Please...Britain has yet to achieve democratic rule. You can call yourselves democratic once you finish reforming your heriditary House of Lords, dethrone the royal family, and are no longer British subjects but instead citizens. So long as the government belongs to the Queen (even if only as a formality) rather than to the people, you have little room to speak of democracy.
Do you realise how antipodean your statement sounds: you only maintain a peaceful society with firearms?!
It is one of life's little contradictions that peace must occasionally be protected by forceful means. (I do not mean the Reagan-esque notion of "peace through strength", which is completely backwards. Peace cannot be created by force; yet sometimes force is necessary to preserve it.)
That doesn't sound peaceful, that sounds repressive. Intimidation is no grounds for for peace.
Completely correct! And the result of a government monopoly on firearms is intimidation.
And the result of disarming the weak and infirm is intimidation. And the means of enforcing weapons prohibitions is intimidation.
When the capacity for violent force is equalized, intimidation becomes much more difficult.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
as Jimmy The Greek found out when he was fired by CBS in 1988 for saying that blacks were better athletes because of genetics.
He said that blacks had been bred by slaveowners like domestic animals, a very different proposition.
The idea that the adaption (via selection) of populations of people to different environments may have included different proportioning of fast twitch vs. slow twitch muscle fibers is controvertial, but seems to still be within the realm of legitimate speculation.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
If they had used, say, your companies e-mail system to do the scam, then that would make *THE COMPANY* liable for damages (in their case it was something like 65,000 pounds they had to pay back).
By what reasoning? If I use my personal account to commit fraud, is my ISP responsible? If I use my phone, is Verizon responsible? If I make a threatening phone call from the payphone at the 7-11 down the street, is 7-11 responsible? If I send a harassing postal letter, is the USPS responsible?
The "standard disclaimer" - that opinions expressed in e-mail or USENET postings were not those of the employer who often provided internet services - used to be understood to be implied on all messages. When did that change?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
...one of the things I *won't* miss about a democratic presidency/legislative majority is the fact that the dems have very, very rough on publicly funded science and space exploration.
Reference, please? I know that Maryland's Democratic congresscritters are reasonably good on space and science (for the usual pork barrel reasons, not any high principle - we have Goddard, NIH, NIST, APL, and the Space Telescope Science Institute).
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
"In space, you can grow whatever you want, and deliver it pretty darn easily to anywhere on the planet"
It occurs to me that: a) it's pretty damn easy to track where that payload lands and either wait for the intended recipients of "confiscate" it for wink wink nudge nudge "evidence", and b) this could lenda whole new twist to the use of ABMs.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
On the other hand, look at the foreign country of Japan: some of the strictest gun control laws in the world. Look at how much (read: how little) violent crime there is.
Totally different culture. Japan is much more homogenous than the U.S. - racially, culturally, and economically.
All this with a culture saturated with violent and sexual manga, much more media saturation then North American culture...
Exactly. Our problem isn't our guns, it isn't our media. It's us. B-(
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
90% of the general population in the US who own guns would never be able to shoot anyone with that damn gun.
Actually, estimates of the defensive use of firearms by private citizens range from 108,000
(US DOJ) to 2 million (Kleck and Gertz) incidents per year. (Quite a range of estimates!) True, very few of these involve killing or wounding the assailant; but the defenders were apparently able to convince their assailants of their willingness to fire.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Where I come from the police don't carry guns. There are few armed officers who specially dispatched to deal with armed threats.
The second part of your sentance contradicts the first. Either there are police with guns, or there aren't.
These days the army is only used overseas... you don't see them carrying their
guns on the streets.
Remember than the same could have been said of pre-Nazi Germany, before Hitler came to power (though purely democratic means). What guarantee do you have that the army's going to stay overseas, that in fifty years your government won't have them roaming the streets rounding up "undesirables"?
If you shoot somebody where I come from, even in self-defence, you will probably go
to gaol (jail) for at least manslaughter (Americans also seem to have a rather unique point of view on self-defence and levels of reasonable force).
Then I am extremely glad that I don't live where you do - since I am a martial arts instructor, and teach the use of deadly force (though I emphasize that it should be used only in extreme cases) I suppose I could be brought up as an accessory to manslaughter if a student of mine killed an attacker intent on killing him or her?
There is no purpose to guns in a modern peaceful society.
Restricting guns to government employees creates an unstable situation; only when firearms are available to all can a peaceful society be maintained over the long term. If are feeling superior because your nation "gets by" without private ownership of firearms, you might consider the age of democracy in your nation compared to in the USA. (Where it is, to be sure, now endangered, but it's not quite dead yet.)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Now I can do what I've always wanted, get sick and then have completely untested drugs injected into my body!
If you want to have untested drugs injected into your body, hey, that's your business, not the state's. (Certainly if I were dying of AIDS, I might be willing to risk an untested drug.)
Now, if the maker of that drug is making untrue claims or providing a tainted product, that's the state's business. And the state does have a role to play in public health - infectious disease is just as much a common enemy as an invading army. But other than that, your body, your choice.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
I can see why the anti-gun zealots are able to trick people in the U.S. into that, just because of the sheer number of deaths (heaven forbid they might actually look beyond the mere numbers, though)
Actually, all you need to do is look at the mere numbers to see that violent deaths are high in states where gun control is strong, and low in states where concealed carry is legal.
A few months ago the "Center to Prevent Handgun Violence" (an pro-gun control group) released a "report card" on gun control, giving my home state of Maryland the highest rating, A.
Kentucky is ranked as the 11th least violent, with 284 offenses per 100,000. All of the other states CPHV "failed" have less violent crime per capita than Maryland; Maine and Montana are 4th and 5th least violent.
This ain't rocket science. But the simplistic notion of "no guns, no shootings, therefore we'll make laws against guns" is very beguiling; right next to "no heroin, no junkies, therefore we'll make laws against drugs." Neither sort of prohibition works.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
And why does need to bear arms? Please explain this to me.
Ask your armies and your police. The have guns, right? I am no less trustworthy, and my life not worth less than, a cop or a soldier; why should I not then avail myself of the same tools to defend myself, should that become necessary?
Americans seem rather unique in the "civilised" world with regards to firearms. Nobody else believes that they're necessary.
If you nations beleives that, then I suggest you urge your government to have its armed forces melt down all it firearms and start training with longbows instead.
Do you really believe that this would ever be allowed to happen? Look at what happened when a small religious sect stock-piled some weapons in a place called Waco, TX.
Yes, they managed to kill some of the thugs who illegally attacked them. (Sure, the Branch Davidians were wackos, but they had been peaceful wackos until state and federal paramilitary "law enforcement" went after them for no well-defined reason.) Of course they lost, but they gave serious pause to other thugs with badges.
Americans are very preachy about democracy. If you truly believe in democracy, then use its processes rather than force to achieve your goals. Again: guns are unnecessary.
Democracy is, at its base, nothing but a substitute for violent conflict. All other things being equal, the side with more combatants wins, right? So instead of killing each other, we'll agree to let the bigger side prevail this time, and all go home unbloodied. Much more civilized.
But there's nothing to enforce that agreement other than the losing side knowing that it's smaller. If the smaller side gains an advantage - say, they have all the guns - there's nothing at all to keep them from breaking that agreement.
Or, as some wag once put it: Democracy is defended by three boxes: the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Or (USA): show that the existing system does not do what The Constitution says the US patent system is supposed to do.
Spot on. For those not familar with this issue, Article I Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution grants Congress the power "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing
for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries".
Note that:
The objective of copyrights and patents is not to line anyone's pockets, but to promote scientific and artistic progress;
There is no power to grant copyright or patent to corporations, only to persons;
There is no mention of selling or transfering copyrights or patents (obviously rights can be licenced, but that is a very different thing);
Copyrights and patents exist only for a limited time (and certainly cannot persist past the life of the author or inventor, since that is the only person who can hold one);
It's highly questionable that an algorithm qualfies as an invention.
Does this sound at all like our current system?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Ultimately this is why science fiction writers have speculated on structures like Ringworlds and Dyson spheres - ways to allow for dissipation of immense amounts of waste heat.
The idea of a Dyson ring or sphere, or a Criswell (sp?) structure, is to capture power from a star. Obviously they would encounter the issue of radiating waste heat, but that's not their purpose.
Dumping waste heat wouldn't be much of a problem for a highly technological civilization - there's a 3K heat sink available. You just have to radiate away your excess energy at a wavelength that isn't absorbed by your atmosphere; much much easier than building a Dyson ring!
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
It just galls me that my work is being resold for profit without my permission and with me getting a cut.
Yow! How do they get away with this - are they claiming that somehow the rights you originally sold them include on-line pay-per-read publication?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Re:Regrets, I've had a few.
on
CS vs CIS
·
· Score: 1
CS will get you a foot-in-the-door for the purposes of dealing with math.
Back in my undergrad days (at the U of MD) there were actually several classes that were crosslisted as CS and math (or applied math, though I guess that's a different beast). I remember taking a cross-listed logic class - some of the notation occasionally made me have to back up and look again, but the concepts were no sweat.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
IANAL, but I would think that they can't own a copyright on something you said. So you might as well just quote yourself on your web page.
Oh, I could, but there would be a definte coolness factor in linking from my vanity page to press coverage about stuff I've done. (Especially when one article has a big photo of me.) It would also be neat to link to coverage about my family and friends. It would probably even drive a few hits their way, making them more than a buck fifty they want to charge to retrieve the stories - certainly it would make them more then the non-link is making them now.
It just shows that many "old-media" companies are completely clueless when it comes to how the web works.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
I don't understand "news organizations" that try to charge for back articles. The San Jose Mercury, for
instance, puts all of its older (by a few weeks) articles into a $1.50/article "service."
The Baltimore Sun does the same thing, which pisses me off because I'd like to link to two articles that quoted me (one about the first UMCP robotics competition, one about OLGA). What, I give you some of mine time to help you prepare an article and you want to charge me a buck fifty to access it? Well, fsck you too.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Any system which is self-contradicting is false, and only a fool would believe in something he or she knows to be false.
It's only self-contradicting and false when certain axioms are accepted. No mathematical/logical system exists independent of certain fundamental asumptions.(Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance has some interesting thoughts on this topic.)
Now, the traditional asumptions of arithmetic, Boolean logic, Euclidean geometry are certainly very useful for getting pracial things done in this physical world. But they don't help much in dealing with subjective existence. In that realm, only direct experience suffices, and words are at best "a finger pointing to the moon"; their truth is artistic and mythological, not literal and logical. Consider the statement "Everything is permitted, nothing is true." as a sort metaphor for something. For what? You'll know if and when you see it; then you might just say "Ah! Everything is permitted! Nothing is true!"
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
It isn't the phrase that is so Sagan-esque, but the way you're suppost to say it.
He talks about this in his last book, actually entitled Billions and Billions. (Wonderful book.) The term "billion" wasn't then in the sort of everyday use it is now - we didn't have so many billionaries running around, etc. So he over-emphasized Billion to distinguish it from Million.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
its getting harder and harder
to pick out the 70% insightful comments because of the surrounding 30% of spammers, trolls, zealots,
right-wing lunatics, etc.
Hey, don't forget us left-wing lunatics too. B-)
Anyway, Slashdot provides a means to help you do just that: set your threshold higher.
Perhaps Andover should investigate mandatory registration for slashdot posters.
Set your threshold to "1" and you won't see AC posts (except those very few that get modded up).
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Re:Regrets, I've had a few.
on
CS vs CIS
·
· Score: 2
What percentage of people actually need to know how the compiler optimizes? I mean really indepth.
I hate to say this, but your question proves my point. I mention complier theory, and the best match you can make from your "picked-it-up-on-my-own" background is "how the compiler optimizes". I don't mean this at all as flamebait, but if that's all you know of the topic you're missing a lot.
Compiler theory is about if and how a language - any set of strings of characters - can be parsed and translated. It's where grammars and automata and the ability to express information converge. It's deep and beautiful mathematical concepts, the study of which improves the mind every bit as much as the study of philosophy or literature. (Though I would argue that philosophy or literature are easier to study on one's own that this sort of math.) It also, of course, has enourmous practical impact on the design of programming languages, which in turn affects the kind and quality of software we create.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Slashdot Mirror
Please...Britain has yet to achieve democratic rule. You can call yourselves democratic once you finish reforming your heriditary House of Lords, dethrone the royal family, and are no longer British subjects but instead citizens. So long as the government belongs to the Queen (even if only as a formality) rather than to the people, you have little room to speak of democracy.
It is one of life's little contradictions that peace must occasionally be protected by forceful means. (I do not mean the Reagan-esque notion of "peace through strength", which is completely backwards. Peace cannot be created by force; yet sometimes force is necessary to preserve it.)
Completely correct! And the result of a government monopoly on firearms is intimidation. And the result of disarming the weak and infirm is intimidation. And the means of enforcing weapons prohibitions is intimidation.
When the capacity for violent force is equalized, intimidation becomes much more difficult.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
The idea that the adaption (via selection) of populations of people to different environments may have included different proportioning of fast twitch vs. slow twitch muscle fibers is controvertial, but seems to still be within the realm of legitimate speculation.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
By what reasoning? If I use my personal account to commit fraud, is my ISP responsible? If I use my phone, is Verizon responsible? If I make a threatening phone call from the payphone at the 7-11 down the street, is 7-11 responsible? If I send a harassing postal letter, is the USPS responsible?
The "standard disclaimer" - that opinions expressed in e-mail or USENET postings were not those of the employer who often provided internet services - used to be understood to be implied on all messages. When did that change?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Reference, please? I know that Maryland's Democratic congresscritters are reasonably good on space and science (for the usual pork barrel reasons, not any high principle - we have Goddard, NIH, NIST, APL, and the Space Telescope Science Institute).
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Totally different culture. Japan is much more homogenous than the U.S. - racially, culturally, and economically.
Exactly. Our problem isn't our guns, it isn't our media. It's us. B-(Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Actually, estimates of the defensive use of firearms by private citizens range from 108,000 (US DOJ) to 2 million (Kleck and Gertz) incidents per year. (Quite a range of estimates!) True, very few of these involve killing or wounding the assailant; but the defenders were apparently able to convince their assailants of their willingness to fire.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Remember than the same could have been said of pre-Nazi Germany, before Hitler came to power (though purely democratic means). What guarantee do you have that the army's going to stay overseas, that in fifty years your government won't have them roaming the streets rounding up "undesirables"?
Then I am extremely glad that I don't live where you do - since I am a martial arts instructor, and teach the use of deadly force (though I emphasize that it should be used only in extreme cases) I suppose I could be brought up as an accessory to manslaughter if a student of mine killed an attacker intent on killing him or her?Restricting guns to government employees creates an unstable situation; only when firearms are available to all can a peaceful society be maintained over the long term. If are feeling superior because your nation "gets by" without private ownership of firearms, you might consider the age of democracy in your nation compared to in the USA. (Where it is, to be sure, now endangered, but it's not quite dead yet.)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Now, if the maker of that drug is making untrue claims or providing a tainted product, that's the state's business. And the state does have a role to play in public health - infectious disease is just as much a common enemy as an invading army. But other than that, your body, your choice.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Actually, all you need to do is look at the mere numbers to see that violent deaths are high in states where gun control is strong, and low in states where concealed carry is legal.
A few months ago the "Center to Prevent Handgun Violence" (an pro-gun control group) released a "report card" on gun control, giving my home state of Maryland the highest rating, A.
Kentucky received an F-.
United Health Group has a ranking of states by violent crime at http://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/sr2000/components /lifestyle/crime.html. Maryland ranks at number 46, the fifth most
violent state, with 797 offenses per 100,000 people.
Kentucky is ranked as the 11th least violent, with 284 offenses per 100,000. All of the other states CPHV "failed" have less violent crime per capita than Maryland; Maine and Montana are 4th and 5th least violent.
This ain't rocket science. But the simplistic notion of "no guns, no shootings, therefore we'll make laws against guns" is very beguiling; right next to "no heroin, no junkies, therefore we'll make laws against drugs." Neither sort of prohibition works.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Ask your armies and your police. The have guns, right? I am no less trustworthy, and my life not worth less than, a cop or a soldier; why should I not then avail myself of the same tools to defend myself, should that become necessary?
If you nations beleives that, then I suggest you urge your government to have its armed forces melt down all it firearms and start training with longbows instead.
Yes, they managed to kill some of the thugs who illegally attacked them. (Sure, the Branch Davidians were wackos, but they had been peaceful wackos until state and federal paramilitary "law enforcement" went after them for no well-defined reason.) Of course they lost, but they gave serious pause to other thugs with badges.
Democracy is, at its base, nothing but a substitute for violent conflict. All other things being equal, the side with more combatants wins, right? So instead of killing each other, we'll agree to let the bigger side prevail this time, and all go home unbloodied. Much more civilized.
But there's nothing to enforce that agreement other than the losing side knowing that it's smaller. If the smaller side gains an advantage - say, they have all the guns - there's nothing at all to keep them from breaking that agreement.
Or, as some wag once put it: Democracy is defended by three boxes: the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Note that:
Does this sound at all like our current system?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Dumping waste heat wouldn't be much of a problem for a highly technological civilization - there's a 3K heat sink available. You just have to radiate away your excess energy at a wavelength that isn't absorbed by your atmosphere; much much easier than building a Dyson ring!
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Back in my undergrad days (at the U of MD) there were actually several classes that were crosslisted as CS and math (or applied math, though I guess that's a different beast). I remember taking a cross-listed logic class - some of the notation occasionally made me have to back up and look again, but the concepts were no sweat.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Oh, I could, but there would be a definte coolness factor in linking from my vanity page to press coverage about stuff I've done. (Especially when one article has a big photo of me.) It would also be neat to link to coverage about my family and friends. It would probably even drive a few hits their way, making them more than a buck fifty they want to charge to retrieve the stories - certainly it would make them more then the non-link is making them now.
It just shows that many "old-media" companies are completely clueless when it comes to how the web works.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
No. It's not.
To mangle an old Zen saying, "A finger pointing at the moon does not include part of the moon."
Actually I don't click on ads. Ever. At all. Rarely ever even see them thank to Junkbuster.Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
It's only self-contradicting and false when certain axioms are accepted. No mathematical/logical system exists independent of certain fundamental asumptions.(Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance has some interesting thoughts on this topic.)
Now, the traditional asumptions of arithmetic, Boolean logic, Euclidean geometry are certainly very useful for getting pracial things done in this physical world. But they don't help much in dealing with subjective existence. In that realm, only direct experience suffices, and words are at best "a finger pointing to the moon"; their truth is artistic and mythological, not literal and logical. Consider the statement "Everything is permitted, nothing is true." as a sort metaphor for something. For what? You'll know if and when you see it; then you might just say "Ah! Everything is permitted! Nothing is true!"
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
He talks about this in his last book, actually entitled Billions and Billions. (Wonderful book.) The term "billion" wasn't then in the sort of everyday use it is now - we didn't have so many billionaries running around, etc. So he over-emphasized Billion to distinguish it from Million.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Hey, don't forget us left-wing lunatics too. B-)
Anyway, Slashdot provides a means to help you do just that: set your threshold higher.
Set your threshold to "1" and you won't see AC posts (except those very few that get modded up).Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
I hate to say this, but your question proves my point. I mention complier theory, and the best match you can make from your "picked-it-up-on-my-own" background is "how the compiler optimizes". I don't mean this at all as flamebait, but if that's all you know of the topic you're missing a lot.
Compiler theory is about if and how a language - any set of strings of characters - can be parsed and translated. It's where grammars and automata and the ability to express information converge. It's deep and beautiful mathematical concepts, the study of which improves the mind every bit as much as the study of philosophy or literature. (Though I would argue that philosophy or literature are easier to study on one's own that this sort of math.) It also, of course, has enourmous practical impact on the design of programming languages, which in turn affects the kind and quality of software we create.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/