A media server (which will take up more than a book shelf's worth of space) is certainly the bee's kness but it's still not a substitute for having some way of confirming legal posession.
My "media server" is a MacMini, a monitor, and a key board and mouse (tucked away), and is holding god knows how many albums, movies, and can access tons of streaming content. It syncs flawlessly with my TV, stereo, and iPod. I never have to shuffle disks, sit around pondering what I might feel like listening to (shuffle by album). Much more convenient than that large folder of CDs I keep in the closet.
As for proof of ownership... I never really cared. Doesn't seem that big a priority to me. I'm guessing Amazon and Apple might have some records of my purchases, and I do have 200 CDs in the aforementioned folder. I really doubt the question will ever come up, since I don't engage in piracy, or frequent areas where it happens.
But then again there is no way to know if most of the things I own are stolen or not. I don't keep receipts for everything in my house, and the mere possession of an object doesn't mean it is legal.
While I do lose a -little- sleep over not having a local backup of all my email...
Back it up via IMAP/POP3. I have Thunderbird on my box only to do monthy Gmail backups. It will remember when you last downloaded you archive, and sync from that point froward whenever you connect. Granted the first time you do this, it might be a pain, depending on how large your archive already is.
Course I don't even get why people use email anymore. It's pretty stupid, really. IM, telephones, and SMS are more than enough for me. I tend to not even answer emails at this point, to discourage people from thinking it's a worthwhile communication medium.
I prefer to write, and read, long well thought out messages. Most of the messages I send are at least a page long, and most of the ones I receive are long too. Not long ago I was working on a book with someone, and often the messages were around 5 pages in length, not of actual planned content, just discussion, debate, and analysis. I am a fan of thoughtful discussion, and not "mere" communications. I also like to sit around and revise and edit my emails, and sit and ponder other's.
IM and SMS are not good at this, as they tend to force conversation into brief missives, completely lacking nuance, or real content. Telephone doesn't leave a permenant record, and makes it harder to stick to point, or say things that can't be said quickly (having the other person interrupt, tangents, etc..)
There are also people like me out there, who can't stand cell-phones, and keep them off unless it really needs to be on, or it is appropriate for it to be on (i.e. at home). I don't like distractions, or meaningless jabber. I often tell people to try to only get ahold of me via email, since I check it 3 times a day (and have Growl tell me if its critical). I don't even answer my phone anymore, leave a damn message. I'm not dropping whatever I'm doing because you feel the need to say something, I'll get back to you when it is MUTUALLY convenient. The same goes for IM, I have 3 clients sitting on my HDD, none of which have been opened in months. If I need chitter-chatter, meet me at the local pub.
I'm guessing the parent is right. DnD is the domain of nerds, as is alternative OSs. By marketing to the mainstream demographic, they forget that their product isn't mainstream, by any stretch. A higher percentage of DnD players will be using Linux or OS X than the average population, its rather hard to argue against this. If the new iteration of/. was IE only, would you be okay with that, since most people in the general population use IE? Or would you be mindful that most nerds use something else?
The mainstream isn't useful when your dealing with small specialty groups.
Though I'm guessing that the truly nerdy will just continue to use IRC for their gaming needs.
We are at a point where tabletopping is ready to evolve, and Steve's reluctance to step in that direction could ultimately doom our beloved GURPS.
Why? I personally enjoy doing my paper and pen RPG thing with a group of real friends, located in a real room, drinking real beer, and eating real pizza. Its an excuse to have a social gathering. I don't see why it needs to, or should, "evolve" into another virtual thing, since that defeats the point to a large degree.
Me and a bunch of friends used to play Shadowrun campaigns via IRC YEARS ago, so the "virtual tabletop" idea isn't even new, nor an evolutionary step. You don't need big software to do things for you either, you email your character to the DM, meet up at the specified IRC channel at the specified time, and, you know, play as usual.
Why would it have to evolve? Is this one of those "we must utilize technology for its own sake" things, when it adds absolutely nothing to the experience, and subtracts a great deal.
But then again on my gaming nights we generally spend about 60% doing things that have nothing to do with gaming.
More and more I completely ignore bookmarks. I have one folder on the bookmark toolbar for frequent links, and use the rest of the bar for a quick cache for relevant links I should see. The actual bookmark menu is pretty much ignored completely. When I want to visit a site, I generally just start typing in the "awesome bar", and select the first or second item. Apparently it also learns. This is pretty much my behavior in FF2 as well, except for the ability to browse bookmarks.
The only real change FF3 has brought is the Unfiled Bookmark area, which I still find annoying, but it has its uses. I stick all the crap I might want to visit there, and then have a nice bookmark for the "awesome" bar to use.
It's sort of like Quicksilver for the internets, I suppose.
Don't expect to sporting a debate here, as I pretty much agree with you. I try to keep a fluid opinion on all the issues that are easily converted to dogmas in modern discourse. The more polarizing, the more nuance people seem to miss, generally.
The power to grant a license is also the power to deny it. Such methods have been used in the past to deny Arms to people those in power didn't want to have them. Most often minorities in the form of Blacks. Today, in NYC you can get a license to carry a concealed weapon. However, if you are not politically connected you can forget about
You got me there. I suppose licensing would work with a mostly trustful government, which is a historically dubious proposition. Though having a concrete set of rules, with no arbitrary bits would work in theory. I concede this, though.
b) Pro-gun people are often worried about creating anything even resembling a registry and with good reason.
How effective would a registry actually be for the forces of oppression? What percentage of the public actually own guns, how many of those guns are actually registered, or have any type of trail? Half of my families guns are heirlooms, which I doubt can ever be traced back to us. Also I think a registry, on the whole, isn't a terrible idea, it makes identifying handguns used in crimes easier to identify, and thus the perpetrator of crimes easier to identify.
We really can't say that many people don't BELONG in society, though we already acknowledge (to a point) that rights may be reneged for actions that are not healthy for society. Extending this past voting, imprisonment itself is a pretty massive rights violation, and I doubt that there are many people out there willing to wave imprisonment all-together (chopping off some of the lower crimes would be nice). Most of these revocations are temporary. So I still can't see an issue with remove guns from violent offenders, and a temporary basis.
As for what we bar, or allow, I'd have to be a little more utilitarian here. Small arms are fine, shotguns are fine, rifles are fine, the grey area is still assult rifles, but I'll give that to you, since your right if you haven't modified it to full auto by now, your stupid, lazy, or don't want to. Grenades though... I don't see any positive social contribution. We can weigh the already legal arms benefits to society, versus their bad bits rather easily. They are for protection, hunting, hobby, and perhaps protection from government (at some nebulous point in the future). Grenades only fit one of those criteria. Unless someone is actually lob a grenade at the trespasser in their living room (doing more property damage than the burglary would have walked away with ironically), or going to chuck them at Elk. I can't see many shooting ranges allowing grenades either, since they are much more dangerous than guns. The nebulous protection from government bit is necessary, but not sufficient, for allowing arms.
Here is the question though, what can be done to help gun violence, short of banning guns (which we agree is bad)? Obviously we have a serious problem in America, and this is why many people propose gun bans. We enter the cost analysis again, is the immediate harm worth it. We both, I'd think, agree, but its easy to see why other wouldn't. I suppose, though, that the question isn't fair, thanks to its massive scope.
My old gaming PC fried about 4 years ago, so I'd be needing a PSU, a case, a new CD/DVD ROM (preferably W/RW), a new MoBo, etc... Bascialy starting from scratch I'm looking at $700+, depending on if I want to upgrade my old 23" CRT, or not. Probably higher if I want something not requiring upgrading in under 3 years.
To be honest I don't even know where to start anymore, once my PSU (thanks compUSA) fried my mobo/CPU I switched to a PowerBook to stop fiddling with stupid hardware problems, eventually getting a middle of the line Vista notebook, to avoid silly hardware issues. I'm contemplating a new gaming box now, but would be starting from scratch. My last gaming box was around 10 years old counting incremental upgrades.
Starting from scratch makes me realize why people prefer consoles these days. I can't get a decent computer (predicting 5 years of gaming) for under the price of a 360 or PS3. All I care about is being able to play Fallout 3, Spore, DNF (lol), the next iteration of UT (when it stops sucking so bad), and perhaps the next Elder Scrolls game.
I kind of miss it. I really dislike the modern "stealth shooter" cliche, I missing running into a room full of mods, and leaving a room full of blood, while not worrying about hiding behind a milk carton, and throwing stones to distract one guard at a time. There is enough damn games like this now. We should move back to the good old fashioned violence and gore fest.
Though I'd prefer a game I could play on a sub-$1k computer, that too is getting damn old.
I don't have a well founded opinion on this issue, but I also don't think that there is anyone alive today who can actually guess what the founders had in mind, and times have radically changed since the bill of rights was drafted.
As stated earlier, I don't think felons should have the right to carry (as they lose the right to vote, as well), and I don't think that crackheads have the right either. I would leverage the "well regulated" bit to mean proper training, and responsibilities. Thus we should license firearms, you must prove your ability, and responsibility. This would bar a minimum of people from bearing arms, while keeping them out of the hands of those without the maturity to do so.
I'm sure I'll get flamed for this, but I prefer a common sense approach over a traditional approach. The constitution is a living document, by nature, and the interpretations of its meaning change with the changes of our society. We shouldn't remove ANY of it, nor bar weapons willy-nilly, but we must also keep an eye to the needs of a modern society, over one in the far past.
I think I'm one of the few people who will not attempt to read the minds of the founders, and claim I know what it means. Its a badly parsed statement, and probably the most ambiguous amendment of the constitution.
I do think though that the world is very different than when the founders wrote the bill of rights. We need to preserve the spirit of the second, while keeping our interpretation within the bounds of the real (modern) world. Whatever that means is up to debate.
I personally think that people do have the right to arms, BUT only if the people themselves are capable of handling them, and do so responsibly. Just like felonies remove your right to vote, it should remove your right to bear arms. And their should be varying degrees of licensing, to maintain the "well regulated" bit. Bob J. Crackhead shouldn't have an assault rifle.
Perhaps treat arms like a drivers license.
I'm sure someone will get up in... ahem... arms over this, but I prefer a debate based on common sense, rather and the psychic ability to read the founders minds.:)
Brute force, they would have to do the whole thing again. Merely having a table (a very very long one) doesn't mean much without running the whole thing again.
If they break, or find an exploit, in the algorithm though, then it would be much easier.
@they suck comments - apparently they're still doing something right if people are still buying their music, merchandise, and concert tickets...
Just because people spend money on it, doesn't mean its good. Ms. Spears sells how many damn albums?
@generic, parroted napster comments - how about i take what you use to make a living and give it away to everyone else for free so you see no revenue; remember, napster was one of the first "mainstream" ways to steal music and few groups, like metallica, actually own and control their music
It didn't mesh with their metal outlaw image very well. You can represent the rebellious metal head generation, AND try to be a nanny at the same time. It was implied hypocrisy. Like if Rage Against the Machine ever held a rally for the GOP, or if Tool started endorsing drug legislation.
@dry, old sell out comments - come on... really? people have said that band sold out every time they released an album. apparently the only way a band cant sell out is if they never move beyond club shows and never record a single album. Remember **this band controls their own music** and they dont answer to "the big bad record label". Get over it.
When you stop making music for music's sake, and start making it only to appeal to the most people, for the most money, you sold out. Yes, there is some level of compromise, but there are limits. When you change sounds ONLY for profit, you can't complain about losing your long time, and hardcore, fans.
Music shouldn't be only about getting rich by milking trends.
Where is the difference between post Load Metallica, and Ms. Spears?
While any definition of "militia" that doesn't translate to "every adult (male) citizen" is inaccurate wrt to the time the Constitution was written, more to the point, there is no definition of "militia" that makes "the people" not mean "the people".
Your forgetting the phrase "well regulated militia" not just "militia" in general. Your cherry picking the phraseology of the amendment. It does not read "A Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. " it reads "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. "
I like the 2nd as much as anyone else, but I'll gladly put priority on the 1st amendment, and perhaps the XIVth.
But then again I also think that the 2nd amendment needs some caveats, and some restrictions (should convicted violent felons really be allowed to own assault rifles, for example), whereas I can't think of any restrictions that should be placed on the 1st amendment.
It isn't a zero sum game, I fully realize that I'm going to disagree on some points with any view, but its the degree of fit that matters.
5 tabs open, using RC2: 102,772k on Vista (I know... I know...)
Its been open for about 3.5 hours, and I have been opening and closing tabs, using gmail and various other "interactive elements", I'm using 7 extensions. On minimize it reduces use to around 93,000k, and slowly rebounds over the course of a few minutes to slightly below the original usage.
FF2 used about 2x that for the same use pattern, with minimal benefits from minimizing. Though I have gotten FF2 to approach a gig before with some heavy usage of flash, ajax, and other "web app" platforms.
Didn't they kill bookmarks.html, isn't it now completely based on SQL-lite (light?)?
My only complaints with the Firefox3 stretch of betas is the "unfiled bookmarks" area. It sort of makes them a hidden graveyard of sites that you at one time or another found neat, since you can't access them from any menu outside of the "Library" window. In this vein, searching history is damn slow, and seems rather clunky.
The only technical bug I've found is spellcheck's insistence to stop working halfway through writing an email in gmail, and other random forms, especially after a certain amount of length or time (can't figure out which). Spellcheck is also damn stupid at times, and doesn't recognize most tech-based terms (such as, laughably "Firefox"), and often doesn't suggest common words based off a near misspelling.
Other than that it is much better than FF2, once you get used to the awesomebar (which is becomes indispensable slowly, I find my friends/parents installs of FF2 to be gimped now), and massive back button. I'm even getting used to the new OS X look on my Mac, there still is something terribly wrong with its looks though.
Einstein is a special case, since he was elite in a field that no one in the public cared about or understood. We pretty much deleted and disreguarded all of his political and humanitarian statements, to turn him into the idiot savant (and thus harmless) scientist we wanted.
In realms such as policy, politics, and. justice anything you say can be taken as elitist if it goes against what people want to think. Obama's "elitist" gun comment was the point where I decided TO vote for him, since I think he stated something very truthful, albeit unpopular. In any case like this, the "elitism" ad hominem gun comes out.
I went to school for the study of philosophy, so in many conversations I cite references, and historical contexts. Some people have called me elitist for this, and I always wonder how being informed, having context, and USING it can ever be considered a bad thing.
Hell, there still are people in my family (historically poor, blue collar folk) who look down on me only for the fact I have a college education. In America we confuse elitism for our strange strain of prideful anti-rationalism. We like the idea of "folk", for some strange reason, instead of intelligent, educated individuals with training in the task at hand.
On the otherhand, that is the good thing about this election, there isn't a single "folk" candidate (as hard as Hillary tried at times), so we probably won't be terribly mismanaged no matter who gets in office, even if I disagree with some policies (from everyone) they all are competent.
Not refuting you, just addressing a question I've had for some time;
If Padilla was fighting against the US as part of an organized effort, wouldn't that invalidate his citizenship? After this happened I looked at the small print on my passport, and it had words to that effect.
Hmmm... I don't see that option on the ballot. Where is this good leader with experience and knowledge? I think it fails on the last proposition, almost universally.
The Republicans always call the democrats "elitist". If elitist means okay with the current class structure, and against equality, then they also can't be "commie pinkos", or fall into the classic (ignorant) stereotype of "liberalism".
Elitism is crap. Being elite and not being elitist is good. It's also very difficult to achieve.
I would disagree. The average man generally proves themselves to complete morons, more often than not. I don't want to be average.
When someone calls a politician "elitist", I generally WANT to vote for them more. My experiences with the average man, has made me realize that they really shouldn't be allowed to govern themselves.
But then again I also think you should have to pass a literacy/IQ test to vote.
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A media server (which will take up more than a book shelf's worth of
space) is certainly the bee's kness but it's still not a substitute
for having some way of confirming legal posession.
My "media server" is a MacMini, a monitor, and a key board and mouse (tucked away), and is holding god knows how many albums, movies, and can access tons of streaming content. It syncs flawlessly with my TV, stereo, and iPod. I never have to shuffle disks, sit around pondering what I might feel like listening to (shuffle by album). Much more convenient than that large folder of CDs I keep in the closet.
As for proof of ownership... I never really cared. Doesn't seem that big a priority to me. I'm guessing Amazon and Apple might have some records of my purchases, and I do have 200 CDs in the aforementioned folder. I really doubt the question will ever come up, since I don't engage in piracy, or frequent areas where it happens.
But then again there is no way to know if most of the things I own are stolen or not. I don't keep receipts for everything in my house, and the mere possession of an object doesn't mean it is legal.
While I do lose a -little- sleep over not having a local backup of all my email...
Back it up via IMAP/POP3. I have Thunderbird on my box only to do monthy Gmail backups. It will remember when you last downloaded you archive, and sync from that point froward whenever you connect. Granted the first time you do this, it might be a pain, depending on how large your archive already is.
Course I don't even get why people use email anymore. It's pretty stupid, really. IM, telephones, and SMS are more than enough for me. I tend to not even answer emails at this point, to discourage people from thinking it's a worthwhile communication medium.
I prefer to write, and read, long well thought out messages. Most of the messages I send are at least a page long, and most of the ones I receive are long too. Not long ago I was working on a book with someone, and often the messages were around 5 pages in length, not of actual planned content, just discussion, debate, and analysis. I am a fan of thoughtful discussion, and not "mere" communications. I also like to sit around and revise and edit my emails, and sit and ponder other's.
IM and SMS are not good at this, as they tend to force conversation into brief missives, completely lacking nuance, or real content. Telephone doesn't leave a permenant record, and makes it harder to stick to point, or say things that can't be said quickly (having the other person interrupt, tangents, etc..)
There are also people like me out there, who can't stand cell-phones, and keep them off unless it really needs to be on, or it is appropriate for it to be on (i.e. at home). I don't like distractions, or meaningless jabber. I often tell people to try to only get ahold of me via email, since I check it 3 times a day (and have Growl tell me if its critical). I don't even answer my phone anymore, leave a damn message. I'm not dropping whatever I'm doing because you feel the need to say something, I'll get back to you when it is MUTUALLY convenient. The same goes for IM, I have 3 clients sitting on my HDD, none of which have been opened in months. If I need chitter-chatter, meet me at the local pub.
I'm guessing the parent is right. DnD is the domain of nerds, as is alternative OSs. By marketing to the mainstream demographic, they forget that their product isn't mainstream, by any stretch. A higher percentage of DnD players will be using Linux or OS X than the average population, its rather hard to argue against this. If the new iteration of /. was IE only, would you be okay with that, since most people in the general population use IE? Or would you be mindful that most nerds use something else?
The mainstream isn't useful when your dealing with small specialty groups.
Though I'm guessing that the truly nerdy will just continue to use IRC for their gaming needs.
We are at a point where tabletopping is ready to evolve, and Steve's reluctance to step in that direction could ultimately doom our beloved GURPS.
Why? I personally enjoy doing my paper and pen RPG thing with a group of real friends, located in a real room, drinking real beer, and eating real pizza. Its an excuse to have a social gathering. I don't see why it needs to, or should, "evolve" into another virtual thing, since that defeats the point to a large degree.
Me and a bunch of friends used to play Shadowrun campaigns via IRC YEARS ago, so the "virtual tabletop" idea isn't even new, nor an evolutionary step. You don't need big software to do things for you either, you email your character to the DM, meet up at the specified IRC channel at the specified time, and, you know, play as usual.
Why would it have to evolve? Is this one of those "we must utilize technology for its own sake" things, when it adds absolutely nothing to the experience, and subtracts a great deal.
But then again on my gaming nights we generally spend about 60% doing things that have nothing to do with gaming.
More and more I completely ignore bookmarks. I have one folder on the bookmark toolbar for frequent links, and use the rest of the bar for a quick cache for relevant links I should see. The actual bookmark menu is pretty much ignored completely. When I want to visit a site, I generally just start typing in the "awesome bar", and select the first or second item. Apparently it also learns. This is pretty much my behavior in FF2 as well, except for the ability to browse bookmarks.
The only real change FF3 has brought is the Unfiled Bookmark area, which I still find annoying, but it has its uses. I stick all the crap I might want to visit there, and then have a nice bookmark for the "awesome" bar to use.
It's sort of like Quicksilver for the internets, I suppose.
Don't expect to sporting a debate here, as I pretty much agree with you. I try to keep a fluid opinion on all the issues that are easily converted to dogmas in modern discourse. The more polarizing, the more nuance people seem to miss, generally.
The power to grant a license is also the power to deny it. Such methods have been used in the past to deny Arms to people those in power didn't want to have them. Most often minorities in the form of Blacks. Today, in NYC you can get a license to carry a concealed weapon. However, if you are not politically connected you can forget about
You got me there. I suppose licensing would work with a mostly trustful government, which is a historically dubious proposition. Though having a concrete set of rules, with no arbitrary bits would work in theory. I concede this, though.
b) Pro-gun people are often worried about creating anything even resembling a registry and with good reason.
How effective would a registry actually be for the forces of oppression? What percentage of the public actually own guns, how many of those guns are actually registered, or have any type of trail? Half of my families guns are heirlooms, which I doubt can ever be traced back to us. Also I think a registry, on the whole, isn't a terrible idea, it makes identifying handguns used in crimes easier to identify, and thus the perpetrator of crimes easier to identify.
We really can't say that many people don't BELONG in society, though we already acknowledge (to a point) that rights may be reneged for actions that are not healthy for society. Extending this past voting, imprisonment itself is a pretty massive rights violation, and I doubt that there are many people out there willing to wave imprisonment all-together (chopping off some of the lower crimes would be nice). Most of these revocations are temporary. So I still can't see an issue with remove guns from violent offenders, and a temporary basis.
As for what we bar, or allow, I'd have to be a little more utilitarian here. Small arms are fine, shotguns are fine, rifles are fine, the grey area is still assult rifles, but I'll give that to you, since your right if you haven't modified it to full auto by now, your stupid, lazy, or don't want to. Grenades though... I don't see any positive social contribution. We can weigh the already legal arms benefits to society, versus their bad bits rather easily. They are for protection, hunting, hobby, and perhaps protection from government (at some nebulous point in the future). Grenades only fit one of those criteria. Unless someone is actually lob a grenade at the trespasser in their living room (doing more property damage than the burglary would have walked away with ironically), or going to chuck them at Elk. I can't see many shooting ranges allowing grenades either, since they are much more dangerous than guns. The nebulous protection from government bit is necessary, but not sufficient, for allowing arms.
Here is the question though, what can be done to help gun violence, short of banning guns (which we agree is bad)? Obviously we have a serious problem in America, and this is why many people propose gun bans. We enter the cost analysis again, is the immediate harm worth it. We both, I'd think, agree, but its easy to see why other wouldn't. I suppose, though, that the question isn't fair, thanks to its massive scope.
My old gaming PC fried about 4 years ago, so I'd be needing a PSU, a case, a new CD/DVD ROM (preferably W/RW), a new MoBo, etc... Bascialy starting from scratch I'm looking at $700+, depending on if I want to upgrade my old 23" CRT, or not. Probably higher if I want something not requiring upgrading in under 3 years.
To be honest I don't even know where to start anymore, once my PSU (thanks compUSA) fried my mobo/CPU I switched to a PowerBook to stop fiddling with stupid hardware problems, eventually getting a middle of the line Vista notebook, to avoid silly hardware issues. I'm contemplating a new gaming box now, but would be starting from scratch. My last gaming box was around 10 years old counting incremental upgrades.
Starting from scratch makes me realize why people prefer consoles these days. I can't get a decent computer (predicting 5 years of gaming) for under the price of a 360 or PS3. All I care about is being able to play Fallout 3, Spore, DNF (lol), the next iteration of UT (when it stops sucking so bad), and perhaps the next Elder Scrolls game.
I kind of miss it. I really dislike the modern "stealth shooter" cliche, I missing running into a room full of mods, and leaving a room full of blood, while not worrying about hiding behind a milk carton, and throwing stones to distract one guard at a time. There is enough damn games like this now. We should move back to the good old fashioned violence and gore fest.
Though I'd prefer a game I could play on a sub-$1k computer, that too is getting damn old.
I disagree.
I don't have a well founded opinion on this issue, but I also don't think that there is anyone alive today who can actually guess what the founders had in mind, and times have radically changed since the bill of rights was drafted.
As stated earlier, I don't think felons should have the right to carry (as they lose the right to vote, as well), and I don't think that crackheads have the right either. I would leverage the "well regulated" bit to mean proper training, and responsibilities. Thus we should license firearms, you must prove your ability, and responsibility. This would bar a minimum of people from bearing arms, while keeping them out of the hands of those without the maturity to do so.
I'm sure I'll get flamed for this, but I prefer a common sense approach over a traditional approach. The constitution is a living document, by nature, and the interpretations of its meaning change with the changes of our society. We shouldn't remove ANY of it, nor bar weapons willy-nilly, but we must also keep an eye to the needs of a modern society, over one in the far past.
I think I'm one of the few people who will not attempt to read the minds of the founders, and claim I know what it means. Its a badly parsed statement, and probably the most ambiguous amendment of the constitution.
:)
I do think though that the world is very different than when the founders wrote the bill of rights. We need to preserve the spirit of the second, while keeping our interpretation within the bounds of the real (modern) world. Whatever that means is up to debate.
I personally think that people do have the right to arms, BUT only if the people themselves are capable of handling them, and do so responsibly. Just like felonies remove your right to vote, it should remove your right to bear arms. And their should be varying degrees of licensing, to maintain the "well regulated" bit. Bob J. Crackhead shouldn't have an assault rifle.
Perhaps treat arms like a drivers license.
I'm sure someone will get up in... ahem... arms over this, but I prefer a debate based on common sense, rather and the psychic ability to read the founders minds.
Brute force, they would have to do the whole thing again. Merely having a table (a very very long one) doesn't mean much without running the whole thing again.
If they break, or find an exploit, in the algorithm though, then it would be much easier.
@they suck comments - apparently they're still doing something right if people are still buying their music, merchandise, and concert tickets...
Just because people spend money on it, doesn't mean its good. Ms. Spears sells how many damn albums?
@generic, parroted napster comments - how about i take what you use to make a living and give it away to everyone else for free so you see no revenue; remember, napster was one of the first "mainstream" ways to steal music and few groups, like metallica, actually own and control their music
It didn't mesh with their metal outlaw image very well. You can represent the rebellious metal head generation, AND try to be a nanny at the same time. It was implied hypocrisy. Like if Rage Against the Machine ever held a rally for the GOP, or if Tool started endorsing drug legislation.
@dry, old sell out comments - come on... really? people have said that band sold out every time they released an album. apparently the only way a band cant sell out is if they never move beyond club shows and never record a single album. Remember **this band controls their own music** and they dont answer to "the big bad record label". Get over it.
When you stop making music for music's sake, and start making it only to appeal to the most people, for the most money, you sold out. Yes, there is some level of compromise, but there are limits. When you change sounds ONLY for profit, you can't complain about losing your long time, and hardcore, fans.
Music shouldn't be only about getting rich by milking trends.
Where is the difference between post Load Metallica, and Ms. Spears?
and the "well regulated" bit is to be ignored when convenient.
While any definition of "militia" that doesn't translate to "every adult (male) citizen" is inaccurate wrt to the time the Constitution was written, more to the point, there is no definition of "militia" that makes "the people" not mean "the people".
Your forgetting the phrase "well regulated militia" not just "militia" in general. Your cherry picking the phraseology of the amendment. It does not read "A Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. " it reads "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. "
The bold part is the crux of the debate.
u cannot square that with "Shall not be infringed".
But how does it square with a "well regulated militia"? Last I checked a crackhead with an Uzi wasn't well regulated, or a militia.
I like the 2nd as much as anyone else, but I'll gladly put priority on the 1st amendment, and perhaps the XIVth.
But then again I also think that the 2nd amendment needs some caveats, and some restrictions (should convicted violent felons really be allowed to own assault rifles, for example), whereas I can't think of any restrictions that should be placed on the 1st amendment.
It isn't a zero sum game, I fully realize that I'm going to disagree on some points with any view, but its the degree of fit that matters.
Is it just the version number thats broke, or does it just fail?
5 tabs open, using RC2: 102,772k on Vista (I know... I know...)
Its been open for about 3.5 hours, and I have been opening and closing tabs, using gmail and various other "interactive elements", I'm using 7 extensions. On minimize it reduces use to around 93,000k, and slowly rebounds over the course of a few minutes to slightly below the original usage.
FF2 used about 2x that for the same use pattern, with minimal benefits from minimizing. Though I have gotten FF2 to approach a gig before with some heavy usage of flash, ajax, and other "web app" platforms.
I would say that this is an improvement.
Didn't they kill bookmarks.html, isn't it now completely based on SQL-lite (light?)?
My only complaints with the Firefox3 stretch of betas is the "unfiled bookmarks" area. It sort of makes them a hidden graveyard of sites that you at one time or another found neat, since you can't access them from any menu outside of the "Library" window. In this vein, searching history is damn slow, and seems rather clunky.
The only technical bug I've found is spellcheck's insistence to stop working halfway through writing an email in gmail, and other random forms, especially after a certain amount of length or time (can't figure out which). Spellcheck is also damn stupid at times, and doesn't recognize most tech-based terms (such as, laughably "Firefox"), and often doesn't suggest common words based off a near misspelling.
Other than that it is much better than FF2, once you get used to the awesomebar (which is becomes indispensable slowly, I find my friends/parents installs of FF2 to be gimped now), and massive back button. I'm even getting used to the new OS X look on my Mac, there still is something terribly wrong with its looks though.
Einstein is a special case, since he was elite in a field that no one in the public cared about or understood. We pretty much deleted and disreguarded all of his political and humanitarian statements, to turn him into the idiot savant (and thus harmless) scientist we wanted.
In realms such as policy, politics, and. justice anything you say can be taken as elitist if it goes against what people want to think. Obama's "elitist" gun comment was the point where I decided TO vote for him, since I think he stated something very truthful, albeit unpopular. In any case like this, the "elitism" ad hominem gun comes out.
I went to school for the study of philosophy, so in many conversations I cite references, and historical contexts. Some people have called me elitist for this, and I always wonder how being informed, having context, and USING it can ever be considered a bad thing.
Hell, there still are people in my family (historically poor, blue collar folk) who look down on me only for the fact I have a college education. In America we confuse elitism for our strange strain of prideful anti-rationalism. We like the idea of "folk", for some strange reason, instead of intelligent, educated individuals with training in the task at hand.
On the otherhand, that is the good thing about this election, there isn't a single "folk" candidate (as hard as Hillary tried at times), so we probably won't be terribly mismanaged no matter who gets in office, even if I disagree with some policies (from everyone) they all are competent.
Not refuting you, just addressing a question I've had for some time;
If Padilla was fighting against the US as part of an organized effort, wouldn't that invalidate his citizenship? After this happened I looked at the small print on my passport, and it had words to that effect.
Hmmm... I don't see that option on the ballot. Where is this good leader with experience and knowledge? I think it fails on the last proposition, almost universally.
You just made this more surreal.
The Republicans always call the democrats "elitist". If elitist means okay with the current class structure, and against equality, then they also can't be "commie pinkos", or fall into the classic (ignorant) stereotype of "liberalism".
Elitism is crap. Being elite and not being elitist is good. It's also very difficult to achieve.
I would disagree. The average man generally proves themselves to complete morons, more often than not. I don't want to be average.
Amen.
When someone calls a politician "elitist", I generally WANT to vote for them more. My experiences with the average man, has made me realize that they really shouldn't be allowed to govern themselves.
But then again I also think you should have to pass a literacy/IQ test to vote.