A boss hitting on a subordinate is always inappropriate, regardless of the genders. There's a power differential and the possibility of an implied quid pro quo, even if it isn't explicit. It's always a problem, even if it isn't couched in abusive context, because the subordinate may feel duress and the boss won't know whether that's the case or not.
Otherwise, unwelcome advances aren't harassment unless they become inappropriately persistent or obviously harassing.
I just finished working through a huge problem* with my university's IT email team. Every time I sent them an email, they followed up by calling me on the phone. Didn't inspire confidence in their email system.
[...] which means more and more IoT devices will try to get un-NATed access to the internet (and will probably also get their wish granted). Good luck trying to firewall that.
Umm... Isn't granting access or not, exactly the primary function of the firewall? When the route to internet goes directly through the firewall, anything behind it, NAT or not, can be blocked on its way in/out. Unless these devices connect thru a network you don't control (LoRa?).
Nope. Common knowledge on Slashdot is that NAT is the pinnacle of security and stateful firewalls don't yet exist or don't work with IPv6. Also, sometimes "firewall" is a synonym for "NAT" and sometimes it's a synonym for "the little box that you plug into the ISP". Hopefully that firewall does NAT, or the Russian hackers will get you!
Your last paragraph reminds me of all the post-Rapture looting parties I've had to cancel.
No kidding! I'm surprised that people even make claims like that anymore. I guess they're either true believers or conmen who intend to disappear before they have to face their pissed off flock.
Just to clarify... you're talking about vitamin supplements (the little pills) and not vitamins (the actual chemical compounds that are known to be essential for certain biochemical processes), right?
The value of supplements to healthy people is questionable at best, but there are certainly specific compounds that we need to ingest for non-caloric purposes to survive ("vitamins"). Many of these are added to "enriched" foods because we don't get enough of them in our modern diet. There are well documented diseases associated with deficiencies of some of these compounds.
In a variation of Poe's Law, I can't discount the idea that there are actually people out there who don't believe in "vitamins".
To follow up on your second sentence, a "scientist" doesn't speak from any position of authority and there is no weight to what a scientist says beyond what they can demonstrate through experiments and collected data. Anybody who asserts the impossibility of something without evidence, or especially if evidence isn't possible, is not using science.
Stating that something is improbable, based on the lack of expected evidence and a tested theoretical framework that doesn't allow for it, isn't unreasonable, but it requires a testable theoretical framework. The best argument against expecting to find Russell's teapot is that our existing physical frameworks don't allow for a mechanism by which something so specific would come to exist where it does. That's a logic and probability argument, though, and not a scientific one.
I do science for a living, and I think that god, ghosts, and Russell's teapot are improbable. However, I have no way to empirically test their existence so I can't say that they don't exist. They are simply not subject to scientific inquiry.
There are also certain religious or paranormal claims that can be tested empirically: religious claims that god has done, or will do, something in a predictable or repeatable way; claims that an observable ghost always appears at a certain place at a certain time...
Instead of going through your long list of what isn't scientific, it might be simpler to enumerate what is. Science is the method used to understand phenomena using empirical or measurable evidence. Science does not have any utility in understanding the set of things which are not measurable or testable (eg, god, ghosts, interplanetary teapots).
Wikipedia has a decent article on the scientific method, which has a nice little definition: "To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry is commonly based on empirical or measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning."
In general, it is extremely unscientific to assert that anything doesn't exist. Doubly so if it is impossible to test that assertion. Again, from a helpful Wikipedia article.
In natural science, impossibility assertions (like other assertions) come to be widely accepted as overwhelmingly probable rather than considered proved to the point of being unchallengeable. The basis for this strong acceptance is a combination of extensive evidence of something not occurring, combined with an underlying theory, very successful in making predictions, whose assumptions lead logically to the conclusion that something is impossible.
Russell's Teapot is is a philosophical argument, not a scientific one. There's nothing scientific about making any absolute assertion without supporting evidence. Absolute assertions about metaphysics have nothing at all to do with science.
Anyway, the presence of such a teapot can also be empirically determined, if anyone cared to. In fact, there are some compelling arguments in the link you provided that show how poor of analogy the teapot is for its intended purpose. Comparing the likelihood of unlikely physical events to completely unobservable metaphysical events is shoddy logic.
This reminds me of arguing about this stuff with friends in high school. We've come to a simple dispute over semantics and definitions. Looking up these terms on wikipedia and in various dictionary gives a rather broad set of overlapping or conflicting results, so there is no commonly agreed upon definition here. Your conclusions also follow from your definitions. As there can exist no evidence of any of this, there's nothing scientific about it, though. Occam's Razor is a useful and logical tool, but it's not science.
"Not believing in something" (roughly, agnosticism) is not the same as "asserting that something positively does not exist" (atheism). Agnosticism doesn't require faith, but atheism most certainly does. Atheism is just as irrational as theism.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but stating that there absolutely is no god without any quantifiable evidence to back that statement up is "taking such things on faith". God isn't testable and so has nothing to do with science. Totally orthogonal concepts.
'Atheist' is the closest descriptor you have to 'I believe in science', being convinced the truth lies with the big bang, evolution etc. - yet the agnostic can't rule out some kind of higher power that may nudge things in specific directions without getting as involved as gods tend to do in established religions. They don't necessarily invalidate each other.
Unless there is repeatable, quantifiable evidence that god does not exist. atheism is just as unscientific as theism. Since metaphysics, by definition, is distinct from the observable universe, atheism requires you to base your beliefs on faith just as much as theism does. Suspension of belief until evidence is found is the most rational approach, but expecting evidence of the metaphysical to actually be found isn't very rational. Replacing that old time religion with a goofy science-as-religion where you "believe in the big bang so there's no god" isn't scientific either
Really, god and science are orthogonal concepts and no belief about god (for most definitions of god) can be scientific.
That happened to me as a kid as part of a Boy Scout event and I remember being a little weirded out about it later. I recently did a forensics demonstration at an middle school and I made a point of letting the kids keep their fingerprint cards to do with as they pleased. They were the standard FBI cards that say "Applicant", so I did tell them that they were the first step to join FBI if they wanted to hold onto them!
Indeed, US v Miller took place in 1934, and sawed-off shotguns had been used for house-to-house and trench warfare in WW1 and earlier. So it's not even a matter of showing that they were "militarily useful", but that they were actually developed and issued by the US military as the M1897 and M1912 "trenchguns".
Seriously? Have you even tried reading the US Constitution, or any other English documents from the late 1700s? The sentence structure seems a little odd in places, but it's utterly comprehensible to any common English speaker. The Constitution doesn't even contain archaic idioms or anything.
We may be arguing about the original intent behind some unfortunately terse sections of it, but that's not because it takes a linguist to read the document. Even modern laws are terse and vague enough to need a system of courts to interpret them.
At a minimum, the people in jail for pretrial detention deserve access to their families and support system at a better rate than $3.75 for a 15 minute local call.
You're absolutely right. But it's not within the FCC's purview to regulate intra-state commerce.
So that's where they draw the line? Can't they just use the Wickard v. Filburn argument that is the basis for the entire drug prohibition framework and say that all commerce (and even the lack of commerce) affects interstate commerce, so everything is within the federal purview?
Cool. Thanks for the history lesson. I've never been very interested in them, so I never really read about much past the rise of the party. I appreciate your informative and non-hateful response!
I said nothing at all about the Nazi's overall goals; I was just responding to the socialism post. If we can't even discuss history without the proper virtue signaling, then we'll never learn anything from it. The Nazis were horrible and their ethnic cleansing and eugenics campaigns were atrocious. Can we now talk about their economic system without offending your delicate sensitivities? They're still relevant in our modern world and should be discussed.
Slashdot Mirror
See also unenforceable exculpatory clauses in leases, parking lots, and the like.
A boss hitting on a subordinate is always inappropriate, regardless of the genders. There's a power differential and the possibility of an implied quid pro quo, even if it isn't explicit. It's always a problem, even if it isn't couched in abusive context, because the subordinate may feel duress and the boss won't know whether that's the case or not.
Otherwise, unwelcome advances aren't harassment unless they become inappropriately persistent or obviously harassing.
Yeah... you're not describing an airgapped network.
Ah Slashdot... where a bunch of uncited BS stated authoritatively is at +5 and a referenced, informative reply wallows at 0.
I imagine a future where people show up to events they didnt sign up for simply because some spammer sent them a properly formatted email.
If you show up to something that you have no recollection of signing up for just because your phone's calendar said to, then you are an idiot.
Whew! It's a good thing that there a only a few idiots in our world, then. Situation averted.
I just finished working through a huge problem* with my university's IT email team. Every time I sent them an email, they followed up by calling me on the phone. Didn't inspire confidence in their email system.
[...] which means more and more IoT devices will try to get un-NATed access to the internet (and will probably also get their wish granted). Good luck trying to firewall that.
Umm... Isn't granting access or not, exactly the primary function of the firewall?
When the route to internet goes directly through the firewall, anything behind it, NAT or not, can be blocked on its way in/out.
Unless these devices connect thru a network you don't control (LoRa?).
Nope. Common knowledge on Slashdot is that NAT is the pinnacle of security and stateful firewalls don't yet exist or don't work with IPv6. Also, sometimes "firewall" is a synonym for "NAT" and sometimes it's a synonym for "the little box that you plug into the ISP". Hopefully that firewall does NAT, or the Russian hackers will get you!
We don't call them kiwifruit in the US, either. They are just called "kiwi".
He's probably a kiwi (alternately a NZ resident and a tasty-but-endangered flightless bird).
Your last paragraph reminds me of all the post-Rapture looting parties I've had to cancel.
No kidding! I'm surprised that people even make claims like that anymore. I guess they're either true believers or conmen who intend to disappear before they have to face their pissed off flock.
Just to clarify... you're talking about vitamin supplements (the little pills) and not vitamins (the actual chemical compounds that are known to be essential for certain biochemical processes), right?
The value of supplements to healthy people is questionable at best, but there are certainly specific compounds that we need to ingest for non-caloric purposes to survive ("vitamins"). Many of these are added to "enriched" foods because we don't get enough of them in our modern diet. There are well documented diseases associated with deficiencies of some of these compounds.
In a variation of Poe's Law, I can't discount the idea that there are actually people out there who don't believe in "vitamins".
To follow up on your second sentence, a "scientist" doesn't speak from any position of authority and there is no weight to what a scientist says beyond what they can demonstrate through experiments and collected data. Anybody who asserts the impossibility of something without evidence, or especially if evidence isn't possible, is not using science.
Stating that something is improbable, based on the lack of expected evidence and a tested theoretical framework that doesn't allow for it, isn't unreasonable, but it requires a testable theoretical framework. The best argument against expecting to find Russell's teapot is that our existing physical frameworks don't allow for a mechanism by which something so specific would come to exist where it does. That's a logic and probability argument, though, and not a scientific one.
I do science for a living, and I think that god, ghosts, and Russell's teapot are improbable. However, I have no way to empirically test their existence so I can't say that they don't exist. They are simply not subject to scientific inquiry.
There are also certain religious or paranormal claims that can be tested empirically: religious claims that god has done, or will do, something in a predictable or repeatable way; claims that an observable ghost always appears at a certain place at a certain time...
Instead of going through your long list of what isn't scientific, it might be simpler to enumerate what is. Science is the method used to understand phenomena using empirical or measurable evidence. Science does not have any utility in understanding the set of things which are not measurable or testable (eg, god, ghosts, interplanetary teapots).
Wikipedia has a decent article on the scientific method, which has a nice little definition: "To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry is commonly based on empirical or measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning."
In general, it is extremely unscientific to assert that anything doesn't exist. Doubly so if it is impossible to test that assertion. Again, from a helpful Wikipedia article.
Russell's Teapot is is a philosophical argument, not a scientific one. There's nothing scientific about making any absolute assertion without supporting evidence. Absolute assertions about metaphysics have nothing at all to do with science.
Anyway, the presence of such a teapot can also be empirically determined, if anyone cared to. In fact, there are some compelling arguments in the link you provided that show how poor of analogy the teapot is for its intended purpose. Comparing the likelihood of unlikely physical events to completely unobservable metaphysical events is shoddy logic.
This reminds me of arguing about this stuff with friends in high school. We've come to a simple dispute over semantics and definitions. Looking up these terms on wikipedia and in various dictionary gives a rather broad set of overlapping or conflicting results, so there is no commonly agreed upon definition here. Your conclusions also follow from your definitions. As there can exist no evidence of any of this, there's nothing scientific about it, though. Occam's Razor is a useful and logical tool, but it's not science.
"Not believing in something" (roughly, agnosticism) is not the same as "asserting that something positively does not exist" (atheism). Agnosticism doesn't require faith, but atheism most certainly does. Atheism is just as irrational as theism.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but stating that there absolutely is no god without any quantifiable evidence to back that statement up is "taking such things on faith". God isn't testable and so has nothing to do with science. Totally orthogonal concepts.
'Atheist' is the closest descriptor you have to 'I believe in science', being convinced the truth lies with the big bang, evolution etc. - yet the agnostic can't rule out some kind of higher power that may nudge things in specific directions without getting as involved as gods tend to do in established religions. They don't necessarily invalidate each other.
Unless there is repeatable, quantifiable evidence that god does not exist. atheism is just as unscientific as theism. Since metaphysics, by definition, is distinct from the observable universe, atheism requires you to base your beliefs on faith just as much as theism does. Suspension of belief until evidence is found is the most rational approach, but expecting evidence of the metaphysical to actually be found isn't very rational. Replacing that old time religion with a goofy science-as-religion where you "believe in the big bang so there's no god" isn't scientific either
Really, god and science are orthogonal concepts and no belief about god (for most definitions of god) can be scientific.
...the sane-ish one. Overall, there's a bit of a trend here.
"New Chronology is a great area for investing my intellect...My analytical abilities are well placed to figure out what was right and what was wrong."
And they were right; they never made it to 2012.
We need to fix this Unix 32 bit time issue before it's too late for us!
That happened to me as a kid as part of a Boy Scout event and I remember being a little weirded out about it later. I recently did a forensics demonstration at an middle school and I made a point of letting the kids keep their fingerprint cards to do with as they pleased. They were the standard FBI cards that say "Applicant", so I did tell them that they were the first step to join FBI if they wanted to hold onto them!
Indeed, US v Miller took place in 1934, and sawed-off shotguns had been used for house-to-house and trench warfare in WW1 and earlier. So it's not even a matter of showing that they were "militarily useful", but that they were actually developed and issued by the US military as the M1897 and M1912 "trenchguns".
Seriously? Have you even tried reading the US Constitution, or any other English documents from the late 1700s? The sentence structure seems a little odd in places, but it's utterly comprehensible to any common English speaker. The Constitution doesn't even contain archaic idioms or anything.
We may be arguing about the original intent behind some unfortunately terse sections of it, but that's not because it takes a linguist to read the document. Even modern laws are terse and vague enough to need a system of courts to interpret them.
At a minimum, the people in jail for pretrial detention deserve access to their families and support system at a better rate than $3.75 for a 15 minute local call.
You're absolutely right. But it's not within the FCC's purview to regulate intra-state commerce.
So that's where they draw the line? Can't they just use the Wickard v. Filburn argument that is the basis for the entire drug prohibition framework and say that all commerce (and even the lack of commerce) affects interstate commerce, so everything is within the federal purview?
Cool. Thanks for the history lesson. I've never been very interested in them, so I never really read about much past the rise of the party. I appreciate your informative and non-hateful response!
I said nothing at all about the Nazi's overall goals; I was just responding to the socialism post. If we can't even discuss history without the proper virtue signaling, then we'll never learn anything from it. The Nazis were horrible and their ethnic cleansing and eugenics campaigns were atrocious. Can we now talk about their economic system without offending your delicate sensitivities? They're still relevant in our modern world and should be discussed.