Hey, guess what -- there ARE natural differences between the genders. That's nothing to be ashamed of. Should this keep a qualified woman from getting a job? Never. It also shouldn't keep a qualified man from getting a job that most people think a woman should be better at.
Nobody here is claiming male superiority in general. Flip around the tube, especially during the day, and you'll see countless shows talking about the things that men aren't as good at. There's even the ridiculous (in my opinion) Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, implying that straight guys have no taste, but gay guys do.
For every rule there are exceptions. As a rule, men naturally make better firefighters than women. But there are perfectly capable female firefighters. That doesn't make it wrong to suggest that women in general lack the attributes of good effective firefighters, especially as a matter of physiology. By the same token, when studying human behavior and aptitude, it would be irresponsible to ignore natural differences between genders.
Don't pretend that you can't tell when the clumsily-driven SUV in front of you is being piloted by a woman. Now go back and read that sentence -- notice that I didn't suggest that no women can drive large automobiles. I didn't say that at all. But generally, there seems to be a real difference in the way men and women perceive their spatial environment.
We don't have X-Ray vision that allows us to see through the hood and the fender and know that we have clearance to make the turn without nicking the car in front of us. We can't SEE any more than women, but somehow we KNOW more about what's out there. We understand what we see more than most women do, based on the same visual input.
Don't pretend this isn't interesting and worthy of study. At the same time, no women should be denied drivers licenses simply because they're women. They should be evaluated by the same standards as men, and they are.
I continue to anxiously await the day when we can speak honestly about these issues without fear of offending the easily-offended.
Yeah, I was gonna say that I have that problem with the Burnout series -- because the driving is pretty realistic, except for the whole permanent death and destruction thing... there have been a few times that I've played a lot and then went out in a real car... get behind some cars and you just KNOW you have space to get by them by straddling the double-yellow line. And besides, the "near miss" and the driving into oncoming traffic get you some boost points, so why not? I have come just a hair closer to actually doing that than I'm comfortable with, which does not mean I almost did it, if you know what I mean.
All in all, though, I'm in the "video games are good overall" camp. I'm sure there are people who really do play too much, but I think they're a good thing.
A year or two before my father died, I gave him vanity e-mail address on my server, mainly to get around the constant changes to his e-mail address everytime his ISP got bought out by another. This turned out to be useful when he became incapacitated in the hospital, and later when he died. While he was in the hospital, I wanted one of his passwords to inquire about something in one of his accounts. I realized that with his e-mail account, I could do a password recovery and get what I needed. So I just started forwarding his e-mail to me instead of to him.
So if you happen to have a server capable of meeting all of your family's e-mail needs without cramping their style, this ain't a bad way to fly. Of course, when I die -- well, that's somebody else's problem, isn't it?:)
I don't pretend to think this is an original thought... I'll say it anyway. For each time that I wished I could make a call from a plane, there were probably 50 times that I was glad I had a rock-solid excuse for not being called by anybody, and there were probably a 100 times that I didn't even think about that I would have been disturbed by somebody else on their phone.
Now the announcement from the crew will be "please put your phones on vibrate out of respect for your fellow passengers," and that will be largely ignored along with something about oxygen masks and floatation devices.
I'm all in favor of dumb rules going away and freedom to use my phone when I really need to, but I really believe that I will miss the relative peace that came with knowing that nobody had a phone and there was nothing we could do about it.
On another topic, I thought I heard that cell phone towers only have a range of a mile or two. So how is it that we expect to be able to use our cell phones at 30,000 feet (5.6 miles)? Just wondering.
The YRO category gets abused quite a bit. It's easy to forget what is and isn't a right. Some people think they have a right to three hots and a cot, but they don't.
OK, kids going to public school... they have a right to move from home, to school bus, to school, betwixt classes, and back home without being observed by school administrators. Right? Uh, no. They don't. They're children. The school is tasked to protect them.
Will the school be held accountable if something happens to those kids on their way home? Probably. It's a lot like 9/11 problem that government faced. If they had reacted sufficiently to stop the attack, they would have been accused of violating citizens' rights, so they really couldn't prevent it. It took 9/11 to make us realize how real the unimaginable danger was.
Moving on... remember, these kids are going to public school. Do they have to? No. If their parents feel strongly enough about this, they can put them in a private school that doesn't monitor their kids location.
I'm a parent. Freedom for my kids will come later. Right now they're too precious and naive to have any idea of the responsibility that comes with freedom.
It seems like 9 out of 10 YRO stories have nothing to do with actual rights that we have as Americans (realizing, of course, that many of our Slashdot brethren live elsewhere).
Yeah, yeah, a little off-topic. But I was pondering this last night. Aren't software patents EXACTLY like cooking patents?
Some recipes are secrets. That perfect cookie. The formula of Coca-Cola. Some recipes are completely free, aired on Good Morning America, for example. Others are copyrighted and available by buying a cookbook. But they're still open, in that you can modify them to suit your needs, making substitutions of ingredients or methods, or improving the recipe in other ways.
But whether the recipe is a secret (closed) or published (open), nobody will ever tell you that you make something that tastes like X. You can legally copy Coca-Cola, in that you can try as much as you want to make something that tastes exactly the same. McDonald's Big Mac is not protected as a food. It's protected as a BRAND, but that's completely different and it's a copyright thing, not a patent thing. McDonald's patents anything they can, including their french fry box. But they can't patent the food itself. Why? Well, we already know the answer. Because it's stupid.
And software patents are stupid in exactly the same way. Programming code is nothing but a recipe, and a running program is no different than a completed dish. If you like the end result, you can try your best to copy it on your own.
Well, I'm sure a lot of big corporate lawyers will make the argument that there will never be any innovation in the cooking industry if investment isn't rewarded by government in the form of protection from competition. Well ask Betty Crocker if she's suffering from the rampant piracy of her Chili Macaroni recipe. She just has to suck it up, either making a better recipe or packaging the same recipe in a better book.
Come on, folks. We don't have to keep tolerating software patents. They're absolutely ridiculous and the policies of the USPTO need to be changed. Get the stinkin' word out.
Many of the specifics of this case don't really matter, I think. What everybody in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) needs to realize is that they now work in the most intimidating department of the federal government, because of stories like this and worse ones... whether true or not, the stories of people being taken away and held without bond, the blanket superuser authority of DHS officials is scary to anybody.
Because of the fear involved in their department, they need to be very careful the way they deal with the public, especially when the public they're dealing with is obviously and completely unrelated to a serious threat against the Homeland (and I'm not talking about a minor "economic" threat like selling cheap copies of toys). Of course, this won't matter to many of them, because unfortunately there are many in law enforcement at all levels who do it because of the power they can yield by flashing a badge, turning on a blue light, or calling somebody on the telephone and dropping the name of their agency.
I am voting for Bush next Tuesday for a variety of reasons (please try not to get inflamed about my choice, which might be different than yours) and I often defend the actions of the DHS (although I wasn't convinced and am still not convinced that we needed a new cabinet-level department to keep us safe) and I often defend the Patriot Act (though I have an open mind about parts of it that might need to be ammended). But I'm not going to be partisan and find an imaginary way to defend anybody from the DHS contacting a retailer and making them remove an item from their shelves without clearly and kindly demonstrating the reasons for the removal, just because I think that's supporting my candidate. These guys would have gotten all the response that they wanted from the retailer by simply saying they were with the Customs Service. Suddenly everybody who is a part of the DHS (which is a LOT of people) wants to go around name-dropping so they get an extra little fear out of everybody. It's completely unneccessary and ridiculous. I would say that many, many people in the DHS should never have to tell the public in their introductions what cabinet department they're in. It will inevitably generate more fear and intimidation than is necessary.
I believe this is not a policy problem, though. This is that rampant problem with the lower levels of law enforcement, the name dropping and ego trip problem. Unfortunately, there's little that can be done about this, except for a change in the culture, which can take decades.
Sorry, I missed the original story, but I distinctly remember this happening to me when I was a kid. The driver was my dad and I was maybe 12 or 13. We were driving my grandmother's car, I believe it was a Buick. This would have been, say, a 1979 Buick or something. Maybe later -- it was when cruise control was quite new in the mainstream market.
Anyway, we were on an interstate journey (interstate, in this case, referring to both the type of highway and the fact that we were traveling from one state to another). My Dad put on the cruise control... and they're off! We were up to 80 in no time. And this was back before people drove 80 all the time. The national speed limit was 55 and 60 was about as fast as we ever went in a family car. The car showed no sign of slowing until Dad turned off the cruise control. He turned it back on and there it went again.
Eventually, I guess the car was serviced and it was OK. But I for one am all set to believe out-of-control cruise control stories, because it happened to me.
Well, people who sit around drinking for 13 hours for the same reasons would be seen as alcoholics, but I agree that there are many people who do not create negative consequences in their lives from gaming.
I didn't think of this as an alarmist story, especially in this day and age. The first thing that I thought of was NOT that somebody was trying to take down an airliner with a laser, but that they were merely AIMING at the airliner with a laser, to shoot something more substantial at it and bring it down.
I'm a little surprised this hasn't happened yet, to be honest. Well, I'm surprised a lot of things haven't happened yet. Is it possible that this administration is actually doing a great deal to protect us? Or is this just a delay that the enemy is using to put us in an artificial comfort zone?
Yes, "the enemy" is real and they're not politicians. They're cowards who don't wear uniforms or distinguish between combatants and noncombatants. They want to kill us all.
Well, I guess they should have said called it "an illusion of zero gravity, relative to the motion of the aircraft" -- which is what it really is. Sure, it's not truly zero gravity, but it's also very, very different from skydiving.
I would say that skydiving doesn't even provide a similar experience, since the key to "experience" is what your body feels like it's doing, rather than what it's actually doing. This is skydiving without seeing the ground rushing towards you and without all the wind -- which makes it VERY different.
Man, Gremlins needed that rating. That was some fsck'd up #!/sh -- they were freaky. I remember the launching of that rating and it has been a good thing. I say that as a kid who was 13 when it came out and now as a parent of young children. It's helpful.
Of course, guys a couple of years younger than me might have a different report. Obviously, being 13 at the time, I didn't see any down side.
Temple of Doom needed it pretty badly also. I remember the eyeballs in the soup or something like that:)
Yeah, let's use sponsorship for something valuable to the consumer again. Like the sponsored shows in early television (like "The Maxwell House Price is Right", for example -- I made that one up, but you get the idea). The whole show was basically a commercial for a single product, and the whole show was paid for by that company. Kind of like what stadiums and concert venues are doing now, except without the benefit to the customer. It should be either cheap or free to go to a stadium that's named after a company, but instead of lowering the price of admission, they're doing that to pay obscene salaries.
But I digress....
I think a sponsored video game would be a great idea. Say Pepsico pays great game developers to make a great game, then they give it away. You can download it or pick up a CD at the store. It's blatantly a Mountain Dew advertisement, with Mountain Dew billboards all over the game world, and yes, the main character always finds his refreshment in a nice, cold Mountain Dew. Before you know it, you're thirsty for a nice, cold Mountain Dew also.
And the best thing about it is that the consumer once again gets dramatic benefit out of sponsorship, just like you do on the radio and on broadcast TV. You get the content for free in hopes that you'll buy from the sponsor.
Since the topic of spam has come up again, I blogged about this in January and would welcome feedback on my idea. In summary, it is my belief that we should simply make users accountable for the content of their e-mail and accept everything. Read on...
I'm surprised that more people from the left aren't absolutely ashamed of what's going on over there. All the talk of anarchy, black powder on your clothes to confuse the dogs, volunteering for the convention and then not showing up, trying to DoS their website, etc.
God forbid any of these people would go out and campaign for their candidate on the issues. Go door to door asking people to vote for him and telling them why they should. Contribute money to your candidate's campaign. Go to the local campaign headquarters and ask what you can do to help your candidate -- something you can tell your grandchildren about with pride.
The problem with the left is that they're so desperate to defeat Bush that they'll do absolutely anything sort of breaking the law. And I'm sure some won't stop there. Remember, it doesn't have to be a felony or a misdemeanor for something to be wrong or unscrupulous. DoS'ing the GOP's website is going to do absolutely nothing to help your candidate. And neither is causing chaos at the convention.
I, for one, am completely in favor of very strict criminal penalties for anybody who intentionally distrupts the security personnel or infrastructure at the convention or at any high profile event. Send these morons to the city jail for some serious amount of time -- like 90 days. If there's no room for them in the jail, build a tent city outside of town and keep them there.
Protesting is one thing, and you have every right to do that, despite what you and your friends might say about the GOP wanting to silence you. Nobody's going to stop you from protesting, as long as you obey the law. And yes, they might have rules about where you can be. That's not an infringement of free expression. It's a way of attempt to control a potential mob and keep them from intentionally disrupting a location that really does require a lot of security.
Bottom line -- grow up and let the democratic process work. If you really want to help this election, you can get to work educating voters how to vote properly, so we don't have the fiasco we had last time in Florida. Thanks to that lunacy, we unfortunately had to take the whole thing to the courts, which obviously isn't the way a lot of people like to see an election decided.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, guess what -- there ARE natural differences between the genders. That's nothing to be ashamed of. Should this keep a qualified woman from getting a job? Never. It also shouldn't keep a qualified man from getting a job that most people think a woman should be better at.
Nobody here is claiming male superiority in general. Flip around the tube, especially during the day, and you'll see countless shows talking about the things that men aren't as good at. There's even the ridiculous (in my opinion) Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, implying that straight guys have no taste, but gay guys do.
For every rule there are exceptions. As a rule, men naturally make better firefighters than women. But there are perfectly capable female firefighters. That doesn't make it wrong to suggest that women in general lack the attributes of good effective firefighters, especially as a matter of physiology. By the same token, when studying human behavior and aptitude, it would be irresponsible to ignore natural differences between genders.
Don't pretend that you can't tell when the clumsily-driven SUV in front of you is being piloted by a woman. Now go back and read that sentence -- notice that I didn't suggest that no women can drive large automobiles. I didn't say that at all. But generally, there seems to be a real difference in the way men and women perceive their spatial environment.
We don't have X-Ray vision that allows us to see through the hood and the fender and know that we have clearance to make the turn without nicking the car in front of us. We can't SEE any more than women, but somehow we KNOW more about what's out there. We understand what we see more than most women do, based on the same visual input.
Don't pretend this isn't interesting and worthy of study. At the same time, no women should be denied drivers licenses simply because they're women. They should be evaluated by the same standards as men, and they are.
I continue to anxiously await the day when we can speak honestly about these issues without fear of offending the easily-offended.
RP
They were both described as electrical anomalies, but...
anomaly - Deviation or departure from the normal or common order, form, or rule.
Clearly this is becoming, for them, the rule.
"As a younger kid, I was into the whole medieval knight thing..."
:)
You don't say
RP
Well... almost
Yeah, I was gonna say that I have that problem with the Burnout series -- because the driving is pretty realistic, except for the whole permanent death and destruction thing... there have been a few times that I've played a lot and then went out in a real car... get behind some cars and you just KNOW you have space to get by them by straddling the double-yellow line. And besides, the "near miss" and the driving into oncoming traffic get you some boost points, so why not? I have come just a hair closer to actually doing that than I'm comfortable with, which does not mean I almost did it, if you know what I mean.
All in all, though, I'm in the "video games are good overall" camp. I'm sure there are people who really do play too much, but I think they're a good thing.
RP
A year or two before my father died, I gave him vanity e-mail address on my server, mainly to get around the constant changes to his e-mail address everytime his ISP got bought out by another. This turned out to be useful when he became incapacitated in the hospital, and later when he died. While he was in the hospital, I wanted one of his passwords to inquire about something in one of his accounts. I realized that with his e-mail account, I could do a password recovery and get what I needed. So I just started forwarding his e-mail to me instead of to him.
:)
So if you happen to have a server capable of meeting all of your family's e-mail needs without cramping their style, this ain't a bad way to fly. Of course, when I die -- well, that's somebody else's problem, isn't it?
RP
I don't pretend to think this is an original thought... I'll say it anyway. For each time that I wished I could make a call from a plane, there were probably 50 times that I was glad I had a rock-solid excuse for not being called by anybody, and there were probably a 100 times that I didn't even think about that I would have been disturbed by somebody else on their phone.
Now the announcement from the crew will be "please put your phones on vibrate out of respect for your fellow passengers," and that will be largely ignored along with something about oxygen masks and floatation devices.
I'm all in favor of dumb rules going away and freedom to use my phone when I really need to, but I really believe that I will miss the relative peace that came with knowing that nobody had a phone and there was nothing we could do about it.
On another topic, I thought I heard that cell phone towers only have a range of a mile or two. So how is it that we expect to be able to use our cell phones at 30,000 feet (5.6 miles)? Just wondering.
RP
The YRO category gets abused quite a bit. It's easy to forget what is and isn't a right. Some people think they have a right to three hots and a cot, but they don't.
OK, kids going to public school... they have a right to move from home, to school bus, to school, betwixt classes, and back home without being observed by school administrators. Right? Uh, no. They don't. They're children. The school is tasked to protect them.
Will the school be held accountable if something happens to those kids on their way home? Probably. It's a lot like 9/11 problem that government faced. If they had reacted sufficiently to stop the attack, they would have been accused of violating citizens' rights, so they really couldn't prevent it. It took 9/11 to make us realize how real the unimaginable danger was.
Moving on... remember, these kids are going to public school. Do they have to? No. If their parents feel strongly enough about this, they can put them in a private school that doesn't monitor their kids location.
I'm a parent. Freedom for my kids will come later. Right now they're too precious and naive to have any idea of the responsibility that comes with freedom.
It seems like 9 out of 10 YRO stories have nothing to do with actual rights that we have as Americans (realizing, of course, that many of our Slashdot brethren live elsewhere).
RP
Yeah, yeah, a little off-topic. But I was pondering this last night. Aren't software patents EXACTLY like cooking patents?
Some recipes are secrets. That perfect cookie. The formula of Coca-Cola. Some recipes are completely free, aired on Good Morning America, for example. Others are copyrighted and available by buying a cookbook. But they're still open, in that you can modify them to suit your needs, making substitutions of ingredients or methods, or improving the recipe in other ways.
But whether the recipe is a secret (closed) or published (open), nobody will ever tell you that you make something that tastes like X. You can legally copy Coca-Cola, in that you can try as much as you want to make something that tastes exactly the same. McDonald's Big Mac is not protected as a food. It's protected as a BRAND, but that's completely different and it's a copyright thing, not a patent thing. McDonald's patents anything they can, including their french fry box. But they can't patent the food itself. Why? Well, we already know the answer. Because it's stupid.
And software patents are stupid in exactly the same way. Programming code is nothing but a recipe, and a running program is no different than a completed dish. If you like the end result, you can try your best to copy it on your own.
Well, I'm sure a lot of big corporate lawyers will make the argument that there will never be any innovation in the cooking industry if investment isn't rewarded by government in the form of protection from competition. Well ask Betty Crocker if she's suffering from the rampant piracy of her Chili Macaroni recipe. She just has to suck it up, either making a better recipe or packaging the same recipe in a better book.
Come on, folks. We don't have to keep tolerating software patents. They're absolutely ridiculous and the policies of the USPTO need to be changed. Get the stinkin' word out.
RP
Can't wait to see the parody trailers for this new feature, demonstrating Disney's "amazing" new CG skill set.
RP
Many of the specifics of this case don't really matter, I think. What everybody in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) needs to realize is that they now work in the most intimidating department of the federal government, because of stories like this and worse ones... whether true or not, the stories of people being taken away and held without bond, the blanket superuser authority of DHS officials is scary to anybody.
Because of the fear involved in their department, they need to be very careful the way they deal with the public, especially when the public they're dealing with is obviously and completely unrelated to a serious threat against the Homeland (and I'm not talking about a minor "economic" threat like selling cheap copies of toys). Of course, this won't matter to many of them, because unfortunately there are many in law enforcement at all levels who do it because of the power they can yield by flashing a badge, turning on a blue light, or calling somebody on the telephone and dropping the name of their agency.
I am voting for Bush next Tuesday for a variety of reasons (please try not to get inflamed about my choice, which might be different than yours) and I often defend the actions of the DHS (although I wasn't convinced and am still not convinced that we needed a new cabinet-level department to keep us safe) and I often defend the Patriot Act (though I have an open mind about parts of it that might need to be ammended). But I'm not going to be partisan and find an imaginary way to defend anybody from the DHS contacting a retailer and making them remove an item from their shelves without clearly and kindly demonstrating the reasons for the removal, just because I think that's supporting my candidate. These guys would have gotten all the response that they wanted from the retailer by simply saying they were with the Customs Service. Suddenly everybody who is a part of the DHS (which is a LOT of people) wants to go around name-dropping so they get an extra little fear out of everybody. It's completely unneccessary and ridiculous. I would say that many, many people in the DHS should never have to tell the public in their introductions what cabinet department they're in. It will inevitably generate more fear and intimidation than is necessary.
I believe this is not a policy problem, though. This is that rampant problem with the lower levels of law enforcement, the name dropping and ego trip problem. Unfortunately, there's little that can be done about this, except for a change in the culture, which can take decades.
RP
Sorry, I missed the original story, but I distinctly remember this happening to me when I was a kid. The driver was my dad and I was maybe 12 or 13. We were driving my grandmother's car, I believe it was a Buick. This would have been, say, a 1979 Buick or something. Maybe later -- it was when cruise control was quite new in the mainstream market.
Anyway, we were on an interstate journey (interstate, in this case, referring to both the type of highway and the fact that we were traveling from one state to another). My Dad put on the cruise control... and they're off! We were up to 80 in no time. And this was back before people drove 80 all the time. The national speed limit was 55 and 60 was about as fast as we ever went in a family car. The car showed no sign of slowing until Dad turned off the cruise control. He turned it back on and there it went again.
Eventually, I guess the car was serviced and it was OK. But I for one am all set to believe out-of-control cruise control stories, because it happened to me.
RP
Well, people who sit around drinking for 13 hours for the same reasons would be seen as alcoholics, but I agree that there are many people who do not create negative consequences in their lives from gaming.
:)
They just don't have lives
RP
I thought they said no governments could be involved.
RP
I didn't think of this as an alarmist story, especially in this day and age. The first thing that I thought of was NOT that somebody was trying to take down an airliner with a laser, but that they were merely AIMING at the airliner with a laser, to shoot something more substantial at it and bring it down.
I'm a little surprised this hasn't happened yet, to be honest. Well, I'm surprised a lot of things haven't happened yet. Is it possible that this administration is actually doing a great deal to protect us? Or is this just a delay that the enemy is using to put us in an artificial comfort zone?
Yes, "the enemy" is real and they're not politicians. They're cowards who don't wear uniforms or distinguish between combatants and noncombatants. They want to kill us all.
RP
"We won't ever get out of Earth's orbit if we worry about being comfortable."
RP
Yes! Thank you, thank you. I always enjoy a good Stewie flashback.
Well, I guess they should have said called it "an illusion of zero gravity, relative to the motion of the aircraft" -- which is what it really is. Sure, it's not truly zero gravity, but it's also very, very different from skydiving.
I would say that skydiving doesn't even provide a similar experience, since the key to "experience" is what your body feels like it's doing, rather than what it's actually doing. This is skydiving without seeing the ground rushing towards you and without all the wind -- which makes it VERY different.
RP
Man, Gremlins needed that rating. That was some fsck'd up #!/sh -- they were freaky. I remember the launching of that rating and it has been a good thing. I say that as a kid who was 13 when it came out and now as a parent of young children. It's helpful.
:)
Of course, guys a couple of years younger than me might have a different report. Obviously, being 13 at the time, I didn't see any down side.
Temple of Doom needed it pretty badly also. I remember the eyeballs in the soup or something like that
RP
Yeah, let's use sponsorship for something valuable to the consumer again. Like the sponsored shows in early television (like "The Maxwell House Price is Right", for example -- I made that one up, but you get the idea). The whole show was basically a commercial for a single product, and the whole show was paid for by that company. Kind of like what stadiums and concert venues are doing now, except without the benefit to the customer. It should be either cheap or free to go to a stadium that's named after a company, but instead of lowering the price of admission, they're doing that to pay obscene salaries.
But I digress....
I think a sponsored video game would be a great idea. Say Pepsico pays great game developers to make a great game, then they give it away. You can download it or pick up a CD at the store. It's blatantly a Mountain Dew advertisement, with Mountain Dew billboards all over the game world, and yes, the main character always finds his refreshment in a nice, cold Mountain Dew. Before you know it, you're thirsty for a nice, cold Mountain Dew also.
And the best thing about it is that the consumer once again gets dramatic benefit out of sponsorship, just like you do on the radio and on broadcast TV. You get the content for free in hopes that you'll buy from the sponsor.
RP
Get it? It's a joke. The whole thing is a setup for the punchline at the end.
Since the topic of spam has come up again, I blogged about this in January and would welcome feedback on my idea. In summary, it is my belief that we should simply make users accountable for the content of their e-mail and accept everything. Read on...
RP
Slashdotting doesn't punish your site
I'm surprised that more people from the left aren't absolutely ashamed of what's going on over there. All the talk of anarchy, black powder on your clothes to confuse the dogs, volunteering for the convention and then not showing up, trying to DoS their website, etc.
God forbid any of these people would go out and campaign for their candidate on the issues. Go door to door asking people to vote for him and telling them why they should. Contribute money to your candidate's campaign. Go to the local campaign headquarters and ask what you can do to help your candidate -- something you can tell your grandchildren about with pride.
The problem with the left is that they're so desperate to defeat Bush that they'll do absolutely anything sort of breaking the law. And I'm sure some won't stop there. Remember, it doesn't have to be a felony or a misdemeanor for something to be wrong or unscrupulous. DoS'ing the GOP's website is going to do absolutely nothing to help your candidate. And neither is causing chaos at the convention.
I, for one, am completely in favor of very strict criminal penalties for anybody who intentionally distrupts the security personnel or infrastructure at the convention or at any high profile event. Send these morons to the city jail for some serious amount of time -- like 90 days. If there's no room for them in the jail, build a tent city outside of town and keep them there.
Protesting is one thing, and you have every right to do that, despite what you and your friends might say about the GOP wanting to silence you. Nobody's going to stop you from protesting, as long as you obey the law. And yes, they might have rules about where you can be. That's not an infringement of free expression. It's a way of attempt to control a potential mob and keep them from intentionally disrupting a location that really does require a lot of security.
Bottom line -- grow up and let the democratic process work. If you really want to help this election, you can get to work educating voters how to vote properly, so we don't have the fiasco we had last time in Florida. Thanks to that lunacy, we unfortunately had to take the whole thing to the courts, which obviously isn't the way a lot of people like to see an election decided.
RP
I give you the slashdot effect
RP