Apples and Oranges here. You're comparing two wholy separate things. Driving a car has become a necessity in our society, and also, the risks tend to be managed. Walking across streets, again, unavoidable realistically, but again a risk that can be managed. Accidents in the house, now you are just getting absurd. Again, this is necessity of life, you're not going to be able to do basic day to day things without it.
Now the regular at McDonalads that eats his way to cardiac arrest, probably shouldn't expect help out of the rest of us, this is an unmanaged risk. It could be very easily avoided and/or mitigated. This is the same thing with smoking, you know what its going to do to you, there is nothing necessary about it, people can get along just fine without it, so it shouldn't be supported by society.
Ya, if your a smoker my position sucks, basically I want to let you kill yourself, but I don't want to pay for it while you do. If you make a choice that increses your risk factors, without working to seriously manage those risks, I see no reason for the costs to come out of my pocket. If you can pay for it yourself, that's fine, do as you please.
So, please, if you are going to try and make comparisons, at least choose ones that aren't so absurd.
You don't need one to overthrow the goverment, either, and even if you did, the current situation is such that it wouldn't help you alot.
Yes, I do. History has provided too many examples of well intentioned govenments turning into despotic regimes. As for the current situation, you're right, it would be really tough to pull off an armed revolt at the moment, mostly because the populous wouldn't be behind it. The only time an armed revolt is going to work is when there are enough people behind it that it moves from being a small fringe group to being an army that is as large, or larger than the standing police/military. Or, more likely, that much of the standing police/military personel are involved in the revolt as well. As I stated above, I don't think we are at, or even near this point. So do I need a gun at the moment for this purpose? No, but some distant future desendant will, and if I give up my guns now, he won't have them then. Its like a medical insurance policy, most of the time you are just paying into it, and getting nothing back out, but when you need it you really need it.
Basically, the country is too large for that sort of thing - if we broke the US up into the states, and made the federal goverment a sort of UN, and did alot of other things that might be a good idea and might not, then it'd make more sense. As it stands, it really doesn't.
I don't think its quite impossible, its mostly a matter of scale. If the griveances against the govenment are such that they are only pissing off a small majority, an armed revolt is probably not in order. But if the govenment was to reach a state, such that a majority of the population was pissed off enough to take up arms, then an armed revolt would probably be necessary, and possible.
Agreed, I really wish the government would give up the crusade against tobacco companies. As far as I see it, let the stupid people kill themselves. It gets them out of the job market and reduces overcrowding. Of course, the other part of that needs to be that, if you get cancer from smoking (e.g. you are a smoker and get lung/throat cancer) you are denied any sort of socialized medical care, you decided to run the risk, I don't need to be paying for your bad choice.
Along these same line, I would like to see "drugs" legalized, including hard drugs like heroin and cocaine. Start selling them cheaply, and let people overdose themselves.
My personal view on it is, this is just a bit of chlorine in the gene pool.
And for those who are wondering, no this is not meant to be sarcastic, I really do believe in letting people kill themselves in new and intersting ways.
I'm for gun control because I think the idea that you need to own a gun is stupid. There's not really any good reason for it. I know you'll argue and I'm sure you've got some example of a guy who protected himself against a home invasion but I don't give a shit and don't feel like digging out statistics - suffice it to say that I feel that the self-defense argument is bogus.
Then you have missed the whole point of gun ownership. The self-defense argument is really a straw-man. The whole point behind the second amendment was to uphold the rest of the Constitution. Remember, the US was founded on violence, and the thinking of our founders seems to have been that, at some point in the future, it would be necessary for the populous to violently remove an oppressive govenment again. Now, it could be argued that it would be difficult for a lightly armed populous to take on the military, in which case I would point you to the US involvement in Vietnam, and Somalia, or our current deteriorating situation in Iraq for that matter. Any time the military is put in a situation where the vast majority of the populous doesn't want them there, the military has a bad habit of getting kicked around. It would be the same thing in the US today, if there was a popular revolt. Assuming that the people in the military didn't have huge problems with shooting at the US people, eventually the military would be worn down, as they would be destroying the very infrastrucure which supports them. And there's that whole problem of trying to figure out who your enemy actually is.
So please, give up on the self-defense argument, its a straw man that tends to get beat up all the time. The real reason for gun ownership is as an investment against the day that it becomes necessary to remove the govenment through violence. Something which is, I hope, a long way off.
Same here. Normally, I would have ignored this game, right along with just about every other movie turned game title I have seen (way too many of them have sucked). But the fact that it might have co-op in it, and on the off chance that it is a decent game with solid co-op, might just get me to rent or even buy this game. I find it amazing how many game developers seem to forget that there are two controller ports on my PS2, and I like games where I can use both of them. Also, the fact that my girlfriend is also an avid gamer, and we like playing together, tends to make me more interested in co-op games.
The announcement by SCO is simply more smoke and mirrors. They are trying to frighten people into buying licenses, but they absolutly do not want this to go to court. My belief is that they have a snippet of code from the Linux kernel that might be construed as being infringing (assuming they get a blind, drunk monkey for a judge), but they really don't want to go to court over it because either it will be found to be non-infringing; or once it is public knowledge, the code in Linux will change so fast that it will become a non-issue. The only way for SCO to make any money out of this, is to keep the code from being tested in court, and out of public view. Once either of those things happen, its "game over" for SCO's ambitions of ressurection.
Mechwarrior? Movie? Hollywood quality special effects? HOLY SHITBALLS BATMAN!!! I think every single mech lover in the world has been dying to see mechs done up in a movie that looked extremely realistic. There have been a few mech movies so far...but they didn't look THAT good...except RoboJox or w/e it is. But this one is based on the Battletech universe, which makes me jump for joy.
I agree, I would love to see a good Mechwarrior movie, but therein lies the catch, a good Mechwarrior movie. I'm a little afraid that it will get the Wing Commander treatment. I loved the Wing Commander series, and when I heard they were doing a movie, I thought, great this should be cool. Sadly, the acting is so bad in that movie, its painful. They would have done better to simply use the cut-scenes out of the video game. Then you have Tomb Raider, I wasn't a fan of the games, but boy did that first movie ever screw that title up. I still haven't bothered with the second one, and probably won't unless it comes on TV and I am too drunk to reach the remote.
I guess the point to this rant is, has a game ever been made into to a good movie? Even outside of video games, the prospects aren't that good. D&D? If ever there was a more fetid, steaming, pile of crap, I've not seen it. Anybody know of a game to movie port that was worth the time to watch?
At least it seems like they have fixed the co-op bug that was in the Two Towers game. If ever there was a title that screamed for a co-op mode, LotR is it. I mean, come on, its the fellowship of the ring, and almost never was anyone alone. Samwise rescuing Frodo, and looking for him again in Mt. Doom was about it, but other than that there were usually several of the heros traveling and fighting together. Heck, consider the battle at Helm's Deep, Legolas and Gimli were keeping score! Ok, so this didn't get played up as much in the movie, but it still made a bit of a showing.
I think you were joking, but the fact is that some casinos do just that. Gambling can be fun, but we should not lose sight of the fact that casinos tend to be unprincipled businesses. Some casinos will use tools like MindPlay to determine when to shuffle up.
I don't think they do this quite yet (I won't say they'll never try). The past few times I have gone to Vegas (used to go once a year), the blackjack dealer would shuffle, allow a player to cut, then put a plastic card in the shoe about 3/4 of the way through the shoe. They would continue dealing from that shoe until that plastic card came out, they would finish the current hand, and then re-shuffle. It would get really suspicious if the dealer was to suddenly decide to shuffle in the middle of the shoe.
Of course, this was for shoes with several decks, never bothered to figure out how many; and this might vary greatly on smaller shoes, or single decks.
Not quite. It's more like your neighboor, seeing you have left your front door wide open, comming over and closing and locking it for you. Of course, he might still accidentally break a few things while looking for a key, which is a problem. On the whole, I agree that, if I have my server hacked, I need to go about re-building it (or dumping the image back on in my case), but for those people that have a broadband connection, a windows box, and no clue about security and/or patching, I see this sort of response as justified, if a bit underhanded. The type of people this worm should affect are the same type of people that are going to have blaster cluttering up their system a year from now, and who will only get rid of it when they are forced to reload windows because it has slowed to a crawl. Basically, if you have the knowledge to be worried about a system being hit by this new worm, you shouldn't be hit in the first place. If you do get hit by it, then this is a good thing for the rest of us, as you don't seem to care enough, and your system will be causing problems for the rest of us.
This interesting technology could potentially lead to some better new-age energy sources. I'm not sure why we always focus on warfare, when there are other ways to use the explosive power of new military technology.
Simple reason, money, the DOD has it and which do you think they are going to develop? A new power source to make all our lives better, or a new way to blow shit up? Unless they are looking for a new power source for a sub/tank/flying death machine, they are going to try and find a way to make things go boom. Now, it could be argued that we could divert a chunk of the money going into the DOD to something a bit more peaceful (like researching a new power source) but that just doesn't sell with the people in power. Either we get one group pumping money into the DOD and ignoring research, or we get the other group pulling money out of the DOD and giving it to the poor, while ignoring research. Either way science for the betterment of everyone loses.
Experimenting on prisoners is fine if they volunteer and receive nothing in return. If you offer a prisoner freedom if they become a test subject, it's ethically identical to giving them extra jailtime if they don't. It's coercion, and therefore wrong.
I think this is more a matter of your point of view. Its not a matter of punishing them for not volunteering, if they don't, nothing changes for them. If they do volunteer they get a bonus, basically allowing them to repay their debt to society through something other than just sitting around sucking up resources. Its a matter of setting it up as a reward, similar to time off for good behavior.
Experimenting on people you're about to murder is called torture when you don't have permission from the state, and it increases your sentence in ANY jurisdiction. Although I can't see how it makes a heck of a lot of a difference to the victim, it seems most people think it's worse than "normal" murder. My only concern is that the state should not grant itself either of these rights.
I would agree that we should go to some lengths to ensure that the test subjects do not suffer much during the processes, but I don't think I would equate this to torture. The goal is not to cause pain or distress, in fact it is quite the opposite, to alleviate pain and distress. The point is, that, at some point, medicines/treatments have to be tried on an actual living human being. So, who do we try it on? A person that is sick, but has probably been a contributor to society for most of their lives and would likely continue to be so, if they survived; or a person whom we can make sick, and probably has spent (or is going to spend) most of their life being nothing more than a drain on society? Why not get something out of that investment of resources to maintaining that person?
As for the state granting itself the right to do this sort of thing, I do think that this would have to be a mandate from the people, you're right that the state simply taking this sort of power is worrisome.
Also, "usefulness to society" is a scary term. If society can make anyone they want "non-useful" by throwing them in a box, then kill them because they're not useful, that pretty much opens the door for everyone, doesn't it?
We already do this, when someone is convicted of a crime that carries a life in prison, without parole, or a death sentance, we have already deemed this person unfit to be in our society, and therefore useless to it. I realize that its a rather callous way to view it, but that is really what we do with our prison system, we remove the undesierables from our society. It just a matter of how those undesierables are defined. Currently, this sort of classification is usually reserved for the most henious of crimes, though there is always the prossibility that this could change, but this is always a danger in any society that allows a govenment to make laws reguarding who is to be imprisioned.
The problem is that everyone immediately focuses on the utilitarian argument of "research X solves problem Y, problem Y is bad, therefore research X is good". Ask yourself this--could vaccines be developed faster if we tested them on humans (say, prisoners) first, rather than mucking around with rats and rhesus monkeys? An honest answer would be yes. And now you're starting to understand ethics.
Just have to see if I can start an ethic debate here (sorry, bored at work). Why not start testing drugs/treatments on prisoners who are scheduled to be executed and/or have a life sentance without the possibility of parole? As it is these people are just sitting around sucking up resources, when they have shown that they are unwilling to be part of society. So, I put forth, that instead of housing them for the rest of thier lives, we begin using them as lab rats. We use the death row inmates for the really new, and chancey procedures. If it succedes then the inmate has been beneficial to society before being executed. If the procedure fails and the inmate dies in the process, well no loss there, and there is probably a lot of good information collected by the researchers along the way.
As for the life in prison with out parole inmates, we offer them a choice: Sit around in this hole forever, and know that you will never leave, except feet first; or, spend 10 years as a test subject for highly experimental drugs/treatments, you might die as a result of the procedures, but if you survive we let you out and give you a bit of money to get you started in what is left of your life. In either scenario the public gets something out of these people who have been deemed to be worthless to society, and are going to do nothing other than suck up resources that could be better spent elsewhere.
With either chart, I really wish I had the money, and knowhow for that matter, to short this stock. It seems to me that SCO is a bubble waiting to burst, and I think its getting ready to do so.
We mobilized to b!tch slap specific spammers. - The spam is still comming. We mobilized to protest Turbotax spyware. - Spyware is still used by companies, we got one, but more remains We mobilized to protest the "Patriot" Act. - Which is still in effect. /.ers are probably never going to agree on a particular candidate, but that doesn't mean we don't attempt to change the world because of what we read here.
Agreed, we do make a lot of noise, and sometimes it helps, but I don't think we have really accomplished that much.
Recall we have laws against bribery. Enforcement on the other hand...
Yes, but we still allow lobbying. It's not the same thing you say? Oh that's right, one is giving money/favors/etc to someone so that they will use their position to help you. The other is giving a congress-critter money/favors/etc so that they will use their position to help you. Those two things are very different, we must always make certain to keep them straight. One is illegal, the other is the way our govenment works.
This is something I have been advocating for a while. Create a distributed app of some sort (think SETI@Home) which goes out and slowly fills these databases with real looking fake data. Its has to look real but be semi random, a couple of huge name lists which are used to randomly pick first, last, middle names etc. It would have to be updated occasionally to include new web locations for the forms, and to delete dead ones (possible have a central server which houses the lists). And expand the name lists. Sadly, I am not, and will never be a programmer, so I am not able to do this myself, but anybody else who is willing to put the time into it is free to use my idea, and I will download and sign up for immediatly.
While we're on old NES sports games, don't forget Base Wars, that game was the only way I have ever seen baseball be interesting. I spent many a summer day at my friends' house (they were twins) playing for the Base Wars pennet.
Of course, its less fun now, as I only have the computer to play against, and boy is the AI bad. I haven't managed to get to triple digit scores yet, but I have gotten close.
I think its usually somewhere in their privacy policy. Usually they will state that it will only be used internally and by select thrid parties. Of course, the definition of select is: anybody who will shell out the money to get our data.
Anyways, I'd say that would still fit indecent as far as general public goes. If you feel the need to be displaying your breasts to other folks, do it at home or a private place. Not in general public.
One of those things that has always bothered me, its ok for a male to walk around without his shirt, but not for a female, why? Seems just a bit like a double standard. Sure, females tend to have hangy bits underneath their shirt, though so do a lot of males these days. What is it, that is so inherently wrong with a woman with her shirt off?
i'd be willing too if it opened up the job market further. lets say i'm not bothered by sexual harasment, and i interview at a company where the powers-that-be insist sexual harasment be allowed in the workplace. well, all of a sudden, i no longer have to compete with all the serious anti-sexual harasment folks who might otherwise have applied.
likewise, they get to apply to companies with strict anti-sexual harasment rules, and don't have to compete with gropers for those jobs. all removing a law like that would do is open up the options for both sides.
some supposed "job" protections would still apply - such as rules against corporal punisment - because, as another poster noted, that's inapropriate and arguably illegal ANYWHERE, not just in the workplace. Don't make laws apply oddball special restrictions to the workplace that don't apply to the rest of hte world - if an employer wants to create a specific environment, let 'em. and let me choose to refuse to work there if i don't like it.
people act like they have a basic right to work. if you don't like the conditions of a job, don't take it, and hope you can find something better. if you can't, then buck up and take the bad situation because its better than nothing.
Its like a madlib, just fill in the appropriate blanks with any labor law you want to get rid of, and put a slightly worse offense in the lower half.
I call bullshit, You are more than free to do whatever you want, as long as it doesn't affect everyone else. Personally, I feel that if you want to shoot up heroin at work, go for it. Sure, it'll probably affect your job performance, which could get you fired, but assuming you are not operating heavy machinery, it has very little chance of affecting those around you.
Ridiculous? Of course. It's not at all analogous to sexual harassment because putting up with sexual harassment is not an inherent part of most jobs; being in a smoky environment is widely understood to be an inherent aspect of bartending. Just as driving in a 200MPH traffic jam is an inherent aspect of racing, and rushing into burning buildings is part of being a firefighter.
Why should having to breate poison be a condition of working as a bartender? There is no reason for it. By simply moving the smokers outside the health of everyone in the bar is protected, and there is no real loss in the service provided. Like you said, 200MPH traffic jams are an accepted part of racing, without them racing would be rather pointless. Rushing into firey buildings is an accepted risk of being a fire fighter, if they didn't do it, we'd have many more people dead. The hazards you cite are hazards that are unavoidable in those professions, smoke for a bartender is not. People are not going to have to go without a drink if the bartender is not stuck in a smokey environment. And as for the whole, get a different job argument, this is just absolute bullshit. The whole reason we have any sort of labor laws is that companies will abuse thier employees as much as they can get away with, and with the number of people out there, companies will be able to get away with quite a bit (and have in the past). Labor laws exist to keep companies to at least a minimum standard of treatment of employees. The smoking bans, such as ours in California, exist to protect employees from a hazard that there is no reason for them to be exposed to, and the rest of us for that matter.
This is exactly analogous to Sexual Harasment laws. There are certain behavior problems that people should never be expected to have to put up with in a work environment. By removing these behaviors from a work place, the work is in no way diminished, and usually the quality of the work is incresed. Ya, I'm sure not being able to smoke at work, or in a bar sucks, but I see no reason that I should be forced to find a different resturant because you want to poison yourself; chew your tabacco, or swallow all of the smoke down, but please don't pretend that you have a right to poison the people around you.
Exactly, there is absolutely NO reason for them to require me to register on their site to read the 'free' content aside from collecting data about me. So its not really free you see, because I'm paying with my privacy. I can guarantee that the only reason for registration on those kinds of sites is to gather user information to sell. So they make money either way.
I realize that it is slightly unethical, but lie. When a website asks for a name just put in something like "spam can". In the email address, put admin@(what.ever.the.domian.name.you.are.visiting. is) As for the rest of the statistics, just choose at random. And then make sure to check all of the "spam me" boxes. Now, if they require some sort of email confirmation, then just use a throw away email service, or a hotmail account. This way, you are not only preserving your privacy, you are also polluting their database. Better yet, if you are willing to take the time, just put in real looking data, which is, in fact, false. Basically, start diluting their database by having false data that can't be easily identified as false. This has, actually, always been my idea for a distributed computing app. Create an app that goes out on the web, looks for these sorts of data collection points, and slowly fills them with junk, but real looking, data. Sort of a DDOS attack on marketing databases. Of course, I am not a programmer, so I won't be putting anything like this out myself, but anyone else is free to use my idea, I know I'd run it.
Those who question whether something is worth paying could take one look at google news. There may be 300 news sources for a particular story but 270-280 of them would barely be different from reuters or AP.
I view this as a good thing. I hate having to wade through the fluff and spin that most major US news companies see fit to attach to a real news story. Just give me the facts and let me sort it out, I don't need (questionable) research and formating done for me.
I think aol users are more likely to pay for more things. They already pay extra for proprietary content. There are add on extra things for aol that subscribers have to pay for. The article already mentioned the time magazine example.
I'm not quite sure I agree with you on this. Having been a one time AOL'er (I got better), I remember that I really hated the idea of paying anymore, than I already did, for content. Though, I did spend most of my time on AOL playing Neverwinter Nights (the original), and didn't see much need to pay for web content as I was able to find all the porn I needed for free (My AOL years lined up real well with my mid to late teen years). Also, with things like Kazzaa being so popular, I think people have gotten used to the web being a kind of communistic area, and one that almost seems to work, its just not a good place for a capitalistic attempt to make money.
I wish the guy in the article all the luck in the world, but I would probably not be betting on him. This seems to be another web company which is designed to fail. Afterall, why am I going to pay a monthly fee to be able to access old magazine articles? I can usually Google for the same information, and with minimal fuss have the same type of content, for free.
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Apples and Oranges here. You're comparing two wholy separate things. Driving a car has become a necessity in our society, and also, the risks tend to be managed. Walking across streets, again, unavoidable realistically, but again a risk that can be managed. Accidents in the house, now you are just getting absurd. Again, this is necessity of life, you're not going to be able to do basic day to day things without it.
Now the regular at McDonalads that eats his way to cardiac arrest, probably shouldn't expect help out of the rest of us, this is an unmanaged risk. It could be very easily avoided and/or mitigated. This is the same thing with smoking, you know what its going to do to you, there is nothing necessary about it, people can get along just fine without it, so it shouldn't be supported by society.
Ya, if your a smoker my position sucks, basically I want to let you kill yourself, but I don't want to pay for it while you do. If you make a choice that increses your risk factors, without working to seriously manage those risks, I see no reason for the costs to come out of my pocket. If you can pay for it yourself, that's fine, do as you please.
So, please, if you are going to try and make comparisons, at least choose ones that aren't so absurd.
You don't need one to overthrow the goverment, either, and even if you did, the current situation is such that it wouldn't help you alot.
Yes, I do. History has provided too many examples of well intentioned govenments turning into despotic regimes. As for the current situation, you're right, it would be really tough to pull off an armed revolt at the moment, mostly because the populous wouldn't be behind it. The only time an armed revolt is going to work is when there are enough people behind it that it moves from being a small fringe group to being an army that is as large, or larger than the standing police/military. Or, more likely, that much of the standing police/military personel are involved in the revolt as well. As I stated above, I don't think we are at, or even near this point. So do I need a gun at the moment for this purpose? No, but some distant future desendant will, and if I give up my guns now, he won't have them then. Its like a medical insurance policy, most of the time you are just paying into it, and getting nothing back out, but when you need it you really need it.
Basically, the country is too large for that sort of thing - if we broke the US up into the states, and made the federal goverment a sort of UN, and did alot of other things that might be a good idea and might not, then it'd make more sense. As it stands, it really doesn't.
I don't think its quite impossible, its mostly a matter of scale. If the griveances against the govenment are such that they are only pissing off a small majority, an armed revolt is probably not in order. But if the govenment was to reach a state, such that a majority of the population was pissed off enough to take up arms, then an armed revolt would probably be necessary, and possible.
Agreed, I really wish the government would give up the crusade against tobacco companies. As far as I see it, let the stupid people kill themselves. It gets them out of the job market and reduces overcrowding. Of course, the other part of that needs to be that, if you get cancer from smoking (e.g. you are a smoker and get lung/throat cancer) you are denied any sort of socialized medical care, you decided to run the risk, I don't need to be paying for your bad choice.
Along these same line, I would like to see "drugs" legalized, including hard drugs like heroin and cocaine. Start selling them cheaply, and let people overdose themselves.
My personal view on it is, this is just a bit of chlorine in the gene pool.
And for those who are wondering, no this is not meant to be sarcastic, I really do believe in letting people kill themselves in new and intersting ways.
I'm for gun control because I think the idea that you need to own a gun is stupid. There's not really any good reason for it. I know you'll argue and I'm sure you've got some example of a guy who protected himself against a home invasion but I don't give a shit and don't feel like digging out statistics - suffice it to say that I feel that the self-defense argument is bogus.
Then you have missed the whole point of gun ownership. The self-defense argument is really a straw-man. The whole point behind the second amendment was to uphold the rest of the Constitution. Remember, the US was founded on violence, and the thinking of our founders seems to have been that, at some point in the future, it would be necessary for the populous to violently remove an oppressive govenment again. Now, it could be argued that it would be difficult for a lightly armed populous to take on the military, in which case I would point you to the US involvement in Vietnam, and Somalia, or our current deteriorating situation in Iraq for that matter. Any time the military is put in a situation where the vast majority of the populous doesn't want them there, the military has a bad habit of getting kicked around. It would be the same thing in the US today, if there was a popular revolt. Assuming that the people in the military didn't have huge problems with shooting at the US people, eventually the military would be worn down, as they would be destroying the very infrastrucure which supports them. And there's that whole problem of trying to figure out who your enemy actually is.
So please, give up on the self-defense argument, its a straw man that tends to get beat up all the time. The real reason for gun ownership is as an investment against the day that it becomes necessary to remove the govenment through violence. Something which is, I hope, a long way off.
Same here. Normally, I would have ignored this game, right along with just about every other movie turned game title I have seen (way too many of them have sucked). But the fact that it might have co-op in it, and on the off chance that it is a decent game with solid co-op, might just get me to rent or even buy this game. I find it amazing how many game developers seem to forget that there are two controller ports on my PS2, and I like games where I can use both of them. Also, the fact that my girlfriend is also an avid gamer, and we like playing together, tends to make me more interested in co-op games.
The announcement by SCO is simply more smoke and mirrors. They are trying to frighten people into buying licenses, but they absolutly do not want this to go to court. My belief is that they have a snippet of code from the Linux kernel that might be construed as being infringing (assuming they get a blind, drunk monkey for a judge), but they really don't want to go to court over it because either it will be found to be non-infringing; or once it is public knowledge, the code in Linux will change so fast that it will become a non-issue. The only way for SCO to make any money out of this, is to keep the code from being tested in court, and out of public view. Once either of those things happen, its "game over" for SCO's ambitions of ressurection.
Mechwarrior? Movie? Hollywood quality special effects? HOLY SHITBALLS BATMAN!!! I think every single mech lover in the world has been dying to see mechs done up in a movie that looked extremely realistic. There have been a few mech movies so far...but they didn't look THAT good...except RoboJox or w/e it is. But this one is based on the Battletech universe, which makes me jump for joy.
I agree, I would love to see a good Mechwarrior movie, but therein lies the catch, a good Mechwarrior movie. I'm a little afraid that it will get the Wing Commander treatment. I loved the Wing Commander series, and when I heard they were doing a movie, I thought, great this should be cool. Sadly, the acting is so bad in that movie, its painful. They would have done better to simply use the cut-scenes out of the video game. Then you have Tomb Raider, I wasn't a fan of the games, but boy did that first movie ever screw that title up. I still haven't bothered with the second one, and probably won't unless it comes on TV and I am too drunk to reach the remote.
I guess the point to this rant is, has a game ever been made into to a good movie? Even outside of video games, the prospects aren't that good. D&D? If ever there was a more fetid, steaming, pile of crap, I've not seen it. Anybody know of a game to movie port that was worth the time to watch?
At least it seems like they have fixed the co-op bug that was in the Two Towers game. If ever there was a title that screamed for a co-op mode, LotR is it. I mean, come on, its the fellowship of the ring, and almost never was anyone alone. Samwise rescuing Frodo, and looking for him again in Mt. Doom was about it, but other than that there were usually several of the heros traveling and fighting together. Heck, consider the battle at Helm's Deep, Legolas and Gimli were keeping score! Ok, so this didn't get played up as much in the movie, but it still made a bit of a showing.
I think you were joking, but the fact is that some casinos do just that. Gambling can be fun, but we should not lose sight of the fact that casinos tend to be unprincipled businesses. Some casinos will use tools like MindPlay to determine when to shuffle up.
I don't think they do this quite yet (I won't say they'll never try). The past few times I have gone to Vegas (used to go once a year), the blackjack dealer would shuffle, allow a player to cut, then put a plastic card in the shoe about 3/4 of the way through the shoe. They would continue dealing from that shoe until that plastic card came out, they would finish the current hand, and then re-shuffle. It would get really suspicious if the dealer was to suddenly decide to shuffle in the middle of the shoe.
Of course, this was for shoes with several decks, never bothered to figure out how many; and this might vary greatly on smaller shoes, or single decks.
Not quite. It's more like your neighboor, seeing you have left your front door wide open, comming over and closing and locking it for you. Of course, he might still accidentally break a few things while looking for a key, which is a problem. On the whole, I agree that, if I have my server hacked, I need to go about re-building it (or dumping the image back on in my case), but for those people that have a broadband connection, a windows box, and no clue about security and/or patching, I see this sort of response as justified, if a bit underhanded. The type of people this worm should affect are the same type of people that are going to have blaster cluttering up their system a year from now, and who will only get rid of it when they are forced to reload windows because it has slowed to a crawl. Basically, if you have the knowledge to be worried about a system being hit by this new worm, you shouldn't be hit in the first place. If you do get hit by it, then this is a good thing for the rest of us, as you don't seem to care enough, and your system will be causing problems for the rest of us.
This interesting technology could potentially lead to some better new-age energy sources. I'm not sure why we always focus on warfare, when there are other ways to use the explosive power of new military technology.
Simple reason, money, the DOD has it and which do you think they are going to develop? A new power source to make all our lives better, or a new way to blow shit up? Unless they are looking for a new power source for a sub/tank/flying death machine, they are going to try and find a way to make things go boom. Now, it could be argued that we could divert a chunk of the money going into the DOD to something a bit more peaceful (like researching a new power source) but that just doesn't sell with the people in power. Either we get one group pumping money into the DOD and ignoring research, or we get the other group pulling money out of the DOD and giving it to the poor, while ignoring research. Either way science for the betterment of everyone loses.
Experimenting on prisoners is fine if they volunteer and receive nothing in return. If you offer a prisoner freedom if they become a test subject, it's ethically identical to giving them extra jailtime if they don't. It's coercion, and therefore wrong.
I think this is more a matter of your point of view. Its not a matter of punishing them for not volunteering, if they don't, nothing changes for them. If they do volunteer they get a bonus, basically allowing them to repay their debt to society through something other than just sitting around sucking up resources. Its a matter of setting it up as a reward, similar to time off for good behavior.
Experimenting on people you're about to murder is called torture when you don't have permission from the state, and it increases your sentence in ANY jurisdiction. Although I can't see how it makes a heck of a lot of a difference to the victim, it seems most people think it's worse than "normal" murder. My only concern is that the state should not grant itself either of these rights.
I would agree that we should go to some lengths to ensure that the test subjects do not suffer much during the processes, but I don't think I would equate this to torture. The goal is not to cause pain or distress, in fact it is quite the opposite, to alleviate pain and distress. The point is, that, at some point, medicines/treatments have to be tried on an actual living human being. So, who do we try it on? A person that is sick, but has probably been a contributor to society for most of their lives and would likely continue to be so, if they survived; or a person whom we can make sick, and probably has spent (or is going to spend) most of their life being nothing more than a drain on society? Why not get something out of that investment of resources to maintaining that person?
As for the state granting itself the right to do this sort of thing, I do think that this would have to be a mandate from the people, you're right that the state simply taking this sort of power is worrisome.
Also, "usefulness to society" is a scary term. If society can make anyone they want "non-useful" by throwing them in a box, then kill them because they're not useful, that pretty much opens the door for everyone, doesn't it?
We already do this, when someone is convicted of a crime that carries a life in prison, without parole, or a death sentance, we have already deemed this person unfit to be in our society, and therefore useless to it. I realize that its a rather callous way to view it, but that is really what we do with our prison system, we remove the undesierables from our society. It just a matter of how those undesierables are defined. Currently, this sort of classification is usually reserved for the most henious of crimes, though there is always the prossibility that this could change, but this is always a danger in any society that allows a govenment to make laws reguarding who is to be imprisioned.
The problem is that everyone immediately focuses on the utilitarian argument of "research X solves problem Y, problem Y is bad, therefore research X is good". Ask yourself this--could vaccines be developed faster if we tested them on humans (say, prisoners) first, rather than mucking around with rats and rhesus monkeys? An honest answer would be yes. And now you're starting to understand ethics.
Just have to see if I can start an ethic debate here (sorry, bored at work). Why not start testing drugs/treatments on prisoners who are scheduled to be executed and/or have a life sentance without the possibility of parole? As it is these people are just sitting around sucking up resources, when they have shown that they are unwilling to be part of society. So, I put forth, that instead of housing them for the rest of thier lives, we begin using them as lab rats. We use the death row inmates for the really new, and chancey procedures. If it succedes then the inmate has been beneficial to society before being executed. If the procedure fails and the inmate dies in the process, well no loss there, and there is probably a lot of good information collected by the researchers along the way.
As for the life in prison with out parole inmates, we offer them a choice: Sit around in this hole forever, and know that you will never leave, except feet first; or, spend 10 years as a test subject for highly experimental drugs/treatments, you might die as a result of the procedures, but if you survive we let you out and give you a bit of money to get you started in what is left of your life. In either scenario the public gets something out of these people who have been deemed to be worthless to society, and are going to do nothing other than suck up resources that could be better spent elsewhere.
With either chart, I really wish I had the money, and knowhow for that matter, to short this stock. It seems to me that SCO is a bubble waiting to burst, and I think its getting ready to do so.
We mobilized to b!tch slap specific spammers. - The spam is still comming.
/.ers are probably never going to agree on a particular candidate, but that doesn't mean we don't attempt to change the world because of what we read here.
We mobilized to protest Turbotax spyware. - Spyware is still used by companies, we got one, but more remains
We mobilized to protest the "Patriot" Act. - Which is still in effect.
Agreed, we do make a lot of noise, and sometimes it helps, but I don't think we have really accomplished that much.
Recall we have laws against bribery. Enforcement on the other hand...
Yes, but we still allow lobbying. It's not the same thing you say? Oh that's right, one is giving money/favors/etc to someone so that they will use their position to help you. The other is giving a congress-critter money/favors/etc so that they will use their position to help you. Those two things are very different, we must always make certain to keep them straight. One is illegal, the other is the way our govenment works.
This is something I have been advocating for a while. Create a distributed app of some sort (think SETI@Home) which goes out and slowly fills these databases with real looking fake data. Its has to look real but be semi random, a couple of huge name lists which are used to randomly pick first, last, middle names etc. It would have to be updated occasionally to include new web locations for the forms, and to delete dead ones (possible have a central server which houses the lists). And expand the name lists. Sadly, I am not, and will never be a programmer, so I am not able to do this myself, but anybody else who is willing to put the time into it is free to use my idea, and I will download and sign up for immediatly.
While we're on old NES sports games, don't forget Base Wars, that game was the only way I have ever seen baseball be interesting. I spent many a summer day at my friends' house (they were twins) playing for the Base Wars pennet.
Of course, its less fun now, as I only have the computer to play against, and boy is the AI bad. I haven't managed to get to triple digit scores yet, but I have gotten close.
I think its usually somewhere in their privacy policy. Usually they will state that it will only be used internally and by select thrid parties. Of course, the definition of select is: anybody who will shell out the money to get our data.
Anyways, I'd say that would still fit indecent as far as general public goes. If you feel the need to be displaying your breasts to other folks, do it at home or a private place. Not in general public.
One of those things that has always bothered me, its ok for a male to walk around without his shirt, but not for a female, why? Seems just a bit like a double standard. Sure, females tend to have hangy bits underneath their shirt, though so do a lot of males these days. What is it, that is so inherently wrong with a woman with her shirt off?
i'd be willing too if it opened up the job market further. lets say i'm not bothered by sexual harasment, and i interview at a company where the powers-that-be insist sexual harasment be allowed in the workplace. well, all of a sudden, i no longer have to compete with all the serious anti-sexual harasment folks who might otherwise have applied.
likewise, they get to apply to companies with strict anti-sexual harasment rules, and don't have to compete with gropers for those jobs. all removing a law like that would do is open up the options for both sides.
some supposed "job" protections would still apply - such as rules against corporal punisment - because, as another poster noted, that's inapropriate and arguably illegal ANYWHERE, not just in the workplace. Don't make laws apply oddball special restrictions to the workplace that don't apply to the rest of hte world - if an employer wants to create a specific environment, let 'em. and let me choose to refuse to work there if i don't like it.
people act like they have a basic right to work. if you don't like the conditions of a job, don't take it, and hope you can find something better. if you can't, then buck up and take the bad situation because its better than nothing.
Its like a madlib, just fill in the appropriate blanks with any labor law you want to get rid of, and put a slightly worse offense in the lower half.
I call bullshit, You are more than free to do whatever you want, as long as it doesn't affect everyone else. Personally, I feel that if you want to shoot up heroin at work, go for it. Sure, it'll probably affect your job performance, which could get you fired, but assuming you are not operating heavy machinery, it has very little chance of affecting those around you.
Alright, I'm probably getting trolled, but...
Ridiculous? Of course. It's not at all analogous to sexual harassment because putting up with sexual harassment is not an inherent part of most jobs; being in a smoky environment is widely understood to be an inherent aspect of bartending. Just as driving in a 200MPH traffic jam is an inherent aspect of racing, and rushing into burning buildings is part of being a firefighter.
Why should having to breate poison be a condition of working as a bartender? There is no reason for it. By simply moving the smokers outside the health of everyone in the bar is protected, and there is no real loss in the service provided. Like you said, 200MPH traffic jams are an accepted part of racing, without them racing would be rather pointless. Rushing into firey buildings is an accepted risk of being a fire fighter, if they didn't do it, we'd have many more people dead. The hazards you cite are hazards that are unavoidable in those professions, smoke for a bartender is not. People are not going to have to go without a drink if the bartender is not stuck in a smokey environment. And as for the whole, get a different job argument, this is just absolute bullshit. The whole reason we have any sort of labor laws is that companies will abuse thier employees as much as they can get away with, and with the number of people out there, companies will be able to get away with quite a bit (and have in the past). Labor laws exist to keep companies to at least a minimum standard of treatment of employees. The smoking bans, such as ours in California, exist to protect employees from a hazard that there is no reason for them to be exposed to, and the rest of us for that matter.
This is exactly analogous to Sexual Harasment laws. There are certain behavior problems that people should never be expected to have to put up with in a work environment. By removing these behaviors from a work place, the work is in no way diminished, and usually the quality of the work is incresed. Ya, I'm sure not being able to smoke at work, or in a bar sucks, but I see no reason that I should be forced to find a different resturant because you want to poison yourself; chew your tabacco, or swallow all of the smoke down, but please don't pretend that you have a right to poison the people around you.
Exactly, there is absolutely NO reason for them to require me to register on their site to read the 'free' content aside from collecting data about me. So its not really free you see, because I'm paying with my privacy. I can guarantee that the only reason for registration on those kinds of sites is to gather user information to sell. So they make money either way.
. is) As for the rest of the statistics, just choose at random. And then make sure to check all of the "spam me" boxes. Now, if they require some sort of email confirmation, then just use a throw away email service, or a hotmail account. This way, you are not only preserving your privacy, you are also polluting their database. Better yet, if you are willing to take the time, just put in real looking data, which is, in fact, false. Basically, start diluting their database by having false data that can't be easily identified as false. This has, actually, always been my idea for a distributed computing app. Create an app that goes out on the web, looks for these sorts of data collection points, and slowly fills them with junk, but real looking, data. Sort of a DDOS attack on marketing databases. Of course, I am not a programmer, so I won't be putting anything like this out myself, but anyone else is free to use my idea, I know I'd run it.
I realize that it is slightly unethical, but lie. When a website asks for a name just put in something like "spam can". In the email address, put admin@(what.ever.the.domian.name.you.are.visiting
Those who question whether something is worth paying could take one look at google news. There may be 300 news sources for a particular story but 270-280 of them would barely be different from reuters or AP.
I view this as a good thing. I hate having to wade through the fluff and spin that most major US news companies see fit to attach to a real news story. Just give me the facts and let me sort it out, I don't need (questionable) research and formating done for me.
I think aol users are more likely to pay for more things. They already pay extra for proprietary content. There are add on extra things for aol that subscribers have to pay for. The article already mentioned the time magazine example.
I'm not quite sure I agree with you on this. Having been a one time AOL'er (I got better), I remember that I really hated the idea of paying anymore, than I already did, for content. Though, I did spend most of my time on AOL playing Neverwinter Nights (the original), and didn't see much need to pay for web content as I was able to find all the porn I needed for free (My AOL years lined up real well with my mid to late teen years). Also, with things like Kazzaa being so popular, I think people have gotten used to the web being a kind of communistic area, and one that almost seems to work, its just not a good place for a capitalistic attempt to make money.
I wish the guy in the article all the luck in the world, but I would probably not be betting on him. This seems to be another web company which is designed to fail. Afterall, why am I going to pay a monthly fee to be able to access old magazine articles? I can usually Google for the same information, and with minimal fuss have the same type of content, for free.