"I sit corrected! So... which of federal and state has first claim on loyalty, i.e. bearing arms in defence? In law, that is."
Ask ten people and get ten different answers. The Civil War never really sorted that one out, and even the last clause of the Fourteenth Amendment seems to leave that one open to debate.
"Sure, if they include a link to a website, you could go after the person or people listed in the WHOIS record, but it would be easy for the administrative contact to claim that he or she didn't send the spam."
If they're dumb enough to be spamming to begin with, I don't think they'd be bright enough to point that out.
"Actually, there's no such thing as citizen of Illinois."
*cough*
Article XIV, Section 1
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subjects to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
I could go on and quote Amendment XI as well as similar references in Articles III and IV. Despite efforts by the federal government and major political parties (so far), we are still a union of sovereign states. Things would be better in this country if more people remembered this.
"Processing a web form is scripting. Writing a GUI app (be it in Win32 or wxPython) is 'programming'."
So the GUI in and of itself is what makes a program a program? What if you include the HTML code that the script uses as a front-end? Or does that not count because it requires a browser? If so, what if I were to point out that using Win32 or wxPython is also using Somebody Elses Code instead of making your widgets? By that logic, only writing your own GUI interface from scratch (probably in assembly) is the only "real" programming there is.
Wouldn't a web form at some point become more than "just a web form?" We can all probably agree that a guestbook isn't "real programming," but what about something that figures out the ways a package of weight X can be shipped, the price ranges for the available shipping options, the totals for the available shipping options, including the cost of a box/envelope (if any, varying by shipping option), and which of the options are cheapest to a particular destination and/or overall?
At any rate, I wrote said code in JavaScript both because it was easier to cut-and-paste the generated HTML code from one Moz tab to another for my eBay operations and because I refuse to consider myself a "programmer."
"Programmers" are those people that churn out computer logic for fun on the weekends ("I think I'll make an ASCII graphical interface for Doom so I can play through a Telnet terminal!"). I only dabble with Linux maybe once or twice a year. I don't compile my own kernels. The most complicated OS-level "script" I ever wrote was a DOS.BAT file.I have no desire to do anything more.
"Programmers" are those people that do what they teach in those God-awful high school and college programming classes I went through. I don't go through a "programming process," I don't do "pre-coding," I don't do flowcharts, I just fulfill particular needs as they arise and stop when the code is good enough to do what I need it to do (no matter how kludgy it looks).
"Programmers" are those people that code for other people. I don't want to code for somebody else for a living and I don't think I could code for somebody else for a living. Read previous bullet.
"To the people receiving the "charity," does it really matter? "
It's the difference between being thankful for a genuinely charitable act and being resentful the "donors" had to be legally forced to part with their money. It's the difference between gratitude and armed insurrection.
What does it matter that King John wouldn't give money to other people without some sort of "Robin Hood" character? One way or the other they were getting their money, right? What's the big deal about Runnymede?
I do. There's a great deal of difference between philanthropy and forced redistribution of wealth. If you're going to include money that would have been spent either way, then we should point out that the average US taxpayer probably "gives" a larger percentage of their income to charity than does Bill Gates.
While the recipients may not care how the money was obtained (though I personally feel forced redistribution of wealth breeds resentment in the recipient), it greatly affects whether Bill Gates is a genuinely charitible person or someone who doesn't really care either way.
"That's just terrible. The morally corrct thing for those in disease ravaged portions of sub-Saharan Africa to do would be to insist on fresh distros rather than fresh water."
You missed my point entirely. "Tax-deductible" means that a donation qualifies as paying your income tax, putting your money towards something the government would have given your money to anyway. Making a tax-deductible donation only decides where the money is going, not whether or not to "give" the money in the first place. Sub-Saharan Africa would still be getting their fresh water and such, the only difference being whether the check is signed "Bill Gates" or "Uncle Sam."
"Companies with big revenue streams... are in effect forbidden from investing in the next generation technology with the highest growth rates"
You'd think with all that money coming in, they could spend it to invest it on product changes to make their products more competitive instead of, oh, say, lawyers and lobbyists...
"He's given over $3 billion to global health alone."
How much of that is charity on his part, and how much of that is tax-deductible (ie. "he'd simply be giving it to the IRS otherwise")? I'd suspect that the "Gates Foundation" is more of a PR gimmick than anything else. "This public broadcasting program was brounght to you by the Gates Foundation" sounds better than "This public broadcasting program was brought to you by taxpayers."
"I also think that it would be a shame for them to close now that they've finally created an advertising scheme that has a snowball's chance in hell of working on the web."
A few sentences earlier:
"They haven't been able to pay the rent since December."
Their advertising scheme obviously isn't working. Next!
"Considering more and more people in this country seem to be getting their "fair and balanced" news from Fox,"
I get my "fair and balanced" news from Google. And you know what? I think I've seen more links from Google News to Slashdont than to Salon. It would seem that the majority of news readers (be they "left" or "right") aren't all that impressed with Salon.
Ehh... not quite. As I understand it, the standard is about copying/storing the radio transmission as-is, with no decoding of anything. It would leave any HDCP/"broadcast flags" (if present) in tact.
This is less DeCSS and more copying DVDs bit-by-bit. You'll still need a decoder.
The gas cloud in question is only 5k l-y away, which is a drop in the bucket when you consider the galaxy alone is 100k l-y in diameter or so. I think that declaring this to be the coldest thing in the universe is just a wee bit premature.
The sad thing is, Bradbury is such a God-awful author, any sane person would burn that book rather than subject themselves to reading it. Hell, Marx's Communist Manifesto was both a better political rant and a better science fiction novel than any two of Bradbury's books put together.
The decision, which could take several weeks to go into effect, is a defeat for FCC Chairman Michael Powell, who wanted to further deregulate telephone competition. He argued that leaving the telephone rules to the states, which have nine months to come up with their own unbundled network element rules, would give the telecom industry a "Picisso-esque regulatory backdrop" to maneuver.
Yeah, God forbid the states have sovereign rights to decide what happens within its own borders. It's not like the Interstate Commerce Clause is getting blown all out of proportion or anything. Whether or not leaving it up to the states is a good idea is debatable, but it shouldn't be up to him to decide.
See what happens when you take state governments out of the loop? I swear, repealing the Seventeenth Amendment just keeps on seeming like a better and better idea...
"While it is bad for competitors, I *the consumer* will probably be able to get DSL now."
Why would they do that for you? Holding you hostage by not giving you DSL yet has obviously worked for the Baby Bells so far with flying colors, giving them their very own piece of legislation. Why would they give you DSL now instead of pushing the obvious advantage they now have by not giving you DSL until they can get themselves even more friendly legislation?
"Surely they could slap together some kind of VoIP thing and offer it to their DSL customers, then BellSouth would still have to share."
I have the feeling that VoIP is a double-edged sword when it comes to the Baby Bells. If data services "don't count" when it comes to requiring the RBOCs to compete, I can see them using VoIP to offer long-distance services while side-stepping the Telecommunications Act of 1996 entirely (unless I'm missing something).
Slashdot Mirror
"I sit corrected! So... which of federal and state has first claim on loyalty, i.e. bearing arms in defence? In law, that is."
Ask ten people and get ten different answers. The Civil War never really sorted that one out, and even the last clause of the Fourteenth Amendment seems to leave that one open to debate.
"Sure, if they include a link to a website, you could go after the person or people listed in the WHOIS record, but it would be easy for the administrative contact to claim that he or she didn't send the spam."
If they're dumb enough to be spamming to begin with, I don't think they'd be bright enough to point that out.
*cough*
Article XIV, Section 1 I could go on and quote Amendment XI as well as similar references in Articles III and IV. Despite efforts by the federal government and major political parties (so far), we are still a union of sovereign states. Things would be better in this country if more people remembered this.
No, you're Canadians.
(And no, I'm not just talking about the Yupers.)
"Most scripting languages are designed around letting small problems be implemented quickly."
Isn't that the core philosophy of Microsoft's Windows Update service?
So the GUI in and of itself is what makes a program a program? What if you include the HTML code that the script uses as a front-end? Or does that not count because it requires a browser? If so, what if I were to point out that using Win32 or wxPython is also using Somebody Elses Code instead of making your widgets? By that logic, only writing your own GUI interface from scratch (probably in assembly) is the only "real" programming there is.
Wouldn't a web form at some point become more than "just a web form?" We can all probably agree that a guestbook isn't "real programming," but what about something that figures out the ways a package of weight X can be shipped, the price ranges for the available shipping options, the totals for the available shipping options, including the cost of a box/envelope (if any, varying by shipping option), and which of the options are cheapest to a particular destination and/or overall?
At any rate, I wrote said code in JavaScript both because it was easier to cut-and-paste the generated HTML code from one Moz tab to another for my eBay operations and because I refuse to consider myself a "programmer."
"To the people receiving the "charity," does it really matter? "
It's the difference between being thankful for a genuinely charitable act and being resentful the "donors" had to be legally forced to part with their money. It's the difference between gratitude and armed insurrection.
What does it matter that King John wouldn't give money to other people without some sort of "Robin Hood" character? One way or the other they were getting their money, right? What's the big deal about Runnymede?
"Really, who gives a shit?"
I do. There's a great deal of difference between philanthropy and forced redistribution of wealth. If you're going to include money that would have been spent either way, then we should point out that the average US taxpayer probably "gives" a larger percentage of their income to charity than does Bill Gates.
While the recipients may not care how the money was obtained (though I personally feel forced redistribution of wealth breeds resentment in the recipient), it greatly affects whether Bill Gates is a genuinely charitible person or someone who doesn't really care either way.
"That's just terrible. The morally corrct thing for those in disease ravaged portions of sub-Saharan Africa to do would be to insist on fresh distros rather than fresh water."
You missed my point entirely. "Tax-deductible" means that a donation qualifies as paying your income tax, putting your money towards something the government would have given your money to anyway. Making a tax-deductible donation only decides where the money is going, not whether or not to "give" the money in the first place. Sub-Saharan Africa would still be getting their fresh water and such, the only difference being whether the check is signed "Bill Gates" or "Uncle Sam."
"Companies with big revenue streams... are in effect forbidden from investing in the next generation technology with the highest growth rates"
You'd think with all that money coming in, they could spend it to invest it on product changes to make their products more competitive instead of, oh, say, lawyers and lobbyists...
"He's given over $3 billion to global health alone."
How much of that is charity on his part, and how much of that is tax-deductible (ie. "he'd simply be giving it to the IRS otherwise")? I'd suspect that the "Gates Foundation" is more of a PR gimmick than anything else. "This public broadcasting program was brounght to you by the Gates Foundation" sounds better than "This public broadcasting program was brought to you by taxpayers."
"Mac OS X is a single OS, as opposed to a set of OSes that may or may not work together."
From the people that brought you AppleTalk!
First we read:
"I also think that it would be a shame for them to close now that they've finally created an advertising scheme that has a snowball's chance in hell of working on the web."
A few sentences earlier:
"They haven't been able to pay the rent since December."
Their advertising scheme obviously isn't working. Next!
"Considering more and more people in this country seem to be getting their "fair and balanced" news from Fox,"
I get my "fair and balanced" news from Google. And you know what? I think I've seen more links from Google News to Slashdont than to Salon. It would seem that the majority of news readers (be they "left" or "right") aren't all that impressed with Salon.
"Pity it means that some other country's tech industry gets the "3) Profit!"."
Look on the bright side: At least we're allowed to use shortwave receivers.
RMS: "I don't get it."
"# 5 -- You think a $3,500 computer with a 17 inch monitor is better than a $2,000 HDTV set with a 35 inch screen"
:)
Compromise: Get a 35" HDTV with VGA inputs. Mmmmm...
"# 1 -- Record Cinemax skin flicks as part of the Masturbate For Peace campaign"
Screw that! There's gotta be Playboy/Spice decoders out there somewhere!
"It's the DeCSS of HDTV."
Ehh... not quite. As I understand it, the standard is about copying/storing the radio transmission as-is, with no decoding of anything. It would leave any HDCP/"broadcast flags" (if present) in tact.
This is less DeCSS and more copying DVDs bit-by-bit. You'll still need a decoder.
"Given the quality of Episodes I and II, we may need to do a little more than hope against hope. "
:)
Maybe that's why ep 4 was titled "A New Hope".
The gas cloud in question is only 5k l-y away, which is a drop in the bucket when you consider the galaxy alone is 100k l-y in diameter or so. I think that declaring this to be the coldest thing in the universe is just a wee bit premature.
"Does this remind anyone of Farenheit 451?"
The sad thing is, Bradbury is such a God-awful author, any sane person would burn that book rather than subject themselves to reading it. Hell, Marx's Communist Manifesto was both a better political rant and a better science fiction novel than any two of Bradbury's books put together.
"Hydrophobic, eh? So that's the reason they don't mix: the oil is afraid of the water. Neat."
Personally, I got visions of the oil foaming at the mouth...
See what happens when you take state governments out of the loop? I swear, repealing the Seventeenth Amendment just keeps on seeming like a better and better idea...
"Then fuck the FCC! I hereby call upon all slashdotters to boycott those worthless...wait a minute...oh shit..."
I suppose we could boycott Baby Bells as much as we could (since that's who now own the FCC), but hell, Slashdot can't even boycott the MPAA.
"While it is bad for competitors, I *the consumer* will probably be able to get DSL now."
Why would they do that for you? Holding you hostage by not giving you DSL yet has obviously worked for the Baby Bells so far with flying colors, giving them their very own piece of legislation. Why would they give you DSL now instead of pushing the obvious advantage they now have by not giving you DSL until they can get themselves even more friendly legislation?
"Surely they could slap together some kind of VoIP thing and offer it to their DSL customers, then BellSouth would still have to share."
I have the feeling that VoIP is a double-edged sword when it comes to the Baby Bells. If data services "don't count" when it comes to requiring the RBOCs to compete, I can see them using VoIP to offer long-distance services while side-stepping the Telecommunications Act of 1996 entirely (unless I'm missing something).