"A single point increase of.1 (Windows 4.0 to Windows 4.1) being 3 years worth of bug fixes, enhancements and addons isn't worth charging for?"
And don't forget they charged again for 98SE. But consider how 3 years worth of bug fixes, enhancements and addons nowadays only rates a "Service Pack 2" for XP rather than a new point version. Granted, "5.2" was already taken by then, but why not 5.11?
"5 years in the case of nt 5.0 to 5.1?"
No, it was only twenty months between Windows 2000 and Windows XP, less than the time between the release of XP and SP2. And the general consensus seems to be that XP introduced more bugs than it fixed compared to 2k.
"Anyway I hate MS versioning schemes, why service pack why not call it a point release?"
Because point releases is what Microsoft makes their OS money from, charging hundreds of dollars to upgrade Windows 4.0 to Windows 4.1 (95 to 98) or NT 5.0 to NT 5.1 (2000 to XP). One could make the case that Microsoft uses their odd naming scheme (such as "Vista" for "NT 5.3") mostly to disguise the fact that they're charging more and more money for less and less meaningful version updates.
At least when the Israelis say it, it's a genuine, bald-faced lie, not some clever, hand-waving attempt at misdirection.
"We can't shoot missiles back into North Korea. Fuck, we DON'T EVEN HAVE LONG DISTANCE MISSILES to shoot back with!"
Japan has space launch capabilities. Putting something into orbit is a specialized subset of making ballistic weapons. Yes, Japan does not now have missiles to shoot back with, but the only thing holding them back is choice; no lenghty R&D period like DPRK. Additionally...
"Us Japanese people don't want nukes, we don't want to make nukes, we don't want to use nukes."
Again, the only thing holding Japan back is choice. Japan has been a leader in nuclear technology for decades and for most of that time has been, at most, a week away from producing their first nuclear weapon. Even with this successful DPRK test, Japan is in a better position to mass-produce nuclear weapons than Kim could dream of, maybe even better than Beijing.
Really, the Japanese position is like saying "No, I don't have a gun, just all the parts of one and detailed instructions of how to put them together."
And as for the international diplomacy aspects of your post...
"What we want the U.S. to do is stop playing "I pretend to care (but really could care less since there's no oil involved)" and actually do something."
"What we did NOT do over the last 60 years was build an army capable of anything other than rescue and evacuation operations during natural disasters. Our army (and I use that term loosely) is pittiful. But we like it that way, and would prefer to keep it that way."
"What pisses us off is that Kim Jong-Il is constantly threatening Japan, but is only doing so to drag the U.S. into talks. We are pissed off at the fact that in all honesty, we (Japan) are nothing more that a slight sore spot in North Korea's international politics agenda, and they're playing us as the pawn."
In other words, Japan wants to have their cake and eat it too. The US State and Defense Departments do not exist for Japan's benefit; that's not what we pay them for. If you don't want to put up with US terms and stipulations, you have three options:
Learn to kiss our ass better (but about all that's left is applying for statehood)
Find somebody else's ass to kiss (have you considered Australia?)
Rearm
You don't get to have the influence of the United States with the price tag of Canada.
Even before we started putting materiel into Afghanistan and Iraq we weren't all that keen on keeping troops in the area. The Soviet Union collapsed and took our main reason for deploying troops abroad with it. Heck, we probably wouldn't even have gotten involved in the Korean War were it not for Soviet involvement. But every time the US decides to take the hint from anti-American Japanese and ROK protesters and "redeploy" our military elsewhere, your respective governments begin to whine and snivel; apparently you've gotten all too comfortable with the idea of having the "bad cop" of the US around to do the dirty work (not that you're the only industrialized nations like this).
This attitude can be seen in both what you do and do not say in your post. You mention that the threat to Japan is because of their relationship to the United States, and then go on to say that the solution is for the US to apply more pressure in the region. You apparently never think of the other, more obvious solution: remove the Seventh Fleet from Yokosuka. Moving them to US soil like Guam would play out very well with the American voters, even with the added logistical nightmares.
Look, ever since the whole "Manifest Destiny" thing went out of style, this is how we've played empire. But the only other viable alternative (from the perspective of our domestic politics) is good ol' fashioned American Isolationism, and, for better or for worse, none of our "friends and allies" are all th
"I still think it's a shame the series is so "heavy" all the time."
We can always toss in a cute kid with a robotic daggit. Hey, they can even stop the fleet at a space casino!
"I can't think of a single character who really has a happy "story so far" at this stage,"
For all intents and purposes, the entire human species save less than 1% has been wiped out of existence in a single cataclysmic attack. Nobody among those 15k should have a particularly happy life. Everybody has lost friends and loved ones, and continues to lose them as the Cylons (apparently) continue the drive to finish what they started.
"some of it (I'm thinking of one recurring character's death in particular here) seemed to be entirely without purpose,"
Death is death, it need not be meaningful. Try picking up a newspaper and checking out who got killed and why in the nearest bad neighborhood.
After all, the series started with tens of billions of rather meaningless deaths.
"You mean they do that irritating "pseudo first person" handheld camera bullshit? I want to know what fucktard came up with that"
My guess? WWII combat photographers. And my guess is that they didn't exactly plan on it, just a matter of not wanting to set up a decent tripod while getting shot at.
Galactica is a show about war. My guess is they're trying to make it look like one. If you want a constant camera angle, go out and watch a stage play. And don't be surprised when it doesn't have the same imapct.
"What i dont like about a lot of other shows, especially scefi shows, is that they just keep going and going without a end (even the original BSG from what i have seen), sure, they might find a good plot line for a season or so, but it gets old."
The thing is, the Japanese have been doing this for decades with various anime series, and even in the US we see shows like Stargate: SG-1 continuing to keep enough people interested in it to make some money. Simply because it can get stale doesn't always mean that it will, or, at the very least, there's no reason for it to be consistently stale if it runs into a rough patch.
"If a tree falls in a forest, but nobody's there, does it make a sound?"
Doesn't matter, that tree was on my property and you owe me recompense for cutting it down, whether you used a remote controlled robot or not.
All the document says is "unreasonable searches and seizures," it does not specify that, if the searching is done by non-humans, it doesn't count. Considering the nature of the document in general and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments in particular, the federal government does not get to flirt with the line like that.
If they want to change the rules like that in the name of "fighting t3h terr0rz!" then they can get to work trying to convince 3/4 of the state legislatures that it's the right thing to do. Otherwise, "shall not" means just that.
"However, it does establish beyond a doubt that these people were not fleeing from Sharia"
Then I'll both point out that I was referencing sharia the same way you were (you'll note I mentioned "honor killings" in that particular post) and also that 61% seems to be quite a bit of doubt.
"OK, so it is only 4/10, slightly less than half. The point is still valid "
The article also mentions that a plurality is against it and an additional 20% are still undecided.
However, what the article does not mention is what exactly that 40% were thinking when they said they were in favor of imposing "sharia law" in their communities. Aside from varying from country to country, sharia law encompasses a very wide array of subjects. Did every person who ticked off the "yes" option on that poll think about cutting of a thief's hand, or simply punishing public intoxication? On that note, they may have simply been looking to outlaw alcohol (something more than one Western country has dabbled in without the help of Muslims).
Even if they were looking for the imposition of something as drastic as capital punishment, were they thinking of executing people for homosexuality, as is done in Iran and Saudia Arabia, or were they thinking of executing people for aggrevated murder, as is done in the United States and Japan?
Instead of delving these questions, it seems the pollsters and the media outlets that reported on their results decided to simply leave things hanging with the inflammatory phrase "sharia law," because (as I mentioned before) fear-mongering sells copy. This reeks of sensationalism taking advantage of the then-recent July attacks in London, which makes one wonder why people are surprised British Muslims feel persecuted.
"Islam is NOT merely another culture that you can merge into other cultures."
How convenient for your distaste for Islam that it just happens the lone outlier in your worldview of culture, isn't it?
"The underlying belief system of Islam won't tolerate it and the reason is simple: It is a capital punishment to leave the faith."
Assuming that this is true (can you find the relevant passages from the Qur'an?), am I to believe that it is the only religion with such a policy? Considering all the acts that the Bible/Torah considers to be punishible by death or mutilation, it's hard to claim a qualitative difference.
"Just for your own understanding, study the liberties and freedoms 'enjoyed' by non-Muslims in ANY country with a Muslim majority."
Turn the clock back 150 years and replace the word "Muslim" with "Catholic." One of the chief arguments against Irish immigration into the United States was the fact that they were predominantly Catholic, coming into what is generally a Protestant country. And, of course, there were bloody clashes between Catholics and Protestants within the United States. In many respects, this antagonism continues into modern times, with John F. Kennedy's Catholicism having been viewed as a liability in elections.
Guess what: we're still here. We learned, we adapted, we persist. There was no great cataclysm, no great apocalyptic battle between two cultures many viewed as mutually exclusive. There has been and continues to be tension, but American style republicanism and secularism persists.
There is no good reason to believe that the phenomenom of Muslims going to Europe is completley unique and without any sort of precedent. The only possible reason to view it as such is to disguise your own irrational discomfort with the idea that some around you might want to go off someplace quiet with their prayer rugs a few times a day. The only source of conflict would if the Europeans choose to make one, and you'd accomplish little more than to demonstrate that the much-vaunted new, enlightened European secularism is a sham.
I understand the concept of mass immigration is new to Europe. Learn to deal with your own feelings before you end up making worse mistakes than we did. Or do you wish to see Europe continue to do little more than play second fiddle to North America?
"Actually, US population is growing too slowly to keep up with the baby boomers' retirement demands. It's far worse in Europe, which will be basically Muslim within a generation,"
Exept the fertility rate of your typical natural-born US citizen resembles that of your average European. Nearly half of our current population increase comes from immigration. If Europe is becoming "Muslim," then the US is becoming Mexican and Chinese (et al), and at a far faster rate (even in this day and age we're more immigrant-friendly than most of Europe).
"its entire culture and history pushed into slavery (dhimmitude)."
Xenophobe much? If the US isn't speaking Gaelic after the huge influx of Irish immigrants we've had over our history, why do you believe that immigration from the Middle East and north Africa will change Europe so drastically? Especially when they're coming to Europe to get away from stuff like that?
No, a few sporradic incidents of "honor killings" does not make a general consesus, it's just good copy for sensationalist news outlets.
"It's this attitude that lead to our culture's potential extinction in the first place."
Culture adapts, otherwise most of the music on your hard drive would involve a harpsichord somewhere. No culture on the planet would be in its current state were it not for the cross-pollenization of art and ideas across cultures. One could make the case that the culture of the United States is the dominant one on the planet because of our immigration policies, allowing a blending of cultures to happen on the typical street corner rather than being confined to the esoteric collections of elitist patrons that can afford to import cultural artifacts from abroad.
It's interesting the way "culture" has become the new euphamism for race (does this make "culture" the new "last refuge of a scoundrel?"), I'm a little curious to see what it will be next. Instead of trying to focus on such broad, vague terms like "culture" that can be defined in any way you want to define to satisfy your arguments, perhaps you should focus on particular ideals that are important, such as republicanism. However, letting the people decide for themselves what their "culture" will look like one minute to the next is the exact opposite of the top-down imposition of "good culture/bad culture" that you seem to favor.
Of course, I can't think of any better way to stem the tide of Islamic immigrants to Europe than to impose such a European sharia in the name of preserving European culture. Why would someone looking to get out from under such a system bother moving to Europe then?
"If your GPS receiver's clock was ACTUALLY wandering around by whole seconds, your GPS unit would be completely useless."
You're assuming that the unit displays an accurate readout of its own clock. Processor cycles are dedicated to interpreting the signals from the satellites, determining location, and displaying that location on the LCD. Showing the current time is an afterthought at best (after all, not the unit's main function; many units don't even include that feature), and so the seconds displayed on the screen are very fluid.
My watch updates only once a day and, beyond that, will only gain or lose a half-second over the course of a day, and has nothing else better to do than to count oscillations of the quartz crystal and display the time. The GPS receiver tries to update the time continuously as well as using that time for other information rather than trying to pass it on to the LCD in anything resembling a raw form.
So, unless a particular GPS receiver is designed to be used as a timepiece, giving priority to interpreting and displaying time information, comparing the readout from a GPS receiver to any sort of quartz timepiece will show the displayed time on the receiver gaining and losing half-seconds over the course of a minute as opposed to over a day for your average quartz timepiece.
I used to have all sorts of silly gizmos in my watch, be it a calculator, one of those silly phone books, and even a barometer back in high school. But now I have discovered the One True Watch Feature: WWVB reception. Since then I have been spoiled by having a watch that is accurate to, at worst, the nearest second (a timepiece that tells time, amazing!). I can tune into WWV and listen to the ticks synchronize exactly with my watch, I can turn on my GPS receiver and watch the time readout wander back and forth compared to the steady watch. My watch tells the time.
It seems that everybody is putting longwave receivers into timepieces nowadays, you'd think that the cool/hip/trendy/geek chic watches like this could afford to squeeze one in somewhere.
Re:You are completely retarded.
on
IPv6 Essentials
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· Score: 1
"Its like saying paved roads were stupid because everyone was already using dirt roads and all the stores were on dirt roads, so it would be impossible to convince people to move off of the existing roads, and onto the paved ones where nothing was. Nobody is making new roads, just paving the existing ones dumbass."
Sure, you can use the same "tubes" with IPv6 as you did with IPv4 (bits are bits, after all), but just because IPv6-compatible routers and such are backwards compatible with IPv4 doesn't magically make IPv4 routers forwards compatible (I know the little Dlink job I just bought for my home doesn't support it; it doesn't even do 802.11a). Hardware will need to be replaced.
They're not just "paving the existing roads," they're turning the dirt roads into an Interstate highway. That IPv4-way stop sign you use to access the road just won't cut it when IPv6 requires you put in a fully-fledged cloverleaf (with all the headaches that entails).
"It seems to me that you are simply trying to make excuses and apologies for past misdeeds."
Would you rather I ignore or deny them? I cannot change the past, but it seems both you and the original parent would throw the baby out with the bathwater.
"I do think there are many who know what "right" is (and are correct about it), and have known since way before Hammurabi's Code, and have continued to know since way after."
Hence my stated worries about your belief in the infallibility of your own judgment.
"And then there are apologists like you who try to legitimize the actions of those who don't understand what is right and wrong."
That is a very strong accuzation. At what point, exactly, did I try to legitimize slavery? All I did was point out that the situation in the United States at the time was a marked improvement compared to other contemporary examples that are generally regarded as "enlightened." I at no point said that slavery in the United States was "right" any more than I tried to say that its modus operandi in the United States made what happened in Haiti "wrong."
"I am absolutely sure there are plenty of people who thought slavery was wrong -- way before slavery was abolished in *any* country. But hey, if everyone's doing it, I guess it's okay."
There are also many people that today continue to insist the world is flat. Does their minority status make them correct?
What, exactly, is your basis of judgment for the validity of either statement, either "slavery is wrong" or "the world is round?" Did you give the other side of either statement any benefit of doubt? Did you study opposing viewpoints before coming to an informed opinion? Or are you simply basing your opinions on the contemporary standards in which you were raised? What proof do you have to offer to show that your belief that slavery is wrong is completely independent of the community and culture you live in?
"And no, I wouldn't beat my children, and I also would likely try to avoid immunizing my child to the extent that it is legally possible."
So you would jeopardize the health of both your child and all who your child interacts with by denying them a small pox vaccination? Have you balanced the options and truly believe that risking the potential of multiple deaths is more right than the certainty of your child's tears?
"I am not going to have children, ever."
So you would dictate the terms of right and wrong to other people without even entertaining the thought of putting yourself in their shoes? The way you stress your decision not to have children makes me surprised that you even tried to answer my question.
"So some idiot parents lobotomized their kids. You use this as a defense for your position?!?!! They are simply in the category of people who can't tell right from wrong,"
No, I am using them as examples of well-intentioned wrong-doing, trying (among other things) to see if you doubt the infallibility of your own judgment. What makes you so certain that you are right and they are wrong? How can you possibly decide right versus wrong without any kernel of self-doubt in you?
"Those idiots today are following the same herd of people who proclaim what is right and wrong,"
Proclaiming right and wrong is precisely the stance you are taking.
"Those idiots today are following the same herd of people who proclaim what is right and wrong, based on their [often evangelical!] peer groups."
And what does religious persuasion have to do with anything? Do you believe that those licensed doctors performing door-to-door lobotomies half a century ago were particularly evangelical?
If anything, you should be happy about those with an evangelical leaning; they were right about slavery.
"Fortunately, a lot of people can think for themselves. A lot can't."
"How about just doing what is right, regardless of what everone else is doing?"
How about accepting the fact that "right" doesn't have a timeless and unchanging definition? Otherwise our law books would still resemble Hammurabi's Code.
Doing what is "right" requires knowing what "right" is. For centuries there have been rationalizations from lettered scientists telling people how one particular subest of humanity is qantitatively inferior to another particular subset, volumes of justifications for why some of us should take on the "white man's burden." Some of what we see today from doctors claiming homosexuality is a disease (even after the APA finally accepted otherwise) pales in comparison to the way eugenics flowered in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries.
Are you so sure you wouldn't beat your children if there wasn't a gaggle of doctors telling you that it was the right thing to do, that it was in their best interest that you subject them to such pain? After all, you'd subject your children to painful hypodermic injections "in their best interest," don't you? Heck, as recently as 50 years ago, concerned parents had their rambunctious children lobotomized because "it was the right thing to do."
If my arguments smack of "herd mentality," then I say yours shows a disturbing faith in the infallibility of your own judgment.
The United States exists because of a disagreement over what is right and wrong.
"Take slavery, for instance. The first 80 to 100 or so years of American history were about completely denying certain racial groups any significant rights in large portions of the nation."
And I'm sure nobody else in the world at the time was doing anything approaching that heinousness. It's not like, say, the Spanish were still transporting slaves across the Atlantic decades after we outlawed it (while our enforcement may have been spotty, we at least tried).
Of course, you can try pointing to the example of the UK, but abolishing slavery was made much easier when most of the slave-owning parts of their empire went off and formed their own country. Even as early as the 1830's, Tocqueville noted that slavery was abolished sooner in those states that had fewer slaves to begin with. "Enlightened" and "republican" France had some issues with Haiti, as I recall.
So while our track record in modern terms may have been abysmal, it was pretty stellar compared to contemporaries.
"Even after the Civil War started to change the status quo, things took many decades to improve."
Again, you seem to be using modern standards. Was the US particularly worse than, say, British treatment of the Irish? Spanish treatment of the Basque? Turks and Greeks? In fact, during the century between the American Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement, Europe was still busily colonizing the world, moving on to carve up Africa and Asia when the Americas became off-limits.
And even then, Jim Crow didn't immediately follow the American Civil War and Reconstruction. It took a few decades of race-baiting by the minority Democrats (and the occasional coup d'etat) for that to happen.
"Women weren't in much better of a situation. They weren't allowed to vote from the early 1800s until 1920. South Carolina didn't ratify the 19th Amendment until 1969!"
Until 1920? What are you smoking?
First off, your example of South Carolina's ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment is misguided at best. Since you brought up the American Civil War, you should probably understand that South Carolina (espcially South Carolina) learned the Hard Way that it doesn't matter what they do or do not ratify so long as 3/4 of her neighbors agree, so sayeth Article V. The ratification in 1969 was intended and performed as a token gesture (as well as soothing their own over-inflated ego; "It's not law here unless we say it is!").
Secondly, as you touched upon the ratification process of the federal constitution, namely the fact that the states have to ratify an amendment, why would a state legislature ratify a federal amendment that state law (that they themselves write) was opposed to? The fact is that the amendment itself was a token gesture; with sufferage being almost entirely the domain of the state (so sayeth Article I), women could already vote in most states, more than the 3/4 needed to ratify an amendment. Many of those had grated women suffrage before the turn of the century (what with the amendment process being as slow as it is).
"Of course, we can't forget the Japanese-American internment camps run by the US during WWII."
Yes, we failed. But how did their treatment compare to, say, the treatment of American civillians in Japanese prison camps?* And would the War in the Pacific have even happened if Japan didn't see the European example in China and want to get in on the action?
*Yes, I realize they were US citizens in those US camps, but it's difficult to compare apples to apples when US naturalization law and the Fourteenth Amendment is so starkly different from most of the world, especially in the 1940's.
"Today we still see much antagonism directed towards homosexuals."
YMMV, this being a federal union of 50 distinct governments and 300 million people and all.
"More often than not we find that other nations offered vario
Slashdot Mirror
"A single point increase of .1 (Windows 4.0 to Windows 4.1) being 3 years worth of bug fixes, enhancements and addons isn't worth charging for?"
And don't forget they charged again for 98SE. But consider how 3 years worth of bug fixes, enhancements and addons nowadays only rates a "Service Pack 2" for XP rather than a new point version. Granted, "5.2" was already taken by then, but why not 5.11?
"5 years in the case of nt 5.0 to 5.1?"
No, it was only twenty months between Windows 2000 and Windows XP, less than the time between the release of XP and SP2. And the general consensus seems to be that XP introduced more bugs than it fixed compared to 2k.
I'm probably going to OS Hell for saying this, but what does Apple have to do with anything here?
"Anyway I hate MS versioning schemes, why service pack why not call it a point release?"
Because point releases is what Microsoft makes their OS money from, charging hundreds of dollars to upgrade Windows 4.0 to Windows 4.1 (95 to 98) or NT 5.0 to NT 5.1 (2000 to XP). One could make the case that Microsoft uses their odd naming scheme (such as "Vista" for "NT 5.3") mostly to disguise the fact that they're charging more and more money for less and less meaningful version updates.
"We can't shoot missiles back into North Korea. Fuck, we DON'T EVEN HAVE LONG DISTANCE MISSILES to shoot back with!"
Japan has space launch capabilities. Putting something into orbit is a specialized subset of making ballistic weapons. Yes, Japan does not now have missiles to shoot back with, but the only thing holding them back is choice; no lenghty R&D period like DPRK. Additionally...
"Us Japanese people don't want nukes, we don't want to make nukes, we don't want to use nukes."
Again, the only thing holding Japan back is choice. Japan has been a leader in nuclear technology for decades and for most of that time has been, at most, a week away from producing their first nuclear weapon. Even with this successful DPRK test, Japan is in a better position to mass-produce nuclear weapons than Kim could dream of, maybe even better than Beijing.
Really, the Japanese position is like saying "No, I don't have a gun, just all the parts of one and detailed instructions of how to put them together."
And as for the international diplomacy aspects of your post...
"What we want the U.S. to do is stop playing "I pretend to care (but really could care less since there's no oil involved)" and actually do something."
"What we did NOT do over the last 60 years was build an army capable of anything other than rescue and evacuation operations during natural disasters. Our army (and I use that term loosely) is pittiful. But we like it that way, and would prefer to keep it that way."
"What pisses us off is that Kim Jong-Il is constantly threatening Japan, but is only doing so to drag the U.S. into talks. We are pissed off at the fact that in all honesty, we (Japan) are nothing more that a slight sore spot in North Korea's international politics agenda, and they're playing us as the pawn."
In other words, Japan wants to have their cake and eat it too. The US State and Defense Departments do not exist for Japan's benefit; that's not what we pay them for. If you don't want to put up with US terms and stipulations, you have three options:
You don't get to have the influence of the United States with the price tag of Canada.
Even before we started putting materiel into Afghanistan and Iraq we weren't all that keen on keeping troops in the area. The Soviet Union collapsed and took our main reason for deploying troops abroad with it. Heck, we probably wouldn't even have gotten involved in the Korean War were it not for Soviet involvement. But every time the US decides to take the hint from anti-American Japanese and ROK protesters and "redeploy" our military elsewhere, your respective governments begin to whine and snivel; apparently you've gotten all too comfortable with the idea of having the "bad cop" of the US around to do the dirty work (not that you're the only industrialized nations like this).
This attitude can be seen in both what you do and do not say in your post. You mention that the threat to Japan is because of their relationship to the United States, and then go on to say that the solution is for the US to apply more pressure in the region. You apparently never think of the other, more obvious solution: remove the Seventh Fleet from Yokosuka. Moving them to US soil like Guam would play out very well with the American voters, even with the added logistical nightmares.
Look, ever since the whole "Manifest Destiny" thing went out of style, this is how we've played empire. But the only other viable alternative (from the perspective of our domestic politics) is good ol' fashioned American Isolationism, and, for better or for worse, none of our "friends and allies" are all th
"I still think it's a shame the series is so "heavy" all the time."
We can always toss in a cute kid with a robotic daggit. Hey, they can even stop the fleet at a space casino!
"I can't think of a single character who really has a happy "story so far" at this stage,"
For all intents and purposes, the entire human species save less than 1% has been wiped out of existence in a single cataclysmic attack. Nobody among those 15k should have a particularly happy life. Everybody has lost friends and loved ones, and continues to lose them as the Cylons (apparently) continue the drive to finish what they started.
"some of it (I'm thinking of one recurring character's death in particular here) seemed to be entirely without purpose,"
Death is death, it need not be meaningful. Try picking up a newspaper and checking out who got killed and why in the nearest bad neighborhood.
After all, the series started with tens of billions of rather meaningless deaths.
"You mean they do that irritating "pseudo first person" handheld camera bullshit? I want to know what fucktard came up with that"
My guess? WWII combat photographers. And my guess is that they didn't exactly plan on it, just a matter of not wanting to set up a decent tripod while getting shot at.
Galactica is a show about war. My guess is they're trying to make it look like one. If you want a constant camera angle, go out and watch a stage play. And don't be surprised when it doesn't have the same imapct.
"What i dont like about a lot of other shows, especially scefi shows, is that they just keep going and going without a end (even the original BSG from what i have seen), sure, they might find a good plot line for a season or so, but it gets old."
The thing is, the Japanese have been doing this for decades with various anime series, and even in the US we see shows like Stargate: SG-1 continuing to keep enough people interested in it to make some money. Simply because it can get stale doesn't always mean that it will, or, at the very least, there's no reason for it to be consistently stale if it runs into a rough patch.
Do we really need to see Mal as a drunken frat boy?
"My dad owns a car dealership!"
"If a tree falls in a forest, but nobody's there, does it make a sound?"
Doesn't matter, that tree was on my property and you owe me recompense for cutting it down, whether you used a remote controlled robot or not.
All the document says is "unreasonable searches and seizures," it does not specify that, if the searching is done by non-humans, it doesn't count. Considering the nature of the document in general and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments in particular, the federal government does not get to flirt with the line like that.
If they want to change the rules like that in the name of "fighting t3h terr0rz!" then they can get to work trying to convince 3/4 of the state legislatures that it's the right thing to do. Otherwise, "shall not" means just that.
Wait, this is a great idea! We can figure out which console will win this generation by seeing which one Kevin Bacon buys!
"would add too much to the cost of an already-too-expensive console,"
They should have thought of that when they put in the BluRay drive. I'd wager that it's a little more expensive than rumble motors.
"and rumble is out of style anyways."
It's in both of Sony's competitors.
"You don't want rumble in a wireless controller because it's bad for battery life, and the current trend is towards wireless"
Both of Sony's competitors have rumble and wireless in the same controller. Nintendo even has (more robust) motion sensing.
"However, it does establish beyond a doubt that these people were not fleeing from Sharia"
Then I'll both point out that I was referencing sharia the same way you were (you'll note I mentioned "honor killings" in that particular post) and also that 61% seems to be quite a bit of doubt.
"OK, so it is only 4/10, slightly less than half. The point is still valid "
The article also mentions that a plurality is against it and an additional 20% are still undecided.
However, what the article does not mention is what exactly that 40% were thinking when they said they were in favor of imposing "sharia law" in their communities. Aside from varying from country to country, sharia law encompasses a very wide array of subjects. Did every person who ticked off the "yes" option on that poll think about cutting of a thief's hand, or simply punishing public intoxication? On that note, they may have simply been looking to outlaw alcohol (something more than one Western country has dabbled in without the help of Muslims).
Even if they were looking for the imposition of something as drastic as capital punishment, were they thinking of executing people for homosexuality, as is done in Iran and Saudia Arabia, or were they thinking of executing people for aggrevated murder, as is done in the United States and Japan?
Instead of delving these questions, it seems the pollsters and the media outlets that reported on their results decided to simply leave things hanging with the inflammatory phrase "sharia law," because (as I mentioned before) fear-mongering sells copy. This reeks of sensationalism taking advantage of the then-recent July attacks in London, which makes one wonder why people are surprised British Muslims feel persecuted.
"and has been reported on Slashdot before!"
News for knee-jerking? Stuff that pushes buttons?
"Islam is NOT merely another culture that you can merge into other cultures."
How convenient for your distaste for Islam that it just happens the lone outlier in your worldview of culture, isn't it?
"The underlying belief system of Islam won't tolerate it and the reason is simple: It is a capital punishment to leave the faith."
Assuming that this is true (can you find the relevant passages from the Qur'an?), am I to believe that it is the only religion with such a policy? Considering all the acts that the Bible/Torah considers to be punishible by death or mutilation, it's hard to claim a qualitative difference.
"Just for your own understanding, study the liberties and freedoms 'enjoyed' by non-Muslims in ANY country with a Muslim majority."
Turn the clock back 150 years and replace the word "Muslim" with "Catholic." One of the chief arguments against Irish immigration into the United States was the fact that they were predominantly Catholic, coming into what is generally a Protestant country. And, of course, there were bloody clashes between Catholics and Protestants within the United States. In many respects, this antagonism continues into modern times, with John F. Kennedy's Catholicism having been viewed as a liability in elections.
Guess what: we're still here. We learned, we adapted, we persist. There was no great cataclysm, no great apocalyptic battle between two cultures many viewed as mutually exclusive. There has been and continues to be tension, but American style republicanism and secularism persists.
There is no good reason to believe that the phenomenom of Muslims going to Europe is completley unique and without any sort of precedent. The only possible reason to view it as such is to disguise your own irrational discomfort with the idea that some around you might want to go off someplace quiet with their prayer rugs a few times a day. The only source of conflict would if the Europeans choose to make one, and you'd accomplish little more than to demonstrate that the much-vaunted new, enlightened European secularism is a sham.
I understand the concept of mass immigration is new to Europe. Learn to deal with your own feelings before you end up making worse mistakes than we did. Or do you wish to see Europe continue to do little more than play second fiddle to North America?
"How do you get this when more than half the Muslims in Europe say they wish they could impose/live under Sharia in Europe?"
Got a source?
"Asia has too many, Europe has a decreasing population, America is just right. Whats your secret?"
Where do you think Asia's (et al) excess ends up?
"So, yes, "muslimification" will continue, but only because they don't seem to care in what conditions their kids grow up."
Um... they're coming to Europe to have children precisely because they care what kind of conditions their kids grow up in.
"Actually, US population is growing too slowly to keep up with the baby boomers' retirement demands. It's far worse in Europe, which will be basically Muslim within a generation,"
Exept the fertility rate of your typical natural-born US citizen resembles that of your average European. Nearly half of our current population increase comes from immigration. If Europe is becoming "Muslim," then the US is becoming Mexican and Chinese (et al), and at a far faster rate (even in this day and age we're more immigrant-friendly than most of Europe).
"its entire culture and history pushed into slavery (dhimmitude)."
Xenophobe much? If the US isn't speaking Gaelic after the huge influx of Irish immigrants we've had over our history, why do you believe that immigration from the Middle East and north Africa will change Europe so drastically? Especially when they're coming to Europe to get away from stuff like that?
No, a few sporradic incidents of "honor killings" does not make a general consesus, it's just good copy for sensationalist news outlets.
"It's this attitude that lead to our culture's potential extinction in the first place."
Culture adapts, otherwise most of the music on your hard drive would involve a harpsichord somewhere. No culture on the planet would be in its current state were it not for the cross-pollenization of art and ideas across cultures. One could make the case that the culture of the United States is the dominant one on the planet because of our immigration policies, allowing a blending of cultures to happen on the typical street corner rather than being confined to the esoteric collections of elitist patrons that can afford to import cultural artifacts from abroad.
It's interesting the way "culture" has become the new euphamism for race (does this make "culture" the new "last refuge of a scoundrel?"), I'm a little curious to see what it will be next. Instead of trying to focus on such broad, vague terms like "culture" that can be defined in any way you want to define to satisfy your arguments, perhaps you should focus on particular ideals that are important, such as republicanism. However, letting the people decide for themselves what their "culture" will look like one minute to the next is the exact opposite of the top-down imposition of "good culture/bad culture" that you seem to favor.
Of course, I can't think of any better way to stem the tide of Islamic immigrants to Europe than to impose such a European sharia in the name of preserving European culture. Why would someone looking to get out from under such a system bother moving to Europe then?
"If your GPS receiver's clock was ACTUALLY wandering around by whole seconds, your GPS unit would be completely useless."
You're assuming that the unit displays an accurate readout of its own clock. Processor cycles are dedicated to interpreting the signals from the satellites, determining location, and displaying that location on the LCD. Showing the current time is an afterthought at best (after all, not the unit's main function; many units don't even include that feature), and so the seconds displayed on the screen are very fluid.
My watch updates only once a day and, beyond that, will only gain or lose a half-second over the course of a day, and has nothing else better to do than to count oscillations of the quartz crystal and display the time. The GPS receiver tries to update the time continuously as well as using that time for other information rather than trying to pass it on to the LCD in anything resembling a raw form.
So, unless a particular GPS receiver is designed to be used as a timepiece, giving priority to interpreting and displaying time information, comparing the readout from a GPS receiver to any sort of quartz timepiece will show the displayed time on the receiver gaining and losing half-seconds over the course of a minute as opposed to over a day for your average quartz timepiece.
I used to have all sorts of silly gizmos in my watch, be it a calculator, one of those silly phone books, and even a barometer back in high school. But now I have discovered the One True Watch Feature: WWVB reception. Since then I have been spoiled by having a watch that is accurate to, at worst, the nearest second (a timepiece that tells time, amazing!). I can tune into WWV and listen to the ticks synchronize exactly with my watch, I can turn on my GPS receiver and watch the time readout wander back and forth compared to the steady watch. My watch tells the time.
It seems that everybody is putting longwave receivers into timepieces nowadays, you'd think that the cool/hip/trendy/geek chic watches like this could afford to squeeze one in somewhere.
"Its like saying paved roads were stupid because everyone was already using dirt roads and all the stores were on dirt roads, so it would be impossible to convince people to move off of the existing roads, and onto the paved ones where nothing was. Nobody is making new roads, just paving the existing ones dumbass."
Sure, you can use the same "tubes" with IPv6 as you did with IPv4 (bits are bits, after all), but just because IPv6-compatible routers and such are backwards compatible with IPv4 doesn't magically make IPv4 routers forwards compatible (I know the little Dlink job I just bought for my home doesn't support it; it doesn't even do 802.11a). Hardware will need to be replaced.
They're not just "paving the existing roads," they're turning the dirt roads into an Interstate highway. That IPv4-way stop sign you use to access the road just won't cut it when IPv6 requires you put in a fully-fledged cloverleaf (with all the headaches that entails).
"IPv6 is halfway here,"
Will it be here before or after viable fusion? What about DNF?
"It seems to me that you are simply trying to make excuses and apologies for past misdeeds."
Would you rather I ignore or deny them? I cannot change the past, but it seems both you and the original parent would throw the baby out with the bathwater.
"I do think there are many who know what "right" is (and are correct about it), and have known since way before Hammurabi's Code, and have continued to know since way after."
Hence my stated worries about your belief in the infallibility of your own judgment.
"And then there are apologists like you who try to legitimize the actions of those who don't understand what is right and wrong."
That is a very strong accuzation. At what point, exactly, did I try to legitimize slavery? All I did was point out that the situation in the United States at the time was a marked improvement compared to other contemporary examples that are generally regarded as "enlightened." I at no point said that slavery in the United States was "right" any more than I tried to say that its modus operandi in the United States made what happened in Haiti "wrong."
"I am absolutely sure there are plenty of people who thought slavery was wrong -- way before slavery was abolished in *any* country. But hey, if everyone's doing it, I guess it's okay."
There are also many people that today continue to insist the world is flat. Does their minority status make them correct?
What, exactly, is your basis of judgment for the validity of either statement, either "slavery is wrong" or "the world is round?" Did you give the other side of either statement any benefit of doubt? Did you study opposing viewpoints before coming to an informed opinion? Or are you simply basing your opinions on the contemporary standards in which you were raised? What proof do you have to offer to show that your belief that slavery is wrong is completely independent of the community and culture you live in?
"And no, I wouldn't beat my children, and I also would likely try to avoid immunizing my child to the extent that it is legally possible."
So you would jeopardize the health of both your child and all who your child interacts with by denying them a small pox vaccination? Have you balanced the options and truly believe that risking the potential of multiple deaths is more right than the certainty of your child's tears?
"I am not going to have children, ever."
So you would dictate the terms of right and wrong to other people without even entertaining the thought of putting yourself in their shoes? The way you stress your decision not to have children makes me surprised that you even tried to answer my question.
"So some idiot parents lobotomized their kids. You use this as a defense for your position?!?!! They are simply in the category of people who can't tell right from wrong,"
No, I am using them as examples of well-intentioned wrong-doing, trying (among other things) to see if you doubt the infallibility of your own judgment. What makes you so certain that you are right and they are wrong? How can you possibly decide right versus wrong without any kernel of self-doubt in you?
"Those idiots today are following the same herd of people who proclaim what is right and wrong,"
Proclaiming right and wrong is precisely the stance you are taking.
"Those idiots today are following the same herd of people who proclaim what is right and wrong, based on their [often evangelical!] peer groups."
And what does religious persuasion have to do with anything? Do you believe that those licensed doctors performing door-to-door lobotomies half a century ago were particularly evangelical?
If anything, you should be happy about those with an evangelical leaning; they were right about slavery.
"Fortunately, a lot of people can think for themselves. A lot can't."
And you're assuming that th
"How about just doing what is right, regardless of what everone else is doing?"
How about accepting the fact that "right" doesn't have a timeless and unchanging definition? Otherwise our law books would still resemble Hammurabi's Code.
Doing what is "right" requires knowing what "right" is. For centuries there have been rationalizations from lettered scientists telling people how one particular subest of humanity is qantitatively inferior to another particular subset, volumes of justifications for why some of us should take on the "white man's burden." Some of what we see today from doctors claiming homosexuality is a disease (even after the APA finally accepted otherwise) pales in comparison to the way eugenics flowered in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries.
Are you so sure you wouldn't beat your children if there wasn't a gaggle of doctors telling you that it was the right thing to do, that it was in their best interest that you subject them to such pain? After all, you'd subject your children to painful hypodermic injections "in their best interest," don't you? Heck, as recently as 50 years ago, concerned parents had their rambunctious children lobotomized because "it was the right thing to do."
If my arguments smack of "herd mentality," then I say yours shows a disturbing faith in the infallibility of your own judgment.
The United States exists because of a disagreement over what is right and wrong.
"Take slavery, for instance. The first 80 to 100 or so years of American history were about completely denying certain racial groups any significant rights in large portions of the nation."
And I'm sure nobody else in the world at the time was doing anything approaching that heinousness. It's not like, say, the Spanish were still transporting slaves across the Atlantic decades after we outlawed it (while our enforcement may have been spotty, we at least tried).
Of course, you can try pointing to the example of the UK, but abolishing slavery was made much easier when most of the slave-owning parts of their empire went off and formed their own country. Even as early as the 1830's, Tocqueville noted that slavery was abolished sooner in those states that had fewer slaves to begin with. "Enlightened" and "republican" France had some issues with Haiti, as I recall.
So while our track record in modern terms may have been abysmal, it was pretty stellar compared to contemporaries.
"Even after the Civil War started to change the status quo, things took many decades to improve."
Again, you seem to be using modern standards. Was the US particularly worse than, say, British treatment of the Irish? Spanish treatment of the Basque? Turks and Greeks? In fact, during the century between the American Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement, Europe was still busily colonizing the world, moving on to carve up Africa and Asia when the Americas became off-limits.
And even then, Jim Crow didn't immediately follow the American Civil War and Reconstruction. It took a few decades of race-baiting by the minority Democrats (and the occasional coup d'etat) for that to happen.
"Women weren't in much better of a situation. They weren't allowed to vote from the early 1800s until 1920. South Carolina didn't ratify the 19th Amendment until 1969!"
Until 1920? What are you smoking?
First off, your example of South Carolina's ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment is misguided at best. Since you brought up the American Civil War, you should probably understand that South Carolina (espcially South Carolina) learned the Hard Way that it doesn't matter what they do or do not ratify so long as 3/4 of her neighbors agree, so sayeth Article V. The ratification in 1969 was intended and performed as a token gesture (as well as soothing their own over-inflated ego; "It's not law here unless we say it is!").
Secondly, as you touched upon the ratification process of the federal constitution, namely the fact that the states have to ratify an amendment, why would a state legislature ratify a federal amendment that state law (that they themselves write) was opposed to? The fact is that the amendment itself was a token gesture; with sufferage being almost entirely the domain of the state (so sayeth Article I), women could already vote in most states, more than the 3/4 needed to ratify an amendment. Many of those had grated women suffrage before the turn of the century (what with the amendment process being as slow as it is).
"Of course, we can't forget the Japanese-American internment camps run by the US during WWII."
Yes, we failed. But how did their treatment compare to, say, the treatment of American civillians in Japanese prison camps?* And would the War in the Pacific have even happened if Japan didn't see the European example in China and want to get in on the action?
*Yes, I realize they were US citizens in those US camps, but it's difficult to compare apples to apples when US naturalization law and the Fourteenth Amendment is so starkly different from most of the world, especially in the 1940's.
"Today we still see much antagonism directed towards homosexuals."
YMMV, this being a federal union of 50 distinct governments and 300 million people and all.
"More often than not we find that other nations offered vario