ahh yes of course, the old, if Israel would just [play] nice, all the Arabs would magically get along with each other.
Nobody really believes that crap, do they? Why's there such animosity between Shiites and Sunnis, Saudis and Iran? Well, why's there such animosity between Irish Protestants and Catholics? I sense a pattern building here...
When I was growing up, Arab nations were repeatedly attacking Israel, and Israel was only barely hanging on by the skin of their teeth. Israel wasn't attacking anyone, were they?
Since then, the Israelis appear to have had enough of that and now think nothing of obliterating suspected nuke weapons sites in Arab countries, exporting malware (Stuxnet) to fsck up same, yada, yada. I can't say I blame them one bit.
Frankly, I wish the Jews in Germany/Europe had learned this lesson prior to WWII. I doubt the Holocaust would have happened if they had. I also wish they'd consign Zionism to the dustbin of history, and take Sharia along with it. Unfortunately, wishing don't make it so.
Linux on the desktop has been a disaster up until just a few years ago...
Yet, I've managed quite well with it for more than two decades. How is that?
Perhaps, if you'd take the time to read a few manpages, search a few on-line knowledge bases, read a bit of the supplied documentation (regardless of how well written it may be), or ask someone who uses it to help, you too could get it to work for you?
Nah, takes too long. Where's the DWIM[*] key, FFS?!?
I don't give a rat's ass if you can't/won't use it. As long as I can, I'm happy. "Linux on the desktop", ha, haa ha, hahahaha...
Speaking of classy... how do you feel about niggers?
I'm sorry, but your version of reality hasn't been supported since about half way through the 19th century. You need to upgrade to civilized-stable to expect continued support.
Mobile operating systems are an opportunity to use a computer just to get things done, not to maintain the computer. That's what was so refreshing about the experience of the using the iPad...
Why the !@#$ does it always have to come down to Apple iBaubles save the world?!?
Damn, man, if you'd bothered to run Linux/FLOSS all this time, you could have just fscking ignored the whole malware situation entirely, as I've been able to FOR THE LAST TWO DECADES!
Hey one-liner, he is referring to this Green & Red Gangs particular situation.
Wow. Just wow. Especially when you look at its parent.
Some of us are *really* out there./. can be quite oddly entertaining at times. Not putting you down or dissing you in any way, nor attempting to question or dispute anything here, just... wow.
Okay, I think Afghanistan is our business, because I hate seeing women executed for wearing the wrong clothing or just offending some guy. That !@#$ sucks. I think we do have an obligation to at least attempt to export civilization to those who desperately need it.
No. It is the business of a Afghans -- both the women and their male sympathizers -- to decide to do something about this.
Okay, I'll admit I'm not that perfect a guy. It may be none of my business, and perhaps it's best if I step out, but I can't. There are some absolutes which can't be ignored. A woman on her knees in a chador/burka, awaiting a bullet to the back of her head? This isn't negotiable. Good men step in. It's not a question of respecting "local sensibilities" or "local customs." That !@#$ shouldn't happen anywhere. That's an absolute.
I'd prefer it if Afghani women rose up and slashed the throats of their abusive opressors, but failing that, I'll be happy to step in and do it for them if they can't.
I too sympathize with your point. I don't mean to belittle the magnitude of the problem.
However, they all did get along once, and I firmly believe they (in time) can again, if others would just stop sticking their noses into it. For me, it's like Cold War politics ("our puppet state" vs. "their puppet state") is still going on, long after the Soviets ceased to be a problem for anybody.
*ALL* of the Middle East's problems ought to be considered "an internal problem." It should be left up to all of them to work it out. Sunni vs. Shiite, Muslim vs. $blah, Palestinian vs. Zionism,... We can't fix that !@#$
It shouldn't be any of $our business. They ought to be left alone to sort out their affairs, as that's the only way their affairs can be sorted. Unseating Mosadegh and installing the Shah was none of our business. Supporting Iraq against Iran was none of our business. Unseating Saddam Hussein was none of our business.
Okay, I think Afghanistan is our business, because I hate seeing women executed for wearing the wrong clothing or just offending some guy. That !@#$ sucks. I think we do have an obligation to at least attempt to export civilization to those who desperately need it.
The US should just stop fiddling with geopolitics, and get back to its own knitting. There are no Hitlers out there we need them to save us from today. Their own democracy is far more in need of their help than any of the rest of the world's peoples.
Can we downmod people using the insulting "US-ian", instead of the correct "American"? You don't denigrate other groups by not using the name that they use for themselves, do you?
Wow, you find that insulting?!? I just consider it descriptive. I've found that the only people offended by the use of "US-ian" is US-ians who ignore the fact that not all "Americans" are in the USA.
Cf. North America, Central America, South America.
No fucking sympathy for your point of view whatsoever from here, a North American in Canada!
Iran has stated on the record that even if the Palestinians agree 100% to a peace agreement, they will still pursue the violent extermination of Israel.
Arafat once said the same, yet he shook hands with an Israeli PM. I don't think anything I wrote implied that I thought the leadership of Iran was in any way sane. Ahmadinejad is a nutbar. Ayatollah Khomeini was a nutbar. Their future leadership *may* turn out to be sane (Allah Akbar!).
All parties in the Middle East appear to have learned to enjoy hating each other; it's their favourite game. Sunni vs. Shiite, PLO vs. Hezbollah, Muslims vs. Jews, Orthodox Jews vs. mere Israelis, Saudis vs. Iran, Muslim Brotherhood vs. infidels,...
None of them need us to be poking our sticks into their hornets nest.
And then when they finally overthrew their tyrant , we unleashed our lapdog on them who showered them with chemical weapons, no less. With our lapdog being none other than saddam.
I wish some rich US-ian would take what you wrote (the whole post, not just what I quoted) and plaster it on every billboard he could buy in the USA. This is the lesson US-ians should be learning today. Better late than never.
Furthermore, we have reasons and justification for going to war with Iran.
Name them. And when you do, be sure to exclude any reasons that would appear hypocritical - those which could as easily apply to the US or its allies.
Israel. You know, that puppet Zionist state ostensibly made up of refugees from the Holocaust? The (believed) long overdue answer to all the centuries of pogroms visited on Jews by Xtians?
If the US fixed its campaign finance laws, its politicos would no longer be able to pander to the Jewish lobby and its money. Consequently, if Israel was no longer able to get away with bitch-slapping the Palestinians, maybe the Middle East would finally be able to get along with each other again. They did in the distant past, you know?
I hate to sound defeatist, but if you appear to be a threat to the country, you can be infinitely detained.
I hate to be a Pollyanna, but there's people in Russia standing up to Putin and his rigged elections these days. For the crime of telling the truth, they're being detained. Are you telling me Russians care more for their freedoms these days than US-ians? Is Gitmo a secure prison for terrorists, or the new Lubyanka?
I don't think your troops fighting and dying in Afghanistan want to hear that kind of thing from you.
Just because some people happened to use Facebook (or whatever) to communicate doesn't mean that that tool is now suddenly a tool for change. It's still just a tool, no different than any other tool that lets you communicate. Social media doesn't overthrow governments. People do.
I strongly agree. You must have missed the part where I suggested he (essentially) get off his butt and use all these cool tools. No, your "internet activists" (a la OWS) may never get anywhere using them, but Thomas Paine would surely get a lot more milage out of them.
This is a gross oversimplification, when one realizes that much to the chagrin of his natural constituency Obama pushed through health care legislation crafted after that proposed by Mitt Romney.
Read what I wrote again. When Romney proposed it, it was bad (to Dems). When Obama proposed it, it was good (to Dems), and bad (to GOP).
This is common knowledge in politics. GHW Bush swore no new taxes to get elected, and promptly raised taxes once elected. Obama promised change, and what you get is more of the same or worse.
However, don't let this inconsistency in your thinking prevent you holding firm to your beliefs. It does help if you know what you're talking about, however, except if you prefer being a partisan demagogue.
I didn't realize there actually was that big of a difference between what the Democrats and Republicans believe, at least not one that could be categorized as "cavernous".
There is, but its unrelated to policy or idiology. It's actually, from a GOP point of view, if a Democrat proposes it, it's bad, and vice versa, obverse and converse (meaning GOP == good; Dems believe everything GOP propose are bad; Dems believe everything Dems propose (except for the Pres.) is good;...). This is where gridlock and filibustering take the day.
Oh, and they both believe anything proposed by neither GOP or Dems is bad, except when "neither" is an ex-GOP or ex-Dem who's successfully jumped ship to the other side or independents (cf. Lieberman).
Pretty boneheaded system, yet millions appear to believe it actually works.
BTW, the same situation has been going on in Canada too for as long as I can remember, so it's not an exclusively US pathology.
The problem being that the corporations who own capitol hill benefit from the current system, and own the media outlets. They will try as hard as they can to keep things exactly the way they are.
So what? I don't understand what's wrong with you Yanquis these days. On the one hand, you're arguably the most powerful nation on Earth. On the other, you're the most defeatist too.
The Internet opened up information transfer vectors to the masses even more than Gutenberg did. So use it! "The Media" is no longer just ABC, NBC, CBS, and the NY Times.
Case in point, Reddit is strategizing on the how, and which, politicos to try to unseat/replace with anti-SOPA/PIPA candidates. The last I heard, it was getting a lot of traction (for the record, I'm not a "redditor"). With the advent of "crowd-sourcing", it could concievably make a difference. All you need is one success, and they'll start to sit up and listen next time.
"Social Networking" is the de jour buzz-phrase of the decade. Do you really believe it's a toothless dragon, after it's ignited the Arab Spring?!?
Another case in point: a candidate for the CA governorship with the most bucks behind her lost once the electorate learned of her two facedness. Money is not all powerful! Stand up on your hind legs, FFS! Leverage all this neat stuff at your disposal. Get all your friends involved, and get them to get their friends involved, and just maybe you can effect real change(tm).
You can't spend it if you don't have electricity. That's a MAJOR flaw in my book. And if you found a shop that accepted them, the transaction would be an incredible headache compared to paying cash. And if your wallet happens to get erased or corrupted and you're without backup (ie 99% of computer users), there goes your savings as well.
I can't remember when I last saw a house or building that didn't have power outlets, and you can buy batteries anywhere. Portable generators, solar panels,...
Complaining about transaction complexity is silly. Technology and basic computer programming can easily reduce that to a triviality, so even my Mom could do it.
If you're even cognizant of bitcoin, backups should not be a problem for you. I've been burning CDs for more than a decade, and copy onto usb keys too these days.
I only barely grok the bitcoin sphere, but your list of fatal flaws doesn't even pass the smell test. If even half of what bitcoin proponents suggest as possible is realizable, it's well worth digging into it to see if the bugs can be worked out or not. I can certainly believe that it may never become as ubiquitous as a wallet full of cash, but I don't much care if my Mom will never be able to utilize it, as long as I can.
... many of the companies on this list do not support SOPA specifically but merely took a public stance in favor of some protection for intellectual property rights (which surely we all support).
As currently practiced, no we don't all support IP rights. I tend towards boycotting anyone who does. If you can't make a living by giving your customers better products or services than your competitors, you deserve to lose.
FWIW, I've never even been to The Pirate Bay nor do I "pirate" anything in any other way. I seriously do resent what the legal profession has been doing with IP lately.
Slashdot Mirror
Also, I've never heard of organised motorcycle tours
What do you call Sturgis?
A target for a copyright troll?
So, what do you think about goldfish?
I think they're smarter than niggers.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, ...
What is your major malfunction? How may we help?
ahh yes of course, the old, if Israel would just [play] nice, all the Arabs would magically get along with each other.
Nobody really believes that crap, do they? Why's there such animosity between Shiites and Sunnis, Saudis and Iran? Well, why's there such animosity between Irish Protestants and Catholics? I sense a pattern building here ...
When I was growing up, Arab nations were repeatedly attacking Israel, and Israel was only barely hanging on by the skin of their teeth. Israel wasn't attacking anyone, were they?
Since then, the Israelis appear to have had enough of that and now think nothing of obliterating suspected nuke weapons sites in Arab countries, exporting malware (Stuxnet) to fsck up same, yada, yada. I can't say I blame them one bit.
Frankly, I wish the Jews in Germany/Europe had learned this lesson prior to WWII. I doubt the Holocaust would have happened if they had. I also wish they'd consign Zionism to the dustbin of history, and take Sharia along with it. Unfortunately, wishing don't make it so.
Linux on the desktop has been a disaster up until just a few years ago ...
Yet, I've managed quite well with it for more than two decades. How is that?
Perhaps, if you'd take the time to read a few manpages, search a few on-line knowledge bases, read a bit of the supplied documentation (regardless of how well written it may be), or ask someone who uses it to help, you too could get it to work for you?
Nah, takes too long. Where's the DWIM[*] key, FFS?!?
I don't give a rat's ass if you can't/won't use it. As long as I can, I'm happy. "Linux on the desktop", ha, haa ha, hahahaha ...
"lusers" can be pretty funny some times.
[*] Do what I mean!
"Apple iBaulbes"...check.
"fscking"...check.
"Linux/FLOSS"...check.
"Jeebus"...check.
Ayn Rand quote in sig...check.
Are you some kind of Linux stereotype character actor?
I wish.
Speaking of classy ... how do you feel about niggers?
I'm sorry, but your version of reality hasn't been supported since about half way through the 19th century. You need to upgrade to civilized-stable to expect continued support.
So, what do you think about goldfish?
Mobile operating systems are an opportunity to use a computer just to get things done, not to maintain the computer. That's what was so refreshing about the experience of the using the iPad ...
Why the !@#$ does it always have to come down to Apple iBaubles save the world?!?
Damn, man, if you'd bothered to run Linux/FLOSS all this time, you could have just fscking ignored the whole malware situation entirely, as I've been able to FOR THE LAST TWO DECADES!
Jeebus.
Hey one-liner, he is referring to this Green & Red Gangs particular situation.
Wow. Just wow. Especially when you look at its parent.
Some of us are *really* out there. /. can be quite oddly entertaining at times. Not putting you down or dissing you in any way, nor attempting to question or dispute anything here, just ... wow.
Iran is threatening to "close the straits". To do this they just have to make a credible threat to the oil tankers, and trade will stop.
Wasn't that what the U-Boats in WWII tried and failed to do? Once convoys were supplied with enough protection, the wolfpacks didn't have a chance.
Yet another lesson we Canucks had to teach the Yanquis.
Okay, I think Afghanistan is our business, because I hate seeing women executed for wearing the wrong clothing or just offending some guy. That !@#$ sucks. I think we do have an obligation to at least attempt to export civilization to those who desperately need it.
No. It is the business of a Afghans -- both the women and their male sympathizers -- to decide to do something about this.
Okay, I'll admit I'm not that perfect a guy. It may be none of my business, and perhaps it's best if I step out, but I can't. There are some absolutes which can't be ignored. A woman on her knees in a chador/burka, awaiting a bullet to the back of her head? This isn't negotiable. Good men step in. It's not a question of respecting "local sensibilities" or "local customs." That !@#$ shouldn't happen anywhere. That's an absolute.
I'd prefer it if Afghani women rose up and slashed the throats of their abusive opressors, but failing that, I'll be happy to step in and do it for them if they can't.
I too sympathize with your point. I don't mean to belittle the magnitude of the problem.
However, they all did get along once, and I firmly believe they (in time) can again, if others would just stop sticking their noses into it. For me, it's like Cold War politics ("our puppet state" vs. "their puppet state") is still going on, long after the Soviets ceased to be a problem for anybody.
*ALL* of the Middle East's problems ought to be considered "an internal problem." It should be left up to all of them to work it out. Sunni vs. Shiite, Muslim vs. $blah, Palestinian vs. Zionism, ... We can't fix that !@#$
It shouldn't be any of $our business. They ought to be left alone to sort out their affairs, as that's the only way their affairs can be sorted. Unseating Mosadegh and installing the Shah was none of our business. Supporting Iraq against Iran was none of our business. Unseating Saddam Hussein was none of our business.
Okay, I think Afghanistan is our business, because I hate seeing women executed for wearing the wrong clothing or just offending some guy. That !@#$ sucks. I think we do have an obligation to at least attempt to export civilization to those who desperately need it.
The US should just stop fiddling with geopolitics, and get back to its own knitting. There are no Hitlers out there we need them to save us from today. Their own democracy is far more in need of their help than any of the rest of the world's peoples.
Can we downmod people using the insulting "US-ian", instead of the correct "American"? You don't denigrate other groups by not using the name that they use for themselves, do you?
Wow, you find that insulting?!? I just consider it descriptive. I've found that the only people offended by the use of "US-ian" is US-ians who ignore the fact that not all "Americans" are in the USA.
Cf. North America, Central America, South America.
No fucking sympathy for your point of view whatsoever from here, a North American in Canada!
It isn't just the Jewish lobby, apocalyptic Christians support the Jews running the middle east to harken the return of JC ...
ACK. Good point.
Iran has stated on the record that even if the Palestinians agree 100% to a peace agreement, they will still pursue the violent extermination of Israel.
Arafat once said the same, yet he shook hands with an Israeli PM. I don't think anything I wrote implied that I thought the leadership of Iran was in any way sane. Ahmadinejad is a nutbar. Ayatollah Khomeini was a nutbar. Their future leadership *may* turn out to be sane (Allah Akbar!).
All parties in the Middle East appear to have learned to enjoy hating each other; it's their favourite game. Sunni vs. Shiite, PLO vs. Hezbollah, Muslims vs. Jews, Orthodox Jews vs. mere Israelis, Saudis vs. Iran, Muslim Brotherhood vs. infidels, ...
None of them need us to be poking our sticks into their hornets nest.
And then when they finally overthrew their tyrant , we unleashed our lapdog on them who showered them with chemical weapons, no less. With our lapdog being none other than saddam.
I wish some rich US-ian would take what you wrote (the whole post, not just what I quoted) and plaster it on every billboard he could buy in the USA. This is the lesson US-ians should be learning today. Better late than never.
Thanks for saying it.
And the Japanese were being perfectly polite gentlemen in China and Mongolia at the time.
What does that have to do with anything?!? The US was infuriated about Yellow People being oppressed by Japan?!? Chyaa, right.
Furthermore, we have reasons and justification for going to war with Iran.
Name them. And when you do, be sure to exclude any reasons that would appear hypocritical - those which could as easily apply to the US or its allies.
Israel. You know, that puppet Zionist state ostensibly made up of refugees from the Holocaust? The (believed) long overdue answer to all the centuries of pogroms visited on Jews by Xtians?
If the US fixed its campaign finance laws, its politicos would no longer be able to pander to the Jewish lobby and its money. Consequently, if Israel was no longer able to get away with bitch-slapping the Palestinians, maybe the Middle East would finally be able to get along with each other again. They did in the distant past, you know?
I strongly agree.
Well, in that case, we have nothing to argue about. What a bummer!
What's better? Fortran or Cobol? Show your work. :-)
I hate to sound defeatist, but if you appear to be a threat to the country, you can be infinitely detained.
I hate to be a Pollyanna, but there's people in Russia standing up to Putin and his rigged elections these days. For the crime of telling the truth, they're being detained. Are you telling me Russians care more for their freedoms these days than US-ians? Is Gitmo a secure prison for terrorists, or the new Lubyanka?
I don't think your troops fighting and dying in Afghanistan want to hear that kind of thing from you.
Just because some people happened to use Facebook (or whatever) to communicate doesn't mean that that tool is now suddenly a tool for change. It's still just a tool, no different than any other tool that lets you communicate. Social media doesn't overthrow governments. People do.
I strongly agree. You must have missed the part where I suggested he (essentially) get off his butt and use all these cool tools. No, your "internet activists" (a la OWS) may never get anywhere using them, but Thomas Paine would surely get a lot more milage out of them.
This is a gross oversimplification, when one realizes that much to the chagrin of his natural constituency Obama pushed through health care legislation crafted after that proposed by Mitt Romney.
Read what I wrote again. When Romney proposed it, it was bad (to Dems). When Obama proposed it, it was good (to Dems), and bad (to GOP).
This is common knowledge in politics. GHW Bush swore no new taxes to get elected, and promptly raised taxes once elected. Obama promised change, and what you get is more of the same or worse.
However, don't let this inconsistency in your thinking prevent you holding firm to your beliefs. It does help if you know what you're talking about, however, except if you prefer being a partisan demagogue.
I didn't realize there actually was that big of a difference between what the Democrats and Republicans believe, at least not one that could be categorized as "cavernous".
There is, but its unrelated to policy or idiology. It's actually, from a GOP point of view, if a Democrat proposes it, it's bad, and vice versa, obverse and converse (meaning GOP == good; Dems believe everything GOP propose are bad; Dems believe everything Dems propose (except for the Pres.) is good; ...). This is where gridlock and filibustering take the day.
Oh, and they both believe anything proposed by neither GOP or Dems is bad, except when "neither" is an ex-GOP or ex-Dem who's successfully jumped ship to the other side or independents (cf. Lieberman).
Pretty boneheaded system, yet millions appear to believe it actually works.
BTW, the same situation has been going on in Canada too for as long as I can remember, so it's not an exclusively US pathology.
The problem being that the corporations who own capitol hill benefit from the current system, and own the media outlets. They will try as hard as they can to keep things exactly the way they are.
So what? I don't understand what's wrong with you Yanquis these days. On the one hand, you're arguably the most powerful nation on Earth. On the other, you're the most defeatist too.
The Internet opened up information transfer vectors to the masses even more than Gutenberg did. So use it! "The Media" is no longer just ABC, NBC, CBS, and the NY Times.
Case in point, Reddit is strategizing on the how, and which, politicos to try to unseat/replace with anti-SOPA/PIPA candidates. The last I heard, it was getting a lot of traction (for the record, I'm not a "redditor"). With the advent of "crowd-sourcing", it could concievably make a difference. All you need is one success, and they'll start to sit up and listen next time.
"Social Networking" is the de jour buzz-phrase of the decade. Do you really believe it's a toothless dragon, after it's ignited the Arab Spring?!?
Another case in point: a candidate for the CA governorship with the most bucks behind her lost once the electorate learned of her two facedness. Money is not all powerful! Stand up on your hind legs, FFS! Leverage all this neat stuff at your disposal. Get all your friends involved, and get them to get their friends involved, and just maybe you can effect real change(tm).
You can't spend it if you don't have electricity. That's a MAJOR flaw in my book. And if you found a shop that accepted them, the transaction would be an incredible headache compared to paying cash. And if your wallet happens to get erased or corrupted and you're without backup (ie 99% of computer users), there goes your savings as well.
I can't remember when I last saw a house or building that didn't have power outlets, and you can buy batteries anywhere. Portable generators, solar panels, ...
Complaining about transaction complexity is silly. Technology and basic computer programming can easily reduce that to a triviality, so even my Mom could do it.
If you're even cognizant of bitcoin, backups should not be a problem for you. I've been burning CDs for more than a decade, and copy onto usb keys too these days.
I only barely grok the bitcoin sphere, but your list of fatal flaws doesn't even pass the smell test. If even half of what bitcoin proponents suggest as possible is realizable, it's well worth digging into it to see if the bugs can be worked out or not. I can certainly believe that it may never become as ubiquitous as a wallet full of cash, but I don't much care if my Mom will never be able to utilize it, as long as I can.
... many of the companies on this list do not support SOPA specifically but merely took a public stance in favor of some protection for intellectual property rights (which surely we all support).
As currently practiced, no we don't all support IP rights. I tend towards boycotting anyone who does. If you can't make a living by giving your customers better products or services than your competitors, you deserve to lose.
FWIW, I've never even been to The Pirate Bay nor do I "pirate" anything in any other way. I seriously do resent what the legal profession has been doing with IP lately.