The profession of "analyst" is set to die out in the next 5 years. The use of analysts to predict the future based on unsupportable extrapolation of early technology trends will start to decline in 2008 and the profession will be totally gone by 2014. These analyst predictions will be replaced with predictions from other sources such as Ouija boards, re-purposed water witches, and randomly clicking on a document with a computer mouse and forming a sentence with the words.
Of course, the best way to tell the future is to wait until it becomes the present and then watch what happens. News sources once used that method to report news, but it fell out of favor due to narcissism and delusions of grandeur among journalists. Journalists found that the couldn't always control events that happened or the facts reported. Predictions don't have this limitation because the predicted events are fictional at the time the story is written.
Why is changing what you have to say a bad thing? If you have a different set of facts or a change in thought, why is it bad to change your opinions?
When honest people do it, it usually contains the phrase "I was wrong about [something]". Has Obama said that? No.
When politicians change their views to fit new situations, they pretend their current views are the only views they've ever held. The pretense is dishonest.
Immunity from civil lawsuits has nothing to do with the 4th Amendment. There's no 4th Amendment right to collect civil damages from non-governmental 3rd parties. The two simply don't have anything to do with each other.
Also, there's no judicially enforced prohibition on doing everything unless the court has explicitly ruled it's allowed. It's the opposite.
You sound like you can make a legal argument but "it's unconstitutional unless you can prove to my satisfaction that it's explicitly allowed" is contrary to any kind of reality. You're not the god of the Constitution. Sorry to break that sad news to you.
Anyone who actually cared about reality could look up Executive Privilege and find out what it's about and why it exists and how it is understood to be constitutional. Do your own Googling.
Here is a simple legal analysis on why this "unconstitutional" claim is incorrect regardless of how loud it gets in the echo chamber.
The prohibition on "ex post facto" laws is based on the fact that it's unjust to pass a law saying that the thing you in the past was a criminal act (even though it was legal at the time) and then arresting you for it. That argument doesn't apply to decriminalizing things.
For example, a law could be passed repealing all the drug laws against marijuana possession and use -- and it could set free all the people in jail those particular crimes. The people here would have to say that such an act is an "ex post facto" law if they want to also say that retroactive telecom immunity is "ex post facto".
(Also, the telecom cases are really civil cases and the rules are actually much looser still. But the point is made.)
Saying this immunity is unconstitutional is more of an emotional or political opinion than a legal one.
Indeed. Maybe the debate should start going beyond "I should get anything I want and anything else is Hilter-like"? What do you think?
Because this is an engineering problem with trade-offs and pros and cons for different answers. And "I want the network configured to benefit me" isn't a valid argument on a shared network where different configurations benefit different users doing different things.
I pay for a 6mbit line every month, and I expect to be able to use it the way I see fit.... We're paying the same amount, shouldn't we get the same service, no matter WHAT we're transferring?
Yes. They call them forecasts. They're specifically labeled as predictions. They are also frequently incorrect and they usually hedge with percentage chances and words like "partly" and "mostly".
If the news wants to put predictions on a "Predictions" page, that's cool.
This is how you are able to catch a ball. Your brain doesn't do a physics calculation and determine where the ball will land. It guesses, watches, refines the guess, repeats, and eventually the guess is close enough so your hand is in the right spot to catch it.
Java doesn't matter in some small circles or groups. In some others, it does. There are many application that use Java in many ways and see a great benefit.
It matters to the people who use it to get their work done. They exist in significant numbers. Open Java matters only to the subset of people who need perfect openness and use Java.
This whole topic is wrapped up in the vain need some people have that their programming language choices (of all things) be validated by some sort of public acceptance. So your personal answer to this question might have more to do about your feelings about yourself than about the world at-large. See CmdrTaco for an example.
Had the exhibit been censored, how would we have known about it? Slashdot would have posted it. "Exhibit of satellite photos censored" might be the headline.
It would be pointless to make this effort only to be prevented from displaying it. But it's not pointless now because...?
It's irony, not stupidity. Can't it be both? Maybe it is pretend irony. Maybe the message is: "This would be ironic if only it exhibited the character of irony."
Slashdot Mirror
Green Cloud? Can we have a Brown Hornet computer? How about a Black Canary monitor?
The Black Canary can tell us whether we can safely breathe in the Green Cloud.
The profession of "analyst" is set to die out in the next 5 years. The use of analysts to predict the future based on unsupportable extrapolation of early technology trends will start to decline in 2008 and the profession will be totally gone by 2014. These analyst predictions will be replaced with predictions from other sources such as Ouija boards, re-purposed water witches, and randomly clicking on a document with a computer mouse and forming a sentence with the words.
Of course, the best way to tell the future is to wait until it becomes the present and then watch what happens. News sources once used that method to report news, but it fell out of favor due to narcissism and delusions of grandeur among journalists. Journalists found that the couldn't always control events that happened or the facts reported. Predictions don't have this limitation because the predicted events are fictional at the time the story is written.
Don't fucking buy it. Take your money elsewhere.
Can I do that with my income taxes too?
How long would it take me to become Two-Face?
Why is changing what you have to say a bad thing? If you have a different set of facts or a change in thought, why is it bad to change your opinions?
When honest people do it, it usually contains the phrase "I was wrong about [something]". Has Obama said that? No.
When politicians change their views to fit new situations, they pretend their current views are the only views they've ever held. The pretense is dishonest.
If he posted that here, it would get modded Flamebait or Troll.
People in India need to feed their families too.
I think the only way to win is not to play.
So "progressive" means leniency for repeat child rapists?
Are you planning on making a bunch of T-shirts and bumper stickers to rally people around that position?
Immunity from civil lawsuits has nothing to do with the 4th Amendment. There's no 4th Amendment right to collect civil damages from non-governmental 3rd parties. The two simply don't have anything to do with each other.
I'm not a lawyer but here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dames_&_Moore_v._Regan
Also, there's no judicially enforced prohibition on doing everything unless the court has explicitly ruled it's allowed. It's the opposite.
You sound like you can make a legal argument but "it's unconstitutional unless you can prove to my satisfaction that it's explicitly allowed" is contrary to any kind of reality. You're not the god of the Constitution. Sorry to break that sad news to you.
Anyone who actually cared about reality could look up Executive Privilege and find out what it's about and why it exists and how it is understood to be constitutional. Do your own Googling.
Here is another short legal analysis that explains the issue a little and cites some case law. Instapundit is a law professor.
The people who are saying this is unconstitutional because it is "ex post facto" are two things:
1. Not lawyers and
2. Incorrect.
Here is a simple legal analysis on why this "unconstitutional" claim is incorrect regardless of how loud it gets in the echo chamber.
The prohibition on "ex post facto" laws is based on the fact that it's unjust to pass a law saying that the thing you in the past was a criminal act (even though it was legal at the time) and then arresting you for it. That argument doesn't apply to decriminalizing things.
For example, a law could be passed repealing all the drug laws against marijuana possession and use -- and it could set free all the people in jail those particular crimes. The people here would have to say that such an act is an "ex post facto" law if they want to also say that retroactive telecom immunity is "ex post facto".
(Also, the telecom cases are really civil cases and the rules are actually much looser still. But the point is made.)
Saying this immunity is unconstitutional is more of an emotional or political opinion than a legal one.
Before this merger, Diablo 3 was going to be released at an indefinite time in the future. Now it'll be released "when it's done".
Since there will be more undersea cables, there will be more cable cuts.
I hope the capacity calculations are adjusted for the bandwidth used to transmit conspiracy theories about the outages.
Indeed. Maybe the debate should start going beyond "I should get anything I want and anything else is Hilter-like"? What do you think?
Because this is an engineering problem with trade-offs and pros and cons for different answers. And "I want the network configured to benefit me" isn't a valid argument on a shared network where different configurations benefit different users doing different things.
I pay for a 6mbit line every month, and I expect to be able to use it the way I see fit. ... We're paying the same amount, shouldn't we get the same service, no matter WHAT we're transferring?
That sounds like something a spammer might say.
Does your newspaper have weather forecasts?
Yes. They call them forecasts. They're specifically labeled as predictions. They are also frequently incorrect and they usually hedge with percentage chances and words like "partly" and "mostly".
If the news wants to put predictions on a "Predictions" page, that's cool.
This is not news. This is a prediction that there might be news in September.
If it doesn't happen, will we get an apology for misleading us?
As an individual, you wouldn't be able to understand. At least not right away. Keep trying.
I thought this was understood.
This is how you are able to catch a ball. Your brain doesn't do a physics calculation and determine where the ball will land. It guesses, watches, refines the guess, repeats, and eventually the guess is close enough so your hand is in the right spot to catch it.
He should have looked between Amendments 1 and 3. There's some lines there that serve no other purpose.
Apparently George Bush doesn't care about green people either.
Java doesn't matter in some small circles or groups. In some others, it does. There are many application that use Java in many ways and see a great benefit.
It matters to the people who use it to get their work done. They exist in significant numbers. Open Java matters only to the subset of people who need perfect openness and use Java.
This whole topic is wrapped up in the vain need some people have that their programming language choices (of all things) be validated by some sort of public acceptance. So your personal answer to this question might have more to do about your feelings about yourself than about the world at-large. See CmdrTaco for an example.