I'd sorta wondered about where the Nod-people came from. If God created them too, shouldn't it have, y'know, mentioned it? What made Adam and Eve special? If the Nodians weren't descended from them, why were they not in the Garden? Did they have guilt-by-association by dint of being human? Did God create them impure? Did they get created in the Garden, see Adam and Eve get expelled for hubris, and decide that eating the forbidden apple was a really good plan?
Writing this feels like writing one of those plot syntheses that purports to make Star Wars I through III into a good movie. I feel like I'm making up for a shoddy screenwriter.
That's the powerful discovery that religion constitutes: a way to get the vast majority of a population to behave morally most of the time.
Bullshit. It's a relatively recent innovation that we don't mostly die a violent death at each others' hands. Religion pre-dates modern civilization (centralization of authority, monopolization of force by government, and the industrial revolution), and while modern civilization has done really well at having us not all murdering each other all the damn time (wars included!), religion has, if anything, frequently exacerbated the murdering.
I don't act morally because someone threatened me with a superhero from outer space. I act morally because I live in a civilized society where everyone else is expected to act morally as well.
Oh noes! You're right! (Well, not precisely, but close.) Why, who needs to point out that the political power in the United States firmly believes in a superhero from outer space when creationists get bitch-slapped on Slashdot? Why, I can practically hear the lion-torn screams of the poor, poor "superhero from outer space" clan as the evil Slashdotters tear them new orifices.
Oh, heck, just see this table for the realization that more than half of Americans do not know that a year is the time it takes the Earth to go once around the sun. They're about fifty-fifty on "early humans weren't around at the same time as dinosaurs".
Considering the amount of money Microsoft could theoretically pump into development on the next version of IE, wouldn't it make more sense for them to be the first to pass the test (and by doing so provide implied compliance with the standard)?
Microsoft won't be the first to pass Acid2, not unless all that money's going to buy A MAGICAL TIME MACHINE...
If I buy a book, I can set fire to it, write in it, read it backwards, or whatever. By analogy, I can do what I want with software, within certain limits, because I signed no gorram license. Just as "within certain limits" with books doesn't extend to include copying and distributing, neither does it include copying and distributing the software. Funny how that works, isn't it?
Once I have bought a piece of software, I am well within my rights to reverse-engineer it, or use it for purposes for which it was not designed.
It's kinda funny how you assumed that my crowing about the right of first-sale was some sort of defense of copyright violation. 'Cause it wasn't.
Whoa, bag searches at supermarkets? What's up with that? I've never heard of such a thing. Are you talking about the occasional annoying moment when the clerk forgets to remove the tattle strip and you get the "STEP BACK, CITIZEN! YOU HAVE ACTIVATED WAL-MART'S HAPPY INVENTORY SYSTEM!" message boomed from the loudspeakers?
Aside from the first example, none of those are laws; they're inconveniences foisted on people who have done nothing wrong as an attempt to make criminals' lives more difficult, by making everyone else's more difficult.
So yeah, we wouldn't need colon searches at the airport if it weren't for the aforementioned morons.
Whoa, sailor. The publisher of Harry's delightful Hogwarts adventures doesn't license anything. They sell a book to me. Their remedies against me if I decide to go sell my own copies have fuck-all to do with any license that exists between the publisher and the book purchaser; it's a civil wrong or, on a larger scale, a criminal offense. There was no contract.
i would like to donate to the eff, except i don't want to be put on a list of terrorists. the only way to even have a remote chance of beating this nonsense (criminal and unethical behavior) is to educate the public at a greater rate than the "mainstream media" can "educate" them.
Is it difficult to be that full of shit? Do you sometimes feel a pressure building up behind your eyeballs, threatening to fountain brownly forth from them?
Dude, Firefly is one big allegory of the American Civil War and Reconstruction. It even had Injuns. ('Cept they called 'em "Reavers". Still, they ate flesh and raped the wimminfolk.)
I was more interested in the company's t-shirts. I think they have one that says "people making people". The "my other girlfiend is a realdoll" one is more creepy, though.
What? No! It's a shit design! Too many cooks spoiled the brew; everyone wanted it to be capable of running their pet project, with the result that it went way over-budget, and could never, ever, in any reality, have flown for its advertised price.
The shuttle is not a reusable design. It is barely salvageable. All the marketroid pep talk in the world won't change that.
Y'ever wonder whose idea it was to drink milk cold? Yeah, it has to be refrigerated, but there are plenty of foods that require refrigeration which we eat hot. It's plenty warm when it comes out of the cow; why do we only drink it chilled?
... but the programs were very closely connected at the time. Research into rocket propulsion was part of the space program, even if it was also being used to propel ICBMs.
If you figure a hundredth of the people he annoyed probably wanted to, at the very least, punch him in the face, then this is totally proportional---he just got what was coming to him, all at once.
That seemed to be exactly the case, judging by the release. So it's probably more likely that this foundation wants to froth up the Slashdot crowd into donating madly. I mean, no organization could actually be that stupid. It defies belief.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd sorta wondered about where the Nod-people came from. If God created them too, shouldn't it have, y'know, mentioned it? What made Adam and Eve special? If the Nodians weren't descended from them, why were they not in the Garden? Did they have guilt-by-association by dint of being human? Did God create them impure? Did they get created in the Garden, see Adam and Eve get expelled for hubris, and decide that eating the forbidden apple was a really good plan?
Writing this feels like writing one of those plot syntheses that purports to make Star Wars I through III into a good movie. I feel like I'm making up for a shoddy screenwriter.
--grendel drago
That's the powerful discovery that religion constitutes: a way to get the vast majority of a population to behave morally most of the time.
Bullshit. It's a relatively recent innovation that we don't mostly die a violent death at each others' hands. Religion pre-dates modern civilization (centralization of authority, monopolization of force by government, and the industrial revolution), and while modern civilization has done really well at having us not all murdering each other all the damn time (wars included!), religion has, if anything, frequently exacerbated the murdering.
I don't act morally because someone threatened me with a superhero from outer space. I act morally because I live in a civilized society where everyone else is expected to act morally as well.
--grendel drago
Oh noes! You're right! (Well, not precisely, but close.) Why, who needs to point out that the political power in the United States firmly believes in a superhero from outer space when creationists get bitch-slapped on Slashdot? Why, I can practically hear the lion-torn screams of the poor, poor "superhero from outer space" clan as the evil Slashdotters tear them new orifices.
--grendel drago
The NSF does studies on public understanding of science. For instance, fifty-six percent of Americans and Canadians said that "Ordinary tomatoes do not contain genes, while genetically modified tomatoes do.". But hey, sixty percent of Europeans surveyed thought so too.
Oh, heck, just see this table for the realization that more than half of Americans do not know that a year is the time it takes the Earth to go once around the sun. They're about fifty-fifty on "early humans weren't around at the same time as dinosaurs".
--grendel drago
No, heaven forbid that guy makes a few bucks from people not intending to donate to his beer-and-porn fund.
--grendel drago
Considering the amount of money Microsoft could theoretically pump into development on the next version of IE, wouldn't it make more sense for them to be the first to pass the test (and by doing so provide implied compliance with the standard)?
Microsoft won't be the first to pass Acid2, not unless all that money's going to buy A MAGICAL TIME MACHINE...
--grendel drago
Oh no---they'll be looking through all of our clauses which are grammatically, but not logically, complete!
--grendel drago
No, I think your analogy is flawed.
If I buy a book, I can set fire to it, write in it, read it backwards, or whatever. By analogy, I can do what I want with software, within certain limits, because I signed no gorram license. Just as "within certain limits" with books doesn't extend to include copying and distributing, neither does it include copying and distributing the software. Funny how that works, isn't it?
Once I have bought a piece of software, I am well within my rights to reverse-engineer it, or use it for purposes for which it was not designed.
It's kinda funny how you assumed that my crowing about the right of first-sale was some sort of defense of copyright violation. 'Cause it wasn't.
--grendel drago
Whoa, bag searches at supermarkets? What's up with that? I've never heard of such a thing. Are you talking about the occasional annoying moment when the clerk forgets to remove the tattle strip and you get the "STEP BACK, CITIZEN! YOU HAVE ACTIVATED WAL-MART'S HAPPY INVENTORY SYSTEM!" message boomed from the loudspeakers?
--grendel drago
Aside from the first example, none of those are laws; they're inconveniences foisted on people who have done nothing wrong as an attempt to make criminals' lives more difficult, by making everyone else's more difficult.
So yeah, we wouldn't need colon searches at the airport if it weren't for the aforementioned morons.
--grendel drago
Whoa, sailor. The publisher of Harry's delightful Hogwarts adventures doesn't license anything. They sell a book to me. Their remedies against me if I decide to go sell my own copies have fuck-all to do with any license that exists between the publisher and the book purchaser; it's a civil wrong or, on a larger scale, a criminal offense. There was no contract.
--grendel drago
i would like to donate to the eff, except i don't want to be put on a list of terrorists. the only way to even have a remote chance of beating this nonsense (criminal and unethical behavior) is to educate the public at a greater rate than the "mainstream media" can "educate" them.
Is it difficult to be that full of shit? Do you sometimes feel a pressure building up behind your eyeballs, threatening to fountain brownly forth from them?
--grendel drago
Dude, Firefly is one big allegory of the American Civil War and Reconstruction. It even had Injuns. ('Cept they called 'em "Reavers". Still, they ate flesh and raped the wimminfolk.)
--grendel drago
I was more interested in the company's t-shirts. I think they have one that says "people making people". The "my other girlfiend is a realdoll" one is more creepy, though.
--grendel drago
"Of course it's not a cubic zirconia, sweetie---you cut me to the quick! Don't you trust me?"
I cannot imagine NASA actually replacing the damned shuttle, which hasn't worked right from day one. I'll believe it when I see it fly.
--grendel drago
What? No! It's a shit design! Too many cooks spoiled the brew; everyone wanted it to be capable of running their pet project, with the result that it went way over-budget, and could never, ever, in any reality, have flown for its advertised price.
The shuttle is not a reusable design. It is barely salvageable. All the marketroid pep talk in the world won't change that.
--grendel drago
Puzzle Bobble or Bust-A-Move?
--grendel drago
Y'ever wonder whose idea it was to drink milk cold? Yeah, it has to be refrigerated, but there are plenty of foods that require refrigeration which we eat hot. It's plenty warm when it comes out of the cow; why do we only drink it chilled?
--grendel drago
... but the programs were very closely connected at the time. Research into rocket propulsion was part of the space program, even if it was also being used to propel ICBMs.
--grendel drago
1998 called. They want their cheap scare tactics back.
--grendel drago
Remember Nedelin!
--grendel drago
If you figure a hundredth of the people he annoyed probably wanted to, at the very least, punch him in the face, then this is totally proportional---he just got what was coming to him, all at once.
--grendel drago
I've never heard of a current-loop TTY interface. Can you tell me what the heck that is?
Though Google tells me it may be a solved problem.
--grendel drago
That seemed to be exactly the case, judging by the release. So it's probably more likely that this foundation wants to froth up the Slashdot crowd into donating madly. I mean, no organization could actually be that stupid. It defies belief.
--grendel drago