I agree that for the most part, this violent video game thing is a canard. I don't believe for a minute that VVGs have turned anyone into a violent person.
However, my father and I have argued about this a few times, and I think he has a valid point - there are some really sick individuals out there that may be made worse by playing VVGs. Responsible, rational people know that it is just a game. Unfortunately, some people are neither responsible nor rational. I think these kinds of people could be incited to greater violence than they would otherwise commit.
That having been said, my response to my father was this - first do something about the proliferation of assault weapons that allow someone to kill masses of people, then let's talk about VVGs. He found that difficult to argue with.
Re:Sucking a dick isn't intercourse with a person?
on
Bobby Fischer Found
·
· Score: 1
How about society's common sense definition of what sexual relations are?
It wasn't Clinton's job to help the prosecution. The judge (actually the prosecutor) defined the term narrowly and Clinton used that to his advantage. It's what you do in court. Court is not about using "society's common sense definition[s]". It's about winning.
If you should be in that situation, you should press every advantage. Otherwise don't take the stand. It's your right (as it was Clinton's right) under the 5th amendment.
Clinton, the slippery rogue that he is, essentially got away with all sorts of shenanigans, and people continue to give him a pass.
That's just ridiculous and I am tired of hearing it. Clinton didn't get "a pass". Clinton couldn't get a hall pass to go to the john. He was hounded from his very first day in office from all sides, yet many investigations and many millions of dollars later, he was never convicted of any wrongdoing whatsoever. Even now, however, people like you continue to insinuate that he was guilty. Shouldn't the president be innocent unless proven guilty, just like you and me? People like you keep talking about the "rule of law", but Clinton was never convicted of violating those rules. You say he got a pass. I would laugh hysterically if it weren't so depressing that you actually believe that.
Now we have a war on terrrorism. WTF? As if there is anything that anyone can do to prevent a bombing.
Sounds logical on the face of it, but I can think of a few things we could do.
The 19 folks that came over here and ran planes into our buildings were not just some guy with a bomb. They were state sponsored terrorists. The state that sponsored them was Saudi Arabia.
A lot of people buy the politically correct "we're all the same" bullcrap, but there is a difference. Saudi Arabian textbooks contain teachings that say we are the devil, essentially, and that even to associate with westerners is a bad thing.
It's a problem that we are propping them up with our oil purchases. God forbid anybody should have to give up their 4 wheel drive SUV that they use for their work commute though.
Yes, we can fight terrorism by fighting the money, but, especially when it comes to Saudi Arabia, don't expect that from the Bush administration.
Hehe. Okay, you got me. I can't help but reply to this. I've been an avid science fiction reader for over 15 years. In my opinion, Firefly is easily the best science fiction that's ever been on tv, and it rivals anything that's ever been in cinema.
The "western in space" thing is an unfortunate quote from Joss Whedon, the creator, that people like you have been taking him to task for ever since. Here's the thing: every science fiction show you can name is a western in space. The difference is, Firefly was more honest about it. They all have gunslinging, kidnapping, gang leaders, etc. Joss was smart enough to realize that and built a really original show.
In terms of SF literature, there's not a whole lot I would call original in the show. In terms of tv SF, it breaks all kinds of new ground, for example in its depiction of the space scenes. There's no sound in space, objects have inertia. The science is nearly perfect, every time, and Joss doesn't assume you're dumb and need to have everything spelled out for you..
For instance (SPOILER), the captain defeats a certain villian by standing on the hull of his ship and pushing him off course, so the villian can't spacewalk to his ship. No guns, no knife battle. And the great thing is, Joss didn't feel the need to explain the physics of the thing to us like we were idiots. He just assumes that we're smart.
If you are an SF fan (especially SF lit), forget about the "western in space" canard, and watch it for yourself. There are only about 13 episodes, it won't kill you. You might just find that it's the show you've been looking for all these years.
For my money, what's been going on is the Republican party has been hijacked, just as surely as the Taliban hijacked Afghanistan. It's been taken over by business "interests" to the point that public policy is not created without it being directed in some way towards making someone money.
What about this is new, exactly?
I actually identify and agree with some of the conservative ideals, but to find a conservative president who did, I'd have to go back all the way to Teddy, and even he was an abberation really. The democrats are the party that defends Jeffersonian ideals, the republicans are the party of the Whigs, who were originally rich land owners that believed only other rich land owners should be allowed to vote.
Sure, there have been some name changes over the years, but if you think the Republicans bedding special interests is a new phenomenon, you're mistaken. It goes back more than 200 years. I encourage you to not take my word for it, do your own homework. What you're talking about is only a matter of degree.
For instance, if I am doing a study on the mass of the election,
The mass of the election measured in what way? By the mass of the electorate? Just a guess here, there were about 101.5 million voters, multiply by an average weight of, let's say 160 pounds, convert to kilograms....
About 7.366 billion kilograms.
Or maybe you meant the average weight of the candidates' brains? Lessee, the equation might go something like this: (GWB + AG + RN) / 3 = (1 + 2 + ERROR) = ERROR.
Well that's somewhere else to add to my list of "places I don't want to live". Somewhat contrived example: I live next door to you. My wife goes into labor, but the phone is out, so I can't call for an ambulance (my car's in the shop). So I run to your house and ring the door bell, bang on the door. Nothing. Wondering what to do, I see an open window and a phone just inside. Now of course I'm not rally thinking straight, the life of my wife and child are at risk right now, so what the hell, I jump in and pick up the phone. Then you come out from the shower where you were happily singing "The Star Spangled Banner" rather loudly (hence not hearing the door), grab your handy 9mm and shoot me dead.
Boy, that's what you call a bad day. Good example. Now that you made up that story I'm pretty sure that people break and enter for benign purposes all the time.
Getting back to reality, if someone breaks into your home, you probably have a better chance winning the lottery than of them being "benign". I personally wouldn't just up and shoot somebody I found in my home, but I can understand the reaction. What are you supposed to do? Make a citizen's arrest? If the law says you can't use lethal force against intruders in your own home, wouldn't it make the criminals more bold? They know you can't, so how do you make them stick around for the cops? If you just let them leave, how do you know they won't come back?
Several commenters have expressed concern that what this guy is doing is equally wrong, and that he could risk getting sued.
Sued by whom? The scammer? In what country? Nigeria?
Think it through a little. Would someone who regularly scams people for thousands of dollars really bring attention to himself by suing? Probably not, for the same reason that if a drug-dealer's drugs are stolen, they probably won't call the cops about it.
Lets say they sued in Nigeria. So what? Is the United Kingdom going to extradite this guy to Nigeria.
Okay, now that you've (hopefully) stopped laughing, ya think he's gonna cross the ocean to sue the guy in Britain for $80?
the person on the other end didn't know what my number was to remove it from their list because "the machine dials the numbers for us"
Yeah, this has become commonplace for me as well. I always tell the telemarketer that it is illegal to use an autodialer, and they always say "no, it's not". I'm no legal expert, but I've read the 1991 law, and it sure looks illegal to me.
I should take some of these people to court, but I just don't have the time, nor do I know how to gather evidence for a case like this. I read a few articles about it, they say keep a phone log, but will a handwritten phone log really stand up in court?
Plus, a lot of the calls I get are automated and tell me to leave a message if I am interested in further information. The only way I could sue them is to give them information about me and pretend that I'm interested long enough for them to tell me who they are so I can sue them. Too much hassle. I think I'd rather just deal with the annoying phone calls.
a. Initiate any telephone call (other than a call made for emergency purposes or made with the prior express consent of the called party) using an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice,
So why do I get these calls all the time? What can I do about them? They never give me their name, their phone number/name is always "Private Caller", and they tell me to leave a message if I want more information. Seems like if the law had any teeth I wouldn't get these calls. They're usually from satellite cable installers, although I got one about back surgery.
Anyone who thinks a robot can be "overly cautious" hasn't watched enough Arnold movies. I mean, unless the robot makes you sign reams of bureaucratic forms before it will do anything, or something like that.
Civil Disobedience -
Refusal to obey civil laws in an effort to induce change in governmental policy or legislation, characterized by the use of passive resistance or other nonviolent means.
I think your definition of "piracy" fits into the category of civil disobedience just fine. Perhaps you meant to say "Piracy is not a justified form of civil disobedience"?
Ugh. What was good about it? Did you care about any of the characters at all? There was no humanity in it. The plot was lousy, the movie was badly disjointed, and none of it lived up to the first 5 minutes, which were pretty great. Nick Nolte turned in a couple of outstanding performances, especially at the end, but they felt out of place in such a humdrum, overblown, overhyped movie.
The supposed heroine was more of a villain than anything else.
I tried to push it out of my mind as soon as I had seen it, so I had a lot of other criticisms at the time. This is just what I can think of right now. For me, the movie did not work on any level at all.
You must be affiliated with the democratic campaign! Why, this is despicable! Why aren't Democrats everywhere outraged by this post? This shows exactly how low the level of discourse has become! Organizations like slashdot are ruining the national civility in this country. Every democrat everywhere should denounce slashdot and speak to all my other talking points! Right away!
[/sarcasm]
Where does the compressed air come from? The breath of baby seals?
Which is environmentally better? Exploding gunpowder or burning fossil fuels? I truly don't know, but someone around here will probably answer in agonizing detail.
The bayesian filters integrated into Mozilla-mail are not very effective. It only gets about 50% and that is after months of training
I had the foresight to save all my junk mail, about 3 years ago. I used it to train the filters when I switched to mozilla, and I hit the ground running with about an 80% rate (trained with about 5000 spam mails and about 800 real mails).
Since then, I have given my email address to any site that asks for it, because I figure the more spam, the better for my filter. This has worked out pretty good for me. Mozilla is now up to about a 95% rate, which is nothing like what was promised by Paul Graham, but still reasonably good. No significant false positives yet (just a couple of commercial emails I didn't care too much about). Plus, I see his prediction in the spam that gets through. It's almost impossible to figure out what these people are trying to sell me because they have to bury their message in a bunch of crap to get around my filters. I don't see how this can keep up for long as a sustainable business. But then again, what do I know?
I know it's a joke, but just for record sake, evolution was not a beauty contest.
Nope, evolution is a fictional concept created by the MAN to keep us all DOWN, man! Fossils? Planted. The earth is 6000 years old. Don't get me started on radioactive dating, glacial core samples, sedimentary rock formations, DNA tracing.......
On second thought maybe I'm wrong. I guess that's more likely than all the physicists, biologists, paleoclimatologists, and geologists being in on a massive global conspiracy. Damn, I lost my point....
You're so wonderfully naive, I don't have the heart to prove you wrong.
Watch the latest Frontline. It's called "Plea". It's about people just like you who believed the justice system was somehow about finding out the truth.
In short, that's not what it's about at all. Ask a criminal defense lawyer.
Slashdot Mirror
However, my father and I have argued about this a few times, and I think he has a valid point - there are some really sick individuals out there that may be made worse by playing VVGs. Responsible, rational people know that it is just a game. Unfortunately, some people are neither responsible nor rational. I think these kinds of people could be incited to greater violence than they would otherwise commit.
That having been said, my response to my father was this - first do something about the proliferation of assault weapons that allow someone to kill masses of people, then let's talk about VVGs. He found that difficult to argue with.
It wasn't Clinton's job to help the prosecution. The judge (actually the prosecutor) defined the term narrowly and Clinton used that to his advantage. It's what you do in court. Court is not about using "society's common sense definition[s]". It's about winning.
If you should be in that situation, you should press every advantage. Otherwise don't take the stand. It's your right (as it was Clinton's right) under the 5th amendment.
That's just ridiculous and I am tired of hearing it. Clinton didn't get "a pass". Clinton couldn't get a hall pass to go to the john. He was hounded from his very first day in office from all sides, yet many investigations and many millions of dollars later, he was never convicted of any wrongdoing whatsoever. Even now, however, people like you continue to insinuate that he was guilty. Shouldn't the president be innocent unless proven guilty, just like you and me? People like you keep talking about the "rule of law", but Clinton was never convicted of violating those rules. You say he got a pass. I would laugh hysterically if it weren't so depressing that you actually believe that.
Sounds logical on the face of it, but I can think of a few things we could do.
The 19 folks that came over here and ran planes into our buildings were not just some guy with a bomb. They were state sponsored terrorists. The state that sponsored them was Saudi Arabia.
A lot of people buy the politically correct "we're all the same" bullcrap, but there is a difference. Saudi Arabian textbooks contain teachings that say we are the devil, essentially, and that even to associate with westerners is a bad thing.
It's a problem that we are propping them up with our oil purchases. God forbid anybody should have to give up their 4 wheel drive SUV that they use for their work commute though.
Yes, we can fight terrorism by fighting the money, but, especially when it comes to Saudi Arabia, don't expect that from the Bush administration.
Hehe. Okay, you got me. I can't help but reply to this. I've been an avid science fiction reader for over 15 years. In my opinion, Firefly is easily the best science fiction that's ever been on tv, and it rivals anything that's ever been in cinema.
The "western in space" thing is an unfortunate quote from Joss Whedon, the creator, that people like you have been taking him to task for ever since. Here's the thing: every science fiction show you can name is a western in space. The difference is, Firefly was more honest about it. They all have gunslinging, kidnapping, gang leaders, etc. Joss was smart enough to realize that and built a really original show.
In terms of SF literature, there's not a whole lot I would call original in the show. In terms of tv SF, it breaks all kinds of new ground, for example in its depiction of the space scenes. There's no sound in space, objects have inertia. The science is nearly perfect, every time, and Joss doesn't assume you're dumb and need to have everything spelled out for you..
For instance (SPOILER), the captain defeats a certain villian by standing on the hull of his ship and pushing him off course, so the villian can't spacewalk to his ship. No guns, no knife battle. And the great thing is, Joss didn't feel the need to explain the physics of the thing to us like we were idiots. He just assumes that we're smart.
If you are an SF fan (especially SF lit), forget about the "western in space" canard, and watch it for yourself. There are only about 13 episodes, it won't kill you. You might just find that it's the show you've been looking for all these years.
What about this is new, exactly?
I actually identify and agree with some of the conservative ideals, but to find a conservative president who did, I'd have to go back all the way to Teddy, and even he was an abberation really. The democrats are the party that defends Jeffersonian ideals, the republicans are the party of the Whigs, who were originally rich land owners that believed only other rich land owners should be allowed to vote.
Sure, there have been some name changes over the years, but if you think the Republicans bedding special interests is a new phenomenon, you're mistaken. It goes back more than 200 years. I encourage you to not take my word for it, do your own homework. What you're talking about is only a matter of degree.
The mass of the election measured in what way? By the mass of the electorate? Just a guess here, there were about 101.5 million voters, multiply by an average weight of, let's say 160 pounds, convert to kilograms....
About 7.366 billion kilograms.
Or maybe you meant the average weight of the candidates' brains? Lessee, the equation might go something like this: (GWB + AG + RN) / 3 = (1 + 2 + ERROR) = ERROR.
I guess it doesn't compute
I've seen it. I might have had a little something to do with it. They sure are twisty little b@574d5, I'll tell you that.
Boy, that's what you call a bad day. Good example. Now that you made up that story I'm pretty sure that people break and enter for benign purposes all the time.
Getting back to reality, if someone breaks into your home, you probably have a better chance winning the lottery than of them being "benign". I personally wouldn't just up and shoot somebody I found in my home, but I can understand the reaction. What are you supposed to do? Make a citizen's arrest? If the law says you can't use lethal force against intruders in your own home, wouldn't it make the criminals more bold? They know you can't, so how do you make them stick around for the cops? If you just let them leave, how do you know they won't come back?
Sued by whom? The scammer? In what country? Nigeria?
Think it through a little. Would someone who regularly scams people for thousands of dollars really bring attention to himself by suing? Probably not, for the same reason that if a drug-dealer's drugs are stolen, they probably won't call the cops about it.
Lets say they sued in Nigeria. So what? Is the United Kingdom going to extradite this guy to Nigeria.
Okay, now that you've (hopefully) stopped laughing, ya think he's gonna cross the ocean to sue the guy in Britain for $80?
No, this guy has nothing to worry about.
Yeah, this has become commonplace for me as well. I always tell the telemarketer that it is illegal to use an autodialer, and they always say "no, it's not". I'm no legal expert, but I've read the 1991 law, and it sure looks illegal to me.
I should take some of these people to court, but I just don't have the time, nor do I know how to gather evidence for a case like this. I read a few articles about it, they say keep a phone log, but will a handwritten phone log really stand up in court?
Plus, a lot of the calls I get are automated and tell me to leave a message if I am interested in further information. The only way I could sue them is to give them information about me and pretend that I'm interested long enough for them to tell me who they are so I can sue them. Too much hassle. I think I'd rather just deal with the annoying phone calls.
a. Initiate any telephone call (other than a call made for emergency purposes or made with the prior express consent of the called party) using an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice,
So why do I get these calls all the time? What can I do about them? They never give me their name, their phone number/name is always "Private Caller", and they tell me to leave a message if I want more information. Seems like if the law had any teeth I wouldn't get these calls. They're usually from satellite cable installers, although I got one about back surgery.
Anyone who thinks a robot can be "overly cautious" hasn't watched enough Arnold movies. I mean, unless the robot makes you sign reams of bureaucratic forms before it will do anything, or something like that.
Ehhh.....
From Dictionary.com:
Civil Disobedience - Refusal to obey civil laws in an effort to induce change in governmental policy or legislation, characterized by the use of passive resistance or other nonviolent means.
I think your definition of "piracy" fits into the category of civil disobedience just fine. Perhaps you meant to say "Piracy is not a justified form of civil disobedience"?
Anybody else got a feeling that they're just complaining about it so they can charge more for their cars without invoking the Sherman acts?
"We sold so many cars we're running out of numbers for them all."
Boo-hoo. I need a tissue.
Ugh. What was good about it? Did you care about any of the characters at all? There was no humanity in it. The plot was lousy, the movie was badly disjointed, and none of it lived up to the first 5 minutes, which were pretty great. Nick Nolte turned in a couple of outstanding performances, especially at the end, but they felt out of place in such a humdrum, overblown, overhyped movie.
The supposed heroine was more of a villain than anything else.
I tried to push it out of my mind as soon as I had seen it, so I had a lot of other criticisms at the time. This is just what I can think of right now. For me, the movie did not work on any level at all.
You must be affiliated with the democratic campaign! Why, this is despicable! Why aren't Democrats everywhere outraged by this post? This shows exactly how low the level of discourse has become! Organizations like slashdot are ruining the national civility in this country. Every democrat everywhere should denounce slashdot and speak to all my other talking points! Right away!
[/sarcasm]
Whatever process they use to look at the data could be used to copy it and give it to the FOIA petitioners.
Or maybe they just put stuff in there and don't look at the data, because it would crash. That would make a lot of sense.
Liar.
Which is environmentally better? Exploding gunpowder or burning fossil fuels? I truly don't know, but someone around here will probably answer in agonizing detail.
Not to mention that it is a pretty fscking great anime. What I'm surprised about is that it took them this long to write a sequel.
I had the foresight to save all my junk mail, about 3 years ago. I used it to train the filters when I switched to mozilla, and I hit the ground running with about an 80% rate (trained with about 5000 spam mails and about 800 real mails).
Since then, I have given my email address to any site that asks for it, because I figure the more spam, the better for my filter. This has worked out pretty good for me. Mozilla is now up to about a 95% rate, which is nothing like what was promised by Paul Graham, but still reasonably good. No significant false positives yet (just a couple of commercial emails I didn't care too much about). Plus, I see his prediction in the spam that gets through. It's almost impossible to figure out what these people are trying to sell me because they have to bury their message in a bunch of crap to get around my filters. I don't see how this can keep up for long as a sustainable business. But then again, what do I know?
Nope, evolution is a fictional concept created by the MAN to keep us all DOWN, man! Fossils? Planted. The earth is 6000 years old. Don't get me started on radioactive dating, glacial core samples, sedimentary rock formations, DNA tracing.......
On second thought maybe I'm wrong. I guess that's more likely than all the physicists, biologists, paleoclimatologists, and geologists being in on a massive global conspiracy. Damn, I lost my point....
Watch the latest Frontline. It's called "Plea". It's about people just like you who believed the justice system was somehow about finding out the truth.
In short, that's not what it's about at all. Ask a criminal defense lawyer.
A lot more than it cost to boost him up there on a diesel rocket. Why are you so opposed to the guv'mint making a profit?