Look where it got RMS -- no one takes him seriously anymore and the project that put him on the map clearly considers him irrelevant
He doesn't get taken seriously because he's got no social skills. He's rude, combative and dresses up in a robe and halo calling himself the patron saint of free software to make his point. He thinks he's being clever but all he's doing is coming across as a "smelly hippy". This man wrote good portions of EMACS and worked on earlier versions of GCC, yet his social skills are such that I wouldn't trust him to make a toast at a wedding, let alone act as leader in a movement.
By the way I've met the man years ago and seen him dress up in a robe and he was rude to me because I was the only person at a meeting of the programmers society at my university. (I'd come straight from work hoping to hear from someone who I had some respect for). I posed the question "What do you say to someone who says that open source software is difficult to use, or buggy?" His response "I hadn't heard that. Who says it's difficult to use. It's not difficult to use"...all in the most sneering and dismissive tone he could muster. I had a genuine question. He obviously took it as some kind of attack. He lost me forever right then and there.
I take and edit a lot of photos. I'm a hobbyist not a pro though. So I took a look at Paint.NET. It's better than I thought it would be but it's still got limitations and odditities. Perhaps if I used it for a while I'd get around some of these. Others are missing features that I doubt could be gotten around.
If you don't like the interface on GIMP, try GIMPShop. It doesn't make the GUI as good as Photoshop in all ways, but it does make it a lot more familiar. The GIMP may be ugly but it's powerful.
This won't be popular but don't open source it in the FSF sense, but do supply the source code with the product under commercial license. Unless you find a company to sponsor your work on it, you won't make money from the work you've already done with a GNU public license. (Yes you can make money with consultancy, customization etc. but only if the product's very popular and if you're a VERY talented and dedicated programmer)
If you want to release the source code you could at the same time release a free for personal use, evaluation and development (but not commercial use) version. Include source code with this version too. It doesn't have to be crippled either. It just has to be clear that it's not legal to use it commercially, or modify and re-distribute under the license you choose/create (or any other). Larger companies and those with a fragile reputation will comply (or at least some of them will, and you will make money). Some even have software compliance departments.
Do not include restrictive copy protection, DRM or other such nonsense. Accept some people will "pirate" it and don't waste time, money or resources trying to prevent that.
By all means also offer support contracts and consultancy.
Wittgenstein's Tractatus? Please. You're so full of yoruself. You've tried to dazzle and confuse with your purportedly wide knowledge, but fail to actually counter-argue the point. (Plenty of personal attacks though).
The GP said outright that he was afraid one of his mother's friends would copy the DVD. This is called piracy. It doesn't matter what books you've read or what terms you apply to it. The GP was afraid of being implicated in piracy and therefore being ejected from the association.
Your straw men:
Straw man 1: syousef's main point was thatd lending is piracy. Lending clearly is not piracy. Therefore syousef is an asshole and doesn't know what he's talking about.
While I may have misapplied the term, that certainly wasn't my main point, nor was it crucial to my main point. Yet you keep attacking the point even after I'd conceded it. Since you're into the history of logic I suggest you actually look up where the term straw man came from.
Straw man 2: Find it your damned self.
Granted, I did call you an asshole first. mea culpa.
Now why is it that I don't think that's a genuine apology especially given that you continue to whine...
apparently not, perhaps you should try explaining it again, maybe this time with more invective, personal slander, and cursing, it wasn't quite meta enough that time.
Translation: I can dish it out but I can't take it.
No, it was a box I bought from a place called Jaycar here that deals mostly with electronics and components. It was on the same frequencies and responded to remotes from a number of cheap DVD players I own. The concept is great, but the box didn't do the job I needed so I had to take it back. Pity.
this is true, which is why I also assumed as much. But there's a difference between assuming something and acting as if its fact.
Oh so you've never heard of deductive reasoning, troll? How do you think we know most of what we know about the world around us? Because some magical person walked up and spelt it out? Then you have the gaul to tell me you're not sure I don't understand what a strawman is because you can't see one in your pathetic rant.
i *actually* said to curse me out for, eh?
You mean like calling me an asshole and telling me to get off my high horse. Stop playing the fucking victim. It's pathetic.
Yes, I should have been more specific. All I was trying to say when pointing out that you had misused the term piracy was that lending != piracy. I entirely meant that you were being an asshole, and needed to get the fuck off your high horse. That doesnt make me a troll, that makes me vulgar.
Actually, it makes you a vulgar troll. You know nothing about me, and if you start hurling insults then whine about it when they're slung back (as you most definitely did do), you come across as a loser.
I don't know how many times I have to state why you're a troll. I guess that mud in your ears isn't falling out any time soon. You're a troll because you harp on semantics and are rude and ignorant. Purposefully missing the point then abusing someone for getting their semantics right makes you a vulgar little troll. Get it?
Do you fucking understand the meaning of the word troll, shit for brains? A troll is someone who's main goal in arguing is to piss the other person off. Being vulgar and abusive (which you've just admitted to) is certainly a nice start.
Arrogance. Check. Pendantic raving about semantics. Check. Vulgar and abusive. Check.
YOU ARE A TROLL. You're just too stupid to know it, or too trollish to admit it.
As for the rest of your post stick it up your arse you pathetic little troll. Go find someone else to feed you. I hope you enjoyed typing it because I'm not going to respond to personal attacks by a child with anything lengthier. So go fuck yourself. I have better things to do.
is he? I also *assumed* that such lending would *probably* break the terms on which he receives them, but unless you have a copy of his terms of use in front of you, or would like to toss a link I'm going to go ahead and not presume anything about what those terms might actually be
Please, get a clue and try and argument that isn't piss weak. Can you fucking tell me why else he'd be living in fear of it? Or why he'd have received a player and dvds that only work in that restricted player. Do you think it's because they're trying to facilitate copying? The ONLY logical conclusion is that it's against the terms of use (not terms of service - if you're going to be pedantic about abusing me over minute detail at least get the detail right yourself).
At the very least, and all i was trying to say, lending is not piracy. lending is lending
Oh boo fucking hoo you dishonest prat. Try saying it without calling me an "asshole" and telling me to get off my high horse. You're a troll.
t. Its not just linguistic squabbling on my part, you are inappropriately using narrowly defined terms, and that's bullshit argument...and yet you're just as lax with your own language. Again you're a troll.
you're deriding him for doing or not doing something which you have no way of knowing he has or hasnt done
Huh? Nice straw man. I'm posting a response to the details he gave me: That he's an association member and gets pre-release dvds. I made very little in the way of assumption and found it disturbing that someone in such a privelleged position still wanted to complain whilst breaking the rules when the consequence for him is losing his position of privelege (in contrast to those who live in fear of being prosecuted into bankruptcyfor doing something as simple as backing up their dvds).
You're a quibbling troll.
Hrm, anal trolling git... that's a new one. Well, i do apologize for taking issue with the toolishness with which you were taking GP to task. Clearly, i should have, like you, responded not to something you actually said, but some implication of what you said that I had no way of knowing or verifying and then taken you to task for that. Man, what was I thinking?
Pot. Kettle. Black.
I suppose what you expected was chocolates and flowers when calling someone an asshole and telling them to get off their high horse. Idiot.
As for this talk of trolling and social skills, well, i dunno. You posted a rant against a guy predicated on a faulty use of piracy. you were being an asshole. I pointed out both things. Can't handle it?
"Faulty use of piracy". Well how about your "faulty use of terms of service". No, you understood the meaning and intent of my message and instead of responding like a rational human being you choose to be abusive and fixate on the technical misuse of a term. What exactly is it that I'm suppose to be unable to handle? Your feeble argumentative skills or your complete lack of social skill? Don't make me laugh you pathetic little troll.
Fuck off. Saying that Lending != Piracy isnt being anal, its pointing out a fact.
Well double dumb ass to you too fella.
More straw men. It wasn't me that first mentioned piracy. The GP said that he was afraid his mother would lend to friends who would copy. That's called piracy (even though its not rape and pillage on the high seas). The GP was afraid of being caught over piracy. He wasn't afraid his mother would get caught with the lent dvd, he was afraid it would be copied and distributed.
Instead of taking this on board, you choose to be a stupid childish troll and fixate on a definition.
Simply my opinion, but based on the way you were conducting yourself in the discussion. It is, of course, absolutely hiLARious that your response ends with what is essentially 'stfu TROLL'
Dude you need help. You started the abuse and you're lecturing me on how I'm conducting this discussion??? What are you
He's violating the conditions of being given those disks - conditions which the industry imposes much more harshly on outsiders. Furthermore his worry is that his mother will lend out the disks against his wishes and therefore allow them to be copied which is piracy. Therefore he would be cut off for aiding the piracy. This is why he lives in fear.
The solution is simple. He's not meant to be lending out the disks to his mother, so he shouldn't do that. No paranoia or fear required. If he thinks these conditions aren't reasonable well then perhaps he ought to complain to the powers that be in the industry he's part of. After all if he's getting those disks its because his opinion counts in some way, not because the movie industry likes to give them away for charity. He's in a much better position to change the situation than an outsider.
So how about you stop your trolling long enough to get the mud out of your ears and the shit out of our brains, and perhaps learn some social skills so that you don't come across as an anal trolling git with the social skills of a hungry grizzly bear. Or more succinctly: Grow the fuck up.
Encryption or at least some kind of selectivity on the signal for a remote would be nice. How many of us geeks have bought devices with conflicting remotes. I have a set of 5.1 speakers that I've had to cover with cardboard stuck on with velcro because the dvd remote triggers them. I recently bought a video switch box with remote that I had to return because the dvd remote triggered it. (As far as I'm concerned if you're using the same frequencies as common dvds, suggesting that such a unit is used to switch between dvd and tv etc. is just plain misleading. It's not fit for purpose!).
For that matter many cheap dvd players share similar commands so you can't have 2 dvd players switched on in the same room (granted there's very little practical use for that, but I can think of one - mulitple people watching different programs with headphones on while still spending time in each other's company. Not something i've actually done but I've thought about it especially after my wife watches a reality tv marathon!!!)
You work for the industry and are finding yourself screwed by the industry's own DRM and living in fear due to their tactics. The things is by lending your elderly mother those disks you're commiting piracy. If you weren't doing that you wouldn't be "living in fear". Are we really suppose to have any sympathy for you? You're part of the industry that's created the problem. You get advanced releases and are in a position of trust. You do the wrong thing with them. How about the poor schmuck that pays for every movie and can't return them when they discover a manufacturing fault or worse when the entire DVD collection starts to rot? How about the schmuck that does the right thing and doesn't copy their disk only to find they have to sit through 10 minutes of brainwashing anti piracy propaganda every time they watch their movie?
I could make a CD of nothing but my wife snoring, and I own the copyright to it
I think if you made a CD of your wife snoring, you'd probably be too much in fear of your life (or having your testicles removed) to worry about copyright.
I got that the first time around. Working in the field is a better way to gain exposure to practical problems. You get the added benefit of coming up with solutions on your own. Better than trying to shoehorn the lessons you learned in college into real life.
There are problems that look simple but actually turn out to be complex. There are problems that are deceptive in that you think you've solved them but in reality you've left something out that will bite you in the ass. Learning in the real world about these problems may mean creating a system that appears to work but really doesn't.
Care to enlighten me as to its significance beyond that?
The significance of the halting problem is teaching you a way to deduce whether or not a problem is computable. ie. whether trying to build a computer program to solve the problem in the first place is a sensible thing to do. If you're telling me you'd have come up with that particular proof by counter example on your own in what is considered a reasonable time frame commercially, you're telling me you're a genius. However once you've seen this proof you can try to apply something similar to a problem to work out whether a problem is computable.
It should be, but it isn't. You aren't in debt, good for you. I hope you're doing a lot better than "not in debt".
I do okay thanks.
While not an Einstein, I'm quite a bit smarter than the average bear. I was going to bring up the "original thought" argument myself but decided against it. I can't even tell you how many times I was able to come up with creative solutions to problems that my educated coworkers didn't even know how to approach.
Having a degree doesn't make you good at the job. You're telling me you're good at your job and I believe you. Some of your co-workers clearly aren't. No degree is going to make them creative thinkers. However if you had been exposed to the knowledge they have been I don't doubt for one moment that you'd be even better.
They all told me that aside from having some fun and learning about different things, it would do absolutely nothing for my career. They all say that with the experience and skill that I have, a degree would only slow me down....and they'll keep telling you that while presenting their degrees as justification for every promotion they apply for until they're earning more than you and/or they're in a position of authority over you. Then they'll take credit for your hard work.
I remember interviewing a graduate of Cornell and turning him down because he had poor communication skills.
My current job is in support and writing software in both Java/J2EE and C. My last had some Java and lots of Smalltalk (which isn't much sought after where I am anymore). I was told 2 years after I got the job that there was a technically stronger candidate but that he was going to be a problem fitting in with the team (they alluded to ego issues). As I said a degree is necessary but not sufficient. Plenty of people that understand the technical side of computing well have almost no social skills. The degree doesn't filter for those which is why you need to when you hire.
However if you're making six figures before you hit 25, you might not need it after all. It reminds me of a certain Bill something or other who started a $oftware company
There's a different reason for his success. If you're willing to play dirty and step all over people you can go far especially if you have luck such as Mr Gates did. Don't get me wrong - the man worked hard. But he also left his scruples and manners behind.
Degrees aren't JUST about earning potential (though that's important). If it were I'd never have done my Astronomy masters knowing full well I'd never use it in my work.
ps - I would have responded sooner but I had to take the day off to go snowboarding.
Hope you had fun. It's clear we may never agree on this, but you've definitely been fun to debate with (and unlike many heated debates here it hasn't gotten too nasty)
. On top of my head, I can think of three scenarios where earth will never get hit by an asteroid without us actively preventing such an event:
Your 3 scenarios are so statistically unlikely, you may as well go out and buy a lotto ticket.
I speak as someone who has a masters degree in astronomy (but I did the degree for myself, I've never used it professionally). You're speaking as someone who chooses to hold your hands over your ears and yell lalalalala at the top of your voice while sticking your head in a bucket of sand.
I don't think the Universe is a perpetual motion device, so eventually there simply won't be anything flying around anymore. So no, the chance that we get hit by a rock from space from now on till the end of time is pretty high but not exactly 100%
So let me get this straight. With the future of humanity at stake, you instead tend to quibble about whether a probability is virtually 100% or exactly 100%. I can see you have your priorities in order. Betting the future of humanity on chances much less remote than winning lotto isn't sane.
Of all the things we should care about and that need fixing lest we be headed towards disaster, a rock from space is not very high on the priority list, that's all - and Joe Average does not need a wake-up call about it just yet.
When should they get that wakeup call? Right as the earth's about to be obliterated? With current technology we have something like a 1 in 10 chance (probably much less but that's best case) of even seeing the fucking thing coming. Precisely because fools like you and the uneducated Joe Average would rather spend resources on hollywood movies and assinine wars than actually trying to protect life on Earth. Where do you think funding comes from? How much funding do you think scientists get if it's not on Joe Average's radar.
Hence I don't see the need for a wake-up call.
I don't see the need in refuting this further. You've demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the situation, an ability to quibble about the trivial (meaning and nature of statistics) while ignoring the important, and shown a total disregard for enormous loss of human life. You're either troll or an idiot and I have no more time for either.
Fully 50% of the people I've demoed it for, have ordered one. So, if you don't want to want one, don't touch one, don't get a demo of one, and you'll be blissfully ignorant.
Good salesmen can sell snake oil. Part of the process is selecting the right sheep^H^H^H^H^Hpeople. Doesn't make it a good product.
What's the bet you don't mention it's flaws.
Me, I always have to take the red pill...
Now that I believe.
If a phone isn't feature complete or is intentionally crippled I have no interest in paying large sums of money for it. I can't stand Apple's marketting, sales and support practices so I'll happily stay away. The one time I've succumb in the last few years was to buy my wife and I iPods. Big mistake. Staying away from Apple means no pills needed.
You want crippled? Your crappy MP3 player which forces you to put music on it using the Windows Explorer, that's crippled.
Only a complete fool would argue that a crypticly named set of directories and files that you have to use software to fix beats a mountable drive with well named MP3s.
By the way I own an iPod and while it does most things well crippling the ability to copy back off the thing (done in software with a minor iTunes update) was awful. It makes syncing playlists harder. Oh and my click wheel never quite worked right. I'd have had to go without my iPod for a couple of months to get it fixed thanks to a no returns policy so I live with it but as far as I'm concerned Apple are awful and treat their customers like shite.
Oh and do me a favour. Stop getting your buddy to mod you insightful. It's tragic.
I've got an iTurd for sale just for you. Just $999. Special one day offer.
You really should change your name to AppleFanboy. I bet if Apple came out with iTurd you'd defend it too. Apple's so lucky to have sheep like you to sell overpriced crap to.
It should be pointed out that the people who actually know Jobs tend to disagree with this public notion of him as a mercurial asshat.
It should be noted that throwing a tantrum is bad manners, and this is independent of whether it's an asshat or a saint doing it.
As for your comment on the iPhone, you don't understand what the fuss is precisely because you think that more features make a better phone. Please!
What I don't understand is why a product with such a blaring omission is getting so much attention. This isn't some weird extra feature you wouldn't expect on a camera enabled phone. It appears to be a software limitation. Only a fool or someone with too much time on their hands would buy such a piece of garbage and then hack their way around the restriction. If this were some basic phone, that just made calls, well fair enough. It's not though. It's expensive and there's no excuse for this feature being missing given that almost every other phone has it.
The fucking thing is a fad. It'll go down in history with hula hoops and yoyos, except that it won't make a comeback once the stinking piece of shit dies.
Actually what you're saying just a very sugar coated "shut up". The GP has made legitimate points, and sees what Sun is doing as a bad thing. Your argument that his slamming the company for doing such a bad thing actually forces the company more into a corner doesn't hold water. The company has already made these decisions and has been in decline for a very long time. The fact is Sun use to be seen as a golden vision of the correct way to engineer servers. With their current policies, they are seen in a much less flattering light. The perception changed in response to their actions, and not the other way around.
The effect was even more terrifying than one of Jobs' trademark tantrums. When the Apple chief screamed at his staff, it was scary but familiar. This time, his relative calm was unnerving. 'It was one of the few times at Apple when I got a chill,' says someone who was in the meeting."
The only reason to fear your boss is that your boss can effectively end your livelihood or career. Lauding power over people like that, throwing tantrums, and scaring your employees by staring them down or through false calm just makes me very happy I've never worked for such people. I've had some excellent bosses who've produced some excellent results and none of them have ruled by fear. There's one I remember who got accolades on retiring this year and all anyone could ever say about him was that he was calm and an absolute gentleman under pressure. In contrast when I read about Jobs and Gates I just think "goes to show money won't buy manners".
As for the iPhone can't say I understand what the fuss about this product is. Last time I participated in a discussion about it someone was rabbiting on about hacks to do video, as if video were an advanced feature for a modern phone. Please!
Okay this article mentions: 1) Identity theft 2) A celebrity who holds extreme views on a wide range of topics of interest to nerds, from the environment to computers and identiity theft. 3) The celebrity has changed his mind on the topic after being proven wrong by a very cheeky identity thief. 4) That celebrity presents a show that does interest nerds. (Not just the cars either. One episode showed a car being blown off the tarmac by a 747's engine thrust).
How is this not news? How is this not interesting?
Yet a comment like yours gets modded as insightful instead of -1:troll. More proof that/. comment moderation is badly broken. Burn Karma! Burn!
A wake-up call to a 1 in a 1000000000000000000000000000000 chance of a piece of rock hitting us?
Ignoring the threat is asinine. Your statement of the odds shows a clear misunderstanding of the reality.
The odds are exactly 100% that we'll get hit. It's just a matter of timing. Yes the chances you'll get hit in your lifetime are slim (though you've added too many zeros). If you don't give a damn about the human race surviving, you should skip the rest of this message.
If you think I'm exaggerating, plenty of scientists predicted the odds of something like the Shoemaker-Levy comet as very very slim. It happened. Planetary impacts happen. Yes Earth's a smaller target with a lot less gravity, but our written history is terrible beyond a couple of hundred years and non-existent beyond a few thousand. Never mind the technology to see large impacts up close and personal.
Here's why we should care. WHEN this happens it kills a significant proportion of the world's population or potentially even wipes us out. By contrast that Christmas Tsunami billed as the biggest tragedy to the human race in history killed a fraction of a percent of our population. EVEN if you think the chances are slim it'll happen the resulting carnage would be so immense that it's worth paying attention to.
I bet you think it'd be reasonable to take out motor insurance even if you haven't had an accident for 10 years. Yet apparently paying attention to the world we live in beyond Earth has to be ridiculed and we need to pretend we're powerless to influence things beyond our own planet's orbit.
My point is that a degree (or lack of) is not a good indicator of a person's skills.
I'd say a degree is necessary but not sufficient for a well rounded professional. Yes you can pick up a lot of it in your own time, but there are things you learn at uni that are difficult to learn on your own. Disagree all you like. Many employers don't disagree and many won't look at you without a degree. If you want to maximize you job prospects you'll get a degree. That's the way the world works. Deal with it.
If you're going to write a compiler then hopefully you'll be doing some on-the-job research beforehand. At this point you will likely discover the HP and its relevance to the task at hand. Otherwise it is more or less useless academic trivia.
You simply don't understand, so let me put it differently. The broader a spectrum of problems you've considered, the better a coder you'll be. University is an excellent way to gain exposure to a very wide variety of problems. You'll be able to draw parallels with those problems, work out ways to adapt some of the solutions and work out which problems to avoid entirely (which is the point of learning about computability, and problems like the travelling salesman and the halting problem).
I don't quite understand what you're saying. I interpreted it as: "If you don't understand these things and you come across a complex problem then you can bring a project unstuck." Maybe you meant to say "If you understand these things..." Anyway, the halting problem in and of itself is not significant unless you are writing a compiler (correct me if I'm mistaken). Like you said, it is part of a whole class of unsolvable problems, but you don't need college to realize that such problems exist.
You're completely mistaken. The halting problem has nothing to do with compilers. My example about writing the compiler was completely separate. You've just exposed your ignorance and made it clear you're discussing something you don't even have a basic understanding of. Go look it up on Wikipedia at least. You certainly DON'T need a degree to understand this stuff but if you learn it in a structured way through a degree you won't be making silly statements like this.
(Since you probably won't look it up, the halting problem is about writing a program that will take as its input a program, and tell you if that program will eventually halt. Though it sounds like a straightforward problem, it can't be done).
doubt that anybody read my comment anyway, but if it helps deter somebody from going thousands of dollars into debt while missing out on investment opportunities (aside from the time-value of money), then it was worth it.
If you have to get into debt to do a degree you have to weight whether it's worth it. I'm not in debt. My wife is. Frankly I think higher education should be free. In Australia it was free until 1987. If you have to go without food, housing or health care to do your degree I'd agree that's not a wise move.
However it was not illogical. Too often we justify our life decisions to ourselves and others because it is painful to consider what could have been if we had made different choices. I'm as guilty as you, thanks for pointing that out.
My point was not to put you down or ridicule your life choices. As far as I'm concerned anyone who gets off their backside and tries to excel is 1000 times better than any jerk with a degree who simply paid for it and put in no effort. HOWEVER I do disagree with you about degrees being worthless. If you have the chance to do a degree, even if there's some sacrifice involved, if it's the right degree - a good one - it will make you a better professional. You will have experiences and opportunities in the short years doing it that you won't get in the rest of your professional career. It will open doors for you. That's not to say you should be considered lowly if you don't have one, and it's true that degrees aren't for everyone, but if you can do it, I'd say you
Wrong, they were not coerced into signing that agreement. None of these students was required to participate in interscholastic competitive sports, and participation in such sports were not required as a condition of graduation, but rather completely voluntary. While I doubt any of these students read the pledge they signed (still not a valid excuse), they were in no way forced to sign it if they disagreed with the school's/state's policy governing student athletics.
You're the sort of tosser that thinks 100 page EULAs are perfectly reasonable aren't you.
Sure they weren't forced to participate in interscholastic sports. However there's a lot of pressure to do so from peers, parents, teachers and the institutions themselves. Kids that don't do so are often teased, bullied or labelled as nerds.
they disagreed they could have simply abstained from playing on the school's teams.
That's completely unreasonable. Go look up the definition of coercion.
Again, that is a mischaracterization, the agreement in no way impinged on their right to an education.
So now you're saying that team sports aren't part of a healthy well rounded education?
. They free attend classes, irregardless of having signed the pledge, the pledge was only required as a condition to participate in the school's athletic programs....and if they sat on their backsides and did no sports you'd be the first to blame them and their parents for their lack of fitness or weight problems.
Whether it's brain or body, the rule of fitness in nature is use it or lose it. If you're not exercising your brain and your body every day you can expect them to deteriorate. Some forms of deterioration are more permanent than others. The aging process certainly comes into it as well, but it's not the end all be all. For example could it be that you react less quickly in video games because you play them less often than when you were younger? At least might that not be a contributing factor?
arre': let's remember - to participate in student athletics in Minnesota, EVERY student must sign a pledge to entirely abstain from alcohol or tobacco as a student athlete, and (as I recall, it was 20 years ago I was in EPHS) even to avoid being PRESENT at such activities. Say what you want about the motivation behind the rule, the simple fact is that every one of them signed such a promise and are now blatantly proved to be breaking it. Busted.
the simple fact is that every one of them was co-erced into signing such a promise.
Fixed it for you.
Seriously. Take another look at what you just wrote. You're basically saying that you KNOW they signed it because they have no choice in the matter if they want to participate in school.
Slashdot Mirror
Look where it got RMS -- no one takes him seriously anymore and the project that put him on the map clearly considers him irrelevant
He doesn't get taken seriously because he's got no social skills. He's rude, combative and dresses up in a robe and halo calling himself the patron saint of free software to make his point. He thinks he's being clever but all he's doing is coming across as a "smelly hippy". This man wrote good portions of EMACS and worked on earlier versions of GCC, yet his social skills are such that I wouldn't trust him to make a toast at a wedding, let alone act as leader in a movement.
By the way I've met the man years ago and seen him dress up in a robe and he was rude to me because I was the only person at a meeting of the programmers society at my university. (I'd come straight from work hoping to hear from someone who I had some respect for). I posed the question "What do you say to someone who says that open source software is difficult to use, or buggy?" His response "I hadn't heard that. Who says it's difficult to use. It's not difficult to use"...all in the most sneering and dismissive tone he could muster. I had a genuine question. He obviously took it as some kind of attack. He lost me forever right then and there.
I take and edit a lot of photos. I'm a hobbyist not a pro though. So I took a look at Paint.NET. It's better than I thought it would be but it's still got limitations and odditities. Perhaps if I used it for a while I'd get around some of these. Others are missing features that I doubt could be gotten around.
If you don't like the interface on GIMP, try GIMPShop. It doesn't make the GUI as good as Photoshop in all ways, but it does make it a lot more familiar. The GIMP may be ugly but it's powerful.
This won't be popular but don't open source it in the FSF sense, but do supply the source code with the product under commercial license. Unless you find a company to sponsor your work on it, you won't make money from the work you've already done with a GNU public license. (Yes you can make money with consultancy, customization etc. but only if the product's very popular and if you're a VERY talented and dedicated programmer)
If you want to release the source code you could at the same time release a free for personal use, evaluation and development (but not commercial use) version. Include source code with this version too. It doesn't have to be crippled either. It just has to be clear that it's not legal to use it commercially, or modify and re-distribute under the license you choose/create (or any other). Larger companies and those with a fragile reputation will comply (or at least some of them will, and you will make money). Some even have software compliance departments.
Do not include restrictive copy protection, DRM or other such nonsense. Accept some people will "pirate" it and don't waste time, money or resources trying to prevent that.
By all means also offer support contracts and consultancy.
Wittgenstein's Tractatus? Please. You're so full of yoruself. You've tried to dazzle and confuse with your purportedly wide knowledge, but fail to actually counter-argue the point. (Plenty of personal attacks though).
The GP said outright that he was afraid one of his mother's friends would copy the DVD. This is called piracy. It doesn't matter what books you've read or what terms you apply to it. The GP was afraid of being implicated in piracy and therefore being ejected from the association.
Your straw men:
Straw man 1: syousef's main point was thatd lending is piracy. Lending clearly is not piracy. Therefore syousef is an asshole and doesn't know what he's talking about.
While I may have misapplied the term, that certainly wasn't my main point, nor was it crucial to my main point. Yet you keep attacking the point even after I'd conceded it. Since you're into the history of logic I suggest you actually look up where the term straw man came from.
Straw man 2: Find it your damned self.
Granted, I did call you an asshole first. mea culpa.
Now why is it that I don't think that's a genuine apology especially given that you continue to whine...
apparently not, perhaps you should try explaining it again, maybe this time with more invective, personal slander, and cursing, it wasn't quite meta enough that time.
Translation: I can dish it out but I can't take it.
No, it was a box I bought from a place called Jaycar here that deals mostly with electronics and components. It was on the same frequencies and responded to remotes from a number of cheap DVD players I own. The concept is great, but the box didn't do the job I needed so I had to take it back. Pity.
this is true, which is why I also assumed as much. But there's a difference between assuming something and acting as if its fact.
Oh so you've never heard of deductive reasoning, troll? How do you think we know most of what we know about the world around us? Because some magical person walked up and spelt it out? Then you have the gaul to tell me you're not sure I don't understand what a strawman is because you can't see one in your pathetic rant.
i *actually* said to curse me out for, eh?
You mean like calling me an asshole and telling me to get off my high horse. Stop playing the fucking victim. It's pathetic.
Yes, I should have been more specific. All I was trying to say when pointing out that you had misused the term piracy was that lending != piracy. I entirely meant that you were being an asshole, and needed to get the fuck off your high horse. That doesnt make me a troll, that makes me vulgar.
Actually, it makes you a vulgar troll. You know nothing about me, and if you start hurling insults then whine about it when they're slung back (as you most definitely did do), you come across as a loser.
I don't know how many times I have to state why you're a troll. I guess that mud in your ears isn't falling out any time soon. You're a troll because you harp on semantics and are rude and ignorant. Purposefully missing the point then abusing someone for getting their semantics right makes you a vulgar little troll. Get it?
Do you fucking understand the meaning of the word troll, shit for brains? A troll is someone who's main goal in arguing is to piss the other person off. Being vulgar and abusive (which you've just admitted to) is certainly a nice start.
Arrogance. Check.
Pendantic raving about semantics. Check.
Vulgar and abusive. Check.
YOU ARE A TROLL. You're just too stupid to know it, or too trollish to admit it.
As for the rest of your post stick it up your arse you pathetic little troll. Go find someone else to feed you. I hope you enjoyed typing it because I'm not going to respond to personal attacks by a child with anything lengthier. So go fuck yourself. I have better things to do.
is he? I also *assumed* that such lending would *probably* break the terms on which he receives them, but unless you have a copy of his terms of use in front of you, or would like to toss a link I'm going to go ahead and not presume anything about what those terms might actually be
..and yet you're just as lax with your own language. Again you're a troll.
Please, get a clue and try and argument that isn't piss weak. Can you fucking tell me why else he'd be living in fear of it? Or why he'd have received a player and dvds that only work in that restricted player. Do you think it's because they're trying to facilitate copying? The ONLY logical conclusion is that it's against the terms of use (not terms of service - if you're going to be pedantic about abusing me over minute detail at least get the detail right yourself).
At the very least, and all i was trying to say, lending is not piracy. lending is lending
Oh boo fucking hoo you dishonest prat. Try saying it without calling me an "asshole" and telling me to get off my high horse. You're a troll.
t. Its not just linguistic squabbling on my part, you are inappropriately using narrowly defined terms, and that's bullshit argument.
you're deriding him for doing or not doing something which you have no way of knowing he has or hasnt done
Huh? Nice straw man. I'm posting a response to the details he gave me: That he's an association member and gets pre-release dvds. I made very little in the way of assumption and found it disturbing that someone in such a privelleged position still wanted to complain whilst breaking the rules when the consequence for him is losing his position of privelege (in contrast to those who live in fear of being prosecuted into bankruptcyfor doing something as simple as backing up their dvds).
You're a quibbling troll.
Hrm, anal trolling git... that's a new one. Well, i do apologize for taking issue with the toolishness with which you were taking GP to task. Clearly, i should have, like you, responded not to something you actually said, but some implication of what you said that I had no way of knowing or verifying and then taken you to task for that. Man, what was I thinking?
Pot. Kettle. Black.
I suppose what you expected was chocolates and flowers when calling someone an asshole and telling them to get off their high horse. Idiot.
As for this talk of trolling and social skills, well, i dunno. You posted a rant against a guy predicated on a faulty use of piracy. you were being an asshole. I pointed out both things. Can't handle it?
"Faulty use of piracy". Well how about your "faulty use of terms of service". No, you understood the meaning and intent of my message and instead of responding like a rational human being you choose to be abusive and fixate on the technical misuse of a term. What exactly is it that I'm suppose to be unable to handle? Your feeble argumentative skills or your complete lack of social skill? Don't make me laugh you pathetic little troll.
Fuck off. Saying that Lending != Piracy isnt being anal, its pointing out a fact.
Well double dumb ass to you too fella.
More straw men. It wasn't me that first mentioned piracy. The GP said that he was afraid his mother would lend to friends who would copy. That's called piracy (even though its not rape and pillage on the high seas). The GP was afraid of being caught over piracy. He wasn't afraid his mother would get caught with the lent dvd, he was afraid it would be copied and distributed.
Instead of taking this on board, you choose to be a stupid childish troll and fixate on a definition.
Simply my opinion, but based on the way you were conducting yourself in the discussion. It is, of course, absolutely hiLARious that your response ends with what is essentially 'stfu TROLL'
Dude you need help. You started the abuse and you're lecturing me on how I'm conducting this discussion??? What are you
He's violating the conditions of being given those disks - conditions which the industry imposes much more harshly on outsiders. Furthermore his worry is that his mother will lend out the disks against his wishes and therefore allow them to be copied which is piracy. Therefore he would be cut off for aiding the piracy. This is why he lives in fear.
The solution is simple. He's not meant to be lending out the disks to his mother, so he shouldn't do that. No paranoia or fear required. If he thinks these conditions aren't reasonable well then perhaps he ought to complain to the powers that be in the industry he's part of. After all if he's getting those disks its because his opinion counts in some way, not because the movie industry likes to give them away for charity. He's in a much better position to change the situation than an outsider.
So how about you stop your trolling long enough to get the mud out of your ears and the shit out of our brains, and perhaps learn some social skills so that you don't come across as an anal trolling git with the social skills of a hungry grizzly bear. Or more succinctly: Grow the fuck up.
Encryption or at least some kind of selectivity on the signal for a remote would be nice. How many of us geeks have bought devices with conflicting remotes. I have a set of 5.1 speakers that I've had to cover with cardboard stuck on with velcro because the dvd remote triggers them. I recently bought a video switch box with remote that I had to return because the dvd remote triggered it. (As far as I'm concerned if you're using the same frequencies as common dvds, suggesting that such a unit is used to switch between dvd and tv etc. is just plain misleading. It's not fit for purpose!).
For that matter many cheap dvd players share similar commands so you can't have 2 dvd players switched on in the same room (granted there's very little practical use for that, but I can think of one - mulitple people watching different programs with headphones on while still spending time in each other's company. Not something i've actually done but I've thought about it especially after my wife watches a reality tv marathon!!!)
You work for the industry and are finding yourself screwed by the industry's own DRM and living in fear due to their tactics. The things is by lending your elderly mother those disks you're commiting piracy. If you weren't doing that you wouldn't be "living in fear". Are we really suppose to have any sympathy for you? You're part of the industry that's created the problem. You get advanced releases and are in a position of trust. You do the wrong thing with them. How about the poor schmuck that pays for every movie and can't return them when they discover a manufacturing fault or worse when the entire DVD collection starts to rot? How about the schmuck that does the right thing and doesn't copy their disk only to find they have to sit through 10 minutes of brainwashing anti piracy propaganda every time they watch their movie?
I could make a CD of nothing but my wife snoring, and I own the copyright to it
I think if you made a CD of your wife snoring, you'd probably be too much in fear of your life (or having your testicles removed) to worry about copyright.
The employee stock from companies with the nice bosses hasn't done nearly as well over the long haul in my small statistical sampling. YMMV.
Here's to selective sampling, and the fact that you're not my boss. Thank fuck for that.
I got that the first time around. Working in the field is a better way to gain exposure to practical problems. You get the added benefit of coming up with solutions on your own. Better than trying to shoehorn the lessons you learned in college into real life.
...and they'll keep telling you that while presenting their degrees as justification for every promotion they apply for until they're earning more than you and/or they're in a position of authority over you. Then they'll take credit for your hard work.
There are problems that look simple but actually turn out to be complex. There are problems that are deceptive in that you think you've solved them but in reality you've left something out that will bite you in the ass. Learning in the real world about these problems may mean creating a system that appears to work but really doesn't.
Care to enlighten me as to its significance beyond that?
The significance of the halting problem is teaching you a way to deduce whether or not a problem is computable. ie. whether trying to build a computer program to solve the problem in the first place is a sensible thing to do. If you're telling me you'd have come up with that particular proof by counter example on your own in what is considered a reasonable time frame commercially, you're telling me you're a genius. However once you've seen this proof you can try to apply something similar to a problem to work out whether a problem is computable.
It should be, but it isn't. You aren't in debt, good for you. I hope you're doing a lot better than "not in debt".
I do okay thanks.
While not an Einstein, I'm quite a bit smarter than the average bear. I was going to bring up the "original thought" argument myself but decided against it. I can't even tell you how many times I was able to come up with creative solutions to problems that my educated coworkers didn't even know how to approach.
Having a degree doesn't make you good at the job. You're telling me you're good at your job and I believe you. Some of your co-workers clearly aren't. No degree is going to make them creative thinkers. However if you had been exposed to the knowledge they have been I don't doubt for one moment that you'd be even better.
They all told me that aside from having some fun and learning about different things, it would do absolutely nothing for my career. They all say that with the experience and skill that I have, a degree would only slow me down.
I remember interviewing a graduate of Cornell and turning him down because he had poor communication skills.
My current job is in support and writing software in both Java/J2EE and C. My last had some Java and lots of Smalltalk (which isn't much sought after where I am anymore). I was told 2 years after I got the job that there was a technically stronger candidate but that he was going to be a problem fitting in with the team (they alluded to ego issues). As I said a degree is necessary but not sufficient. Plenty of people that understand the technical side of computing well have almost no social skills. The degree doesn't filter for those which is why you need to when you hire.
However if you're making six figures before you hit 25, you might not need it after all. It reminds me of a certain Bill something or other who started a $oftware company
There's a different reason for his success. If you're willing to play dirty and step all over people you can go far especially if you have luck such as Mr Gates did. Don't get me wrong - the man worked hard. But he also left his scruples and manners behind.
Degrees aren't JUST about earning potential (though that's important). If it were I'd never have done my Astronomy masters knowing full well I'd never use it in my work.
ps - I would have responded sooner but I had to take the day off to go snowboarding.
Hope you had fun. It's clear we may never agree on this, but you've definitely been fun to debate with (and unlike many heated debates here it hasn't gotten too nasty)
. On top of my head, I can think of three scenarios where earth will never get hit by an asteroid without us actively preventing such an event:
Your 3 scenarios are so statistically unlikely, you may as well go out and buy a lotto ticket.
I speak as someone who has a masters degree in astronomy (but I did the degree for myself, I've never used it professionally). You're speaking as someone who chooses to hold your hands over your ears and yell lalalalala at the top of your voice while sticking your head in a bucket of sand.
I don't think the Universe is a perpetual motion device, so eventually there simply won't be anything flying around anymore. So no, the chance that we get hit by a rock from space from now on till the end of time is pretty high but not exactly 100%
So let me get this straight. With the future of humanity at stake, you instead tend to quibble about whether a probability is virtually 100% or exactly 100%. I can see you have your priorities in order. Betting the future of humanity on chances much less remote than winning lotto isn't sane.
Of all the things we should care about and that need fixing lest we be headed towards disaster, a rock from space is not very high on the priority list, that's all - and Joe Average does not need a wake-up call about it just yet.
When should they get that wakeup call? Right as the earth's about to be obliterated? With current technology we have something like a 1 in 10 chance (probably much less but that's best case) of even seeing the fucking thing coming. Precisely because fools like you and the uneducated Joe Average would rather spend resources on hollywood movies and assinine wars than actually trying to protect life on Earth. Where do you think funding comes from? How much funding do you think scientists get if it's not on Joe Average's radar.
Hence I don't see the need for a wake-up call.
I don't see the need in refuting this further. You've demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the situation, an ability to quibble about the trivial (meaning and nature of statistics) while ignoring the important, and shown a total disregard for enormous loss of human life. You're either troll or an idiot and I have no more time for either.
Fully 50% of the people I've demoed it for, have ordered one. So, if you don't want to want one, don't touch one, don't get a demo of one, and you'll be blissfully ignorant.
Good salesmen can sell snake oil. Part of the process is selecting the right sheep^H^H^H^H^Hpeople. Doesn't make it a good product.
What's the bet you don't mention it's flaws.
Me, I always have to take the red pill...
Now that I believe.
If a phone isn't feature complete or is intentionally crippled I have no interest in paying large sums of money for it. I can't stand Apple's marketting, sales and support practices so I'll happily stay away. The one time I've succumb in the last few years was to buy my wife and I iPods. Big mistake. Staying away from Apple means no pills needed.
You want crippled? Your crappy MP3 player which forces you to put music on it using the Windows Explorer, that's crippled.
Only a complete fool would argue that a crypticly named set of directories and files that you have to use software to fix beats a mountable drive with well named MP3s.
By the way I own an iPod and while it does most things well crippling the ability to copy back off the thing (done in software with a minor iTunes update) was awful. It makes syncing playlists harder. Oh and my click wheel never quite worked right. I'd have had to go without my iPod for a couple of months to get it fixed thanks to a no returns policy so I live with it but as far as I'm concerned Apple are awful and treat their customers like shite.
Oh and do me a favour. Stop getting your buddy to mod you insightful. It's tragic.
I've got an iTurd for sale just for you. Just $999. Special one day offer.
You really should change your name to AppleFanboy. I bet if Apple came out with iTurd you'd defend it too. Apple's so lucky to have sheep like you to sell overpriced crap to.
It should be pointed out that the people who actually know Jobs tend to disagree with this public notion of him as a mercurial asshat.
It should be noted that throwing a tantrum is bad manners, and this is independent of whether it's an asshat or a saint doing it.
As for your comment on the iPhone, you don't understand what the fuss is precisely because you think that more features make a better phone. Please!
What I don't understand is why a product with such a blaring omission is getting so much attention. This isn't some weird extra feature you wouldn't expect on a camera enabled phone. It appears to be a software limitation. Only a fool or someone with too much time on their hands would buy such a piece of garbage and then hack their way around the restriction. If this were some basic phone, that just made calls, well fair enough. It's not though. It's expensive and there's no excuse for this feature being missing given that almost every other phone has it.
The fucking thing is a fad. It'll go down in history with hula hoops and yoyos, except that it won't make a comeback once the stinking piece of shit dies.
Actually what you're saying just a very sugar coated "shut up". The GP has made legitimate points, and sees what Sun is doing as a bad thing. Your argument that his slamming the company for doing such a bad thing actually forces the company more into a corner doesn't hold water. The company has already made these decisions and has been in decline for a very long time. The fact is Sun use to be seen as a golden vision of the correct way to engineer servers. With their current policies, they are seen in a much less flattering light. The perception changed in response to their actions, and not the other way around.
The effect was even more terrifying than one of Jobs' trademark tantrums. When the Apple chief screamed at his staff, it was scary but familiar. This time, his relative calm was unnerving. 'It was one of the few times at Apple when I got a chill,' says someone who was in the meeting."
The only reason to fear your boss is that your boss can effectively end your livelihood or career. Lauding power over people like that, throwing tantrums, and scaring your employees by staring them down or through false calm just makes me very happy I've never worked for such people. I've had some excellent bosses who've produced some excellent results and none of them have ruled by fear. There's one I remember who got accolades on retiring this year and all anyone could ever say about him was that he was calm and an absolute gentleman under pressure. In contrast when I read about Jobs and Gates I just think "goes to show money won't buy manners".
As for the iPhone can't say I understand what the fuss about this product is. Last time I participated in a discussion about it someone was rabbiting on about hacks to do video, as if video were an advanced feature for a modern phone. Please!
Okay this article mentions:
/. comment moderation is badly broken. Burn Karma! Burn!
1) Identity theft
2) A celebrity who holds extreme views on a wide range of topics of interest to nerds, from the environment to computers and identiity theft.
3) The celebrity has changed his mind on the topic after being proven wrong by a very cheeky identity thief.
4) That celebrity presents a show that does interest nerds. (Not just the cars either. One episode showed a car being blown off the tarmac by a 747's engine thrust).
How is this not news? How is this not interesting?
Yet a comment like yours gets modded as insightful instead of -1:troll. More proof that
A wake-up call to a 1 in a 1000000000000000000000000000000 chance of a piece of rock hitting us?
Ignoring the threat is asinine. Your statement of the odds shows a clear misunderstanding of the reality.
The odds are exactly 100% that we'll get hit. It's just a matter of timing. Yes the chances you'll get hit in your lifetime are slim (though you've added too many zeros). If you don't give a damn about the human race surviving, you should skip the rest of this message.
If you think I'm exaggerating, plenty of scientists predicted the odds of something like the Shoemaker-Levy comet as very very slim. It happened. Planetary impacts happen. Yes Earth's a smaller target with a lot less gravity, but our written history is terrible beyond a couple of hundred years and non-existent beyond a few thousand. Never mind the technology to see large impacts up close and personal.
Here's why we should care. WHEN this happens it kills a significant proportion of the world's population or potentially even wipes us out. By contrast that Christmas Tsunami billed as the biggest tragedy to the human race in history killed a fraction of a percent of our population. EVEN if you think the chances are slim it'll happen the resulting carnage would be so immense that it's worth paying attention to.
I bet you think it'd be reasonable to take out motor insurance even if you haven't had an accident for 10 years. Yet apparently paying attention to the world we live in beyond Earth has to be ridiculed and we need to pretend we're powerless to influence things beyond our own planet's orbit.
My point is that a degree (or lack of) is not a good indicator of a person's skills.
I'd say a degree is necessary but not sufficient for a well rounded professional. Yes you can pick up a lot of it in your own time, but there are things you learn at uni that are difficult to learn on your own. Disagree all you like. Many employers don't disagree and many won't look at you without a degree. If you want to maximize you job prospects you'll get a degree. That's the way the world works. Deal with it.
If you're going to write a compiler then hopefully you'll be doing some on-the-job research beforehand. At this point you will likely discover the HP and its relevance to the task at hand. Otherwise it is more or less useless academic trivia.
You simply don't understand, so let me put it differently. The broader a spectrum of problems you've considered, the better a coder you'll be. University is an excellent way to gain exposure to a very wide variety of problems. You'll be able to draw parallels with those problems, work out ways to adapt some of the solutions and work out which problems to avoid entirely (which is the point of learning about computability, and problems like the travelling salesman and the halting problem).
I don't quite understand what you're saying. I interpreted it as: "If you don't understand these things and you come across a complex problem then you can bring a project unstuck." Maybe you meant to say "If you understand these things..." Anyway, the halting problem in and of itself is not significant unless you are writing a compiler (correct me if I'm mistaken). Like you said, it is part of a whole class of unsolvable problems, but you don't need college to realize that such problems exist.
You're completely mistaken. The halting problem has nothing to do with compilers. My example about writing the compiler was completely separate. You've just exposed your ignorance and made it clear you're discussing something you don't even have a basic understanding of. Go look it up on Wikipedia at least. You certainly DON'T need a degree to understand this stuff but if you learn it in a structured way through a degree you won't be making silly statements like this.
(Since you probably won't look it up, the halting problem is about writing a program that will take as its input a program, and tell you if that program will eventually halt. Though it sounds like a straightforward problem, it can't be done).
doubt that anybody read my comment anyway, but if it helps deter somebody from going thousands of dollars into debt while missing out on investment opportunities (aside from the time-value of money), then it was worth it.
If you have to get into debt to do a degree you have to weight whether it's worth it. I'm not in debt. My wife is. Frankly I think higher education should be free. In Australia it was free until 1987. If you have to go without food, housing or health care to do your degree I'd agree that's not a wise move.
However it was not illogical. Too often we justify our life decisions to ourselves and others because it is painful to consider what could have been if we had made different choices. I'm as guilty as you, thanks for pointing that out.
My point was not to put you down or ridicule your life choices. As far as I'm concerned anyone who gets off their backside and tries to excel is 1000 times better than any jerk with a degree who simply paid for it and put in no effort. HOWEVER I do disagree with you about degrees being worthless. If you have the chance to do a degree, even if there's some sacrifice involved, if it's the right degree - a good one - it will make you a better professional. You will have experiences and opportunities in the short years doing it that you won't get in the rest of your professional career. It will open doors for you. That's not to say you should be considered lowly if you don't have one, and it's true that degrees aren't for everyone, but if you can do it, I'd say you
Wrong, they were not coerced into signing that agreement. None of these students was required to participate in interscholastic competitive sports, and participation in such sports were not required as a condition of graduation, but rather completely voluntary. While I doubt any of these students read the pledge they signed (still not a valid excuse), they were in no way forced to sign it if they disagreed with the school's/state's policy governing student athletics.
...and if they sat on their backsides and did no sports you'd be the first to blame them and their parents for their lack of fitness or weight problems.
You're the sort of tosser that thinks 100 page EULAs are perfectly reasonable aren't you.
Sure they weren't forced to participate in interscholastic sports. However there's a lot of pressure to do so from peers, parents, teachers and the institutions themselves. Kids that don't do so are often teased, bullied or labelled as nerds.
they disagreed they could have simply abstained from playing on the school's teams.
That's completely unreasonable. Go look up the definition of coercion.
Again, that is a mischaracterization, the agreement in no way impinged on their right to an education.
So now you're saying that team sports aren't part of a healthy well rounded education?
. They free attend classes, irregardless of having signed the pledge, the pledge was only required as a condition to participate in the school's athletic programs.
Go fly a kite.
Whether it's brain or body, the rule of fitness in nature is use it or lose it. If you're not exercising your brain and your body every day you can expect them to deteriorate. Some forms of deterioration are more permanent than others. The aging process certainly comes into it as well, but it's not the end all be all. For example could it be that you react less quickly in video games because you play them less often than when you were younger? At least might that not be a contributing factor?
arre': let's remember - to participate in student athletics in Minnesota, EVERY student must sign a pledge to entirely abstain from alcohol or tobacco as a student athlete, and (as I recall, it was 20 years ago I was in EPHS) even to avoid being PRESENT at such activities. Say what you want about the motivation behind the rule, the simple fact is that every one of them signed such a promise and are now blatantly proved to be breaking it. Busted.
the simple fact is that every one of them was co-erced into signing such a promise.
Fixed it for you.
Seriously. Take another look at what you just wrote. You're basically saying that you KNOW they signed it because they have no choice in the matter if they want to participate in school.