Oh, but it IS human nature; we are after all just glorified chimps, more or less, and they are certainly more than capable of butchering their own kind. And just like us they don't often kill members of their own group, whether it is down to instinct or "law". But the original post makes it sound as if it is assumed that we can just apply modern legislation to the scenario, which I maintain that we can't, at least not without qualification.
I suppose it is understandable that people want to see this kind of massacre as something alien to our nature by calling it eg. "murder" or talking about psychopaths, but that is simply deluding ourselves. As the fairly recent conflicts in Kosovo show, it is comfortably within our reach to commit extreme acts of violence against even our closest neighbors; all that is needed is to see them as "enemy", basically, and be convinced that they are an immediate threat.
It is a common misunderstanding to think that psychopaths are raging, murderous beasts; the typical psychopath is primarily amoral and unempathic. While this may on occasion lead to extremes of violence or worse, it is more common that they are fairly petty criminals that drift from opportunity to opportunity without taking any sincere interest in anything; which is why they can sometimes perform some amazing stunts and then just lose interest. They are in a way "innocent", like children - they lack the capacity to feel guilt and are generally surprised that others react negatively.
Murder is a legal construct from relatively modern times; and even the modern definition excludes such things as killing of enemies. The ideas about who is your enemy has shiftet somewhat since that time, I imagine.
AFAIK it is because they have decided several years ago that Linux is the way forward. You get a CD with Linux tools with every version of AIX since 4.x; there is a Linux port for mainframes, both running in an LPAR and under VM - there's even a "Linux only processor" for the newer mainframes. POWER Linux is officially sponsored and maintained by IBM; where would you fit a desktop AIX in?
AIX is not dead and probably won't die for a long time to come. AIX is very good, it's just that Linux is more than adequate for the desktop.
Well it wouldn't take half an hour to boot windows if you didn't install every little application you will use once, but must absolutely have running at boot up, then complain about when I get an IT work order to "Fix" your computer.
Hmm, I'm not sure I understand the meaning of that sentence, but you're saying that people install too much crap on their Windows machines, right? Wrong - the machines in question are more often than not on a Windows domain and everything is controlled and pushed out from there. Including all too frequent upgrades to the virus checker that you only need because you are on Windows, as well as possibly Windows Gruesome Abomination (WGA). Which is why, when I turn on my machine, Linux comes jumping out and slaps me in my face before I can lift my cup, while my colleagues have time to wash the car, walk the dog and invent fire and the wheel before they can get to work. If employers wanted efficiency of their workers' use of computers, they would not use Windows.
But this isn't really about not wasting time, or even about finding a lame excuse for saving money; it's about looking as if they try or care - they have shareholders who are losing money. It's like when management suddenly decide that there isn't going to be a christmas party this year or they cancel the monthly pizza or whatever "because they have to save money"; possibly the stupidest kind of attempt at saving money. The amounts saved are minimal and it demoralises the employees, who are generally clever enough to see it for what it is: a feeble attempt at attracting the attention away from the fact that the managers don't have a clue.
If the company is in trouble, it is much better to come out early and be honest. And don't keep people in the dark - it only allows rumours and dissatisfaction to brew. Management know a long time in advance that they will have to cut back; so why not come out and say "We will have to lose X employees in three months' time; we will talk to everybody individually after the meeting and tell you who". That gives people a fair chance to find something else; and it makes everybody confident in their managers.
Who bloody cares about Rome? It is in many ways an unpleasant city, with rubbish lying around on display and where the major part of peope seem to be out to cheat as much money out of you as possible. I can think of any number of places I would rather see both in real life and on screen.
It was the sudden transitions that you get with advertising and music TV that caused people to get hooked
You seem to forget that we are talking about data spanning 30 years. Music tv and advertising were not quite the same back then. And I think the main point they are making is not that "TV is bad for you", but that lack of social and other activity is. Why is reading a newspaper better than watching tv? Because when you read a newspaper, you are actively pursuing information and you are more likely to talk to your colleagues about it; but if you spent the evening watching MTV, you are not really likely to talk to people about it next day, because it is just more of the same tedious humdrum as always. Apart from that, monotony is one thing that can really get a depression going.
The Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association was disappointed that jail time was not given
Which is why it is just as well that the prosecutor is not the same as the judge.
The man was also banned for a year from possessing any video recording equipment, even a video-capable cellphone, outside of his home.
Which is what I think is wrong on many levels. A fine is OK, I think - he knew that he was doing something that was illegal and it had to have consequences. A ban from going to theatre might have been reasonable too; but banning a person from carrying any video recording equipment in public is likely to be perceived as wrong. The validity of any law rests ultimately on public support, not on the severity of the punishments, and if penalties are seen as unreasonable, you lose the public support. We can see this in several places in UK - when the police want to investigate even a murder in certain areas, they don't get anywhere, because people don't support them. Whole local communities have somehow lost their trust in the authorities and simply don't want to help the police. From that perspective it may turn out to be a very stupid decision by the judge.
I would say that the starting point for any advice would have to be that whatever she wants to do is what she should do. It is more important that she is happy with her life and career; being famous, rich or doing something incredibly important is not necessarily a top priority. As Einstein once said, I believe, it isn't intelligence that does it, but creativity and hard work - both of which require a deep interest rather than aptitude.
When you say that is "good at maths" - what exactly does that mean? I was brilliant at maths in school, but unfortunately in school all you were required to learn in order to pass the tests was a handful of simply formulas and rules; when I started at mathematics at the university, I realized that I hadn't learned anything about the important bits: the methods, such as the epsilon/delta argument etc. What helped me through was that I found an interest in the more philosophical aspects of science - what is a number, what is continuity etc when you step away from the naive intuitions that we have learned?
Another thing is that when I grew up, science was cool - we felt that we just about to conquer space, faster-than-light travel was just around the corner - but looking back I think that perhaps I would actually have preferred a career in biology, which is my other, big interest. At that age - late teens - you are only beginning to realize what it is you actually want. Fortunately, it isn't too difficult to change study direction within your general area; if she has an interest in natural sciences, she could start on maths and change to biology or physics a little later.
I think my best advice for her and those around her would be to try to experience more of what eg. maths and physics are actually about at college level and beyond. Let her visit some of the places and don't try to push her in any direction; she won't be able to make an informed choice based only on the experience she has from school.
... for hosting a application that can potentially infringe,...
This seems to have some interesting ramifications. Are we going to see criminal cases against utility companies for providing water, electricity and gas? All are potentiall murder weapons, much more serious than taking away income from a bunch of useless parasites, wouldn't you agree?
... is this: The RIAA have been proven to break the law as a matter of principle, isn't that correct? If I do that, I end up in jail pretty soon; so why are they not only allowed to go free, but also to continue exactly as if nothing has changed? There ought to be a way for a judge to simply close down a business that repeatedly ignores the law like that. Or slap them with a fine big enough to take them all the way to bankruptcy. And then throw the managers in jail.
I am not going to go into every little thing you write and refute them; you don't seem to be the kind of person that would try to consider things calmly and rationally.
When was the last time you came across a bully who could code and used it to bully people?
I don't know - can you code? Seriously, though, bullying isn't just reserved for those who are weak of mind; and anyway, writing a few lines in a scripting language isn't exactly rocket science. All it takes to be a bully is that you derive satisfaction from doing it; it could be as simple as having found out that being rude and making sure to hurt other people makes you feel "assertive". It is probably only a small minority that are psychopaths, to whom it is "fun" to cause pain.
Boo fucking hoo. Kids kill themselves already when they get treated like crap in real life. this is no different and harrasment laws already apply.
So sympathetic.
then go down to your local school and patrol around stopping the smaller kids being beaten up! it can start with you!
Oh, but I do. Or did, when I had children of school age. But one person can only do so much; and anyway, playing vigilante is not exactly something that works. It is important that people in the community work together - they have to see this as a problem that they could and should do something about. The attitude that you put on display is a very big part of why this is a problem at all; you don't care, presumably because you think that you don't need the support of people around you. That's where you are wrong, however; you just haven't realized.
All in all, you seem extremely defensive, it's almost as if you are afraid I might be right. Otherwise I think you would have noticed that I don't actually say that I think we should introduce yet another piece of special legislation; the law can't stop bullying, but the authorities could do a lot to enable initiatives on a grassroot level, which would be able to turn this trend around.
Bullying is bullying, whether it happens by means of computers or not, and it is never a pretty sight. The thing about computers and the internet is that they enable people to have a far longer reach and a greater impact; and it doesn't just enable "the good guys", unfortunately. So when they talk about cyberbullying, it isn't just some lame excuse for imposing new censorship, there is actually a very real problem. In the days before the internet, bullying in the school at least stopped when you got home; but now it is on your telephone and on the internet, and with the use of simple scripts you can make it go on non-stop without any effort at all.
And the other thing about doing things on the internet is that it is more anonymous - it is so much easier to be cruel to a person you don't have to watch, unless, of course, you get a kick out of seeing others in pain, and it is a lot easier to avoid getting caught. At least right up to the point where some kid chooses to end their life, which is a problem on the increase.
I don't think the schools or service providers can do anything about the problem on their own. It is something that requires the whole of the community to work together against it; and that is yet another thing the internet has has an influence on: there isn't a lot of community feeling left. On the up-side, however, the internet could potentially be used to mobilize the community against this kind of thing.
People keep droning on about the nanny state and how everything would be better if the government just stayed out of everything; but how would that be better, when nobody in the community are willing to get off their soft arses and solve the problems? We get a nanny state because we, with our inaction and unwillingness to take part in a community, ask for it. I think it is verging on the contemptible to whine and complain about state interference when people don't even try to do it better themselves.
On the surface this is a story about somebody that did something he shouldn't have and is punished for it, but I think there are several more important issues here that have nothing to do with the crime itself as such.
When a person is physcially in one country and commits an offence on a system in another country, who has jurisdiction? I probably lean most to the view that is the country where the offended system is; but there is a trend towards more delocalised systems - as evidenced by the question of where eg. Amazon or Google should pay their taxes. If it isn't clear for your payment of taxes, I can't see that it is any clearer for criminal jurisdiction; after all the criteria for legal proofs are stricter in the criminal court.
There is also the question of "symmetry" (the right word escapes me at the moment) - when the US feels somebody has committed a crime within their jurisdiction based on the above principle, shouldn't the principle apply the other way? The US wants the world to deliver the people they say are criminals to the US penal system, but it is very hard to get it to work the other way. Even UK, the "special ally", finds it hard to get a US citizen extradited - and even their own citizens, sometimes.
And then there is the ethics of the situation - is it acceptable to commit a crime, even a very small one, to catch a criminal? The "small crime" in this case is the fraudulent advertising of a non-existent job, it seems. The law - and certainly criminal law - is supposed to be the practical expression of our fundamental, ethical principles; it is illegal to steal, kill, swindle etc because everybody agrees that it is morally wrong, in essence. And as they say, two wrongs don't make a right; if you commit crimes to fight crime, you have tainted yourself and the whole system of justice - and where does the dividing line go? Why is it OK to commit fraud to catch a fairly insignificant hacker, but it isn't OK to take bribes? To my view you are either a criminal or not; and if you commit crimes, you are a criminal.
As far as I know this kind of thing is not accepted in any other Western country; the are not allowed to use even "mild deception", like a knowingly letting a suspect believe something that isn't true, if it is likely to influence their defence. Which is why you read them their rights when they are arrested, BTW.
Ha, it said this system cost 150 million pounds to the gov't, and now their purpose is for a convenient method of proving identity such as a young person proving their age to buy alcohol
I think everybody knows that the purpose of this scheme is simply to create a central database of all citizens and where they live, which they don't have now. This will not only help in fighting benefit fraud, but also make it almost impossible to hide from creditors. The question of "national security" doesn't enter into it at all, at least not until they want to sell it to the public; which is why that explanation has always sounded hollow.
Cognitive Science and Computer Ethics are more established disciplines in universities, and the numbers of philosophy graduates double majoring in computer science and information systems are climbing. Is a merger of Philosophy, a discipline steeped in history and intelligent thought, and Computer Science, a discipline that looks to the future, the best of both worlds?"
Philosophy is in many ways the father (or mother, if you prefer) of the modern sciences, but I think it is becoming increasingly irrelevant in itself. The tendency seems to be that philosophy is defined more by what it isn't than by what it is; this is because it has kept losing parts over the years: maths, physics, psychology, sociology, economics, law etc - I tend to think of it now as theology without God.
So, in a way you can't study any science without studying philosophy, but on the other hand, modern philosophy has little to offer, really, apart from opinions about ethical matters. Cognitive science sounds more like psychology and ethics in general is rapidly becoming a subject in psychology and biology, rather than one of philosophy, since we are beginning to understand more about both the physiological basis for our ethical choices, and the origins of ethics in groups of social animals.
and it's quite different than logic studied in philosophy classes.
Mathematical logic is not a different kind of logic, it is just that formal logic concentrates on utilising logic, and the approach of philosphy is more of a "meta-study". It is only in modern times that philosophy and science have become seperated. When the sciences split some centuries ago, maths became more than anything else the pursuit of extreme precision, the "concrete sciences" (chemistry, physics etc) developed the scientific method and philosophy took the leftovers - God, ethics, society and so on.
Unfortunately it is not quite as simple as "doing something about it"; it's like saying "everybody complains about America's addiction to oil, but they DO NOTHING ABOUT IT". As you probably know, you can do a lot about things and still not have any success.
When you are trying to beat addiction it feels like you are fighting against your whole body and all your instincts; which is why that old "Just say no" campaing was so cringelingly stupid and totally missed the point. You can decide all you want that now you are going to stop smoking/shooting heroin/overeating or whatever, but when the craving hit you, it's amazing how obvious it suddenly seems that you don't actually need or want to stop,
What relevance does drug use in a person's youth have
I would say that having tried cannabis means that you actually have something to hang your hat on when it comes to giving out opinions about the subject. Far too much in politics is determined, not by what is good, right, or reasonable, nor by how harmful or beneficial something is, but by uninformed, reactionary prejudice or hidden agendas.
Does it ever occur to you that people who oppose adoption by gays, for example, may do so on the basis of principles they hold and not irrational fear?
I think it occurs to anybody who takes part in serious, open-minded discussions; but doing things "out of principle" doesn't make it right or rational. "Principles" are after all just glorified prejudice - when you say that you have principles, it just means that you have decided that you don't want to think any more about it; you don't want to allow doubt or facts or anything to change your principles. Not very open-minded or rational at all; the rational thing is to recognise that you may be wrong even in your fundamental principles.
"Marriage" is a word that has meaning in our culture for a long time, having "gay marriage" is not giving equal rights, it is a radical redefining something that is considered one of the basic building blocks of society.
Marriage is a contract of co-habitation, simply; its significance is to establish to the legal authorities that these two (or in principle, N) persons have chosen to be each others' closest "next of kin". One of the big problems when you live together as an unmarried couple is that if you lose your partner, you automatically first in the queue of heir, property is not automatically assumed to have been co-owned etc. The legal institution of marriage is a convenient package of mutual protections and agreements that have nothing to do with religion and shouldn't be limited by religious ideas.
Extending marriage to gay couples is not radical, but natural and logical, if you agree with the view that gays are simply people like everybody else.
I think it borders on idiotic the way some try to ram God up everybody's backside at the fall of a hat; and calling the Higgs boson the "God particle" isn't a very good idea either. This is science, right? It deals with what can be measured using the scientific method - nothing more and nothing less. God only becomes a subject worthy of scientific discourse if and when he/she/it can be measured or otherwise dealt with using the scientific method. And that, everybody, really is the end of this debate.
As for the Higgs boson - my intuition tells me that it doesn't exist, so that's what my money is on. I just don't think we will find it - but to tell the truth, I don't mind if we do find it. Because what we as scientists really hope for is to find out whether our theories are good or not; I hope we don't find it, because that opens up for much more exciting research.
But back to the God thing; there are two things that strike me in the current debate. First, when Dawkins is so anti-religious, I think what it actually is about, is religious people; because somehow they - that is, the loudest of them - are perniciously boneheaded, and in the end one just gets so sick of having to deal with that kind of non-subject. Just take this thing about ID: one wonders how many times scientists have explained and clarified what science is and why ID has nothing to do with it - but it's like water on a goose. So what's the use of trying? The world would be better without that kind of people.
The other thing is, what is it really those people believe in? Is it God, the almighty and all-knowing, who created the world and us with it? Or is it the Bible? And if so, which version? - quite apart from the fact that it isn't self-consistent, so you can't believe all of the Bible anyway without performing some acrobatic mind-tricks. The God we always hear about is supposed to be good and truthful - so why would he create a world where things are laid out so that it looks exactly as if the world is about 13 billion years old and life has evolved as Darwin described it; and then write a Bible that tells us it was all done in less than a week? It just doesn't add up.
And you know what? It is not because we should close our eyes and out minds and "have faith". As far as I can see, if you have faith in God, then you will trust him not to be a deceitful creature with a twisted mind, who has set traps everywhere; then your common sense is enough to let you see the truth, and if your common sense tell you that the Bible is a load of cobblers, then it is because the Bible is a load of cobblers. Your faith should give you the strength to turn away from the liers that feed on you, even if those liers turn out to be the whole congregation that you feel comfortable with.
But then of course, I am only an atheist, or agnostic if you like; and that is my position on the matter.
I remembered during the cold war period how we used to hear stories about poor academics in the Soviet Union, who had dared to criticise the system, and who ended up having to take any work at all; professors that had to work as streetsweepers and that sort of thing. The Us isn't the the USSR, you might say, but it does illustrate that being poor and/or unemployed is not always becasue you are lazy or stupid.
My own family background is in the working class, and I have worked hard all my life - very hard. Much harder, in fact, than I think any geek in American suburbia has any idea of; I know just how hard it can be, and I still think it was down to quite a large portion of luck that I have made it through to what I am today. In the process I have had to give up contact with my family and my country; just don't ask.
And I tell you that you are wrong, completely and utterly. If you are at the bottom, that is where you are likely to stay, because nobody is willing to give a decent break. If you don't have money, you don't get an education, your clothes will be poor and you will be dirty, you won't have a home or a bankaccount, and so on. Who will give you a real job? I think you can guess that: nobody. If you have ever been unemployed, you will know just how desperately dull and deeply depressing that is, and that is just how it is when you actually have an education and a chance of catching a job, once one becomes available. Now add to that the hopelessness that stems from having no education and no chance in hell of getting one either, and you begin to get close to how it is to poor as dirt.
And you call people lazy? It's easy to work "hard" when all that is, is to sit in an office 80 hours a week with free coffee and fizzy drinks. Try exchanging that with the worst, most filthy, manual labour, and then lets see how much of a trailblazer you really are.
Apart from all the jokes, some of which are even funny, I think it a bit sad on several levels. It seems to me that he is clearly schizophrenic - he certainly acts as if he has paranoid delusions - so he shouldn't even be in prison, but in a mental institution. Prison is for punishing people, certainly in America, and punishing a mentally ill guy is simply an expensive exercise in pointlessness.
I also think it is quite sad that people still, nowadays, enjoy being cruel to those unfortunate enough to suffer from mental illness. It it reminiscent of the time not too long ago when we had freak shows and people would go and look at the inmates of the local asylum for a good ol' laugh; we really should try to develop beyond that kind of heartless and callous attitudes.
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Oh, but it IS human nature; we are after all just glorified chimps, more or less, and they are certainly more than capable of butchering their own kind. And just like us they don't often kill members of their own group, whether it is down to instinct or "law". But the original post makes it sound as if it is assumed that we can just apply modern legislation to the scenario, which I maintain that we can't, at least not without qualification.
I suppose it is understandable that people want to see this kind of massacre as something alien to our nature by calling it eg. "murder" or talking about psychopaths, but that is simply deluding ourselves. As the fairly recent conflicts in Kosovo show, it is comfortably within our reach to commit extreme acts of violence against even our closest neighbors; all that is needed is to see them as "enemy", basically, and be convinced that they are an immediate threat.
It is a common misunderstanding to think that psychopaths are raging, murderous beasts; the typical psychopath is primarily amoral and unempathic. While this may on occasion lead to extremes of violence or worse, it is more common that they are fairly petty criminals that drift from opportunity to opportunity without taking any sincere interest in anything; which is why they can sometimes perform some amazing stunts and then just lose interest. They are in a way "innocent", like children - they lack the capacity to feel guilt and are generally surprised that others react negatively.
Murder is a legal construct from relatively modern times; and even the modern definition excludes such things as killing of enemies. The ideas about who is your enemy has shiftet somewhat since that time, I imagine.
AFAIK it is because they have decided several years ago that Linux is the way forward. You get a CD with Linux tools with every version of AIX since 4.x; there is a Linux port for mainframes, both running in an LPAR and under VM - there's even a "Linux only processor" for the newer mainframes. POWER Linux is officially sponsored and maintained by IBM; where would you fit a desktop AIX in?
AIX is not dead and probably won't die for a long time to come. AIX is very good, it's just that Linux is more than adequate for the desktop.
I'm still waiting to get my IBM mainframe desktop
Wait no more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules_emulator
Well it wouldn't take half an hour to boot windows if you didn't install every little application you will use once, but must absolutely have running at boot up, then complain about when I get an IT work order to "Fix" your computer.
Hmm, I'm not sure I understand the meaning of that sentence, but you're saying that people install too much crap on their Windows machines, right? Wrong - the machines in question are more often than not on a Windows domain and everything is controlled and pushed out from there. Including all too frequent upgrades to the virus checker that you only need because you are on Windows, as well as possibly Windows Gruesome Abomination (WGA). Which is why, when I turn on my machine, Linux comes jumping out and slaps me in my face before I can lift my cup, while my colleagues have time to wash the car, walk the dog and invent fire and the wheel before they can get to work. If employers wanted efficiency of their workers' use of computers, they would not use Windows.
But this isn't really about not wasting time, or even about finding a lame excuse for saving money; it's about looking as if they try or care - they have shareholders who are losing money. It's like when management suddenly decide that there isn't going to be a christmas party this year or they cancel the monthly pizza or whatever "because they have to save money"; possibly the stupidest kind of attempt at saving money. The amounts saved are minimal and it demoralises the employees, who are generally clever enough to see it for what it is: a feeble attempt at attracting the attention away from the fact that the managers don't have a clue.
If the company is in trouble, it is much better to come out early and be honest. And don't keep people in the dark - it only allows rumours and dissatisfaction to brew. Management know a long time in advance that they will have to cut back; so why not come out and say "We will have to lose X employees in three months' time; we will talk to everybody individually after the meeting and tell you who". That gives people a fair chance to find something else; and it makes everybody confident in their managers.
Who bloody cares about Rome? It is in many ways an unpleasant city, with rubbish lying around on display and where the major part of peope seem to be out to cheat as much money out of you as possible. I can think of any number of places I would rather see both in real life and on screen.
It was the sudden transitions that you get with advertising and music TV that caused people to get hooked
You seem to forget that we are talking about data spanning 30 years. Music tv and advertising were not quite the same back then. And I think the main point they are making is not that "TV is bad for you", but that lack of social and other activity is. Why is reading a newspaper better than watching tv? Because when you read a newspaper, you are actively pursuing information and you are more likely to talk to your colleagues about it; but if you spent the evening watching MTV, you are not really likely to talk to people about it next day, because it is just more of the same tedious humdrum as always. Apart from that, monotony is one thing that can really get a depression going.
Switching to a diet where one gets 80% of one's calories from fruit, vegetables, and legumes would yield yet another jump
Only offset slightly by the distressing smells that would accompany such a diet :-)
The Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association was disappointed that jail time was not given
Which is why it is just as well that the prosecutor is not the same as the judge.
The man was also banned for a year from possessing any video recording equipment, even a video-capable cellphone, outside of his home.
Which is what I think is wrong on many levels. A fine is OK, I think - he knew that he was doing something that was illegal and it had to have consequences. A ban from going to theatre might have been reasonable too; but banning a person from carrying any video recording equipment in public is likely to be perceived as wrong. The validity of any law rests ultimately on public support, not on the severity of the punishments, and if penalties are seen as unreasonable, you lose the public support. We can see this in several places in UK - when the police want to investigate even a murder in certain areas, they don't get anywhere, because people don't support them. Whole local communities have somehow lost their trust in the authorities and simply don't want to help the police. From that perspective it may turn out to be a very stupid decision by the judge.
I would say that the starting point for any advice would have to be that whatever she wants to do is what she should do. It is more important that she is happy with her life and career; being famous, rich or doing something incredibly important is not necessarily a top priority. As Einstein once said, I believe, it isn't intelligence that does it, but creativity and hard work - both of which require a deep interest rather than aptitude.
When you say that is "good at maths" - what exactly does that mean? I was brilliant at maths in school, but unfortunately in school all you were required to learn in order to pass the tests was a handful of simply formulas and rules; when I started at mathematics at the university, I realized that I hadn't learned anything about the important bits: the methods, such as the epsilon/delta argument etc. What helped me through was that I found an interest in the more philosophical aspects of science - what is a number, what is continuity etc when you step away from the naive intuitions that we have learned?
Another thing is that when I grew up, science was cool - we felt that we just about to conquer space, faster-than-light travel was just around the corner - but looking back I think that perhaps I would actually have preferred a career in biology, which is my other, big interest. At that age - late teens - you are only beginning to realize what it is you actually want. Fortunately, it isn't too difficult to change study direction within your general area; if she has an interest in natural sciences, she could start on maths and change to biology or physics a little later.
I think my best advice for her and those around her would be to try to experience more of what eg. maths and physics are actually about at college level and beyond. Let her visit some of the places and don't try to push her in any direction; she won't be able to make an informed choice based only on the experience she has from school.
... for hosting a application that can potentially infringe,...
This seems to have some interesting ramifications. Are we going to see criminal cases against utility companies for providing water, electricity and gas? All are potentiall murder weapons, much more serious than taking away income from a bunch of useless parasites, wouldn't you agree?
... is this: The RIAA have been proven to break the law as a matter of principle, isn't that correct? If I do that, I end up in jail pretty soon; so why are they not only allowed to go free, but also to continue exactly as if nothing has changed? There ought to be a way for a judge to simply close down a business that repeatedly ignores the law like that. Or slap them with a fine big enough to take them all the way to bankruptcy. And then throw the managers in jail.
I am not going to go into every little thing you write and refute them; you don't seem to be the kind of person that would try to consider things calmly and rationally.
When was the last time you came across a bully who could code and used it to bully people?
I don't know - can you code? Seriously, though, bullying isn't just reserved for those who are weak of mind; and anyway, writing a few lines in a scripting language isn't exactly rocket science. All it takes to be a bully is that you derive satisfaction from doing it; it could be as simple as having found out that being rude and making sure to hurt other people makes you feel "assertive". It is probably only a small minority that are psychopaths, to whom it is "fun" to cause pain.
Boo fucking hoo.
Kids kill themselves already when they get treated like crap in real life. this is no different and harrasment laws already apply.
So sympathetic.
then go down to your local school and patrol around stopping the smaller kids being beaten up! it can start with you!
Oh, but I do. Or did, when I had children of school age. But one person can only do so much; and anyway, playing vigilante is not exactly something that works. It is important that people in the community work together - they have to see this as a problem that they could and should do something about. The attitude that you put on display is a very big part of why this is a problem at all; you don't care, presumably because you think that you don't need the support of people around you. That's where you are wrong, however; you just haven't realized.
All in all, you seem extremely defensive, it's almost as if you are afraid I might be right. Otherwise I think you would have noticed that I don't actually say that I think we should introduce yet another piece of special legislation; the law can't stop bullying, but the authorities could do a lot to enable initiatives on a grassroot level, which would be able to turn this trend around.
Bullying is bullying, whether it happens by means of computers or not, and it is never a pretty sight. The thing about computers and the internet is that they enable people to have a far longer reach and a greater impact; and it doesn't just enable "the good guys", unfortunately. So when they talk about cyberbullying, it isn't just some lame excuse for imposing new censorship, there is actually a very real problem. In the days before the internet, bullying in the school at least stopped when you got home; but now it is on your telephone and on the internet, and with the use of simple scripts you can make it go on non-stop without any effort at all.
And the other thing about doing things on the internet is that it is more anonymous - it is so much easier to be cruel to a person you don't have to watch, unless, of course, you get a kick out of seeing others in pain, and it is a lot easier to avoid getting caught. At least right up to the point where some kid chooses to end their life, which is a problem on the increase.
I don't think the schools or service providers can do anything about the problem on their own. It is something that requires the whole of the community to work together against it; and that is yet another thing the internet has has an influence on: there isn't a lot of community feeling left. On the up-side, however, the internet could potentially be used to mobilize the community against this kind of thing.
People keep droning on about the nanny state and how everything would be better if the government just stayed out of everything; but how would that be better, when nobody in the community are willing to get off their soft arses and solve the problems? We get a nanny state because we, with our inaction and unwillingness to take part in a community, ask for it. I think it is verging on the contemptible to whine and complain about state interference when people don't even try to do it better themselves.
On the surface this is a story about somebody that did something he shouldn't have and is punished for it, but I think there are several more important issues here that have nothing to do with the crime itself as such.
When a person is physcially in one country and commits an offence on a system in another country, who has jurisdiction? I probably lean most to the view that is the country where the offended system is; but there is a trend towards more delocalised systems - as evidenced by the question of where eg. Amazon or Google should pay their taxes. If it isn't clear for your payment of taxes, I can't see that it is any clearer for criminal jurisdiction; after all the criteria for legal proofs are stricter in the criminal court.
There is also the question of "symmetry" (the right word escapes me at the moment) - when the US feels somebody has committed a crime within their jurisdiction based on the above principle, shouldn't the principle apply the other way? The US wants the world to deliver the people they say are criminals to the US penal system, but it is very hard to get it to work the other way. Even UK, the "special ally", finds it hard to get a US citizen extradited - and even their own citizens, sometimes.
And then there is the ethics of the situation - is it acceptable to commit a crime, even a very small one, to catch a criminal? The "small crime" in this case is the fraudulent advertising of a non-existent job, it seems. The law - and certainly criminal law - is supposed to be the practical expression of our fundamental, ethical principles; it is illegal to steal, kill, swindle etc because everybody agrees that it is morally wrong, in essence. And as they say, two wrongs don't make a right; if you commit crimes to fight crime, you have tainted yourself and the whole system of justice - and where does the dividing line go? Why is it OK to commit fraud to catch a fairly insignificant hacker, but it isn't OK to take bribes? To my view you are either a criminal or not; and if you commit crimes, you are a criminal.
As far as I know this kind of thing is not accepted in any other Western country; the are not allowed to use even "mild deception", like a knowingly letting a suspect believe something that isn't true, if it is likely to influence their defence. Which is why you read them their rights when they are arrested, BTW.
Ha, it said this system cost 150 million pounds to the gov't, and now their purpose is for a convenient method of proving identity such as a young person proving their age to buy alcohol
I think everybody knows that the purpose of this scheme is simply to create a central database of all citizens and where they live, which they don't have now. This will not only help in fighting benefit fraud, but also make it almost impossible to hide from creditors. The question of "national security" doesn't enter into it at all, at least not until they want to sell it to the public; which is why that explanation has always sounded hollow.
Cognitive Science and Computer Ethics are more established disciplines in universities, and the numbers of philosophy graduates double majoring in computer science and information systems are climbing. Is a merger of Philosophy, a discipline steeped in history and intelligent thought, and Computer Science, a discipline that looks to the future, the best of both worlds?"
Philosophy is in many ways the father (or mother, if you prefer) of the modern sciences, but I think it is becoming increasingly irrelevant in itself. The tendency seems to be that philosophy is defined more by what it isn't than by what it is; this is because it has kept losing parts over the years: maths, physics, psychology, sociology, economics, law etc - I tend to think of it now as theology without God.
So, in a way you can't study any science without studying philosophy, but on the other hand, modern philosophy has little to offer, really, apart from opinions about ethical matters. Cognitive science sounds more like psychology and ethics in general is rapidly becoming a subject in psychology and biology, rather than one of philosophy, since we are beginning to understand more about both the physiological basis for our ethical choices, and the origins of ethics in groups of social animals.
and it's quite different than logic studied in philosophy classes.
Mathematical logic is not a different kind of logic, it is just that formal logic concentrates on utilising logic, and the approach of philosphy is more of a "meta-study". It is only in modern times that philosophy and science have become seperated. When the sciences split some centuries ago, maths became more than anything else the pursuit of extreme precision, the "concrete sciences" (chemistry, physics etc) developed the scientific method and philosophy took the leftovers - God, ethics, society and so on.
... DO NOTHING ABOUT IT ...
Unfortunately it is not quite as simple as "doing something about it"; it's like saying "everybody complains about America's addiction to oil, but they DO NOTHING ABOUT IT". As you probably know, you can do a lot about things and still not have any success.
When you are trying to beat addiction it feels like you are fighting against your whole body and all your instincts; which is why that old "Just say no" campaing was so cringelingly stupid and totally missed the point. You can decide all you want that now you are going to stop smoking/shooting heroin/overeating or whatever, but when the craving hit you, it's amazing how obvious it suddenly seems that you don't actually need or want to stop,
What relevance does drug use in a person's youth have
I would say that having tried cannabis means that you actually have something to hang your hat on when it comes to giving out opinions about the subject. Far too much in politics is determined, not by what is good, right, or reasonable, nor by how harmful or beneficial something is, but by uninformed, reactionary prejudice or hidden agendas.
Does it ever occur to you that people who oppose adoption by gays, for example, may do so on the basis of principles they hold and not irrational fear?
I think it occurs to anybody who takes part in serious, open-minded discussions; but doing things "out of principle" doesn't make it right or rational. "Principles" are after all just glorified prejudice - when you say that you have principles, it just means that you have decided that you don't want to think any more about it; you don't want to allow doubt or facts or anything to change your principles. Not very open-minded or rational at all; the rational thing is to recognise that you may be wrong even in your fundamental principles.
"Marriage" is a word that has meaning in our culture for a long time, having "gay marriage" is not giving equal rights, it is a radical redefining something that is considered one of the basic building blocks of society.
Marriage is a contract of co-habitation, simply; its significance is to establish to the legal authorities that these two (or in principle, N) persons have chosen to be each others' closest "next of kin". One of the big problems when you live together as an unmarried couple is that if you lose your partner, you automatically first in the queue of heir, property is not automatically assumed to have been co-owned etc. The legal institution of marriage is a convenient package of mutual protections and agreements that have nothing to do with religion and shouldn't be limited by religious ideas.
Extending marriage to gay couples is not radical, but natural and logical, if you agree with the view that gays are simply people like everybody else.
I think it borders on idiotic the way some try to ram God up everybody's backside at the fall of a hat; and calling the Higgs boson the "God particle" isn't a very good idea either. This is science, right? It deals with what can be measured using the scientific method - nothing more and nothing less. God only becomes a subject worthy of scientific discourse if and when he/she/it can be measured or otherwise dealt with using the scientific method. And that, everybody, really is the end of this debate.
As for the Higgs boson - my intuition tells me that it doesn't exist, so that's what my money is on. I just don't think we will find it - but to tell the truth, I don't mind if we do find it. Because what we as scientists really hope for is to find out whether our theories are good or not; I hope we don't find it, because that opens up for much more exciting research.
But back to the God thing; there are two things that strike me in the current debate. First, when Dawkins is so anti-religious, I think what it actually is about, is religious people; because somehow they - that is, the loudest of them - are perniciously boneheaded, and in the end one just gets so sick of having to deal with that kind of non-subject. Just take this thing about ID: one wonders how many times scientists have explained and clarified what science is and why ID has nothing to do with it - but it's like water on a goose. So what's the use of trying? The world would be better without that kind of people.
The other thing is, what is it really those people believe in? Is it God, the almighty and all-knowing, who created the world and us with it? Or is it the Bible? And if so, which version? - quite apart from the fact that it isn't self-consistent, so you can't believe all of the Bible anyway without performing some acrobatic mind-tricks. The God we always hear about is supposed to be good and truthful - so why would he create a world where things are laid out so that it looks exactly as if the world is about 13 billion years old and life has evolved as Darwin described it; and then write a Bible that tells us it was all done in less than a week? It just doesn't add up.
And you know what? It is not because we should close our eyes and out minds and "have faith". As far as I can see, if you have faith in God, then you will trust him not to be a deceitful creature with a twisted mind, who has set traps everywhere; then your common sense is enough to let you see the truth, and if your common sense tell you that the Bible is a load of cobblers, then it is because the Bible is a load of cobblers. Your faith should give you the strength to turn away from the liers that feed on you, even if those liers turn out to be the whole congregation that you feel comfortable with.
But then of course, I am only an atheist, or agnostic if you like; and that is my position on the matter.
I remembered during the cold war period how we used to hear stories about poor academics in the Soviet Union, who had dared to criticise the system, and who ended up having to take any work at all; professors that had to work as streetsweepers and that sort of thing. The Us isn't the the USSR, you might say, but it does illustrate that being poor and/or unemployed is not always becasue you are lazy or stupid.
My own family background is in the working class, and I have worked hard all my life - very hard. Much harder, in fact, than I think any geek in American suburbia has any idea of; I know just how hard it can be, and I still think it was down to quite a large portion of luck that I have made it through to what I am today. In the process I have had to give up contact with my family and my country; just don't ask.
And I tell you that you are wrong, completely and utterly. If you are at the bottom, that is where you are likely to stay, because nobody is willing to give a decent break. If you don't have money, you don't get an education, your clothes will be poor and you will be dirty, you won't have a home or a bankaccount, and so on. Who will give you a real job? I think you can guess that: nobody. If you have ever been unemployed, you will know just how desperately dull and deeply depressing that is, and that is just how it is when you actually have an education and a chance of catching a job, once one becomes available. Now add to that the hopelessness that stems from having no education and no chance in hell of getting one either, and you begin to get close to how it is to poor as dirt.
And you call people lazy? It's easy to work "hard" when all that is, is to sit in an office 80 hours a week with free coffee and fizzy drinks. Try exchanging that with the worst, most filthy, manual labour, and then lets see how much of a trailblazer you really are.
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid your neighbors' wallets and give you their money.
Especially not, I would like to point out, when that "neighbor" is 100 - 1000 times richer than you. Less tax breaks for the super-rich, please.
Sorry, I just had to comment on the sig.
Apart from all the jokes, some of which are even funny, I think it a bit sad on several levels. It seems to me that he is clearly schizophrenic - he certainly acts as if he has paranoid delusions - so he shouldn't even be in prison, but in a mental institution. Prison is for punishing people, certainly in America, and punishing a mentally ill guy is simply an expensive exercise in pointlessness.
I also think it is quite sad that people still, nowadays, enjoy being cruel to those unfortunate enough to suffer from mental illness. It it reminiscent of the time not too long ago when we had freak shows and people would go and look at the inmates of the local asylum for a good ol' laugh; we really should try to develop beyond that kind of heartless and callous attitudes.