I think it's particularly serious because it will fail. It will just justify a potential snowball of draconian bullshit legislation and heavy-handed enforcement. Just like the war on [some] drugs.
I don't think Thompson hates the first amendment, it is just (in his mind) trumped by other values. Such as the dollar value of the settlements he hopes to reach.
New hardware is nice and all, but it's really of minor importance compared to the elements of the platform that should be there to help kids learn. I think there's a reason that the press never covers how fantastic and ground breaking the educational aspect is. The technology is interesting, but as far as I can tell, the educational aspect is an afterthought. Well, they sure are getting an education in computer maintenance;-)
were superior to the competition in the area of environmental consciousness. But since they didn't shout it from the mountaintops, Greenpeace decided to get some free press out of them. Assholes. I miss the old greenpeace, back when they navigated by playing the flute at the wheel on their way to pick a fight with whale hunters.
Doesn't the OLPC use a lower power screen? How does the battery life with these cheaper, power hungry screens? It would kind of defeat the purpose of this if you could only use it for an hour without plugging it in... The system will employ the dual indoor-and-sunlight displays, which was pioneered by former OLPC CTO Mary Lou Jepsen. The design will provide a right and left page in vertical format, a hinged laptop in horizontal format, and a flat, two-screen continuous surface for use in tablet mode. âoeYounger children will be able to use simple keyboards to get going, and older children will be able to switch between keyboards customized for applications as well as for multiple languages,â the press release reads. The device will also reduce power consumption to 1 watt.
So that's $299 extra per switch that the government (aka, taxpayers) will have to pay because the competitive bid environment has been contaminated. We're talking about the same environment where bids aren't needed for the vice president's former (and future?) employer here. You're paying extra no matter what.
It might be somewhat analogous to someone posting an image defacing Abraham Lincoln (or Robert E. Lee) in the US, with a religious element to that gesture. (Of course, it would be protected as free speech here Make it sexual and BOOM, not protected anymore.
issue that's been debated ever since Nixon normalized relations with China. Do you wait until a rogue country changes its political ideals to sufficiently match yours before you conduct business with them? Or do you partially compromise your ideals and conduct business with them in the hopes that it will accelerate those changes? It was Nixon: The political ideals already matched his ideals. You don't compromise ideals in the hope they'll change theirs, you ignore ideals out of pure, unadulterated greed. Plain and simple.
Is it only me, or do you see a potential weapons application for this in the future?
If your goal is to indiscriminately impair critical brain functions, a gun would be much more cost-effective. Magnetic weapons don't leave material evidence. If your goal is to injure or kill with impunity, leaving no evidence is worth its weight in gold.
"You don't get to make that choice for other people. You want to poison yourself? Go ahead, but STFU if you think you're entitled to pollute other people's lungs."
Says the guy using a computer that is running off of coal generated electricity... Hydroelectricity, completely renewable, thank you very much. Suck it, haters.
I wonder what would happen if the magnetic pulses were applied to more important sections of the brain, such as the area that controls autonomous bodily functions, like the heart. I suppose, if it is capable of knocking out the area of the brain that controls speech, it should be capable of knocking out the section of the brain that controls other, critical bodily functions.
Is it only me, or do you see a potential weapons application for this in the future? With the proper mastery of magnetism and the human mind, a team could build, in a helmet, an amplifier device that could be used by a trained professional to target individuals precisely, anywhere in the world. I'd call this contraption... "Cerebro".
I'd argue that obesity has very little direct effect on the ability to procreate early on in men. I'd argue that fat guys have a harder time getting laid:)
Seriously, extreme obesity is a darwin rule in action, usually That's an interesting take on it, since we've basically evolved to eat when we can (when food is available) so that we can survive during leaner times. And now we live in a different environment where overeating is much more likely than famine.
Captive fish will eat themselves to death if you keep giving them food, they too have evolved to eat when they can (when food is available). But fish can't understand that, they're slaves to their appetite. Humans can. Of course, eating healthy is hard when you have to go past so many bad choices to get to the right one...
if you're eating more because you require more energy to carry an extra 50 or so pounds What!? Fatties don't eat because they need energy to carry their own fat. Quite the opposite! They are fat because they eat more energy than they need.
And don't give me that crap about hurting others. Of course not, you care only about yourself.
but now the owner of the building can't even decide for himself if he wants to cater to smokers,WTF? Second hand smoke can cause cancer, and addiction to nicotine. Addicts will do anything for their next hit. You don't get to make that choice for other people. You want to poison yourself? Go ahead, but STFU if you think you're entitled to pollute other people's lungs.
if they are over 18 and choose to smoke or eat,let them be adults and do it. They can smoke all they want, outside. I'll go and chat with 'em (upwind), get some air. And they can eat all that they can afford, health-tax included.
Apathy overwhelmed your culture when Ford pardoned Nixon, fear was on 9/11 (that one was obvious).
It really was much further back as some of the other posters have said. Well, there were political riots in the late 60s, so I figured apathy hadn't set in yet...
But *something* happened to the USA in the 50s, you can tell by looking at propaganda movies from the late forties, where they would make sense, and then the ones from the 50s, where the bullshit started piling up. Is that the "further back" you were referring to?
My point was that it is not usually a good idea to make assumptions about people based purely on a single factor That's a good point. I think my point was that you were WAY too easy to offend.
Thanks to Firefox 3 betas I've managed *finally* to convert my wife to use FF. Only if I could get her using something other than Microsoft Live Messenger What is Pidgin?
Pidgin is a multi-protocol Instant Messaging client that allows you to use all of your IM accounts at once.
Pidgin is free software. It is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2. This means you are free to use it and to modify it, but if you distribute your modifications you must distribute the modified source code as well.
If an organisation is breaking the law (which is what "illegal" means, right?), why do police never get involved?
Do you remember the fuss about the politically-motivated firing of several US attorneys? Some got fired for investigating people belonging to THE party. (The one in power)
Do you now understand what all the fuss was about? Why you can't allow the power to be above the law?
I don't know about the rest of/., but I think it is about time that the NSL usage was challenged. I'm glad I'd say that time was 6 years ago, back when it was open-season on any law that would extend police and military power. I'm upset it got this far.
I'd like to know when such a supreme case of apathy and fear exactly overwhelmed our culture. I'd say for apathy it was around the time that popular actors were being picked to represent private interests as their candidate to be the president to the United States of America, I mean... come on. An actor. These days I see people complain when actors give their opinion on world matters.
No, I take it back, it had to be before that. You need preexisting apathy to get that far. Nixon? Maybe he killed the peoples' collective trust in the system. Or was it the pardon? Yeah, I'll go with that:
Apathy overwhelmed your culture when Ford pardoned Nixon, fear was on 9/11 (that one was obvious).
If everybody could agree to all publish their letters at once and all be first, then the FBI would be powerless [more or less]. It would blow the whole thing wide open. Everyone could analyze for themselves the validity of these claims How could you know how many of those are genuine?
That arguments ridiculous. There's nothing inherent in being black that makes them more likely to commit crimes, the root cause is in society and culture. Also, they don't actively seek out being black Those rap CDs and rims are dropped by the stork. There are no black churches, no black hair salons, it's not a cultural thing at all./sarcasm
This is closer to speeding laws, where a certain behavior hasn't harmed someone else yet, but it's increasing the probability of you hurting someone in the future. Speeding laws are not about safety, they are about revenue.
The safety bit is FUD, rhetoric meant to manufacture consent with the revenue stream.
Besides, these people aren't just being put into prison because they might abuse children, they're actively supporting and distributing these acts to other people. So it's not because they might do something bad, it's because they might cause someone else to maybe do the bad thing?
Putting someone in jail for kiddie porn is completely reasonable to me, You have accepted the rationalizations. I'd send them to a shrink, give 'em a stern lecture about the consequences of one's actions in real life, but I wouldn't cage someone for something they have only thought about doing.
I've thought about committing many atrocities to people who don't use their turn signals, but I shouldn't be jailed unless I actually give in to road rage, even if I watch Deathproof or Carrie or any other car-murder movies in my spare time.
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How DARE they?
Hippies on the open seas... those were the days.
You don't compromise ideals in the hope they'll change theirs, you ignore ideals out of pure, unadulterated greed.
Plain and simple.
If people start proving the character is impotent and most likely imaginary, then they'll lose their revenue stream! So: Let them eat shit!
how does one direct those blood suckers to the speech center of a brain KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!
If your goal is to indiscriminately impair critical brain functions, a gun would be much more cost-effective. Magnetic weapons don't leave material evidence.
If your goal is to injure or kill with impunity, leaving no evidence is worth its weight in gold.
Says the guy using a computer that is running off of coal generated electricity... Hydroelectricity, completely renewable, thank you very much.
Suck it, haters.
Is it only me, or do you see a potential weapons application for this in the future? With the proper mastery of magnetism and the human mind, a team could build, in a helmet, an amplifier device that could be used by a trained professional to target individuals precisely, anywhere in the world.
I'd call this contraption... "Cerebro".
Captive fish will eat themselves to death if you keep giving them food, they too have evolved to eat when they can (when food is available). But fish can't understand that, they're slaves to their appetite. Humans can.
Of course, eating healthy is hard when you have to go past so many bad choices to get to the right one... if you're eating more because you require more energy to carry an extra 50 or so pounds What!? Fatties don't eat because they need energy to carry their own fat. Quite the opposite!
They are fat because they eat more energy than they need.
Addicts will do anything for their next hit.
You don't get to make that choice for other people. You want to poison yourself? Go ahead, but STFU if you think you're entitled to pollute other people's lungs. if they are over 18 and choose to smoke or eat,let them be adults and do it. They can smoke all they want, outside. I'll go and chat with 'em (upwind), get some air.
And they can eat all that they can afford, health-tax included.
Apathy overwhelmed your culture when Ford pardoned Nixon, fear was on 9/11 (that one was obvious).
It really was much further back as some of the other posters have said. Well, there were political riots in the late 60s, so I figured apathy hadn't set in yet...
But *something* happened to the USA in the 50s, you can tell by looking at propaganda movies from the late forties, where they would make sense, and then the ones from the 50s, where the bullshit started piling up.
Is that the "further back" you were referring to?
I think my point was that you were WAY too easy to offend.
Pidgin is a multi-protocol Instant Messaging client that allows you to use all of your IM accounts at once.
Pidgin can work with:
* AIM
* Bonjour
* Gadu-Gadu
* Google Talk
* Groupwise
* ICQ
* IRC
* MSN
* MySpaceIM
* QQ
* SILC
* SIMPLE
* Sametime
* XMPP
* Yahoo!
* Zephyr
Pidgin is free software. It is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2. This means you are free to use it and to modify it, but if you distribute your modifications you must distribute the modified source code as well.
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If an organisation is breaking the law (which is what "illegal" means, right?), why do police never get involved?
Do you remember the fuss about the politically-motivated firing of several US attorneys?Some got fired for investigating people belonging to THE party. (The one in power)
Do you now understand what all the fuss was about?
Why you can't allow the power to be above the law?
These days I see people complain when actors give their opinion on world matters.
No, I take it back, it had to be before that. You need preexisting apathy to get that far.
Nixon? Maybe he killed the peoples' collective trust in the system. Or was it the pardon?
Yeah, I'll go with that:
Apathy overwhelmed your culture when Ford pardoned Nixon, fear was on 9/11 (that one was obvious).
The safety bit is FUD, rhetoric meant to manufacture consent with the revenue stream. Besides, these people aren't just being put into prison because they might abuse children, they're actively supporting and distributing these acts to other people. So it's not because they might do something bad, it's because they might cause someone else to maybe do the bad thing? Putting someone in jail for kiddie porn is completely reasonable to me, You have accepted the rationalizations.
I'd send them to a shrink, give 'em a stern lecture about the consequences of one's actions in real life, but I wouldn't cage someone for something they have only thought about doing.
I've thought about committing many atrocities to people who don't use their turn signals, but I shouldn't be jailed unless I actually give in to road rage, even if I watch Deathproof or Carrie or any other car-murder movies in my spare time.