I've seen numerous comments lamenting this action as the beginning of a "slippery slope". I think this is a side effect of seeing the world as binary. Regardless of all the binary computers, the world is fuzzy. Too bad more people can't apply that. Defending kiddy porn because you don't like the idea of a secretive psycho-moralist witch-burning society is lame. I personally don't care whether the sites are blocked; I just want to kill the child molesters who set up these sites.
In some ways, it comes down to deciding on a lesser of n evils (or, in rare circumstances, n goods). I don't want any government or private agency or person to secretly search my house, library records, or financial records. I don't want to be thrown in jail with no charges, no lawyer, and no acknowledgement that I've been imprisoned. Nor do I want murderers to get out of jail before pot smokers; it usually comes down to making unclear choices. And what is a "kid"? 6-year old - kid. 17-year old, in a country where 16-year-olds are adults - different answer.
The abortion rant is similar; partial-birth abortion sounds to me like 99.9% murder (of an infant, no less), while a day-after contraceptive sounds like.25% murder. Our legal system has no sensible way to deal with these issues.
So I suggest we assess each action as it happens, and stop forcing it into a binary view.
Guess I should mod you up as funny. I know COBOL, SAS, HTML, Javascript, a little assembler, and more. I'm learning Perl now. I know of no better way to drive someone screaming from the room than hitting them with something like
$text =~ s/(\w+)/uc($1)/ge;
I'm glad someone has made the appropriate logical connection, from applying this technology to some giant industrial machine, to applying it to individual computer parts. I was thinking about it last week, but then I didn't _do_ anything about it. It seems so much simpler, in the long run; instead of silent components, just make silence.
I do wonder, however, whether a defective implementation would _increase_ the noise level. Best to be careful, and you'd better be able to disconnect the silencer when it becomes a shrieker.
Sadly, this latest attempt to fight fire with massive loads of water (and money) will be just as unsuccessful as most other efforts. We've put ourselves in a catastrophic situation by suppressing fires for so long, and Bush's idea to remove the fire hazard by removing trees (and not just adjacent to homes) is both counterproductive and another example of his plundering philosophy. Controlled (er, we hope they're controlled) burns are the only way to effectively eliminate the hazard.
I've concluded that the only way the massive fires will go away is when the last forest (/ tree farm) has burned. Once that's happened, fires will be a minor event as brush burns away and fire temperatures only rarely get up to blast furnace levels again.
Of course, the continuing drought may be a marker for permanent climate change, in which case, even more burning will take place. Look at Indonesia, Borneo, Mexico, the US West, and Florida, for example, in years past.
Whumpsnatz's law: If you ignore a problem long enough, it may go away. Whumpsnatz's corollary: If you ignore a problem long enough, your job may go away.
If you can't get the product (phone service) without paying that extra, then as far as I'm concerned, it's a tax, especially if you really do need the service.
When I add up all those outrageous charges, I calculate that taxes (by my definition) amount to about half the cost - if not more.
Really makes me want to totally disconnect. But then how would I complain on Slashdot?
More to the point, those charges only happen when the politicians allow (or encourage) it. Here in Florida, the politicos passed a bill that allows a 70% increase in basic rates. I'm taking names.
Actually, that's how I drink my Guiness. It's the only beer I like at all, but I do prefer it very cold. As an inhabitant of Purgatory (Florida), I don't need warm beer. I stick it in the freezer for about 10 minutes before opening it.
Finally! A weapon against boom box cars
on
Directed Sound
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Now I'll be able to aim one of these babies at the car next to me that's disrupting my heartbeat with it's pulsing audio garbage. I'll aim Maria Callas at 'em - at 120 decibels.
Jeez, I live in Jacksonville, and I missed the article. Actually, while I'm consistently paranoid, I'd love to see cameras (preferably, on remote-control balloons, as well as at specific locations), to catch and punish stuff like
- psychos racing on 95 at rush hour ("95 on 95", as it were). This literally happens, with 2 or 3 cars swerving from lane to lane and flying past everyone, and it scares the hell out of me. - vicious idiots who blithely drive through an intersection 5 seconds _after_ it turns red for them. - blind and indifferent yazoos changing lanes without looking to notice that, yes, there IS somebody already there. and even - jerks who throw out their cigarette butts at intersections.
Apparently, not that different. Haven't you read about African nations rejecting food aid because it was GM crops? (Of course, the people making the decision probably have Swiss bank accounts, and think less about being hungry than we do, but still....).
And I certainly don't blame these nations for not trusting us. I recall a story (from Readers Digest, who'da thunk?), describing a food program for a famine in Iraq in the early 60s. The US shipped seed grain to Iraq. To ensure that the starving people wouldn't eat it rather than plant it, did they add something to make it taste bad? No. They added mercury. Mercury, a slow acting poison that destroys your nervous system. People ate the grain, and nothing happened! So they ate some more, and some more. Soon, there were countless people who were permanently fucked up, or dead.
To elaborate on the danger to the environment, look at this article (www.organicconsumers.org/patent/slowgrow.cfm) to see just how insane things are getting. The nutcases at Scotts have created a grass that can't be killed with most herbicides. Guess what happens when it spreads to "natural" areas (quotes needed because virtually everywhere has been polluted with alien species). Complex ecologies get converted to a golf green, thousands of animal and plant species go extinct, and the only way to get rid of it is with some highly toxic poison.
All this so they can have a nice smooth green for their damned GOLF COURSE!
This is criminally insane. For appropriate handling of such crazies, I'm reminded of the quote from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe: "a bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came".
"Cut off mother earth's nose"? Just what do you think is happening to "mother earth" now? With intentional extermination of vast ecosystems, the obliteration of coral reefs, the tainting of every inch of the earth with poisons and heavy metals, with fertilizers causing massive algae blooms, with fresh water being wasted and rivers being run dry, with a large part of the worlds forests being burned to the ground, with fish being driven to extinction because countries are too stupid to stop massive overfishing, with the greatest extinction since the dinosaurs under way right now.... the just what the hell does it take for people like you to WAKE UP!
No, you'd rather put down people who want to salvage some part of the planet from our "extinction-event" ways.
Socialist? No, I think of myself as a public property advocate. Those rivers? The sky? The public lands? Even the animals? They're mine! (all mine, I tell you, mine, mine, har, har, har). Yeah, I share it with about a bazillion people, but why should I give corporations (or governments, or individuals, for that matter) free rein to rape and plunder it?
Do you ever think? Or do you just "fall prey to the suck"?
Ditto. Although in my case, I wasn't trying to get away from any other company, I was consolidating and getting national coverage. I'm just sorry I wasn't aware of this in January. I got some song-and-dance when I said I wanted to switch my phone number. I decided, to hell with it, and just dropped the old number.
In any case, the quality of signal is abominable. I think that's because it's GSM. I can use the phone OK in Ohio, or Wisconsin, or Georgia, but I get unbelievably bad reception in MY OWN HOUSE here in Florida, and it doesn't work at all in my mother-in-law's house in Mississippi (oh, wait. Is that a bad thing?).
I think enough time has passed for me to drop this junk for Verizon (or even Sprint) - I _like_ CDMA.
And I can hardly wait to grab the creep and play a tune on his head with a two-by-four. Doesn't anybody recognize that noise is not only irritating, but harmful? Let 'em make all the noise they want, as long as I don't have to feel it. (That's right, FEEL it, not hear it). When speakers shake my car, it's time to perform a little operation on their sound system. With a shotgun.
If I buy this ($400), and decent OCR software (too danged much!), I can scan all my books in, oh, 8 zillion hours. That's assuming I can upload the scanned text to the reader. Then I won't have any need to spend big bucks on more bookshelves.
Alternatively, I can get a sheet-fed scanner (~$300), and slice up all my books, to scan through them more quickly. Then I can stay warm (451) all next winter burning the pages.
There just isn't a really good solution, but still, this is the product I've been looking for for years. Why did it take so long? If I can get stuff for a reasonable price, without having publishers performing a colonoscopy, I'll go for it.
I've seen recommendations to turn off preview pane, and to right-click. Well, the layout properties have a selection to __Show__ the preview pane, or not. Does that mean it won't __read__ the email? Maybe it does anyway. As for right-click, it transfers focus to the clicked mail anyway, at least for existing emails.
I used a brute-force approach. I selected a good email, immediately before the new mail, then used shift-click to select all the new mail. (Of course, if the last one is garbage, that's a problem). Then I'd cntrl-click those I wanted to retain, and click DELETE for the trash.
A pain, but it did prevent some serious garbage.
Now I just use my Mac. If I have to use a Windows machine, I'll buy a different mail client.
My approach exactly. I think of it as the uncommercial. Piss me off, and the only way you'll ever hear from me is when I politely inform you that there's no way in hell I'll ever buy your product.
As for that crap at the bottom of the screen - I change the station whenever those come up. Lately, I find that the OFF button is the button of choice.
I followed the deforestation chain, and all I can say is, what a PITA. For years, I've been looking for a way to eliminate paper, and it just ain't that easy. And when I think about old-forest trees being ground up for paper (or so I've read), it just royally pisses me off.
I find myself wondering whether we're too far screwed up to ever salvage.
All that over a little paper. But then, it's just another example of how earth-shaking issues integrate themselves into our day-to-day decision.
Re:You folks are barking up the wrong tree
on
Who Owns The Facts?
·
· Score: 1
"Blame the elected representatives who pass bad legislation which screws up the system".
And the central elected representative in this situation is Rep Coble, Republican in North Carolina, who introduced this measure. If you feel strongly enough about it, send money to the Democratic Party in North Carolina, with the express purpose of helping someone run against him. Choose the lesser evil, because you sure ain't gonna get to choose the greater good.
If commercials weren't so offensive, I would be much more tolerant. Here in the South, car commercials scream at you, with accompanying attack strobe visuals. Sears has a commercial with a woman whose smile is so offensively smarmy, I want to kick her in the face. Everywhere, screeching harpies predominate, piercing the ears with their inane babbling.
These are highly effective commercials, just not in the way they want. I make a note of the ones I really hate, and make sure I avoid the advertised products (and the companies).
On the other hand, there are some commercials I love. Gallo had a commercial years ago for champagne (which I don't like), which helped encourage me to buy their wine, repeatedly. The commercial used beautiful classical music and a woman gliding across a dance floor. VW had the street scene in New Orleans, with everyone moving to the music. Suzuki had the Grand Vitara one with a huge moon, and the trilling bird at the end. And there's one now for Westin Hotels that is timely, as I expect to do a lot of traveling soon.
For these kind of commercials, I'll cheerfully watch. The annoying, stupid, shrill, insulting ones, I'll note which company it's for, and jump to another station thereafter.
Oooof! I feel like I've just been kicked in the gut by Bozo the Clown.
Oh, well. It would be nice to find out what a democracy is like, but we're charging madly in the other direction. Florida, Wellstone, Deibold. "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action."
I love how Slashdot articles lead me to so many different sites. I found The Meatrix hilarious. It's great that I could laugh at the parody, instead of being overcome with helpless rage as I usually am at this vicious insanity of factory farming.
I stopped eating meat 12 years ago, and I won't start again until I can get something killed quickly (like, say, a deer hit by a proficient hunter). My only regret is that I'm STILL subsidizing this practice, through government tax policy, direct government subsidies, grazing on government lands, and the government's refusal to protect our land and water.
Slashdot Mirror
I've seen numerous comments lamenting this action as the beginning of a "slippery slope". I think this is a side effect of seeing the world as binary. Regardless of all the binary computers, the world is fuzzy. Too bad more people can't apply that. Defending kiddy porn because you don't like the idea of a secretive psycho-moralist witch-burning society is lame. I personally don't care whether the sites are blocked; I just want to kill the child molesters who set up these sites.
.25% murder. Our legal system has no sensible way to deal with these issues.
In some ways, it comes down to deciding on a lesser of n evils (or, in rare circumstances, n goods). I don't want any government or private agency or person to secretly search my house, library records, or financial records. I don't want to be thrown in jail with no charges, no lawyer, and no acknowledgement that I've been imprisoned. Nor do I want murderers to get out of jail before pot smokers; it usually comes down to making unclear choices. And what is a "kid"? 6-year old - kid. 17-year old, in a country where 16-year-olds are adults - different answer.
The abortion rant is similar; partial-birth abortion sounds to me like 99.9% murder (of an infant, no less), while a day-after contraceptive sounds like
So I suggest we assess each action as it happens, and stop forcing it into a binary view.
~, not ==/!=
Well stated. I was going to mod the parent post as funny - LOL funny. The US a free country? Yeah, right.
I would like to know what country you're referring to, though. Where is this free country? Maybe I'll move there.
No problem. They'll just send a 200-million-MAN army across the entire planet to take women from every other country.
Guess I should mod you up as funny. I know COBOL, SAS, HTML, Javascript, a little assembler, and more. I'm learning Perl now. I know of no better way to drive someone screaming from the room than hitting them with something like
$text =~ s/(\w+)/uc($1)/ge;
and that's only a minor example.
I'm glad someone has made the appropriate logical connection, from applying this technology to some giant industrial machine, to applying it to individual computer parts. I was thinking about it last week, but then I didn't _do_ anything about it. It seems so much simpler, in the long run; instead of silent components, just make silence.
I do wonder, however, whether a defective implementation would _increase_ the noise level. Best to be careful, and you'd better be able to disconnect the silencer when it becomes a shrieker.
Sadly, this latest attempt to fight fire with massive loads of water (and money) will be just as unsuccessful as most other efforts. We've put ourselves in a catastrophic situation by suppressing fires for so long, and Bush's idea to remove the fire hazard by removing trees (and not just adjacent to homes) is both counterproductive and another example of his plundering philosophy. Controlled (er, we hope they're controlled) burns are the only way to effectively eliminate the hazard.
I've concluded that the only way the massive fires will go away is when the last forest (/ tree farm) has burned. Once that's happened, fires will be a minor event as brush burns away and fire temperatures only rarely get up to blast furnace levels again.
Of course, the continuing drought may be a marker for permanent climate change, in which case, even more burning will take place. Look at Indonesia, Borneo, Mexico, the US West, and Florida, for example, in years past.
Whumpsnatz's law: If you ignore a problem long enough, it may go away.
Whumpsnatz's corollary: If you ignore a problem long enough, your job may go away.
If you can't get the product (phone service) without paying that extra, then as far as I'm concerned, it's a tax, especially if you really do need the service.
When I add up all those outrageous charges, I calculate that taxes (by my definition) amount to about half the cost - if not more.
Really makes me want to totally disconnect. But then how would I complain on Slashdot?
More to the point, those charges only happen when the politicians allow (or encourage) it. Here in Florida, the politicos passed a bill that allows a 70% increase in basic rates. I'm taking names.
Yeah, but it's actually a pretty puny piece of the overall robbery.
Actually, that's how I drink my Guiness. It's the only beer I like at all, but I do prefer it very cold. As an inhabitant of Purgatory (Florida), I don't need warm beer. I stick it in the freezer for about 10 minutes before opening it.
Now I'll be able to aim one of these babies at the car next to me that's disrupting my heartbeat with it's pulsing audio garbage. I'll aim Maria Callas at 'em - at 120 decibels.
Jeez, I live in Jacksonville, and I missed the article. Actually, while I'm consistently paranoid, I'd love to see cameras (preferably, on remote-control balloons, as well as at specific locations), to catch and punish stuff like
- psychos racing on 95 at rush hour ("95 on 95", as it were). This literally happens, with 2 or 3 cars swerving from lane to lane and flying past everyone, and it scares the hell out of me.
- vicious idiots who blithely drive through an intersection 5 seconds _after_ it turns red for them.
- blind and indifferent yazoos changing lanes without looking to notice that, yes, there IS somebody already there.
and even
- jerks who throw out their cigarette butts at intersections.
Wouldn't that be nice?
Apparently, not that different. Haven't you read about African nations rejecting food aid because it was GM crops? (Of course, the people making the decision probably have Swiss bank accounts, and think less about being hungry than we do, but still....).
And I certainly don't blame these nations for not trusting us. I recall a story (from Readers Digest, who'da thunk?), describing a food program for a famine in Iraq in the early 60s. The US shipped seed grain to Iraq. To ensure that the starving people wouldn't eat it rather than plant it, did they add something to make it taste bad? No. They added mercury. Mercury, a slow acting poison that destroys your nervous system. People ate the grain, and nothing happened! So they ate some more, and some more. Soon, there were countless people who were permanently fucked up, or dead.
Yep, ain't we wonderful.
To elaborate on the danger to the environment, look at this article (www.organicconsumers.org/patent/slowgrow.cfm) to see just how insane things are getting. The nutcases at Scotts have created a grass that can't be killed with most herbicides. Guess what happens when it spreads to "natural" areas (quotes needed because virtually everywhere has been polluted with alien species). Complex ecologies get converted to a golf green, thousands of animal and plant species go extinct, and the only way to get rid of it is with some highly toxic poison.
All this so they can have a nice smooth green for their damned GOLF COURSE!
This is criminally insane. For appropriate handling of such crazies, I'm reminded of the quote from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe: "a bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came".
"Cut off mother earth's nose"? Just what do you think is happening to "mother earth" now? With intentional extermination of vast ecosystems, the obliteration of coral reefs, the tainting of every inch of the earth with poisons and heavy metals, with fertilizers causing massive algae blooms, with fresh water being wasted and rivers being run dry, with a large part of the worlds forests being burned to the ground, with fish being driven to extinction because countries are too stupid to stop massive overfishing, with the greatest extinction since the dinosaurs under way right now .... the just what the hell does it take for people like you to WAKE UP!
No, you'd rather put down people who want to salvage some part of the planet from our "extinction-event" ways.
Socialist? No, I think of myself as a public property advocate. Those rivers? The sky? The public lands? Even the animals? They're mine! (all mine, I tell you, mine, mine, har, har, har). Yeah, I share it with about a bazillion people, but why should I give corporations (or governments, or individuals, for that matter) free rein to rape and plunder it?
Do you ever think? Or do you just "fall prey to the suck"?
Ditto. Although in my case, I wasn't trying to get away from any other company, I was consolidating and getting national coverage. I'm just sorry I wasn't aware of this in January. I got some song-and-dance when I said I wanted to switch my phone number. I decided, to hell with it, and just dropped the old number.
In any case, the quality of signal is abominable. I think that's because it's GSM. I can use the phone OK in Ohio, or Wisconsin, or Georgia, but I get unbelievably bad reception in MY OWN HOUSE here in Florida, and it doesn't work at all in my mother-in-law's house in Mississippi (oh, wait. Is that a bad thing?).
I think enough time has passed for me to drop this junk for Verizon (or even Sprint) - I _like_ CDMA.
And I can hardly wait to grab the creep and play a tune on his head with a two-by-four. Doesn't anybody recognize that noise is not only irritating, but harmful? Let 'em make all the noise they want, as long as I don't have to feel it. (That's right, FEEL it, not hear it). When speakers shake my car, it's time to perform a little operation on their sound system. With a shotgun.
If I buy this ($400), and decent OCR software (too danged much!), I can scan all my books in, oh, 8 zillion hours. That's assuming I can upload the scanned text to the reader. Then I won't have any need to spend big bucks on more bookshelves.
Alternatively, I can get a sheet-fed scanner (~$300), and slice up all my books, to scan through them more quickly. Then I can stay warm (451) all next winter burning the pages.
There just isn't a really good solution, but still, this is the product I've been looking for for years. Why did it take so long? If I can get stuff for a reasonable price, without having publishers performing a colonoscopy, I'll go for it.
Yeah, I had the same reaction at first; looks young. But it can be hard to tell, and holy freakin' jehosephat, that bod in that outfit is hot!
What I don't understand, is why those guys in the background are ignoring her. (Or maybe she IS just a kid, and they know it).
I've seen recommendations to turn off preview pane, and to right-click. Well, the layout properties have a selection to __Show__ the preview pane, or not. Does that mean it won't __read__ the email? Maybe it does anyway. As for right-click, it transfers focus to the clicked mail anyway, at least for existing emails.
I used a brute-force approach. I selected a good email, immediately before the new mail, then used shift-click to select all the new mail. (Of course, if the last one is garbage, that's a problem). Then I'd cntrl-click those I wanted to retain, and click DELETE for the trash.
A pain, but it did prevent some serious garbage.
Now I just use my Mac. If I have to use a Windows machine, I'll buy a different mail client.
My approach exactly. I think of it as the uncommercial. Piss me off, and the only way you'll ever hear from me is when I politely inform you that there's no way in hell I'll ever buy your product.
As for that crap at the bottom of the screen - I change the station whenever those come up. Lately, I find that the OFF button is the button of choice.
I followed the deforestation chain, and all I can say is, what a PITA. For years, I've been looking for a way to eliminate paper, and it just ain't that easy. And when I think about old-forest trees being ground up for paper (or so I've read), it just royally pisses me off.
I find myself wondering whether we're too far screwed up to ever salvage.
All that over a little paper. But then, it's just another example of how earth-shaking issues integrate themselves into our day-to-day decision.
"Blame the elected representatives who pass bad legislation which screws up the system".
And the central elected representative in this situation is Rep Coble, Republican in North Carolina, who introduced this measure. If you feel strongly enough about it, send money to the Democratic Party in North Carolina, with the express purpose of helping someone run against him. Choose the lesser evil, because you sure ain't gonna get to choose the greater good.
If commercials weren't so offensive, I would be much more tolerant. Here in the South, car commercials scream at you, with accompanying attack strobe visuals. Sears has a commercial with a woman whose smile is so offensively smarmy, I want to kick her in the face. Everywhere, screeching harpies predominate, piercing the ears with their inane babbling.
These are highly effective commercials, just not in the way they want. I make a note of the ones I really hate, and make sure I avoid the advertised products (and the companies).
On the other hand, there are some commercials I love. Gallo had a commercial years ago for champagne (which I don't like), which helped encourage me to buy their wine, repeatedly. The commercial used beautiful classical music and a woman gliding across a dance floor. VW had the street scene in New Orleans, with everyone moving to the music. Suzuki had the Grand Vitara one with a huge moon, and the trilling bird at the end. And there's one now for Westin Hotels that is timely, as I expect to do a lot of traveling soon.
For these kind of commercials, I'll cheerfully watch. The annoying, stupid, shrill, insulting ones, I'll note which company it's for, and jump to another station thereafter.
Advertisers are idiots.
Oooof! I feel like I've just been kicked in the gut by Bozo the Clown.
Oh, well. It would be nice to find out what a democracy is like, but we're charging madly in the other direction. Florida, Wellstone, Deibold. "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action."
I love how Slashdot articles lead me to so many different sites. I found The Meatrix hilarious. It's great that I could laugh at the parody, instead of being overcome with helpless rage as I usually am at this vicious insanity of factory farming.
I stopped eating meat 12 years ago, and I won't start again until I can get something killed quickly (like, say, a deer hit by a proficient hunter). My only regret is that I'm STILL subsidizing this practice, through government tax policy, direct government subsidies, grazing on government lands, and the government's refusal to protect our land and water.