But I guess if he doesn't have a record and she was only 17 at the time and if he was like 21-24 its not that bad (illegal, but not like he was 45).
I fail to see your point. If it's okay for someone who's 24 to date a 17-year-old, it's okay for a guy of any age to date the 17-year-old. Stating anything else makes no rational sense...unless, of course, you're the 24-year-old, and you don't want a guy who knows ten times what you do about pleasing a woman in bed to horn in on your action.
I think the term "paedophile" should be reserved for those who are sexually attracted to people who are below the age of sexual maturity, not merely below the age of consent in a particular locale.
Exactly. Pedophiles are people who prey on the sexually immature. Sexual maturity is not a function of the legal age of consent, and people who use the term this loosely are being deliberately dishonest. Committing libel, actually.
I've also heard this word being thrown around at any older guy who dates a younger woman even though she's past the age of consent. Which says a great deal more about the person making the comment than the older man dating the younger woman.
I'll tell you why not. It's because of the level of mental maturity and the level of personal responsibility they are able to handle at such a young age.
For 99% of the history of the human race, girls have been having sex and getting knocked up around the age of 13-14. In fact, that's still true in many parts of the world. And as a survival strategy it worked so well that there are now six BILLION of us on the planet.
So tell me: exactly what has changed that girls and boys are no longer 'mentally mature' enough to have sex, much less children of their own? We aren't any smarter or wiser than our ancestors were, so where's the logic in making this sort of arbitrary claim?
Or you could just get the CD version from the torrent, which is already available. Paul here apparently didn't bother to check to see if what he was saying was actually true or not.
I just can't wait for the day when all cars will be computerized and manual driving of any kind will be illegal. Then while I'm kicking back in my car drinking a coffee and listening to music while reading a book, I can think about all those enraged college students and idiot boomers fuming over the fact that they no longer get to endanger everyone else with their complete and total lack of skill...and smile.
Hey, it's no different than legislating moronic things like seatbelt and helmet laws. If you think you have a moral imperative to act as my daddy, then I'll assume your position and bring it to its logical conclusion. And laugh at you every time you bitch about the 'good ol' days', when every stupid shit who insisted that *they* were great drivers put everyone else on the road at risk every time they got behind the wheel.
Until that beautiful day, I'll back any bill that makes it a shooting offense for people to use their cell phones while driving. I swear to christ, those morons are as bad as any drunk....
Congress has no authority here. All powers not specifically delegated to the feds are reserved to the states or the people - it says so, right there in the Constitution. And you can't even make a week case for interstate commerce since what one state does doesn't interfere with the trade of another state in any way, shape or form - it only makes it more difficult for the company, which is *not* the arm of any government.
It's been my experience that cdroms don't fail very often, but cd-rws are particularly flaky and prone to failure, especially if they double as someone's reader. I always recommend that you get a cdrom for reading and only use your burner for actually burning - the cdrw will last considerably longer this way. Unless, of course, you do a lot of burning, but even so having a separate cdrom for reading will still extend the lifespan.
And if you're a smoker, don't smoke in the same room as your computer (or even better, don't smoke in the house; go outside when you need that sweet, sweet drag). Cigarette smoke gets in everything and inside a computer forms a kind of sticky 'scum' that's death on anything with moving parts. This is completely anecdotal, but I've seen much higher drive/cdrom failures from people who smoke while on the computer.
...in a post on another site. But his reasoning clearly held an obvious double-standard that I simply can't swallow. My only explanation for Linus' inability to see what's right in front of his face is that he's personally invested in the issue due to his friendship with the maker of BitKeeper. Anything else just doesn't explain how the normally rational and reasonable Torvalds can do a one-eighty on this particular issue and, quite frankly, be an complete dick about in the process (his post, if you haven't read it, was more like a typical slashdot flamefest response than what you'd expect from Linus).
This is one instance where Linus isn't thinking clearly. I'll cut him some slack since in the past he's been more clear-headed than all of Slashdot put together, but even so it means I'll be reviewing what he says and does more carefully in the future - at least until I'm convinced he's gotten over this momentary bout of insanity.
One thing I do agree with, and always will: 'open source' and 'free software' are not one and the same, nor is there any moral issue involved in using open/free or proprietary software. Both models are perfectly valid and the people who turn the whole mess into a good/evil holy war are fucking idiots of the first order. On that he is, and always has been, right on target.
it's with the people who own and run the site the ad's are on.
There is no contract, implied or otherwise. If the person running the site doesn't want the ads blocked, they're free to move to a subscription model. No one's stopping them.
Sure, why not? I don't have a problem with this. If someone thinks their website is just so damned important and useful that others will pay for the privilege of viewing it, then they're free to sell a subscription service and block all non-subscribers from viewing it. If they're right enough people will pay to keep it afloat; if not they'll go under.
That's capitalism for ya. Suck it up and deal with it.
Those creators of the websites want you (obviously) to view their information but pay for it by viewing their ads. If they didn't want you to view their ads - they would not have put it there. Why should the burdeon be put on them?
Because that's the law, set by case precedent in all other media? Or would you like special laws just for web content?
You'll note that recording a TV show on your VCR and fast-forwarding through the commercials violates no law and no implied 'social contract'. Why should you get special treatment?
I'm also looking for a stereo head that can accomodate Bluetooth so that I can make hands-free phone calls in my car and just talk to the integrated mic, but no luck there, either.
And I'm looking for legislation that requires a car to sterilize the driver who places a fucking call *when they should be driving!*.
Americans are lazy, undereducated about technology, and just don't give a shit about making their own lives better. As long as it is easy and they are told it's acceptable they are good to go.
This isn't an American characteristic, it's a people characteristic. So far as it goes (stripping out your wild-eyed extremism) it's true in any affluent country. The various nations of Europe, for example, are no less ignorant or compliant than we are.
But the more that their business depends upon the online model, the more they're going to have to be ready to play hardball if everyone in Hong Kong is boning up for the next day-trading cycle on a free "shared feed" of what hundreds of expensive Dow Jones employees just spent the last 24 hours laboriously putting together.
If this were true Itunes would've been dead in the water from day one. People who could just as easily get all of their music for free through illegal trading instead *choose* to purchase it online. There's no reason to do so other than a personal conviction that it's the right way to do things. And how many millions of songs have been purchased and downloaded so far?
There's no reason to believe it'd be any different for any other product, including the WSJ.
In reality, Dr. Flake will succumb to Microsoft's culture and fall into the group-think that has made MSN the failure it is.
I have to agree with this. As brilliant as the guy is I don't see him being exceptional in his ability to avoid the process that poisoned previous talent that MS has hired. Rather than changing the company, the company changes them...and they often fall off the map altogether.
I hope Flake is getting paid tons of money because apart from marketing spin, after a few months working for Microsoft I doubt we'll ever hear from him again.
Windows creates jobs, if it all "just worked" with no need for updates ever etc. then most Admin's would be part-timers, you would install the machine and never see the customer again, not exactly good for any buisness that according to the "free market" is supposed to expand
What an interesting view of the free market. You base your estimation of the health of capitalism on selling shit the DOESN'T work, so an entire profession can develop and be eternally employed to fix a never-ending series of fuckups.
Just a minor correction: it's far more likely that birds evolved directly from reptiles and are relatives to, not descendents of, what we call 'dinosaurs'. Genetic examination of various bird species has done a lot to discredit the 'birds are modern dinosaurs theory', and is one of the reasons that birds are being taxonomically reclassed.
One thing the creationists willfully ignore is that many scientific theories are never repudiated, simply refined. Newtonian mechanics, for example, wasn't discredited by relativity; Newtonian mechanics still works perfectly well for most human endeavors, and relativity merely fills in the holes that Newtonian mechanics doesn't cover.
The same thing is true for evolution as we know it know, and evolution as Darwin originally proposed it. We've added to and refined the theory, but Darwin's initial hypothesis has by no means been discredited or replaced.
This would be assuming that your particularly brand of monotheism (and sub-brand of that monotheism) are at all correct. For all we know the only accurate religion is that of the ancient Egyptians and the whole lot of you are nothing more than dirty heretics who've turned their backs on the 'true faith'.
People who claim that religion and reason are mutually exclusive are themselves ignorant about what religion is.
The people most likely to do this are the religious themselves, typified by creationist groups that seek to get their 'theory' into textbooks as a direct contrast to evolution. If the religious stuck to religion and stopped trying to interfere with or invalidate science we wouldn't even be having this debate.
What, then? Laws to force people to join parties they do not like? Laws to force people to pay through taxes for parties they do not like, but the government likes?
These arguments are all predicated on the idea that it's possible to fix the current system within the current system. It's likely that isn't the case, which makes the debate - so long as it's constrained in this fashion - moot.
Perhaps the only way to fix the system is to dismantle it and build a new one.
What's amusing is that slashdotters, who often consider themselves to be 'above the cut' intellectually, will rehash the same ol' 'Democratic vs Republican' arguments that you see everywhere else in America without even bothering to consider the idea that perhaps - just perhaps - a politician is a politician is a politician, regardless of supposed party affiliation.
The Democrats aren't any more moral or upstanding than the Republicans, and vice versa. Both parties are dominated by hacks and shits whose primary goal is the acquisition and sale of power. There are indeed exceptions in both parties - true believers, whether you agree with them or not - but the circus is being run by the clowns here. And not the happy sort of clown, but the Stephen King "I'll eat your children" sort of clown.
Perhaps instead of blathering on about which football team, er, political party, is more worthy of unthinking adulation, it would be better to support particular politicians you suspect to be honest (if any) and relatively close to at least some of your views, *regardless of party affiliation*. I know, I know, this requires that you actually do some research and keep tabs on your politicians on a regular basis; and even more so it requires you to repudiate someone you've supported when they fall to the Dark Side and sell out. But at least then when you decide to blast a politician online you won't be doing it just because he doesn't belong to your 'team', which to a rational person makes you sound like a complete fucking idiot.
Slashdot Mirror
But I guess if he doesn't have a record and she was only 17 at the time and if he was like 21-24 its not that bad (illegal, but not like he was 45).
I fail to see your point. If it's okay for someone who's 24 to date a 17-year-old, it's okay for a guy of any age to date the 17-year-old. Stating anything else makes no rational sense...unless, of course, you're the 24-year-old, and you don't want a guy who knows ten times what you do about pleasing a woman in bed to horn in on your action.
Max
I think the term "paedophile" should be reserved for those who are sexually attracted to people who are below the age of sexual maturity, not merely below the age of consent in a particular locale.
Exactly. Pedophiles are people who prey on the sexually immature. Sexual maturity is not a function of the legal age of consent, and people who use the term this loosely are being deliberately dishonest. Committing libel, actually.
I've also heard this word being thrown around at any older guy who dates a younger woman even though she's past the age of consent. Which says a great deal more about the person making the comment than the older man dating the younger woman.
Max
I'll tell you why not. It's because of the level of mental maturity and the level of personal responsibility they are able to handle at such a young age.
For 99% of the history of the human race, girls have been having sex and getting knocked up around the age of 13-14. In fact, that's still true in many parts of the world. And as a survival strategy it worked so well that there are now six BILLION of us on the planet.
So tell me: exactly what has changed that girls and boys are no longer 'mentally mature' enough to have sex, much less children of their own? We aren't any smarter or wiser than our ancestors were, so where's the logic in making this sort of arbitrary claim?
Max
Or you could just get the CD version from the torrent, which is already available. Paul here apparently didn't bother to check to see if what he was saying was actually true or not.
Max
I just can't wait for the day when all cars will be computerized and manual driving of any kind will be illegal. Then while I'm kicking back in my car drinking a coffee and listening to music while reading a book, I can think about all those enraged college students and idiot boomers fuming over the fact that they no longer get to endanger everyone else with their complete and total lack of skill...and smile.
Hey, it's no different than legislating moronic things like seatbelt and helmet laws. If you think you have a moral imperative to act as my daddy, then I'll assume your position and bring it to its logical conclusion. And laugh at you every time you bitch about the 'good ol' days', when every stupid shit who insisted that *they* were great drivers put everyone else on the road at risk every time they got behind the wheel.
Until that beautiful day, I'll back any bill that makes it a shooting offense for people to use their cell phones while driving. I swear to christ, those morons are as bad as any drunk....
Max
Congress has no authority here. All powers not specifically delegated to the feds are reserved to the states or the people - it says so, right there in the Constitution. And you can't even make a week case for interstate commerce since what one state does doesn't interfere with the trade of another state in any way, shape or form - it only makes it more difficult for the company, which is *not* the arm of any government.
Max
It's been my experience that cdroms don't fail very often, but cd-rws are particularly flaky and prone to failure, especially if they double as someone's reader. I always recommend that you get a cdrom for reading and only use your burner for actually burning - the cdrw will last considerably longer this way. Unless, of course, you do a lot of burning, but even so having a separate cdrom for reading will still extend the lifespan.
And if you're a smoker, don't smoke in the same room as your computer (or even better, don't smoke in the house; go outside when you need that sweet, sweet drag). Cigarette smoke gets in everything and inside a computer forms a kind of sticky 'scum' that's death on anything with moving parts. This is completely anecdotal, but I've seen much higher drive/cdrom failures from people who smoke while on the computer.
Max
...in a post on another site. But his reasoning clearly held an obvious double-standard that I simply can't swallow. My only explanation for Linus' inability to see what's right in front of his face is that he's personally invested in the issue due to his friendship with the maker of BitKeeper. Anything else just doesn't explain how the normally rational and reasonable Torvalds can do a one-eighty on this particular issue and, quite frankly, be an complete dick about in the process (his post, if you haven't read it, was more like a typical slashdot flamefest response than what you'd expect from Linus).
This is one instance where Linus isn't thinking clearly. I'll cut him some slack since in the past he's been more clear-headed than all of Slashdot put together, but even so it means I'll be reviewing what he says and does more carefully in the future - at least until I'm convinced he's gotten over this momentary bout of insanity.
One thing I do agree with, and always will: 'open source' and 'free software' are not one and the same, nor is there any moral issue involved in using open/free or proprietary software. Both models are perfectly valid and the people who turn the whole mess into a good/evil holy war are fucking idiots of the first order. On that he is, and always has been, right on target.
Max
it's with the people who own and run the site the ad's are on.
There is no contract, implied or otherwise. If the person running the site doesn't want the ads blocked, they're free to move to a subscription model. No one's stopping them.
Max
Or do you want subscriptions based everything.
Sure, why not? I don't have a problem with this. If someone thinks their website is just so damned important and useful that others will pay for the privilege of viewing it, then they're free to sell a subscription service and block all non-subscribers from viewing it. If they're right enough people will pay to keep it afloat; if not they'll go under.
That's capitalism for ya. Suck it up and deal with it.
Max
Those creators of the websites want you (obviously) to view their information but pay for it by viewing their ads. If they didn't want you to view their ads - they would not have put it there. Why should the burdeon be put on them?
Because that's the law, set by case precedent in all other media? Or would you like special laws just for web content?
You'll note that recording a TV show on your VCR and fast-forwarding through the commercials violates no law and no implied 'social contract'. Why should you get special treatment?
Max
I'm also looking for a stereo head that can accomodate Bluetooth so that I can make hands-free phone calls in my car and just talk to the integrated mic, but no luck there, either.
And I'm looking for legislation that requires a car to sterilize the driver who places a fucking call *when they should be driving!*.
Sadly, this seems to be unconstitutional.
Max
Americans are lazy, undereducated about technology, and just don't give a shit about making their own lives better. As long as it is easy and they are told it's acceptable they are good to go.
This isn't an American characteristic, it's a people characteristic. So far as it goes (stripping out your wild-eyed extremism) it's true in any affluent country. The various nations of Europe, for example, are no less ignorant or compliant than we are.
Max
as capitalism is failing us.
What you've described doesn't have anything to do with capitalism, so your claim (in the context of your post) is baseless.
Max
But the more that their business depends upon the online model, the more they're going to have to be ready to play hardball if everyone in Hong Kong is boning up for the next day-trading cycle on a free "shared feed" of what hundreds of expensive Dow Jones employees just spent the last 24 hours laboriously putting together.
If this were true Itunes would've been dead in the water from day one. People who could just as easily get all of their music for free through illegal trading instead *choose* to purchase it online. There's no reason to do so other than a personal conviction that it's the right way to do things. And how many millions of songs have been purchased and downloaded so far?
There's no reason to believe it'd be any different for any other product, including the WSJ.
Max
In reality, Dr. Flake will succumb to Microsoft's culture and fall into the group-think that has made MSN the failure it is.
I have to agree with this. As brilliant as the guy is I don't see him being exceptional in his ability to avoid the process that poisoned previous talent that MS has hired. Rather than changing the company, the company changes them...and they often fall off the map altogether.
I hope Flake is getting paid tons of money because apart from marketing spin, after a few months working for Microsoft I doubt we'll ever hear from him again.
Max
Me, I just install Linux. Problem solved!
Max
Windows creates jobs, if it all "just worked" with no need for updates ever etc. then most Admin's would be part-timers, you would install the machine and never see the customer again, not exactly good for any buisness that according to the "free market" is supposed to expand
What an interesting view of the free market. You base your estimation of the health of capitalism on selling shit the DOESN'T work, so an entire profession can develop and be eternally employed to fix a never-ending series of fuckups.
Are you sure you don't work for government?
Max
Just a minor correction: it's far more likely that birds evolved directly from reptiles and are relatives to, not descendents of, what we call 'dinosaurs'. Genetic examination of various bird species has done a lot to discredit the 'birds are modern dinosaurs theory', and is one of the reasons that birds are being taxonomically reclassed.
Max
One thing the creationists willfully ignore is that many scientific theories are never repudiated, simply refined. Newtonian mechanics, for example, wasn't discredited by relativity; Newtonian mechanics still works perfectly well for most human endeavors, and relativity merely fills in the holes that Newtonian mechanics doesn't cover.
The same thing is true for evolution as we know it know, and evolution as Darwin originally proposed it. We've added to and refined the theory, but Darwin's initial hypothesis has by no means been discredited or replaced.
Max
My question for you is, why do we still have religious structures if science explains things better?
Because humans often act in irrational and counter-survival ways. We are, after all, a work in progress.
Max
This would be assuming that your particularly brand of monotheism (and sub-brand of that monotheism) are at all correct. For all we know the only accurate religion is that of the ancient Egyptians and the whole lot of you are nothing more than dirty heretics who've turned their backs on the 'true faith'.
You can't prove anything different, after all.
Max
People who claim that religion and reason are mutually exclusive are themselves ignorant about what religion is.
The people most likely to do this are the religious themselves, typified by creationist groups that seek to get their 'theory' into textbooks as a direct contrast to evolution. If the religious stuck to religion and stopped trying to interfere with or invalidate science we wouldn't even be having this debate.
Max
What, then? Laws to force people to join parties they do not like? Laws to force people to pay through taxes for parties they do not like, but the government likes?
These arguments are all predicated on the idea that it's possible to fix the current system within the current system. It's likely that isn't the case, which makes the debate - so long as it's constrained in this fashion - moot.
Perhaps the only way to fix the system is to dismantle it and build a new one.
Max
What's amusing is that slashdotters, who often consider themselves to be 'above the cut' intellectually, will rehash the same ol' 'Democratic vs Republican' arguments that you see everywhere else in America without even bothering to consider the idea that perhaps - just perhaps - a politician is a politician is a politician, regardless of supposed party affiliation.
The Democrats aren't any more moral or upstanding than the Republicans, and vice versa. Both parties are dominated by hacks and shits whose primary goal is the acquisition and sale of power. There are indeed exceptions in both parties - true believers, whether you agree with them or not - but the circus is being run by the clowns here. And not the happy sort of clown, but the Stephen King "I'll eat your children" sort of clown.
Perhaps instead of blathering on about which football team, er, political party, is more worthy of unthinking adulation, it would be better to support particular politicians you suspect to be honest (if any) and relatively close to at least some of your views, *regardless of party affiliation*. I know, I know, this requires that you actually do some research and keep tabs on your politicians on a regular basis; and even more so it requires you to repudiate someone you've supported when they fall to the Dark Side and sell out. But at least then when you decide to blast a politician online you won't be doing it just because he doesn't belong to your 'team', which to a rational person makes you sound like a complete fucking idiot.
Max