, right?
It's overly simplistic to criticize proponents of the GPL as being against code owners exercising their rights. If I'm a tomato farmer in Peru, you can certainly champion my right to keep my tomatoes all to myself; I grew them, so that's my right. But it misses the larger point that if I trade or sell some percentage of my tomatoes in a market system, in return I can get clothing and medicine. My rights shouldn't blind me to the benefits of participating in a wider ecosystem... which is precisely what the GPL facilitates.
Nope... I got exactly the same two recommended vids as the GP.
I do not have an innate hatred of anyone, nor am I unwilling to listen to further input. The opinion I wrote is based on the reports of people I personally know who've traveled to the middle east. If their impressions are offbase, how can a person like myself become informed of that? Are you objecting to what I wrote simply because it casts people in an unfavorable light, or do you have information to the contrary?
I'd assert a similar point about the equating of gangs in the US and tribal rule in the middle east... same basic elements perhaps, but big difference of degree.
I'm not convinced that suicide bombers can accurately be analyzed as "people who have lost everything". I won't rule out the possibility, but there are some entirely plausible alternatives as to where the rage of middle easterners might come from:
- They're taught that sexual contact and sexual thoughts are obscene. This goes against very basic and very powerful biology/psychology, and it's everywhere in their culture. This is almost as crazy as indoctrinating people to believe that eating food is evil. (And yes, I know our culture's not without its misplaced qualms about sex, but the difference in degree is *staggering*; we are AGES ahead of these people in this regard.)
- Their culture holds that there is no such thing as redemption. In some parts of the middle east, if a woman is raped she will be killed by her own family, based on the idea that she is now worthless and unredeemable.
- Forgiveness or negotiation are held to be signs of weakness, with justice coming only from the decisive infliction of harm on one's enemies.
- They hold fervently to the idea that the afterlife will present them with several dozen virgins to fuck and party with.
- They hate technology and science too. Which springs from a more basic concept that humans "are not meant to know things".
So the idea that but for "having lost everything" these folks would be happy well-adjusted citizens of the world... I'm not convinced that's the whole story, or even necessarily the majority of the story. I definitely understand that they're full of rage, or sadness, or something maniacal, and that they're therefore hard to deal with, but I don't think we'd agree with them if we just took the time to try to understand their point of view. I've heard too much of this from the "why do they hate us" crowd, and I just need to say that I for one am not going into an existential self-examination crisis in response to people being so fucked up that they pulled 9/11.Dr Evil: ... and so we will demand... one million dollars! (*laughs evilly*)
Henchman: Um, well, it turns out that a million dollars isn't so much money any more.
Dr Evil: Hmm. In that case... we will demand... fifty cents!!!
To paraphrase a Futurama scene from the Star Trek episode:
American: We can affect the hurricane's path from the top, but sadly not at all from the bottom, which would be such a great complementary way to do things. ... and you can affect things from the top...
Israeli: We've got problems too; we can affect the path from the bottom, but have no way to do it from the top.
American: Say... if you can affect things from the bottom...
Israeli:
Fry: Stop it! You're just going around in circles. (*rubs temples, concentrates*) THINK, Fry, THINK! Everyone's depending on you!
Though it looks like certain variants of the interlock protocol (with forced latency) could do the trick...
Agreed. Though I note that even if roles were reversed, and Balmer was pulling for OSS while a Nobel winner promoted patents, I'd dismiss the Nobel winner's position(if all I had to go on was WHO was making the statements, as opposed to lines of reasoning). So my agreement is not that with the idea that *I'm* more persuaded, but that -- in terms of PR for the masses -- this represents a large opportunity for OSS.
Not... since surfing porn before breakfast, I guess...
Admiral Dyer (pun intended?) was quoted from his hospice-care room where he is enduring the final stages of pancreatic cancer.
At the time of his quote, it was observed that he had his fingers crossed, leading some to speculate that the admiral instead intends to be mirthfully dead.
The precious principle of "rule of law" ceases to have the moral authority you ascribe to it when the laws are corrupt and nobody respects them anymore. So she lied to try to get out of being disproportionately punished by an unjust system, and looked inept in so doing... let's fucking hang her ass, eh? 'Cause if we don't, we'll get more people who think they're entitled to being treated fairly!
Contempt charges for exercising a legal right? I'd hate to think that's true, so in the name of diligence I ask: any evidence to support this, as particular to jury nullification? If the claim is simply an extrapolation of the idea that someone willfully misrepresented their position (aka "lied"), and that lying in court amounts to perjury, I could almost see it... but if so, how about stating it as, "I may not have believed in jury nullification when I was being questioned in the jury selection process, but by the end of the trial -- having heard all the facts -- I believed in it plenty."
Plus, Clinton was the copyright holder on his own DNA, so it was his own copyright that was violated when Monica, um, er, downloaded his DNA. :)
Which in my opinion simply becomes an argument against paperless machines... so that this very brand of finger-pointing can't be used to cover up the stealing -- or even just the screwing up -- of elections.