No childseat = no sale
on
This is IT?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
OK, IT is cool and I love the idea to bits but when it comes to laying down hard-earned cash it has to actually be useful. As one of the many working stiffs in the world with children its quite simple, anything with no room for a child seat is not transport - its a toy.
I think the individuals Jefferson had in mind were the ones who planned the attack and hijacked the planes. I've seen some bloodthirsty opinion polls reported from the US in response to what happened, a natural human reaction which the terrorists would have hoped for and with which Jefferson would have been equally familiar.
In a way I have one slender hope in all of this which is that the US government remembers how it won the cold war - or perhaps just remembers the words of Jefferson again;
War is not the best engine for us to resort to; nature has given us one in our commerce
The US military is awesome and impressive but Coca-cola and Baywatch are probably more effective in the long run. To some extent I think OBL and his ilk are well aware of this fact and this is why they want to provoke a shooting war rather than face certain defeat against what they see as the softness and corruption of western culture and prosperity.
If you really want to destroy everything these people stood for then fight them on the same ground as the USSR was defeated - prosperity, freedom and frivolous consumer goods nobody needs but everyone wants[1].
[1] OK, tongue slightly in cheek on the last one but not entirely.
Are you kidding us? "This will be the next battle " - the next battle is more likely to be fought with missiles and bombs and involve a whole lot of people dying. This may be a complete crock from a knee-jerk legislator buts its sure as hell not a battle.
"The criminal attempts of private individuals to decide for their country the question of peace or war, by commencing active and unauthorized hostilities, should be promptly and efficaciously suppressed."
and
"That individuals should undertake to wage private war, independently of the authority of their country, cannot be permitted in a well-ordered society. Its tendency to produce aggression on the laws and rights of other nations, and to endanger the peace of our own is so obvious, that I doubt not [Congress] will adopt measures for restraining it effectually in future."
The idea was always there that congress might have to restrict the freedoms of those living within the republic to protect the common good, especially where individuals were trying to provoke the unimaginable horrors of war. Sure you can have a long debate on exactly where to draw the line, you can disagree with where they are currently suggesting the line be drawn, but lets not pretend its quite as simplistic as your one quote implied.
If you disagree with what they propose then demonstrate alternatives or show why their proposal is worse than the threat faced by the USA. There are good arguments to be made, there are quite probably better ways of dealing with the threat but if all you do is run out old quotes then you are doing what Franklin said;
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
--
Nic (expecting to be moderated to -1000 but figures it needed to be said anyway)
Lego have been pretty chilled about the whole hacking thing, so why insist on going that one bit further and use a blatant rip-off name just to rub their noses in it? This looks like just the sort of dumb behaviour that will persuade other companies not to even try and let the geeks play.
If they want you to change the name - and I'd not rely wholly on the word of this article - then I think you have a moral duty to change it. I know who I think is biting the hand that feeds them here.
You have to be a little careful with what-ifs, complex events like wars do not usually revolve around a single boolean win/lose event. Arguably the futile allied campaign in Greece was the delay that doomed the whole of Barbarossa, which itself relied on British troops supplied by convoys that were only afloat because of intelligence from - you guessed it - the codebreakers.
You could argue that the Germans could never possibly have defeated the Soviets, or you could argue that they had a real chance of winning until their defeat at Stalingrad. Its all just conjecture. What we can do for certain is say that some things were significant and that the ability of the allies to almost routinely read coded axis messages was important.
Rights are simplistic to the point of stupidity, you either have them or you do not leaving no way to reasonably discuss the fuzziness of real life and conflicting rights (c.f. pro-choice vs pro-life). Rights are almost always a bad basis for resolving conflicting interests in society but they are very attractive forms of rhetoric because they are simple enough for anyone to understand and they hold out the promise of a winner-takes-all outcome instead of any more balanced outcome.
Oh and they're a great source of income for lawyers too, never a factor to underestimate.
The fusion reaction will only continue for as long as you keep the plasma under pressure. As soon as the containment field drops the plasma will expand, its temperature will fall and the reaction will cease.
Unlike a fission reactor the operators do not need to do anything to shut-down should something go wrong. You don't even need a control system to do it. The thing will be shut down by the laws of physics which which are much more reliable that people or computers.
You will be hard pressed to find anything that is universally accepted as morally wrong.
Murder is wrong but killing people is okay in some circumstances.
Theft is wrong but depriving people of income by copying stuff is okay in some circumstances.
The problem is that by using loaded terms like "murder" or "theft" instead of simply describing the actions you have pre-judged the issue of right and wrong. These things no more have fundamentally true definitions than IP, they are all defined by society.
The best you can do is to teach kids the current state of what is considered acceptable or not as part of a syllabus which teaches that the boundaries may be changed over time through the democratic process.
When you cut through the rhetoric all the article is saying is that a minor governement task force has suggested including IP as part of the "citizenship" part of the national curriculum which is being introduced.
Realistically its got little chance of making it onto the curriculum ahead of more pressing matters (discrimination, vandalism, drugs, debt, etc.).
Even if it did slip in there for a half-hour lesson I hardly think the teachers are going to suddenly develop brain-washing powers of indoctrination just for that moment - British children have been ignoring what their teachers say for centuries and I doubt if they are going to change now.
It might even make a few of them think about an issue everyone tends to ignore - whatever conclusions they eventually come to this is a good thing.
This is a safety critical system, its hard to think of a system which is more safety critical in global terms. No sane competent person would build such a system without
requiring all components to conform to the above two conditions
yet more testing
So what the hell were they doing incorporating a bunch of bloatware that was never ever intended to be used for safety-critical applications in the first place.
Tactile feedback is a good thing, which tools like this tend to take away. As regards RSI you have to ask why this became a bigger problem when keyboards replaced typewriters - keyboards require less force so further reducing the force needed may not be a good thing.
It might help some existing RSI sufferers but if you really want to deal with the problem you have to look at working practices and the work environment.
Its not my fault that the script kiddie I gave my rootkit to used it to hack someone.
Do we really want to live in a world where nobody takes the slightest responsibility for their own actions? We might question the technical ability of a court or jury to judge whether that was the primary purpose of the tool but the same principles must apply to software as to anything else - you may be held responsible for the results of your actions.
If any infrastructure of national importance is outsourced to a private entity you're fucked! The moment this happens profits are more important then the public...
A private monopoly is the worst of all worlds - no competition and no redress through the ballot box. Quite how any government could support the creation of private monopolies was always beyond me - if anyone but the government had tried it the Monoplies and Mergers Commission (i.e. the government) would have blocked it as being illegal and against the public interest.
The problems with the UK rail system are entirely managerial and at root are almost entirely political. Engineers are powerless in the utter mess that is the current UK rail system whether they played with Lego or Meccano as kids.
Nic (OO developer type, played with Lego. That figures)
Is it just me or does it seem odd that free-speech advocates are opposed to someone providing an informative list of servers which happen to be behaving in a certain (undesirable) way? I would rather like to know who the idiots are providing the mechanism for spammers to disguise their identity and bypass my filtering and if I ran an ISP I would like to have the choice of whether to accept mail from them.
So why are the free speech advocates so keen to oppose this particular form of free speech? Is the Right to Spam really so fundamental that it justifies suppression of the facts about how it is propogated?
But if you ever try to torch one molecule of my property I will do everything in my power to destroy you financially,
physically, and mentally.
Like I said, anyone who puts property damage on an equal footing with human life has abandoned all sense of morality.
Of course it could be (and often is) argued that only someone this self-centred and materialistic could possibly think that driving a 2-ton truck to the convenience store to pick up a quart of milk is somehow a God Given Right - regardless of the consequences to society as a whole.
Cheers.
Whatever happened to the USA
on
Eco-Terrorism
·
· Score: 2
Once upon a time a group of people decided to take direct action against what they felt was an unjust system; they destroyed some property by throwing it into the sea. A bunch of rich merchants saw the threat to their lifestyle and denounced the crime calling for the full force of law to be brought to bear on the criminals.
Wind the clock forward a couple of hundred years.
A bunch of people take direct action against what they feel is an unjust system; they destroy some property by setting fire to it. A bunch rich geeks see the threat to their lifestyle and denounce the crime calling for the full force of law to be brought to bear on the criminals.
Sad really.
Oh and anyone who thinks that destroying property is the morally the same as taking human life is a dangerously long way down the slippery slope to having no moral understanding at all.
The same could be said of television yet you can see TV sets in villages throughout the developing world. I don't think anybody is fooling themselves that every subsistance farmer will buy one of these but if its useful then there may well one or two within walking distance.
If it gives a few farmers the information they need to know who is cheating them or pocketing money intended for them then it would be a worthwhile effort.
Violence has been glorified and used for entertainment since the beginnings of history - ever read Beowulf, or Homer? What we have here is a classic case of confusing a symptom with the cause.
Never mind I'm sure this bit of stupidity will keep plenty of lawyers employed and I daresay that's all that the people driving this particular action are interested in.
Its like that old experiment where you put your hand in hot water then in tepid water - it feels cold. Now put your hand in icy water and back in the tepid water - it feels hot.
Whether PBS seems to have a liberal or conservative bias will depend on the biases of the media you usually choose more than it does on PBS itself.
The worst I could say of PBS from my relatively short exposure is that it appeared to be so afraid of being accused of bias that it has become almost painfully timid.
OK models != reality. Therefore theories of physics cannot in themselves prove beyond all philosophical doubt that an objective reality exists.
You may have found that to be a profound observations but to any real physicist its a rather obvious and trivial statement.
To extend that to claim that therefore modern physics somehow disavows the existance of an objective reality is however complete nonsense and was one of the things comprehensively debunked by Sokal and Bricmont. In all the furious debate that followed their book I've not seen anyone even try to defend this position or refute their debunking of it. I would be interested (and probably amused) to see you try.
Nic
I'll not debate the lack of objectivity in society because I largely agree, but as to physics I recommend you read Intellectual Impostures (Alan Sokal + Jean Bricmont) for a pretty thorough debunking of radical subjectivism.
--
Nic
Slashdot Mirror
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Nic
In a way I have one slender hope in all of this which is that the US government remembers how it won the cold war - or perhaps just remembers the words of Jefferson again;
The US military is awesome and impressive but Coca-cola and Baywatch are probably more effective in the long run. To some extent I think OBL and his ilk are well aware of this fact and this is why they want to provoke a shooting war rather than face certain defeat against what they see as the softness and corruption of western culture and prosperity.
If you really want to destroy everything these people stood for then fight them on the same ground as the USSR was defeated - prosperity, freedom and frivolous consumer goods nobody needs but everyone wants[1].
[1] OK, tongue slightly in cheek on the last one but not entirely.
--
Nic
--
Nic
and
The idea was always there that congress might have to restrict the freedoms of those living within the republic to protect the common good, especially where individuals were trying to provoke the unimaginable horrors of war. Sure you can have a long debate on exactly where to draw the line, you can disagree with where they are currently suggesting the line be drawn, but lets not pretend its quite as simplistic as your one quote implied.
If you disagree with what they propose then demonstrate alternatives or show why their proposal is worse than the threat faced by the USA. There are good arguments to be made, there are quite probably better ways of dealing with the threat but if all you do is run out old quotes then you are doing what Franklin said;
--
Nic (expecting to be moderated to -1000 but figures it needed to be said anyway)
If they want you to change the name - and I'd not rely wholly on the word of this article - then I think you have a moral duty to change it. I know who I think is biting the hand that feeds them here.
--
Nic
You could argue that the Germans could never possibly have defeated the Soviets, or you could argue that they had a real chance of winning until their defeat at Stalingrad. Its all just conjecture. What we can do for certain is say that some things were significant and that the ability of the allies to almost routinely read coded axis messages was important.
--
Nic
New Scientist had an article on it some time ago.
--
Nic
Oh and they're a great source of income for lawyers too, never a factor to underestimate.
--
Nic
Unlike a fission reactor the operators do not need to do anything to shut-down should something go wrong. You don't even need a control system to do it. The thing will be shut down by the laws of physics which which are much more reliable that people or computers.
--
Nic
The problem is that by using loaded terms like "murder" or "theft" instead of simply describing the actions you have pre-judged the issue of right and wrong. These things no more have fundamentally true definitions than IP, they are all defined by society.
The best you can do is to teach kids the current state of what is considered acceptable or not as part of a syllabus which teaches that the boundaries may be changed over time through the democratic process.
--
Nic
Realistically its got little chance of making it onto the curriculum ahead of more pressing matters (discrimination, vandalism, drugs, debt, etc.).
Even if it did slip in there for a half-hour lesson I hardly think the teachers are going to suddenly develop brain-washing powers of indoctrination just for that moment - British children have been ignoring what their teachers say for centuries and I doubt if they are going to change now.
It might even make a few of them think about an issue everyone tends to ignore - whatever conclusions they eventually come to this is a good thing.
--
Nic
- formal methods
- rigorous multiply redundant testing (i.e. parallel testing teams)
- requiring all components to conform to the above two conditions
- yet more testing
So what the hell were they doing incorporating a bunch of bloatware that was never ever intended to be used for safety-critical applications in the first place.--
Nic
It might help some existing RSI sufferers but if you really want to deal with the problem you have to look at working practices and the work environment.
Of course I still want one.
--
Nic
- Its not my fault I fell over the pavement.
- Its not my fault I spilled coffee all over myself
- Its not my fault that the script kiddie I gave my rootkit to used it to hack someone.
Do we really want to live in a world where nobody takes the slightest responsibility for their own actions? We might question the technical ability of a court or jury to judge whether that was the primary purpose of the tool but the same principles must apply to software as to anything else - you may be held responsible for the results of your actions.A private monopoly is the worst of all worlds - no competition and no redress through the ballot box. Quite how any government could support the creation of private monopolies was always beyond me - if anyone but the government had tried it the Monoplies and Mergers Commission (i.e. the government) would have blocked it as being illegal and against the public interest.
The problems with the UK rail system are entirely managerial and at root are almost entirely political. Engineers are powerless in the utter mess that is the current UK rail system whether they played with Lego or Meccano as kids.
Nic (OO developer type, played with Lego. That figures)
So why are the free speech advocates so keen to oppose this particular form of free speech? Is the Right to Spam really so fundamental that it justifies suppression of the facts about how it is propogated?
Cheers.
Like I said, anyone who puts property damage on an equal footing with human life has abandoned all sense of morality.
Of course it could be (and often is) argued that only someone this self-centred and materialistic could possibly think that driving a 2-ton truck to the convenience store to pick up a quart of milk is somehow a God Given Right - regardless of the consequences to society as a whole.
Cheers.
Wind the clock forward a couple of hundred years.
A bunch of people take direct action against what they feel is an unjust system; they destroy some property by setting fire to it. A bunch rich geeks see the threat to their lifestyle and denounce the crime calling for the full force of law to be brought to bear on the criminals.
Sad really.
Oh and anyone who thinks that destroying property is the morally the same as taking human life is a dangerously long way down the slippery slope to having no moral understanding at all.
Cheers.
If it gives a few farmers the information they need to know who is cheating them or pocketing money intended for them then it would be a worthwhile effort.
Violence has been glorified and used for entertainment since the beginnings of history - ever read Beowulf, or Homer? What we have here is a classic case of confusing a symptom with the cause. Never mind I'm sure this bit of stupidity will keep plenty of lawyers employed and I daresay that's all that the people driving this particular action are interested in.
Its like that old experiment where you put your hand in hot water then in tepid water - it feels cold. Now put your hand in icy water and back in the tepid water - it feels hot.
Whether PBS seems to have a liberal or conservative bias will depend on the biases of the media you usually choose more than it does on PBS itself.
The worst I could say of PBS from my relatively short exposure is that it appeared to be so afraid of being accused of bias that it has become almost painfully timid.
OK models != reality. Therefore theories of physics cannot in themselves prove beyond all philosophical doubt that an objective reality exists.
You may have found that to be a profound observations but to any real physicist its a rather obvious and trivial statement.
To extend that to claim that therefore modern physics somehow disavows the existance of an objective reality is however complete nonsense and was one of the things comprehensively debunked by Sokal and Bricmont. In all the furious debate that followed their book I've not seen anyone even try to defend this position or refute their debunking of it. I would be interested (and probably amused) to see you try.
Nic
I'll not debate the lack of objectivity in society because I largely agree, but as to physics I recommend you read Intellectual Impostures (Alan Sokal + Jean Bricmont) for a pretty thorough debunking of radical subjectivism. -- Nic