I think its a far worse crime to use the deaths of these people, horrific and un-just as it was, as a continued justification for any further activity which requires or promotes the hunting and killing of other human beings.
I'd feel a whole hell of a lot more compassion for 3,000 dead Americans, if I'd ever seen compassion from the thousands of Americans that I know for the 10's of thousands of dead Iraqi's that American leaders are responsible for killing, and for whom nobody is building any stupid fucking memorial...
There are $billions at stake and ruthless people who will do anything legal or illegal to get that money. They are not concerned about morality or freedom as can be seen with SCO
This is where law is supposed to protect the people. The only front for this, is law. We (Linux) must win this case against SCO, and must come out on top. To fail to do so would set a very dangerous precedent for future law-makers and their string-pullers...
There is no technological solution to this problem, because it is a legal problem.
No, I was talking about the Sun, an infinite energy source, which could power energy weapons like... oh, I dunno, a microwave emitter or some such thing... something easy, yet super-effective if you can point it at the entire planet from an un-reachable location such as the moon.
We must not weaponize space, simply because if we do so we can never gurantee that they will not be used. By us, or future generations. Or current Presidential Mad-men and their gangs of thugs...
And their use would be devastating to the one planet in space we know for sure contains life. So, we simply must not weaponize space.
Wow, how prescient of you. Maybe you could've used that skill to prevent the horrible travesty which was 9/11, and which your gov't has used as a carte blanche excuse to commit yet more war crimes... but then, that would've required taking a little responsibility, wouldn't it, and well... I guess you've not got much of that super-power skill left...
I couldn't find her e-mail address, but I would like to congratulate her on making my bookmarks, getting her own complete mirror dir on my 'stuff for the future' archive, and generally giving me the boot in the ass that I needed to start off a very creative Saturday.
Sites like that are what the Internet is all about. Thank you, kidofspeed, wherever you are.
Yeah, me too. Stupid piss-taking jokes about an event that goes beyond the realm of experience of any one of the lives of a small group of people currently sitting on their ass in a comfy place, reading a website called/. in sanctity and relative haven.
Prosperity does not give one the right to degrade another persons experience... Chernobyl is no laughing matter, even still to this day, for a lot of people.
And before anyone pulls out the ol' "get over it, its only a joke" excuse, let me just say that jokes have their time and place.
The Chernobyl incident was a completely different time, in a completely different place. If this site was hosted in Russia, and the jokes were about American disasters, how many of you would consider them to be flame-bait, or make a noise about how 'inappropriate' it is?
Ridicule aint no compliment, and it aint no reflection.
That said, I hope that the generations yet to come understand that the generation currently alive are sorry for what they did to the future, with Chernobyl.
Social modelling is one of the first things computers were programmed to do.
Its too late to raise any alarm bells about this. Its not too late to band together with your friends, form community, and keep the data entirely to yourselves, however...
Umm... the -reason- the 'World Government' is such a fantasy (though how you think you know what I fantasize about, I have no clue...) is because countries like America (actually, only the U.S. now, oh, and its underlings U.K. and Australia of course) refuse to recognize them and play ball with the rest of the International Community. America is a Thug.
The reason this Thug refuses to participate in International Justice is because it has committed crimes for which it knows it is guilty. Funny how Justice isn't truly blind, eh?
It was fine for US Generals to have their day at Nuremberg, but for an American to stand trial in Belgium, well... thats different...
Questioning authority is actually a big part of our culture.
I really don't see that, on average. When I lived in the States, it was all too easy, in my opinion, for authority to overrule any rational thinking on many, many matters.
Television authority was near resolute in some areas. Political Authority, expressed as 'opinion-vs.-counter-opinion' in every possible forum, essentially seemed to be only accessible through dialecticism, an 'all or nothing', 'do or die' approach. Most people I encountered never were able to really see that. Everything seemed so bi-polar, and after a hundred folk or so, predictable.
There's a 'frontier mythos' that Americans question everything and are therefore 'tougher', but I honestly have not seen that much difference at all, between mid-Western American Citizen, and Ruhrgebieter Deutscher, when it comes to 'questioning authority'.
This condition is a farce... the opposite case is more common.
Just my opinion, and my sample-size may be swayed, I do know that. But its still just an opinion formed on 15 years of functional survey of culture.
... who have been trained to be cynical...
This is exactly my point. Cynicism is not a valuable trait, yet it is promulgated as a behavioural meme at every possible juncture, on Television, in 'smart magazines', in the papers, etc. Its a vicious cult of distrust, actually, which is created; not intelligent humans able to assess their environment appropriate to their means.
If people start distrusting everything, its far easier to control them with the things they distrust than it is to control the very things which people put trust in.
So, I make you cynical generally in nature, promote it as a viable way of life, and you end up in league with no-one, and nothing, having decided essentially nothing, since its all possibly wrong and therefore useless to assume 'rightness' at all.
Okay, so yeah. We all face the Infinite sooner or later. But sometimes, it pays to have an opinion.
Wouldn't it be better to have weapons only in places where, if a madman (such as the kind the US is capable of producing just as well as any -other- country on Earth, and is no 'holier' than any other in this regard) were to gain control over it, there would still be a -fighting- chance for humanity to prevent massive disaster?
Put weapons in space, and you put the life of the entire species in the hands of a very, very, very, very, very, very few. That's too close to madness.
You do realize that the moon is worthless as an offensive base? That is would take DAYS for even the first wave of attacks to start, once launched?
Assuming of course you're talking about missiles and not directed energy weapons, which incidentally in space would be ultra-easy to make considering that there's a near-infinite supply of energy to be directed...
We simply must -not- weaponize space. That is all. And those of you with the power to vote in America had better make sure your country doesn't do it.
Oddly enough, your "posts to +5's" stats don't prove that you really believe this.
And, if you're wondering, my Karma dick is undoubtedly bigger than yours.:)
I have no interest in dicks other than my own...
Did the Pentagon fail to protect the country or not?
My argument was that this was irrelevant.
Well, all I'm saying is that Bush' 'new space program' being motivated to 'put bases on the moon' may not be such a wise idea for geeks to get so hippy-dippy 'behind the leader' about, given the moons military potential, and especially given recent proven American aggression in places it feels it has a right to control.
I'm really not sure I'm comfortable with anyone having a military base on the moon, personally, and ESPECIALLY not America, whose people have a proven track record of letting its leaders abuse its almighty military powers, carte blanche...
Since Mars is so far away, and it takes on the order of months to transit the space between, and Moon is closer, this puts Moon at a more valuable position.
Of course, the energy required to get to Mars is about the same as that required to get to the Moon. In both cases, Earths gravitational field has to be left behind.
In fact, Zubrin has even argued that going to Mars is more beneficial than going to the Moon, since Mars has many resources (such as water) which we can use to do interesting things with... its just that its so damned far away, and the time between (getting there) is where the difficulty lays.
l. If Linux doesn't have a weakness, how is it that a tiny company like SCO can cause such huge problems?
Its not Linux that has a weakness, its US law governing the conduct of corporations and their executives, especially that conduct when faced with an 'un-competitive arena' involving Free Products For the Masses, Which the Masses Want.
Its often said that the US legal system is not perfect. This is such an example. It has nothing to do with Linux' so-called 'problems'.
SCO is not a problem for Linux. SCO is a problem for business.
Both Cheney and Rumsfeld have been called before the World Court for War Crimes committed during Gulf War One, and the US has refused to enforce International Law regarding the conduct of War in not handing them over for trial.
Its not surprising that you know nothing about the War Crime charges currently standing in International Court against US' government executives. The US currently doesn't recognize the very Treaties it has signed to create such a Court in the first place... thus...
(I would suggest you take your interest in drugs and apply them to a little literacy.)
Which is why its good that folk like John Glenn are getting behind the program. It doesn't have to be Zubrin's baby, he just needs to be in bed at the time its made... let someone else do all the lovin'...
I have nothing interesting to say about your absurd conspiracy theory - it's irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
Did the Pentagon fail to protect the country or not?
Its not a conspiracy theory. Its a fact. 9/11 happened. It could have been stopped. It wasn't.
Don't bother arguing with me... just wait for the 9/11 Commission to finish its work.
And no, Bush wasn't elected 'on the hill', no matter what Republican propaganda you choose to swing with, the votes were counted, and re-counted, and re-re-counted... and each time, more excuses were given by the Republican party not to let the law do its job until finally... well, you probably know the story.... the possibility of terrorists killing lots of civilians via low resource infiltration doesn't mean we need a hill on the moon...
I never said anybody needed a base on the moon, I merely gave reasons for why it might be militaristically important, especially in the current political context.
I think that in your rush to argue with a +5 Insightful comment, you've picked a fight which didn't exist... but don't worry, that's common.
The point is, teenagers are gullible, because they're still developing into human adults, still recovering from the effects of having been children unable to feed and care for themselves.
Human adults, presumably, should have had the experience required to turn them into rational human beings. Teenagers can get away with irrationality, adults can't.
Its even written in lawbooks... 'fair' it isn't. The assumption is that once you're on your own, and you don't have a parent taking care of you, you're responsible for your own ignorance...
Slashdot Mirror
I think its a far worse crime to use the deaths of these people, horrific and un-just as it was, as a continued justification for any further activity which requires or promotes the hunting and killing of other human beings.
...
I'd feel a whole hell of a lot more compassion for 3,000 dead Americans, if I'd ever seen compassion from the thousands of Americans that I know for the 10's of thousands of dead Iraqi's that American leaders are responsible for killing, and for whom nobody is building any stupid fucking memorial
There are $billions at stake and ruthless people who will do anything legal or illegal to get that money. They are not concerned about morality or freedom as can be seen with SCO
...
This is where law is supposed to protect the people. The only front for this, is law. We (Linux) must win this case against SCO, and must come out on top. To fail to do so would set a very dangerous precedent for future law-makers and their string-pullers
There is no technological solution to this problem, because it is a legal problem.
Maybe its time for a GPL re-write?
No, I was talking about the Sun, an infinite energy source, which could power energy weapons like ... oh, I dunno, a microwave emitter or some such thing ... something easy, yet super-effective if you can point it at the entire planet from an un-reachable location such as the moon.
We must not weaponize space, simply because if we do so we can never gurantee that they will not be used. By us, or future generations. Or current Presidential Mad-men and their gangs of thugs...
And their use would be devastating to the one planet in space we know for sure contains life. So, we simply must not weaponize space.
Wow, how prescient of you. Maybe you could've used that skill to prevent the horrible travesty which was 9/11, and which your gov't has used as a carte blanche excuse to commit yet more war crimes ... but then, that would've required taking a little responsibility, wouldn't it, and well ... I guess you've not got much of that super-power skill left ...
I couldn't find her e-mail address, but I would like to congratulate her on making my bookmarks, getting her own complete mirror dir on my 'stuff for the future' archive, and generally giving me the boot in the ass that I needed to start off a very creative Saturday.
Sites like that are what the Internet is all about. Thank you, kidofspeed, wherever you are.
Yeah, me too. Stupid piss-taking jokes about an event that goes beyond the realm of experience of any one of the lives of a small group of people currently sitting on their ass in a comfy place, reading a website called
Prosperity does not give one the right to degrade another persons experience
And before anyone pulls out the ol' "get over it, its only a joke" excuse, let me just say that jokes have their time and place.
The Chernobyl incident was a completely different time, in a completely different place. If this site was hosted in Russia, and the jokes were about American disasters, how many of you would consider them to be flame-bait, or make a noise about how 'inappropriate' it is?
Ridicule aint no compliment, and it aint no reflection.
That said, I hope that the generations yet to come understand that the generation currently alive are sorry for what they did to the future, with Chernobyl.
There's a simple fix for this, but it requires that credit card companies themselves switch over to biometrics...
...
You can't add a card to the reader if it doesn't match your fingerprint on both the reader, and the card.
I seem to recall that biometric credit cards (with fingerprint details onboard) are in the works
If you need to match fingerprints to add cards to the Chameleon, its not going to be much good to a theif.
Social modelling is one of the first things computers were programmed to do.
Its too late to raise any alarm bells about this. Its not too late to band together with your friends, form community, and keep the data entirely to yourselves, however
Well, trust is a valuable thing. I hope you find it someday, I really do.
Because it takes trust to make peace, and I hope you learn to make peace, as well.
Umm... the -reason- the 'World Government' is such a fantasy (though how you think you know what I fantasize about, I have no clue...) is because countries like America (actually, only the U.S. now, oh, and its underlings U.K. and Australia of course) refuse to recognize them and play ball with the rest of the International Community. America is a Thug.
... thats different...
The reason this Thug refuses to participate in International Justice is because it has committed crimes for which it knows it is guilty. Funny how Justice isn't truly blind, eh?
It was fine for US Generals to have their day at Nuremberg, but for an American to stand trial in Belgium, well
Thanks. I'll be sure to listen in.
...
Keep it short, though
Questioning authority is actually a big part of our culture.
... who have been trained to be cynical ...
I really don't see that, on average. When I lived in the States, it was all too easy, in my opinion, for authority to overrule any rational thinking on many, many matters.
Television authority was near resolute in some areas. Political Authority, expressed as 'opinion-vs.-counter-opinion' in every possible forum, essentially seemed to be only accessible through dialecticism, an 'all or nothing', 'do or die' approach. Most people I encountered never were able to really see that. Everything seemed so bi-polar, and after a hundred folk or so, predictable.
There's a 'frontier mythos' that Americans question everything and are therefore 'tougher', but I honestly have not seen that much difference at all, between mid-Western American Citizen, and Ruhrgebieter Deutscher, when it comes to 'questioning authority'.
This condition is a farce... the opposite case is more common.
Just my opinion, and my sample-size may be swayed, I do know that. But its still just an opinion formed on 15 years of functional survey of culture.
This is exactly my point. Cynicism is not a valuable trait, yet it is promulgated as a behavioural meme at every possible juncture, on Television, in 'smart magazines', in the papers, etc. Its a vicious cult of distrust, actually, which is created; not intelligent humans able to assess their environment appropriate to their means.
If people start distrusting everything, its far easier to control them with the things they distrust than it is to control the very things which people put trust in.
So, I make you cynical generally in nature, promote it as a viable way of life, and you end up in league with no-one, and nothing, having decided essentially nothing, since its all possibly wrong and therefore useless to assume 'rightness' at all.
Okay, so yeah. We all face the Infinite sooner or later. But sometimes, it pays to have an opinion.
I agree that not having jets scrambled really reflects poorly upon the Pentagon's ability to handle emergencies
Umm.. jets were scrambled, and in position to intercept, they were told to stand down.
Just wait for the 9/11 Commission report. I'm willing to be very wrong, but I think its not going to be pretty.
Wouldn't it be better to have weapons only in places where, if a madman (such as the kind the US is capable of producing just as well as any -other- country on Earth, and is no 'holier' than any other in this regard) were to gain control over it, there would still be a -fighting- chance for humanity to prevent massive disaster?
Put weapons in space, and you put the life of the entire species in the hands of a very, very, very, very, very, very few. That's too close to madness.
You do realize that the moon is worthless as an offensive base? That is would take DAYS for even the first wave of attacks to start, once launched?
...
Assuming of course you're talking about missiles and not directed energy weapons, which incidentally in space would be ultra-easy to make considering that there's a near-infinite supply of energy to be directed
We simply must -not- weaponize space. That is all. And those of you with the power to vote in America had better make sure your country doesn't do it.
Oh man, please don't get me started on the Chtorrans ... ;)
You wouldn't be saying that if you'd ever been called to the World Court for any particular reason.
Its unwise to live so ignorantly.
Oddly enough, your "posts to +5's" stats don't prove that you really believe this.
And, if you're wondering, my Karma dick is undoubtedly bigger than yours.
I have no interest in dicks other than my own
My argument was that this was irrelevant.
Well, all I'm saying is that Bush' 'new space program' being motivated to 'put bases on the moon' may not be such a wise idea for geeks to get so hippy-dippy 'behind the leader' about, given the moons military potential, and especially given recent proven American aggression in places it feels it has a right to control.
I'm really not sure I'm comfortable with anyone having a military base on the moon, personally, and ESPECIALLY not America, whose people have a proven track record of letting its leaders abuse its almighty military powers, carte blanche
Since Mars is so far away, and it takes on the order of months to transit the space between, and Moon is closer, this puts Moon at a more valuable position.
... its just that its so damned far away, and the time between (getting there) is where the difficulty lays.
Of course, the energy required to get to Mars is about the same as that required to get to the Moon. In both cases, Earths gravitational field has to be left behind.
In fact, Zubrin has even argued that going to Mars is more beneficial than going to the Moon, since Mars has many resources (such as water) which we can use to do interesting things with
l. If Linux doesn't have a weakness, how is it that a tiny company like SCO can cause such huge problems?
Its not Linux that has a weakness, its US law governing the conduct of corporations and their executives, especially that conduct when faced with an 'un-competitive arena' involving Free Products For the Masses, Which the Masses Want.
Its often said that the US legal system is not perfect. This is such an example. It has nothing to do with Linux' so-called 'problems'.
SCO is not a problem for Linux. SCO is a problem for business.
Both Cheney and Rumsfeld have been called before the World Court for War Crimes committed during Gulf War One, and the US has refused to enforce International Law regarding the conduct of War in not handing them over for trial.
... thus ...
Its not surprising that you know nothing about the War Crime charges currently standing in International Court against US' government executives. The US currently doesn't recognize the very Treaties it has signed to create such a Court in the first place
(I would suggest you take your interest in drugs and apply them to a little literacy.)
Right. I agree with you.
... let someone else do all the lovin' ...
Which is why its good that folk like John Glenn are getting behind the program. It doesn't have to be Zubrin's baby, he just needs to be in bed at the time its made
I have nothing interesting to say about your absurd conspiracy theory - it's irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
... just wait for the 9/11 Commission to finish its work.
... and each time, more excuses were given by the Republican party not to let the law do its job until finally ... well, you probably know the story. ... the possibility of terrorists killing lots of civilians via low resource infiltration doesn't mean we need a hill on the moon ...
... but don't worry, that's common.
Did the Pentagon fail to protect the country or not?
Its not a conspiracy theory. Its a fact. 9/11 happened. It could have been stopped. It wasn't.
Don't bother arguing with me
And no, Bush wasn't elected 'on the hill', no matter what Republican propaganda you choose to swing with, the votes were counted, and re-counted, and re-re-counted
I never said anybody needed a base on the moon, I merely gave reasons for why it might be militaristically important, especially in the current political context.
I think that in your rush to argue with a +5 Insightful comment, you've picked a fight which didn't exist
Admit it, you don't even know where Belgium is, do you?
"Age discrimination"?
...
The point is, teenagers are gullible, because they're still developing into human adults, still recovering from the effects of having been children unable to feed and care for themselves.
Human adults, presumably, should have had the experience required to turn them into rational human beings. Teenagers can get away with irrationality, adults can't.
Its even written in lawbooks... 'fair' it isn't. The assumption is that once you're on your own, and you don't have a parent taking care of you, you're responsible for your own ignorance