Being happy and unhappy, in most people, is more about your life than about anything else, and to take a pill to be happy all the time is a little too Brave New World for me.
Well, for some of us, it's most likely a chemical imbalance. In my case, geneology and medical history have shown that no amount of well-wishing or good life circumstances is going to cure my depression. It comes and it goes, and I can (and have) lived better through chemistry, but I am currently off the meds. The side effects are too much for me, and even if they weren't, I don't like the idea of being dependant on anything, much less drugs. That, and my depression isn't currently that bad.
I realize I'm not "most people", but it's not out of the realm of possibility that chemicals in the brain affect your mood, and you can thereby bring a person whose mood is *always* crippling depression up to a level of at least liveable malaise using chemicals. It's not being happy all the time, it's just trying to be a productive member of society and not suffering for it.
But if you, as a parent, believe that it is wrong for your children to be exposed to pornography, then it is complete fucking impossible to bring them up right in modern liberal society without enclosing them in a solid steel cube and burying them 20 feet underground.
Maybe you should have thought about that before having children. I hear they have these really neat things called "condoms" that allow you experience the joys of sex without the responsibilities of parenthood.
So the fact that some parents would like a little help from the government in bringing up their kids is hardly people failing to take responsibility for their own kids.
Asking someone else for help is all well and good until you just give up trying to be a good parent and insist that everyone else change just to suit you and your lack of parenting.
The truth is that you repeat this mantra, not because you care about how anyone brings up their kids, but because you'd like free access to various materials on the web.
Yeah, that's true. I don't give a damn how you raise your children. I do care when you try to treat adults as children. Do you have any good reason why I should *not* be allowed access to those materials? And "my children might see it!" is not a good reason. Get a fucking filtering proxy.
I'll close with a quote and a question:
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.
-- Mark Twain
Do you like steak? Are you willing to give it up because your children can't handle it?
The parent post is just step 3. Isn't it interesting how the people who first want parents "taking responsibility" for raising their children in fact do not want that, they want to impose a child-rearing method on parents.
You know, this is the first time I've *ever* heard of anything like this happening, and as it happens to come from one side attributing it to another, I'm going to have to call straw man.
I have *never* heard any anti-censorsip proponents claim that you shouldn't restrict what your kids see (except perhaps as a vague sidenote that kids can't be shielded forever). I'm fairly certain that the people in favor of _more_ freedom and personal liberty are probably in favor of people raising their children however they see fit. What anti-censorsip people are opposed to is being *treated* like children because parents can't seem to take the responsibility of actually being good parents. It's epitomized in this quote:
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.
-- Mark Twain
Want to control what your kid sees on the Internet? Install a personal firewall/proxy to filter out whatever you deem "bad". DON'T try to deny the rest of us access to information merely because you think it's wrong. You have no right; we are not your children, we are adults, and can decide what we can see for ourselves.
An atheist doing the same act is performing a truly altruistic act, knowing he could either have got away with the alternative and will receive nothing in return.
Actually, that's not true for all of us atheists. For example, I don't do things that would harm others because I believe that that would harm me (eventually, indirectly). I'm just selfish like that.
If 5 billion of us were to instantly just fall over dead, the human species still wouldn't be threatened with extinction.
Actually, I'd take it one step further - if five billion people died tomorrow, it would increase our chances of survival, or at least put off our extinction for quite some time while we repopulate to our current suicidal, habitat-destroying levels.
But this notion of people getting the majority of their news from places like this has got to stop.
You have a good point. However . . .
But if you follow them you can have just as good of an idea as to what's going on in the world.
. . . this is where your argument falls flat on it's face . . . into a pile of manure . . . which comes directly from the ass end of the republican and democratic parties. Get back to me when your "real" news has anywhere near the intelligence, insight or even just plain journalistic integrity that The Daily Show and The Onion have.
People aren't saying they get their news from The Daily Show and The Onion to "sound cool and progressive" (what kind of moronic fad-craving twat came up with *that* drivel?). They're saying that "real" news is so pathetic, so underinformed on important issues and so lap dog obsequious to the powers that be that the "joke" news outfits are the best place to get their news, so that's where they're going to get it.
I've seen a lot of comments arguing about "intellectual property" and I just want to straighten something out right now: there is no such thing as "intellectual property". Ideas and property are nothing alike; ideas can be copied infinitely at no cost. Property cannot be copied infinitely at no cost. No one can own an idea.
The state (of the people, by the people and for the people) may temporarily grant someone exclusive _rights_ to the copying or use of an idea, but this is nothing like property rights. Property rights are in place because multiple people can't use a piece of property at the same time. Copyrights (and patents) are in place to encourage the advancement of new and useful ideas and art (go ahead, look it up, it's in the constitution).
Don't believe me? Go ask a lawyer about so-called "intellectual property". The first thing she will do is ask you "are you talking about copyrights, patents or trademarks?". You'll notice that none of those has anything to do with property. Don't use the phrase "intellectual property"; it's deceitful language used by manipulative people to try to get you into the frame of mind of treating ideas as property.
There's nothing less interesting than navigating into a discussion and reading two hundred attempts at reflecting the un-official group consesus of Slashdot.
Not to mention there is no consensus on slashdot, official or otherwise. You may think there is after you get modded to oblivion for saying that Clinton was as big a retard as Bush, just in different ways, but that's just a group of assholes with agendas and mod points pooling together to try and censor you (which, I migth add, is impossible considering that anyone is free to browse comments at -1). Usually these same assholes get metamodded to oblivion, and never get a chance to inflict their totalitarian impulses again. It doesn't always work, but what system is perfect? If you know of a better one, by all means, let us know.
I think the point is that conservative voters are more likely to support these kinds of things. It's pretty obvious that Clinton and Lieberman aren't trying to win over any liberal intellectuals with all this "family values" posing.
And this is why I fervently hope that neither one of them runs for president because the last thing I want to do is vote for a Republican just to keep one of them from being president.
We don't do that down here. We have one Party, and it's the Government Party. The Elephant wing of the Government Party censors your video games because they're afraid you might see boobs, and the Jackass wing of the Government Party censors your video games because they're afraid you might see explosions.
The Party in shares its work between its two wings on most other issues, too. Elephants want to put a webcam in your home to make sure you're not a smoking pot, and to save you from the terrorists, and Jackasses want to put webcams in your home to make sure you're not smoking tobacco and to save you from junk food.
You sir, are a genius. A more cogent analysis of American politics I have not seen in a long time. The above is also the reason that I'm not registered with any political party and get annoyed when someone thinks I am criticizing a politician because of their political persuasion. The truth is, both major parties in this country disgust me almost equally. The "almost equally" could be attributed to the fact that only one of them has had a lot of power for a while now.
I can see the points being made but I can't give up on public education just yet The fact that you had a good experience, I had a good experience, and undoubtedly many more have good experiences show that the system can work. Now, granted, my views are tainted by the fact that I did come out of a good public school system and I admittedly have a narrow field of view based on that. But still, just because it's fucked up doesn't mean it's irreparable. Maybe it is, but at this point I can't get on the "let's destroy public schools and dump the kids into private schools" bandwagon.
I look at it like social security: good idea, bad implementation. If an idea is being implemented wrong, you don't throw out the idea, you throw out the implementation and get a new one! Or at least try to fix the current implementation. As an aside, has it ever occurred to anyone that those who are opposed to the idea are sabotaging the implementation to try to discredit the idea? Wouldn't surprise me.
What should have happened? Well, for one, someone from the Cedega project who also uses WoW (chances are pretty good) should get into communication with the Blizzard people in order to work out any issues. Allowing people to use Linux while playing WoW is certainly in Blizzard's interest and since Cedega is doing the bulk of the work, I can't imagine why Blizzard wouldn't at least come to the table to work it out. Cutting users off is likely the side-effect of an automated process not seeing what it expects to see and not some assault on Linux users.
I can't believe I'm replying, but here it goes: what should have happened is that that Blizzard should have released a native GNU/Linux client, especially if it really is "in Blizzard's interest". But honestly, I've already written to them requesting ports in the past, and they just don't care. It should be obvious from this and the bnetd debacle that while Blizzard may be a successful company for doing some things right (supporting games forever, making good games in the first place), they could be doing better.
For the moment, let's just ignore that this whole problem is because Blizzard refuses to port their software to GNU/Linux; how else might this problem have been prevented? Is it possible to prevent cheating without root-kitting your customers' computers? I think the answer is a definite yes. It's pretty simple, and I'm confused why game companies keep ignoring the obvious: if you don't want someone to cheat in a multiplayer game, keep the important data out of their reach. If their client says "I'm level 60!" and the server shows they are level 10, the server should ignore that information from the client. The client will always be able to be hacked, no matter what you do, and as someone pointed out earlier, even the stream can be hacked by an intermediate machine not running the client.
In summary: 1) don't trust the client 2) don't install spyware, rootkits or other hostile software on your customers' machines and 3) port your damned software to GNU/Linux!
Ideally, I would shave with a straight razor, but I'm kinda scared...
Don't be afraid; once you get accustomed to it, you will cut yourself less than with any safety razor.
I switched a few years back from an electric to a straight razor (before the electric, I had been using regular blades). I take pride in the fact that I get a closer shave and I'll never have to buy another razor or blade again. Sure, most brand new straight razors are a wee bit pricey, but you can usually find straight razors in antique shops for dirt cheap. That and a strop and a stone will get you where you need to go.
The one thing I've found online that helped me the most was the The RazorCentral by Arthur Boon. You might also want to search on Google groups for Arthur Boon, and "straight razor".
Thus, claims that Second Hand Smoke is dangerous are bad pseudo-science at best, intentional lies at worst.
I'd never heard the (insane) claim that second hand smoke is as dangerous as first hand smoke. That just sounds silly. However, I think most people object to second hand smoke because it is not a choice you get to make. It is often forced upon you. Also, I find it highly unlikely that second hand smoke is completely harmless. That just sounds silly too, especially to those of us who are allergic to it. Other than that, I'm all for smoker's rights, just as long as I don't have to inhale it.
Then in six months or so when you would normally do a fresh Ubuntu install
Whoa, whoa, wait, hold the fucking phone, full stop: you normally do a fresh Ubuntu install every six months? Holy shit, I thought that stuff was only for Windows. I can't imagine reinstalling Linux ever, at least since I switched to Debian, much less every six months. Is this what Gentoo and Ubuntu have done to Linux? Turned them into Windows clones?
I used to be able to appreciate the "control" and "performance" you supposedly get with compiling everything from source. Heck, back when I still had the "gcc -O99" fever and compiled everything from source, it was with Slackware because Gentoo wasn't around yet. Did I learn a lot? Sure. Did I waste a lot of time and CPU cycles? You betcha. I'm better now, and what with a full time job (programming), and a life, and a wife, I don't have time for that anymore.
Not to flame on the Gentoo community (it's nice to see other Linux users besides me who can appreciate BSD's portage), but you guys shouldn't get so offended so easily and realize that Gentoo isn't for everyone; it fills a niche, a very small niche, and unfortunately, it has attracted the ricers and other losers who don't know better. That's what turns people off to Gentoo. That and regular six month reinstalls or neverending upgrade/compile cycles.
Hey, about the ATRA, you might want to think twice about linking to an organization that is little more than a PR/lobbying front group for big business. Not that I'm for frivolous lawsuits, but the plain truth of the matter is that most frivolous lawsuits are laughed out of court. Most of the abuses of the law system that succeed come/from/ big business.
It painted a pretty good argument FOR GM food... to feed the millions who are otherwise dying because it's hard to get crops to grow in their parts of the world.
Look, the cause of starving people is not supply. How many times do we have to repeat this? The problem is distribution. There is already way more than enough food to go around, it just needs to go around some more. Does this mean that improvements such as GM shouldn't be researched? Hell no! What many people are arguing against with GM is the idiocy of patenting plants and the possible unforseen consequences of using GM food. If you really want to help the millions who are starving, donate to a charity that sends them food and teaches them agriculture, but also write your representatives and protest patents on food that would make it impossible for those very same starving farmers to plant because the seed is patented.
Definitely in this instance its probably a case of systems that are somewhat overly complex and not fool proof coupled with the fact that people who run polling station qualify as fools especially when it comes to electronics and changing from familiar systems to new ones. Little old ladies and civil servants can grok paper ballets and punch cards, not computers.
Not all of us are little old ladies. Civil servant maybe, but that's only because I write software for the federal government. Not all of us are as technically illiterate as you'd like to believe. And have you ever considered volunteering to man the polls? It's a kind of civic service that is easy, doesn't take much time, and could use more young, savvy, computer literate people.
It isn't worth the risk to alter the outcome between one of your parties candidates and another.
I don't know about you, but I would have much rather had John McCain than George Bush on the presidential ticket in 2000. And if you had the ethics of Karl Rove, tampering with ballot machines in the primaries would be extremely tempting. I keep telling all of my friends who are registered as Republican (and reasonable people who don't like Bush) to please vote in the primaries, because it *can* make a difference. I've been half tempted to register Republican myself just to vote in the primaries and prevent another Bush from getting into office.
I'll not respond to the rest of your post because I can't find much fault with it.
In a rational society, either the people's law enforcement system would take care of the problem of crack users, prostitutes, and polluteres ruining woody ravines near their homes, or the people would be empowered to take care of the problem themselves using whatever force is necessary.
It's irrational to create a society wherein good people hide behind walls while the criminals roam free.
Or hey, why not just solve two of those problems preemptively by legalising them. Then the crack addicts would be treated as a patients with a disease (mental illness of addiction) and be in clinics, and the prostitutes would be in brothels or the legalized "red light district". No more hiding in woody ravines where the kids want to play.
As for the polluters, well, you will have to throw a lot of time and money at it to combat the worst of them, big business. But yeah, I think corporations who pollute should have their charter revoked, their shareholders fined and their chief officers thrown in jail. Or "taken care of" in some other, more forceful way.
kindly explain to me then just why it is that shelf space for PC games is shrinking in the shops
Since I'm all out of mod points, and you're a friend of mine, I'll "kindly" explain it to you: PC games have moved on. They've already hit the next generation of distribution and are leading the way with online games and online content like Valve's Steam. Heck, I buy all my Linux games online! Who needs shelf space when you can skip the long line of losers waiting outside Best Buy at 3AM and order your game from the comfort of your own home and have it in mere minutes? And where are the consoles in this? They're finally catching up with online multiplayer games and almost getting to the point that you could have a real LAN party with them. Call me when you have more than four people in the same room playing Dawn of War or Quake III Arena on their XBox 360s. Oh, and not getting their asses handed to them by those who are using mouse+keyboard for control.
Re:If a tree falls in the woods, and no one cares.
on
The Death of Privacy
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· Score: 1
I know it's chic in geek circles to put down the common man as a way to make yourself seem smarter, but this seems ridiculous.
I've got to take issue with this. I know it's chic to play on the insecure geek stereotype, but most geeks wouldn't be insecure if it wasn't for the insecure anti-intellectuals who bully them. Not only that, but I think you misunderstand; it's not that geeks put down the common man because they want to feel smarter, it's because they feel alienated and frustrated, and wished that everyone was as smart (or smarter than them). I'm a geek and I *wish* everyone was smarter than me, then things might be better than they are, and at least people wouldn't be lying to me when they tell me they know better.
It seems that the percentage of non-windows using slashdotters keeps falling. For example, the GP's notion that freeDOS isn't necessary because of WinXP utilities and from the recent tab closing posting regarding Firefox (FF works differently in windows than on many linux systems with respect to middle-click). Now I haven't been here forever, but it seems more common recently to see windows-centric "advice". I'm sure there are more examples of this, but what's the deal?
We've been invaded, similar to when AOL dumped all the newbies on Usenet. I too remember a time when a sig advertising "free mac mini!" was unthinkable, and Windows users with questions about Windows bugs were rightfully told to go ask Microsoft. Thankfully, there are options to turn off certain sections; I personally have Apple and BSD turned off (I'm perfectly happy with Linux and don't need to see any self-congratulatory wankery or bug reports for other OSes; see my sig). I only wish there was a way to turn off Microsoft and Windows stories as well. For now, whenever I see a Microsoft or Windows headline, I think "who gives a shit?" and ignore it. I'm ever so hopeful that my lack of moderation on those stories (as I get mod points fairly often) will help to turn them to shit so the Windows users will leave. Either that, or I hope they add a feature to slashdot to be able to turn off Microsoft and Windows stories. *sigh* I miss the early Linux only slashdot.
And we'd still be obsessed with whatever we couldn't get; if there wasn't anything we couldn't get, we'd invent something that couldn't be got so we could be obsessed with it.
Slashdot Mirror
Atheism isn't a system. It's not a belief. It's a lack of belief. That's it, that's all.
Well, for some of us, it's most likely a chemical imbalance. In my case, geneology and medical history have shown that no amount of well-wishing or good life circumstances is going to cure my depression. It comes and it goes, and I can (and have) lived better through chemistry, but I am currently off the meds. The side effects are too much for me, and even if they weren't, I don't like the idea of being dependant on anything, much less drugs. That, and my depression isn't currently that bad.
I realize I'm not "most people", but it's not out of the realm of possibility that chemicals in the brain affect your mood, and you can thereby bring a person whose mood is *always* crippling depression up to a level of at least liveable malaise using chemicals. It's not being happy all the time, it's just trying to be a productive member of society and not suffering for it.
Maybe you should have thought about that before having children. I hear they have these really neat things called "condoms" that allow you experience the joys of sex without the responsibilities of parenthood.
Asking someone else for help is all well and good until you just give up trying to be a good parent and insist that everyone else change just to suit you and your lack of parenting.
Yeah, that's true. I don't give a damn how you raise your children. I do care when you try to treat adults as children. Do you have any good reason why I should *not* be allowed access to those materials? And "my children might see it!" is not a good reason. Get a fucking filtering proxy.
I'll close with a quote and a question:
Do you like steak? Are you willing to give it up because your children can't handle it?
You know, this is the first time I've *ever* heard of anything like this happening, and as it happens to come from one side attributing it to another, I'm going to have to call straw man.
I have *never* heard any anti-censorsip proponents claim that you shouldn't restrict what your kids see (except perhaps as a vague sidenote that kids can't be shielded forever). I'm fairly certain that the people in favor of _more_ freedom and personal liberty are probably in favor of people raising their children however they see fit. What anti-censorsip people are opposed to is being *treated* like children because parents can't seem to take the responsibility of actually being good parents. It's epitomized in this quote:
Want to control what your kid sees on the Internet? Install a personal firewall/proxy to filter out whatever you deem "bad". DON'T try to deny the rest of us access to information merely because you think it's wrong. You have no right; we are not your children, we are adults, and can decide what we can see for ourselves.
Actually, that's not true for all of us atheists. For example, I don't do things that would harm others because I believe that that would harm me (eventually, indirectly). I'm just selfish like that.
Actually, I'd take it one step further - if five billion people died tomorrow, it would increase our chances of survival, or at least put off our extinction for quite some time while we repopulate to our current suicidal, habitat-destroying levels.
You have a good point. However . . .
. . . this is where your argument falls flat on it's face . . . into a pile of manure . . . which comes directly from the ass end of the republican and democratic parties. Get back to me when your "real" news has anywhere near the intelligence, insight or even just plain journalistic integrity that The Daily Show and The Onion have.
People aren't saying they get their news from The Daily Show and The Onion to "sound cool and progressive" (what kind of moronic fad-craving twat came up with *that* drivel?). They're saying that "real" news is so pathetic, so underinformed on important issues and so lap dog obsequious to the powers that be that the "joke" news outfits are the best place to get their news, so that's where they're going to get it.
I've seen a lot of comments arguing about "intellectual property" and I just want to straighten something out right now: there is no such thing as "intellectual property". Ideas and property are nothing alike; ideas can be copied infinitely at no cost. Property cannot be copied infinitely at no cost. No one can own an idea.
The state (of the people, by the people and for the people) may temporarily grant someone exclusive _rights_ to the copying or use of an idea, but this is nothing like property rights. Property rights are in place because multiple people can't use a piece of property at the same time. Copyrights (and patents) are in place to encourage the advancement of new and useful ideas and art (go ahead, look it up, it's in the constitution).
Don't believe me? Go ask a lawyer about so-called "intellectual property". The first thing she will do is ask you "are you talking about copyrights, patents or trademarks?". You'll notice that none of those has anything to do with property. Don't use the phrase "intellectual property"; it's deceitful language used by manipulative people to try to get you into the frame of mind of treating ideas as property.
Not to mention there is no consensus on slashdot, official or otherwise. You may think there is after you get modded to oblivion for saying that Clinton was as big a retard as Bush, just in different ways, but that's just a group of assholes with agendas and mod points pooling together to try and censor you (which, I migth add, is impossible considering that anyone is free to browse comments at -1). Usually these same assholes get metamodded to oblivion, and never get a chance to inflict their totalitarian impulses again. It doesn't always work, but what system is perfect? If you know of a better one, by all means, let us know.
And this is why I fervently hope that neither one of them runs for president because the last thing I want to do is vote for a Republican just to keep one of them from being president.
You sir, are a genius. A more cogent analysis of American politics I have not seen in a long time. The above is also the reason that I'm not registered with any political party and get annoyed when someone thinks I am criticizing a politician because of their political persuasion. The truth is, both major parties in this country disgust me almost equally. The "almost equally" could be attributed to the fact that only one of them has had a lot of power for a while now.
I look at it like social security: good idea, bad implementation. If an idea is being implemented wrong, you don't throw out the idea, you throw out the implementation and get a new one! Or at least try to fix the current implementation. As an aside, has it ever occurred to anyone that those who are opposed to the idea are sabotaging the implementation to try to discredit the idea? Wouldn't surprise me.
I can't believe I'm replying, but here it goes: what should have happened is that that Blizzard should have released a native GNU/Linux client, especially if it really is "in Blizzard's interest". But honestly, I've already written to them requesting ports in the past, and they just don't care. It should be obvious from this and the bnetd debacle that while Blizzard may be a successful company for doing some things right (supporting games forever, making good games in the first place), they could be doing better.
For the moment, let's just ignore that this whole problem is because Blizzard refuses to port their software to GNU/Linux; how else might this problem have been prevented? Is it possible to prevent cheating without root-kitting your customers' computers? I think the answer is a definite yes. It's pretty simple, and I'm confused why game companies keep ignoring the obvious: if you don't want someone to cheat in a multiplayer game, keep the important data out of their reach. If their client says "I'm level 60!" and the server shows they are level 10, the server should ignore that information from the client. The client will always be able to be hacked, no matter what you do, and as someone pointed out earlier, even the stream can be hacked by an intermediate machine not running the client.
In summary: 1) don't trust the client 2) don't install spyware, rootkits or other hostile software on your customers' machines and 3) port your damned software to GNU/Linux!
Don't be afraid; once you get accustomed to it, you will cut yourself less than with any safety razor.
I switched a few years back from an electric to a straight razor (before the electric, I had been using regular blades). I take pride in the fact that I get a closer shave and I'll never have to buy another razor or blade again. Sure, most brand new straight razors are a wee bit pricey, but you can usually find straight razors in antique shops for dirt cheap. That and a strop and a stone will get you where you need to go.
The one thing I've found online that helped me the most was the The RazorCentral by Arthur Boon. You might also want to search on Google groups for Arthur Boon, and "straight razor".
I'd never heard the (insane) claim that second hand smoke is as dangerous as first hand smoke. That just sounds silly. However, I think most people object to second hand smoke because it is not a choice you get to make. It is often forced upon you. Also, I find it highly unlikely that second hand smoke is completely harmless. That just sounds silly too, especially to those of us who are allergic to it. Other than that, I'm all for smoker's rights, just as long as I don't have to inhale it.
Whoa, whoa, wait, hold the fucking phone, full stop: you normally do a fresh Ubuntu install every six months? Holy shit, I thought that stuff was only for Windows. I can't imagine reinstalling Linux ever, at least since I switched to Debian, much less every six months. Is this what Gentoo and Ubuntu have done to Linux? Turned them into Windows clones?
I used to be able to appreciate the "control" and "performance" you supposedly get with compiling everything from source. Heck, back when I still had the "gcc -O99" fever and compiled everything from source, it was with Slackware because Gentoo wasn't around yet. Did I learn a lot? Sure. Did I waste a lot of time and CPU cycles? You betcha. I'm better now, and what with a full time job (programming), and a life, and a wife, I don't have time for that anymore.
Not to flame on the Gentoo community (it's nice to see other Linux users besides me who can appreciate BSD's portage), but you guys shouldn't get so offended so easily and realize that Gentoo isn't for everyone; it fills a niche, a very small niche, and unfortunately, it has attracted the ricers and other losers who don't know better. That's what turns people off to Gentoo. That and regular six month reinstalls or neverending upgrade/compile cycles.
Yes, but I ride my bicycle to and from work everyday ;)
Hey, about the ATRA, you might want to think twice about linking to an organization that is little more than a PR/lobbying front group for big business. Not that I'm for frivolous lawsuits, but the plain truth of the matter is that most frivolous lawsuits are laughed out of court. Most of the abuses of the law system that succeed come /from/ big business.
Look, the cause of starving people is not supply. How many times do we have to repeat this? The problem is distribution. There is already way more than enough food to go around, it just needs to go around some more. Does this mean that improvements such as GM shouldn't be researched? Hell no! What many people are arguing against with GM is the idiocy of patenting plants and the possible unforseen consequences of using GM food. If you really want to help the millions who are starving, donate to a charity that sends them food and teaches them agriculture, but also write your representatives and protest patents on food that would make it impossible for those very same starving farmers to plant because the seed is patented.
Not all of us are little old ladies. Civil servant maybe, but that's only because I write software for the federal government. Not all of us are as technically illiterate as you'd like to believe. And have you ever considered volunteering to man the polls? It's a kind of civic service that is easy, doesn't take much time, and could use more young, savvy, computer literate people.
I don't know about you, but I would have much rather had John McCain than George Bush on the presidential ticket in 2000. And if you had the ethics of Karl Rove, tampering with ballot machines in the primaries would be extremely tempting. I keep telling all of my friends who are registered as Republican (and reasonable people who don't like Bush) to please vote in the primaries, because it *can* make a difference. I've been half tempted to register Republican myself just to vote in the primaries and prevent another Bush from getting into office.
I'll not respond to the rest of your post because I can't find much fault with it.
Or hey, why not just solve two of those problems preemptively by legalising them. Then the crack addicts would be treated as a patients with a disease (mental illness of addiction) and be in clinics, and the prostitutes would be in brothels or the legalized "red light district". No more hiding in woody ravines where the kids want to play.
As for the polluters, well, you will have to throw a lot of time and money at it to combat the worst of them, big business. But yeah, I think corporations who pollute should have their charter revoked, their shareholders fined and their chief officers thrown in jail. Or "taken care of" in some other, more forceful way.
Since I'm all out of mod points, and you're a friend of mine, I'll "kindly" explain it to you: PC games have moved on. They've already hit the next generation of distribution and are leading the way with online games and online content like Valve's Steam. Heck, I buy all my Linux games online! Who needs shelf space when you can skip the long line of losers waiting outside Best Buy at 3AM and order your game from the comfort of your own home and have it in mere minutes? And where are the consoles in this? They're finally catching up with online multiplayer games and almost getting to the point that you could have a real LAN party with them. Call me when you have more than four people in the same room playing Dawn of War or Quake III Arena on their XBox 360s. Oh, and not getting their asses handed to them by those who are using mouse+keyboard for control.
I've got to take issue with this. I know it's chic to play on the insecure geek stereotype, but most geeks wouldn't be insecure if it wasn't for the insecure anti-intellectuals who bully them. Not only that, but I think you misunderstand; it's not that geeks put down the common man because they want to feel smarter, it's because they feel alienated and frustrated, and wished that everyone was as smart (or smarter than them). I'm a geek and I *wish* everyone was smarter than me, then things might be better than they are, and at least people wouldn't be lying to me when they tell me they know better.
We've been invaded, similar to when AOL dumped all the newbies on Usenet. I too remember a time when a sig advertising "free mac mini!" was unthinkable, and Windows users with questions about Windows bugs were rightfully told to go ask Microsoft. Thankfully, there are options to turn off certain sections; I personally have Apple and BSD turned off (I'm perfectly happy with Linux and don't need to see any self-congratulatory wankery or bug reports for other OSes; see my sig). I only wish there was a way to turn off Microsoft and Windows stories as well. For now, whenever I see a Microsoft or Windows headline, I think "who gives a shit?" and ignore it. I'm ever so hopeful that my lack of moderation on those stories (as I get mod points fairly often) will help to turn them to shit so the Windows users will leave. Either that, or I hope they add a feature to slashdot to be able to turn off Microsoft and Windows stories. *sigh* I miss the early Linux only slashdot.
Hey, that sounds so familiar, like I've heard of it somewhere else before . . .