I don't think that any form of media can turn anyone's heart dark. It may uncover darkness which already exists, in which case I say don't shoot the messenger.
Complete source compatibility is almost as elusive as the "philosopher's stone" which alchemists believed would turn base metals into gold.
Java gets around this problem by creating a binary compatibility standard. But this introduces one very major problem, speed. Java might be a programmer's dream come true architecture wise, but it is a user's nightmare speed wise. The nice thing is that the difference between a targeted compiler and a virtual machine is pretty small. I'd like to see more true compilers for java so that we can do away with pesky virtual machines that just make the program less efficient. Unlike other languages, targeted compilers for java would still have to support the entire language in order to maintain compatibility. Once we see this, I think java will become a viable choice for real programming.
Here you've got a journalist writing articles intended for mac users. At one time, when macs were a viable platform, this might have been a worthwhile endeavor. But today your average mac user is either a zealot who bought into Steve Jobs' idea of macs changing the world and who still hasn't woken up, or a newbie who mistakenly consulted the first type of user before buying a system. What this means is most of the people in the target audience are either ignorant or stupid.
I've never understood our society's anxiety and concern over controlling what children see and don't see. In fact its always struck me as a demeaning attitude born from animosity and ignorance.
Kids aren't tape recorders. They are human beings. As such they are continuously struggling to make sense of the world in which they live. Each day they learn new things and compare them to that which they already know. They make decisions and form conclusions which shape the way they look at the world as well as who they are as a person. As time goes by and their experience with life grows, they re-examine their conclusions and modify them to account for new information or form new conclusions altogether. In case this sounds familiar to you it is because this is not what it means to be a child, this is what it means to be a thinking human being.
So I ask you, what on earth is there to gain from censoring the information they have available to them? Is there anything in this world that is so dangerous as a thought or idea that they will be unable to deal with it and reject it if it proves to be untrue? What lies are there in this world that are that difficult to unmask for someone able to think and examine the evidence?
But what if we are the source of lies? What if we are the ones who are trying to unduly influence what our children believe? If we see children as clay in our hands to be molded into whatever our own personal neuroses say they should be, then censoring what they see and hear would be an important first step in that direction. If we hide knowledge of human reproduction from them we will be better able to instill our own obsessions and compulsions concerning the subject. If we hide other information which contradicts our own opinions and beliefs then we will be all the more able to manipulate their view of the world and ensure that their biases and prejudices are copies of our own.
Is this what we really want our children to be? Unthinking drones whose only thoughts and feelings are the ones we sanction or implant? I certainly don't want that for my children. If I felt that I would put a child through that sort of psychological and intellectual abuse then I would not dare have children as I would be a threat to their wellbeing.
Instead of trying to teach children what to think, we should work to teach them how to think. A mind trained to think logically and critically is difficult to fool and is more likely to find good answers to life's questions and problems. A mind not so trained can be mislead by every logical fallacy and rhetorical trick in the book as well those that haven't even been written down yet.
The mass stupidity which is continuously exploited by every group and faction imaginable largely exists because people do not know how to think. If they did the world might be a better place with less bullshit to have to deal with from both the right and the left. I can think of no better time to learn logical and critical thinking skills than as a child.
No child of mine will ever be the victim of censorship by me. Anything and everything which they might wish to read or see will be available to them. My role as a parent will be to teach them how to successfully think for themself and deal logically witht the thoughts and ideas they encounter, not to try and hide things from them that I might find personally offensive or believe to be untrue.
What exactly does that mean? What is childhood supposed to be in his estimation and how could some outside influence "rob" a young person of it?
Since I've heard this kind of baloney before, even back when I was a kid, I've had time to contemplate what it means and I've come to the conclusion that types like Nader think childhood is ignorance. Purposeful ignorance created and maintained to facilitate the brainwashing of the child by his or her parents. How many people do you know whose outlook on life and views on various issues are merely what their parents told them to think? How many people do you know who know how to think for themselves and who come to their own conclusions about the world based upon what they see with their own eyes? If we had fewer of the former and more of the latter the world would be a better place. The former are sheep for the slaughter.
Take a clear-headed, calm, rational person. Now make them a parent. About 95% of the time the result will be someone who is anything but rational, at least where their children are concerned.
The same appearent genetic trait that temporarily turns off a person's common sense before and during the act of conception must also be hard at work during the years that the resulting child lives with the parent. Some of the most ludicrous and ideas and hateful lies I've ever heard have been said by parents to their children. The average parent is demeaning, manipulative, dishonest, and often abusive. That is why I say that expecting parents to be rational is expecting too much. I'd expect a politician from New Orleans to be honest before I'd expect a mom to be able to think straight where her children are concerned.
Anytime someone begins a speech with "friends" I know I'm about to get a load of BS. This time was no exception. Where do you get the idea that we HAVE to choose either a republican or a democrat when both sides are full of it? I've heard this kind of crap before from those who would maintain the status quo. The only way a person can waste their vote is to not vote at all.
Lee Reynolds
The democrats are for things like the CDA which gives them the power to define exactly what is and what is not "harmful to minors." The replicans are simply getting in on the game with legislation which will give them that power. Its the same old bullshit with rival political factions working to control what information is available to the rest of us. Anyone who would try to censor what you see isn't doing it because information you find would be harmful to you, but because it would be harmful to their own position for you to see it. Obscuring the truth is a very old pastime for any political or social or religious group.
Don't you know, THEY want to be the ones who define what gets filtered. Many of the censorware companies are tied to conservative religous organizations. Go to www.peacefire.org to get the whole story.
The right and left would not team up like this unless both had something to fear from this legislation, which makes me wonder what it is. Sounds to me like both sides knows that neither would be in control of what "harmful content" gets censored. Laws like the CDA got passed because it gave the governement the power to define exactly what was "harmful to children" and what wasn't.
I'll be so glad when the day comes that all this bullshit is laid to rest. Porn doesn't hurt kids, it just offends the sensibilities of the superstitious. I think that within a couple of generations all this will simply evaporate. At least that is what I hope for. The internet offers for the first time in history the possibility of a truly free society. A society where information, knowledge, and ideas, including offensive or controversial ones, are freely and easily available to all. A time when all sides of any story are laid out on the table instead of being overtly or covertly censored by those in power on both the right and the left. I'm looking forward to this coming to pass and I'll fight anyone who tries to thwart it.
Politicians point at libraries as bastions of evil? Bastions of knowledge is what they are. If they see knowledge as evil then maybe its time for a recall election if not a good old fashioned lynching.
ASU? You mean Arizona State University? I run one of the computer labs there. Not only is there no cursed censorware on our systems, but we aren't allowed to stop customers from going to any sites they might want to. I think this is great. I'm not into pr0n myself, but I'll be damned if I think the government or some other "authority" has the right to tell anyone whether they can look at it.
You've just demonstrated the exact kind of behavior I was talking about. Thank you for the live demonstration. If I didn't know any better I'd think you were being sarcastic. But I've been around long enough to know that you do likely see the world though tinted glasses.
First of all I'm a libertarian, not a republican. Second of all I fully support additional funding for education in poorer communities. Education is one of the few means by which someone born into less fortunate circumstances can lift themselves out of poverty. It is very important that everyone be given the opportunity to excel and to achieve something. To deny that to a segment of society because they are impoverished is simply not right any more than it would be right to deny another segment because of their race.
Now having good opportunities is no guarantee that someone is going to take advantage of them. But then society's responsibilty is to provide opportunity, not to take care of those who cannot or will not take advantage of it. We live in a country of great opportunity. Those who respond to it by working hard and achieving something will be rewarded by life. Those who do not work and do not strive to succeed will not be rewarded. I have little sympathy for those who can't get their act together. My mother was a single parent who raised two children on 20k a year. She easily could have moved us into some trashy neighborhood where the rent was cheap and so were the people. But she didn't want that kind of environment for her children. So she worked and struggled to make sure we lived in a nice neighborhood and went to a good school, even though it meant she never put one dime away for her own retirement. My sister and I are her retirement and believe me she will be well taken care of.
As for private school, I went to one on a scholarship my last three years in high school. I'm certainly not going to apologize for making the most of my opportunities.
As for the scratchers and potato chips comment, I'm not really sure what you're trying to say. Yes, while working at 7-11 as a clerk I did sell scratchers tickets and potato chips to people for $6.50 an hour. However I don't see where I fit into a conspiracy between the Arizona State Lottery Commission and Frito Lay to keep the people living behind the store in the poorhouse. The lottery is a stupidity tax levied by the state on those too dumb to know a bad bet when they see one. The money collected goes to fund various government programs. As for the potato chips, Frito Lay isn't responsible if someone is to stupid to know how to spend their money wisely.
But from your comments you seem to believe this is all the fault of republicans someplace who spend their days looking for ways to put the soles of their boots down on the heads of the struggling proletariat. Who can't think of anything better to do with their time than kick someone who is already down for the count. Give me a break! The people you demonize are too busy working and being successful in life to prevent anyone else from doing the same, even if they wanted to.
There was an Abco grocery store a block up the street from the 7-11. I don't know if Abco is particularly well known for their low prices, but I can guarantee you they were lower than 7-11's.
I'm not sure that the analogy you used applies to being poor. If I were poor and on food stamps I'd be clipping coupons and searching for specials at the grocery store, not throwing what few dollars I had away on junk food at a mini-mart. But then again I'm not stupid. Ultimately the problem these people had was not lack of money, it was lack of intelligence. For many people, ascribing someone with a lack of intelligence is almost a moral judgement against that person. As if being born with a not-so-good brain means you're less worthy as a person. I'm not like that. I'm smart enough to know that stupidity isn't the fault of the stupid. They can't help it any more than someone with a misformed leg can't help but limp. It is my hope that in the future everyone will have a good mind thanks to genetic engineering. Imagine a world in which the average IQ were about 150. That world would have its share of problems, but I doubt you'd see as many people buying scratchers and junk food with food stamps.
Laws against drugs are nowhere near as effective as social stigma against their use. You really should watch a serial documentary that has been playing on the history channel. It's called "Hooked: Illegal drugs and how they got that way." It covers such drugs as heroin, marijuana, cocaine, and how it came to pass that there were federal laws against their possession and use. I do agree that the war on drugs has largely been a war on our citizens, but I don't think legitimizing drugs is the answer. Drugs are very harmful to the societies in which they have been widely used. The key is to make the use of drugs socially unacceptable, at which point the laws are irrelevant. People who for whatever reason want to use drugs are still going to, but their use is much less likely to balloon into widespread use.
I guess the ladies in that fair southern state have never heard of mail order?
A law like that is only as effective as it can be enforced. The internet raises all kinds of interesting issues for the enforcement of many laws, most of which are oppressive rather than just.
I'm personally looking forward to the future with a combination of hope and fear. Hope because the internet represents freedom of information and freedom of expression, two of the cornerstones upon which every other freedom is founded. But I'm afraid that it may be corrupted by government or business interests into a tool for oppression in which big brother really is watching you. Which way it goes has a lot to do with what people like us do right now. We are at an historical nexus, a crossroads where the choices we make and the things we do will greatly alter the future course of human history. The world can either be set free by technologies such as the Internet, or enslaved by them. Which it will be is up to us.
So what you're saying is that there is a tax in
Finland which is disguised as gambling? I'm sorry but I just don't feel bad about the Finnish government losing money because their people have more choices about where they waste their dollars.
Actually many states have lotteries, not just Nevada. Also lotteries aren't really like pyramid schemes in that everything is on the table. The odds of winning are published and everyone knows they aren't very likely to win. With pyramid schemes, nothing is on the table other than some vague promises of vast wealth in 3 week. Lotteries are a tax on those who aren't too bright, pyramid schemes are a tax on those who are truly moronic.
I used to work part time at 7-11 a few years back and the store I worked in was right in front of a very poor neighborhood. The same people would come in every day and buy "scratchers" over and over trying to win a $5,000 prize. These same people were also on food stamps. The really disgusting and disturbing thing is that they would spend their food stamps there at the 7-11 on things like soda, doughnuts, and potato chips. I'd think that if I were poor and on food stamps, the last place I'd spend any money of any kind would be at a 7-11 where the prices are higher than in any grocery store. I'd also not waste my money on junk food and lottery tickets.
The "liberals" in our country will try to tell you that these people are poor because mythical republicans someplace conspired against them. I'm sorry, but people that dumb don't need any help to be poor. It wasn't due to racial discrimination either. Nearly everyone in that neighborhood was white. I don't wholly subscribe to the idea of social darwinism, but based off the things I've seen myself I must say that the theory isn't wholly unfounded. The lottery truly is a stupidity tax. Of course if this fact were to ever be widely known you'd have people screaming about how the lottery is designed to keep poor people poor by enticing them to spend their hard earned welfare dollars.
Lee Reynolds
What irritates me about the win32 version.
on
Send Some Mo' Zilla
·
· Score: 2
Under Netscape 4.x, if your existing browser window is maximized, any new browser windows you create are also maximized. If your original window is not maximized, neither are the new ones.
But under both Mozilla and Netscape 6pr3 new windows are not maximized. This is just like IE and is in fact one of the reasons I avoid using IE in the first place. I'd really like to see this set back to the way that Netscape 4.x works, or at least have some kind of an option in the control panel to control this behaviour.
Speed wise the browswer does seem to be getting there. I suspect this is largely due to the removal do debugging aids in the code itself which slowed everything down but helped the developers see what the hell was going on.
I'm hoping that the final product will be compatible with pages optimized for IE. It has XML and CSS support of course, but what about all the funky javascript and DHTML stuff that IE has? It's time to "embrace and extend" Microsoft's stuff lest we be left behind.
You should run for office. Oh wait.. Damn! It looks like you failed the IQ test by scoring too high. You're too intelligent to set public policy I'm afraid.
Violent crime among teens is not primarily due to lone crazies. Geeks as a group are not dangerous, they never have been.
Which person is more likely to be violent, a socially inept person who may or may not be into computers, or a member of a street gang involved in criminal activity?
It seems to me like you've bought into the post-columbine mob mentality that says anyone who doesn't fit in is a potential threat. Sorry charlie, but the real world just doesn't work that way.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think that any form of media can turn anyone's heart dark. It may uncover darkness which already exists, in which case I say don't shoot the messenger.
Lee Reynolds
Complete source compatibility is almost as elusive as the "philosopher's stone" which alchemists believed would turn base metals into gold.
Java gets around this problem by creating a binary compatibility standard. But this introduces one very major problem, speed. Java might be a programmer's dream come true architecture wise, but it is a user's nightmare speed wise. The nice thing is that the difference between a targeted compiler and a virtual machine is pretty small. I'd like to see more true compilers for java so that we can do away with pesky virtual machines that just make the program less efficient. Unlike other languages, targeted compilers for java would still have to support the entire language in order to maintain compatibility. Once we see this, I think java will become a viable choice for real programming.
Lee Reynolds
All I can say is, consider the source.
Here you've got a journalist writing articles intended for mac users. At one time, when macs were a viable platform, this might have been a worthwhile endeavor. But today your average mac user is either a zealot who bought into Steve Jobs' idea of macs changing the world and who still hasn't woken up, or a newbie who mistakenly consulted the first type of user before buying a system. What this means is most of the people in the target audience are either ignorant or stupid.
Lee Reynolds
How can the average of any measured distribution be two distinct numbers, 100 and 150, at the same time?
Lee Reynolds
I've never understood our society's anxiety and concern over controlling what children see and don't see. In fact its always struck me as a demeaning attitude born from animosity and ignorance.
Kids aren't tape recorders. They are human beings. As such they are continuously struggling to make sense of the world in which they live. Each day they learn new things and compare them to that which they already know. They make decisions and form conclusions which shape the way they look at the world as well as who they are as a person. As time goes by and their experience with life grows, they re-examine their conclusions and modify them to account for new information or form new conclusions altogether. In case this sounds familiar to you it is because this is not what it means to be a child, this is what it means to be a thinking human being.
So I ask you, what on earth is there to gain from censoring the information they have available to them? Is there anything in this world that is so dangerous as a thought or idea that they will be unable to deal with it and reject it if it proves to be untrue? What lies are there in this world that are that difficult to unmask for someone able to think and examine the evidence?
But what if we are the source of lies? What if we are the ones who are trying to unduly influence what our children believe? If we see children as clay in our hands to be molded into whatever our own personal neuroses say they should be, then censoring what they see and hear would be an important first step in that direction. If we hide knowledge of human reproduction from them we will be better able to instill our own obsessions and compulsions concerning the subject. If we hide other information which contradicts our own opinions and beliefs then we will be all the more able to manipulate their view of the world and ensure that their biases and prejudices are copies of our own.
Is this what we really want our children to be? Unthinking drones whose only thoughts and feelings are the ones we sanction or implant? I certainly don't want that for my children. If I felt that I would put a child through that sort of psychological and intellectual abuse then I would not dare have children as I would be a threat to their wellbeing.
Instead of trying to teach children what to think, we should work to teach them how to think. A mind trained to think logically and critically is difficult to fool and is more likely to find good answers to life's questions and problems. A mind not so trained can be mislead by every logical fallacy and rhetorical trick in the book as well those that haven't even been written down yet.
The mass stupidity which is continuously exploited by every group and faction imaginable largely exists because people do not know how to think. If they did the world might be a better place with less bullshit to have to deal with from both the right and the left. I can think of no better time to learn logical and critical thinking skills than as a child.
No child of mine will ever be the victim of censorship by me. Anything and everything which they might wish to read or see will be available to them. My role as a parent will be to teach them how to successfully think for themself and deal logically witht the thoughts and ideas they encounter, not to try and hide things from them that I might find personally offensive or believe to be untrue.
Lee Reynolds
What exactly does that mean? What is childhood supposed to be in his estimation and how could some outside influence "rob" a young person of it?
Since I've heard this kind of baloney before, even back when I was a kid, I've had time to contemplate what it means and I've come to the conclusion that types like Nader think childhood is ignorance. Purposeful ignorance created and maintained to facilitate the brainwashing of the child by his or her parents. How many people do you know whose outlook on life and views on various issues are merely what their parents told them to think? How many people do you know who know how to think for themselves and who come to their own conclusions about the world based upon what they see with their own eyes? If we had fewer of the former and more of the latter the world would be a better place. The former are sheep for the slaughter.
Lee Reynolds
(assuming rational parents)
You assume too much.
Take a clear-headed, calm, rational person. Now make them a parent. About 95% of the time the result will be someone who is anything but rational, at least where their children are concerned.
The same appearent genetic trait that temporarily turns off a person's common sense before and during the act of conception must also be hard at work during the years that the resulting child lives with the parent. Some of the most ludicrous and ideas and hateful lies I've ever heard have been said by parents to their children. The average parent is demeaning, manipulative, dishonest, and often abusive. That is why I say that expecting parents to be rational is expecting too much. I'd expect a politician from New Orleans to be honest before I'd expect a mom to be able to think straight where her children are concerned.
And no I'm not a kid, I turn 29 in November.
Lee Reynolds
Anytime someone begins a speech with "friends" I know I'm about to get a load of BS. This time was no exception. Where do you get the idea that we HAVE to choose either a republican or a democrat when both sides are full of it? I've heard this kind of crap before from those who would maintain the status quo. The only way a person can waste their vote is to not vote at all. Lee Reynolds
Microsoft's OS dominance is limited to low-end desktop systems. In the server arena they are but one player among many.
Lee Reynolds
The democrats are for things like the CDA which gives them the power to define exactly what is and what is not "harmful to minors." The replicans are simply getting in on the game with legislation which will give them that power. Its the same old bullshit with rival political factions working to control what information is available to the rest of us. Anyone who would try to censor what you see isn't doing it because information you find would be harmful to you, but because it would be harmful to their own position for you to see it. Obscuring the truth is a very old pastime for any political or social or religious group.
Lee Reynolds
Don't you know, THEY want to be the ones who define what gets filtered. Many of the censorware companies are tied to conservative religous organizations. Go to www.peacefire.org to get the whole story.
Lee Reynolds
The right and left would not team up like this unless both had something to fear from this legislation, which makes me wonder what it is. Sounds to me like both sides knows that neither would be in control of what "harmful content" gets censored. Laws like the CDA got passed because it gave the governement the power to define exactly what was "harmful to children" and what wasn't.
I'll be so glad when the day comes that all this bullshit is laid to rest. Porn doesn't hurt kids, it just offends the sensibilities of the superstitious. I think that within a couple of generations all this will simply evaporate. At least that is what I hope for. The internet offers for the first time in history the possibility of a truly free society. A society where information, knowledge, and ideas, including offensive or controversial ones, are freely and easily available to all. A time when all sides of any story are laid out on the table instead of being overtly or covertly censored by those in power on both the right and the left. I'm looking forward to this coming to pass and I'll fight anyone who tries to thwart it.
Lee Reynolds
Politicians point at libraries as bastions of evil? Bastions of knowledge is what they are. If they see knowledge as evil then maybe its time for a recall election if not a good old fashioned lynching.
Lee Reynolds
ASU? You mean Arizona State University? I run one of the computer labs there. Not only is there no cursed censorware on our systems, but we aren't allowed to stop customers from going to any sites they might want to. I think this is great. I'm not into pr0n myself, but I'll be damned if I think the government or some other "authority" has the right to tell anyone whether they can look at it.
Lee Reynolds
You've just demonstrated the exact kind of behavior I was talking about. Thank you for the live demonstration. If I didn't know any better I'd think you were being sarcastic. But I've been around long enough to know that you do likely see the world though tinted glasses.
First of all I'm a libertarian, not a republican. Second of all I fully support additional funding for education in poorer communities. Education is one of the few means by which someone born into less fortunate circumstances can lift themselves out of poverty. It is very important that everyone be given the opportunity to excel and to achieve something. To deny that to a segment of society because they are impoverished is simply not right any more than it would be right to deny another segment because of their race.
Now having good opportunities is no guarantee that someone is going to take advantage of them. But then society's responsibilty is to provide opportunity, not to take care of those who cannot or will not take advantage of it. We live in a country of great opportunity. Those who respond to it by working hard and achieving something will be rewarded by life. Those who do not work and do not strive to succeed will not be rewarded. I have little sympathy for those who can't get their act together. My mother was a single parent who raised two children on 20k a year. She easily could have moved us into some trashy neighborhood where the rent was cheap and so were the people. But she didn't want that kind of environment for her children. So she worked and struggled to make sure we lived in a nice neighborhood and went to a good school, even though it meant she never put one dime away for her own retirement. My sister and I are her retirement and believe me she will be well taken care of.
As for private school, I went to one on a scholarship my last three years in high school. I'm certainly not going to apologize for making the most of my opportunities.
As for the scratchers and potato chips comment, I'm not really sure what you're trying to say. Yes, while working at 7-11 as a clerk I did sell scratchers tickets and potato chips to people for $6.50 an hour. However I don't see where I fit into a conspiracy between the Arizona State Lottery Commission and Frito Lay to keep the people living behind the store in the poorhouse. The lottery is a stupidity tax levied by the state on those too dumb to know a bad bet when they see one. The money collected goes to fund various government programs. As for the potato chips, Frito Lay isn't responsible if someone is to stupid to know how to spend their money wisely.
But from your comments you seem to believe this is all the fault of republicans someplace who spend their days looking for ways to put the soles of their boots down on the heads of the struggling proletariat. Who can't think of anything better to do with their time than kick someone who is already down for the count. Give me a break! The people you demonize are too busy working and being successful in life to prevent anyone else from doing the same, even if they wanted to.
Lee Reynolds
There was an Abco grocery store a block up the street from the 7-11. I don't know if Abco is particularly well known for their low prices, but I can guarantee you they were lower than 7-11's.
I'm not sure that the analogy you used applies to being poor. If I were poor and on food stamps I'd be clipping coupons and searching for specials at the grocery store, not throwing what few dollars I had away on junk food at a mini-mart. But then again I'm not stupid. Ultimately the problem these people had was not lack of money, it was lack of intelligence. For many people, ascribing someone with a lack of intelligence is almost a moral judgement against that person. As if being born with a not-so-good brain means you're less worthy as a person. I'm not like that. I'm smart enough to know that stupidity isn't the fault of the stupid. They can't help it any more than someone with a misformed leg can't help but limp. It is my hope that in the future everyone will have a good mind thanks to genetic engineering. Imagine a world in which the average IQ were about 150. That world would have its share of problems, but I doubt you'd see as many people buying scratchers and junk food with food stamps.
Lee Reynolds
Laws against drugs are nowhere near as effective as social stigma against their use. You really should watch a serial documentary that has been playing on the history channel. It's called "Hooked: Illegal drugs and how they got that way." It covers such drugs as heroin, marijuana, cocaine, and how it came to pass that there were federal laws against their possession and use. I do agree that the war on drugs has largely been a war on our citizens, but I don't think legitimizing drugs is the answer. Drugs are very harmful to the societies in which they have been widely used. The key is to make the use of drugs socially unacceptable, at which point the laws are irrelevant. People who for whatever reason want to use drugs are still going to, but their use is much less likely to balloon into widespread use.
Lee Reynolfd
I guess the ladies in that fair southern state have never heard of mail order?
A law like that is only as effective as it can be enforced. The internet raises all kinds of interesting issues for the enforcement of many laws, most of which are oppressive rather than just.
I'm personally looking forward to the future with a combination of hope and fear. Hope because the internet represents freedom of information and freedom of expression, two of the cornerstones upon which every other freedom is founded. But I'm afraid that it may be corrupted by government or business interests into a tool for oppression in which big brother really is watching you. Which way it goes has a lot to do with what people like us do right now. We are at an historical nexus, a crossroads where the choices we make and the things we do will greatly alter the future course of human history. The world can either be set free by technologies such as the Internet, or enslaved by them. Which it will be is up to us.
Lee Reynolds
So what you're saying is that there is a tax in
Finland which is disguised as gambling? I'm sorry but I just don't feel bad about the Finnish government losing money because their people have more choices about where they waste their dollars.
Lee Reynolds
Actually many states have lotteries, not just Nevada. Also lotteries aren't really like pyramid schemes in that everything is on the table. The odds of winning are published and everyone knows they aren't very likely to win. With pyramid schemes, nothing is on the table other than some vague promises of vast wealth in 3 week. Lotteries are a tax on those who aren't too bright, pyramid schemes are a tax on those who are truly moronic.
Lee Reynolds
I used to work part time at 7-11 a few years back and the store I worked in was right in front of a very poor neighborhood. The same people would come in every day and buy "scratchers" over and over trying to win a $5,000 prize. These same people were also on food stamps. The really disgusting and disturbing thing is that they would spend their food stamps there at the 7-11 on things like soda, doughnuts, and potato chips. I'd think that if I were poor and on food stamps, the last place I'd spend any money of any kind would be at a 7-11 where the prices are higher than in any grocery store. I'd also not waste my money on junk food and lottery tickets.
The "liberals" in our country will try to tell you that these people are poor because mythical republicans someplace conspired against them. I'm sorry, but people that dumb don't need any help to be poor. It wasn't due to racial discrimination either. Nearly everyone in that neighborhood was white. I don't wholly subscribe to the idea of social darwinism, but based off the things I've seen myself I must say that the theory isn't wholly unfounded. The lottery truly is a stupidity tax. Of course if this fact were to ever be widely known you'd have people screaming about how the lottery is designed to keep poor people poor by enticing them to spend their hard earned welfare dollars.
Lee Reynolds
Under Netscape 4.x, if your existing browser window is maximized, any new browser windows you create are also maximized. If your original window is not maximized, neither are the new ones.
But under both Mozilla and Netscape 6pr3 new windows are not maximized. This is just like IE and is in fact one of the reasons I avoid using IE in the first place. I'd really like to see this set back to the way that Netscape 4.x works, or at least have some kind of an option in the control panel to control this behaviour.
Speed wise the browswer does seem to be getting there. I suspect this is largely due to the removal do debugging aids in the code itself which slowed everything down but helped the developers see what the hell was going on.
I'm hoping that the final product will be compatible with pages optimized for IE. It has XML and CSS support of course, but what about all the funky javascript and DHTML stuff that IE has? It's time to "embrace and extend" Microsoft's stuff lest we be left behind.
Lee Reynolds
I believe in God. I do not however believe in religion.
Lee Reynolds
You should run for office. Oh wait.. Damn! It looks like you failed the IQ test by scoring too high. You're too intelligent to set public policy I'm afraid.
Lee Reynolds
What????
Violent crime among teens is not primarily due to lone crazies. Geeks as a group are not dangerous, they never have been.
Which person is more likely to be violent, a socially inept person who may or may not be into computers, or a member of a street gang involved in criminal activity?
It seems to me like you've bought into the post-columbine mob mentality that says anyone who doesn't fit in is a potential threat. Sorry charlie, but the real world just doesn't work that way.
Lee Reynolds