Dammit, I had a good long response, and Opera ate it.
Basically what I said is that I'm not urging people to put their names on the presidential ballot just yet. Just that they should seriously consider it for the future.
I don't plan on running for anything more prestigious than City Councillor in the next 5 years, if that. I just plan on slowly gathering the facts of the system, learning what I can, when I can, and when I'm ready, putting that knowledge to use. If "geeks" all start now, then maybe there will be more than a few of them in high positions in, say, 20 years.
Don't run out today and change your life, but keep it in mind as a serious route to take if you want to affect change in your lifetime.
I have no illusions about the difficulty (well, I probably do, but I'm completely unaware of them:), but that's no reason not to try - the other option is revolution.
Now, I have no experience with politics, but I do plan on following my own advice once I'm able to afford to take the chance. Spending hours every day reading the minutae of various legislation isn't my idea of a fun job. But if I can actually make a difference, and put myself in a position where politicians will give my views an honest chance over a cup of coffee or a beer, it's worth it.
I've already determined a couple of obvious problems areas. I'm going to have to learn to make small talk, for instance. Learn how to schmooze. Social engineering, for the most part. This ties into your problem of system "keeping you down". If you have people who support you through any "scandals" that come up, you're far more likely to come out of it alive. Hell - you're more likely to not even feel it at all - compare the fidelity of Kennedy and Clinton.
In any case, I feel if we could mobilize the geek community in politics, a real difference could be made. Of course, trying to mobilize the geek community to *anything* is like trying to herd displacer beasts.
Seriously. The entire/. crowd has a phobia of getting in a position to make a change. If a lawyer is qualified, why aren't you? If a car salesman is qualified, why aren't you? 99% of the issues a politician has to deal with they have never had any formal experience with.
We complain about the voting system, we complain about copyright laws, we complain about the war - someone bloody get in the position to *do* something.
It's a long climb up the political ladder, but if one in a hundred/.'ers took it upon themselves to try for something as simple as city councillor, we can expect at least a few clueful people would make it to the lofty chairs in Congress.
I had my motor go out about a year ago. It took about an hour of searching the web and opening up the printer to confirm that that was the problem. Then it was another hour to put it in when the replacement motor came in. Actually - it turned out to be a 10-cent plastic piece that broke.
Anyawy, if you like the printer, it might not be that hard to fix. I got the diagnosis and replacement part from www.fixyourownprinter.com.
I have a LaserJet 4L that's been in the family almost a decade. It was used by my mother - an accountant - when she worked from home. She'd end up printing 6000-10000 pages during the busy months.
It still works perfectly, the cartridge has only been replaced a few times in ten years, and I had to replace the motor last year. If you can pick one up for $50 on ebay, DO IT. Best investment you'll ever make.
Ummmm your site doesn't seem to work (in Mozilla at least).
Without frames, clicking the cat gets us "Invalid URL". With frames, the left and right "Mango images" do not appear. When I found them with my mouse (it seems they're a bad url, but you can still click where they should be), I still get an error:
Your query failed. Try again.
If it keeps failing:
1. You entered an incorrect Google key. If you don't have one, leave it blank (or as the default, 'key: none')
2. 1000 searches have already been used for the day -- come back tomorrow or get a free license key from Google.
3. Try using only 1 or 2 words combined with the country/language options.
4. Look at the search history to see the most recent random webpages served.
5. Google may be down. Try again later.
6. Try using the archived version.
Reading them, and looking at the venue, I'm going to suggest it's 2:)
Actually, I sort of wonder why Canon hasn't done this. It's a *selling point* for god's sake. They have the best prices out there, and aren't pulling any of the cheap tricks Lexmark is.
I honestly think that the reason it hasn't happened in this instance is because no one's thought of it.
I agree the free market won't take care of everything. I personally would love to see a list of details ranging from expected lifetime to power consumption to noise on the electronics I buy.
But in this particular case, I think that self-regulation could work.
All it would take is for a couple of manufacturers to design a snazzy logo and put it on the front of all of their printers, very prominently. It would also include all pertinent refill information. Again - very prominently.
At this point, people might begin to wonder why Lexmark doesn't have these shiny new logos. And despite the relatively lax "truth in advertising" laws in the US, if Lexmark lies, they have to go up against the other printer companies - not just the consumers.
I don't quite understand what you're driving at here. I'm saying that there are differences between men and women. I'm saying that humans will pick up on those differences. Those differences will then be converted to stereotypes. And those stereotypes will be applied in situations where they probably shouldn't be applied.
I don't understand what your point is about blacks/mexicans. But to answer your question, the best black athletes are better runners than the best white ones, judging from Olympic runners. And mexicans do not "all like spicy food and have black hair". But if you compare them to your average American, you will find a higher incidence of enjoying spicy food and having black hair. The first is cultural, the second is genetic, and I don't know why you're bringing either up.
I never said that nurturing was a bad managerial trait. I never said that there wasn't more to productivity than gender. I said that people's views of women vs men will have an affect on their decisions. And that women may be more naturally talented at certain occupations.
There's no reason management cannot be one of these occupations. Maybe women's psychological/hormonal differences make them better at managing a team. I don't know - I haven't done the studies.
As a civilization, we are still very young in the process of equality. Women have steadily been getting more rights over the past century. But where will it end? Once we reach a "stable" state, what will it be? I suggest that the fundamental differences hormonally and physialogically will result in men and women preferring different occupations. I'm not saying this as an absolute. Maybe 40% of linguists will be women, the other 60% will be men. Maybe the other way around. But once rights are established as equal, and opportunity is established as equal, there will *still* be a disparity in the portions of women/men pursuing different careers.
What the hell? I was using a simple example everyone could relate to. My point isn't that "men are strong".
Women have less incident of schitzophrenia than men. Women have less incident of genius than men. Women are more emotional than men. Men are more aggressive than women. Men are more logical than women. Women are more empathetic than men. Men and women have different thought processes, resulting in different decisions under the same circumstances.
Half of these I've read studies about, the other half I've made up using common stereotypes. The fact is though that women and men are fundamentally different with respect to certain traits.
Assuming women are better at relating to people, and I had to choose a "Friendly Team" for the upcoming "Friendly Bowl", purely on merit - then it would probably end up being made up mostly of women, because they would have the most merit. There - ya happy?
Either I didn't write the post well, or you misinterpreted - a lot of what you said doesn't pertain to what I was trying to say.
I was talking statistics, not individuals. Take a hundred men and a hundred women, and total up how much each group can lift. Men are stronger, on average. This isn't "black and white" at all - it's an average. Men are not stronger as individuals, but I never said they were.
What I said was that given that 70% (made up stat) of the men a child meets are stronger than an average woman, the child will naturally form the opinion that men tend to be stronger than women - a correct opinion. Strength is just the most obvious trait I could think of - empathy, logical thought, language skills - the same could be applied to them. If 70% of the women someone meets are more articulate than the average man, then the stereotype will reflect that.
I'm not making a value judgement - I'm not saying "that's good", "that's bad". I'm saying that because of the natural tendency to group things (including people) and assign traits to those groups, stereotypes will persist. It is extremely hard to even recognize all of your preconceived notions, let alone ignore them.
I'm not promoting a system where men and women are judged based on their gendres - I'm saying that it is difficult to escape that system.
Men - on average - are stronger, and thus better at many sports. This translates to having many sports teams dominated by men. Even if the coach had no idea what the gendre of each member was during tryouts, you would still have mostly men. This is because on average men are stronger.
Basically, I'm saying that genetic differences between men and women are real. They're not absolute, there may only be a difference of 5% or less in a lot of traits. But these real genetic differences will translate into real differences in how women/men are viewed as a stereotype in people's minds. This, in turn, will have an effect on how men and women are treated. If everyone were examined individually, this wouldn't happen and the world would be a better place. But in general we don't have the time/inclination to learn about every single person we know individually, so we fall back on preconceived notions.
You state that I'm "making excuses" for how things are. I'm trying to explain it, sure. But I agree that how things are isn't how they should be. I also can't see any absolute solution to it though, and I outlined why in my post.
I hate to say it, but maybe this will continue to be the status quo. This is a different issue from racism, because there are obvious and measurable differences between the sexes.
It boils down to human psychology. People love to generalize. It makes life a million times easier than having to approach every situation as if you'd never seen it before. "Women are weak" - it's not an absolute truth, but put a woman beside a man, and chances are the man will be stronger, simply because of genetic differences. Thus the human mind wants to build that stereotype as a core belief. I suspect that is why you seldom see women as high-ranking military officers - deep down inside, their superiors don't believe they can be as "tough".
And I seriously cannot see any solution to this. Not through social programs, not through culural changes. People will always be constantly surrounded by men who are on average, stronger than women, and their mind will press that image onto others.
It doesn't just go for strength either. I believe that women are more nurturing, more emotional, and less prone to using pure reasoning in making decisions. This is *not* a bad thing - it is a different thing. And once again, these subtle differences will enforce themselves on the human mind.
So what's the solution? I don't think we will ever have "equality", where men and women are treated equally. Women are not just men with breasts. I think that the best solution would be to recognize that there are things that women do better than men, and nurture that. There has been a boom in female psychiatrists, for instance. Women generally are more empathetic than men, so this makes sense.
I think the best we can hope for is "parity", where women make the same money doing jobs they're good at as men do with jobs they're good at. I'm not saying this is right - I'm just saying that I can't see any way to overcome the overwhelming force of evolution. I'm also not saying that a woman can't rise to the top of the programming industry, or a man won't be able to rise to the top of whatever jobs eventually become mostly the domain of women. But I believe that the barrier to entry will always be higher simply because of preconceived notions of how well a gendre performs particular actions.
Speaking of which - let's put the previous PATRIOT Act article in perspective.
Millions of Americans -- more than the entire population of Sweden-- live in property (Just because a few Swedish countries are outsourcing stuff there doesn't mean America is some sort of wonderful, prosperous Democratic playground)...etc,etc,etc.
This is just another "murders are going on - why are we wasting time investigating rapes" argument.
Slashdot needs a "Move thread up one" moderation, so a comment that clarifies a story or disproves a commonly-held opinion on the story can be the first thing people read (and this option could be turned off in user settings, of course)
I'm not defending the burglar at all - I'm saying that the punishment should fit the crime. I'm not defending any "right" of someone to trespass - any more than I'm defending the right of some punk to key your car, or for shoplifter to steal a candybar. But it's hardly a crime worthy of dying for.
And if you're shooting a burglar, you'd damned well better be shooting to kill. If they don't have a gun, then you're better off pointing yours at them and telling them to fsck off. If they do have a gun, then by shooting at them you're placing them in a "fight or flight" situation - and you've already incapacitated them for flight.
Neither am I saying that there aren't situations in which the "shoot to kill" method may be the safest. If there is a history of violence in your neighborhood, if there have been numerous breakins that resulted in violence, if you've been threatened. But I am saying that a risk analysis may be in order before making such a decision.
A gun is a powerful weapon, and studies have shown that merely having one in the house increases the chances of being injured. Obviously there are numerous causes for this, and you can probably bring the probability of injury down close to nothing with the right precautions. But the fact is that the second a gun comes into the equation, both sides are a lot more on edge.
Look at these statistics for your area - how many burglaries occurred in the past few years - how many of these occurred while the victims were home - how many victims confronted the burglar - what was the burglar's reaction
Then decide whether it is worth having a gun in the house. If only 1/1000 people in your area get burgled every year, and 90% of those occur when the victims are away, and 90% of those caught in the act fled or were otherwise harmless...you get the picture.
Once again, this isn't about rights, it's about reasoning. As I said in the parent post: if you're getting a gun because it is safer - good on yez - and shoot to kill. If you're getting a gun because it makes you feel safer, then you should take a serious look at the facts and reevaluate your decision.
I can't believe how fearful you sound. You're willing to kill a complete stranger because he *might* do something to you? A system like yours is 100 times more likely to result in tragedy. What if it's some teenager going in on a dare? What if it's a drunk neighbor? What if it's some starving kid who just wants food? Whether they should be in your house or not, they hardly deserve to be killed.
What if the intruder has a gun of his own? He's more likely to shoot if he sees that you have one too. If you're unarmed - most burglars don't want to commit murder any more than you do. They're not necessarily violent criminals - they're just looking for easy money.
How often do you have a break&enter while you're home anyway? Robbers much prefer to houses without people in them. Is the protection you feel about having a gun worth the inherent dangers of owning one shown in study after study?
Okay - maybe you live in the worst part of town, have been robbed five times before, and have everyone you care about well-informed of the dangers of rummaging around late at night. But if not, I suggest you take a look at some statistics and determine if having a gun actually makes you and yours safer, or just makes you feel safer.
Slashdot Mirror
Dammit, I had a good long response, and Opera ate it.
Basically what I said is that I'm not urging people to put their names on the presidential ballot just yet. Just that they should seriously consider it for the future.
I don't plan on running for anything more prestigious than City Councillor in the next 5 years, if that. I just plan on slowly gathering the facts of the system, learning what I can, when I can, and when I'm ready, putting that knowledge to use. If "geeks" all start now, then maybe there will be more than a few of them in high positions in, say, 20 years.
Don't run out today and change your life, but keep it in mind as a serious route to take if you want to affect change in your lifetime.
I have no illusions about the difficulty (well, I probably do, but I'm completely unaware of them :), but that's no reason not to try - the other option is revolution.
Now, I have no experience with politics, but I do plan on following my own advice once I'm able to afford to take the chance. Spending hours every day reading the minutae of various legislation isn't my idea of a fun job. But if I can actually make a difference, and put myself in a position where politicians will give my views an honest chance over a cup of coffee or a beer, it's worth it.
I've already determined a couple of obvious problems areas. I'm going to have to learn to make small talk, for instance. Learn how to schmooze. Social engineering, for the most part. This ties into your problem of system "keeping you down". If you have people who support you through any "scandals" that come up, you're far more likely to come out of it alive. Hell - you're more likely to not even feel it at all - compare the fidelity of Kennedy and Clinton.
In any case, I feel if we could mobilize the geek community in politics, a real difference could be made. Of course, trying to mobilize the geek community to *anything* is like trying to herd displacer beasts.
Seriously. The entire /. crowd has a phobia of getting in a position to make a change. If a lawyer is qualified, why aren't you? If a car salesman is qualified, why aren't you? 99% of the issues a politician has to deal with they have never had any formal experience with.
/.'ers took it upon themselves to try for something as simple as city councillor, we can expect at least a few clueful people would make it to the lofty chairs in Congress.
We complain about the voting system, we complain about copyright laws, we complain about the war - someone bloody get in the position to *do* something.
It's a long climb up the political ladder, but if one in a hundred
I had my motor go out about a year ago. It took about an hour of searching the web and opening up the printer to confirm that that was the problem. Then it was another hour to put it in when the replacement motor came in. Actually - it turned out to be a 10-cent plastic piece that broke.
Anyawy, if you like the printer, it might not be that hard to fix. I got the diagnosis and replacement part from www.fixyourownprinter.com.
I have a LaserJet 4L that's been in the family almost a decade. It was used by my mother - an accountant - when she worked from home. She'd end up printing 6000-10000 pages during the busy months.
It still works perfectly, the cartridge has only been replaced a few times in ten years, and I had to replace the motor last year. If you can pick one up for $50 on ebay, DO IT. Best investment you'll ever make.
My god - that paper was practically a perfect profile of myself.
Ummmm your site doesn't seem to work (in Mozilla at least).
:)
Without frames, clicking the cat gets us "Invalid URL".
With frames, the left and right "Mango images" do not appear. When I found them with my mouse (it seems they're a bad url, but you can still click where they should be), I still get an error:
Your query failed. Try again.
If it keeps failing:
1. You entered an incorrect Google key. If you don't have one, leave it blank (or as the default, 'key: none')
2. 1000 searches have already been used for the day -- come back tomorrow or get a free license key from Google.
3. Try using only 1 or 2 words combined with the country/language options.
4. Look at the search history to see the most recent random webpages served.
5. Google may be down. Try again later.
6. Try using the archived version.
Reading them, and looking at the venue, I'm going to suggest it's 2
Actually, I sort of wonder why Canon hasn't done this. It's a *selling point* for god's sake. They have the best prices out there, and aren't pulling any of the cheap tricks Lexmark is.
I honestly think that the reason it hasn't happened in this instance is because no one's thought of it.
I agree the free market won't take care of everything. I personally would love to see a list of details ranging from expected lifetime to power consumption to noise on the electronics I buy.
But in this particular case, I think that self-regulation could work.
All it would take is for a couple of manufacturers to design a snazzy logo and put it on the front of all of their printers, very prominently. It would also include all pertinent refill information. Again - very prominently.
At this point, people might begin to wonder why Lexmark doesn't have these shiny new logos. And despite the relatively lax "truth in advertising" laws in the US, if Lexmark lies, they have to go up against the other printer companies - not just the consumers.
I don't quite understand what you're driving at here. I'm saying that there are differences between men and women. I'm saying that humans will pick up on those differences. Those differences will then be converted to stereotypes. And those stereotypes will be applied in situations where they probably shouldn't be applied.
I don't understand what your point is about blacks/mexicans. But to answer your question, the best black athletes are better runners than the best white ones, judging from Olympic runners. And mexicans do not "all like spicy food and have black hair". But if you compare them to your average American, you will find a higher incidence of enjoying spicy food and having black hair. The first is cultural, the second is genetic, and I don't know why you're bringing either up.
I never said that nurturing was a bad managerial trait. I never said that there wasn't more to productivity than gender. I said that people's views of women vs men will have an affect on their decisions. And that women may be more naturally talented at certain occupations.
There's no reason management cannot be one of these occupations. Maybe women's psychological/hormonal differences make them better at managing a team. I don't know - I haven't done the studies.
As a civilization, we are still very young in the process of equality. Women have steadily been getting more rights over the past century. But where will it end? Once we reach a "stable" state, what will it be? I suggest that the fundamental differences hormonally and physialogically will result in men and women preferring different occupations. I'm not saying this as an absolute. Maybe 40% of linguists will be women, the other 60% will be men. Maybe the other way around. But once rights are established as equal, and opportunity is established as equal, there will *still* be a disparity in the portions of women/men pursuing different careers.
What the hell? I was using a simple example everyone could relate to. My point isn't that "men are strong".
Women have less incident of schitzophrenia than men. Women have less incident of genius than men. Women are more emotional than men. Men are more aggressive than women. Men are more logical than women. Women are more empathetic than men. Men and women have different thought processes, resulting in different decisions under the same circumstances.
Half of these I've read studies about, the other half I've made up using common stereotypes. The fact is though that women and men are fundamentally different with respect to certain traits.
Assuming women are better at relating to people, and I had to choose a "Friendly Team" for the upcoming "Friendly Bowl", purely on merit - then it would probably end up being made up mostly of women, because they would have the most merit. There - ya happy?
Either I didn't write the post well, or you misinterpreted - a lot of what you said doesn't pertain to what I was trying to say.
I was talking statistics, not individuals. Take a hundred men and a hundred women, and total up how much each group can lift. Men are stronger, on average. This isn't "black and white" at all - it's an average. Men are not stronger as individuals, but I never said they were.
What I said was that given that 70% (made up stat) of the men a child meets are stronger than an average woman, the child will naturally form the opinion that men tend to be stronger than women - a correct opinion. Strength is just the most obvious trait I could think of - empathy, logical thought, language skills - the same could be applied to them. If 70% of the women someone meets are more articulate than the average man, then the stereotype will reflect that.
I'm not making a value judgement - I'm not saying "that's good", "that's bad". I'm saying that because of the natural tendency to group things (including people) and assign traits to those groups, stereotypes will persist. It is extremely hard to even recognize all of your preconceived notions, let alone ignore them.
I'm not promoting a system where men and women are judged based on their gendres - I'm saying that it is difficult to escape that system.
Men - on average - are stronger, and thus better at many sports. This translates to having many sports teams dominated by men. Even if the coach had no idea what the gendre of each member was during tryouts, you would still have mostly men. This is because on average men are stronger.
Basically, I'm saying that genetic differences between men and women are real. They're not absolute, there may only be a difference of 5% or less in a lot of traits. But these real genetic differences will translate into real differences in how women/men are viewed as a stereotype in people's minds. This, in turn, will have an effect on how men and women are treated. If everyone were examined individually, this wouldn't happen and the world would be a better place. But in general we don't have the time/inclination to learn about every single person we know individually, so we fall back on preconceived notions.
You state that I'm "making excuses" for how things are. I'm trying to explain it, sure. But I agree that how things are isn't how they should be. I also can't see any absolute solution to it though, and I outlined why in my post.
I hate to say it, but maybe this will continue to be the status quo. This is a different issue from racism, because there are obvious and measurable differences between the sexes.
It boils down to human psychology. People love to generalize. It makes life a million times easier than having to approach every situation as if you'd never seen it before. "Women are weak" - it's not an absolute truth, but put a woman beside a man, and chances are the man will be stronger, simply because of genetic differences. Thus the human mind wants to build that stereotype as a core belief. I suspect that is why you seldom see women as high-ranking military officers - deep down inside, their superiors don't believe they can be as "tough".
And I seriously cannot see any solution to this. Not through social programs, not through culural changes. People will always be constantly surrounded by men who are on average, stronger than women, and their mind will press that image onto others.
It doesn't just go for strength either. I believe that women are more nurturing, more emotional, and less prone to using pure reasoning in making decisions. This is *not* a bad thing - it is a different thing. And once again, these subtle differences will enforce themselves on the human mind.
So what's the solution? I don't think we will ever have "equality", where men and women are treated equally. Women are not just men with breasts. I think that the best solution would be to recognize that there are things that women do better than men, and nurture that. There has been a boom in female psychiatrists, for instance. Women generally are more empathetic than men, so this makes sense.
I think the best we can hope for is "parity", where women make the same money doing jobs they're good at as men do with jobs they're good at. I'm not saying this is right - I'm just saying that I can't see any way to overcome the overwhelming force of evolution. I'm also not saying that a woman can't rise to the top of the programming industry, or a man won't be able to rise to the top of whatever jobs eventually become mostly the domain of women. But I believe that the barrier to entry will always be higher simply because of preconceived notions of how well a gendre performs particular actions.
Speaking of which - let's put the previous PATRIOT Act article in perspective.
Millions of Americans -- more than the entire population of Sweden-- live in property (Just because a few Swedish countries are outsourcing stuff there doesn't mean America is some sort of wonderful, prosperous Democratic playground)...etc,etc,etc.
This is just another "murders are going on - why are we wasting time investigating rapes" argument.
IHBT
I've said it before and I'll say it again:
Slashdot needs a "Move thread up one" moderation, so a comment that clarifies a story or disproves a commonly-held opinion on the story can be the first thing people read (and this option could be turned off in user settings, of course)
Hey - how about trials on anyone who agrees to it and can be shown to be of sound mind? Oooh! What a concept!
Not all slopes are slippery, dammit.
Hey, give the guy a break - he's just trying to protect Airstrip One.
Okay, it annoys me, but I've learned to accept people who spell it as "Micro$oft". But pi$$? PI$$?!
I think you've been mixing "golden shower" metaphors, my friend.
I'm not defending the burglar at all - I'm saying that the punishment should fit the crime. I'm not defending any "right" of someone to trespass - any more than I'm defending the right of some punk to key your car, or for shoplifter to steal a candybar. But it's hardly a crime worthy of dying for.
And if you're shooting a burglar, you'd damned well better be shooting to kill. If they don't have a gun, then you're better off pointing yours at them and telling them to fsck off. If they do have a gun, then by shooting at them you're placing them in a "fight or flight" situation - and you've already incapacitated them for flight.
Neither am I saying that there aren't situations in which the "shoot to kill" method may be the safest. If there is a history of violence in your neighborhood, if there have been numerous breakins that resulted in violence, if you've been threatened. But I am saying that a risk analysis may be in order before making such a decision.
A gun is a powerful weapon, and studies have shown that merely having one in the house increases the chances of being injured. Obviously there are numerous causes for this, and you can probably bring the probability of injury down close to nothing with the right precautions. But the fact is that the second a gun comes into the equation, both sides are a lot more on edge.
Look at these statistics for your area
- how many burglaries occurred in the past few years
- how many of these occurred while the victims were home
- how many victims confronted the burglar
- what was the burglar's reaction
Then decide whether it is worth having a gun in the house. If only 1/1000 people in your area get burgled every year, and 90% of those occur when the victims are away, and 90% of those caught in the act fled or were otherwise harmless...you get the picture.
Once again, this isn't about rights, it's about reasoning. As I said in the parent post: if you're getting a gun because it is safer - good on yez - and shoot to kill. If you're getting a gun because it makes you feel safer, then you should take a serious look at the facts and reevaluate your decision.
Fair enough - you came off as a bit more extreme "shoot first ask questions later" in the last post. I just got the wrong impression.
I can't believe how fearful you sound. You're willing to kill a complete stranger because he *might* do something to you? A system like yours is 100 times more likely to result in tragedy. What if it's some teenager going in on a dare? What if it's a drunk neighbor? What if it's some starving kid who just wants food? Whether they should be in your house or not, they hardly deserve to be killed.
What if the intruder has a gun of his own? He's more likely to shoot if he sees that you have one too. If you're unarmed - most burglars don't want to commit murder any more than you do. They're not necessarily violent criminals - they're just looking for easy money.
How often do you have a break&enter while you're home anyway? Robbers much prefer to houses without people in them. Is the protection you feel about having a gun worth the inherent dangers of owning one shown in study after study?
Okay - maybe you live in the worst part of town, have been robbed five times before, and have everyone you care about well-informed of the dangers of rummaging around late at night. But if not, I suggest you take a look at some statistics and determine if having a gun actually makes you and yours safer, or just makes you feel safer.
...and "Canada".
What were we talking about again?
forward 14.2m && left 23 degrees && forward 29.22m && right 12 degrees && forward 14.2m && left 16 degrees && forward 112m && left 12 degrees && forward 0.89m && left 16 degrees && forward 182m && right 50 degrees && forward 214.2m && left 90 degrees && forward 5m && right 90 degrees && forward 5m && right 90 degrees && forward 5m && left 90 degrees && forward 825m && stop;
We need a way to use mod-points to move a comment 5 places up or down. You, my friend, should be at the top of this non-story.
SCO won't tell us what the "offending" code is. It would be a non-issue and a hundred people would have already done what you suggest if they had.