I hate to stir up more trouble, but it is my opinion that PetsWarehouse are a bunch of child molesting, cocaine distributing, AIDS-infected Satanists who routinely butcher small puppies and kittens in worship of the Dark Lord. Robert Novak is best friends with Gary Condit and he helped pull out Chandra Levy's teeth with a pair of pliers.
You are welcome to post your agreement below.
Re:"Invasive American culture" -- no way.
on
Globalism Post 9/11
·
· Score: 1
I think you have an utterly ignorant and misinformed idea of what Texas is all about. Your ideas about multiculturalism and openness don't extend to Texans, probably because you've got a stereotype in your mind. Good going.
"Invasive American culture" -- no way.
on
Globalism Post 9/11
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I am so tired of reading complaints about "invasive American culture." It is oh-so-trendy-and-intellectually-hip to bash things American, just by virtue of the fact that they originate from America. But if you blindly do so, you demonstrate yourself to be badly biased and ignorant of reality.
Throughout the world there is a voracious appetite for American culture. We are not "invading" anything. If a French businessman opens up a McDonald's franchise on the corner of his street, his business is free to succeed or fail based on the demand for the product. Somebody must like McDonald's Hamburgers over there, because the restaurants somehow stay in business. Should the French businessman be denied the right to open and operate his own McDonald's? Doesn't he have the right to make money how he wants? Just because something is distributed in a chain or franchise arrangement (whether it's a restaurant, supermarket or store), it doesn't make it automatically crappy and evil.
Here in Texas, I am constantly seeing reminders that we are not the vicious cultural stormtrooper that we are made out to be. Wildly successful businesses started by Mexican or Vietnamese business owners are everywhere. I see Spanish-language advertisements all over the place on billboards. Many of my friends listen to Indian pop music, drink Australian beer and eat Japanese food. And they do this without a second thought -- not "wow I'm being so cool and hip for consuming this stuff," but because these things have really woven themselves into the culture. Americans seek out and embrace other cultures.
I have traveled through more than 20 states, and I have seen it with my own eyes: Americans, for the most part, are genuinely interested in foreign cultures, willing to embrace new ideas and learn about the world. If anything, this made 9/11 all the more tragic and disturbing, because the perpetrators were so terribly misguided in their beliefs about the American people.
It's unfair and ignorant to say that all muslims are kill-crazy bombsmiths. It's unfair and ignorant to say that all Frenchmen are rude, snotty, disheveled little toads. And it's equally unfair to say that American culture is ruthlessly invading the rest of the world, or that the American people are spoiled SUV-driving yuppies, because its a grossly unfair and ignorant characterization.
I mostly agree -- but I think that this is, essentially, something that's already happened. After 9/11, no hijacker will ever be able to take over a plane without experiencing significant resistance from the passengers. In the old days, people would sit around and wait for some kind of peaceful resolution.
You might say that Bin Laden, et al, ruined it for the other oldschool hijackers who were just trying to get to Cuba or whatever. Kinda like the guy at your office who downloads 500 gigabytes of porn... now everyone gets their internet access cut off.
The plane over Pennsylvania marked the beginning of the New Way. Hijacking, as a crime, is essentially over, because there is already an unofficial "zero tolerance" policy.
And I think it should be that way. Fuck those guys.
EXACTLY!!!! Who could fucking plan for something like that? You design a building for the worst *REASONABLE* thing that could happen, not some brutal, deranged act.
I just don't know how to mod this... If you're deliberately trying to be an idiot, then you deserve the worst.
If by "The Church of Globalisation" you mean a diverse workplace where hundreds of different nationalities worked in the same building, then yeah I guess you are right.
Unless you're implying there was some global, evil force controlling all the business in the WTC... I just don't understand.
Are corporations automatically evil? Maybe you're saying they deserved it? Please clarify.
Hear, hear. You obviously believe in personal accountability. Like you, I am tired of hearing people list a litany of America's sins, all the terrible things about the US government, or ways this could have been avoided.
The fact is, a group of men decided to make this happen. They were utterly, totally wrong to do it, and there is absolutely no excuse for their behavior. Making excuses or changing the subject doesn't change the fact.
you're obviously spending too much time smoking the ganja, my friend. "in relative retrospect?" "influx into the education of freedom fighters?" I can't even understand what you're saying, dude. It's OK... just take another toke, everything will be all right, don't freak out...
Sorry I did not make myself clear in my first message, it was poorly written. When I said "opposed" to recycling I didn't mean "don't recycle". But, if you think that stuff your recycling is even making a dent in the massive environmental problems our world faces, you are fooling yourself. I see recycling as a red herring -- probably not harmful, probably not very helpful -- and detracts energy and attention from solving much worse problems.
Personally I like to take my cans and bottles, and go out to the beach twice a year, and dump it all in the ocean. I force plastic 6-pack tops over the heads of ducks and otters, too.
You've got yourself snowed reeeal good. You can sit there, smugly assuring yourself that a boycott will somehow destroy Blizzard, an huge company which has not agreed to conform exactly to your idealistic worldview.
I'm opposed to most boycotts for the same reason that I'm opposed to most recycling programs, or political chain e-mails. They give a person the mistaken impression that they are actually accomplishing something, so that's where their interest stops -- "hey, I'm a fucking ENVIRONMENTALIST, I recycled my soda can" or "Hey, I'm a pro-choice ACTIVIST, I forwarded an annoying e-mail to all my friends," or "Hey, I'm an elite EFF open source free software GURU, I refused to buy Warcraft III!"
Warcraft III is going to succeed because it is a superior product. In a free market, that is the way it should work.
That comment really worries me. At the risk of sounding anal retentive, I'd like to point out that a total lack of programming methodology is, in my experience, a recipe for disaster.
Especially with a large group of developers. You will find it very difficult to build cohesive, useful documentation unless all the developers are at least in agreement on basic methodology to be used (code organization, division of scope, etc). You don't have to follow a college textbook but at least get some basic coding guidelines.
Do you have one of those obnoxious newbies programmers who fancies himself a total hax0r, creating variable names like "it3r80R" when a simple "i" would do, or putting hundreds of little in-jokes and wisecracks throughout the comments? If so, he's got to cut that shit out.
Good code documentation flows, almost naturally, out of good code design & commenting.
I sure would love to see this page...
on
Homemade Gauss Gun
·
· Score: 4, Funny
THE RESPONSIBLE WAY TO SOLVE THIS PROBLEM:
Dear Web Administrator:
The editors at Slashdot.com are about to link to your site. With your permission, we will make a site mirror available at no charge to you. This mirror will be available for the next 5 days, and will be linked from our article, sparing you thousands of simultaneous connections which might bring your puny server to a halt. By the way, we can afford to do this, because we are now charging for ad-free page views, didn't you hear?
Please contact us by [date] and let us know if we may mirror your site. If not, the story will be published on [date] and your site may experience the "Slashdot Effect."
Once again, Slashdot shoots itself in the foot with an overly editorialized "news" post. You know, I don't entirely disagree with your oh-so-cynical view of BeOS, but how about if you just post the news and leave the opinionating to the readers?
Does Slashdot even know what it wants to be? Sometimes it poses as a journalistic outlet. Sometimes it's an opinion site. Interesting how Katz posted another poorly-informed rant earlier today, about how the media "lies to you." Hey guess what, whether or not they'll admit it, Slashdot is part of that Media.
-------- "The indiscriminate use of vulgar language is the linguistic crutch of the inarticulate motherfucker." - Author Unknown
Hey, I'm no Anglo-centrist, but it seems to me that a petition like this would be taken more seriously if it wasn't loaded with spelling and grammatical errors. "What kind of people would think something like this is important?" you might ask. The kind of people who would cancel a great show like Futurama. Seriously, good spelling and grammar will get you a lot further.
Re:class division via consumption.
on
This is IT?
·
· Score: 1
Yeah, darn that computer, it is the only reason why all those people are stuck in poverty.
I think we should all just combine all the money in the world in a single bank account, and then redistribute it equally, like a big game of Monopoly. That would really work.
Re:We have a foot of snow; how will IT work here?
on
This is IT?
·
· Score: 1
I just watched Good Morning America where they interviewed Dean Kamen, and he specifically said "It works great on snow." Don't know about the blizzard conditions you are talking about, more than likely he's talking about a sidewalk with an inch or so of snow. So, your only choice is to keep hoping for more global warming.
They just demoed it on ABC / Good Morning America
on
This is IT?
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Charles Gibson and Diane Sawyer got on them and zipped around for a few minutes.
It's fucking cool, OK?
So, all you naysayers out there asking questions like "how does this replace a bicycle?" or "how does it corner?" Maybe you should have waited to see!
First, these things look fucking MANUVERABLE. They turn on a dime. If you're stationary, and you turn the handlebars, you can do a stationary 360 if you want. Try THAT on a bike. While Dean Kamen was being interviewed, he was standing there idling, kind of casually rolling back and forth.
Several times, Kamen took his hands completely off the handlebars and continued along. The platform kept perfect balance and kept going straight.
Gibson picked it up faster than Sawyer, and Sawyer almost fell off hers once (she forgot what she was doing and panicked, I think, half-leaping from the platform as it rolled towards the crowd). But by the end of the first commercial break, they had both mastered it, and were zipping all around the plaza with speed and aplomb.
They put speed-limits on the newscasters' units, but Kamen's unit was fully unregulated and looked like it could really move fast. (Imagine the disaster if either of those newscasters had suffered an injury on live television on the very first demonstration!)
Some other demonstrators ran an obstacle course, including ramps, rocks, shallow steps (nothing like a staircase, but at least 2 inches high), and yes indeed, water. One of the demonstrators even did a stationary 360 while stopped on the middle of the ramp. It was freaky looking. He rotated around, became diagonal, then straightened out and the thing didn't budge.
Guys, this thing looks really cool. It is time for you to give this thing the props it deserves. If you still want to knock it, fine, but remember: the "hype" attached with this thing came from totally unrealistic expectations and wild speculation, fueled in part by Slashdot reader comments.
Segue (Segway): To slowly change from one thing to
on
This is IT?
·
· Score: 1
Progress has to happen in steps. Those of you environmentalists who want to minimize our dependence on petroleum products, think about this: how will we get there? It can't just happen overnight.
I'm willing to accept this as a great first step in cleaner transportation. No, this won't totally replace cars in all cities, especially cities where some people face a 20-mile commute or there are crappy sidewalks. No, it doesn't run on hydrogen. No, there's no stirling engine. No, there's no GPS system. If you were expecting one, you were misleading yourself. (Kamen's resume was available all year long; it wasn't hard to figure out, within reason, what he was up to.)
But this is a great step in the right direction. It can't all just happen at once. If we wait for a president to suddenly pass a law banning all gas-powered engines and mandating solar and wind power for everyone, that day will never, ever come. Realistically, change should happen in steps, not one massive bloody revolution that would unemploy millions of people and totally upend our economy as we know it.
And shame on Slashdot's "michael" for his condescending, geekier-than-thou post. I'd say I expect more from Slashdot, but his immaturity seems to be part of a general trend here.
"michael", don't be a jerk
on
This is IT?
·
· Score: 1
You might be tempted to make fun of readers for being "overcome by the relentless hype machine that is IT" but don't forget for a second that it's outlets like Slashdot that helped feed the initial frenzy to begin with. Your snotty, so-very-blase, hipper-than-thou attitude is, in this context, totally hypocritical, and in my view is a symptom of the immaturity that is causing Slashdot to lose its relevance -- and fast!
I for one think the Segway is really cool. But that's probably because I wasn't one of the people theorizing it would have a GPS system, be a hovercar, run off of hydrogen, or possess a perpetual motion engine.
I just watched "Saving Private Ryan" last weekend, broadcast in its entirety, unedited, on ABC, during prime time. The word "fuck" was used several times, and the violence was extremely graphic. No one got arrested.
Based on this, apparently you are incorrect. (I'm still waiting for the word "cunt" but I'll bet it's coming soon, and I'll bet it shows up on Fox Network.) There is a complex set of regulatory guidelines which create standards and practices for broadcast television.
Off on a tangent: If Thomas Jefferson tuned into television today, he'd probably puke into his fucking 3-cornered hat. "We should have been more clear about the whole 'make no law' thing," he'd probably say.
Kinkos might refuse to copy a bestiality graphic, but not because it's illegal. The corporation, Kinko's, has a set of guidelines for itself. They don't want to be in the business of duplicating bestiality images. I used to co-manage a large copy shop in Houston, and we'd copy just about anything. The only time we refused to copy something, it was brochures for the local KKK, but that was just because, well, I hate the KKK. But that was our decision as a shop.
As far as I know, there are very few pictures that are truly illegal to print. Our lawyers told us not to worry, unless someone brought child porn in, or wanted to copy money. (There are strict rules about how money can be copied. No, it is not totally illegal, but you're not allowed to just duplicate it.)
I did not mean that the SC can just throw out parts of the Constitution. Sorry if I was unclear.
Notice how there is no exception in the First Amendment that says: "except when the Supreme or Inferior Courts deem the speech to dangerous, bad, or potentially harmful". Thats not in there. Why? Because they didnt want that.
Total and complete nonsense. The Constitution, article III, section 2, states that "The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution". This means that the Supreme Court has the power to interpret the Constitution.
You wrote:
The Constitution is an absolute document.
This is just not true. The Supreme Court interprets the Constitution. It is not -- nor has it ever been -- absolute. Any juris doctorate graduate student will tell you that. The power of the Supreme Court to interpret and judge ALL sections of the Constitution is every bit as important as the Constitution itself.
So next time you listen to the radio, or watch TV, or read a book, or go to the library, ask yourself: has this information been censored? The answer is yes, and the Constitution has been trampled.
Totally untrue, although a totally different topic. Radio, television and books are businesses. We all have freedom of speech, but that speech carries repercussions. No one is free from these repercussions. We can say whatever we want against the government, we can spew whatever misinformed garbage pops into our heads. But television, radio and books don't have to print it -- they are businesses, and their bottom line is making money. This is such a different subject, I'm surprised you even brought it up. Some ignorant fuck (let's say, Bill Maher of Politically Incorrect) makes an unfortunate statement. Sure, he's free to MAKE the statement -- but now he must live with the consequences. ABC is trying to make money. Millions of people call into ABC, swearing they'll never watch the show again. It is totally within ABC's right to cancel Bill Maher, for any reason or for NO reason. They are a business, plain and simple. Quite frankly, if they ask him to show up on TV wearing a fucking ballerina costume, they can do it -- he signed the damn contract.
This misdirection doesn't work -- let's stay on the topic here. Radio, TV and books are private businesses and as such, they can print or not print whatever the fuck they want. Public libraries are public property, but still under the jurisdiction various governmental entities. If you want to create a website containing information about nuclear power plants or airports, you are totally free to call these places up, collect the information and organize it yourself.
By the way, I have long thought that the Slashdot moderation system is a total sham. But this proves it: this post has been assigned a "troll" rating. Hey, just because I present an opposing viewpoint, it becomes a troll? The ignorant political bias of this totally uninformed, immature and out-of-touch forum finally comes through. Suck my ballsack, moderators.
Slashdot Mirror
"Robstercraw? What the fuck is a robstercraw??"
I hate to stir up more trouble, but it is my opinion that PetsWarehouse are a bunch of child molesting, cocaine distributing, AIDS-infected Satanists who routinely butcher small puppies and kittens in worship of the Dark Lord. Robert Novak is best friends with Gary Condit and he helped pull out Chandra Levy's teeth with a pair of pliers.
You are welcome to post your agreement below.
I think you have an utterly ignorant and misinformed idea of what Texas is all about. Your ideas about multiculturalism and openness don't extend to Texans, probably because you've got a stereotype in your mind. Good going.
I am so tired of reading complaints about "invasive American culture." It is oh-so-trendy-and-intellectually-hip to bash things American, just by virtue of the fact that they originate from America. But if you blindly do so, you demonstrate yourself to be badly biased and ignorant of reality.
Throughout the world there is a voracious appetite for American culture. We are not "invading" anything. If a French businessman opens up a McDonald's franchise on the corner of his street, his business is free to succeed or fail based on the demand for the product. Somebody must like McDonald's Hamburgers over there, because the restaurants somehow stay in business. Should the French businessman be denied the right to open and operate his own McDonald's? Doesn't he have the right to make money how he wants? Just because something is distributed in a chain or franchise arrangement (whether it's a restaurant, supermarket or store), it doesn't make it automatically crappy and evil.
Here in Texas, I am constantly seeing reminders that we are not the vicious cultural stormtrooper that we are made out to be. Wildly successful businesses started by Mexican or Vietnamese business owners are everywhere. I see Spanish-language advertisements all over the place on billboards. Many of my friends listen to Indian pop music, drink Australian beer and eat Japanese food. And they do this without a second thought -- not "wow I'm being so cool and hip for consuming this stuff," but because these things have really woven themselves into the culture. Americans seek out and embrace other cultures.
I have traveled through more than 20 states, and I have seen it with my own eyes: Americans, for the most part, are genuinely interested in foreign cultures, willing to embrace new ideas and learn about the world. If anything, this made 9/11 all the more tragic and disturbing, because the perpetrators were so terribly misguided in their beliefs about the American people.
It's unfair and ignorant to say that all muslims are kill-crazy bombsmiths. It's unfair and ignorant to say that all Frenchmen are rude, snotty, disheveled little toads. And it's equally unfair to say that American culture is ruthlessly invading the rest of the world, or that the American people are spoiled SUV-driving yuppies, because its a grossly unfair and ignorant characterization.
I mostly agree -- but I think that this is, essentially, something that's already happened. After 9/11, no hijacker will ever be able to take over a plane without experiencing significant resistance from the passengers. In the old days, people would sit around and wait for some kind of peaceful resolution.
You might say that Bin Laden, et al, ruined it for the other oldschool hijackers who were just trying to get to Cuba or whatever. Kinda like the guy at your office who downloads 500 gigabytes of porn... now everyone gets their internet access cut off.
The plane over Pennsylvania marked the beginning of the New Way. Hijacking, as a crime, is essentially over, because there is already an unofficial "zero tolerance" policy.
And I think it should be that way. Fuck those guys.
EXACTLY!!!! Who could fucking plan for something like that? You design a building for the worst *REASONABLE* thing that could happen, not some brutal, deranged act.
I just don't know how to mod this... If you're deliberately trying to be an idiot, then you deserve the worst.
If by "The Church of Globalisation" you mean a diverse workplace where hundreds of different nationalities worked in the same building, then yeah I guess you are right.
Unless you're implying there was some global, evil force controlling all the business in the WTC... I just don't understand.
Are corporations automatically evil? Maybe you're saying they deserved it? Please clarify.
Hear, hear. You obviously believe in personal accountability. Like you, I am tired of hearing people list a litany of America's sins, all the terrible things about the US government, or ways this could have been avoided.
The fact is, a group of men decided to make this happen. They were utterly, totally wrong to do it, and there is absolutely no excuse for their behavior. Making excuses or changing the subject doesn't change the fact.
you're obviously spending too much time smoking the ganja, my friend. "in relative retrospect?" "influx into the education of freedom fighters?" I can't even understand what you're saying, dude. It's OK... just take another toke, everything will be all right, don't freak out...
Sorry I did not make myself clear in my first message, it was poorly written. When I said "opposed" to recycling I didn't mean "don't recycle". But, if you think that stuff your recycling is even making a dent in the massive environmental problems our world faces, you are fooling yourself. I see recycling as a red herring -- probably not harmful, probably not very helpful -- and detracts energy and attention from solving much worse problems.
Personally I like to take my cans and bottles, and go out to the beach twice a year, and dump it all in the ocean. I force plastic 6-pack tops over the heads of ducks and otters, too.
You've got yourself snowed reeeal good. You can sit there, smugly assuring yourself that a boycott will somehow destroy Blizzard, an huge company which has not agreed to conform exactly to your idealistic worldview.
I'm opposed to most boycotts for the same reason that I'm opposed to most recycling programs, or political chain e-mails. They give a person the mistaken impression that they are actually accomplishing something, so that's where their interest stops -- "hey, I'm a fucking ENVIRONMENTALIST, I recycled my soda can" or "Hey, I'm a pro-choice ACTIVIST, I forwarded an annoying e-mail to all my friends," or "Hey, I'm an elite EFF open source free software GURU, I refused to buy Warcraft III!"
Warcraft III is going to succeed because it is a superior product. In a free market, that is the way it should work.
You know you'll buy it... eventually.
That comment really worries me. At the risk of sounding anal retentive, I'd like to point out that a total lack of programming methodology is, in my experience, a recipe for disaster.
Especially with a large group of developers. You will find it very difficult to build cohesive, useful documentation unless all the developers are at least in agreement on basic methodology to be used (code organization, division of scope, etc). You don't have to follow a college textbook but at least get some basic coding guidelines.
Do you have one of those obnoxious newbies programmers who fancies himself a total hax0r, creating variable names like "it3r80R" when a simple "i" would do, or putting hundreds of little in-jokes and wisecracks throughout the comments? If so, he's got to cut that shit out.
Good code documentation flows, almost naturally, out of good code design & commenting.
THE RESPONSIBLE WAY TO SOLVE THIS PROBLEM:
Dear Web Administrator:
The editors at Slashdot.com are about to link to your site. With your permission, we will make a site mirror available at no charge to you. This mirror will be available for the next 5 days, and will be linked from our article, sparing you thousands of simultaneous connections which might bring your puny server to a halt. By the way, we can afford to do this, because we are now charging for ad-free page views, didn't you hear?
Please contact us by [date] and let us know if we may mirror your site. If not, the story will be published on [date] and your site may experience the "Slashdot Effect."
Once again, Slashdot shoots itself in the foot with an overly editorialized "news" post. You know, I don't entirely disagree with your oh-so-cynical view of BeOS, but how about if you just post the news and leave the opinionating to the readers?
Does Slashdot even know what it wants to be? Sometimes it poses as a journalistic outlet. Sometimes it's an opinion site. Interesting how Katz posted another poorly-informed rant earlier today, about how the media "lies to you." Hey guess what, whether or not they'll admit it, Slashdot is part of that Media.
--------
"The indiscriminate use of vulgar language is the linguistic crutch of the inarticulate motherfucker." - Author Unknown
Hey, I'm no Anglo-centrist, but it seems to me that a petition like this would be taken more seriously if it wasn't loaded with spelling and grammatical errors. "What kind of people would think something like this is important?" you might ask. The kind of people who would cancel a great show like Futurama. Seriously, good spelling and grammar will get you a lot further.
Yeah, darn that computer, it is the only reason why all those people are stuck in poverty.
I think we should all just combine all the money in the world in a single bank account, and then redistribute it equally, like a big game of Monopoly. That would really work .
I just watched Good Morning America where they interviewed Dean Kamen, and he specifically said "It works great on snow." Don't know about the blizzard conditions you are talking about, more than likely he's talking about a sidewalk with an inch or so of snow. So, your only choice is to keep hoping for more global warming.
Charles Gibson and Diane Sawyer got on them and zipped around for a few minutes.
It's fucking cool, OK?
So, all you naysayers out there asking questions like "how does this replace a bicycle?" or "how does it corner?" Maybe you should have waited to see!
First, these things look fucking MANUVERABLE. They turn on a dime. If you're stationary, and you turn the handlebars, you can do a stationary 360 if you want. Try THAT on a bike. While Dean Kamen was being interviewed, he was standing there idling, kind of casually rolling back and forth.
Several times, Kamen took his hands completely off the handlebars and continued along. The platform kept perfect balance and kept going straight.
Gibson picked it up faster than Sawyer, and Sawyer almost fell off hers once (she forgot what she was doing and panicked, I think, half-leaping from the platform as it rolled towards the crowd). But by the end of the first commercial break, they had both mastered it, and were zipping all around the plaza with speed and aplomb.
They put speed-limits on the newscasters' units, but Kamen's unit was fully unregulated and looked like it could really move fast. (Imagine the disaster if either of those newscasters had suffered an injury on live television on the very first demonstration!)
Some other demonstrators ran an obstacle course, including ramps, rocks, shallow steps (nothing like a staircase, but at least 2 inches high), and yes indeed, water. One of the demonstrators even did a stationary 360 while stopped on the middle of the ramp. It was freaky looking. He rotated around, became diagonal, then straightened out and the thing didn't budge.
Guys, this thing looks really cool. It is time for you to give this thing the props it deserves. If you still want to knock it, fine, but remember: the "hype" attached with this thing came from totally unrealistic expectations and wild speculation, fueled in part by Slashdot reader comments.
Progress has to happen in steps. Those of you environmentalists who want to minimize our dependence on petroleum products, think about this: how will we get there? It can't just happen overnight.
I'm willing to accept this as a great first step in cleaner transportation. No, this won't totally replace cars in all cities, especially cities where some people face a 20-mile commute or there are crappy sidewalks. No, it doesn't run on hydrogen. No, there's no stirling engine. No, there's no GPS system. If you were expecting one, you were misleading yourself. (Kamen's resume was available all year long; it wasn't hard to figure out, within reason, what he was up to.)
But this is a great step in the right direction. It can't all just happen at once. If we wait for a president to suddenly pass a law banning all gas-powered engines and mandating solar and wind power for everyone, that day will never, ever come. Realistically, change should happen in steps, not one massive bloody revolution that would unemploy millions of people and totally upend our economy as we know it.
And shame on Slashdot's "michael" for his condescending, geekier-than-thou post. I'd say I expect more from Slashdot, but his immaturity seems to be part of a general trend here.
You might be tempted to make fun of readers for being "overcome by the relentless hype machine that is IT" but don't forget for a second that it's outlets like Slashdot that helped feed the initial frenzy to begin with. Your snotty, so-very-blase, hipper-than-thou attitude is, in this context, totally hypocritical, and in my view is a symptom of the immaturity that is causing Slashdot to lose its relevance -- and fast!
I for one think the Segway is really cool. But that's probably because I wasn't one of the people theorizing it would have a GPS system, be a hovercar, run off of hydrogen, or possess a perpetual motion engine.
I just watched "Saving Private Ryan" last weekend, broadcast in its entirety, unedited, on ABC, during prime time. The word "fuck" was used several times, and the violence was extremely graphic. No one got arrested.
Based on this, apparently you are incorrect. (I'm still waiting for the word "cunt" but I'll bet it's coming soon, and I'll bet it shows up on Fox Network.) There is a complex set of regulatory guidelines which create standards and practices for broadcast television.
Off on a tangent: If Thomas Jefferson tuned into television today, he'd probably puke into his fucking 3-cornered hat. "We should have been more clear about the whole 'make no law' thing," he'd probably say.
Kinkos might refuse to copy a bestiality graphic, but not because it's illegal. The corporation, Kinko's, has a set of guidelines for itself. They don't want to be in the business of duplicating bestiality images. I used to co-manage a large copy shop in Houston, and we'd copy just about anything. The only time we refused to copy something, it was brochures for the local KKK, but that was just because, well, I hate the KKK. But that was our decision as a shop.
As far as I know, there are very few pictures that are truly illegal to print. Our lawyers told us not to worry, unless someone brought child porn in, or wanted to copy money. (There are strict rules about how money can be copied. No, it is not totally illegal, but you're not allowed to just duplicate it.)
I did not mean that the SC can just throw out parts of the Constitution. Sorry if I was unclear.
Total and complete nonsense. The Constitution, article III, section 2, states that "The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution". This means that the Supreme Court has the power to interpret the Constitution.
You wrote:
This is just not true. The Supreme Court interprets the Constitution. It is not -- nor has it ever been -- absolute. Any juris doctorate graduate student will tell you that. The power of the Supreme Court to interpret and judge ALL sections of the Constitution is every bit as important as the Constitution itself.
Totally untrue, although a totally different topic. Radio, television and books are businesses. We all have freedom of speech, but that speech carries repercussions. No one is free from these repercussions. We can say whatever we want against the government, we can spew whatever misinformed garbage pops into our heads. But television, radio and books don't have to print it -- they are businesses, and their bottom line is making money . This is such a different subject, I'm surprised you even brought it up. Some ignorant fuck (let's say, Bill Maher of Politically Incorrect) makes an unfortunate statement. Sure, he's free to MAKE the statement -- but now he must live with the consequences. ABC is trying to make money. Millions of people call into ABC, swearing they'll never watch the show again. It is totally within ABC's right to cancel Bill Maher, for any reason or for NO reason. They are a business, plain and simple. Quite frankly, if they ask him to show up on TV wearing a fucking ballerina costume, they can do it -- he signed the damn contract.
This misdirection doesn't work -- let's stay on the topic here. Radio, TV and books are private businesses and as such, they can print or not print whatever the fuck they want. Public libraries are public property, but still under the jurisdiction various governmental entities. If you want to create a website containing information about nuclear power plants or airports, you are totally free to call these places up, collect the information and organize it yourself.
By the way, I have long thought that the Slashdot moderation system is a total sham. But this proves it: this post has been assigned a "troll" rating. Hey, just because I present an opposing viewpoint, it becomes a troll? The ignorant political bias of this totally uninformed, immature and out-of-touch forum finally comes through. Suck my ballsack, moderators.
OOOH!!!! You're so hardcore, you quoted 1984!!! WELL DONE I say to you!!! You really STUCK IT TO THE MAN!!!!
If your non-existent opinion was any more irrelevant, you'd be Richard Simmons.
If the government created or collected that information, then yes, the government should have a say about who gets access to that information.