Good point about the luggage. As soon as you try to screen the luggage you have just made another check point with a bunch of naked unarmed people standing there with targets painted on their naked backs.
I don't think there is *any* practical or even somewhat impractical way of stopping future attacks like this. You could outlaw guns completely. Wouldn't matter.
If you move the checkpoint outside the airport that makes it even easier. A sniper could pick people off from a kilometer away.
I hate guns, but I love having the right to defend myself against armed attackers. So if I feel that my life is in danger for whatever reason I would like the freedom to buy and legally own a firearm. You don't have to love guns to want to be able to fire back when someone is shooting at you.
Actually I think the logic is something like, "whatever the government is likely to use against me in a realistic scenario is something that I should be able to use to defend myself against them." It is highly unlikely that the government would be trying to use nukes, artillery, tanks, or bombers against little 'ol me. Why bother when a single 22 handgun would be sufficient?
When the police/SWAT and FBI stop packing heat then it might be okay to disarm regular citizens. Until then we have the right to defend ourselves with something more than good intentions. This is why I also object to trying to outlaw armor penetrating rounds. Cops and FBI agents will typically be wearing body armor and those rounds are necessary to defend yourself against them.
If the entire US army has orders to take you down having an entire third world army at your disposal would not be enough to save your life, but that is a straw man situation.
Assuming that range is correct how is that in any way useful? And where would you place Libertarians or Anarchists on your chart? Not in the same category as Republicans I hope. Actually we Libertarians would place Republicans and Democrats on the same point on the chart. Probably communists would too. They are nearly indistinguishable from our perspective. A distinction without a difference.
Arrogance and narcissism is just what today's parents, at least in the US, teach their children. That they come first. That they are smart and good and that the most important thing is that they love themselves and respect themselves. What did we expect to come from that sort of upbringing? Kind altruists?
I'm not even sure when the term "self-esteem" began to be used outside of psychology books. I don't think I ever heard that term at all until the late 80s and never in common usage. Nowadays I see kids actually using the term. WTF? Self-esteem has become our new god. Loving ourselves our highest value. It used to be that boasting about yourself was considered a demonstration of poor character. Now it is expected. Even demanded. Modesty is considered a flaw.
This is a failure of our cultural values and has absolutely nothing to do with iPhones or Apps. Nothing to do with computers or any other modern gadget. MySpace/Facebook are just symptoms and not the cause.
I do think Facebook encourages narcissism as well as attracting people who were already arrogant and self-loving. My first reaction to Facebook (and MySpace) was something like, "Make a page about myself? Why? Who would care? Am I really so interesting that I have to publish a page about how great I am?" I found the whole idea repellent and I still do. Obviously the Millienials don't typically share this view. Probably because they were taught that loving yourself and boasting were positive traits and that modesty was very much a negative trait.
I recently was advising a foreign student about how to act at an interview at a US university. I said, "Don't be afraid to boast. Here in America it is both expected and desired." If you don't speak highly of yourself and sing your own praises then there is something wrong with you. Luckily it is not yet like that in every country, but it may be eventually.
I'm an atheist, but I can't help but think that religion did have some effect on curbing the natural selfishness of human beings. It was a way of brainwashing people to be nicer to each other. It was all based on lies, but it may have resulted in a better world overall.
Not that I think Millenials are so terrible, but they do seem a bit more selfish, self-centered, and myopic. A bit less likely to care about others. A bit more focused on me,me,me. To be fair it's how they were taught to be. When it comes to an "every man for himself" attitude I actually think the US does pretty well compared to some places I have lived, but things do seem to be getting worse.
Actually IME pre-internet youth *were* a lot less boastful. When I grew up in the 70s and 80s people who boasted about themselves would tend to become friendless in a very short time. And there was much talk about "conceited" people which was considered a *bad* thing. Imagine that! And the term "self-esteem" wasn't even used let alone worshipped as it is now.
I think you are missing the point. I believe the argument is not that narcissism is a new phenomenon, but that more people are narcissists as a percentage of the general population than before.
But isn't that simply reflective of society of general as opposed to unique to college students? As exemplified by the popularity of Ann Rand conservative political philosophy "looking out for number one"?
She was a hell of a lot more popular in the 60s actually. Libertarianism is not exactly new. It has been around for quite a while. Hell the founding fathers of the US were basically Libertarians. If anything it has become less popular in the new millenium. Libertarianism doesn't mean "looking out for number one". Although it may be convenient for you to believe that. Saves you from having to think too much I suppose, but it does make you look stupid.
No, but it seems doable. Although it wouldn't be easy to do it in such a way that the NSA couldn't decrypt it. Maybe with something like the playing card cipher Neal Stephenson wrote about in Cryptonomicon. Of course there really isn't any reason to do things that way when you can just type in the dead tree text, encrypt it with software, and then burn the originals.
This will be a good deal when prices drop below the MSRP of $549 if you are going to water cool it. It still uses 50%+ more power at idle and quite a bit more power when gaming though. It also runs hotter and will stress a water cooling system that much more, especially in crossfire mode. Nevertheless it seems like a good card for a water cooling setup.
What bothers me is that you pretty much *have to* water cool it if you don't want it to sound like a vaccuum cleaner. The Nvidia cards are usable with stock air cooling or water cooling.
will set you back around 100 euros or $140. So that brings the price from $549 to $689 or about $40 *more* than the GTX780. Of course for $40 more you get a card that is somewhat faster than the 780 at least at stock clocks.
For some problems violence is the only solution. The only way to 'resist' bullying is with violence. I chose not to go down that path, but sometimes I regret it. Sometimes I think it would have been better for me if I had met bullying head on with a weapon in my hand. Being a bully's victim changes you somehow. It is more difficult to respect yourself when you chose to submit and obey instead of fighting. I believe it had a deep effect on my psychology. If I could go back and do it again I think I would opt for using a weapon to even the odds and striking back at the bully. Trying to badly injury him without killing him and then facing the consequences.
Determining physical harm is easy. Determining emotional harm is not. How does one know what will or will not hurt another person? You cannot get inside their head to determing what the "emotional damage" is.
I could imagine some kind of benevolent dictator like Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew passing a law against insults or teasing or saying mean things to people. In a way it would seem to make a better society. A happier society. I've lived in some countries that have nicer people who don't seem to insult or tease each other as much and I far prefer life there for that reason. I cannot even begin to imagine how I would be different as a person if I had grown up in a country where most people are nice to each other. It would be great. I just don't think it is practical and would just lead to most people being in jail.
The freedom to communicate ideas without worrying about the Thought Police listening to everything we say vs. people having their feelings hurt when people say mean things to them. For me the freedom to communicate trumps the right of people not to get their feelings hurt. I just wouldn't want to live in such a world. Things like this always start with such good intentions. You could say "Well just don't insult or tease people. Just don't be mean. Once people start going to jail for it people will learn to be nicer to each other." The problem is I think it would result in a society where people are afraid to speak to each other for fear of accidentally saying something the listener finds offensive and going to jail or getting fined.
Yeah. That can happen, but it's not always the case. When I was a kid, at least where I lived, it was considered dishonorable to gang up on someone. You'd be considered kind of a pussy if you couldn't fight one on one. So it could work some of the time if the bully has a sense of pride in showing that he can best you in a fair fight and not just with a group of friends helping him. Not that there is much you can do without a weapon and once you pull out a weapon you raise the stakes and all bets are off and you are again faced with defending yourself against everyone with him.
Admittedly there isn't much you can do against 7 or 8 assailants. At least without a real weapon like a gun and even that might not be enough. It's easy to forget how shitty life can be when you're a kid.
Where I lived if you were considered "tough" you would mostly be left alone by the bullies. The way to be seen as tough was to get into actual one-on-one fights and prove that you can win.
It may take courage for only a moment, but during that moment it takes far more courage than anything else most people will ever do. People who think ending ones life is easy have never tried it. It is anything but easy. If I hadn't been such a coward I would have killed myself by the age of 13, but it is very, very difficult to do. I have a friend who has been dying to kill himself for years, but he just doesn't have the iron will and steel courage necessary.
Obviously this 12 year old girl did have that courage. I can only admire such people. They are braver than I am. I can only hope that I will one day have the courage to end my life. It's easy to say that you are planning to kill yourself but actually doing it is something else entirely. I think most of us are too wimpy to actually go through with it.
These kids don't even know what it's really like to be bullied. Not only was I beaten up every day in elementary school, I had an older brother who liked to test out his fists on me as well.
Yeah. In my case it was my older stepbrother who used to hit me and physically intimidate me into obeying him. Man, I still hate him for it to this day and needless to say we maintained no contact with each other whatsoever when we were older. He was a natural born bully and quite cruel. I'm surprised he didn't become a cop. Well some people grow out of that. The rest get jobs in law enforcement.
And as for insults, I developed a way to deal with it -- I laughed; in fact, I still laugh at pain, I still laugh at insults, and I cut off the insulter usually by insulting myself first so the other guy has no ammo.
Yup. Me too. There's no reason to take other people's opinions so seriously. When people tell me I'm ugly for instance I just agree with them. They don't seem to get that. I am ugly. I know it. It's just a fact. Did they think I didn't realize it? How can you hurt someone by just telling them something they already know? Or just by reciting a list of unpleasant facts?
I make it clear to the bully that I'm tougher than they are; and they soon give up.
How? If someone is older than you and bigger and stronger than you how do you make that clear? The only way I know to even the odds is with a weapon, but using a weapon tends to have serious consequences. Of course there are martial arts, but that takes years to get good enough at and as a child you don't necessarily have the choice to study them and besides many of the moves in martial arts are intended to kill so that may be just as bad as using a weapon.
How did they force her to listen to their teasing? Last time I checked you can turn down a friend request on Facebook and make your page private so that only your friends can read it. You can even block people.
If someone is communicating to you and saying things that you don't like how about, I don't know, stop fucking listening to them? No. That would make too much sense. Those two girls had the right to speak their minds, to say whatever they wanted. They weren't forcing SuicideGirl to listen to them. They certainly committed no real crime and no SuicideGirl's freedom was in no way being trampled.
And why shouldn't they have the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?"
Those are negative rights. The right to be left alone from people who would take your life, lock you in a cage or physically force you to do or not do certain things, and seize your property. Notice that it says you have the right to pursue happiness. You don't have the right to force others to make you happy. You don't have the right to prevent me from telling you to kill yourself, which is of course something I would highly recommend. It is much nicer on the other side. Oops. Did I just break the speech laws again?
Unless you express yourself with physical violence, though, right?
My freedom to express myself through physical violence ends where your right not to be physically hurt by others begins. There is no contradiction there. All real rights are negative rights. We both have the right to be left alone to do what we wish. That includes the right to say mean things to you so long as I don't force you to listen.
You don't even agree with your own tenet unless you think that freedom of speech only applies to verbal speech.
Freedom of speech applies to all forms of communication. That is what speech is. A form of communication. Using the term 'expression' is probably not such a good idea because it can also refer to emotions. A person has the natural right to communicate with anyone who cares to listen so long as the speaker is not interfering with anyone else's rights. And I do believe that as a natural right we all are free to communicate anything. Without limit. I believe that is also what the founders of this country intended.
To say that punching someone in the face is a form of communication is quite a stretch. It isn't really a form of communication and even if it were it would violate the rights of the other person not to be physically harmed.
Maybe some people want freedom from people like you.
The right to elminate another person would be a violation of that other person's right to exist. As a right that would be nonsensical.
Facebook and cell phones follow you into your own home.
Speak for yourself. I don't have a Facebook account or a cell phone. It actually is possible to live without those things. Of course if you are going to kill yourself every time someone says something mean to you then I don't think it would matter. People say mean things IRL too.
Wow. That's scary. Florida could put half the world in jail with that law. My state has no such insanity yet. Yet another reason not to live in Florida I guess. Notice how "cyberstalking" is specifically mentioned. That is a recent law. Not one of the controversial new laws from the 90s that I was referring to.
Until some point in the 90s it was perfectly legal to sit in your car outside your ex-girlfriend's house all day and then follow her around everywhere. I don't really see how that can be extended to the internet. There is no such thing as a "where" on the internet. Using the justification for that law as an excuse to outlaw cyberstalking is a perfect example of the sort of slippery slope thinking that I was referring to.
Just from observation, I would guess that Slashdot is approximately 1/3 libertarian, 1/3 socialist, and 1/3 'mainstream' (Republican/Democrat).
2001 called and wants its slashdot demographics back. They claim it's theirs and if you don't return it you're going to be asked to drink bleach and die.
It takes courage to commit suicide. As someone who has contemplated it many times I know all too well how much. It isn't easy to place the barrel of a gun against your forehead and pull that trigger. It goes against every animal instinct.
Only a truly courageous person with an iron will and determination to leave this world is capable of it. It is not a cowards end. I see it as a noble end. The Japanese and their culture got a great many things right, and the nobility of suicide is one of them. Saying that it is the pussy way out is quite offensive in itself.
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Good point about the luggage. As soon as you try to screen the luggage you have just made another check point with a bunch of naked unarmed people standing there with targets painted on their naked backs.
I don't think there is *any* practical or even somewhat impractical way of stopping future attacks like this. You could outlaw guns completely. Wouldn't matter.
If you move the checkpoint outside the airport that makes it even easier. A sniper could pick people off from a kilometer away.
I hate guns, but I love having the right to defend myself against armed attackers. So if I feel that my life is in danger for whatever reason I would like the freedom to buy and legally own a firearm. You don't have to love guns to want to be able to fire back when someone is shooting at you.
Actually I think the logic is something like, "whatever the government is likely to use against me in a realistic scenario is something that I should be able to use to defend myself against them." It is highly unlikely that the government would be trying to use nukes, artillery, tanks, or bombers against little 'ol me. Why bother when a single 22 handgun would be sufficient?
When the police/SWAT and FBI stop packing heat then it might be okay to disarm regular citizens. Until then we have the right to defend ourselves with something more than good intentions. This is why I also object to trying to outlaw armor penetrating rounds. Cops and FBI agents will typically be wearing body armor and those rounds are necessary to defend yourself against them.
If the entire US army has orders to take you down having an entire third world army at your disposal would not be enough to save your life, but that is a straw man situation.
Assuming that range is correct how is that in any way useful? And where would you place Libertarians or Anarchists on your chart? Not in the same category as Republicans I hope. Actually we Libertarians would place Republicans and Democrats on the same point on the chart. Probably communists would too. They are nearly indistinguishable from our perspective. A distinction without a difference.
English is difficult for Japanese people? Haha. I wonder how they would feel about Russian or Czech.
Arrogance and narcissism is just what today's parents, at least in the US, teach their children. That they come first. That they are smart and good and that the most important thing is that they love themselves and respect themselves. What did we expect to come from that sort of upbringing? Kind altruists?
I'm not even sure when the term "self-esteem" began to be used outside of psychology books. I don't think I ever heard that term at all until the late 80s and never in common usage. Nowadays I see kids actually using the term. WTF? Self-esteem has become our new god. Loving ourselves our highest value. It used to be that boasting about yourself was considered a demonstration of poor character. Now it is expected. Even demanded. Modesty is considered a flaw.
This is a failure of our cultural values and has absolutely nothing to do with iPhones or Apps. Nothing to do with computers or any other modern gadget. MySpace/Facebook are just symptoms and not the cause.
I do think Facebook encourages narcissism as well as attracting people who were already arrogant and self-loving. My first reaction to Facebook (and MySpace) was something like, "Make a page about myself? Why? Who would care? Am I really so interesting that I have to publish a page about how great I am?" I found the whole idea repellent and I still do. Obviously the Millienials don't typically share this view. Probably because they were taught that loving yourself and boasting were positive traits and that modesty was very much a negative trait.
I recently was advising a foreign student about how to act at an interview at a US university. I said, "Don't be afraid to boast. Here in America it is both expected and desired." If you don't speak highly of yourself and sing your own praises then there is something wrong with you. Luckily it is not yet like that in every country, but it may be eventually.
I'm an atheist, but I can't help but think that religion did have some effect on curbing the natural selfishness of human beings. It was a way of brainwashing people to be nicer to each other. It was all based on lies, but it may have resulted in a better world overall.
Not that I think Millenials are so terrible, but they do seem a bit more selfish, self-centered, and myopic. A bit less likely to care about others. A bit more focused on me,me,me. To be fair it's how they were taught to be. When it comes to an "every man for himself" attitude I actually think the US does pretty well compared to some places I have lived, but things do seem to be getting worse.
Actually IME pre-internet youth *were* a lot less boastful. When I grew up in the 70s and 80s people who boasted about themselves would tend to become friendless in a very short time. And there was much talk about "conceited" people which was considered a *bad* thing. Imagine that! And the term "self-esteem" wasn't even used let alone worshipped as it is now.
I think you are missing the point. I believe the argument is not that narcissism is a new phenomenon, but that more people are narcissists as a percentage of the general population than before.
But isn't that simply reflective of society of general as opposed to unique to college students? As exemplified by the popularity of Ann Rand conservative political philosophy "looking out for number one"?
She was a hell of a lot more popular in the 60s actually. Libertarianism is not exactly new. It has been around for quite a while. Hell the founding fathers of the US were basically Libertarians. If anything it has become less popular in the new millenium. Libertarianism doesn't mean "looking out for number one". Although it may be convenient for you to believe that. Saves you from having to think too much I suppose, but it does make you look stupid.
The difference is in prior presidencies, the people doing this crap were fired, or arrested all the way up to the president resigning.
Uh. We are talking about the US here. Are you sure you are thinking of the right country?
Every tried encrypting dead plants?
No, but it seems doable. Although it wouldn't be easy to do it in such a way that the NSA couldn't decrypt it. Maybe with something like the playing card cipher Neal Stephenson wrote about in Cryptonomicon. Of course there really isn't any reason to do things that way when you can just type in the dead tree text, encrypt it with software, and then burn the originals.
This will be a good deal when prices drop below the MSRP of $549 if you are going to water cool it. It still uses 50%+ more power at idle and quite a bit more power when gaming though. It also runs hotter and will stress a water cooling system that much more, especially in crossfire mode. Nevertheless it seems like a good card for a water cooling setup.
What bothers me is that you pretty much *have to* water cool it if you don't want it to sound like a vaccuum cleaner. The Nvidia cards are usable with stock air cooling or water cooling.
Keep in mind that a water block for the 290x
will set you back around 100 euros or $140. So that brings the price from $549 to $689 or about $40 *more* than the GTX780. Of course for $40 more you get a card that is somewhat faster than the 780 at least at stock clocks.
You're not going to run 1080p on something like this.
That's very true. If I buy this I'll be running it with a 1600x1200 20" monitor.
For some problems violence is the only solution. The only way to 'resist' bullying is with violence. I chose not to go down that path, but sometimes I regret it. Sometimes I think it would have been better for me if I had met bullying head on with a weapon in my hand. Being a bully's victim changes you somehow. It is more difficult to respect yourself when you chose to submit and obey instead of fighting. I believe it had a deep effect on my psychology. If I could go back and do it again I think I would opt for using a weapon to even the odds and striking back at the bully. Trying to badly injury him without killing him and then facing the consequences.
Determining physical harm is easy. Determining emotional harm is not. How does one know what will or will not hurt another person? You cannot get inside their head to determing what the "emotional damage" is.
I could imagine some kind of benevolent dictator like Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew passing a law against insults or teasing or saying mean things to people. In a way it would seem to make a better society. A happier society. I've lived in some countries that have nicer people who don't seem to insult or tease each other as much and I far prefer life there for that reason. I cannot even begin to imagine how I would be different as a person if I had grown up in a country where most people are nice to each other. It would be great. I just don't think it is practical and would just lead to most people being in jail.
The freedom to communicate ideas without worrying about the Thought Police listening to everything we say vs. people having their feelings hurt when people say mean things to them. For me the freedom to communicate trumps the right of people not to get their feelings hurt. I just wouldn't want to live in such a world. Things like this always start with such good intentions. You could say "Well just don't insult or tease people. Just don't be mean. Once people start going to jail for it people will learn to be nicer to each other." The problem is I think it would result in a society where people are afraid to speak to each other for fear of accidentally saying something the listener finds offensive and going to jail or getting fined.
Yeah. That can happen, but it's not always the case. When I was a kid, at least where I lived, it was considered dishonorable to gang up on someone. You'd be considered kind of a pussy if you couldn't fight one on one. So it could work some of the time if the bully has a sense of pride in showing that he can best you in a fair fight and not just with a group of friends helping him. Not that there is much you can do without a weapon and once you pull out a weapon you raise the stakes and all bets are off and you are again faced with defending yourself against everyone with him.
Admittedly there isn't much you can do against 7 or 8 assailants. At least without a real weapon like a gun and even that might not be enough. It's easy to forget how shitty life can be when you're a kid.
Where I lived if you were considered "tough" you would mostly be left alone by the bullies. The way to be seen as tough was to get into actual one-on-one fights and prove that you can win.
It may take courage for only a moment, but during that moment it takes far more courage than anything else most people will ever do. People who think ending ones life is easy have never tried it. It is anything but easy. If I hadn't been such a coward I would have killed myself by the age of 13, but it is very, very difficult to do. I have a friend who has been dying to kill himself for years, but he just doesn't have the iron will and steel courage necessary.
Obviously this 12 year old girl did have that courage. I can only admire such people. They are braver than I am. I can only hope that I will one day have the courage to end my life. It's easy to say that you are planning to kill yourself but actually doing it is something else entirely. I think most of us are too wimpy to actually go through with it.
These kids don't even know what it's really like to be bullied. Not only was I beaten up every day in elementary school, I had an older brother who liked to test out his fists on me as well.
Yeah. In my case it was my older stepbrother who used to hit me and physically intimidate me into obeying him. Man, I still hate him for it to this day and needless to say we maintained no contact with each other whatsoever when we were older. He was a natural born bully and quite cruel. I'm surprised he didn't become a cop. Well some people grow out of that. The rest get jobs in law enforcement.
And as for insults, I developed a way to deal with it -- I laughed; in fact, I still laugh at pain, I still laugh at insults, and I cut off the insulter usually by insulting myself first so the other guy has no ammo.
Yup. Me too. There's no reason to take other people's opinions so seriously. When people tell me I'm ugly for instance I just agree with them. They don't seem to get that. I am ugly. I know it. It's just a fact. Did they think I didn't realize it? How can you hurt someone by just telling them something they already know? Or just by reciting a list of unpleasant facts?
I make it clear to the bully that I'm tougher than they are; and they soon give up.
How? If someone is older than you and bigger and stronger than you how do you make that clear? The only way I know to even the odds is with a weapon, but using a weapon tends to have serious consequences. Of course there are martial arts, but that takes years to get good enough at and as a child you don't necessarily have the choice to study them and besides many of the moves in martial arts are intended to kill so that may be just as bad as using a weapon.
How did they force her to listen to their teasing? Last time I checked you can turn down a friend request on Facebook and make your page private so that only your friends can read it. You can even block people.
If someone is communicating to you and saying things that you don't like how about, I don't know, stop fucking listening to them? No. That would make too much sense. Those two girls had the right to speak their minds, to say whatever they wanted. They weren't forcing SuicideGirl to listen to them. They certainly committed no real crime and no SuicideGirl's freedom was in no way being trampled.
And why shouldn't they have the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?"
Those are negative rights. The right to be left alone from people who would take your life, lock you in a cage or physically force you to do or not do certain things, and seize your property. Notice that it says you have the right to pursue happiness. You don't have the right to force others to make you happy. You don't have the right to prevent me from telling you to kill yourself, which is of course something I would highly recommend. It is much nicer on the other side. Oops. Did I just break the speech laws again?
Unless you express yourself with physical violence, though, right?
My freedom to express myself through physical violence ends where your right not to be physically hurt by others begins. There is no contradiction there. All real rights are negative rights. We both have the right to be left alone to do what we wish. That includes the right to say mean things to you so long as I don't force you to listen.
You don't even agree with your own tenet unless you think that freedom of speech only applies to verbal speech.
Freedom of speech applies to all forms of communication. That is what speech is. A form of communication. Using the term 'expression' is probably not such a good idea because it can also refer to emotions. A person has the natural right to communicate with anyone who cares to listen so long as the speaker is not interfering with anyone else's rights. And I do believe that as a natural right we all are free to communicate anything. Without limit. I believe that is also what the founders of this country intended.
To say that punching someone in the face is a form of communication is quite a stretch. It isn't really a form of communication and even if it were it would violate the rights of the other person not to be physically harmed.
Maybe some people want freedom from people like you.
The right to elminate another person would be a violation of that other person's right to exist. As a right that would be nonsensical.
Facebook and cell phones follow you into your own home.
Speak for yourself. I don't have a Facebook account or a cell phone. It actually is possible to live without those things. Of course if you are going to kill yourself every time someone says something mean to you then I don't think it would matter. People say mean things IRL too.
Wow. That's scary. Florida could put half the world in jail with that law. My state has no such insanity yet. Yet another reason not to live in Florida I guess. Notice how "cyberstalking" is specifically mentioned. That is a recent law. Not one of the controversial new laws from the 90s that I was referring to.
Until some point in the 90s it was perfectly legal to sit in your car outside your ex-girlfriend's house all day and then follow her around everywhere. I don't really see how that can be extended to the internet. There is no such thing as a "where" on the internet. Using the justification for that law as an excuse to outlaw cyberstalking is a perfect example of the sort of slippery slope thinking that I was referring to.
Just from observation, I would guess that Slashdot is approximately 1/3 libertarian, 1/3 socialist, and 1/3 'mainstream' (Republican/Democrat).
2001 called and wants its slashdot demographics back. They claim it's theirs and if you don't return it you're going to be asked to drink bleach and die.
I legitimately have child pornography on my computer, I deserve to be sent to prison.
---barlevg
You've got cojones. That's for sure.
It takes courage to commit suicide. As someone who has contemplated it many times I know all too well how much. It isn't easy to place the barrel of a gun against your forehead and pull that trigger. It goes against every animal instinct.
Only a truly courageous person with an iron will and determination to leave this world is capable of it. It is not a cowards end. I see it as a noble end. The Japanese and their culture got a great many things right, and the nobility of suicide is one of them. Saying that it is the pussy way out is quite offensive in itself.