In an age where lawmakers are trying to strike down healthcare for all of your fellow citizens
The lawmakers are trying to put an end to a "reform" that will bankrupt this country in the long run. The "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" (they always come up with cute-sounding names for these things) will do nothing of the sort. It won't expand access and it won't reduce costs. They plan to expand access by essentially dumping most of the presently uninsured into medicaid. The problem with that is that most private doctors refuse to see medicaid patients, because the reimbursements are too miserly, and the few that do are already massively overbooked (i.e. they couldn't realistically accept the influx of new patients). Nobody is going to pay in excess of $300,000 for their medical degree to become a doctor, only to receive crappy medicaid reimbursements. Even if the government tried to pay for new doctors' education, too few would be willing to put in 4+ years (after college) for med school plus 2-3 more in residency to work for peanuts. These newly minted doctors expect to be paid more than $10 per office visit for all of that schooling. Meanwhile, the price of insurance will skyrocket, along with health insurance costs, due to the individual mandate. If you thought insurance was expensive now, wait until you are mandated to buy it. Finally, the Congressional Budget Office figures showing a net savings are BUNKO because they are required to rely upon the promise of congressmen that they will cut medicare in the future to pay for it, which of course they will never actually do. I don't really blame the CBO in all of this, they are required to take the word of those who lie for a living, so it's a classic case of garbage in garbage out. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a boondoggle. Let us hope that the Supreme Court yet has the wisdom to consign it to the dustbin where it belongs.
Social Security is just a cookie jar to be raped by fiscally careless politicians
The very same ones who promised that their 30,000 page bill would magically reduce your healthcare costs? Right...
WD-40 is the 40th variation of a lubrication able to be used in Wet and Dry circumstances. The previous 39 ones wasn't good enough.
Not exactly. WD-40 actually stands for "Water Displacement, 40th Attempt" (the previous 39 variations of the formula were presumably unsatisfactory). It was originally created by Norm Larsen, founder of the Rocket Chemical Company of San Diego California to repel water, hence the "Water Displacement" or WD abbreviation, and thus prevent or slow corrosion. WD-40 was first used by Convair to protect the Atlas missile from rust and corrosion before the product became commercially available in 1958. WD-40 was never intended to be a lubricant and it isn't well suited to that purpose. If you want lubrication then purchase a real lubricant, not WD-40.
The fact that a project is crap doesn't necessarily doom the unfortunate student to a lifetime of super-sizing other peoples' fries. The smarter students are bound to recognize that just about every useful scientific experiment that could have easily been done, start to finish, by one person or even a small group of non-experts, limited in both time and money, has already been repeated ad nauseam. If we agree that the primary goal of any science fair is education, and not the production of any useful new "science", then can we not also agree that a more efficient means of providing that same education would be a self directed research project (without paste boards and laughably useless "experiments")?
IMHO, preparing a science fair project is a tremendous waste of time and effort relative to the educational value of the exercise; it's terribly inefficient. Another fact, which has surely not escaped these bright young students, is that science, math and technology careers are both underpaid and not much appreciated here in the United States. Indeed, sometimes it seems that the only real innovations taking place here are in law and government, not exactly the best uses of our productive resources. So don't be so quick to criticize young peoples' science projects, they may simply be responding, as most intelligent people would, to a pointless and time wasting exercise by limiting the amount of wasted effort and not taking the exercise too seriously.
As an alternative, I would suggest that these students be allowed instead to go out and prepare a research report on a specific active area of engineering or scientific research, perhaps including interviews with professional working engineers and scientists. This would go along way towards eliminating the sense of futility that I believe is pervasive in the old-fashioned "science" fairs, while at the same time allowing students the opportunity to participate directly, even if only in small and menial ways, in actual science and research being conducted by trained experts and professionals. This would do much more to burnish the science and engineering careers in the eyes of America's young people then yet another baking soda volcano at their tired school "science" fair.
If this is not bait and switch, unethical advertising, and intent to deceive the consumer I don't know what it.
Even if it is, it doesn't really matter. The advertising industry has a large and well established lobbying network, especially here in the United States. The law effectively says that even if the advertising is false, and the advertiser knows or should have known that it was false, you as the consumer are limited to recovery of actual damages (i.e. refund of purchase price) with regard to the false claim and the FCC can ask them kindly to please stop saying that in their future advertisements. Certain durable goods, like vehicles and other big ticket items, are protected under additional lemon laws and such but even in those cases you will not generally recover more than the original purchase price unless you can prove negligence (which is a very high bar in most cases). With terms like these and lax enforcement, US corporations generally say whatever they want and have little care for the consequences. Here in the United States the operative principal is caveat emptor or let the buyer beware. IANAL and you should consult your own attorney for real legal advice (hey, a disclaimer! which is more than you get from most advertisers anyway).
we really end up - consciously or not - marginalizing scientists in our country.
Indeed, I have even heard it said, possibly here on Slashdot but I'm not sure, that pursuing a career in science is similar in some respects to entering the priesthood. In order to do either, one must make a serious long term commitment, and one not easily broken, to a job which requires nearly complete devotion to the work and lifestyle at relatively low rates of remuneration. It takes a certain kind of person, whether priest or scientist, to make that sort of long term commitment to advance in their chosen profession. Many people who could do science chose instead to do something else because the sheer levels of commitment and mental effort involved are just too harsh to seriously contemplate as a profession without relatively comparable compensation, advancement prospects or job security. They may remain interested in scientific and technical topics as a hobby or side interest, but they choose a different way of earning their living.
My top favorite ST:TNG episode was season 6x05, Schisms. It's too bad they didn't have time to bring back the subspace aliens (the writers were originally going to bring them back again to challenge the crew in a future episode, but apparently they either decided not to or didn't get around to it before the series completed its run).
Since you are a web developer, I have an observation that I wish to share and receive your opinion on. Have you noticed that the people twittering away and constantly updating their Facebook profiles are almost invariably NOT developers, web developers or true IT geeks? I write ASP.NET, SQL, jQuery and C# code all day long and yet I don't even have a Facebook account. Personally I consider Facebook, Twitter and the like to be massive wastes of time. Why would anyone who devotes their life to serious technical pursuits stop and listen to the endless streams of worthless drivel spewing from the Facebook masses? Do they not realize that nobody cares about their beer bong pics (unless it's a potential employer who will now not be hiring them)? It's all a big case of garbage in garbage out if you ask me.
As much as I detest Sony I would not sell my shares if I wanted to make a point. Instead I would vote for the shareholder resolutions, you know the ones limiting executive pay amongst other things that boards hate, and withhold my votes for the re-election of the board of directors. Would this prevent them from being re-elected? Maybe not, but if even 1% of shareholders specifically withhold their votes for a director when voting their proxies, it can be enough for that director to be shown the door. It has happened in the past. Take Disney for example, Eisner won re-election but the negative votes from the coalition led by Roy Disney were such a vocal minority that he was soon forced out anyway. The point is that small holders should not underestimate their power to effect changes in corporate policy. Small shareholders could, via social media for example, agree to vote their proxies as a block or group. Many small holders voting against directors or for shareholder resolutions sends a powerful message and now more than ever with boards conscious of consumer anger, political pressure and negative publicity.
The legal team of Sony will bury Github's with so many documents they either have to give up or will lose.
Not necessarily, there are plenty of law students and other young attorneys who are technically savvy and would jump at the opportunity to cut their teeth on leading edge DMCA cases (copyright and patent law will probably be lucrative in the 21st century, unfortunately). The younger attorneys tend to have more time and ambition than either money or reputation to lose, so it makes sense for them to take on riskier cases earlier in their career, while still earning their spurs, in order to separate themselves from the rest of the pack (most attorneys want to make partner in a firm sooner rather than later after all). Surely, the Electronic Frontier Foundation could offer some advice or put them in touch with a law firm willing to defend against Sony. Besides, wasn't source code supposed to be "free speech"?
This is Facebook that we are talking about here. As far as they're concerned, privacy is an overrated leftover from their parents' generation. Almost by definition, those with Facebook accounts either don't care about privacy or don't fully understand the long term implications of the experiment in which they are participating.
The grand-parent post used the word "power" when they should have used the word "authority"
Authority must necessarily flow from power or else how will that authority be enforced? Your point is well taken though, there is an important distinction to be made between power with and without authority of use.
Perhaps it would be constructive to ask why it bothers you so much that some people own guns and might use them under appropriate circumstances to defend their lives and property? Maybe I'm assuming something that isn't true in your case, but when people argue that gun ownership is not permissible they often follow that up by advocating for the confiscation of all guns in private ownership or some intermediate step towards that goal. Is it not possible, in your opinion, to possess a firearm without being a violent racist?
Aren't you the same person who, below, said he's above the law, called me a coward, and whose solution to high-risk difficult situations is to talk like John Wayne and recklessly shoot people (bragging about literally shooting someone's head off). It seems you can't tell the difference between action scenes in movies and reality.
I didn't call you any of those things, I merely pointed out that if I choose to own a firearm and use it in defense of my own home, which is perfectly permissible under the law, that's nobodys' business but my own.
Why should I take seriously anything you say? With your judgement, I really hope you don't have a firearm.
With my judgment? You don't even know me. Are you one of those types who always sits in judgment of others? Perhaps you believe that you know what's best for everyone, including people you don't know and haven't met. I suppose it'd be best if I didn't mention that I do indeed own several firearms, after all, I wouldn't want to ruin your day...
It's very unlikely that you'll ever be in a situation where you need police in seconds to save you from serious harm, where having a gun will help you, and where you will use it successfully.
And yet there are many factual cases of people successfully defending their homes, lives and loved ones because they had access guns when they needed them and knew how to use them. Every law abiding citizen, once they reach the age of majority, has the right to decide for themselves whether or not they wish to exercise their individual 2nd amendment rights.
It's arguably more likely that you will misuse a gun.
Society doesn't ban things merely because somebody might possibly misuse them. If we did that, we would be living in a kindergarten play room full of Fischer Price toys getting nothing useful done. If a responsible and law abiding citizen wishes to own a gun, for whatever reason, he or she is entitled to do so until actions demonstrate otherwise. Here in America we judge people based upon what they do, not what they might do.
Pointing a gun at a criminal greatly increases your chance of getting shot; the mentally unstable (either natural or drug-assisted) may freak out and shoot.
So shoot first and aim for the head with your shotgun. When the police arrive, show them the forced entry evidence and explain that you shot the home invader in self defense. It's your word against a headless corpse with evidence of forced entry. After all, almost nobody questions the right of an honest citizen to shoot first and ask questions later when a home invader crashes through a window or breaks down the door.
Both the racist and some (not all) of the gun rights arguments are rationalizations for people to follow their most base instincts, hatred and violence, without responsibility toward the people and society around them.
In some cases the rights of individuals trump the common good. I will not submit myself to be disarmed because you live in fear of criminals. If you want to cower in fear of criminals and guns then do it without involving me. What's next? Should we ban cars because lots of people, including pedestrians, die in automobile crashes every year? Give me a break.
They aren't serious ideas but more a demonstration of political aggression, to threaten anyone how disagrees. And they have a history of backing up those threats with violence.
Disagreement is fine, but your right to disagree verbally does not give you the right to deprive law abiding citizens of a reasonable and effective means of defense which necessarily includes firearms. The police cannot be everywhere all of the time and the courts have ruled time and again that the police, and by extension the state, cannot be held liable for failing to protect any individual citizen with whom they did not have a specific prior agreement (i.e. witness protection). It falls then to individual citizens to protect themselves because the police are mostly not available to do that for us during the split second that we have to act. They arrive after the crime has already occurred to collect the bodies and photograph the crime scene, not to protect those who are already dead. I don't care that the police "get their man" if I'm already dead, so I prefer to have the opportunity, like Han Solo, to shoot first in defense of my life and my home. Personally, I don't think that's unreasonable or too much to ask.
I don't believe that Google did it "for freedom and individual liberty", but regardless of why or for what reasons Google basically told the Chinese, in so many words, to go fuck themselves and frankly that was something that the Chinese government needed to hear. The Chinese believe that they are infinitely smarter than all foreigners and can get away with demanding almost anything (i.e. technology transfers, mandatory local partners, hiring the politically well connected locals, etc) in exchange for tightly regulated access to their "lucrative" markets (which have turned out to be much less lucrative than many shareholders were given to believe).
You will note that in each of those cases companies acted in concert with or under the orders of governments. It was the governments who provided the means, the corporations and special interests merely pulled the strings and therein lies the danger of concentrated government power. It creates an irresistible temptation for powerful individuals or corporations to co-opt and misuse that power for their own purposes. Power is and always will be abused, despite our best intentions, because mankind is sinful and corporations are controlled by us. The founders were wise enough to understand this and took steps to separate powers and weaken centralized government, but we in our foolishness have forgotten these once hard-learned lessons. My point was that those who believe that powerful governments will prevent sin and solve our problems for us are deluding themselves. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Governments are far more dangerous than corporations. Governments have the power to deprive you of your life, liberty or property...literally. The governments have the armies and the guns, remember? In fact, since we are on the subject of China, wasn't it Mao Zedong who said that, "Political power flows from the barrel of the gun"? Indeed, I am often frustrated by those who fail to grasp the irony of advocating for more government power to regulate individual economic activities without realizing that those same powers invariably destroy the individual liberties and freedoms which they claim they want to protect and preserve. They cannot have it both ways. They are either being disingenuous, as those with an anti-freedom progressive agenda often are, or naïve or both. As much as I distrust the motivations of some corporations I distrust governments even more. So I view Google's defiance of the Chinese government as a victory for freedom and individual liberty. In my opinion the governments of the world need to be taken down a notch or two, if only to remind them that it is the people who are sovereign, not the governments elected by them. Too much government control, too much nanny state and too much power over people's lives is the real danger. Those who continually seek to enhance the power of the state over the individual should be careful what they wish for; they might actually receive it and if they do, they will deserve it.
This example demonstrates precisely what can happen when a company which does not specialize in IT and the rigors of running a high traffic online storefront attempts to build same with an in-house crew or a band of hired consultants. Lush would have been much better off creating a storefront on Amazon and selling their products there. The readers of Slashdot will recall that Amazon threw off attempted DDOS attacks by Anonymous during the WikiLeaks affair without even breaking a sweat. My advice to Lush: go with Amazon and use their web services to connect your inventory control system to their storefront. If you had gone with Amazon, instead of trying to roll your own bubble gum and bailing wire solution. then you would be faced with the happy problem of how to restock your inventory instead of explaining to ex-customers how they can get in touch with their bankers in order to limit the damage.
Wrapping up: ARM is fantastically well positioned for the fast growing tablet and smartphone markets; and Intel has a surprisingly defensible position in desktop/server chips.
TFA suggests that tablets will be disruptive to the PC, despite of the defensible position of wintel or lintel in servers and workstations, and become a primary computing device. I disagree with TFA and the tech journalist who wrote it because most people will still choose to own a PC at home for school, work or gaming because, as others have pointed out, tablets suck at both content creation, work and school, and gaming,compared to dedicated PCs and gaming hardware such as consoles and purpose built hand-held gaming devices like PlayStation portable and Nintendo DS. Tablets are mostly being sold to people who want a cool toy or who have very limited computing needs (i.e. browse the web and personal low-volume email) because tablets are best when the user experience is more passive and less data entry intensive. IMHO, very few potential PC sales will be completely abandoned in favor of a tablet like iPad any time soon.
Slashdot Mirror
In an age where lawmakers are trying to strike down healthcare for all of your fellow citizens
The lawmakers are trying to put an end to a "reform" that will bankrupt this country in the long run. The "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" (they always come up with cute-sounding names for these things) will do nothing of the sort. It won't expand access and it won't reduce costs. They plan to expand access by essentially dumping most of the presently uninsured into medicaid. The problem with that is that most private doctors refuse to see medicaid patients, because the reimbursements are too miserly, and the few that do are already massively overbooked (i.e. they couldn't realistically accept the influx of new patients). Nobody is going to pay in excess of $300,000 for their medical degree to become a doctor, only to receive crappy medicaid reimbursements. Even if the government tried to pay for new doctors' education, too few would be willing to put in 4+ years (after college) for med school plus 2-3 more in residency to work for peanuts. These newly minted doctors expect to be paid more than $10 per office visit for all of that schooling. Meanwhile, the price of insurance will skyrocket, along with health insurance costs, due to the individual mandate. If you thought insurance was expensive now, wait until you are mandated to buy it. Finally, the Congressional Budget Office figures showing a net savings are BUNKO because they are required to rely upon the promise of congressmen that they will cut medicare in the future to pay for it, which of course they will never actually do. I don't really blame the CBO in all of this, they are required to take the word of those who lie for a living, so it's a classic case of garbage in garbage out. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a boondoggle. Let us hope that the Supreme Court yet has the wisdom to consign it to the dustbin where it belongs.
Social Security is just a cookie jar to be raped by fiscally careless politicians
The very same ones who promised that their 30,000 page bill would magically reduce your healthcare costs? Right...
WD-40 is the 40th variation of a lubrication able to be used in Wet and Dry circumstances. The previous 39 ones wasn't good enough.
Not exactly. WD-40 actually stands for "Water Displacement, 40th Attempt" (the previous 39 variations of the formula were presumably unsatisfactory). It was originally created by Norm Larsen, founder of the Rocket Chemical Company of San Diego California to repel water, hence the "Water Displacement" or WD abbreviation, and thus prevent or slow corrosion. WD-40 was first used by Convair to protect the Atlas missile from rust and corrosion before the product became commercially available in 1958. WD-40 was never intended to be a lubricant and it isn't well suited to that purpose. If you want lubrication then purchase a real lubricant, not WD-40.
However, his practical skills, and forthrightness are perfect for higher management, where all that really counts are next quarter's results.
There, fixed that for you.
The fact that a project is crap doesn't necessarily doom the unfortunate student to a lifetime of super-sizing other peoples' fries. The smarter students are bound to recognize that just about every useful scientific experiment that could have easily been done, start to finish, by one person or even a small group of non-experts, limited in both time and money, has already been repeated ad nauseam. If we agree that the primary goal of any science fair is education, and not the production of any useful new "science", then can we not also agree that a more efficient means of providing that same education would be a self directed research project (without paste boards and laughably useless "experiments")?
IMHO, preparing a science fair project is a tremendous waste of time and effort relative to the educational value of the exercise; it's terribly inefficient. Another fact, which has surely not escaped these bright young students, is that science, math and technology careers are both underpaid and not much appreciated here in the United States. Indeed, sometimes it seems that the only real innovations taking place here are in law and government, not exactly the best uses of our productive resources. So don't be so quick to criticize young peoples' science projects, they may simply be responding, as most intelligent people would, to a pointless and time wasting exercise by limiting the amount of wasted effort and not taking the exercise too seriously.
As an alternative, I would suggest that these students be allowed instead to go out and prepare a research report on a specific active area of engineering or scientific research, perhaps including interviews with professional working engineers and scientists. This would go along way towards eliminating the sense of futility that I believe is pervasive in the old-fashioned "science" fairs, while at the same time allowing students the opportunity to participate directly, even if only in small and menial ways, in actual science and research being conducted by trained experts and professionals. This would do much more to burnish the science and engineering careers in the eyes of America's young people then yet another baking soda volcano at their tired school "science" fair.
If this is not bait and switch, unethical advertising, and intent to deceive the consumer I don't know what it.
Even if it is, it doesn't really matter. The advertising industry has a large and well established lobbying network, especially here in the United States. The law effectively says that even if the advertising is false, and the advertiser knows or should have known that it was false, you as the consumer are limited to recovery of actual damages (i.e. refund of purchase price) with regard to the false claim and the FCC can ask them kindly to please stop saying that in their future advertisements. Certain durable goods, like vehicles and other big ticket items, are protected under additional lemon laws and such but even in those cases you will not generally recover more than the original purchase price unless you can prove negligence (which is a very high bar in most cases). With terms like these and lax enforcement, US corporations generally say whatever they want and have little care for the consequences. Here in the United States the operative principal is caveat emptor or let the buyer beware. IANAL and you should consult your own attorney for real legal advice (hey, a disclaimer! which is more than you get from most advertisers anyway).
we really end up - consciously or not - marginalizing scientists in our country.
Indeed, I have even heard it said, possibly here on Slashdot but I'm not sure, that pursuing a career in science is similar in some respects to entering the priesthood. In order to do either, one must make a serious long term commitment, and one not easily broken, to a job which requires nearly complete devotion to the work and lifestyle at relatively low rates of remuneration. It takes a certain kind of person, whether priest or scientist, to make that sort of long term commitment to advance in their chosen profession. Many people who could do science chose instead to do something else because the sheer levels of commitment and mental effort involved are just too harsh to seriously contemplate as a profession without relatively comparable compensation, advancement prospects or job security. They may remain interested in scientific and technical topics as a hobby or side interest, but they choose a different way of earning their living.
My top favorite ST:TNG episode was season 6x05, Schisms. It's too bad they didn't have time to bring back the subspace aliens (the writers were originally going to bring them back again to challenge the crew in a future episode, but apparently they either decided not to or didn't get around to it before the series completed its run).
Also from TNG, Episode 4x05 "Remember Me":
Beverly: What is the primary mission of the Starship Enterprise?
Computer: To explore the galaxy.
Beverly: Do I have the necessary skills to complete that mission alone?
Computer: Negative.
Beverly: Then why am I the only crew-member? (the computer takes a moment to process and makes a strange noise) Aha, got you there.
Computer: That information is not available.
Since you are a web developer, I have an observation that I wish to share and receive your opinion on. Have you noticed that the people twittering away and constantly updating their Facebook profiles are almost invariably NOT developers, web developers or true IT geeks? I write ASP.NET, SQL, jQuery and C# code all day long and yet I don't even have a Facebook account. Personally I consider Facebook, Twitter and the like to be massive wastes of time. Why would anyone who devotes their life to serious technical pursuits stop and listen to the endless streams of worthless drivel spewing from the Facebook masses? Do they not realize that nobody cares about their beer bong pics (unless it's a potential employer who will now not be hiring them)? It's all a big case of garbage in garbage out if you ask me.
As much as I detest Sony I would not sell my shares if I wanted to make a point. Instead I would vote for the shareholder resolutions, you know the ones limiting executive pay amongst other things that boards hate, and withhold my votes for the re-election of the board of directors. Would this prevent them from being re-elected? Maybe not, but if even 1% of shareholders specifically withhold their votes for a director when voting their proxies, it can be enough for that director to be shown the door. It has happened in the past. Take Disney for example, Eisner won re-election but the negative votes from the coalition led by Roy Disney were such a vocal minority that he was soon forced out anyway. The point is that small holders should not underestimate their power to effect changes in corporate policy. Small shareholders could, via social media for example, agree to vote their proxies as a block or group. Many small holders voting against directors or for shareholder resolutions sends a powerful message and now more than ever with boards conscious of consumer anger, political pressure and negative publicity.
Seriously regretting buying that PS3.
Perhaps you would feel better if you sold your PS3 and donated the money to GitHub's legal defense fund or the Electronic Frontier Foundation?
The legal team of Sony will bury Github's with so many documents they either have to give up or will lose.
Not necessarily, there are plenty of law students and other young attorneys who are technically savvy and would jump at the opportunity to cut their teeth on leading edge DMCA cases (copyright and patent law will probably be lucrative in the 21st century, unfortunately). The younger attorneys tend to have more time and ambition than either money or reputation to lose, so it makes sense for them to take on riskier cases earlier in their career, while still earning their spurs, in order to separate themselves from the rest of the pack (most attorneys want to make partner in a firm sooner rather than later after all). Surely, the Electronic Frontier Foundation could offer some advice or put them in touch with a law firm willing to defend against Sony. Besides, wasn't source code supposed to be "free speech"?
What about privacy.
This is Facebook that we are talking about here. As far as they're concerned, privacy is an overrated leftover from their parents' generation. Almost by definition, those with Facebook accounts either don't care about privacy or don't fully understand the long term implications of the experiment in which they are participating.
I didn't call you any of those things
Ah, you were referring to a different reply. Yes, I should have chosen my words more carefully and I apologize.
The grand-parent post used the word "power" when they should have used the word "authority"
Authority must necessarily flow from power or else how will that authority be enforced? Your point is well taken though, there is an important distinction to be made between power with and without authority of use.
So either US government is corrupt, or Blackwater/Xe doesn't exist?
All governments are corrupt, some are just less corrupt than others.
Perhaps it would be constructive to ask why it bothers you so much that some people own guns and might use them under appropriate circumstances to defend their lives and property? Maybe I'm assuming something that isn't true in your case, but when people argue that gun ownership is not permissible they often follow that up by advocating for the confiscation of all guns in private ownership or some intermediate step towards that goal. Is it not possible, in your opinion, to possess a firearm without being a violent racist?
Aren't you the same person who, below, said he's above the law, called me a coward, and whose solution to high-risk difficult situations is to talk like John Wayne and recklessly shoot people (bragging about literally shooting someone's head off). It seems you can't tell the difference between action scenes in movies and reality.
I didn't call you any of those things, I merely pointed out that if I choose to own a firearm and use it in defense of my own home, which is perfectly permissible under the law, that's nobodys' business but my own.
Why should I take seriously anything you say? With your judgement, I really hope you don't have a firearm.
With my judgment? You don't even know me. Are you one of those types who always sits in judgment of others? Perhaps you believe that you know what's best for everyone, including people you don't know and haven't met. I suppose it'd be best if I didn't mention that I do indeed own several firearms, after all, I wouldn't want to ruin your day...
It's very unlikely that you'll ever be in a situation where you need police in seconds to save you from serious harm, where having a gun will help you, and where you will use it successfully.
And yet there are many factual cases of people successfully defending their homes, lives and loved ones because they had access guns when they needed them and knew how to use them. Every law abiding citizen, once they reach the age of majority, has the right to decide for themselves whether or not they wish to exercise their individual 2nd amendment rights.
It's arguably more likely that you will misuse a gun.
Society doesn't ban things merely because somebody might possibly misuse them. If we did that, we would be living in a kindergarten play room full of Fischer Price toys getting nothing useful done. If a responsible and law abiding citizen wishes to own a gun, for whatever reason, he or she is entitled to do so until actions demonstrate otherwise. Here in America we judge people based upon what they do, not what they might do.
Pointing a gun at a criminal greatly increases your chance of getting shot; the mentally unstable (either natural or drug-assisted) may freak out and shoot.
So shoot first and aim for the head with your shotgun. When the police arrive, show them the forced entry evidence and explain that you shot the home invader in self defense. It's your word against a headless corpse with evidence of forced entry. After all, almost nobody questions the right of an honest citizen to shoot first and ask questions later when a home invader crashes through a window or breaks down the door.
Both the racist and some (not all) of the gun rights arguments are rationalizations for people to follow their most base instincts, hatred and violence, without responsibility toward the people and society around them.
In some cases the rights of individuals trump the common good. I will not submit myself to be disarmed because you live in fear of criminals. If you want to cower in fear of criminals and guns then do it without involving me. What's next? Should we ban cars because lots of people, including pedestrians, die in automobile crashes every year? Give me a break.
They aren't serious ideas but more a demonstration of political aggression, to threaten anyone how disagrees. And they have a history of backing up those threats with violence.
Disagreement is fine, but your right to disagree verbally does not give you the right to deprive law abiding citizens of a reasonable and effective means of defense which necessarily includes firearms. The police cannot be everywhere all of the time and the courts have ruled time and again that the police, and by extension the state, cannot be held liable for failing to protect any individual citizen with whom they did not have a specific prior agreement (i.e. witness protection). It falls then to individual citizens to protect themselves because the police are mostly not available to do that for us during the split second that we have to act. They arrive after the crime has already occurred to collect the bodies and photograph the crime scene, not to protect those who are already dead. I don't care that the police "get their man" if I'm already dead, so I prefer to have the opportunity, like Han Solo, to shoot first in defense of my life and my home. Personally, I don't think that's unreasonable or too much to ask.
I don't believe that Google did it "for freedom and individual liberty", but regardless of why or for what reasons Google basically told the Chinese, in so many words, to go fuck themselves and frankly that was something that the Chinese government needed to hear. The Chinese believe that they are infinitely smarter than all foreigners and can get away with demanding almost anything (i.e. technology transfers, mandatory local partners, hiring the politically well connected locals, etc) in exchange for tightly regulated access to their "lucrative" markets (which have turned out to be much less lucrative than many shareholders were given to believe).
You will note that in each of those cases companies acted in concert with or under the orders of governments. It was the governments who provided the means, the corporations and special interests merely pulled the strings and therein lies the danger of concentrated government power. It creates an irresistible temptation for powerful individuals or corporations to co-opt and misuse that power for their own purposes. Power is and always will be abused, despite our best intentions, because mankind is sinful and corporations are controlled by us. The founders were wise enough to understand this and took steps to separate powers and weaken centralized government, but we in our foolishness have forgotten these once hard-learned lessons. My point was that those who believe that powerful governments will prevent sin and solve our problems for us are deluding themselves. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Governments are far more dangerous than corporations. Governments have the power to deprive you of your life, liberty or property...literally. The governments have the armies and the guns, remember? In fact, since we are on the subject of China, wasn't it Mao Zedong who said that, "Political power flows from the barrel of the gun"? Indeed, I am often frustrated by those who fail to grasp the irony of advocating for more government power to regulate individual economic activities without realizing that those same powers invariably destroy the individual liberties and freedoms which they claim they want to protect and preserve. They cannot have it both ways. They are either being disingenuous, as those with an anti-freedom progressive agenda often are, or naïve or both. As much as I distrust the motivations of some corporations I distrust governments even more . So I view Google's defiance of the Chinese government as a victory for freedom and individual liberty. In my opinion the governments of the world need to be taken down a notch or two, if only to remind them that it is the people who are sovereign, not the governments elected by them. Too much government control, too much nanny state and too much power over people's lives is the real danger. Those who continually seek to enhance the power of the state over the individual should be careful what they wish for; they might actually receive it and if they do, they will deserve it.
This example demonstrates precisely what can happen when a company which does not specialize in IT and the rigors of running a high traffic online storefront attempts to build same with an in-house crew or a band of hired consultants. Lush would have been much better off creating a storefront on Amazon and selling their products there. The readers of Slashdot will recall that Amazon threw off attempted DDOS attacks by Anonymous during the WikiLeaks affair without even breaking a sweat. My advice to Lush: go with Amazon and use their web services to connect your inventory control system to their storefront. If you had gone with Amazon, instead of trying to roll your own bubble gum and bailing wire solution. then you would be faced with the happy problem of how to restock your inventory instead of explaining to ex-customers how they can get in touch with their bankers in order to limit the damage.
Wrapping up: ARM is fantastically well positioned for the fast growing tablet and smartphone markets; and Intel has a surprisingly defensible position in desktop/server chips.
TFA suggests that tablets will be disruptive to the PC, despite of the defensible position of wintel or lintel in servers and workstations, and become a primary computing device. I disagree with TFA and the tech journalist who wrote it because most people will still choose to own a PC at home for school, work or gaming because, as others have pointed out, tablets suck at both content creation, work and school, and gaming ,compared to dedicated PCs and gaming hardware such as consoles and purpose built hand-held gaming devices like PlayStation portable and Nintendo DS. Tablets are mostly being sold to people who want a cool toy or who have very limited computing needs (i.e. browse the web and personal low-volume email) because tablets are best when the user experience is more passive and less data entry intensive. IMHO, very few potential PC sales will be completely abandoned in favor of a tablet like iPad any time soon.